Dont Mince Words

“I’ve been quoting you all week,” a girlfriend told me when she saw me tonight.  I say a lot, but I’m not sure if it’s worth repeating most of the time.

The week before we were walking home from a few galleries and noticed two hoodie-wearing cholo gangster types were walking a little too close.  We stepped aside to let them pass and the stopped in front of us.  I immediately went into Brooklyn-ready-to-shank-you-motherfucker mode.  They made small talk.  Our short answers and lack of interest did not drive them away.  And then, the question that sent them turning on their heels and crossing the street mid-block:

“Do you really think we’re going to fuck a guy in a hoodie.”

This may be the first time my mouth got me OUT of trouble.

My first 90 days in Santa Barbara are complete and I can say, I’ve survived.  If my blog is going to continue with nonfiction observations and intermittent dating stories, I may not have much material to work with.  Or I need to step up my game.

Like most relationships, I go in with no expectations so I can be pleasantly surprised.  SB Man and I had a nice time getting to know each other after I moved here.  I was probably still detoxing off the LA dating scene and smitten with his communication skills and planning.  Great guy, but not a good match for the long haul.  And that’s what dating is about.

I got to experience my first MeetUp stalker shortly after I arrived in Santa Barbara.  He told me redheads were like unicorns here and then proceeded to tell me he read my whole blog, from 2003 to present, and wanted to meet me about a project.  We had coffee and he pitched partnering on a writing idea.  In the next sentence he admitted he was ADD and couldn’t focus.  At some point after that he told me he was good at oral sex and would like to hang out.  Santa Barbara was starting to feel more like LA again.

In an effort to put myself out there and try to meet new people, I finally attended a MeetUp event.  The organizer took my card and asked me out.  By the next morning, he’d read my blog and he wanted to meet sooner.  Apparently, I’m intelligent and funny. He opened the date with “We have to be friends, is that ok?” and went on to explain that  he realized I hadn’t had a long-term relationship in a long time. (He’s been married twice). He wouldn’t give me a pass based on the fact that I lived in LA for the last seven years.  I told him he was scared of me which is usually the case when they read my blog.  We’ve met a couple times since and he told me he liked me because I have a “nice bladder.”  While I’m not relationship material, my beer drinking skills give me a whole new layer of attractiveness.

And there you have it:  the good, the odd, and the weak.  So far, dating in Santa Barbara is turning out to be on par with LA.  My friends beg me to leave this state, but how can I?  It’s a wealth of material.

You always remember your first.  While I wish I had been old enough to remember the death of icons such as Hendrix and Joplin, my first was John Lennon.  I was in bed when he was gunned down, but I’ll always remember the next day like some people remember the JFK death train when it passed through their town.

We talked about Lennon in every class that day in high school.  Most of us weren’t even Beatles fans.  But for members of Generation X/the lost generation, this was on our watch and the iconic death of someone we could relate to…more so than Elvis who belonged to our parents’ era.

I didn’t have another day like that until Kurt Cobain died.  That one didn’t really bother me, but I was married at the time and my husband was insanely depressed after Kurt blew his brains out.  Several months later we separated.

Of course, I remember where I was when I got the news my father died.  I think everyone remembers the big ones like that.  But what is more impressive is for years afterwards, my admin and a vendor I worked with on that day continued to send “thinking of you” notes and emails.

My I-remember-when rounds out with 9/11.  Yeah, I remember running down Fulton Street while 2,751 people died.  I’m now organizing a trip back for the 10th anniversary.

Imagine all the people, living for today.