Today was spent with the windows wide open, crazy fall breezes flying through the curtains rustling up the odor of Murphy�s Oil Soap as I scrubbed and dusted this tired old apartment preparing for a winter cocooning which also included springing the cash for a cheap-o DVD player so I can hang this winter listening to director�s commentaries under warm blankets with the windows sealed tight to shut out the sound of muted car horns blaring as tires crunch fresh snow. The soundtrack of the day included a lot of shoe-gazing Brit pop that is very preparation for winter-cocooning appropriate.
Until I strayed from the from the Brit-formula and went with the R.E.M Green album which I haven�t listened to in years and I was immediately brought back to a time when I used etch my name in the frost on the window in French class in High School instead of conjugating verbs because the school was that underfunded and that cold and the class was that boring so it was more fun to etch and draw in the frost with my finger nail and eventually set my gaze four seats ahead of me at the perfect neck under the frayed white collar of the uniform shirt worn by Erik Madsen and think, now there is a person some day I want to talk to until one day later I was actually sitting on a bench in the hallway next to Erik Madsen and even though everyone assumed I was the girl with all the laughs because I was always up for subversive humor for the masses, I actually barely managed to ever look anyone in the eye ever, especially when it was one-on-one, let alone with Erik Madsen who was not handsome by any means but was terribly attractive because of the time he spent in dark-rooms developing black and white photos and such and not a lot of people talked to him but I was always thinking it would be a lot of fun to talk to him and finally there I was on the bench next to him and so I thought I better say something because he hadn�t run away screaming yet being in such close proximity of me, so instead of looking him in the eye I stared at his wild and freaked-out eyebrows and asked what he was doing over the weekend to which he pretending to not notice me staring at his eyebrows and replied, �sleep.�
He then immediately looked down at the torn cuticles on his hands and said, so quiet, �Umm, sleep�delays my life. Get up.�
Which, if you didn�t know, references the R.E.M. song I was listening to today and so then he was immediately even more fantastic in my eyes, and at the time I thought that was so, so very funny and off the cuff and goddamn isn�t that just brilliant such a lyrical reference and apparently this, coupled with whatever voodoo I thought staring at his collar did for me, made me a brave person, enough to actually decided to try to talk this person one-on-one in an informal setting and I went on and on and on about the R.E.M concert I went to just weeks before all the while staring at the cracks on the floor and using my hands in an exaggerated manner to show just how serious I was about the whole conversation, finally finishing off by looking him right in the eye and saying �umm, you know, my friend Jen is having, like, this party this weekend. Maybe you should go?�
Then I looked away for just a fraction of a second. I could see my embarrassed reflection in the trophy case across the way.
And then the bell rang. And he stood up. And walked away.
And that is what I thought about today.
And you? What did you think about today?