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fra gm ent s
June 26, 2006
a coupla fairly pointless accounts...
i'm up here at homeslice pizza, the new home of monday night writing. it always helps to know that andre will be here sitting at the bar, and jessica will be working behind it.
a girl sits next to andre, and andre, not flirting, but just being his usual engaging self, tries to pull her into our conversational vortex. it goes something like this:
"and what are you drinking, young lady?"
"live oak pilz."
"ahh, same here. and, uh, Rob, what are you drinking?"
he knows damn well what i'm drinking. "um. lone star, andre."
andre, like many of my friends, gives me a hard time about drinking lone star. i like good beers. i've paid as much as $12 for a beer before, and sometimes it's been quite good. but when i'm sitting there on a budget, and my demands are limited to "cold," and "beer," a lone star is just fine with me. unfortunately for the reputation of my discerning tastes, my demands are most often just that limited.
i'm relaxed. i'm having a good time, so with an exaggerated shrug and air quotes at the appropriate point, i add, in clearly good-natured mock sarcasm, "sorry, just not keeping up with the pilsner-drinking cool kids tonight."
andre says, "hey that ain't me. well, she does have some pretty cool glasses."
"yeah, well, i have cool glasses, too, man. i'm... just not wearing them right now."
i am rather proud of my glasses. i had last worn glasses in high school. one should keep in mind that it was the eighties, but i wore a pair of dual-gold Porsche Design glasses with prescription lenses. then, in my continuing program for self-improvement (also known as desperately seeking acceptance, or at least trying to avoid getting beaten-up so much), i took the advice of my friend kanton one day, going with contact lenses and shortening my name from "robbie" to "rob."
i wore the contacts for almsot 20 years. i've tended to be a hale, hearty, and sturdy person physically, and i became arrogant, sometimes wearing two-week contact lenses for... well, as long as seven to eight months. with no cleaning. last year, my optometrist informed me that my eyes were mutating or something. a special machine was employed to map the surface of my eye. the resulting topographical map resembled colorado.
i was told that i had to lay off the contacts for awhile, leaving me with the choice of either driving into trees and possibly asking out old men, or getting glasses. for years, i had toyed with the idea, much as i had with couches, towels, and bundt cake pans. i never found anything that worked well, and i always felt i'd need to have buy-in from my most trusted female advisors.
but one day last year, i spent two hours at lenscrafters, and picked a pair of glasses that have produced an endless stream of compliments, from the kid at HEB that commented on them on five consecutive late-night trips for frozen individual pecan pie slices, to, improbably, my mother.
tonight, however, i had run my scheduled five miles, and just left the contact lenses in. i suddenly regretted my decision, losing out on a prime chance to show my good taste.
as it turns out, it wasn't necessary, because she already had enough information to form an opinion, even without seeing my glasses - "in my experience, really uncool people tend to have really cool glasses, so, yeah, he probably does have really cool glasses."
wow. nice. but... probably true.
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ok, so, before i got to homeslice, i ran my appointed five miles. i tried a new route from my usual.
just after turning onto barton springs, there were a couple of guys talking, one sitting, one standing. as i passed, the guy standing turned to me and began to speak.
i thought i had seen it coming, and i was once again i was prepared to be amazed at the lack of panhandling smarts and professionalism. it wasn't the first time i had been accosted for money while out running, when it should have been completely clear that i had no money, and that, damn it, i was kinda busy with the running and all. and today, i was wearing nothing but some soggy running shoes (with no little velcro wallet on the laces) and a pair of pocketless shorts, their thin material so soaked that any change i might have had could have been counted from fifty feet.
however, i was only correct in predicting the smell of beer, because he just wanted to walk with me to get away from the other guy.
i ended up walking with him for about four or five minutes, during which he explained that he was a self-proclaimed farm boy from hobart, oklahoma, which was near some other place i hadn't heard of, that he felt like he was on a team again, like when he had been in the army, that he seemed to know the other guy, and that he had given said other guy some money, only to have him ask for everything he had.
once we put some distance on the other guy and got into a more populated stretch, i said goodbye. i felt bad not shaking his hand, but i generally don't touch people when i'm all sweaty and running and stuff. it really wasn't about him being homeless or anything, but rather that i knew that eventually i might wipe my face with that hand, and would be grossed out.
actually, just having the hand attached to me would gross me out enough. at my old workplace, i always dreaded having people come into the office to meet with me, because there would be handshaking. fortuntely, there was a sink and anti-bacterial soap in the kitchen at the other end of the reception area, so i could be sanitized within seconds of showing someone the door.
homeless guy or attorney, it just doesn't matter. still, i had clearly misjudged the man, since he never did ask for money or anything. i extended a sweaty fist, gave him a dap, and went on my way.
minutes later, making good time up lamar boulevard, another, more blatantly-scraggly-looking guy calls out to me from the parking lot of a gas station.
once again, i saw it coming, but this time, stung by my recent error, i thought twice. what if the guy really needed some sort of immediate help, or just wanted to offer a running tip?
i came to a stop and asked what was up. he motioned with his hands, and i noticed the dark brown coffee-colored burns tattoed on his fingers, the crack pipe's hickey.
he said he'd gladly pay me back mumble mumble if i'd buy him some mumble mumble from the mumble station.
i spread my arms wide, displaying my obvious lack of ability to help him. he said, "oh, alright then. take it easy."
it just goes to show... something, but i'm not sure what.
Posted by Rob at June 26, 2006 11:16 PM