charlotte harris

I peered around at him and flashed my friendliest smile.  I could hear him back there being goofy and humming not-quite-along-with the radio, and I thought I might like to talk to someone silly like that.

When he emerged from behind the coffee machine, I grinned and said “I like your little coffee making song.”

I didn’t even stand a chance.  Because beneath the din of the espresso maker and the radio overhead, he only heard what sounded like ”why is my coffee taking so long.” 

He must have some experience dealing with hurried people like that (not like me!) every day, because despite the fact that he thought I had just complained about slow service, he smiled a gorgeous smile and explained to me in depth and detail that brewing espresso and steaming milk is akin to preparing a filet mignon dinner.  An artful process that deserves taking the extra time.  His description of cooking the steak to perfection was vivid, passionate, seductive even, the image complete with a side of steamed asparagus and a bottle of wine.

I said “wow, I have never heard coffee described quite like that.”  He laughed.  I asked him where in that little strip mall was he going to get said filet?  “I’m going to cook it myself, tonight,” he replied, “complete with that bottle of wine.” 

Now I don’t even eat steak, but by the time he was finished with his titillating narrative, I nearly asked him if I could skip school that night and join him for dinner.  *sigh*  Instead I took my latte, wished him a magnificent meal, left with a smile, and headed off to class. 

The line to get into Keane snaked around the block of the 9:30 club, eager fans waiting single file with a brick wall to their right and two idling tour buses on their left.  As my date and I walked by on our way towards the end of the line, we choked on the heat of the buses being trapped by the brick wall, creating what felt like a giant convection oven. 

“Let’s walk a little,” I said, and got a big “YES!” in return.  We didn’t even need to discuss and agree that standing there in line was a bad move, and we just kept on walking.  We continued on just another block up to Howard University Hospital where we planted ourselves on a stone bench in the courtyard and chatted there for an hour.  Shortly after 8, we mosied back over to the club and walked right in.  No line, no hot and stinky tour bus fumes. 

We’re too old to be fanatics… who cares if we see Keane from the front of the crowd or the back of the club.  As long as we can hear them, I’m happy.  And as a veteran 9:30 clubgoer, I know there’s not a bad “seat” in the house for that.  But I do remember the days when I just absolutely had to be up in the front at every show. 

If it was a general admission venue, I’d endure the mosh pits and the drunken crowds, elbows coming at me and sweaty bodies pressing up against mine.  If it was an assigned seating show, I’d be desperate to get the absolute best seats that my money could buy.  I was hooked after my first rock concert when for my 14th birthday, a few friends and I went up to SUNY Stonybrook to see Love and Rockets.  Jane’s Addiction opened for them that night but we didn’t “know” them yet, and we wouldn’t hear of them again until WLIR started airing Jane Says. 

My friends and I started going to all the “new wave” concerts.  On that first day every spring, when Jones Beach Ampitheater would put their tickets on sale for the season, someone’s mom would drop us all off at the Sunrise Mall to wait in the Ticketmaster line, or we’d wake up Saturday morning and dial like mad as soon as the lines opened up at 10am.  Defeated by busy signals for hours straight, panicking at the thought that I might not snag those Cure tickets which of course meant I might never marry my true love Robert Smith… I always got tickets eventually.  Depeche Mode, The Cure, PIL, Howard Jones, Smithereens, Erasure, and countless other 80’s alternative pop bands. 

Over the years I have appreciated just about every genre of music.  If it’s live I love it.  I save my ticket stubs and tuck them into my CD cases.  My CD wallet is a scrapbook of sorts.  I can flip through and remember that Widespread Panic show at Merriweather when a powerful cool breeze blew through at the exact moment that one jam reached its climax.  Or the moe. show at the Bayou when I fell asleep.  Unlike the moe. show at Wolf Trap when I danced all night, probably looking alot like Elaine Bennis, but I don’t care.   At a midnight De La Soul show at the Ritz, I was the only white girl pressed up against the stage and I recited every lyric of Buddy along with Posdnuos and about fainted when Q-Tip joined them on stage for a guest appearance.   Or when I saw Galactic at Wolf Trap for the first time, and didn’t yet know that it would hardly be the last.

