Flight of the Wingman

Last night I was settled into my recliner, happily watching my recently purchased copy of Reservoir Dogs when I was called by a friend. She had been looking for someone to go out to see a band, and since nobody else would go I got the call.

As I mentioned, I was pretty much resigned to watching a movie then going to bed. The prospect of getting up, changing back in to decent clothes and going to a bar to watch a band I've never heard of was, how shall I put it, less-than-appealing. However, since my only excuse was that I just didn't want to I agreed. We negotiated a 'to-be-home-by' time of 11:30 and I started to get ready.

The bar was in Great Barrington (I think, all of the towns around here blend together) and I think I was there once a number of years ago. After waiting 10 minutes for my diet Coke and her cranberry juice and club soda, we grabbed a table to wait for the band to start. The bar wasn't busy - at all - the bartender just sucked. She was certainly easy on the eyes, but soooo slllooowwwww. After being introduced to the band members, I was informed that there was an alternate agenda for this trip. She was trying to get a little thing going with one of the members and needed a wingman. "AAAHHHHH" I thought to myself, now it all makes sense.

Now, I'm a natural wingman in the most basic sense of the term. I'm not going to "take one for the team" just to help someone out, but I'm good at chatting people up when there's no chance of it going any further. I can talk to almost anyone about almost anything and get people to be comfortable. Closing is not my forte, but I'm good at everything leading up to it. I'm also good at identifying what other people should be doing, or should have done.

Last night was a difficult job because I am a guy and she was trying to hook up with a guy. Obviously he was going to be hesitant about chatting her up with me there, so I tried to make it known that we were just friends while maintaining the fragile image of my own heterosexuality in case anyone from that huge unapproachable group of girls might be interested. I had to put out the vibe that while I like girls, I'm not interested in this one. And even though I'm not interested, there's no reason that someone else shouldn't be.

Contrary to my fears, the band was really pretty good. Not your average loud-as-hell jam band playing either folk songs or popular cover songs, this band consisted of two guitarists and a bass player. They did mostly covers, but of bands like Dave Matthews Band, Pink Floyd, a little Pearl Jam (probably for the people who need to recognize a song) and then their own songs sprinkled in. Even the covers had a little funky twist to them; I liked their style. I'm currently going through another one of my DMB phases, so covering a bunch of their songs won some brownie points. Plus, I guess the trip was a success as far as the alternate motive went. I'm not going to give any details because it's not me and there aren't really any details to give. Good luck, N.

So I ended up getting to bed closer to 1:30, which made the likelihood of me getting up to run at 6:30 pretty slim. Slim indeed, I killed my alarm and let myself sleep all the way until 8:30. WHOOOO! Of course that sleep was riddled with bad dream after bad dream, so it wasn't exactly restful. I hate bad dreams, even if there's something to be learned from them. These I don't quite understand, but I'll work on them today.

Speaking of today, the weather here is so sucky. It's August for Christ's sake, why is it cold and dreary? And why is it cold and dreary for days and days on end? I don't want to start shutting the windows but when it isn't getting above 60 during the day I'm going to have to. The Lord knows I won't turn on the heat until November, so the less I have to suffer, the better.

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