Here's to getting A.T.D.Effed out!
It had only been a few days since I had optimistically abandoned the conviction that my neighbor was spending hours and hours in his apartment shooting up smack when he left this note under my windshield wiper:
Hi Emily
I came by today to ask you if you might want to go to Mamba Jamba.
I need you to know that I'm not very good at meeting women who I find beautiful and you are a beautiful woman. Its taken me this long to get the courage to even go up to your apartment to talk to you. I just want to say that I would love the chance to get to know you. Everyday I look forward to just running across each other. Just so I can see your smile. I'm going to the drum circle right now 7:33 pm. if you would like to just relax tonight, give me a call.
R,
Apt 3.
What sort of rating system does one employ to evaluate on a note like this? Does the fact that it was left on my car get points for being kind of sweet? Or demerits cause this is not eleventh grade? How about the content? How about "Mamba Jamba?" Whether I did or did not want to go to Mamba Jamba, and whether that meant he was asking if I wanted to attend an energetic, tropicalicious performance by an Afro-beat/reggae/funk/bossa nova/samba/jazz/rock fusion band, or just go get a smoothie, if I thought he might be smart or funny I would have taken his use of the specific term "Mamba Jamba" to be a hilarious joke; but he isn't, and it wasn't. Also I DIDN'T want to go do that, by the way, and I have at no time looked forward to running, leaping, stampeding or otherwise traversing "across each other" so he ought not to have assumed that I would be smiling.
On the other hand, that he wanted to see me smile ain't bad, that term, "beautiful," isn't either...
Still, the drum circle is not my scene and, as it happened, if I did want to "just relax" that night, it was the kind of just relaxing that entailed dolling up in a very tight dress and a pair of very high heels, going to the Sam Weller's and Coffee Garden joint staff garden party, getting knackered on cosmopolitan granitas, making big promises with my eyes that I had no intention of keeping, and generally acting on my worst behavior. So. I'm not entirely certain that's what R, Apt 3. had in mind.
Anyhow it took me a couple of days, but I finally delivered to his door a carefully penned note stating that I was very flattered, I have a boyfriend, have a nice life, etcetera etcetera. The next day as I was out on my balcony watering the basil, R. Apt 3. passed by below, calling up to me that he had heard he got a letter from me but before he could read the letter it had mysteriously been "misplaced." I knew he was thinking that it was a good letter, maybe a letter agreeing to "relax" with him, and right then I should have yelled, "I HAVE A BOYFRIEND! GO HOME!" and poured Miracle Gro on his head, but, not wanting to have such a conversation from a thirty-foot height advantage, I indicated that I would come down and visit him, and tell him what was in the letter then, further contributing to his belief that what I had to say would be to his liking.
SUCH is my stupidity, folks. This brand of vague, self-sacrificing niceness- a relic from my Mormon upbringing- gets me into trouble more often than I care to admit.
When we eventually spoke, my fumbling account of how I'm "involved in a long-distance experiment with a Special Someone" was much less concise than my note had been, but I was still surprised last weekend when R Apt 3. caught me on my way out the door (while I was finishing up on the phone with Date Guy, "OK, Baby, talk to you tomorrow, Lover, I love you too," were the unmistakable closing phrases). The Neighbor waited while I hung up the phone, and said, "So, you know how we were talking about going out sometime?"
In fact I did NOT know! I thought we were talking about NOT going out! How did we manage to land on such distant planets, here?
Anyway in trying to just escape the conversation and get out the door I evidently gave out too much information about our bar destination (The Tremula album release party alright!) because R, Apt 3. showed up and then we couldn't get rid of him. I threw a spontaneous after-party just to keep from having to head home to Next-Door to My Neighbor alone. Inevitably the Neighbor showed up, it became clear that I would have troubs getting rid of him, I became super stressed out, and then- thanks to a couple of very "special" friends- the magic happened!
AWKWARD TEAM DESTRUCTION FORCE! To the rescue!
A.T.D.F. descended 'pon mine home in a manic whirlwind, mangling everything in their path, literally. Seriously, attire was shed, silken robes donned, a river of scotch welled up on the floor, Jim Morrison returned from the dead to join our party and jubilant cries rang out 'cross the land,
"EVERYBODY'S HAP-PY!"
It was the night that smoked a thousand cigarettes; inside my apartment.
R, Apt 3. lasted an astonishing, nay, an APPALLINGLY, PYNCHINGLY long time, considering how flagrantly we ignored him. As a testament to what a pynch he is, he even stayed after we began discussing further methods of expulsion in out-sized whispers right in front of him. At last, with Garling and I hiding in the shower, Seth performed some secret wizardry and the neighbor moved to Santa Monica, never to be heard from again. Now I know that, my whole life, I've been responsible for getting my own trouble at me, but had it not been for the daring feats of these awkward young men, Sweetheart would never have had a chance to cool out.
This is the end, fine feathered friends. There's a California King Size waiting in hell, just for you, boys.
Literally.
About a paragraph in I was thinking, man o man, have some simpathy. But what a fuckload of schlepptine. Yadajada. But jesus. Utter hilarity Emma. Fifty cents in the jar for Suicidides Annonymous, that greek fella.
Posted by: Andrew Fucking Haley | August 05, 2005 at 07:10 PM
i tip my hat to thee. the atdf has never been painted in a more accurate light (mainly b/c we are usually the one's talking about ourselves). anyways, anytime you need me to wear nothing but a mask (around my crotch) and freak dance with a man who could kill me in 17 different ways, just give me a call.
-gar
Posted by: garling | August 05, 2005 at 03:48 PM