Sunday, January 04, 2004
HANGING OUT WITH THE COOL KIDS
I was on my way to an international blogger fest, which is to say, to meet some bloggy friends who’d come in from out of town, and in one case, from out of the country. (Canada is still foreign, isn’t it? Radio Shack didn’t buy it or anything, right?) So I’m on my way downtown in the soob, which has styling positioned neatly between “cute” and “tough.” I don’t know if that’s “tute” or “cough;” neither really seems to fit. But anyway, I’m cruising down Golden Gate Avenue with the high-energy Thanksgiving 03 mix at pretty high volume. I have the windows down; I’m singing, and not quietly. I’m trying to get my voice loud enough to imprint itself on the CD. I’m in my black watchcap and my indian blanket jacket (the world’s most powerful piece of outerware). I come to a red light and stop, still singing loudly and doing the head-n-neck dance from my heated seat.
On the sidewalk I see someone else - or two someones, really. She’s tall, blonde, slim and leggy, in a pink sweater and tight jeans. She looks like a Gap ad, in the nicest possible way. He’s with her and she’s all over him. He’s a tough-looking, muscular guy, dressed casually but expensively with a leather pea coat like I want, a sophisticated goatee like I could never maintain, classy loafers like I pretend I am wearing (but I’m really not). He moves with confident grace and joyful abandon, sort of cavorting down the sidewalk. I think they’re drunk, maybe, a little. And he hears me.
I keep singing along to the disk as he glances toward my car. That’s when the moment happens. Tough, handsome, male-model type guy with hot blonde girlfriend locks eyes with me. I’m bobbing my head like a cobra and singing in my most dude-worthy hat and a coat of pure energy. Sure, I’m in a car that doesn’t automatically turn me into a style icon, but I’m riding it with some independent style of my own, such as it is. And the dude extends his arm - burly, leatherclad - and gives me a big peace sign. I lift my arm from the edge of the open window where I’m tapping out time to the music, and I sign back, that Hawaiian “okay” thing, using minimal motion, minimal muscle. The hot blonde looks over to see her man and some other dude in a noisy coat in a car with a loud stereo, exchanging gestures of masculine fraternity. She wraps herself around her man’s hip and lowers a sultry gaze at me, cocks a shoulder, grins. Unwillingly, I smile broadly. The song moves to the chorus and I boost the volume of my voice as I sing along. The light changes and I drive off.
He looked too rich and macho to notice my existence. She was way too sexy ever to favor me with a passing glance in real life. But there at Golden Gate and Van Ness, we all paused to check each other out. As I drove off I felt as if I’d shared a moment with two people who were cooler and more beautiful than I could ever hope to be - and that they’d basically told me, “next time, we’ll give you a call.”
Thus fortified, I had a lovely time with my friends.
MORAL: The approbation of the proper stranger can be as good for the spirit as a really nice coat. If you have both, you’re basically unstoppable.