Pic is a link to a bigger version of the right pic. Check out that rainbow, it's pretty sweet.
Last night I made the drive down to to Tucson to spend the evening with some of my best friends. They had gotten there mid-afternoon and I caught up later.
Check out my driving face. I was trying to look relaxed, but let me tell you, if you've never made a long drive in the pouring rain, going 80 mph in heavy traffic, all by yourself you haven't lived my friend. I looked pissed off, but I'm actually concentrating pretty intensely in order to stay on the road AND take a picture of myself.
When I got there we spent a little time in the Tucson Bookman's which was mind-blowingly huge. I mentioned here a couple months ago how much I love the Bookman's here, but this location made ours look very sad. I would guess that this new store's Fiction/Literature section alone (the biggest section at either location) is about the same size as the Mesa location's entire inventory.
We moved on to a bread store a couple doors down called simply Beyond Bread. I think they should call it Beyond Great Bread. Brian's been telling me about how great this bread is for a long time, and I was pretty skeptical, but damn! Best bread I've ever had.
Then it was on to a party at a couple of Hagler's college friends' house. Great people and great party.
At this party I had an interesting character study experience. As an actor and a writer I sometimes find myself so engrossed in people-observation mode, that I fail to connect with anyone. I caught myself in one of these moments, but used it to my advantage.
Let me elaborate on that.
So this girl had been making eyes at me from across the room for a while. I noticed, but pretended not to because:
A) I didn't find her attractive, and
B) More importantly, I have a girlfriend.
In the background they have Once Upon A Time In Mexico playing. Terrible movie, by the way. It's one of three movies I have ever walked out on. So, it gets to the part after Johnny Depp's eyes have been yanked out, and his sunglasses fall off revealing what are obviously bloody eyelids. What I mean is any idiot can see that Depp still has his eyes, they're just closed and there's a raspberry jam-like goo all over his eyelids. They could have used computer effects to sink in his eye-sockets, i mean, they did it to Cheech Marin at the beginning of the movie. What's the matter Rodriguez, blow your budget halfway through?
The girl points out "You know, what's sad; I could've done that."
I smile and say "Me too."
"No, I mean, I've worked on make-up in theatre before."
I nod. "Me too."
"Really?"
Like an animal on the hunt she sees her opening and moves in to strike. She sits down next to me and proceeds to talk for what was probably like ten to fifteen minutes, but felt like hours, during which I politely made eye-contact and nodded. It was obvious that this was her attempt at conversation, but it was too one-sided to be called anything but talking at me.
She proceeded to me all about the production of Macbeth she had worked on. She tells me how they didn't have enough of a budget for leather, so they used the vinyl look-alike known as pleather. She tells me every detail of the set. She tells me they had her helping out in the costume shop, and they wanted her to glue fake beeds on the costumes, and how she surprised them all by sewing on real beads. ...Wow.
Then abruptly she comes to end. Without any kind of finality. No concluding statement. Nothing like "Overall it was great learning experience." Not even the less effective "...so that was cool." She just stopped.
This is where my human observation took over, and where I realized I was doing it.
She finishes talking and then looks at me as if it's my turn to talk on and on for a while. My first thought is; if you want to know something ask me. I'm not just going to yack on and on to hear myself talk. You want to converse with me, then converse with me.
I give her a second to make an attempt, but it's clear she has no idea what to do next. So, I went back to watching the movie to see if she'd try to pull my attention back from it. A sort of social experiment, with her as test group. After a few minutes of silence that were clearly awkward for her, she got up to leave. She announced that she had another group of friends getting together tonight down the street, and she didn't really know many people at this party. And with that she was gone.
I couldn't help but feel a little bad for her. I mean, I suppose my little social experiment probably alienated her, but, I didn't feel bad for too long. If she really wanted to have a conversation with me she could've tried a little harder to include me. Or tried at all, in fact.
How many successful conversations with strangers have any of you had that began with one party rambling on and on about themselves, and then asking nothing of the other? It leaves the second party pretty disinterested, doesn't it? It might have been exactly that disinterest that provoked me to mess with her head to see what she'd do.
In the end I had a great time, and after my new friend left I turned off observation mode and had a great time chatting with two great couples. One of which I may be seeing tomorrow at the Phoenix Comic Con. Who knew we even had a comic con here? I did not. It's six bucks admission. Not bad.
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