The Cold Inclusive

My freshman year of college I got to talking with a young lady from one of my art classes and it turned out we were both from the same state. She kindly offered me a ride home for Thanksgiving, which I gladly accepted. She had an older brother who lived in the metro area, so we somehow got a ride to his house, and then he did all the driving. Incidentally, that guy was at the time the funniest person I had ever met in my life. I can’t remember all the reasons why now–this was years ago and the best comedy is situational–but I dimly recall a terrible Frank Sinatra impression that left me unable to catch my breath for 30 miles in New Jersey. I’ve since met someone I thought was even funnier. Anyways. He had a friend–it was never clear to me if it was just friends, or more, or maybe just a cousin? But there was another woman, older than me, also along for the car ride, and the only thing I really remember about her was that we were talking about how we swear so much without even thinking about it, and she said “I have the filthiest fucking mouth.” I can’t remember what she looked like, so when I picture her I’m actually picturing a woman whose office I shared during my first job after college. I had an internship working for the state (the system of governance based on arbitrary notions of property ownership, not the short-lived sketch show on MTV) and she was a very nice person, but totally over-friendly with the interns. Like, wanting to hang out on weekends, trying to trade phone numbers so we could keep in touch after the summer. One of the gang if you will. Which we were not having. I mean no offense. You can be the nicest person on earth, but no older woman gets to hang out with boys in their early twenties unless she is super, super hot, which she wasn’t. Heart of gold, though.

I was just at the bank like 10 minutes ago. Then on my way back to my office, I was trying to picture what my teller had looked like, and I could only picture Sarah Shahi, from The L Word and more importantly Alias. Which, I am not complaining. And I’m certainly in the right ballpark; this was no slouch of a teller. I guess I was distracted because I was noticing weird things about her like, she was wearing a t-shirt, which did not seem like regulation bank teller uniform, and I was wondering if her eyelashes were real or not, because they were sort of in that grey area of length. And I was noticing that her fingernails were all bitten down. You see that a lot, on both men and women. Very attractive, but fingers are all bitten and blanched. Is that the right word? My point is I could not remember what she looked like 10 minutes after I saw her. What if I had been the bank teller, and she had been the one trying to rob the bank? I would have noticed how I desperately need a haircut, and how my shirt wasn’t quite tucked in in one place, and how I was staring creepily at her shirt and fingers, and how I carry myself like someone who thinks he is handsome, despite the fact that he totally is not.

Whenever I think of Omarion it turns out I am actually picturing Ludacris. This is beyond comprehension for a number of reasons. To wit: lately my listening-to-Omarion to listening-to-Luda ratio has been literally like 10:1. And yes I understand Ludacris has higher cultural cache, but still come on. I don’t watch music television so that is not a factor. Both stars have appeared in movies, but I have not seen ANY with of the ones with Ludacris in them. I think they’re all Oscar-buzz type movies, and I do not see those because I am already plenty in touch with my feelings and well aware of the societal issues they supposedly raise. On the other hand I did see an Omarion movie: You Got Served. I deserve to be able to remember what Omarion looks like.

One October I was in a dollar store in Central Square, buying Halloween decorations for a party. I found a bunch of excellent life-size rubber bats and put them on the counter to check out. The woman at the cash register recoiled and in broken English asked me to tell her what their price was. I gave her a look like Uh that’s your job lady and she explained that she couldn’t touch them. I don’t know what it was, but I got the impression that she couldn’t touch them for religious or spiritual reasons. Like to touch them would be to invite evil into her life.

I don’t remember what she looked like because I was more focused on the way she had quickly drawn her hands back when she saw the bats. This was years ago and now when I picture her I picture Tanita Tikaram.

When I try to picture Cate Blanchett in my head, I think I’m only actually picturing her about 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time I am actually picturing Tilda Swinton. And can I just say that just now I could not remember Tilda Swinton’s name for the life of me. It took me about 45 seconds on imdb to track her down, because I could not remember the names of any of the movies she has been in. I remembered she was in a movie with that foreign guy from E.R. (the one with George Clooney, not the one with Elliot Gould and …George Clooney), so I looked up his name and then saw that the name of the movie I was thinking of was The Deep End. And now while writing this I also remember that she was in Constantine and Narnia. So what the hell has Cate Blanchett been in, I wonder. Now I can only picture Tilda Swinton.