Tuesday, January 20, 2004
(7:29 PM) | Anonymous:
Coffee Table Conversations
The other night I was visiting some friends of mine, Josh Koets and David Adams. They live in a house not far from campus. They have three bedrooms, (and a third roommate) a backyard, and a fireplace. I'm over there a lot to fiddle with computers, and to do actual work. This past weekend, however, I went over there to hang out with Dave, his fiance Mary, her cousin and a friend of her cousin's. Dave, I think, was trying to help me "hook up," which is a kindly gesture.
These two girls, for starters, are college sophomores. A little young, perhaps, to be messing around with a recent college graduate. In any event, we were drinking champagne and peppermint schnapps in front of the fire, which made me think of my dad. Schnapps is the only alcohol I've ever seen him consume at home, and that only once in a blue moon. Anyway, these two ladies were 'good to go,' very attractive. Dark hair, darker complexion than me, and pretty easy on the eyes. However, Mary's cousin had a boyfriend, and the other is a sorority sister. An AOP, to be more accurate. That, of course, is Alpha Omicron Pi - as in, "You ain't ever had Pie like this!" Imagine what you know of sorority girls. That is who I talked to.
The discussion ranged from reality TV ("The Apprentice" came up, which I have not seen) to Tolkien in the movies (both of them were big fans of the movies, not so much of the reading) to fear as viewed through the eyes of a child. Adam, who knows me pretty well, could tell you at what point I hijacked the conversation and headed for the hills.
I am uncomfortable talking about TV. It does not sit well with me. Whether it is reality TV, the Daily Show, the Simpsons, local news. Anything that comes out of the box, I think, is either universal enough to negate the intellectual gain of discussing it, or personal enough to not require discussion. Scrambling for a new topic, I saw Mary's copy of the Lord of the Rings on the coffee table and sprang into the mists of Tolkien talk. I immediately regretted it, of course. I quickly did an about face, made sure I still had my female companionship, and decided to talk about the fear of childhood. Always a safe topic.
Being a creative writing major means learning good jump-off points into stories. The fears and joys of childhood are mostly universal, because everyone was a kid, and all kids are constantly switching between heights of inexpressable excitement and depths of soul-piercing sadness. And so, after that, I had the sorority eating out of my hand, so to speak. She thought I was making the conversation just with her, because I gave her the most eye attention, and paid it to her eyes. Probably not what she was used to. She spent the night there, as did I, but I'm glad to say that we didn't have much to do with each other after that conversation.
The point?
Have you ever done anything just to see if you could? I almost did then, but then thought better of it.
This post was written to the strains of Coheed and Cambria.
