I'm a dork; ask me how!
Apr. 1st, 2004 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabI had lunch with Ron Livingston today.
So it's another working day inCanada Hollywood, and I'm out with a fistful of resumes trying to seek my fortune in the retail industry. I've mocked up some very convincing retail and sales-type credits, some of which are true, some in which I was employed by either ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
helenish or wearemany, but that's a story for another day, and I got my one-free-resume-printout at the library, made half a dozen copies and started the long twilight walk up Vermont Ave. in Los Feliz.
Dropped off resumes right and left (ropo, the Skylight store cat's named Lucy!), and then, somewhere between X-LARGE and the movie theatre, the skies opened up and it started to rain. Which, while some might argue is to be expected in the month of February, is not a common occurence in the Southland, and, by the way, it's not February anymore, so I and my fellow travelers were caught off-guard and, to avoid the horrifying drizzle, raced immediately for shelter.
I ducked into Fred 62, armed only with the $20 I'd gotten at Amoeba this morning in exchange for ST:DS9 Season 7, and which, by all accounts, was already earmarked for rent. "I don't need lunch," I said, watching the rain streak the glass. "I'll just get a coke or something, sit and wait till the rain stops."
The booths were all occupied. I had my book (Earthquake Weather, by Tim Powers, for those keeping score, and 100 pages in so far, so good). There was one person at the counter, on the stool at the far end near the short-order window. Mr. rimshot Ron Livingston himself.
*guh*
I'm so good at this, you know, usually. I have a dozen stories of this type, vague star-crossings where I work my moxy mojo and keep my cool and have great encounters with my American idols. Those of you who know me know this, and you might as well just stop reading now, because boy howdy did I blow my streak.
It might be, as Patricia says, because Ron Livingston is my future husband, and I was therefore under abnormal pressure. But the long and the short of it's that I did not live up to my usual Sabbish standards, and therefore, I suck. *sigh*
Ron at the counter. A whole row of empty stools beside him. I saddled up, three stools away, and tried to be surreptitious about the fact that I was staring bald-faced at him with my jaw half open, drooling.
He's reading something that looks like nothing so much as a guide to the internal combustion engine. It's a stapled together pack of papers, with paragraph descriptions and mimeographed diagrams of the fig. a, fig. b sort. Go figure. He ordered a coke and a turkey burger. I got the fish sandwich.
And for the next FORTY FIVE MINUTES we sat there, no more than five feet apart from one another, acknowledging each other vaguely over the tops of our respective reading material the way two people each sitting alone at the counter in a diner have no choice but to acknowledge each other, and we NEVER EXCHANGED A SINGLE WORD.
*sigh*
He was wearing a tan corduroy jacket with sheepskin lining, jeans, brown motorcycle boots. He was wearing his caterpillar eyebrows and his upturned nose and his hair curled out from the rain in the beginnings of a scruffy jewfro. No glasses. No wedding ring.
He got a phone call halfway through the meal, someone named Bob quite possibly talking about a boat. When Ron spoke he sounded just like himself. His wallet stuck out of his ass jeans pocket, a leather checkbook-sized billfold with some tooling in a flowery design.
We'd each saved our pickle for last, and indulged in some simultaneous pickle crunching as outside the sun broke through the clouds and the waiter brought our checks. He left first. I came home to collapse on Patricia's bed and bemoan my fate, and the fact that I'd spent half my day's earnings on a fish sandwich and didn't get a phone number or even a handshake-and-introduction out of it.
Still, I was five feet away from him, alone, for forty five minutes, and we shared that special palpable bond that only parties of one reading in restaurants share with other parties of one reading in restaurants. I can still taste the pickle, which means somewhere in LA, he can still taste the pickle too.
[ETA, because it is important, and because you asked, What I Was Wearing: Coulda been worse. I was wearing my grey J Crew pants, the onesfuries has, with a black leather belt with steel eyelets. Gray camisole under a red/purple/orange/other red polyester buttondown shirt PTP gave me for my birthday, buttoned. Moss-green Nike's and a red and black striped hairband pushing my hair back into some sort of parody of the troll upsticking hair I'd woken up with, serves me right for going to bed with a wet head. But I was clean and nothing had any visible stains and I smelled vaguely like L'oreal after-haircolor conditioner, so. Coulda been a lot worse. Years ago, when I met the whole cast of the X-Files at a bar, the night Chris Owens shared his slice of pizza with me, the night I got so drunk I told Nick Lea he had eyes like stars, (to which he responded, "what the hell does that mean?" and I said, [Luz]"I have no idea!"[/Luz]) I was in sweaty corduroy box-moving unshowered regalia and an oversized men's shirt. That was about the lowest I go, so all things considered, the Ron-meeting garb was just dandy. Alas, it didn't do enough for my moxy, it'd seem.]
