Shiver

Yeah, it's a Saturday night and I'm blogging. But I went out Monday night (Passover dinner--that's right, I'm an Asian Jew--OK, not really, and I have a whole 'nuther story that's not interesting about how Marty is my honorary Jewish name from a certain chick named Debbie but we won't go into that here), Tuesday (got my business cards finally), Wednesday night (owed a dinner by a secretary) and Thursday night (drinking with law school folks who might be buying a dive bar), so excuse me if I want to drink scotch and read the latest novel from my favorite writer tonight.

So anyway, this whole thing with Setup Chick is going to be drawing to a close soon. (I know, if this were a sitcom, dramedy, or whatever media metaphor you want to use, I'd be having notes from the networks execs bitching about wrapping the storyline up already who the hell do I think I am certainly not Joss Whedon and crap has he been on a losing streak recently too). She's having a talk with her boyfriend this weekend about their future. How I do I know this? We had a friggin' two hour talk Friday night about this. There's a defensiveness in her voice when she talks to me about him. She opens up with a "I don't care what anyone else thinks" attitude, but she's always defending her boyfriend and asking my opinion. During lunch, she tries to prove me wrong about her boyfriend, mentioning my friends who went out for seven years before they got married (though they weren't 43 and 24 respectively at the time). A lot of effort for someone who doesn't care what other people think. At this point, I'm going to pull one of those too clever by half non-linear plot devices out--we'll go back to when I first met Setup Chick. She laughed at everything I said (and she still does). Everytime her boyfriend was out of town, she'd give me a call to say she was bored and we'd end up talking for hours. (And given Friday night, that still happens). Everytime she needed advice, she called me because her boyfriend's attitude was "do whatever you want." We've had dinner with each other several times now.

Back to the present. Or more precisely, this week. On Monday night, she asks me for my brutal and honest opinion about her future with her boyfriend. And I give it to her. This man is nineteen years older than she is. His previous relationship was with a woman twelve years his junior and it lasted for ten years. And she was also his employee. Supposedly he wanted to marry her, but she cheated on him. Hmmmm. OK, that's all fine and dandy, but at the end of the day, he went out with this younger woman for ten years and never asked her to get married. Now he has a sweet young thang who's already told him, "I'll leave you if I don't think there's a future," which translates into the male mind, "fuck, this chick won't ever leave me so long as I string her along," she hasn't left him for five years, she does his taxes and bills for him, did I mentions she still hasn't left him yet despite bringing up the marriage subject several times, all this means one of two things: 1) he won't ask her to marry him or 2) he will but it will be for all the wrong reasons. And I tell Setup Chick this, and she says that these thoughts have crossed her mind at well. But, she says, she knows in her heart that she has a future with him. And, I don't say, I know in my heart that I'm much better for you, so that shows you what the heart knows, which is complete fuck all. Friday night's conversation is a repeat of all this except for the fact that she is supposed to have this talk with her boyfriend.

And then she says, "Marty, I'm sure that you'll meet someone who adores you and who you'll adore right back. I'm so sure that I'll bet dinner on it." So by Setup Chick's birthday (which is in August), I owe her dinner if I find someone who adores me and who I adore right back, and she owes me dinner if I don't.

If life was like a sitcom or a dramedy, in August, I'll be sitting with her at her birthday, buying her dinner because I am with someone who adores me and who I adore right back--I'm with her. A very Ross and Jennifer moment, and you could almost hear that treacly music in the background and the canned "awwwwwws" off the laugh track. But we all know that life isn't a sitcom. The persistence of that funny odd guy which endears you to him translates into stalker behavior in real life. The nice guy doesn't get the hot chick, but instead gets a boot to the head from the bully boyfriend while the hot chick laughs at him.

So this brings up why I find myself in these situations. Does the writer in me drift into these situations because of the story possibilities? Or do these story possibilities arise because I drift into these situations?

Anyway, I just got a call from Setup Chick. That conversation isn't happening because she's pissed off at her boyfriend (not because the conversation isn't happening, but because of other things). She's meeting a friend in Hollywood, but her friend doesn't get off for another 2 hours, so she wants to have dessert with me. Sigh. I was going to write more about this whole writer/story/life thing, but I gotta be going out again.

I guess this is a long way of saying I'm kind of tired about this as well. So, I promise, the next, hmmm, let's say five entries will have nothing to do with Setup Chick. Instead, I might bone up on my prose.