"Don't you think that idea is a little half-baked?" "Oh no, Dad, it's completely baked. "
I was ten minutes late to class today. I actually left my house early, but I was spacing out on the metro and realized where I was just as we hit
Oberkampf, and *completely* forgot that I wasn't on my way to work, but on my way to French class, which means instead of transferring to line 5, I needed to be on line 4. When did I remember where I was headed? After I was already on line 5, so I ended up adding 7 or 8 metro stops to my route this morning. Pretty stupid of me, although I think it's kind of cool that I really *live* here - enough to be on auto-pilot on my commute. Of course, if I'm completely honest with myself, I'd have to admit that I'm pretty sure my lack of attention was due to thinking about, well... A 20-year-old. For pretty much ever, I've had hang-ups about age. In high school, I had a crush on a friend (the
one who took me to prom) who is four months younger than me, and that always bothered me. And my sister married a guy three years younger than her, for which I've pretty much always mocked her. But now? A
20-year-old. Hot one, at that.
We hung out on Monday during the day for the first time by ourselves under the pretense of language practice. It really *was* good practice because he doesn't really speak English at all, so I can't be lazy and break into English for more complicated ideas. I think he maybe didn't think I saw through the ruse, which I find kind of cute. Monday night he was reluctant to leave when I had to leave for previous plans, he called me just as I was walking in the door three hours later, and he was disappointed to find out that I'm overly booked this week (that
dance, which we're now performing at a wedding too - what ever possessed me to start being supportive?). Honestly, the whole thing is quite flattering, and perhaps more than that, as apparently I'm finding myself daydreaming too much to actually, you know, pay attention to where I'm going.
Ever since I could tell that the 20-year-old was interested, I've wanted to talk to
Marky Mark, because, well, he's good with boy issues and gives me good advice free from
parti pris. The time zone issue got in the way of that until late Monday night after the phone call, which was kind of too late. I'd been hoping to get
Marky's opinion prior to what turned out to be, um, a first date, but after the fact wasn't awful either. He gave me absolution. I still can't help but think about the age thing (gee, I'm sure that's not obvious at all), but I'm determined to quit worrying about things that really aren't important. Maturity and similar life stages - things like that matter. Numbers? Don't. At least that's what I keep telling myself. And
Marky thinks it's fine, so... I'm trying to embrace the fact that I'm kind of excited to hang out with him again.
Moment of the evening: was telling English neighbor Harold about it (part of our ongoing "
Zannah dates like a guy" conversation) as we were about to start our movie selection (we're doing the Movies I Own That He's Never Seen series), when we realized the irony of what we were about to watch:
The Graduate.
