Dating in China

I went on a date last October. I've been on a few since then, but none quite like this one. I've relayed my experiences to a few members of my family, but until now I kept the bulk of the details under wraps from most of my friends.
Enough time has passed that I doubt I'll face any reprocussions.

And if I'm wrong... well, that might be kinda funny too.

* * * * *

I'm moving to China.

In Chinese culture, the responsibility to mate does not fall onto the shoulders of the man and woman in question, but on the families of the man and woman in question.
I like this idea. Dad did a pretty good job picking Mom and Mom did an equally good job picking Dad and so... I pretty much trust their opinions. But more than my trust of their collective opinions, it would save me from having to go on any more dates like the one I went on Saturday.

I'm trying this "traditional dating" thing with a girl I barely know (which, in itself, is one of the familiar traits of "traditional dating") and decided that the first date went well enough to warrant a second.
Everything seemed to align itself perfectly. On the phone the night before, I told Casey (that's my date's name, Casey.) that I had friends coming in from New York and I'd like to meet up with them after dinner. Not wanting to be rude or give the impression that I put Casey second, I told her that I'd love for her to meet my N.Y. friends. She accepted the invitation and added that it was funny I mentioned my friends because she too had buddies visiting from out-of-town and tomorrow was their last night.
It was my bright idea to suggest we start our night eating dinner with her friends while capping it off with mine.
Voila. Perfect.
Everything was in order.
We decided to head into Boston's illustrious Back Bay area to eat at a seafood restaurant.

What Casey didn't think to tell me and what I didn't think to ask was how old her friends were. This prior knowledge might have asuaged the look of shock that crossed my face when we arrived at the restaurant, and two 40-year-old Brits greeted us at the door.
Kisses all around.
As it was a "last-night-in-America" get-together, it wasn't only Casey and I joining the two Brits but two other couples and some oddball who I believe to be a spinster as well.
We sat down and immediately everyone ordered wine.
First of all, I like sodapop, okay? I do. I wanted a Dr. Pepper. But everyone was wearing argyle sweaters or carrying fancy clutches (or should I say, "clutching fancy clutches") I decided I'd have to settle for a glass of water and get the Dr. Pepper later. I told the waiter that "I'll just have a water" and quickly added "...for now" in hopes of staving off a judgemental glance from him after the other eight people around me all ordered wine.
I'm sure the waiter either thought I was a recovering alcoholic desperately clinging to sobriety amidst my wine-guzzling mates or that I was years younger than I looked and couldn't yet drink legally.
It should also be noted that wine goes through me like a Nascar in the final three laps of the Indianapolis 500. I drink the stuff like it was grape juice and I imagined myself, at some point, calling the Brit wife a "tart" and taunting the spinster to "get out more" in a wine-induced frenzy of indecent behavior.
Water it is.
Then came the dinnertime conversation.

Being 25 is an extremely awkward age.
Being 15 was physically awkward, but being 25 is socially, the most awkward I can remember feeling. College kids have all turned up their noses at my supposed neveau professionalism, but I'm so new to my post-college existence that I haven't the establishment that 30-year-old members of society have. I'm like Oliver Twist out here!
Look, if you wanna talk about sports or movies or Eastern seaboard ghettos, I'm all over it. Unfortunately, the Brits, the spinster, a married couple who were both balding, and two remaining completely nondescript human beings decided to speak about such barn buring topics as the Roman tyranny over England centuries ago, energy resources in Belgium, and the best outlets of information throughout the globe. *
There are about eleven people on earth who would find it uninteresting to learn that 24 hours earlier I, me, Adam - personally shook the hand of Bruce Springsteen - and seven of them were sitting at this Goddamned table! I spent the bulk of the evening praying that no one ask my opinion on whatever topic was currently being discussed. It was like being in Mr. Averbach's 10th grade history class all over again. I kept coaching myself, prompting myself in hopes of remaining invisible amongst the other eight:

Smile Adam, smile Adam.
Don't forget to nod. Nod knowingly, Adam. Keep nodding.
Oooh! The speaker is looking you in the eye; quick! Avoid eye-contact! Avoid eye-contact! Goddammit, look elsewhere! Find something on the table that needs your attention NOW!
The fork! Fiddle with the fork! Keep fiddling.
Drink some water. Drink some more, but not too much. Don't finish your water before they all finish their wine because you'll have to ask for more water and remind everyone that you aren't drinking wine.
Alright, enough time has passed. Look at the speaker again.
Smile Adam, smile Adam.
Don't forget to nod...

...and so-on.

