The Kind of Girl Who … totally cops out of a much-ballyhooed blog entry

NTKOG #43: The kind of girl who becomes agnostic to her personal mythology.

I am: about as eminently Web 2.0 stalkable as I am unqualified to rule on the ethics and personal politics of blogging about someone who is almost definitely going to read it; therefore…

I am not: going to memorialize this one in the blog. Sorry, guys! But instead, an anecdote very slightly preceding the evening in question.

The Scene: DC, early evening, in the pounding rain. I’m set to meet up at 7pm at some bar with a guy with whom it would be both an under- and an over-statement to say I have a history. So. There’s that. Not especially helping are the dual facts that: the whole evening thus far has been a series of wardrobe malfunctions of Odyssean friggin’ proportions, and I have zero working knowledge of DC or its metro system.

Okay, being super west coasty and all, the concept that there is some subtle connection between weather and what one ought to wear in said weather is more or less an emerging trend in my world. Bearing that in mind, it could only be expected that I’d dash down to DC expecting warm, dry weather (it’s the south, after all!). When I step off the plane and into a dang maelstrom, it begins to occur to me that I should probably have packed something other than summer dresses.

Under the whimsical sartorial guidance of Kiss-Ducker, I pick up a pair of thigh-highs to wear under said summer dress, and this feels very cinema noir for, oh, about fifteen minutes, until one of them turns into an ankle sock and I am left with no option but to remove them on the train — ON THE TRAIN! — on my way to the bar.

Because I am an ace at public transportation, I end up getting to the general area of the bar around half an hour early (Awesome, TKOG. This is not a friggin’ job interview.) with unseasonably bare legs and a pair of stockings jammed into my purse. So I dash into CVS, buy new stockings and ask for directions. After I change into them and stake out the general location of the bar, three things become apparent: 1) these nylons are so cheap and coarse-woven that they are like literally grating into my skin; 2) I’m at less than 20% certainty of the bar location; and 3) I am still fifteen minutes early, which is the lamest thing ever, because I haven’t seen this guy in five years and don’t want him to think I intentionally showed up hours early for reasons that are unclear but I think we can all understand to be insidious.

So I duck into another CVS, closer to the alleged bar, buy yet another pair of stockings, change — jamming the old stockings into my Mary Poppins bag of increasing synthetic fiber cat-lady-itude  — and check the time. Still eight minutes early.

Of all the shenans going on, I’m most fixated on breezing into the bar five minutes late, so I crank up my iPod and decide to pace on the street behind the CVS, but as I turn, there is a like sort of familiar vibration in the air, and standing not three feet in front of me, directly in my line of sight appears THE VERY GUY I AM SKULKING AROUND EVERY CVS IN THE TRI-STATE AREA TO TRY AND AVOID.

So I do what any normal girl would do. I pull up my umbrella to shield my face and swivel to face a homeless dude leaning against the drugstore wall. Look, I’m not proud of this, guys. But at the same time, had there been a conveniently placed news kiosk, I probably would have ducked behind it for good measure.

I mean, dude, five years. I couldn’t risk the potential of an awk walk or — god forbid — even an awk hug in the rain. Plus, he wasn’t carrying an umbrella, and no way was I going to share mine.

Still, the fact remained that he knew the location of the invisible bar. So, drawing on all my stalking power, I let him get half a block ahead of me, affected a mien of unperturbed nonchalance, just in case, (“Oh, what? So sorry! I didn’t see you there!”), and tailed him to the bar. Once he stepped inside, I listened to the rest of the song on my iPod before breezing in my friggin’ five minutes late.

Which probably would have been really cool and casual, had I not totally copped to this whole stalking experience after ingesting like a sip of booze. And then subsequently blogged about it. Yes I’m awesome.

The Verdict: This whole clusterfuck of effortless cool was going on from about 6:25 to the time we met in the bar at 7:05. And let it just be said that by 6:57, I had done what I came there to do. So I’m going to go ahead and still call this a net victory.

Other vital lessons for my everyday life:

1) Despite my working knowledge of the Russian language, I will never have the spy chops to work for the FBI.

2) When boozin’, do not try to keep pace with a high-functioning alcoholic who has half a foot on you.

3) If there’s something you’re afraid to do, dude, do it right away instead of letting it build up. Because the amount you have built it up in your head will totally be inversely proportional to how significant it turns out to be.

Tagged as: angstball, attempted stalking, awkward, bar, don't judge me, even now -- three days later -- there is a pair of pantyhose in my purse, is the phrase old flame really embarrassing to use? because it's used to good effect in a deathcab song i really like, life would be easier if i stopped telling people "i'm so blogging about this" -- although in my defense i'm reasonably sure i'm not the one who brought it up first, OH! and after like five minutes in the bar the new pair of pantyhose TOTALLY SNAGGED AND TORE ALL OVER THE PLACE, stalking, stories that i should probably keep to my friggin' self, unsubtle, washington dc