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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Razbliuto: Interlude
1994:
With everything that was going on it was good that I found a way to distract myself. My parents were in the middle of a divorce and make things easier for them by getting kicked out of St. Paschal's Baylon School. Comic books and video games provided some relief but I've found another way to "distract" myself with only my hands. This "distraction" gave me a whole new sensation, one I never felt in my pre-pubescent stage. The discovery of this type of "distraction" seems to be covered in so many of the memoirs young men write.
The only thing my parents agreed on was that I was "distracting" myself too much to their liking. Perhaps they had a problem with the fact that I was "distracting" myself at all. One Saturday morning I wasn't getting out of bed fast enough for the numerous wake-up alerts my Dad was administering. This day my only crime was being too sleepy but my Dad suspected otherwise. Eventual he came into my room and set on the chair next to the desk where I did my homework. He gave me some advice in a solemn voice I had never heard him use before and one I would rarely hear since.
"It's okay to have fantasies, thinking about fantasies. But...um...you don't want to think about them too much. You don't want to try and them replace the real thing. Something like that's not going to happen. Then you'll have trouble with the real thing."
I had no idea what he's talking about.
1995:
Thanksgiving at Maggie's house, she a friend of my Mom's, would become a tradition. This was the first time three matriarchal families gathered to cook up enough food to feed around 18 people. The main course was over. The endless picture taking that the Moms liked so well was over. Everyone was free to walk about on their own and eat whatever's left.
I had a plate of mash potatoes in my hand when the though of death hit me. My Catholic mother, much to the chagrin of my Jewish father, sent me to a Catholic school for three years before I was asked to leave. Why? We'll save that for later, if at all. Even out of its official grasp the indoctrination of The Church was still laced throughout my brain. Going to Mass every Friday morning must have worked because for absolutely no reason I was deeply concerned for my immortal soul. It's the immortality part that I was most concerned with. Standing in the kitchen, probably in everyone's way, I imagined eternity. To die is one thing but what about a world with no end? In Heaven we are meant to live in God's presence forever, which is promised to be a good enough feeling to last forever. It might be nice for a while but anything would start to get boring after a few hundred years, right?
I realized the stuff I really enjoy, X-Men comics, probably aren't allowed in Heaven. The comics with Angel in them might pass but anything where Wolverine has blood on his claws or where Rouge and Psylocke are dressed for summer weather have got to be seized as contraband on sight. I'd be in Heaven with all the people who liked going to Mass and doing everything they liked. They might have video games but the only ones they would have are those NES Bible stories where you play as Noah rounding up animals. You can beat those in an hour, how are they meant to last forever?
I could try running all the way to the end of the universe but I'd never escape God and His kingdom. There would be no way out. After a hundred years I'd still be there. After a thousand. After a million. After millions and millions of years I'd still be dead and still living in the same boring place. I'd be experiencing the same boredom day after day after day after day...
I'm paralyzed where I stand. With such fear of the afterlife coursing through me I can't move. My eleven-year-old brain is stretching itself to its limits trying to comprehend eternity and the afterlife. Save for the regular autonomous responses it can only deal with this theological quandary. I'm trying to see what an endless world would look like, one where you can run and run but never leave.
I don't know how long I'm standing there with potatoes probably now too cold to eat when my Mom tells me it's time to go. I put down the plate and started running to my Mom's Saturn. I was ready to get back home and read the fuck out of the issues of X-Men where Wolverine takes on Omega Red.
It's still 1995 when my Dad is driving my brother and I to school on one of the days he has us. I was only awake for an hour but already I was lost in thought. My eyes were fixated on the glove compartment but I wasn't thinking of my Dad's insurance information. I wasn't really thinking of any one thing in particular. My mind was just running in circles. I'd start thinking about my homework last night but I could extrapolate any thought into anything else. First I was thinking about my grades. Then I was thinking about what it would be like to watch your own corpse deteriorate after you die. This merry-go-round inside my mind was constantly twirling. Images of death, religion, what little I knew of sex, family, friends, tragedy happening to all of them, tragedy happening to me were constantly flashing on and off. A riptide opened up in my head and I started drowning in consciousness. My brain would start working on more or less the same pace ever since.