I find myself at shows less often these days.  Time is a factor, and not so many eager companions.  I don’t mind heading out alone, but it’s not quite as fun, and sometimes probably not the safest idea for a single gal to be traipsing around certain parts of DC alone.  So I kinda save it for when I really mean it, when I really like the band. 

Like the Keane show.  It was awesome.  Keane blew my mind.  Tom’s gorgeous voice and Tim’s keyboard genius and all their amazing energy had me hanging on every lyric and every note.  I’m ready for the next show…

10.  Feelin’ great after I ran twice, biked twice, and swam twice this weekend.

9.  Judging an impromptu ”crab claw beauty pageant” at dinner Sunday.  There were two of us and three claws to pick from.  “I find beauty in the imperfections, so I choose the chipped claw.”  And improvising “lolclaws” based on my recent lolcats obsession.  (I think Doug may be the only one reading who knows what the heck this all means.)

8.  Finding the perfect LBD (little black dress) for my upcoming date Tuesday night.  It’s gonna go great with my sexy red satin pumps with the innocent little bows.

7.  Handsome neighbor “Charlie” telling me “you always look pretty, even after a workout.”  Oh why must he tease me so. 

6.  Finding out the reason I felt so sluggish on my bike today is not all me, rather my brakes were knocked out of adjustment and rubbing in the front.  Thanks Bicycle Outfitters!

5.  Many athletic-looking men in spandex riding their bikes on the W&OD.  And maybe it’s just me but the guys who wear those yellow-ish goggles too are my favorites.  I am dead serious.  But what are those goggles anyway?

4.  Flavor of the day: Cake Batter ice cream at Milwaukee Frozen Custard.  Just stop making the other flavors now.  There’s no need for them, now that “cake batter” is on the scene.

3.  A laid back first date Saturday night with a funny guy who also seems to be a decent human.  Would say more but we all know how superstitious I am. 

2.  Buying lotsa new summer clothes, everything in a comfortable size 4.

1.  Rocking my niece back to sleep Friday night.  Her tear-streaked face buried in my shoulder, we were both too warm, but every time I thought she was asleep enough to try and shift my weight or put her in her bed, she’s just wrap her little leggies tighter around me… awwwwww ‘lil heat miser.

Drove there with the windows off the Jeep.  On a 92 degree day.  I arrived with crazy person hair, purple cheeks, and a damp back.  Sexy.

Busted out singing (loudly) “Get Down Tonight” by KC and the Sunshine band.  In public, at the Tidal Basin.  I have no excuse - there was no alcohol involved.  He was a good sport and started dancing along.

Blurted out “I’ll get you home and get you into bed.”  Taken out of context, of course.   I was teased mercilessly for the rest of the evening.  

Well, I must not have completely scared him off, because he agreed to be my date for the Keane Concert on Tuesday. 

Wednesday night at school, handing in an informal handwritten survey of the pros and cons of the class:

Me:  Do I have to put my name on this?

Professor Sexy:  No, if everyone else puts their name on theirs, I’ll know the one without a name is Charlotte’s.

Me:  Or you’ll know it’s mine by the girly handwriting.

Classmate:  Whaaaatt?

Me:  Well I am the only girl in this class!

(pause)

Me:  Either that or he’ll know because I dotted all my I’s with little hearts.

Professor Sexy:  (laughing) Oh I don’t know if you should be doing that.

Classmate:  Yeah, I’ll be really pissed if you’re the only one who ends up with an “A”

… he shouted, as I passed him on the left. 

He had been watching me in his “side view mirror” as I approached him from behind.  He knew a girly girl was riding up on him, me with my peach spandex tank top and hot pink handlebars, and he watched me carefully, waiting for just the right moment to yell out. 

I watched him watch me, and then I warned ”On your left,” as I detoured a wide path around him and flew by.  That’s when he shouted back, “girls aren’t supposed to pass boys!!”

“Girls aren’t supposed to pass boys?”  I guess I should have stopped to let him tug my pigtails and snap my bra strap too, but I was focused on ”chasing” a large, long haired, tattooed man on a road bike.  

I hung back far enough to keep pace without him even knowing I was doing so, but his bright orange jersey was so easy to follow from a distance.  He was my target - I imagined a game of hot pursuit to keep myself hustling down the path.  I lost him around MM 25, but I did pass several boys on my ride.

