Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up Southern. Southern California, that is, though my cousins moved to North Carolina (still south!) when we were young teens. So, I’ve spent a significant amount of time in the sticky south. I’m definitely in the South right now. South Dakota, still oh so sticky (in the summer) but not quite as green, and nowhere near as friendly. I tried for the true south, Atlanta, but Georgia State rejected me, so here I am, in the south of the southernmost state of the Dakotas. Not southern enough, but still…Maybe one day I’ll get to live in the land of lazy rivers, cornbread and kudzu. Who knows?
I Was Either the Chaperone or the Comic Relief
It was some weird ass speed dating thing where you started off four to a table, and I think I picked the wrong night: My group was a cute young thing (male), and an adorable young thing (female), and another young thing (male) and me, oh-so much older, and not so much lonely as bored. Of course, the first two hit it off, and I, wondering where the hell my match was, spurred them on with encouraging words. They left and I was at the table alone with the other young thing. We tried to make conversation but come on! He was twelve (okay twenty), with early-onset comb-over, and the personality of dry toast. On his part he saw me as the motherly type (more like grandmotherly) so he told me his life’s tragedies, like how he hadn’t been dating much since he had to take care of his sad, newly divorced mom. On my part it was more like “How’s-the-weather-where-you-live-?-oh-look-free-food.”
I looked across the restaurant and saw the cute young thing and the adorable young thing. She was trying to gaze deeply into his eyes, and he sat with his arms crossed, leaning back, away from her, eyes following the other adorable things in the room. Bummer, they would’ve been so cute together. I noticed that, sitting under the lights as he was, his long hair glowed blonde, blowing slightly from the ceiling fan. He reminded me of a young Fabio, and Goddamn it, I-just-aged-myself-again-!-where-the-hell-is-the-wine-list?
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