Glog

The Date

It's 10:15pm. I'm home. Early night, right? Let me recount the evening for you:

6:30pm - Where the hell am I going? Oh yeah, Zen Grill. I better check on Mapquest how the hell to get there.

6:35pm - Stuck in traffic on the 101 South. F! this shit. The San Fernando Valley lies between me and Los Angeles. Why can't these valleyites go home and eat dinner, or go film porn somehwere? Time to reflect on life. Note to self: Women get angry when you open your mouth. Corrective action: keep your mouth the hell shut. I can do that.

7:00pm - Made it to the 405 South. My ticket out of the SFV. Yes!!

7:10pm- Stuck at Sunset BLVD on the 405 South. Damn you, UCLA extension!

7:25pm - There are two Wilshire exits, and the right two lanes consist of parkerd cars pondering which Wilshire exit they should take. They share these lanes with the people getting off Wilshire onto the 405. Idiots. In 5 mins, I'll be late. I'm never late. Well, first time for everything.

7:35pm - I'm late. My exit is only 500 ft in front of me. The guy next to me in a red chevy is giving me an evil look. Bastard. Cell phone hasn't rang yet - this is a good sign as Natalie probably hasn't herself reached the restaurant.

7:40pm - Burning rubber on Olympic towards Beverly Hills. Go Jetta, Go.

7:45pm - Parked and at restaurant door. Call Natalie - she's not here yet. Whew. What's this? There's a big red letter "B" in the window? A "B" rating?! In Beverly Hills? Lesley!!! Let me look at the menu. It's full of thai food. Damn, Natalie said she doesn't like Thai food. Great choice, G.

7:50pm - I see Natalie walking down the street. Or at least I think that's her. All white people look the same. Yup, it's her, she seems to recognize me. This is the first time we're seeing each other in person. She's tall and thin, long blonde hair and pale blue eyes, looking very pretty with a noticeably low buttoned white blouse and dark pants. I'm brown. I warn her about the B rating and the thai food on the menu, and how my stupid friend Lesley said this was a good place to eat. She said it's cool and we venture in.

7:55pm - We go to be seated. Off comes my coat. I catch Natalie looking me up and down. Hmmm, I guess that's to be expected. But yo, do it when I ain't looking. I ain't a piece of meat. I haven't even checked you out yet.

I remembered something - keep my mouth the hell shut. Hmmm, time to go on cruise control. Yo, waiter, beer me. Tsing Tao, please. Natalie orders a diet coke. Where was I? Oh yeah, cruise control. "Natalie, tell me everything about your job." Don't look at her breasts. She likes to talk. Good, I'm cruising.

Natalie graduated from Tulane in EE in 2000. She passed on her numerous job offers to go to film school at Florida State U, to study cinematography and sound. She now works at a production house and does the audio engineering (mixing and such) of foreign releases of DVDs. Her current project: Finding Nemo. Essentially what happens is that she receives dubs from various countries, and she has to mix the new voices in to match visual ques and the already established sound effects. She also has to accommodate for crappy dub recordings. For example, the Italians and the Chinese do bad work, like recording in a small bathroom with too much reverb. There's only so much eq-ing she can do to make these sound good. As for ques, she said the Dutch and Japanese are usually bang on and fit perfectly with the character's mouth movements. She's already mixed 20 languages on Finding Nemo. Her shifts are 11pm to 7am. She told me her dream is to one day sleep at night. This is her first meal of the day. I order a tofu steak, she has some kind of beef stir fry. My food is actually good.

I think her job sounds amazing. She seems to appreciate that I'm not part of "the industry". I appreciate that she's friendly and not jaded for a 25 year old.

9:30pm - Cheque comes, with two fortune cookies. My fortune: Someone close to you is concealing his affection for you. His affection for you? This is definitely not a good "in bed" fortune. Hers is good: You will be successful with anything you put your hands on. That's a great "in bed" fortune. I didn't bring up the "in bed" part because mine was so lousy and hers was too obvious. She doesn't seem to make eye contact with the bill. I guess I should look at it. I look it over. yeah, $30 with tip, I guess. Put out the visa. She still doesn't make eye contact with the cheque. Hey, that was easy. This is the first girl I've went out with that doesn't at least feign an attempt to pay, then acquiesce with ease a moment later. I was gonna pay anyway, but this was an interesting scenario for me.

9:40pm - Walking her back to her car. Time to open mouth. I told her we should go listen to jazz sometime and eat soul food in Inglewood (stuff she misses from the south). She seems to think that's a good idea. We approach her Taurus. How will this end? She starts the goodbye "Well, thank you" and steps toward me for a hug. I had my hands in my pockets (it was cold). Got them out in time to hug her back. I thought well, I'll lean in and see what happens. Cheek. But that's cool, she kissed me on the cheek too. How european.

Posted by G at December 16, 2003 10:34 PM | TrackBack