I definitely gag a little when I accidentally open a FW: or stumble across a website and find myself staring at some cute ‘lil puppies n’ ice cream picture or strange babies dressed up like bumblebees, or a poem about how my friendship is ”like a rose.”  Oh I loathe the (unoriginal) warm n’ fuzzies. 
Which is why I can’t understand my recent addiction to lolcats.  I mean ADDICTED.  I am not alone.  Peepz ev’rywhere iz checkin out lolcats n writin boutz dem.

And im in mai blog sharin sum kittiez.

I had to explain to someone today that I don’t have a home phone.  No land line.  Just my celly.  By choice.  It reminded me of a time several years ago, when this was NOT so commonplace, when I was temporarily without a land line, and it led my mom to wonder if I was homeless.

One spring, I moved out of the group house where I was living and into an apartment with two girlfriends.  In the craziness of the move I was often unreachable because I was busy shuttling all my crap from the house to the apartment, one carload at a time, in a tiny Honda Civic coupe. 

In all the excitement, none of us new roomies quite remembered to call Verizon to get the land line hooked up.  My cell phone (which at that time in my life was for emergencies only and therefore usually dead in my glove box) did not get reception inside the new apartment. 

My mom could never reach me.  She kept asking me for my new address and I seriously couldn’t remember it.  I knew where I lived, but I couldn’t have told anyone else where I lived!  Memorizing a new zip code is hard!! 

I didn’t have a job with external email, and personal phone calls there were a no-no.  Neither my folks nor I even had internet access at home yet either.  This was 1997, people, so the low tech lifestyle was not so strange. 

Mom couldn’t call me because of the whole had no-phone-service-at-the-apartment-yet thing.  I’d call her occasionally from my glove box cell phone, but I’d always be calling from the parking lot of my apartment complex, sitting out in a reception hot spot on a curb in the noisy neighborhood, and I could only talk for a second, ’cause that big old battery was running low. 

Finally during one of those conversations when I told her I still didn’t have my address memorized, my mom asked with a little smirk in her voice, “Charlotte are you sure you have a place to live?”  Did Mom wonder if I might be homeless and hiding it from her?  I don’t think she really believed that, but it was her motherly duty to ask, just to be sure. 

So I don’t need/want/have a land line, but I bet nobody I tell that to these days will think it’s ’cause I’m homeless! 

As the professor lectured, I was obsessively thinking up mnemonic devices to help me quickly memorize the endless lists he was projecting on the screen.  Other students were highlighting in their lecture notes to go back and study later.  Me?  No time to study later - I just I want to memorize it now and then forget it forever after the final exam.

I remember some of the crazy ways I have memorized material, and I know that for the rest of my life I will never forget our first ten Presidents and their political parties because of this ridonkulous “rap” that some classmates and I came up with in study hall many years ago.

WAJMMAJVHT. Fed Fed Dem-Rep Dem-Rep Dem-Rep Dem-Rep Dem Dem Whig Whig. 

I can’t convey the rhythm of this rap, or exactly how I pronounce the “J” sounds, but trust me, it’s catchy.  Now if only I had used a clever device to remember what a Whig was.  Hrmmm?

So Newt only said the word “God” twice.  Or at least I decided not to count past two because I could tell he was behaving himself. 

And I kinda liked it when he called Mary Washington the “grandmother of our country.”  After all, she was the mother of the “father of our country,” George.

His commencement address centered around what he called the “truths of citizenship” and the “truths of life.”  He began by reminding the graduates that they have an obligation to pursue happiness because it is written in the Declaration of Independence.  He advised that one must follow these five simple rules in order to pursue happiness:

1.  Dream big

2.  Work hard for your dreams

3.  Learn the dream.  Learn as you live and work.

4.  Enjoy Life.

5.  Be true to yourself.  “Be true to yourself because that’s the only way to be true to America.”

This man is by no stretch a motivational speaker (He is no Oprah at Howard University’s ceremony!), but he did strike a nerve with me when he concluded that “great free societies are made up of individuals who are living their lives fully.”  Nicely put, Newt.  I think the “grandmother of our country” would agree.

Thanks WaPo Express for the BlogLog nod!