Practice Lunch

Free Loop – Daniel Powter

Before I get into it, I just have to say that the lyrics to this song make no sense. “I been fabulous through to fight my town a name?” That is not a sentence, I don’t care. Such a nice melody, though.

On Wednesday, I had lunch with Arlene. The weather was great that day. When we met up, she was like, “That’s because we’re hanging out!” And I was like, “Well, yeah!” We walked all the way down to Sushi On Bloor, which isn’t that far from campus, but it’s the farthest I’ve walked since I had to go to the OLGC building to cash my fat $400+ Pro Line ticket. Good times. Arlene is fun to be around. She’s full of all kinds of energy. She’s not like a spazz or anything, I can’t stand people like that, but she’s definitely active and anxious to break any silences that come up. I needed that too because I was feeling sort of mellow and I was in one of my “la la la-aren’t-the-trees-pretty-I-can-talk-to-colours” moods. It helped that we both had things to talk about.

After getting our food, we took turns telling our tales. I told her about how I was hung up on this new girl and…and…well, I pretty much recited my last blog post to her. She seemed to enjoy the neurotic tale that I weaved and honestly, I think it was a story meant to be told through dialogue and not text. It was funny because when I was done she was like, “I love how you talk about this. You should write this stuff down.” Heh.

I’m glad that I went first because her story was far more intriguing. When last I saw her she was dating some South American dude named Jeff. I never met him, but she seemed to think he was an okay guy so I was happy for her. She tells me that they’ve broken up and I don’t even have time to utter a sympathetic “awwww” before she gets into the gritty details. He cheated on her and she somehow ended up in a confrontation with the other girl and the dude’s a liar and the dude’s father is cheating on his mother when he goes to South America and she’s over it now but she so isn’t and yeah. If you found that sentence confusing, imagine trying to decipher a forty-five minute long version of it. Of course, I was more than happy to listen to her story and she must have been wondering on more than one occasion why I was smiling so much.

I tell her about my intentions to ask Vincenza out to lunch and she’s like, “You should totally try and make it into a date!” I wave my arms in protest, explaining to her that I’m incapable of doing something like that. She spurs me on though, reminding me that I’m funny (according to both her and Vincenza at least). “That hasn’t taken me very far with the ladies, trust me,” I tell her. She’s super supportive and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. I can safely say that Arlene has entered my inner circle of university friends. I need this kind of company especially since I don’t see Natasha, Angel or Michelle much these days. Natasha, because she’s friggin’ impossible to reach. Angel, because I’m intimidated by her downtown lifestyle and I imagine that she’s got more important things to do. Michelle because…well, we’ve just drifted. And I’m okay with that.

Arlene and I walk for quite a bit more after. She is constantly humming. We take pictures of random buildings, just because we haven’t seen them before. I walk her back to her house.

If lunch with Vincenza is anything like this, then I’m gold. Wish me luck, partnas.

Another date with, uh, Steve Holt?
Yeah, we’re gettin’ pretty serious. That Steve sure knows how to please a lady.
Good. I was hoping that he would be gifted sexually. I mean I guess it makes sense you know, uh, older guys expect certain things.
They do?
What a fun, sexy time for you.