"This movie represents your brain," Hayden said, as we watched a terrified looking Olivia Newton and an overly excited Michael Beck dance in the cheesy, futuristic costumes to the sound of an Coleridge's musical acid trip.
The Bottletree was no more packed than usual with hipsters in their thirty somethings ordering Pabst. No matter how much it tastes like piss-- and it does-- they would drink it for the sheer fact that it is Pabst, and it their quintessential hipster juice.
One could only hope the bands didn't suck enough to kill their buzz. I'm not sure if I had started drinking yet or not, but I could tell Hayden was woefully unimpressed. We started playing Connect Four.
This is my life: surrounded by ancient hipsters watching Xanadu, engaged in a game of Connect Four. While drinking.
Here are the facts.
I'm awkward. Not like cute, Zooey Deschnale awkward. Not the kind of awkward guys find adorable and want to bang because hey being adorkable is the new Paris Hilton (no one wants to be reminded that was a thing. It was.)
I'm more like Dwight Schrute. I make people feel uncomfortable. There's even a family resemblance.
Case in point.
So if the whole playing Connect Four at a bar thing is like a laughable episode of comedic awkward-girl movement, it's not. It's only because I was too sober and too weird and probably just too inclined to talk about immigration in the South to go up to the bar and have a conversation.
This happens a lot more than I care to admit.
Like This One Time at St. Simon's
"I just think that Ayn Rand's views Objectivism aren't necessarily absolute truth, I just think kids are too over privileged and they feel entitled to everything. Your hair feels like a lion's mane."
This was when me and Courtney met a male stripper at the beach. He was 40. He primary job was a tennis instructor, but all I remember is he looked like a less saggy version of McJagger.
There Was Also The Time at New York On My 21st Birthday.
"If you know McDonald's started selling asparagus instead of fries, people would probably eat the asparagus, but McDonald's don't want to pay extra. Potatoes are cheaper. It costs extra to be healthy. That's why people are fat. It's too expensive."
Me, hitting on the really hot bartender in NY. I wrote on a napkin my name and number.
It is now the Napkin of Shame, and can be found in the recesses of my purse.
And Then There Was The Last Date I Went On.
"... and so all these immigrants are fleeing the tomato farms because they're too scared to live in Alabama. Meanwhile, all these unemployed people won't go into the fields and pick tomatoes because they'll lose their welfare checks."
This was after my third margarita, on a date with a boy who could've passed as twelve.
The Problem Is This.
The truth is, I'm not really THAT smart. I'm just relatively above average, and have a wide enough vocabulary to impress some people.
My life is just a series of misadventures. Most of them sexual. That's why I was at The Bottletree, with Hayden who eventually started talking in an Irish accent, chatting up a guy who wanted to make films around the Birmingham area. He worked at Nabeel's.
All I wanted to say to him was, Your life is a sad cliche, my friend, of some person with unrealistic dreams working a part time job. There's nothing new about you, thousands of people have lived your life, and ten of them made something of themselves.
I didn't say that. Instead, I got his number, became extremely angry when he didn't respond, and when we DID go on a date, was bored with him immediately.
"What do you think of me?" I shouted over the noise of J Clyde. "Do you want this to progress at all?"
Not something you would ask anyone, ever. Not a question you pose to someone making you pay for the sweet potato fries.
But I had to know.
He replied, "I don't really care."
My name is Mary Early.
The only thing that has ever made sense to me was mashing the A button frantically, trying to launch a Nintendo game character off the screen. Having a clear, concise goal. Enjoying the thrill.
Being an adult, I am still frantically hitting the A button, waiting for something to happen.
But the game has changed.
Unfortunately, I haven't.
Game on, life.
MELEE!
