11/7/01

Her Master's Voice.

So. This is Violivia's 100th article. Sort of. Except I'm not counting certain things, and I've neglected certain duties, and as Editor, or Supreme Overlord Of Content, I've allowed myself the honor of the 100th posting. But it's not like I've been planning this or anything, oh no, I let it take me almost completely unawares.

This weekend I dragged my boyfriend and my other friend to the Grant-Lee Phillips show, and I was going to talk about that, but there's not much to say. He's adorable, of course, and he did all the songs you would expect, and a few you wouldn't, but not "Soft Wolf Tread," sigh. But at the bar, or the club, for it was a club, and we got to sit on couches, with a profile view of the stage. It was not, you may well imagine, very crowded. And I kept asking for the waitress to bring me girly drinks (well, two) neither of which I requested by name, and neither of which had any decernable alcohol, and the first tasted like Orangina and the second, when I asked for an upping of the girly ante, like Hawaiian Punch. I don't think they were trying very hard, no umbrellas or anything. Then afterwards we were waiting for the bus, and my friend discovered that our waitress had not returned her credit card, so we ran back and then back to the bus stop, and then the bus came, and it was all very fortunate, or something.

But the point of this was, that with seeing Grant-Lee and having seen Richard Butler last summer (and nearly freaking out over the overwhelming emotionality of it all, as Chloe will attest to... And we nearly got picked up by teenage lesbians in the parking lot!!) it means there is only one person I have left to see. Only one name on the list. Robyn Hitchcock.

Don't ask me how that can be managed. I've only met one person who's seen him live, but then I also don't go around asking people whether or not they've heard of him, let alone seen him live.

Instead I want to talk about something else.

I want to know why strange men are occasionally trying to pick me up on buses. For a year and a half I have been using the bus as a means of getting to and from work. I have no car, and working for the university provides me with a free bus pass. It's an easy solution, though often a crammed and uncomfortable one. I have been attempted to be picked up twice. It's not a great average, I know, but anyway, I find it troubling when it happens.

So, yesterday, I was on the bus with my friend, right after our physics test, and I, having been the first to finish (having not answered a question, too, it's not like I'm proud of it or anything) spent five or ten minutes thinking seriously about my screenplay (yeah, it's a screenplay...) so, for the next ten minutes walking to the bus stop, waiting at the bus stop, I was trying to hold a conversation and at the same time trying to remember the dialogue in my head. Then the bus came, and we got on, had to sit at the back, because that was the only place with two seats together, so I'm talking to her, and at the same time writing dialogue in tiny print in my horrible handwriting on a ratty piece of paper folded into obscenely small sections that I've been keeping always at hand in my back pocket for two days... and this guy reachs over and taps me to get my attention, which he gets cause I'm bloody fucking nice to strangers and asks me where I got my whistle.

Huh?

Where did you get your whistle, he asks.

Um, it was given to me at the University of Illinois, I say, unable to resist my immediate urge to tell the truth to total strangers, I was going to continue by saying that it was a gift of the police department, and I was supposed to use it only if I was in trouble, and this has, of course, kept me from blowing the damn thing for the three or four years I've been carrying it around with me.

But he started talking about football teams, and I turned back either to my friend or to my script and he said, Are you studying to be a lawyer, Miss U of I?

Um, no.

Because you can do that whole reading and writing thing.

Um. No.

Lawyers make a lot of money.

But I'm young enough that money doesn't matter. And my mother's a lawyer, and she goes around actively discouraging people from pursuing it as a career.

Okay, so I should mention that I'm wearing my ultra fluffy red fur coat. Which I think is pretty unlawyery. And that I'm trying desperately to talk to my friend. And then he asks me my name.

Um. Cecily...

And he tell me his name, and kisses my hand, ew!!!! (and that's the second time in my life I've gotten unsolicited hand kisses, and guys, I think it's fucking nasty...) And tells me he works in a restuarant, and it's a good restarant, if you like steak (okay, I wasn't really following, mind reeling and all...) unless you like hamburger, which they don't serve. Huh.

So, I got off at my friend's stop rather than continuing on alone, and she thought it was funny. I think I wish this shit didn't happen to me.

See, the last time, I had run away early from work, this was last summer, pre-Richard Butler, and me and this girl were going to see a movie together, but she couldn't go at the last minute, and I was going alone. But the buses would not come, and I was almost late for the show, and I caught this ultra packed bus, but was lucky to get a seat at the back, where I was dreamily trying to remember all the prime numbers under 100. (I don't remember why now, but it was important at the time.) And some guy gets my attention, and gives me a lecture on keeping my nails in better condition, because I have a habit of polishing and leaving it to flake off, rather than removing it and doing it over. And I say, well, I work with my hands, and it just comes off.

What do you do, he says.

I'm a scientist.

No. And then he says that to his friend, girl says she's a scientist. Problem is, I think, I look young and wild, these were the days when I was dying my hair blonde, pink, purple, blue... (well, it was only blue for Richard Butler.)

Okay, I'm a research assistant. (but it amounts to the same thing, anyway.)

So, he's visiting from New York, I'm from nowhere,PA, have I ever met a Puerto Rican before, yes, in Texas, no those are Mexicans, not if they say they're from Puerto Rico, I don't think.

And where are you going, you young looking scientist?

I'm going to see a movie.

Alone?

Well, my friend flaked, but I don't see that that's a problem.

And he says, well, give me your number and we'll go out to dinner this evening, and to a movie, the proper way.

Um, I have a boyfriend.

Is he taking you out?

Um, no. (Stupid impulsive truth telling!)

Luckily for me, though, it's time for me to fight my way off the bus. We've made it to the movie theater!!!

But before I leave, he tells me what he thinks is sexiest about me. The dark hairs on my chin, that well-groomed women are so careful to remove. I didn't even know about them till that moment, and now I'm a bit more paranoid about them, plucking them out in hopes that without them I will be free of such attention. That and my generally sullen I'm-on-the-bus attitude...

Yeah, keeping my kisses to myself,

Cecily

Pull the cord and walk away.