okay - guess what i found when i opened my (snail) mail box today? two free tickets for the suzanne vega concert on wednesday! i had participated in a sweepstakes weeks ago and had all forgotten about it. but apparently i won! the first time *ever* in my life i won anything. except for my m.a. title. and since i of course already had a ticket, i immediately called jodie and asked her whether she wanted to come, too. the other ticket i gave to sharon. later i had a bad conscience because i realized that i should have asked thomas first whether he wanted to have the spare ticket. since he had been to that one sv-concert like three years ago he's a huge fan.
so about last night : actually jasmin and i wanted to meet @ a café and have a coffee. i was already almost out of the house when she called me. she sounded a little confused.
"what's the time?" she mumbled, and her voice was sleepy and had an intimate out-of-bed quality.
"ten to five" i answered "i was just about to drive off."
"hm, would you mind coming over to my place instead of meeting at the café? my son forgot his key and now i have to stay home and wait for him to return. but give me ten more minutes, i overslept and i need to jump under the shower."
so twenty minutes later i was standing in front of her incredible town house right at the mediapark, which is a new business and entertainment complex they have built in 2000. i had to enter through a wild and overgrown garden and inside two cats greeted me and rubbed themselves at my leg.
"oh, that's unusual!" jasmin said "normally they're very shy and don't get near strangers."
the place was great : it was a wild mixture of antique chest of drawers, 70s lampshades and modern, abstract art. there was a kitschy mother mary framed on the desk and just the right amount of general disorder that signals that people are actually *living* in these rooms. the answering machine kept blinking '65 messages. 65 messages. 65 messages'.
"we have to drink some champagne!" she said before i could even put down my bag.
"that's right!" i said and pulled out the bottle i had brought. when i turned around she stood in front of me, holding a bottle as well : the exact same brand. we started laughing.
"mine is the official 'the jerk has passed latin' champagne! what is yours?" i asked her.
"mine is 'wednesday was my birthday' champagne!"
"oh fuck!" i shouted out "i totally forgot! i bet you told me, but i totally forgot!"
"never mind!" she said. "which one first?"
"the one that's cooler!"
she felt both bottles, decided for one, took two glasses and said:
"do you mind if we sit outside by the pond?"
so we went through her garden and to the pond, which is not the big mediapark lake but a smaller, more separate one that had a big willow hanging into the water and 90% of the surface was covered by water lilies. there was a little wall on one side of it where we sat down, literally ten feet away from her garden, with out feet almost dangling in the water. jasmin opened the champagne, filled the glasses to the brim and was blinking into the evening sun when she raised hers and said:
"cheers. to our future!" that's her standard toast.
we were sitting on that wall for five hours. after we had emptied the first bottle she got the second one, brought some nachos and dip, and we were munching and talking. and there were a number of times when i very consciously thought: "what a very, very attractive woman!" even though i was aware that we're not in for the romantic adventure of our lives because she kept talking about her ex-boyfriend who had just messaged her the other day and i was telling her about my ex-gfs.
after the sun had sunk, a figure appeared out of the dark, said "hi!" and graped the nacho-bag. it was her 15 year old son. they argued half-seriously for a couple of minutes and then he went inside and i figured it would be best to leave. i can't believe that i drank an entire bottle of champagne!
when i got home i was a little woozy and (and i might as well tell you because it's no secret that i'm a dumbass) i texted jasmin, thanking her for the lovely evening and telling her that i might have done something that was far more embarrassing than even this message if her son hadn't come home. i know, i know. technically it isn't possible to do anything more embarrassing than the message. but i was dizzy and really, if there had been a chance i might have made a pass at her. after i had sent it off i slowly started to realize what i had done, and that this had been a really stupid thing because it signaled a kind of serious interest that was really not grounded on my part!
then i logged on to msn and chatted with alice while simultaneously marla - who is in the states for an internship - started to chat with me as well, jodie sent a text message asking where i was and if i wanted to come down to the café and jasmin answered to my pathetic display of social incompetence. for a second i was completely overwhelmed. and then i was relieved because jasmin wrote that she enjoyed the evening as well but that i knew "where she is standing" and so on and i went: 'phew!' - i had only outed myself as an utter moron again, but not worse.
added another 1.5 pages to the conclusion.
