The signs of summer are on my left leg- dirt from the garden on the tips of my toes, friction burns from my chef's clogs on the top of my foot, mosquito bites ringing my ankle where my pants don't go, and a very odd cluster of fingertip size bruises on the middle of the left side of my thigh. What?
Have I been slapped by bony fingered ghosts? Sucker punched by squirrels? Pelted with at least a dozen Mike and Ikes? Sitting on the floor in my polka dotted underpants and old activist T-shirt, I am perplexed. I have also stretched my camera, which is attached to my computer, and also to the charger, which is attached to the wall back into my bedroom so I can take a picture of my thigh at an hour roughly described as the beginning of the middle of the night, at least for normal people.
Tomorrow is the day all chefs and other 16 hours a day standers live for. I have an appointment with a chiropractor. Holy SHIT, am I excited. I've been, ahem, doing my own chiropractic work by using the weight machine at the gym that makes all my bones crack. Often, the three seconds of cracking are the most relaxed of my whole day.
The topic of the gym brings me to a topic I will most likely mention often: the big smallness of my beloved, awkward Minneapolis. There are twin brothers that come into work, often. They eat my food. I think they've seen me running around in some kind of official capacity. I remember them because they're twins. I also see them at the gym almost every day. I see them see me. They see me and probably remember that I should be familiar. I know exactly where I see them. Yet I never, ever say hello.
Yesterday, my day off, I was scooting around the produce section at a certain disreputable but cheap grocer and became aware that someone was staring at me. It was a man, a fairly ordinary looking man. I'm certain I've never met him. His girlfriend joined him some time later, and I am almost certain that I have not only met her but had some kind of conversation with her. Nevertheless, I had tomatillos to buy, so I remained silent. So the person I don't know is looking at me and the person I probably know is not.
Tonight, I saw those two people at the Hipshaker, not six inches away from my left elbow. And didn't say a thing, though the man definitely recognized me.
Minneapolis is a big city that is embarrassed that all semi hip 20 and 30 somethings all know each other, however remotely. We. All. Know. Each. Other. It's ridiculous. And we never say hello- just a whole big town full of shy people who apparently can't start conversations. As if that's the worst thing in the world. *cough* And I don't say hi either. Guilty as charged.
The Hipshaker. I don't understand it. It's fairly okay 60s soul music. It's free. They serve beer. Every month, there are between thirty and a hundred generally attractive people who have gone against Minnesota custom and said "yes, I am going out- TO DANCE". Soul in polka country, and in fact, just down the street from NYE's. People come in big groups. Some are doubtless married, engaged, dating, etc. Yet in all my time going to the Hipshaker, I have never seen anyone ask anyone they do not know to dance or even casually start dancing with someone they do not know.
It's like boy window shopping. I can put on my dress (or as tonight, stay in my chef pants) and dance my little heart out and look at all the pretty things I want to touch, but I know they will stay in their dance circle and I will stay in mine, out of meekness and a pretty lame and unsubstantiated fear of rejection. This sucks.
I wonder what would happen if I asked a boy to dance at the Hipshaker. Would the dance floor open up and eat me for my assertiveness? Would, inevitably, all of Minneapolis know within twenty minutes that two slightly awkward twenty something hipsters who did not know each other in a non peripheral sense danced? Come next month, cause you're going to find out, because though I love my friends, I think I should probably try to meet at least one new person at this monthly event that is so obviously set up as an opportunity for awkward people to meet and dance with other awkward people. Harumph.
I'm so excited for the man I refer to as "Dr. Bones" that I can hardly sleep. It's like Channukah, Election Day and Surdyk's Wine Sale Day all rolled into one.
Damn it, key in the door. Underpants raisin bran party over.
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