Best Post in a Month

I don't go out anymore. It's going to be hard for some of you who know me to accept this fact, but it's true. I am a homebody. I cannot afford to go out all the time...as I am known to do. It's been this case for a couple years now...and I have transformed into someone that I barely even recognize myself.

But I went out tonight.

I've been going out on Mondays. It's a night that I used to go out in the past due to Karaoke being the same night at my favorite bar out here in LA...the Casting Office. Well, lately I've been going out on Monday nights, because it coincides with Monday Night Football. The Colts played the Steelers tonight, so I met some friends at a bar for the game. We won, of course, so my friend Zach and I decided to hit the Casting Office because he likes to play darts and hit on chicks...and I like to play darts and sing Karaoke.

Tonight was a special night for darts. Zack usually has my number when it comes to darts, but for some reason I was better early on. I won the first two games we played against each other. I was getting lucky and playing well while Zack was struggling, but I welcomed the change from the usual shallacking that I suffered...at a drink per game, of course. Well, our third game started with some other bar patrons putting quarters in the machine. Zack quickly intervened and set up a team game where Zack and I would play this guy and this girl in Cricket (our usual game). To set the scene, let me tell you that I had a particular interest in this girl.

This girl appeared normal by most's eyes...but not to me. I had an immediate and definite attraction to this girl. She looked like a girl I'd meet back home. She had freckles...her figure wasn't perfect...she wasn't trying to catch every guy's attention. But, she had mine. She reminded me of the kind of girl that I'd like back home. I like normal girls...at least that's what I've been told by girls out here.

Let me interrupt here to say that I love Maayan. She's in South America right now living the dream, and I hope more than anything that I can find a way to go down there and see her....and perhaps she can come back here and we can be together. But, in the meantime...it's been more than a year since I've seen her, and I've been interested in 0.5 girls since she's been gone. Forgive me.

Anyway, we started to play a match against this girl I had a crush on and this guy. I immediately started tanking the game. Zack and I were a lot better than these two, and I didn't think it was fair to play a straight up match. I didn't say anything about this...I just didn't aim so hard. Well, sure enough it came down to bullseyes. I hit a couple, and Zack finished it off. He was getting pretty pissed at me by the end of the game, seeing as how he's like me and really likes to win. But, I was fine with how the game turned out, (Zack won it with a last minute bullseye) because I felt alive again for the first time in months...playing against this girl that I had an attraction towards...but hadn't even hardly spoken to yet.

Later this evening, I was outside and saw this girl head to her car. Her car had Illinois plates on it...and I seized the opportunity. I said, "Illinois, huh? I'm from Indiana." Not particularly poetic, but it seemed to get her attention. She said, "You're from Indiana? I'm from south of Chicago."

I took a chance. "Naperville?" I said, remembering the one town that my friends at Purdue that were from around Chicago said they were from. "How did you know that?" she replied. And we were best of pals from there. We talked for about two and a half minutes before I asked her for her number as charmingly as I could remember how...

...but she didn't give it to me. She asked if I came to the bar a lot. I told her occasionally on Mondays, and she said perhaps I'd see her then.

So...it looks like I got shot down. And perhaps I did. But I'm still going to show up next Monday just to be sure.