Probably a Yorkstiff with No Tags

So, here I am, with the answers and the attitude, doing nothing about anything.  The mission is no less urgent, but the imagination is no more forthcoming.  Do what I like, I tell myself, but there are no movies in town I want to see, and I can’t convince myself that it’s less about the movie than getting out and finding love’s lost dog.

The last time out was unsatisfying.  I tried this newish cafe/wine bar, Cafe Caturra on Grove Avenue, just for an espresso.  The coffee was the only good taste I left with–snooty staff and a clientele dominated by wife-picked polo shirts tucked into belted madras shorts did not spell my kind of action.  What better could I have expected, though, of a place situated in a neighborhood anchored by two Catholic schools with a private university (of Richmond) between them?  That was three weeks ago, and I’ve since discouraged myself from going out the subsequent Friday nights.  What”s a guy to do in a town in which coffee shops are on the sun’s schedule? because that’s something else I like to do–hang out in a coffee shop and watch the people-traffic and listen and write.  Bars don’t work:  The noise is more loud music than conversation, which all too soon slips from barely interesting to moronic–and it gets expensive.  But I didn’t feel good about staying in; it wasn’t doing me any good; it wasn’t getting me anywhere near love.  I nearly spent another Friday at home, but though I couldn’t get myself to go see Sweetgrass, I could neither forget the weeks’ disappointments nor consider reading blogs an acceptable substitute for human contact.  I went back to Grove but around the corner to the sub shop.  I live in the suburbs–no sidewalks, no traffic not encased in steel and glass (except for the occasional fifty-one-year-old writer/idiot on a bicycle),  and no nightlife.  One has to head east into Richmond to do that.  I was that one.  Grove is the nearest Richmond (about four miles) with an approximation of after-dark activity.  After eating I walked back around the corner, but to Starbuck’s across the street from Cafe Caturra.  For once, Starbuck’s was a choice instead of a last resort.  Still, it closed at nine, and I closed it.  Only two other people came in, and they didn’t stay.  Then I began to think of Julie–all the questions that will never answered, all the regrets I can’t fix–and I knew I couldn’t go home.  Deeper into the city to Carytown.

There’s life on Cary Street–restaurants, bars, and the Byrd Theater with second-run blockbusters for two dollars–and none of it touched me, despite having set myself down smack on the busiest corner for nearly two hours.

Carytown night

 A few looks, a few nods, and one three-beered guy hailing me with “Top of the evening to you!”  I nodded and replied, “And to you.”  Thinking of Julie or not (what do you think?), I pedalled home.

A good portion of my disappointment has come from the same lack of contact at work.  Nothing is happening–no attractive women, no repeats.  Ms. P (for “panties,” if you like, but also her last name) picked up a hold at the window fifteen minutes before I would have replaced Megan there.  I caught her eye incidentally–nothing sparked.  And on Thursday, Greta* puts me on the desk with Julie twice.  Minutes before the second time, I look at the schedule and notice it, and I mutter, “Very funny, Greta.  Very funny.”  Julie was passing behind me as I said it and looked at the schedule herself.  I felt like a jerk.  Maybe I am; I knew Julie was there.  A very, very long hour of leaden silence folowed.

I’m back to feeling there’s nothing else I can do to attract love, make love happen, or get whatever it is I think I want, but to feel that way is to give up to the prophecy.  Besides, I just don’t believe it.  Give me the patience to wait for that movie I really want to see, and, Julie, get the hell out of my head or talk to me.  I still love you, you know (damn me), but I want my life back, so I can give it to someone that wants it.

*Head of Circulation and, therefore, schedule-maker