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thursday night larceny
at 4pm on thursday she called me. "What are you doing tonight?" she asked, and I said I was going home to sit on my couch and watch The O.C. I'd been looking forward to it all week; escapism and simple distraction. It had been a week of rainclouds overhead; no reason for the dark precipitation, but no getting out from under it. Stuck. And though there were plans on the horizon, they stayed far away no matter how fast I ran, until I stopped entirely, just sat down tired and waited. "You're not staying home," she said. "You're coming with me to a party." It was a showroom opening, her friend had dropped out of going, there was an open bar, did I want to go? "There'll be cute boys there," she promised. I'd given up on cute boys, but I hadn't given up on new friends. Those possibilities needed to be pursued. "What time?" I asked, and said I'd see her after I ran home to change.
I'd known her casually for a few months now, and she was on the list, the list of people who could be on your team. More than thinking someone's nice or smart or cool, more than admiring a person; it's getting along on a basic level. The in-jokes and knowing glances and sentence finishing and same boundaries. The person who notices the sleezeball hitting on the blonde at the same time you raise your eyebrow. Who chats up the friend of that person you've had your eye on so you can say hello. Who makes the dirty joke that goes just as far as you'd take it. There's your team.
We went to the party and grabbed drinks and chatted and made jokes and scouted the room for the guys we wanted to look at as we traded stories about guys we used to look at, and sometimes kiss. We wandered the racks of clothing and ate the strange and delicious food and took the free shots and took the not-free wall art (into purses and quick! no one's noticed) and went back to the bar. We talked to acquaintances I was surprised to run into, and recruited new girls for future rollerskating, and chatted up club bookers for future parties, and played frisbee over modular walls. And we dance partied. We dance partied and moved couches and dragged the remnants of the party onto the floor.
Before we left, to another open bar at another party two blocks away, milking the free evening for all it was worth, I left her talking to the breakdancer and the frisbee player and stood in front of the empty bathroom mirror. I had forgotten about all my draining distractions of the past week in this new environment with someone who may end up a friend, and I realized I had had it backward. The horizon would not come to me, and there were so many things to see on the way there.
There are other worlds out there, waiting for you. Go find them.