A remix of a remix. Ozie's beautiful piano made me pull out some old words and wail them. This is my very first attempt at a song...I think it turned out well. Lyrics below.

You Were So Mysterious.

When we first met I liked you immediately because, here I was, this skinny little twerp just out of high school, and you were so … college. You were this swagger filled girl with dyed red hair and big funky sunglasses who ran around in jackets with homemade back patches exalting the virtues of 1920’s German arts movements. You were this fully formed figure of weirdness and I couldn’t even figure out how to shave my head properly. Plus, you had this whole androgyny thing going on and even though you would never admit it was intentional, I thought it was kinda hot.

In fact, the first time I saw you, I thought you were a boy. I did. And I was still attracted to you. And I didn’t know what that meant, but I figured, “Hey, it’s college.”

You can’t imagine how relieved I was when I saw you up close. But really, most of all, it was this – you were not at all nice. You were so mean, and wry, and full of piss and vinegar. It made me feel special that you liked me, and it played into the worst parts of my ego.

We spent 6 hours talking that night, sitting there on Halloween, in the god damned commons room. You liked me too, I could tell because you lied through your teeth about your interests, seemingly saying just about anything to keep the conversation going, even if it meant completely fabricating a deep knowledge of the local San Diego punk and Ska scene. You told me later that for the first two hours you hated my guts and thought that I was a complete fucking asshole, only later did you realize I was a complete fucking asshole who would pick up the phone at 4 AM when you were alone and needed help. All in all, it was the best Halloween I’d ever had.

A few days later I would take you out to the cliffs, to the spot where I usually went to smoke pot with my buddies. But tonight it would play the role of wouldbe lover’s lane. It was sunset and the tide was fantastic, this was the place I was supposed to make my move. I knew it and no doubt you did too. But, as I looked out of the horizon, I got scared. I really liked you, and I hadn’t even considered the possibility of rejection until this exact moment. So instead, we just stood out there, shivering in the cold until I awkwardly segued into our return to the dorms.

The next day I would take you out again and ask permission before I kissed you saying –

“You know, if this were a romantic comedy, this would be the part where I’d kiss you.”

“What’s to say it isn’t?”

And I felt like a virgin when our lips touched because my senses overwhelmed me and I completely forgot how it all works. I could barely stand, much less work my way through the base system with any level tact. And As I reached my hands up under your shirt, under the auspices of warming my chilled fingers, I was overjoyed to discover silky, soft skin of a delightful ivory palette and hips so carefully hidden under layers and layers of androgynous, ill-fitting clothing. We went back to my room that night. We had to be careful not to wake my roommate.

A few trepidation filled days later we would walk to the dinning commons and I would take your hand, you noted the gesture –

“I like holding your hand. I was walking along and I wanted to hold it, but I wasn’t sure if that was okay.”

“Of course it’s okay.”

-- I think we both understood the implied second half of this answer was, “I mean, how many times did you sleep in my bed this week?” But I also think both of us also understood that the reason I took your hand had nothing to do with the reason why it was socially acceptable to do so.

And as I got to know you, you peeled back the layers of disaffected armor and revealed a soft underbelly. You’d curl up next to me and nuzzle me, more like a kitten than the spitfire bitch you’d made yourself out to be.

Not long after this, and eight days after our first kiss, I would come up to your dorm room to pick you up for dinner and you would tell me an anecdote without realizing the implication –

“Oh my god, lemme tell you a story before we go. This girl in my anthro class said the weirdest thing to me today.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She said to stop smiling so much.”

“What?”

“She said that it was annoying because, ‘only two kinds of people smile like that; idiots, and idiots who think they’re in love.”

-- and then your eyes went wide and yo covered your mouth, as if you could shove the words back inside and simply chew them up. 

“But I didn’t, no wait, I didn’t mean it like th—“

 “Well, I have a question for you.”

“yeah?”

 “Do you want to go out some time…Because I think I love you too.”

And then I kissed you. And I should have taken it as a warning sign because it’s embarrassing to even write it down and doubly so to say out loud, but I did, in fact, already love you. The next weekend we went thrift store shopping so that we could fix up my wardrobe. before long we’d speak almost exclusively in-jokes and gibberish; feasts, and liquids, and buttermops, and lubsters, and Omani.