Monday was an interesting night. It was a roommate's 21st birthday so we went out for dinner and drinks, and then to a club. The night was Blue Mondays, an 80s darkwave night over in Hollywood. Come to think of it, the last and only other time I was there it was for another friend's 21st.
Straight off the bat one of the girls in the group gets approached by a guy who claims to be a TV scout. He asks if she'd be interested in stunt work, as she has great shoulders. (Which she does, it's true.) Next up, a girl in rave gear hits on me. A really, really tall girl. Tall enough that everyone thought she was actually a man. With a name like Scarlet Snow, one has to wonder. Anyway, she told me I was cute and I told her I was straight. Graceless, I know. We kept bumping into each other later that night, which was a little awkward.
We continued to drink and dance and drink and dance and request songs of the DJ. He had NO Cindi Lauper (outrageous!), but agreed to play some Madonna for us on account that I didn't think requesting The Wedding Present or XTC would win me any favors with my friends. For mentioning those two bands I got a high five and a "You're cool!" from the DJ, whose name I sadly cannot remember. Blame the $20 credit card minimum at the bar.
Now, all that dancing made me notice a shy, somewhat morose young man standing by the edge of the dancefloor. (Not a terribly uncommon sight at the kind of club that will play The Smiths.) When I tried to encourage him to dance with us he just said, "No English. Russian." What ensued was probably the most challenging, interesting discussion I've ever had. It was more like pictionary, really. Drunk, and with a thousand bar napkins, I attempted to explain that I study the ocean. For some reason I was convinced that he studied math or physics, and that is why he was here. I tried to communicate this by writing down physics equations... well, I could only remember one, really, that wound up being a hodge podge of f=ma and e=mc^2. I was scribbling f=mc^2 all over napkins when my friend, who took Russian for years in college but apparently didn't remember enough to translate for us, waltzes over to remind me that they use a different alphabet. Of course. I ask her if they have birthday cakes in Russia, and she says they do, so I scribble a cake with four candles and one with 5, printing "21" next to the second cake and point at our friend who is now of legal drinking age. I think he got it. Eventually it was concluded (I think) that he was from Odessa, Ukraine, was 29, and had come over here to just work. None of this may actually be true, as my drunk drawing skills are poor and may have lead to a string of miscommunication.
The next day, I get an e-mail from a TV scout from the Style Network, and I vaguely remember her complimenting me on my legwarmers the night before. I look at the e-mail... and it's for a makeover show. They want horrible dressers who are in extreme fashion ruts. Great. I call her back and tell her I don't normally dress in a sequin top, bike shorts, leg warmers, and sparkly blue shoes. Surprisingly, she is disappointed.
Anyway, that was Monday.
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