I realized something about Casey. She's extremely sophisticated. She's kind, but also extremely regal, which made me wonder if she thought I was regal, which we all know I am not. For all I knew, I still had a piece of beef jerky stuck in my teeth from lunch. How sophisticated can I be that I not only eat beef jerky, but occasionally run the risk of allowing it to remain in my teeth from one meal to the next?! But even Casey, who apparently befriends 40-year-old resource industrialists from London, had little to say during the dinner, which meant that she and I said very little to one another, because Lord knows I was so afraid of being exposed as a doofus I dared not ask Casey about her favorite shellfish.
I took every chance I had to make some sort of comment, interject with some witty one-liner. I even danced with the idea of saying things with a British accent, but I was sure to have embarrassed myself had I done so. Instead I spent most of the dinner hiding my frequent yawns.
And when not hiding my yawns, I spent the remainder of the dinner in tears, because the spinster kept cracking chunks of lobster into my retinas. It took all the self-control I could muster to refrain from leaning in close to the woman and calmly suggesting that her eating habits are why no one will ever love her. She seemd to really like me, however. She kept deferring to me while she talked and nudged me when she thought something was funny.
It was because of this that I opted not to crush her soul.

The lovely night ended with the check. I had decided early on that I would not be paying for Casey's meal tonight. Technically, she owed me a meal (as we decided on the first date which I paid for) and each meal was, like $30. That's not second-date money. That's engaged-to-be-married money and none of you will convince me otherwise. The Brits pulled open the check (with a final tally that topped $350.00) and asked if we all just wanted to split the final tally nine ways...

!...
...?
(no, I was right the first time)...
...!

...I'm not cheap, okay? If you know me, you know that I'm looser with money than I should be. But these people got wine, champagne, and dessert. Heck, the spinster got a $50.00 lobster dish! And I had just spent a good ten minutes thinking about what I'd owe on the bill while pretending to listen to the balding woman discuss her hiking trip in Zion. I hade a crabcake combo and water.
That's it.
$29.00 including tip.
But the male Brit said, "if we add in tax and split it equally it should only be about $45-$50 bucks."
I almost choked on the last portion of my sixth water.
Shit. Pardon my language, but shit.
How can I get out of this without exposing myself as a cheap, teary-eyed, MTV-watching, AA member? Then it occured to me: the spinster didn't drink champagne, nor did she have any dessert. That stupid spinster was gonna get me out of this mess.
"You know, I don't know that everyone got dessert." I say.
"Yeah, and I didn't have champagne either." The spinster piped up.
THE KICK IS UP... AND IT'S GOOD! Yesss! Thanks spinster. You just saved me 20 bucks.
I spent exactly $29.00 not a penny more.

Dinner didn't end for another 45 minutes after we paid the check (it never does) and it was kisses all around when we all parted, but I had had it by then.
My hand was out, shake it if you want, but there will be no kisses.
The dinner took over two hours longer than I had planned, so we ended up not meeting up with my New York friends as planned (I saw them the next day though). Instead I drove her home on a rainy, dreary night. And if you feel like you know nothing about Casey after this entire story, it is because I too, know nothing about her.
Essentially, the second date furthered nothing between us. I don't know if I'll go on a third date with her, but I do know that if we happen to make arrangements, we're going bowling.
You hear me?
Bowling.
Followed by pizza slices.

And if she doesn't like it, she can go to China where they'll take care of all of this stuff for her.

============================================================

* The general concensus was that the best informational resource is found in the BBC network followed by England's newspaper The Gaurdian. No one seemed to even consider MTV News when I brought it up.

(Dis)Orientation

Tomorrow is my first day back as a student following a four-year hiatus. In honor of this occasion, instead of catching one last wave or taking one last road trip or making out with one last girl as the sun sets, I've decided to commemorate this last day of summer by writing about what else? School.

* * * * *

It was quite windy on Wednesday. Earth-shattering information I know, but it's true. I left for the city with a hat placed *PLOP* firmly atop my head and the wind blew it off and down the street. I had to chase after my damn hat like a child going after a slippery frog. I finally caught up to it rolling down Michigan Avenue but it was muddy and soggy when I got it.

I was embarrassed and upset.

It was my first day of graduate orientation and I showed up embarrassed and upset.

My new alma matre is Roosevelt University. I was surprised to realize how prime the real estate owned by the university actually is. My main campus building overlooks Buckingham Fountain, which for my out-of-state friends, is like having a college in Boston that overlooks the Citgo sign; but even prettier and classier.

Unless you think neon advertisements are classier than bubbling water fountains...

...Then nevermind.

I walked through the doors of the famous Louis O. Sullivan Auditorium building to find nothing but lines. No matter where I stood I found myself looking at the back of someone's head. Except that I'm taller than almost everyone else, so it was more like looking past the back of everyone's head directly toward the end of the line, which was much farther away than I'd have liked it to be.

My immediate problem was that I didn't know what line to be in, I couldn't tell which line was just right for me. So I went to the far right. When I drive and I don't know where I'm going, I always tend to turn right. I don't know why this is, but I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I throw a baseball with my right hand...

