2001-06-08 - 12:26 a.m.

playin poker with my heart

it's late and i should go to bed, but i just have to write. i just got home a bit ago from jo3's place. he and i and M were practicing for our little open-mike outing on monday. let me just say, wow can M sing. holy crap she's got a serious set of pipes.

the song we're doing is going to sound pretty good, with jo3 and M singing and some cool harmony parts in there. me, i'm just the second guitar. i suppose in some ways the song would be as good without the second guitar. to put it another way, i wonder if people will think i'm the pity member of the outfit, you know, like linda mcCartney in wings. but it aint about personal glory, it's about music, and no matter how small a part, i'm still a part of making it. it'll be good to just get up on a stage and get more comfortable with that whole thing.

the real topic i want to address tonight (boy that sounds serious) is something that came up in conversation before we started playing.

somehow jo3 mentioned K and he was going through the whole long sordid story. how K was engaged to Ed and then Ed go waylaid by argentine woman and jo3 and K were together and several other tangents. at the end of it M said to me "now you're going to say that you dated K".

of course sadly the answer is no. i had never before told jo3 that i had been interested in K, though knowing me as he does, it should not have come as any kind of surprise.

i told M that i had thought about it but never gotten to the point where i was ready to take the whole friendship thing (which turned out to be so valuable right? shut up SmogMonkey) and put it in the pot and say "i'm all in, you wanna date? i gotta pair of two what do you have?"

it continued on in that vein for a bit, but i'm kinda fuzzy on details (and i was the only one of us three *not* drinking -- weird) and then jo3 tells me that K has gotten rid of her latest boy, and is currently footloose and fancy free.

M immediately says i should ask her out, what have i got to lose.

once i got past my instinctive "of course i shouldn't, she'd never want to date me" reaction, i started thinking, well, maybe i should. what do i have to lose?

i mean really, i have seen K maybe twice in the past year. it's not like we have some really close, active friendship going on. would it really kill me not to ever see her again? i don't like to answer this way, but no it really wouldn't. i know i could live without her in my life, because for all intents and purposes, i already do.

what do i stand to gain?

well, it has been a bit since we've hung out, and people can change, but i really dig her. still. i always did. from the very first moment i met her (which i can still remember). i dig her. in a probably unhealthy way.

i know i'm the master of unrequited loves. i know i've carried more torches further than all the olympic torch bearers in the past twenty years.

i know this.

but for once in my life, i'd like to think that i could grab hold of one of those torches, and actually huck it into the waiting bonfire and set that puppy fer-gods-sake a-burning.

haven't i paid my dues?

don't i deserve at least one shot at happiness?

don't i owe it to myself to for once in my life throw all caution to the wind and just throw my heart out there on the chopping block, hand her a mallet and dare her to tenderize it a bit more?

you never know. she might actually reciprocate. stranger things have been known to happen.

i mean, richard simmons had his own tv show for the love of pete sampras.

the possibility, however infitesimal, does exist that i could date K and be happy.

sh! SmogMonkey, that was a preemptive sh. i've got a whole bag of sh over her with your name on it.

so there it is sports fans. you heard it here first. i think i'm going to give it a shot. i'm going to ask her out, and then i'm going to just lay it all on the line.

check back in a bit to see how i weasel my way out of this resolution.