Family History - The Devin + ickgirl Saga
Date Friday, March 29, 2024 - 08:41 AM PST
Topic Tales From the Ick!


Saturday, October 30, 1999, after finally succumbing to the manipulative yet sweet coaxing of our very own Devin, I agreed to meet him for coffee. A big risk to an isolated girl with low self esteem. We agreed on a time and a place and I was left with 12-16 hours of feeling uneasy about meeting someone who at best might think I'm an ugly cow, or at worst chop me into bits.
Sitting in the sun outside the café, staring at words in The Stranger, but not really reading, I keep eyeing the door. I love/hate times like these, when I'm freakishly aware of blinking, of my fingers and toes, of every itch, every hair, every cell. What the hell am I doing here? There was just something about this stranger, this stranger who tells me everyone thinks he's scary that wasn't very...scary. Of course, that could just be his way of playing with my mind, maybe he IS scary.

I start thinking about being hacked to bits once again and sigh deeply. I don't think I was wearing a watch that day, if I was I'm sure I was glancing at it frequently by this point. Seems I've been sitting here awhile and the only sign of a long haired boy was the one who almost slammed into me while I was tying my boot. Maybe that was him? What an asshole.

At times like these I sometimes think it would be so much more convenient to be a smoker. What else is there do while nervously waiting for someone? Smoking would give me something to do. Make me appear relaxed perhaps. I can't believe tomorrow is Halloween; it's too warm and sunny on a Seattle afternoon to be late October. I wander just inside the café and sit upon a bench near the front. Near the payphone. Of course, I'm meeting a stranger so I can't pick up the phone and make a simple call. "Where are you? Did you forget about me? Am I so forgettable?"

Nervous tension turns into irritation turns into embarrassment. Maybe he was here but he quietly left after seeing me sitting here. Embarrassment turns to an uneasy FUCK YOU and I wander back into the sun and begin my journey downtown.

Back home in my messy loft, greeted by Piggy, my wildly squealing guinea pig, I plop down in front of my computer.

Words immediately flash on the screen.

"I knew you weren't real"

The intense reaction of wanting to do nothing but reassure him that I was indeed at the coffee shop was quickly superceded by the leftover FUCK YOU feelings which coaxed me to the street. I have only talked with this person a few weeks, and only online. Still, I knew enough to understand that he wouldn't believe me, and why.

"If you're real then come over here tomorrow, come to the island."

Never dreaming I'd say yes - I did.

I'd been nervous to meet this person, this stranger, in a coffee shop in the city and now I find myself agreeing to take a ferry across the Sound to a barely inhabited island to meet with him face to face. Please. Nobody tell my mother.

(And thus the saga begins - Will I go to the island? Will HE show up? Will I be covered in grass stains? Will I get hacked to bits? Stay tuned for next time.)

Here is Part II
This article comes from Shmeng
http://www.shmeng.com/

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