Hallefuckinglujah

Let me preface this by saying that knowing my luck, I'm going to jinx this or fuck it up somehow, I just KNOW it.

As many of you know, I'm taking some writing classes this semester. Specifically, Creative Writing and Fiction Writing. A lot of things almost prevented me from taking Fiction Writing. I signed up really late and the site told me I was one of the last people to make the roster. I found out the class is in Berkeley, and not at the City College, but at some senior center God knows where (at least, that's what I thought at the time). This meant that it was sort of a pain to get to, since driving in Berkeley sucks ass, and I considered dropping the class just because getting there is a headache. That and I only have one class a week, which is...I dunno, I kinda want more than that. In fact, I did skip the second day altogether. The first class, like all first classes, had twice as many people as would actually stick with it. The room was literally full of people, 85% of them elderly. Because of this, I didn't really glom on to any of the people in the class.

Then on the third class, something interesting happened. The true class body showed up, which gives the class a modest size of around I would guess 26 or so. That meant that I could start sort of remembering faces. Being me, I of course looked around the room to tally up the amount of dateable girls that I would probably not make the first move on. That list is exactly two girls long. One, as I mentioned at Travis' place the other day, is one I refer to as "Dragon Wizard eyes." Her eyes are ridiculously blue. She's amazingly pretty, sort of soft spoken, and for some reason, the attraction for me was kinda low, considering. I'm not sure why; I just didn't take a whole lot of interest in her, and on paper she's great.

This was not the case with the other girl. Her name is Luz, and from the first second I saw her, I had a MASSIVE crush. And I have no idea why. I mean, prior to conversation, prior to anything, I was just immediately, "Wow." She's tall (taller than me, which is kinda hot in a weird sort of way) she has a very pretty face, especially when she's smiling or emoting at all. She's slender, and her hair's shorter than mine, like freshly buzzed short. This doesn't work for some girls but she's one of the lucky ones who has the right kind of head that it absolutely works. It also draws more attention to her face, which as I said is great.

Now, her hair could be short for a variety of reasons, and one very obvious one scares me. It could be that she just likes having her hair short; it is a bit longer in the front, so maybe it's just a look. Hot, in that case. It absolutely works for me. Or she could have alopecia. That's a fairly uncommon autoimmune disorder that manifests as hair loss. This wouldn't be the first person I know with the condition, so obviously I'm familiar with it. Again, couldn't care less. The one that scares me and comes most directly to mind because of personal experience is that it's chemotherapy for cancer. Now chemo is obviously used for a lot of cancers, but my direct experience with it is with my grandmother, who had brain cancer. Which chemo is sort of between a last ditch effort and a formality for. So a part of me is secretly afraid she's going to end up getting extremely sick, which would be just my fucking luck because I'm very attracted to her. Chances are fractionally low that it's that, which is needless to say, really fucking good. But even if it is, that doesn't flatten my crush a bit.

We had a break halfway through the third day and I had sort of half a conversation with her about writing. She was ahead of me and I ended up sitting at the same table. This is reading as a little stalkerish to me, but I'm actually reaching for the details here because this was like a month ago, and at this point I had no confidence in any of the asking, so I wasn't even thinking of making a move. Anyhow we sat down and somehow in the course of talking (I think it was something about characters and originality) I brought up The Wire, my favorite show ever and something I can talk quite passionately about. And that's exactly what happened. We all got in this discussion that I've been wanting to have ever since I watched this fucking series but no one else will touch it (save Lucio, Biran Eater of Worlds and of course Wong, none of whom I regularly kick it with) and I pulled it off in such a way that I was engaging, passionate, and (I hope) interesting. I mentioned lending it out because I secretly want everyone I like to watch The Wire because I feel like it's a gift. Anyhow we got back to class and it sort of petered off there.

Prior to the next class, I got into one of my increasingly frequent, bold, "fuck it" states of mind, and decided that I was going to make my move, or at least, prepare it. I folded a piece of paper down and with strangely shaky hands (I was getting nervous in the presence of absolutely no one) I wrote the following:




I stuck this in the first season of The Wire. I entitled the following my "Sneaky Monkey Plan." It was thus: I would go to class, and at the break I would sort of gauge my chances of success, and based on that, would lend out my loaded season. In the fantasy world in my mind, everything would work perfectly, I'd hand it over with natural charisma, with maybe a witticism of some sort thrown in, and it would all be fantastic. Sort of like Shaun's idea of how his plan to run to the Winchester looked in his mind. Come the break and I realize a little too late that the entire time, I'm speaking directly to Dragon Wizard Eyes, and not distributing my gaze to include the entire group. A minor fumbling sure, but avoidable if I weren't a nervous dummy. We get back to class and we have a chance to read aloud our freewrite that we were working on. I volunteer and read mine which I more or less entirely fabricated. The basis of the freewrite was this: write a paragraph of scene and a paragraph of summary. Scene has dialogue, action, and details that are fresh in terms of time context. Like saying, "the coffee was hot and fresh" rather than saying, "the coffee from Frank's Coffeehouse was always hot and fresh, a standard rigidly maintained over the years."

