It had been about a week since I’d seen Constantine. On
our last date, we had made tentative plans to get together and listen to
podcasts. The exact logistics were left to be determined later. Simple enough
concept, but we may as well have buried me up to my neck in a less-than-friendly
anthill and walked away for a week. In less metaphorical terms: I prefer
concrete plans. Even if they change, I still like to be able to overthink in
detail as opposed to hazy ambiguity.
So I started to plan, without really talking to
Constantine about it. He seems perfectly happy without plans, and I didn’t want
to force him to adopt my weirdness. I picked a time, a location, and proceeded
to make other plans around it. If he didn’t like the plans once he learned
about them, he did not complain.
 |
| This (façade) is pretty much the exact opposite of my home |
I decided to host a date. At my house. Where I live. And
have him be there and see my haphazard world (the term my indulgently kind
friends use is ‘eclectic’) and my invariably messy life and he would experience
the real me, and judge. Some people’s homes aren’t just their soul peeled
gently back exposing all the tender bits for the world to see. Some people
manage to present a lovely façade (or maybe they have lovely, impeccably clean souls,
but I doubt it); those people are not me. Generally speaking, I am an open
book. Following that, my home is an all-encompassing encyclopedic reference
book. Just not alphabetized.
 |
| More like this, but without the fantastic wallpaper |
Constantine’s home had been small and neat, with things
placed thoughtfully in nooks and on shelves. It was bright and funky. It told
me rather a lot about him. The millisecond after I decided to invite him to my
house, I began to worry about what my home says about me (apart from “This girl
loathes housework and has a shit-ton of movies”). I combated the worrying by
keeping myself busy.
I invited an assortment of friends over for brunch in the
morning before my date with Constantine. It is a fun tradition that I am trying
to start, as well as a fantastic distraction and a good way to make sure I
remember to eat.
The first of my guests arrived shortly before nine. Dee
and I had breakfast and visited until my roommate joined us. She was followed
by Dick McStuffinsnatch and Bertie, who both brought bacon and orange juice, in
one of those bizarre cases of multiple discovery. Like when Isaac Newton and
Gottfried Leibnitz both invented calculus in the late 17th century,
but with bacon. We had breakfast and visited awhile before they wandered off to
run their Sunday errands. Kirk and Bryan followed, and visited about life and
taxes. They were headed off to go bowling and met Constantine at the door when
he came in. My roommate disappeared upstairs in a tactful puff of smoke, and
there I was suddenly hosting a date.  |
| Hairstyles weren't all they had in common |
We joked about my hobbit-like lifestyle of having
breakfast, second breakfast, brunch and now afternoon tea. But since all we had
were glasses of water, it was fine. We started off by chatting around my
kitchen table, with my music on ‘shuffle’ in the background. A helpful hint:
Never leave your music on ‘shuffle’ when you are trying to impress someone. A
rare gem by a certain Kevin ‘Bloody’ Wilson is bound to crop up and embarrass
the hell out of you.
Constantine picked out a couple of his favourite podcasts
for us to listen to. They were both Radiolab and of course quite brilliant. I
learned about stochasticity (and added an amazing new word to my vocabulary)
and dopamine addiction and even some bits about language that I didn’t know
before. Basically, we geeked out in my living room for at least a couple of
hours.
I mentioned that I had been worried about what he would
think of my home. He said it was a lot like his. I took that as a compliment.
I think we’ve established that I don’t keep track of time
well when I’m hanging out with Constantine. We did a bit better on this date,
and we said our farewells, hugged and I waved him out the door with enough time
to get changed and get to volleyball on time.
No comments:
Post a Comment