Gruene game: Grist Mill girls wanna get down

"Hey," said a girl's voice from over my shoulder, "can you take our picture?"

"Sure," I said without hesitating long enough for my friend Steve-o to steal the opportunity. I was coming down off a monumental buzz. I stood up and turned around, only to find myself in front of a table of four young women, all dressed like they were about to go dancing at Gruene Hall, which was across the street from the Grist Mill Restaurant we all were. I had been oblivious to their presence when we were seated. How? A couple were hot.

"Hey, I like your shirt," said the one with black hair, or Brooke as I'd come to find out. I looked down. I'd had to borrow a shirt from Steve-o because I'd forgotten to bring an extra to the river that day. The shirt was blaring yellow--street-line yellow--and probably a youth medium. It fit me like a body suit.

"Oh, actually it's his." I motioned toward Steve-o. "It's probably the tightest shirt I've ever worn." The girls laughed, actually.

Then another one said, "Well, it looks really cute on you."

What the? Game on.

I ended up talking to them for a good 20 minutes. They ended up being 27. They guessed correctly that I was 22, and it didn't phase them. I made some more dumb jokes, they asked about where we were from, complimented my shirt again, gave the other fellas shit about being so quiet. Then they tried to get us to go dancing with them, even though were all still river-ratted out. I looked--with puppy-dog eyes--at my friends around the table: Brendon had his head down, Kriston was grimacing and rubbing his injured shoulder, Kevin's eyes were red with exhaustion and allergies, Steve-o shrugged. Kriston leaned over and said, "Sorry, man." Then he made a flicking motion with his wrist that told me to get their number. Yeah, no shit. Our onion rings showed up.

As they were leaving, I told them they should give me a call when they came up to Austin, as one of them said they'd planned, and I'd show them around 6th Street. Brooke, the original shirt-complimenter, got my cell number and immediately called it and left a voice mail that said, in a slightly husky voice, "What's up, Matt? I thought you were going to Gruene hall with us. Oh well. Bye." I still have it saved.

I hate when aphorisms are true. Everyone always says that you meet someone when you least expect it--and this usually means when you're not looking for it--but in my case, you meet several someones. A week or so ago, I lamented in this weblog that there had to be someone out there for me (a post which I shamefacedly erased--ashamed for writing it and ashamed for later erasing it), I came across a spurt of odd sexual tension from every which direction.

I wrote my purple post right after I'd gotten home from a party, where I'd been talking to these three girls, one of them my friend, for quite a while. It was officially after the party, and a bunch of us were hanging out at someone's apartment, so for some reason I'd gone off the prowl. This had been a ghetto party, and as soon as I stepped out of my costume--Larry Bird jersey, Kevin's six-inches-too-long jeans, untied boots, two gold watches, a sweat band, a wrist band, and (no doubt) my Sox hat--I shifted into normal Matty mode. It never occurred to me that I was talking to a girl, who I'd just met, who was also an English major, who also loved the Flaming Lips, and who laughed at my dumb jokes.

The next night I was talking to our mutual friend online, and she said, "My friend R----- really enjoyed talking to you last night."

"Yeah, she seemed cool," I responded. Then I started babbling about how R----- reminded me so much of a friend from freshman year. I'm sure my friend was thinking: Boys are dumb. A couple minutes later, someone pulled the dusty chain on the dim bulb in my head. "Wait, were you insinuating something else by that?"

"Yes, Matt." I could feel her rolling her eyes through her text. "When a girl says she liked talking to a guy, that means she's interested. That's all a girl wants in the end, someone they can talk to."

Unfortunately, I didn't remember this girl being particularly attractive. Now, who am I to be so picky, right? Eh, can't help it. Wish I could.

I did think it was appropriately timed by the big woman upstairs that, after all my whining, this perfectly compatible girl would show up and I'd just shrug. Boys are dumb. Damn that aphorism.

Later that week, my friend had a dinner party at her house. She had some little grad student boy over, and my roommate and I thought it was on for them. Too drunk to drive, I had to hang out in the roommate's room with her, also an old friend. We sat in there for quite a while, chatting and laughing, clumsily letting our appendages brush against each other's in our drunkeness. Then my dumb drunk ass decided to kiss her. "What are you doing?" she asks, snapping me out of my drunken idiocy. "I don't know." I say imploringly. We both laugh and go back to hanging out on the bed. One of the most consterning things about alcohol is not its ability to break down inhibitions but it's ability to make reality a big joke. That kiss didn't actually happen, I thought the next day--not so much meaning it literally as in the sense that it didn't really matter, that it was forgotten as soon as we laughed about it. Of course this is not so, and it's as much an insult to kiss someone unsolicited when you're drunk as when you're sober. Even if the attraction is not baseless, no one likes to be objectified like as only a drunk can.

But again, I was blindsided by even my own impulses. The whole thing came out of nowhere.

Then last night. I started drinking right before the Spurs game; kept on through the entire ultimately disappointing thing; continued through some damn competitive games of Dr. Mario with this girl friend of mine (ladies, you have no idea how hot a girl who can drop pills like that is); and finally finishing up at Trudy's. At Trudy's I got into a pretty involved conversation with my gay friend. It was the kind of conversation that, were I having it with somone of the opposite sex, I would have sensed some kind of chemistry there--it didn't help that the table was so crowded our knees were shoved against each other. Yes, folks, if ever I had wanted to try something like that, last night would have been the night. But I couldn't, flattered as I was when he playfully asked as we all walked home.

On the whole, the last few days would have been quite an ego boost--if only so much alcohol hadn't been involved in every situation. But a drunk thing is better than nothing, I suppose.

Ah, I've also slacked on posting pictures lately, so here's two from the same night about a year ago to get back in the swing. I prefer the first one. Anyone care to disagree?