2007:
I may be walking in between classes. I may be waiting for a bus. I may have just woken up. Many times I would just open my wallet and look at the "Lola Cheat Sheet" Lucy made for me at the party. I still haven't seen Lola yet but we've exchanged e-mails. I keep thinking about her. With every new thought she amazes me. So I just keep thinking about her and thinking about her and thinking about her...Labels: razbliuto
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Razbliuto: Chapter 4
Previous chapters can be found here. This one's posting kind of late but hey, that makes it right on time for Valentine's Day. Hoo boy.
I was talking to some people I had never met before in the kitchen of Johnny and Lucy's apartment. It was the first party since the one where I met Lola. When the lady in question walked in to grab a drink I announced "and now here is one of my favorite people." She smiled in gratitude, got what she wanted and left.
We had actually met up once after Citizen Kane. We got a drink at a bar in her neighborhood. If the first day together was wonderful because of what we shared with each other than this felt like the inverse. There was a lot of sharing from the both of us about parents, about feelings of unhappiness. But I felt a distance from Lola this time. I'd see her across from me at the table and I realized that I being friends with this woman was not what I truly wanted. I knew we were just going to talk and then part ways in about two hours. The feelings I had for her couldn't be expressed with just a hug at the end of the night. Here we were appearing emotionally naked to each other. It's not something I usually do, certainly not with someone I had known for such a short while. That meant a lot to me. Did that mean anything to her? I'd hear her talk about her boyfriend and it seemed like he didn't offer the personal depth someone like her demanded. That could be a totally unfair assessment as I had only met the man once and very briefly at that. But when I hear her speak of him I remember what Lucy told me about how quickly Lola goes through men. Perhaps she didn't want to get so intellectually intimate with a boyfriend. So what did that make me? Was I a second therapist, one who doesn't charge? I was telling myself I still wanted to be her friend. I still valued her presence. If I wasn't going to be a lover I'd settle for second best. But the feelings I had when I first saw her remained true. I wanted to be more than a friend. That first perfect day together should have spawned something much more than just narcissistic conversations about why we're both crazy. But because of a stupid matter of timing, because when she told me she had to work on finals while at the same time she was being romanced by someone else, we couldn't take the extra step we should have. For someone who could be so open at times Lola was awfully hard to read. Sometimes I figured I could disappear and she would never notice. Then we would hug and it felt like her body was saying "thank you." I was unhappy with how things turned out but I didn't want to just forget about her.
One thing that was always fun to do at Johnny and Lucy's parties was to introduce different people to each other and see how they would get along. I know Johnny and Lucy would do that individually and after a while their friends, including myself, would follow suit. I'm thankful that I do not have the responsibility of introducing Lola to a man named Frank but I had a front row seat to their first interaction. Frank was a regular at the bar/lounge Johnny and I would frequent named The River. I think the reason I got on so well with Johnny, besides our similar ambition of becoming writers and love for The Sopranos, was that it often felt as if we were the only ones at The River who didn't bother putting up a bulldog front. The place is heavy with masculine energy of the overgrown adolescence type. The place was filled with nerdy boys from the Midwest and East Coast who had come out to California to reinvent themselves. They looked around the Bay Area, Hell the whole country, and saw that what was once considered geeky was now cool. If superheroes and computer sciences were being reconsidered by the masses then why not the obsessors of these obsessions? These guys grew up hearing about California as the land of dreams. Growing up just outside of L.A. I was taught to expect this behavior from those emigrating to our state. I didn't think I'd see as much of this phenomena in San Francisco. Oh, how naive I can be. I should say that most of the people I have met at The River are wonderful people. But a guy like Frank is a perfect example of what bothers me about the place. Hailing from Texas Frank called himself a "Sex Nerd." He fancied himself a ladykiller. If asked for an entertaining anecdote amongst friends he thought nothing of revealing how he paid a stripper to rough him up at a club. Perhaps labeling his lecherous lifestyle with a term as quirky as "Sex Nerd" made him more at ease with himself. Most everyone I knew thought it made him sound even stupider.
