You know that moment during a party when you are about halfway through your second Long Island, the life of the party girl just jumped up and started writhing in what she believes are sensual moves, three of the most proficient gossips have been in the bathroom for over twenty minutes, most everyone has posed for and posted at least two status updates, and your friend swallows her third tequila shot, leans forward uncomfortably close and says- “you know what your problem is? You are too damn cautious and cynical. You need to embrace the world, be ready to try new things, open your heart to happiness. Get out of that corner of yours!!”
And I was just drunk enough and bored enough to stand up and declare. “My friend, you are right. I am ready to change my life around and behave in a way that completely negates my character. I resolve to be happy!! I will say yes even when I want to say no. I will embrace new opportunities. I will not hide and pass sarcastic remarks from the corner. I will go the bathroom now.”
After having successfully maneuvered myself out of the bathroom without touching anything (because seriously!!) I found myself cheek to jowl with a middle aged, bespectacled be-suited man, who reminded me of a very fussy economics professor I had while doing my MBA. Our eyes met in that dark passage, the club music suddenly turned on and the DJ hysterically enthusiastic, invited everyone to join him on…. The ….. Dance …. Floor!!!!!
I reached out and grabbed his hand and told him that we had no choice. We had to join the heaving mass of humanity in the postcard sized space. Just as my discreetly spanxed belly rubbed with his, eager to take chances, I yelled into his ear in my hoarsest sexy voice, so what do you do? Are you a pastry chef or a motorcycle customizer or a malaysian tower builder? No, he replied, he was an economics professor at Brigham Young University. I stayed the course, valiantly screaming back I LOVE economics. All that supply and demand, the labor and capital, those efficient markets got me so hot that I couldn’t help myself.
His eyes widened with passionate fervor and he leaned down close to my ear, his lips brushing my lobe, his breath tickling me, would I like to go somewhere we could talk without yelling? He had these grant papers he was sure I would enjoy reading. I could see my friend waving frantically at a complete stranger because she had forgotten her contacts and was too scared to offend others by not acknowledging them. A resolution was a resolution. He was taller but I had more heft, so I went to open myself to happiness.
The coffee was strong and I opened one eye tentatively, then shut it hurriedly when it encountered professorial buttcheeks. A molten ball of iron cobalt mixture sizzled and sank slowly through the folds of my brain. It was a new day, but a very old me, and I knew there was absolutely nothing that would induce me to “wake up”. And then he burped. I sprang out of bed, dragging the sheet with me and wrestled with the tucked in corners, swearing like Britney Spears without her cigarette. No more resolutions. I would go to the grave unredeemed. Happiness would have to find another breast to flower in.
He is visiting Stanford next week for a Google remote sensing project to test his theory about demographic shifts caused by labor immigration changes. I will be in my cave.
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