A MAN WALKS INTO A BAR 10-30-04
The Friday after I got back from Vegas Ran-D called me up and suggested we go out to Easton. Going out to Easton ment going to the bars in Easton to flirt with women. I reminded him that I was on dating hiatus and my mind wasn't on the persuit of carnal happyness at the moment.
He came over and drug me out of the house, being that I was in Vegas for my birthday, he "owed me Birthday shots"
We got to Easton and the bars were completly dead. It was too late for the Philly First Friday galleries, so instead he suggested Bethelhelm. He wanted to go to the Brewworks. We had been there a few times before, but never when I was single.
We got there pretty fast and entered through the basement half of the Brewworks, which is the hip loungy area, called "STEEL GARDEN" because the motif is steel.
I prefer Tally Ho's (see RAN-D, OFF TO EUROPE ) but they expanded Steel Garden to include a new bigger lounge area in the back.
Ran-D suggested we do "the rounds" and he broke off from our table. I walked a lap around the place, scoping out the crowd. There was a pretty good crowd there, but I only saw one or two decent looking woment, but there was one girl I saw that I thought was really hot.
Ran-D got back to the table in the newly expanded lounge part. I asked him if he saw any "prospects."
"Very few." he said.
The girl I noticed was a short brunette with a pretty face, long dark hair, great body. She was wearing a tight black shirt, and a very short pink skirt. She really looked like she didn't belong in a bar in Pennsylvania and she was now standing about 15 feet away from us talking to an attractive blonde chick.
"How bout those two? I'm diggin' that short brunette" I said and nodded in their direction. He began to spin in his seat. "Don't turn around so fast man!" I told him. "It's too obvious!"
Ran-D compliments me well in the "out on the prowl" situations because he goes for the super-skinny blonde chicks, while I am attracted to the short busty brunettes. They usually travel in pairs.
After Ran-D got an eyefull he said, "Well, go talk to her you pussy, once you get an in, I'll come over and talk to the blonde"
"I will, just give me a minute, I haven't even finished my drink, let me get a drink in me." I replied.
"C'mon you pussy, now that you're single I can pressure you to talk to chicks like you do to me all the time." Ran-D said.
"But I'm on hiatius." I said
"Fuck that man, you are a pussy!" he replied.
"I'm not saying I won't talk to them, just give me a minute." I said
I looked up and they were gone.
"You waited too long man, you blew it." Ran-D said.
"Not yet I didn't." I said.
I got up and walked to the main part of Steel Garden. They were no where to be seen. Now I felt like I really did miss an opportunity. I haven't been drawn to a girl on just first appearace impression like that (where I was actually taken aback by her beauty) in a long time and felt stupid for not taking a chance while I had an opportunity.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the two of them walking up the steel stairway in the center of the bar to the actual Brewworks upstairs. I waited a minute, then acended the stairs myself. As I got to the top of the stairs I saw them talking by themselves away from the room with the bar. I walked into the room where the upstairs bar was and it was completly dead. I think the bartender might have been cleaning glasses or something it was so dead. It would be way to weird to just approach them and start talking to them in the room upstairs where the lights were off and they were the only ones talking alone so I went back down to Steel Garden.
By now Ran-D was chillin' on the couches in the first room of the lounge (the part that existed last time I was there). I pulled up a apolstered seat and sat next to him.
"How's it going?" I asked?
"Not bad, how bout you. . .pussy?" he replied.
"I think they are leaving." I said.
"Want to check out Tally Ho's?" he asked.
"Yeah, after they leave this place will be dead, just let me get another drink." I replied
"Here they come pu....." he said. They were coming back down stairs. Before he could spit out the "ssy" in pussy I cut him off with.
"Watch and learn."
I walked up to the bar, and coincidentally someone moved away from the bar just as I approached it. I deftly slipped into the spot their leaving opened and ordered an Ameretto Sour.
After I made my order I looked to my left to see where the two girls might be, and to my surprise, standing right there in front of me was the brunette, by herself, just waiting to get past me and through the line of people to the bar. I kinda did a double take because I couldn't believe my luck. Up close she was so tiny, and beautiful, I was almost at a loss of words.
"Do you want to get to the bar?" I asked as I moved out of her way and gestured with my hands for her to take my place.
"Whoa really? Thank you!" she said and gave me a look with these big cartoon eyes. "Ameretto Sour?" she said and nodded towards my drink. "Yeah, wow, you are good!" I said.
I started flirting and making small talk, and was blown away. Not only was this girl stunning, but she was also intellegent and funny.
"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself, my name's Colin" I said. "I'm Tracy" she replied. As I said this my brain registered this as very odd. I never introduce myself as Colin (My birth name). Colin is a name only my family and women I am seriously involved with are " allowed" to use. I hear it so infrequently that I actually don't even register it if I hear it in a crowd.
I have never introduced myself to a girl with using name. I guess my subconsious must have thought that this one was special, who knows? Is there such thing as love at first sight?
I asked her if she would like to sit down. She smiled and said something to the effect of "I'd love to." and brought her drink with her. I told her:
"You know, I really shouldn't be talking to you."
"Why is that?" she asked.