We were given the following sentences, two of which I used (one modified):

• "I don't like you anymore," she said.

• For seven years, they didn't communicate at all.

• She turned on the faucet and blood spurted out.

• Whenever he went on vacation, he forgot his suitcase.

I came up with the following:

"I don't like you anymore," she said.

It was a fair statement, considering that for the past seven years, they didn't communicate at all. Just lived together, side by side in that tense stillness that words could only bend.

"I don't much like you, either," I said almost nonchalantly. But there was nothing casual about the words. They carried in them a subtle surrendering, a final call of retreat on a timeworn battlefield, cold and still and numb as it had ever been.

It was a war of attrition, certainly, but one born of tiny things, a collection of petty grievances that over the years had been cleaned, polished, and put on silent display, immaculate.

And now, all I could think of was how softly it was all coming down, piece by piece, into this ugly-beautiful pile of casualties. She stood in the doorway, soft, still, and bleeding from wounds I couldn't see but I knew were there.

After all, I had put them there. And I was bleeding too.

This was well received by the class. Score.

After class, as we were all leaving, I prepared to make my move...maybe. We started walking out and I mentioned her shoes (she wasn't wearing any). She told me that she broke the heel or something on her shoe so she decided to go barefoot. I mentioned that I have sissy feet and could never do that. Nice, nice move. Talk about your feet. We get outside and she mentions that she thought my writing was really good.

Well now there's the opening right there, isn't it? For me to launch into any number of whatever, ending with, "here, have this and call me." Instead I said, "oh uh, thanks," and then walked swiftly away like a social leper. Sigh.

Cue next week and here's my chance again. Again, I feel like this sounds stalkerish but keep in mind this is one day out of the week and probably the only thing I have any amount of emotion invested in. Every other day is just work, but this is like my one day in the week to step up so of course it's center focus.

Anyway, we get to class, and it's a reading day. The first reader reads a piece of her sort of diaryish childhood recollections of growing up on the east coast, something like Confession of a Lobster Girl, or something like that (not published). And it is really damn good. We get into discussing it all the way up to the break. At the break we go to find seats and I am the first to sit down, so I pick a nice big table. Luz and some of the older people join the table and we instantly get into talking about this stuff, having another really great conversation. I have to stress here that even if there wasn't a girl that I had a major little kid style crush on, this would still be a very enjoyable class. I've had nothing but intelligent discussions about the nature of art and writing and it really is worth every second of the time I commit to it.

We get back to class and the next person reads. I'm not going to lie; it's not great, and the lack of critical response as compared to the first piece sort of speaks to that. This girl's got a way to go, but that's fine. I remember being at that point too.

The third person reads her story, which is a sort of surrealist back and forth between the art gallery opening of a survivor of Katrina and her experience in the storm. It goes into hallucinations and painting and exposition and it also is really damn good in a completely different way than the first. We all share our critique and before we know it, class is over. We start heading out, again just talking of light things, and thank fucking God, that beautiful "fuck it" moment comes back and as we are about to head in different direction I say, "Wait, I have something to lend you." I quickly pull the first season out and present it and her face lights up with a big smile that's probably exaggerated but cool nonetheless. She says thanks very graciously, and I add, "Oh and there's a note in there, so please don't open it until I'm at least, like, three blocks away," with a laugh that's half nervous, but genuine. With this her face, probably unintentionally, turns bright red, and she laughs and says okay. I joke that I'm going to scamper away now and with a wave quickly make my escape.

And at this point, whether it amounts to anything or not, I feel really damn good. I get maybe three blocks before I have to call Travis and pester him, and of course because my phone is shit, I can barely hear him, so I basically do nothing but interrupt him. I get on my train and get about my day.

That night, in the middle of my socially-irresponsible World of Warcraft dungeon raiding, she actually fucking calls. I can't believe it! Did my Sneaky Monkey Plan actually work? I answer the phone and we start talking and yes, she would like to go out, let me check my schedule. At this point I'm a giddy retarded bastard so I have to focus to not say something stupid (although I couldn't avoid letting "wow I can't believe that actually worked" slip out). We find that her schedule is very busy and the only open times for about a week are during the day - no good. So we agree that next Saturday (she has a family event of some sort this weekend) would be the day. And honestly, I could care less about the timing. This crush thing for me is fairly rare; I don't get it with a lot of girls that I'm attracted to. So when I do get it, I am Mr. Concession. I will bend over backwards and into a knot to make things come together.

Anyhow, she thanked me for asking her out, which was sort of bewildering to me, and we agreed to iron out the details later in the week. And for the first time in a very, very long time, I am genuinely excited.