...I don't know why those things would be connected...

So there I was, in the far right line waiting patiently. Eventually, I got to the head of the line, which is the nice thing about storytelling; you didn't have to wait in line with me. You got to magically zip through the boring parts of my life and experience the meaty portions by themselves without all the fat.

Which doesn't make you very good friends at all, does it? Where the hell were you during the rough times? The boring times? You're just with me for the laughs and then you're gone. I stood in that damn line for like, eighteen minutes, staring off into space. I coulda used a friend you jerk. Thanks.

I hope you're bored all day tomorrow. Don't even think about calling me, I'll just catch up to you when things get a little more interesting in your life. How 'bout that?

Jerks.

The girl at the table whose line I had been waiting in smiled at me, which was not part of her job because she did not smile at the Middle-Eastern girl with the tunic-like apparatus atop her head, waiting before me. I worried that the line-owner denied the girl ahead of me a smile because she was a racist. I opted not to make small talk with the racist girl.

I just grabbed my orientation packet and coldly headed in the direction she pointed.

I don't deal with racists.

I also don't deal with kind-hearted girls who flirt with me.

Either way, I had my bases covered.

I headed up the massive marble staircase toward the second floor where the bulk of my orientation was being held. On my way upward, I assumed I might stroll past a descending Norma Desmond awaiting her close-up. The stairs took forever to climb. About halfway up I began looking for the Gatorade guy or one of those motorized stair-chairs for the elderly. I'm no sissy, okay? I know all about stairs. Stairs and I go way back.

Way back.

We went to the same preschool. I'm pretty sure Stairs borrowed my Mr. Potatohead doll and lost his angry eyes.

No need to school me on stairs. I've climbed the Bunker Hill Monument, The Statue of Liberty, the Tian Tan Temple stairs in Hong Kong, the steps in the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Rocky conquered his fear of heights (or something like that, I can't remember what happened in that movie); you name it, I've climbed it. The stairs at the main building of my new school were tough though.

It took me nearly fourteen minutes to get to the second floor. Somewhere around the nine-minute-mark, I left my pessimism behind and decided that stairs were a good thing. Stairs were both pomp and circumstance. Queens ascended staircases such as this...

...Not that I was a queen.

Not at all.

I thought we took care of those rumors during my last blog.

Stairs meant wealth and privilege and high ceilings and higher learning. These stairs represented my ascension into the glory that is education.

Metaphorically speaking, with each step I took, the smarter I became.
Physically speaking, with each step I took, the more vomit I could taste in my own mouth.

I started thinking that this damn staircase was like one of those optical illusions, like a striped barbers pole; something I would never - could never - completely climb.

By the time I reached the fifteen-hundredth step upon my spiral heavenward, I began hearing classical music and assumed that somewhere along my trip I had died and I was no longer ascending to the conference room of my graduate school but to Heaven itself. In my fatigued stupor I began getting really pissed that even though I was dead, I still had to trudge up stairs.

Shouldn't I be floating somewhere? Why the hell am I still so winded? There should be no breathlessness in Heaven. Well maybe romantic breathlessness, like that Godard film, but...

...Unless this isn't Heaven. What if we all got the directions wrong on Heaven and Hell? That would make more sense, right? Your first punishment after you die is climbing four billion stairs to get to Hell's Gate.

How had no one thought about this before?

And if this is Hell, what does it say that the ascending music I hear seems to be a Brahms piece from his Fantasias period?

I wouldn't have guessed that.

I always assumed I'd be hearing Yoko Ono on my way to Hell.

At the age of 38, I finally reached the second floor of Roosevelt University's Auditorium building. It was there that I realized I had not dreamt up the orchestra, that they were, in fact, playing in the center of the grand hallway for the enjoyment of all incoming graduate students. I also noticed multiple tables filled with finger foods and drinks.

My own mother didn't treat me with this much warmth and kindness. I stood stone- like in the middle of the hall as if a donkey had kicked the intelligence right out of my skull. I went numb. My jaw may have fallen open, but I can't be sure. Like I said, I was numb.

I moved one foot in the front of the other. My body was screaming in joy. My body wanted to run - nay - skip in peppy glee toward all the food tables and immediately take all the cookies for myself.

The tables were park trees and I was a dog lifting his leg to pee.

But I had to play it cool. This wasn't undergraduate orientation. This was graduate orientation and I didn't want to start off on more of a wrong foot than I already had.

I was the only student wearing a baseball hat. I was a little sweaty from the stairs and I had already made the racist line-leaders upset by ignoring their smiles. In hopes of not drawing further attention to myself, I decided to swing around the orchestra first. My thinking was that no one would suspect my desire for food if I didn't make a bee-line directly toward it.