"Because I'm on hiatius from flirting." I would have said dating, but I didn't want to get ahead of myself.
We got a table and then we launched into an amazing conversation that ran the gammit of topics. I have never met a woman with whom I've had so much in common. We both had the same sense of humor, understood the same abstract references, liked the same books, movies, anything.
Her friend the blonde came over and sat down at the table, Tracy introduced her as Jamie. Ran-D, had been waiting to talk to the blonde, but the unwritten rule of bros is, if one of you is talking to a girl, and it is just one on one, the other can't come intrude on the conversation. This would be cockblocking and a total flirting foul. He knew to wait and bide his time.
But now that the blonde had joined the table, Ran-D could join us. It was fair game. And he did within seconds. After I intrduced him to Tracy and Jamie, Jamie walked back away to the people she was talking to, leaving Ran-D sitting with Tracy and I as an awkward third wheel.
I asked Ran-D for Tracy's benifit. "Ran-D, tell Tracy why I shouldn't even be talking to her."
"What?" he asked confused.
"Why I shouldn't be talking to any pretty women tonight." I goaded
"He's on hiatius." Ran-D said.
This made Tracy laugh.
Ran-D soon left our table and went back to observing people's odd behaviors and drunken advances (something we enjoy doing in crowded bars or diners).
I continued asking Tracy questions, and it was nearing on the bizarre, in that it was almost like trying to stump myself (because we think so alike, it was impossible). If I liked something, it wasn't really a question, I knew she would like it, if she mentioned something that she liked, it would just happen to be something I actually liked too. It was uncanny.
Cojo: "What foods do you dispise?"
Tracy: "Mushrooms."
Cojo: " I hate Mushrooms!"
Tracy: "Good, cause so do I! If you liked mushrooms I couldn't talk to you."
Cojo: "Do you like Mel Brooks movies, I was just watching.."
Tracy: "I wrote my thesis on Mel Brooks!"
Cojo: "This is so weird how much we have in common, it's like an old Twilight Zone Episode. You ever watch the Twilight Zone, or is that too geeky?"
Tracy: "I love the Twilight Zone! I have the entire 46 Twilight Zone DVD Collection, well I'm missing season three, disks 32-38 but that show is one of my favorites!"
Cojo: "God, you are too good to be true."
Imagine a conversation going on like this for an hour and a half with all hits and zero misses. You just don't meet people this compatable to you in real life.
And making her laugh was the easiest thing on Earth. Some people just don't get my humor. But with her I just intuitivly knew exactly how to get what reaction I wanted with only having just met her.
There are nights where, as a guy, talking to a girl, you are "on". Where everything you say is like gold and turns the right knob, pulls at the right heart string. This was beyond being "on". Because it was effortless. I couldn't fuck it up, because there was nothing to fuck-up. I wasn't running game on her, acting a part, or trying to make myself appear better than I am. That was the beauty of it, it was just flowing perfectly.
It's the kind of male / female interaction you only read about, total storybook shit. I didn't know that a person like that could exist for me on this small planet who could be so on my wavelength and have such a similar warped sense of humor.
It was like "too easy" it just felt natural and right. It wasn't work. I can't explain it, it just felt perfect.
I got her number, and gave her my card. I said goodbye and kissed her on the cheek. Ran-D and I took off into the night.
It took me a lot of strength not to call her that night. The next day I gave her a call and left a message on her machine.She called me back that afteroon and we set up a lunch date for the next day (Sunday.) She had class on Monday so she still had to get home Sunday night to finish her homework. She is still in school mind you. She's a 22 year old first year law student at Temple University in Philly.
So, Sunday at 1 PM we met in Easton, Pennsylvania at a new Resturant that had recently opened (Ran-D had hipped me to it) called Montagues.
We had lunch and afterwards decided to walk around the Easton Circle. We walked past the Crayola Factory and I suggested we go in and look around.
When we got in there we noticed that there was a Crayola Factory Museum. I paid the admission (like 8 bucks a person?) and we went in.
I've never actually been in the factory and it was facinating. It gave me flashbacks to a Mr.Rogers neighborhood episode when Fred Rogers went into the crayon facory and we got to see crayons made.
Tracy and I watched a very similar (to Mr. Rogers) demonstration of the making of crayons, and how they inject the crayola markers with ink, and we even got to make our own crayons! (Yay grandma, can I have some candy too!)
It was a very surreal first date, but what the hell else would you expect from me. The best part of the date was that this place had huge rooms dedicated to noneother than drawing with crayons! (Take your kids here, it's nutz)
How could an artist write a more perfect scenerio for a way to get yourself infront of a piece of paper with some drawing tools to be able to show off your talent? It was taylor made perfect!
So there we were, sitting on kindergarden stools at a 100 foot long cafeteria stye table, we were the only adults at a massive table of kids who were all busy doodling on either side of us.
I drew something funny that made fun of something the crayon making guy had said during the presentation we had just seen. I gave the drawing to her, and at that moment I just knew. I don't know if it was the look in her eye or what?
It was like, damn! Even though the scenerio we were in was bizzarro, and I would never in a thousand tries would have guessed that this would be what I would be doing with her on our first date, it was like. . . I don't know? Just perfect. . .
Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.
-Cojo