In one of Johnny and Lucy's rooms Lola reclined on the couch like Cleopatra. Frank sat in a chair to meet her eye line. With a lack of options I sat on the floor, lower than both of them. Frank was telling Lola of his job once working for the accounting firm formerly known as Arthur Andersen.
"You're evil," she said with a giggle.
The thought of Frank seducing Lola with his plastic charms flashed across my mind. I rejected it quickly. Why would someone as smart as her fall for such slime? Anyway, I found out listening to their conversation that Frank worked with her uncle. I was assured that as bad as Frank was wouldn't sleep with a young woman whose big Russian uncle he had to see everyday.
I couldn't let such thoughts bother me. I had other Lola business to attend to. Lucy and I talked about the damage her friendship with Lola had taken after Lucy tried to play matchmaker. Apparently the two weren't talking for a while, although I found out such things happened a few times over the course of their friendship.
When I first met Lucy I had already known Johnny and her brother Blake. In my mind she existed solely on their realtionship to those two. Then, quite randomly, we were sitting next to each other on the bus. I was going home from classes, she from a dental appointment. We started talking about her desire for some independence. She was supporting Johnny as he tried to start his writing career but she had ambition of her own. She talked about becoming a midwife, which interested me as my Mom's an RN. She told me she didn't just want to be seen as "Johnny's girlfriend" and after that day I no longer saw her as such. She told me at the party that the bus ride felt like a perfect little date. She could see those qualities she saw in me meshing well with Lola's personality. She wasn't wrong but because of, oh let's call it a mix-up, Lola thought Lucy was lying to me and ended up hurting me. I was somewhat surprised and glad to hear that Lola actually did think of my feelings when I wasn't around but I promptly informed Lucy that she had done nothing wrong. I told her the only way she would have hurt me if she and I had stopped being friends. Frankly I was dumbfounded at the idea of two women fighting over me. I suppose it makes sense that the only way two women would quarrel over me was becuase of an overblown scheduling conflict.
Much later in the night I saw Lola curled up almost feline-like in front of the apartment's windows. Being quite drunken at the time I wasn't shy telling her that she appeared to know she was the most beautiful thing in the room. She wasn't offended by the comment. Inspired by talking to Lucy earlier I told Lola that I'm really glad we're friends, just friends. It felt true. But I knew it's not what I really wanted. She appreciated the sentiment all the same. We talked some more. I found out that she was actually from The Ukraine, not Russia. I say I'm from Los Angeles even though I was raised in the bustling metropolis known as Moorpark so who was I to criticize?
Lola was gone by the time I walked into the kitchen late into the night. I was half zombiefied due to my liquor consumption. Lucy, as drunk as me but with three times the energy, was standing next to Frank. She told me in an elated manner "this guy gives the best advice." She then ran giddily from the room. I stood there with him and let out the sigh of the lovesick. He guesses it was Lola pretty quickly. He told me that I had to be ruthless to steal a girl away from her boyfriend. "That's how I've always done it," he said. Before I could tell him that wasn't my plan another woman, a stranger to me, ran into the room and gave Frank a big hug. She said she was leaving and with great enthusiasm told Frank how great it was to meet him.
"See, I don't even remember that girl's name," he told me as soon she left.
He told me how success with woman was all about the confidence in your stance. He compared his stance, which made him look like he was working security at a barely attend mall fashion show, to my more reserved look. I couldn't muster up the energy to let him know that a minor case of scoliosis and a family history of back problems left me somewhat permanently lopsided. He told me that the change I needed wouldn't happen overnight. He then told me to read Neil Strauss's The Game. I had worked in a bookstore long enough to know that I wanted nothing to do with the types of guys who read that book.
