The Night David Came to Town

I am easily loving. I love too easily. If you put me in a situation where there is anything, anything at all to be ecstatic about, I'm there. My eyes open, and I smile continuously, and I'm willing eager ready to love anything that has to do with that scene. I'm ready for beauty, is all I'm saying.

Tonight, my friend organized a small group of other friends to go to see David Sedaris read at the State Theatre. We drank 3 dollar glasses of wine beforehand, and talked about football players with no boundaries, and then we drove to the theater separately which gives you the added bonus of waiting for someone you already found, and watching the lobby and then finding them. Outcast, and then elation. Never underestimate the meet up. There's this level of anticipation it's always good to keep in your pocket, and this is an easy way to make a girl feel found. If you want to sleep with a girl, make her wait for you in a public place.

The reading was amazing. He, the author, the one everyone was there to see, was amazing. First I sat in the seat, sipping my wine, and thinking how funny it was that everyone was laughing at things I found sweet and right and melancholy, and staring at the grey ghost ballroom dress of a chandelier that sits above the audience, it's crystals lighting up just the edges and the painted ceiling fading into this blue gray olive picture that I wish I could have taken a picture of for you. But I didn't bring my camera. My loss, always. I sometimes feel like I've relied on the camera too much, but that's the point of our digital age, the merging of fact with fiction and documentation. Anyway, he was fantastic. But I sipped my wine, and then I sipped the Johnny Walker that Andrew had brought in his magical flask, and I had to piss. So I waited for an appropriate time to visit the head, and when I couldn't squeeze my thighs together anymore, I walked out.

Into the balcony lobby, and then the girls bathroom, with the chest high radiators and comfy grandmotherly armchairs, where girls should come in scratchy dressed and dry clean only cloaks. I emptied my bladder like a race horse, all tight from its misuse, and walked out to the lobby with a clear head. Where I stood by the marble railing, staring at the lights and paints and chandeliers, the dark audience sitting below me laughing, and I didn't want to leave. So I didn't. I stood there, listening to his words, on the empty carpet. The ushers were below me sitting on the stairs, and everyone was focused on the stage, but I could stand right here, alone and beautiful, hearing everything clearly. I sipped my whiskey, and it burned my throat like a promise of yes, yes this is where you should be. Emily came down too, eventually, and then we sat like urchins on the marble staircase, with a clear wonderful view of the stage, next to the ushers. We stretched our legs on the edges of the staircase, hard and fast, and I ran my hands over the thick industrial carpeting, and looked up at the painted cameos of the ceiling, and the darkened chandelier, and everything was funnier and brighter. We were lawless. We were winning. Everyone was happy and pretty and funny. The ushers always have the best seats, it turns out. Through the marble railing posts, into the darkness, with the sound coming right at you. Against the wooden pillars, with their carefully carved gutters.

I was drunk, and giddy on my own smile. Emily and I stood in line, to speak with the great and powerful author. Our lawlessness gave us the advantage. I may have gushed about things, I don't remember, I was wearing plaid and red lipstick, which leads to forgetfulness and a feeling of your own awesomeness, your own inevitable grandness. Then we went outside and talked to lawyers. Unemployed lawyers. Television producers. City Year alumni. Valets with secret literary ambitions. I stood outside that brightly lit marquee, in the center of people coming and going, and I felt...interested. In everything. In every pompadoured man with a sports coat, and every uniformed employee, and all the shiny cars.

There's that feeling, I could have danced all night. I could have talked all night. To everyone in that place. All I want is to talk to you and know you and have fun. That's the theme right? We go from loss to love and back again, and up and down where sometimes you become aware of the adventure and engrossed in it, and you feel sorry for everyone that wasn't you that night, that wasn't with you on the stairs, feeling the carpet and thinking of all the well shod feet that crossed the very place where your fingers are touching right now.