Sunday, May 22, 2005

A curiosity

So, I'm crushing on this Croatian clothing designer who is certainly too scenestery for me, but that can be resolved in that my type is never my type. We met at an expatriate's picnic thrown by the English local paper, The Slovenia Times--possessed of the most egregious tagline I have come across: "Read the Difference." There was a medieval theme as it was thrown in Fužine Castle, and I walked 7km in drizzle to this. Within 10 minutes and one plate of pork products, I stood by the entrance of the castle, surveying the participants. As she walked past me, I stepped in front of her and said "Clearly, you're the most interesting person here." And with a close-cropped rat's nest of blonde and black hair, a home-made dress, no bra and orange sunglasses, there were not many within striking distance. We chatted about ourselves over bad Austrian wine. After realizing that we were both going to be interminably bored by the Canadian school teacher and the British school teacher, we "buggered off" to her place for consumption of just-stolen bad Austrian wine. That was our introduction. So after a rash of weirdo needy phone calls from her (one in particular involved a request that I take a cab to her place for buckwheat pancakes at 1 in the morning), she and I went out to Metelkova, an old army barracks converted into a clubber's strip mall, on Friday night after I fixed tuna pasta. After a little bit of dancing, she said "Shall we go back to my place and have sex?" And considering that I have a crush on her, I said yes. When we got to her place, there was a flurry of semi-nudity which terminated in her saying "OK, we're not having sex." Confused but not deterred, I sat up with her talking about our families, why it's cool to be clever, etc. The early-morning ramblings of tired minds. As we were deciding on a breakfast plan, she said "I don't get you. You are so complimentary." This was just about the most jaw-dropping thing I could ever expect to hear. Since when do girls...especially fashionista girls...not like getting told when they look nice or say something poignant. Am I in some sort of cultural caveman backwater where clubbing on the head and hair-dragging are the norm? This will require further exploration...with an archeologist's touch. Needless to say, this "transaction" devolved into a "fight." I went home, she went home. And then she called me later that evening. Today, Sunday, no work, and still no play. We had a frenzied lunch of curried vegetables, then we parted ways. Her to coffee with friends, me to an art exhibit of Chinese posters from the Second Cultural Revolution. Hmmm. Online diaries, like life, are filled with self-reflection of the most flatulent kind. Combustible...and offensive to all, save the producer. Well, today is sunny and I am about to make my way outside for a coffee and the rambling trip back to my neighborhood, Rakovo Jelšo, which from the responses I get from LJers can only be compared to Bed-Stuy or South Dallas. Oh, Europe...