hilarity ensues

well, i went on a date tonight. it was a long time coming insofar as the fellow and i had spoken seems like weeks ago but time and again he cancelled or postponed. i had inklings of doubt; he is into teepees and sweat lodges. i am openminded but had a hunch two roads would diverge in a wood and one would reach proper bathroom facilities and the other would only reach a porto-pot.

so we met and he was tall and jangle-limbed and rather straight away indicated he was not interested in me romantically, but we could have a drink, and further, if he was not interested and we had a drink then it made sense we go dutch and not that he pay because after all he needs to save for a downpayment. most especially, he said, if we decided to order food, important to go dutch seeing as it's not a date because he didn't want to shell out 50 bucks on a new acquaintance. i appreciated his frankness and told him so.

he was pretty funny, though that might not have been his intention. he believes that the u.s. government engineered the attack on the twin towers. as much as i do not like the current administration, i find that improbable. he said he saw a documentary that said so. i said documentaries can say many things, not all of them true.

he told me that it's very unhealthy to eat cheese or drink milk but didn't want to go into details because i might get freaked out. i told him i drink a glass of milk every morning (it's a fairly new habit and the milk is from organically-grass-fed-good-for-you cows). he said eating dairy stops up the works. i told him, not so, i can vouch. having introduced the topic, he responded to my comment by putting his hands over his face in horror.

he ordered a bison burger (no cheese) and said he was a big fan of buffalo meat. then he said he was macrobiotic, basically. i asked what that means, basically, he said it's sort of yin and yang diet-wise. i neglected to say that such an answer was insufficiently illuminating.

i looked at his earlobes, they were somewhat square and meaty.

he said he doesn't read much. i said that doesn't matter. i said i dreamt i started smoking. he said he has 'been dating mary jane for a long time.' (that is a direct quote and not because i took notes, but how can you forget such a line?)

he said obama was the kind of democrat a republican like my father would love. i said my father is a democrat.

he said when he called to postpone the other day and said it was because of work, it was a lie; really he had scheduled another, different date and quickly figured out a twofer might be overdoing it. when he suggested to the other gal that they go to see godard's breathless, she walked to the cinema but then said 'oh, i think i'll pass, but you go ahead, enjoy!' and he briefly thought of calling me after all. i don't remember what i said but thought, yes, going to a movie on a first date is not my druthers.

he drank guinness. i drank scotch.

what an absolute riot.

a boast of my own

i ran a half marathon this morning. i ran faster than i expected, which was thrilling, and the last mile i was tired, my feet a bit blistered, all i wanted ws the thing to be through and so ran harder than i had the whole way. and it was great and fun and exhilirating, and since then i went to a birthday party and had wine and beer and a cupcake and...and...and so i boast herewith to the ether!

sometimes a gut is only a gut

i been 'training,' see, for a 13 mile run, coming up saturday morning. that means i've been running a lot. so much that some of my toes are black and blue. but that's okay. they don't hurt, they just look unpristine. i feel in good shape, clothes are fitting differently, and such. and then, twice this week, ladies on the subway have offered me seats. because, you see, they think i am pregnant. i would not at all object to it if it were so. but it is not currently so. and today i was a little miffed when a woman offered and i said rather curtly,

'no, no i don't want your seat. i don't want it.'

and then i rued (an anagram for rude—hello, serendipity, my old friend!) my discourteousness because she didn't know her question was going to irk me. she was trying to be decent, a rarity, really on the subway. so a few minutes later i tapped her on the shoulder to express my regret at having been curt. my world is more better when i am not angry.

the other day in the cooperative supermarket where i toil once a month, the couple whose food i was scanning was speaking hebrew and another shopper tried to get by, gently bumped into the fellow, and said, 'sorry.' and then the israeli said to his friend, in hebrew, 'it's so weird here how everyone says sorry if they hit you like that. at home nobody would say it, you'd just hit and brush past and no big thing.' different societies, i said in english (was that wrong to intrude? my co-op is like that and it can be a decided nuisance; they didn't mind a lick).

'different.'

my grandmother is deaf since young childhood and never learned well to read or write, having grown up in an era when deaf education was really all about making the deaf blend in and talk like me and you, assuming you are a hearing reader (if there are any at all). i heard stories that her teachers made the children wear mittens on their hands and also slap them with rulers when caught signing. these might be apocryphal. but i do know the sign for different (and jewish, incidentally and how to spell my actual name, not slushy, and old—but that might be the same sign as jewish) and that is often her comment on things, 'different' and the sign is that the two index fingers extend next to each other and then move away. and you simultaenously say, 'different.' that's how we grandchildren see it and sometimes repeat it and, i suppose, gently mock it.