Walking away from him I couldn't believe that Lucy would recommend Frank's consultation. To paraphrase master wordsmith Jimmy Pardo, what I had just heard had to make my list of Top 1 worst pieces of advices I had ever received.Labels: razbliuto
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Razbliuto: Chapter 3
Here are the previous two chapters to our tale. I've set a schedule for this story. I'll post a new chapter every week, late on Wednesday. Most of you will read it Thursday morning (well, most of you will probably skip over it but you know what I mean).
It was an historic day in my life when Lola came to my house to watch Citizen Kane. It marked the first time I had ever cooked for someone I wasn't related to (and even when I did cook for my family it was a one time only disastrous attempt at macaroni and cheese). Lola has asked me in an e-mail a few days earlier "will you feed me?" How could I refuse to nourish a cherub? I needed something easy to go with my barely existent culinary skills. I found a recipe for a marinade that I could use on chicken breasts that I could then grill. It was easy enough to pour orange juice and honey into a plastic bag, throw some chicken in there and throw it in the refrigerator for a few hours. This would be our meal for the night.
The main dish wasn't a challenge. What was difficult was trying to pass off my living situation as anything other than the Bachelor Hell it was. Shared with four male roommates, the kitchen was a sparse and depressing collection of unmatched colors and sticky surfaces. I had no time nor the resources to redecorate it. I was too busy transforming my room from the wasteland of post-adolescent masculinity it usually is into something a bit more presentable. The dirty clothes on the floor were concealed in a laundry hamper (actually an old suitcase but it will do). All the comics that occupied the rest of the floorspace were collected into a few cardboard boxes. Looking at my bookshelves I faced the question: is having various literary classics (most of them actually read!) still impressive if they are tattered used copies bought for a few dollars, if not a few cents, at dusty old bookstores? I wondered if my collection of sci-fi paperbacks from the '60s and '70s would be impressive or seen as a grating affectation. While vacuuming lint and old popcorn kernels from the carpet I decided that one look at the covers of The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 or Mutiny in Space (the cover of which promises us "Castaways of the universe - marooned on a lost planet of war-crazed females!") and there would be no need to explain the inherit genius of these works.
I surprised myself with how inoffensive my room actually appeared as Lola's entrance drew near. The floor was spotless, good news as would be sitting on it as we crowded around the small TV set my Dad and I purchased from Radioshack for $99 on the day I moved into the dorms of San Francisco State University.
"Wow, the '70s are alive and well in this house," she said as she looked around.
That was true. There was nothing I could do about the encroaching "brownness" of the carpet and walls that were older than the both of us. I laughed it off with the first of any number of stammering, exasperated sounding apologizes. Most of those left my mouth during my embarrassing attempt to open a wine bottle with a corkscrew I bought for a dollar. As I wrestled with the glass her head cocked to the right, just as it always did whenever she was confused by the behavior of us silly humans. I should have found that insulting. Instead I was completely smitten by it every single time. Even with the help of a roommate I was hardly close to the victory of an open bottle. Lola herself stepped in and managed open the damn thing. As she took a sip from one of two mismatched glasses (actually her was a mug) she declared the wine corked but good. I was certain she had a similar half-enthused appraisal of my entire self.
I try to watch Kane about twice a year. It was good to watch it with someone who had never experienced it before. I tried my best to rein in my utterances of Orson Welles trivia (a subject which I have become a minor scholar of) and just let her watch the film. It was wonderful see the life brimming within the film grab a hold of her. With Kane you never have to explain to someone "okay, we're going to watch an old film now so adjust your expectations." It's a singualr performance that either hits you or it doesn't. When Welles tells George Coulouris "You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years," Lola laughed. It was the first time I heard the unconscious reaction of laughter from her. How could I tell her that melted when I saw her mouth open wide and the sound of approval came out of her?
