love song from a bird to a fish

in my ongoing quest to remain an outlier on the axis graph of coolness, i this evening arrived fashionably too late for a zine release party, or so i thought. at a pie shack, no less, which i had no difficulty discerning among its neighboring shops (it's the lighting, the lighting tells you every time) but was prevented from seeing clearly until the cross-traffic of a girl in skinny jeans and a guy on a skateboard had passed by. there was no one there who appeared to be interested in urban sustainable ecology, just assholes like me with their macbooks and little white earbuds. there was an earnest group towards the front of the establishment with for-here mugs and thoughtful expressions, but not a familiar face among them. my social anxiety being what it is - that is to say, a major and unassailable component of my personality - i passed by without inquiring. some pie might have hit the spot just then, but i settled for a veggie super burrito, which ranks slightly higher than pie on the suitable-for-dinner scale.

on my way home i was sauntering along in front of the symphony hall when over the sound of music emanating from my little white earbuds i heard screaming. really, really enthusiastic screaming. at first it appeared to be localized near a reddish glow at the corner of the library, but then it started heading towards me. it was then i encountered what is possibly the most fucked-up idea for a field trip, ever: not one, not three, but FIVE trolley-car open-air buses strung with christmas lights and filled to bursting with youth.

normally i hate the word "youth" but it appropriately conveys who these people were. often when we are on public transportation my SFL will poke me in the side and say, "are those kids in middle school?" pointing at a tight gaggle of them. usually i turn to look and then say sagely, as though i had some eighth sense about such things, "no, high school." alternately, "no, college." in this instance, with no SFL to ask me, i conducted the debate internally and my eighth sense screamed out: tenth grade.

nothing else on the street, not even the third drag queen of my short evening, could quite live up to that. the remainder of the walk home was decidedly boring, and i was overwarm because i am never going to learn to dress correctly for this climate. then of course when i got back into the apartment and checked my little invitation thingy, and by that i mean e-mail, i realized i had violated one of the first lessons of cool: nobody who is truly awesome does events on a weekend. the zine party in question is not till monday, unfortunately at a time when i will be listening to manuel kichi wong, my new favorite teacher, entertain a roomful of early childhood education students, so there will still be no pie for me, let alone the local honey and homemade goodies which were also promised. bummer dude.