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January 13, 2009

I'm just a normal boy who sank when I fell overboard

I have a MySpace page now. "It's an account, not a page," says Herself. Whatever. She set the whole thing up for me; basically all I had to do about any of it is exist.

The child who struggles and sweats over every math homework assignment navigated page after page, copying codes and applying a photo, music, a background, a "mood," changing my profile. She made me 15 years younger in the profile than I really am, and when I asked her to change the date to reflect my real age, showed me such a sad-eyed puppydog face that I was embarrassed for myself. In space nobody is supposed to know how old you are, I guess.

Another thing I have is a date. No kidding. I have never seen him; he has never seen me. We've talked for a few months online and at this point I cannot dredge up any reasonable excuse about why we should not meet, and believe me, I've tried.

Except that I really do not want to meet him. Or anyone. I just want to live with Moo and Herself and the cats until I gently plummet to the earth with a minimum of fuss for everybody. But I figure why should "no desire to meet" stop me; I'll just let doubt torment me until Thursday night when we see each other for the first time at the wine bar that recently opened in my neighborhood. I thought it lent me a certain patina of sophistication to suggest meeting there; might as well keep up that illusion for as long as I can.

He told me what he will be wearing (jeans/button-down shirt), which bugs me. Why should I care that your shirt has buttons, you old geezer? Maybe they aren't real buttons; maybe they are snaps. Maybe he's got old, arthritic fingers that can't do buttons. But then I guess I'm a geezer, too, right? Maybe the most I can hope for is that we still have our own teeth.

Maybe he's fat, short, bald, unemployed, alcoholic, broke, secretly gay. Just to ramp up my nerves a bit I threw my cards and this is what they said:
Me: "Will I have a good time?" Card: Cut ties
Me: "Will he be shorter than me?" Card: Fact of life
Me: "Will I have an awful time?" Card: Que sera-sera

Uh oh.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM