Yesterday I took myself to the DSO and loved it. It was an Arabian ‘oud ensemble that sounded like paisley looks. I sat four rows from the stage and fell in love with the stand up bass player. I think we had a thing. Perhaps I will run in to him some day at an oudoor market in Istanbul.
“Detroit…two-thousand-eight…it’s you…”
“I knew you’d never forget me,” I’ll say, and then we will immediately marry and have four adorable and musicially prodigious brilliant children who travel the world with us.
After the concert was over I was thrust back into the real world, without my stand-up bass player. But I did have my leather boots, which make good companions. Leaving Orchestra Hall to step out into nearly deserted Detroit on a gorgeous fall Sunday afternoon is quite an experience in juxtaposition. I drove towards the river, noticing that Starbucks had pulled out of downtown since I was last there and that the Guardian Building is still as indulgently golden as any temple to industry could be, in spite of, or perhaps as a result of, its dire surroundings. On the other side of Hart Plaza the new Canadian casinos loomed in their grotesque vulgarity, looking remarkably like monster packs of Kool cigarettes. Ew.
I got back on the highway, but had to pull off on Middlebelt for gas. Daydreaming in the driver’s seat, I let the pump overflow. I ran into the gas station in full alarm mode, much to the consternation of the attendant. He was nice about it, though, enduring my need to be assured that I would not be engulfed in a giant fireball as soon as I turned the key in the ignition, and he did compliment me on my footwear as I left.
“Nice boots” could have been the last thing I ever heard from any human being on this earth. Thankfully, no combustion occured, and I and my boots still exist.
I woke up today feeling absolutely exhausted by the prospect of ever dating anyone ever again. Conducting fantasy domestic lives with blue-eyed classical bass players is much more rewarding than actually participating in the real thing, if only in light of the absolute truth that make-believe relationships cannot break one’s heart. (“Only love can break your heart,” as Neil Young sang. I could never figure out whether this was lament or rejoicing. Perhaps it is both.)
I decided that, although I’ve spent a year in abhorrence of an impending spinsterhood, perhaps being like Miss Havisham is not so bad after all.