Did I let you down? Do you want to disown me? Do I have to turn in my badge and my gun? And what was that mimeographed manual all about, anyway? And who says it rains here in April?
So it's another working day in
helenish or wearemany, but that's a story for another day, and I got my one-free-resume-printout at the library, made half a dozen copies and started the long twilight walk up Vermont Ave. in Los Feliz.Dropped off resumes right and left (
ropo, the Skylight store cat's named Lucy!), and then, somewhere between X-LARGE and the movie theatre, the skies opened up and it started to rain. Which, while some might argue is to be expected in the month of February, is not a common occurence in the Southland, and, by the way, it's not February anymore, so I and my fellow travelers were caught off-guard and, to avoid the horrifying drizzle, raced immediately for shelter.I ducked into Fred 62, armed only with the $20 I'd gotten at Amoeba this morning in exchange for ST:DS9 Season 7, and which, by all accounts, was already earmarked for rent. "I don't need lunch," I said, watching the rain streak the glass. "I'll just get a coke or something, sit and wait till the rain stops."
The booths were all occupied. I had my book (Earthquake Weather, by Tim Powers, for those keeping score, and 100 pages in so far, so good). There was one person at the counter, on the stool at the far end near the short-order window. Mr. rimshot Ron Livingston himself.
*guh*
I'm so good at this, you know, usually. I have a dozen stories of this type, vague star-crossings where I work my moxy mojo and keep my cool and have great encounters with my American idols. Those of you who know me know this, and you might as well just stop reading now, because boy howdy did I blow my streak.
It might be, as Patricia says, because Ron Livingston is my future husband, and I was therefore under abnormal pressure. But the long and the short of it's that I did not live up to my usual Sabbish standards, and therefore, I suck. *sigh*
Ron at the counter. A whole row of empty stools beside him. I saddled up, three stools away, and tried to be surreptitious about the fact that I was staring bald-faced at him with my jaw half open, drooling.
He's reading something that looks like nothing so much as a guide to the internal combustion engine. It's a stapled together pack of papers, with paragraph descriptions and mimeographed diagrams of the fig. a, fig. b sort. Go figure. He ordered a coke and a turkey burger. I got the fish sandwich.
And for the next FORTY FIVE MINUTES we sat there, no more than five feet apart from one another, acknowledging each other vaguely over the tops of our respective reading material the way two people each sitting alone at the counter in a diner have no choice but to acknowledge each other, and we NEVER EXCHANGED A SINGLE WORD.
*sigh*
He was wearing a tan corduroy jacket with sheepskin lining, jeans, brown motorcycle boots. He was wearing his caterpillar eyebrows and his upturned nose and his hair curled out from the rain in the beginnings of a scruffy jewfro. No glasses. No wedding ring.
He got a phone call halfway through the meal, someone named Bob quite possibly talking about a boat. When Ron spoke he sounded just like himself. His wallet stuck out of his ass jeans pocket, a leather checkbook-sized billfold with some tooling in a flowery design.
We'd each saved our pickle for last, and indulged in some simultaneous pickle crunching as outside the sun broke through the clouds and the waiter brought our checks. He left first. I came home to collapse on Patricia's bed and bemoan my fate, and the fact that I'd spent half my day's earnings on a fish sandwich and didn't get a phone number or even a handshake-and-introduction out of it.
Still, I was five feet away from him, alone, for forty five minutes, and we shared that special palpable bond that only parties of one reading in restaurants share with other parties of one reading in restaurants. I can still taste the pickle, which means somewhere in LA, he can still taste the pickle too.
[ETA, because it is important, and because you asked, What I Was Wearing: Coulda been worse. I was wearing my grey J Crew pants, the ones
furies has, with a black leather belt with steel eyelets. Gray camisole under a red/purple/orange/other red polyester buttondown shirt PTP gave me for my birthday, buttoned. Moss-green Nike's and a red and black striped hairband pushing my hair back into some sort of parody of the troll upsticking hair I'd woken up with, serves me right for going to bed with a wet head. But I was clean and nothing had any visible stains and I smelled vaguely like L'oreal after-haircolor conditioner, so. Coulda been a lot worse. Years ago, when I met the whole cast of the X-Files at a bar, the night Chris Owens shared his slice of pizza with me, the night I got so drunk I told Nick Lea he had eyes like stars, (to which he responded, "what the hell does that mean?" and I said, [Luz]"I have no idea!"[/Luz]) I was in sweaty corduroy box-moving unshowered regalia and an oversized men's shirt. That was about the lowest I go, so all things considered, the Ron-meeting garb was just dandy. Alas, it didn't do enough for my moxy, it'd seem.]Did I let you down? Do you want to disown me? Do I have to turn in my badge and my gun? And what was that mimeographed manual all about, anyway? And who says it rains here in April?
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 12:30 am (UTC)So, yeah. Silence = good.