So I'm standing next to the orchestra as if I were in some grunge club. All I needed was a Coors Light and a rhythmic head-bob and there'd really be no difference. It was awkward. They finished a musical piece and I began clapping, but I was the only one clapping, so I stopped clapping fairly soon after I started.

Are we not supposed to clap for orchestras? No one tells me shit.

Enough of this, let's hit that sandwich carte.

I have a friend whom for the sake of this blog I will call "Barmin." Barmin is infamous for formulating weekend plans based on the locales of gallerias and museums supplying free food at their exhibits. I only bring Barmin up because he would have wept at the sight of Roosevelt's spread. And his weeping wouldn't have been one of those "damn I just hit my thumb with this hammer" kind of weeping fits, it would have been girly and pitiful; more like "Heidi Klum just said she wanted to have my love child" fits.

I'm sure you understand.

In honor of Barmin I ate several extra tiny croissant sandwiches. I didn't even want them, but they were there and I'd be damned if I was going to allow some snotty undergrad to get their paws on it.

I also had nearly 2/3 of all available pineapple slices, which amounted to roughly six whole pineapples.

It's a passion fruit. I was incapable of stifling myself.

The orientation itself was fairly uneventful. Again, because you are not so much my friends as you are thrill-seekers, you get to be spared the boredom of the actual orientation. We'll skip past all the getting-to-know-you activities, self-congratulatory salutations that every school feels compelled to concoct and various campus tours. You can thank me later. But before we completely leave the bulk orientation portion, I should menton that I met one psychology student working on her doctorate named Christa Jones. She was extremely kind and comforting to me during our isolated group discussions and I apprecaited meeting her. Unlike Barmin, Christa Jones is her real name and the only reason I am submitting her real name here is because if she perchance comes across this blog or if I perchance ever see her on campus, I plan to immediately propose marriage to her in the name of serendipity.

Which would also go a long way in proving that I am the John Cusack of Chicago.*

My orientation evening ended waiting in yet another line; this time for my student ID. We've come a long way in field of bulk photographs. I was only in line long enough to realize that my hair had been under a soggy and muddy baseball cap for the bulk of the last few hours and that my hair isn't usually well coiffured anyway.

Sometimes, when I'm lost and driving and really need to catch a stop light in order to peek at a map, I inevitably make a record number of lights and drive for forty minutes in the absolute wrong direction. When I have nothing to do while waiting in line, the line inevitably takes for-ev-er to move. Not at Roosevelt U, nope. At Roo-U as the hep cats are known to call it, the lines with messy haired people desperately trying cajole their follicles into cooperating zips right along at record speed.

If Donald Trump got into a fist fight with a hoard of condors it would not look worse than the nonsense happening on my noggin.

"Next!" It was too late. I was up next. I looked like a Dick Tracy character and I had no time to remedy my situation. So I sat down in the chair set in front of a blue background and the thought crossed my mind that they were going to bluescreen my head onto something cool. Maybe my student ID would have a theme. Perhaps they'd affix my face onto John Wayne's body and for the next three semesters I would get to be the "John Wayne student". And maybe the girl after me would get to be the "woodchuck student" and the person after her would be the "astronaut" until she graduated.

"Next! " The cameraman bellowed. Which was a weird thing to bellow because I was already in the chair. I sat right down the first time he called my name. I've been sitting here for several seconds now and...

Oh crap! He already took my picture! That last bellow was for the person in-line after me. Crap! He didn't warn me or anything. He didn't even adjust the camera to counter my abnormally tall and lanky frame. The camera was barely tilting upwards at all and he didn't tell me to look into the camera, and because I was not instructed to do it I failed to do it.

Dammit! Why must I be such a lemming? Johnny Rotten would have looked directly into the camera no matter who told him not to. He might have even spat into the camera, but that would be taking it too far.

That would be too much. Spitting is unnecessary.

But looking into it was not unnecessary.

A warning would have been keen. A warning might have saved me from taking a picture that renders my already large forehead to appear as if an ice-dance could be performed on it's surface. And there are no do-overs for these pictures. I got one shot and I didn't even know it was happening. That picture is my key to the school's library, the bookstore, the public transportation, it's what my future girlfriends are going to ask to see when we go out to dinner and I open my wallet to pay for dinner and they notice picture identifications sticking out of it.

Photo IDs are the most important photographs anyone can take in this world and mine looks like I was punched in the head by a kangaroo.

Welcome back to school, kid. Here's your kangaroo wallop!

=============================================================== * Yes, dammit, I am aware that John Cusack is from Chicago. And yes I am aware that he hasn't even moved out of Chicago in favor of Los Angeles or something like that. And so yes I am aware that claiming to be Chicago's John Cusack is like claiming to be New York's Woody Allen or Montana's Unabomber.
Leave me alone.