Occasionally during the film and before it she would call her Dad about picking her up. I wanted to talk to her after the film but she had to get up early the next day. I thought it adorable listening to her speak Russian over the phone. Standing outside my house waiting for her Dad's car I revealed how thinking about Welles's life story makes me insecure. I'd compared myself to someone who was the toast of Broadway at 22, had made the greatest film of all time at 25. Then I remembered Welles's perceived decline after Kane and wondered if I hit it big would the same happen to me. She sent skeptical barbs my way, even saying "yes dear" once. I knew what other might see in her as careless I saw as a refreshing bit of uncompromising tough love. Tough like, maybe. Her Dad drove up, she and I hugged tightly like the last time and she was off.Labels: razbliuto
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Razbliuto: Chapter 2
And so our tale of romance gained and lost continues. Here's part one. There is one change. The person who is the basis for Lucille wanted her name changed to Lucy, which I felt was fair. Now get ready for heartbreak and loads of text with no graphics. I should let you know I do use an offensive term here but it is in effort to describing a particular way I was feeling and with no maliciousness behind it.
I sent an e-mail to Lola soon after the party. I asked her if she wanted to do something "arty" with me anytime soon. A few days later she replied saying she would love to only we'd have to wait a month. Law school finals were right ahead of her and she needed to concentrate on studying. I told her that this was a good idea as I was starting finals as well. No need to tell her that my finals for English Lit were a child's game compared to memorizing cases and precedents. This late in my academic career I was basically being asked "remember what we talked about a few weeks ago? How did you like it?" I would soon be given a diploma for the ability to fill ten pages of a Blue Book with my inflated opinions. With a law degree Lola would soon have the world open to her. With my credentials I could look forward to low paying (or more commonly non-paying) freelance work. Thus started my feelings of unworthiness towards the goddess Lola. A cadre of future Clarence Darrows were probably vying for her hand over on that campus. What was I? A little faggot who has more knowledge of Spider-Man's rogue gallery than social skills. Getting a date with a beautiful woman should by all means give me a more positive outlook. Instead I magnified all the ugly parts I saw in myself.
Thankfully I didn't let such gloom stop me from corresponding with Lola. I learned she wanted to be a lawyer who represents artists, perhaps finding herself working at a small boutique firm. She told me about submitting a film to the city's Jewish film festival while she was in high school (she even has an IMDb page). I mentioned the artist Mark Rothko and she wrote back this electrifying description of seeing one of his works and being devoured by the colors. Read that and her other messages I started falling real hard for the personality behind the pretty face. My opinion of her grew higher and higher. My absurd feelings about myself shrank even further.
I corresponded with Lucy about my feelings. She warned me against placing Lola on any pedestal. While Lucy loved Lola she admitted her friend could be narcissistic, impatient and elitist. A Russian upbringing had left her with little sense of humor. I tried to keep this in mind as the date grew near. Lola suggested the DeYoung Museum which was currently showing the touring Vivienne Westwood exhibit. As it happened I was reading Jon Savage's England's Dreaming, the wonderful book on English punk rock where Westwood plays an important role. She is Malcolm McLaren's friend, business partner and lover. She's the mentor to The Sex Pistol's mentor. I don't believe in fate but the idea gained some credence with me when the woman I was going mad over seemed to match me when it came to aesthetic preferences. Lucy's advice already being forgotten.
Standing outside the museum and seeing her walk towards me gave me such a warm feeling. While she was two inches tall in the distance her little hand exited her jacket pocket and waved to me while her head cocked and I could see her smile. I've seen a million smiles but the way her lips changed shape and her cheeks rose made her different than anyone else. I was put at ease and elated at the same time. She was smiling to me and only me. My low self-esteem was dissolving and I actually started to feel like a new, better person.
