National Poetry Month (Long Lost) Disasterpiece

 

Poet Seeks Match

You’d think as a poet that words would magically flow as poetically from my mouth as they do onto the page. This is not the case. If they did, I’d be like my player friend Steve who rarely sleeps alone at night. Yes, words do flow easily out of my pen, but I work them over, and over, and over again till they are just right. Underneath it all I am a geek. My day job, working with debits, credits, accounts, and computers is the big give away. That and the massive amount of time spent playing video games, Dungeons & Dragons, going to metal shows (Slayer!), and reading Marvel comics are other indicators of my geekish nature. In social situations I, more often than not, say the wrong things and sound like a complete moron.

My resume is another example of my writing expertise. I’ve had many employment experts tell me that it is an impressive looking document, even more so, when it is viewed in its electronic form. Information can be placed and tailored into specially designated blocks or data cells so that everything will line up perfectly on the page. But in interview situations I fail miserably, because I come off as two different people. I wonder if the Centralized Audio Processor Disorder is also a contributing factor. What I hear you say and what you actually are often two different things. For example, a person might say, "What shift are you interested in?" This is what I might hear, "What shit are you interested in?" I'd give the person a puzzled look and a pardon me could you please repeat your question, they would repeat the question and I would hear the same shit all over again. At which point, not wanting to appear moronic or slow of mind I would answer the question about the shit and reveal my retarded nature. I prefer to communicate in print. At least then, what is communicated is clear, usually.

Reluctantly, I paid the $29.69 fee, created a simple online profile – poet seeks match – attached the j-peg I took of myself last summer at Newport Beach, in Oregon, with a disposable camera and clicked the finish button.

The next day, to my surprise, after the e-check actually cleared, I received the first bulletin of all the up coming February events whereby I could meet someone who, like me, was similarly socially disposed. This one caught my attention.

“February 10, 2007 – Groovy 

Event with Great Expectations:

Come to a small causal 60+ luncheon, 

high noon at the Royal Hotel 

Plaza. Come early, seats are limited 

to 30 people.”

‘Hey,’ I thought, ‘the Royal Hotel, that’s just a few blocks away and 60+ people too! That’s approximately one person a minute for about an hour. Speed dating at its best.’

When I arrived at the Royal Plaza at 11:40 Saturday morning in a gold and green pin-stripped wide leisure suit (that the thrift store clerk said complimented my great shock of red hair), white patent-leather bowling shoes, red socks, and my hair slicked back with greasy-goo, my expectations were not so great. I realized—as I assisted a group of frail elderly people, ranging from sixty-two to eighty-nine, with the heavy glass door—that I was at the wrong event.

Hopefully, the pre-Valentine tea on Tuesday, February 13^th at the Cowgirl’s Cafe will prove to be more fruitful.


     ---February 2007