three-day weekend

May started off with an ultimatum that turned into a countdown, for my landlady'd had enough of me paying my rent either in installments or on the 15th instead of the 1st and decided that, although she would not evict me outright, she would not renew my lease for another year either.

This sent me scrambling for direction. Two weeks passed with lightning acuity and my despair began to assemble itself like a small but vicious army.

Then, shortly after my show in Arizona, I put out an ad online describing what I wanted in a room instead of answering ads for rooms described to me. I received only one response to my ad, and the same day I checked out the room and started moving into it. The room is separate from the main residence, which is good for me and my craving for privacy.

This was not done out of desperation. Rather, it was done knowing that this was the way it was meant to happen. All of my needs were met: in the ad I stipulated that I wanted a month-to-month lease in a place that allowed cats and tolerated my graveyard hours. I mentioned being a musician and a smoker as well.

The lady renting the room knows all of this and more, and yet didn't require a security deposit or a background/credit check on me.

The lady's house is in the center of the San Fernando Valley (right around Reseda) and situated on an entire acre of land. In her enormous backyard, she has a farm. Not much livestock: just some iguanas, turtles, bunny rabbits and two pot-bellied pigs in addition to ten cats, four dogs, three children and two boarders other than myself.

Looks like I'm headed for the country this summer...


*/*


While we were waiting in line at the Roxy to see a concert, the mystery girl I've been seeing told me she had a "date" coming up.

"A date date?"

"Yeah... it's weird," she said. "I never go out on date dates."

"Who are you going out on this date with?" I asked, my voice cracking a bit.

"A guy from the coffee shop. He's real nice."

"I see..."

"Yeah. We'll see how it goes."

This was Jealousy 101. She wanted to see me get mad, or sad, or envious.

And it was working.

I don't begrudge her the tactic. I have been playing hard-to-get, after all.

"I gotta admit," I said after a slight pause, "I don't go out on a lot of date dates myself. I never really make an effort. I just kind of end up going on dates with girls who like me through no fault of my own."

"I personally think," she replied, choosing her words carefully, "that if you did ask a girl out on a date date, she would probably find it endearing, and cute, and she would probably have a good time with you."

"You think so?"

"Yes." She smiled.

"If I asked you out on a date date, would you go out with me?"

The doorman asked us for our IDs.

Her answer was "Yes I would" but her face screamed out, "I thought you were never going to ask..."

The security guard patted me down as she pranced into the waiting hands of a man who inspected her purse for anything illegal.


*/*


My plans to join my family at Lake Mead were impacted by my moving schedule, so I opted to spend my holiday time with her instead. I practically lived there for the entire three-day weekend, retiring to her bedroom as out-of-town friends of her roommate stayed on couches and in sleeping bags.

On the first night she passed out on the couch while watching a DVD and I had to carry her upstairs over my shoulder. Somehow I mustered the strength: she was not heavy but I was drunk and probably shouldn't have even attempted to lift her... but I did, and I made it to the top where I gently slammed her onto her bed.

She mumbled something about taking a rest, and so I did.

I fell asleep with my arms around her, spooning as it were.

The next night I was the one to pass out first. She made her way into the bed an hour after I had shuffled off to Dreamland.

In the morning I was awakened by the sound of doves on her window sill cooing in such a manner as to suggest an old man having sex and wheezing his decrepit way to orgasm.

After the initial absurdity of the doves, she and I talked and laughed and rolled around like lazy savages searching to avoid the sun and its daylight.

Such is the way of the classic courtship. For a lack of better words, it is traditional and ritualistic.


*/*


I arrived with enough salmon to feed a moderately-sized Second World country. It came in various forms: sliced, smoked, skewered on kebabs, and even with Cajun seasoning.

I was cleaning out my fridge as part of the move, but it was also a token of my respect and affection. It wasn't just for her-- everyone who was there that weekend got a chance to partake in the eating of the salmon.

Dave, her Hindi friend from Modesto, joked that in his country a gift such as mine would qualify me to take two of his daughters into marriage.

I wore my Zankou Chicken T-shirt, and she revealed to me as I was preparing sauce for some pasta that she liked my shirt and wanted one for her own.

"I'll steal yours if I have to," she chuckled.

"You won't have to. I'll buy you one. They're cheap. I'll get you two, in fact. You ever eaten at Zankou?"

"No. What is it?"

"Middle Eastern rotisserie-style chicken. Comes with garlic paste and pita bread. Very delicious. An entire chicken meal costs less than ten dollars."

"Hmmmm... sounds good. Maybe we can go there on our date date."

I smiled. I may have even blushed in the presence of all the people who overheard our conversation, as we prepared the fish for dinner.

The revelers mostly imbibed cheap beer but she was slipping me sips of Bacardi every now and then. Sometimes she and I would separate from the crowd and huddle together in her room, being silly and laughing and making off-color jokes about horrible subjects too gruesome to reprint here.

By Monday end, she had forgotten about her other date date. She called him back to reschedule, an action that didn't seem to bother me at all in light of all the time I spent with her in the past 72 hours.

As for our very own date date, I have no idea right now where it will be or when but I do know that it will most likely bring us closer than ever.

I don't even know why we are still resisting each other at all by this point. Who are we trying to impress anyway?