She stood before me and I realized that I've never seen her with sober eyes before today. I had also never seen her in the sunlight before. She was stunning, that wasn't an invention of my drunken infatuation. I saw her now as a real person, including imperfections. She had a gray birthmark on her upper lip. But that just told me all this alluring beauty was contained inside a real woman. It only made me go crazy for her in a new way.
While I was entering a dream state she apologized for being a little late. Like I cared. We entered the museum and walked through the permanent exhibits. She told me about her life and I told her about mine. She had a caustic view of her parents. She thought they should have gotten a divorce years ago. She caught herself and apologized, saying that she knew that might sound flippant to an actual child of divorce. I told her I didn't mind although I was a bit taken back by that statement. As we walked though the rooms she expressed her opinions on the paintings, not being excited by much of what we saw. She lit up when we got to the sculptures, telling me of how much she loved the process when she studied art in college. We talked about how the physical act of sculpting meant you would feel like a real accomplishment had been had. I wanted to liken it to the intimacy of sex but, in all my bashfulness, declined. It didn't feel right After all, she mentioned having a boyfriend
I was confused when I learned of this. If she was so dedicated to finals then when did she have the time for a boyfriend? Did she think of what we're doing now as a date with romantic interests behind it? She mentioned doing volunteer work at three different firms, hedging her bets in hopes that at least one would hire her. Perhaps she took a similar strategy towards men I wasn't uncomfortable with the idea.
Throughout the entire museum trip it bothered me. I didn't let it show. I still managed to give her a quick history lesson in English punk rock during the Westwood exhibit. Outside we found ourselves in a small concrete dome on the museum grounds. It was just us. Our voices echoed. I told her that I thought this was going to be something of a romantic enterprise. She said she was sorry if there was any confusion. She told me she loved Lucy but sometimes her friend says too much. I learned later that her boyfriend, Denny, was at the same party where she and I met. I still don't know why she developed a realtionship with him and not me. He was there first I suppose.
Lola asked me if I wanted to leave. I told her no. I was disappointed but I still felt a real connection here. I couldn't just turn my back on all this. Lola truly excited me. I suggested we get lunch.
At the restaurant she and I talked about family. She had a major struggle against her parents. She told me of how they needed to get used to the idea that their daughter wasn't going to just be the grandbaby-machine they thought she'd be at this age. Her fights for independence were often slapped down and decried by parents, especially in light of how traditional her older brother had been. I did a pretty good job of being the understanding and enlightened male during all this. She opened up in a way that I didn't expect on a first date. I did as well although I didn't have anything nearly as interesting to say.
We retired to a nearby bar. There she told me that even though she was in law school and appeared to have a bright future she had no idea what she wanted to do with herself. I realized that Lola grew up knowing exactly what she didn't want to be but she was still trying to find out what she does want to be. I no longer saw her as an angel from Heaven slumming with lowly humans like me. I saw her as a person with as many demons inside as any of us. At the time, invigorated by recently graduating, I was setting out to destroy all my insecurities. I want badly to help her on her fight as well.
We took a walk to, of all things, her therapist's office. During which I found out that she had never seen Citizen Kane. This would be our second "date." No person could live a full life without seeing that film. Outside her therapist's office we shared a nice long hug. The feeling it gave me was the more mature, wiser cousin to what I felt when I first saw her outside the museum. Walking back alone I saw some big writing in chalk on the ground: "You Will Die Happy."Labels: razbliuto
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Razbliuto: Chapter 1
The following is something of a change on this blog. It has nothing to do with comics, movies or music except in the most tangential way. It's a memoir of sorts chronicling certain events in my life starting from the middle of 2007. It's a risky enterprise because how the following drama played out (and is continuing to play out) is so emotionally taxing. That goes for all involved, not just me. I'm playing with dynamite here by just embarking on this series. I promise to play carefully though. I have changed the names of everyone (except myself). I will not insult or libel anyone. I will do my best to be fair to everyone even though there are some people in this story I have nothing but tremendous negative feelings towards (well, only one person really).
