Mostly Semantics

Blahblah obligatory metacommentary about my blogging frequency (poor.)

So this weekend I drove to Raleigh for a wedding. Here’s what I learned:

1. 5 hours is not such a terrible drive. To/from college/home used to be about 3.5 and I dreaded it. I thought this would be worse, but as it turns out…

2. XM Radio is fantastic. Every time I got tired of channel surfing I would just switch to espn radio. Not having the channels fade, ever, is pretty much road trip gold. Especially if you’re alone and can unabashedly sing along.

3. I forgot about the song ‘Get Off This’, by Cracker. I remembered ‘Low’, which is great, but I’d forgotten ‘Get Off This.’ Why isn’t Cracker playing with PotUSA in a week’s time? Yes, ok, I’m going to see PotUSA next week, fuck you, snob. I’m going to see Sons and Daughters with Holy Fuck and A Place to Bury Strangers on Wednesday, that should give me enough cred to blow on nostalgia-salving renditions of Lump and Dune Buggy.

4. My eating habits when I am A) on the road and B) alone are C) fucking atrocious. Also, the new Wendy’s fish sandwich: not better than the Filet-o-Fish.

5a. The Arcade Fire song ‘My Body is a Cage.’ I mean… I’ve heard it a million times and never actually paid attention to what it’s about? I guess? But so maybe it’s one of them fancy meta-phors, but the chorus, y’know - ‘my body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love - but my mind holds the key’ - well-said, Win. I feel you, man.

5b. ON THAT NOTE, I’ve told just about everyone who even potentially reads this blog this story already, but I’ll record it here for posterity (note: just because I haven’t told you doesn’t mean I don’t love you. You just don’t live or work with me.) SO, I’m at this wedding, and I pretty much just know the groom. I mean, his family is like the people I know next-most. Two of his groomsmen went to high school with me, but they were all in the year behind me and, fuck, man, I just didn’t know them very well. But so they were seated with me. Them and their wives. Well really just one wife, apparently the other one was at the hotel with their 7 month old, because the mother of the bride didn’t want beebs at the nuptials (bitch!).

I digress - I’m there with these two guys I barely know at my table, one wife… and this girl who works with the groom. And her dad, who was her date. Which is vaguely cute, actually. And… I dunno, I feel like he probably did this on purpose, as a kind of a setup? She was smart and didn’t know anyone else and pretty and generally agreeable. We hit it off quickly and she was very cool to me in general - scooted over at an appropriate opportunity to the seat next to me so we could continue talking about things. All this despite me being kind of dyspeptic about everything (she asked if I celebrated St Pat’s Day - ’stupid holiday’ I said - she brought up the u2 cover band at the bar the night before - that sounds like hell I said (in my defense I do believe these things)). I’d told the groom beforehand that I was leaving early to go to Chapel Hill and do fun things with people I know (I didn’t really put it that way) and, as the meal was over and the official segments of the night all done, I was beginning to plot my escape. Apparently I was too slow, because before I’d noticed that we were the last people at the table, this girl caught my eye and kind of gestured/motioned… nonverbally communicated ‘we should go dance.’ This was during a slow song. I fucking FROZE. I’d been watching people dance and feeling embarrassed for them the entire night. I stood up shaking my head, threw my hands in the air and stammered “I, uh… I’m, I’m out!” and shuffled away to the bathroom, from where I slipped outside, to my car and places beyond.

I still pretty much feel like shit about this. She was a sweet girl, and I mean, this was one of the few cases where I could really see dancing. I was a little bit drunk and in front of nobody I knew. It wasn’t another continent but it was across two state lines. Even saying like “look, you seem terrific but I’m really self-conscious about dancing and just don’t do it” would have been fine, I think. SOMETHING. I mean, as soon as I got to the car I went “why the fuck did I do that? I should have just danced with her once, said “I’ve gotta go to Chapel Hill” and even potentially invited her along. I am a jerk and an idiot, is the moral of this story. I was so ashamed I just skipped the brunch thing I was supposed to do the next morning and went straight home (where, bonus: I learned KU is capable of beating an elite basketball team!)

Oh special shouts-out to my friends in Chapel Hill (in case somehow you end up finding your way to this) - you guys are tops, never change.

/didacticism

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