It's important for me to share this information rather than just keeping it on a constant loop in the theatre of the mind. I can't afford a therapist. I go over all of this with my friends sometimes but there's something about writing it as one long story that I hope will grant me a new perspective and help me out in someway. Not to mention this is a good way for me to learn how to write a serial narrative. My mind is clouded with caffeine right now, my second favorite legal drug, and if it wasn't perhaps my hesitations would get the best of me. But here we are. The words "No! Don't do it!" are ringing in my head. But the words of Wendell Pierce, Bunk of The Wire, are ringing louder. He said a creative person should "never be afraid to be private in public."
If you're a fan of Adrian Tomine's work but always wished there to be no pictures and more Jews than this is the story for you. Dig in!
How many times should I have stopped caring about this woman? My mind can't shake her. She lived in there before I saw her in front of me.
When I was younger, before sex mattered (I didn't know what it was), I imagined being married to a woman with dark shoulder length hair who favored dark clothing and could match me intellectually no matter what. That really was what mattered to me when I was in grade school and thought Batman was the height of American fiction. Granted,that's not how I would have put it at the time. I was probably thinking more along the lines of how awesome it would be if she laughed at all my jokes and liked the same stuff I did.
I was quite inebriated when she appeared before me at Johnny and Lucille's party. For a second I thought she was a ghost. I knew people could drink enough that they would hallucinate but I had never experienced such a thing. Then I remembered when Lucille introduced us to each other very briefly when I entered the party. The woman I had always thought about had escaped the prison of my mind. Reality felt a little less real. I liked that.
I asked her if she went to SF State, where I was finishing my senior year. She said no, she was actually going to law school. I told her that since I'll be graduating school soon I've given law school a lot of thought. She talked me out of it. She said it's a lot of work, far more than any undergraduate was used to. She made it clear that you had to be really serious about being a lawyer if you were going to attend law school. You shouldn't do it just for the degree which basically was my mindset at the time.
She spoke with true authority. While she was telling me all this she was kneeling down. She chose that position so we could make eye contact as my drunken body was resigned to the puffy chair I sat in. She never seemed subservient in that position. Here was a beautiful woman in a simple black dress. She had a breathy voice and an open face. She knelt down before me but she was clearly the one in charge. I was transfixed by her. I was under her control but I knew I had a benevolent master. I thanked her for her advice. She returned my gratitude and walked away, leaving the party soon after. Soon my body actually managed to stand up. Perhaps I was reinvigorated by her presence. I told Lucille in as much excitement as I could muster that her friend Lola was "a classical beauty." This was how an English major asks "where has this person been all my life?"
Lucille was very excited that I felt this way. She rushed me to another room and proceeded to write a Lola instruction manual. She wrote down how Lola was a sensitive person, always determined to grow emotionally and intellectually. She worshiped Lucille, which was key. I was told that she was very sensual/sexual. Lucille knew this first hand as she and Lola had something of a bisexual tryst in high school. Did that excite me? There I was in my early-twenties, gobsmacked by a raven haired siren. I was being told by another beautiful woman that said siren had as much of an appreciation for the female form as I did (and probably had more experience with it). Was I excited? What do you think?
I also learned she was an immigrant. Her family were Jewish transplants from Russia. She had come with them when she was very young which is why she had an American accent. The Jewish side of my family was also from Russia and had to flee (as Jews tend to do) in the early 20th Century, ending up in the holy land of Glasgow, Scotland (my parents came to California from the U.K. when my Mom was pregnant with me). Here was something Lola and I had in common. I was in.
A masterpiece of a woman and she and I actually had a few substantial things in common. Lucille told me that if I ask Lola out I should tread carefully becuase she had just broken up with her boyfriend. I told Lucille I would.
Too bad Lola already found her new beau at the party. No, it wasn't me.Labels: razbliuto
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