nervous tension

A frantic Kinks’ drumbeat kicks in the background. My teeth throb. How long has it been since I went to the dentist? Will I ever go again? Fuck if I know. I’m just thinking about the day ahead.

Supposedly, I’m meeting a lady at a bar in Raleigh. I have to drive two hours from work to get there. And then I still don’t know if she’ll actually show up or if she’ll be worth the long drive. She’s a blonde too. Uses bad grammar.

She does like good music. And apparently the booze. This could be good. Could be bad. I’ve given up really trying to figure it out beforehand. It ruins the surprise. It takes away from the chase. And hell, the opportunities come up so infrequently that, honestly, I can’t overthink them when they do.

I’ve already done one thing against my insane mindset. I shave my playoff beard. The Capitals are entrenched in the Stanley Cup run. And instead of keeping it, I shaved it. First impressions and all. If she’s a great gal, she wouldn’t have cared, right? Wrong.

I get done with work early. Caring less and less about the finished product is not a good thing. However, getting a life is more important to me at the moment. It’s easy for colleagues to scoff at my lack of passion. “Get out,” they say. “You don’t love it anymore, you should be in it.” Well, I do love it. So much so that I get ulcers looking at the shitty copy I get every day. The kind of stuff that used to get you fired, but now gets you protected. Guess if you are nice now, you advance. If you kick ass and stay surly, you get buried. Unless you know someone. Yeah, I’m bitter. But those colleagues can all go fuck themselves. They have wives and husbands and kids and lives outside the walls of the newspaper. I still don’t. I’m still living the life I was as a 25 year old. As a 30 year old. As a 35 year old. Now at 40. And my bitter ass still wants to believe one day it will be better. That journalism will prevail, despite the polls that say people don’t care. The laws that censor us a little more each day. One day we’ll wake up? Right? It’s not all about having a stupid fucking App on my smart phone tell me what to do. What to watch. What to buy. Who to like. Who to fuck.

I get in my car. Crank the engine. I look at the odometer. It read 32,234 miles. I’ve had this car less than a year. I love the road. It loves me back. Well, as well as a road can. Lucero’s “Tears Don’t Matter Much” blasts out of the speakers. It’s gonna be a good night. It can’t help but be.

The landscape on this drive is dreary. The sun is beginning to slip behind the horizon. A bright orange hue fills up the sky. It’s quite amazing. In the distance, farmers are finishing up whatever they’re doing today. I see three giant tractors going the other direction. I’m happy for them. And happy for myself that they’re not going my way. I don’t feel nervous. I know I will when I actually get to the bar we’re meeting at. It’s the way I am. I don’t think about such things until they are right in front of me. It’s a defense mechanism that has developed over the years. It used to be that I’d fret over things so much that when the actual event happened, I’d clam up from the pressure I’d put on myself. That led to an awful lot of disappointment early on in life. Not that the later years haven’t been chock full of the same feeling, but at least the buildup and release isn’t so bad anymore.

At some point, the green fields and falling down shacks give way to new expressways. I think about the days when I first moved here, 10 years ago almost to the day, when none of these roads existed. All travel from the rural outskirts to the “big city” was by small two-lane blacktops. Now, four, six and eight-lane behemoths are everywhere. That saddens me a bit. But just for a moment.

I pull into Raleigh. It’s a cool town, I figure. I never spend much time here. I see hockey games. Been shopping a few times. Covered a couple of events when I was still a reporter. Now? I’m meeting a lady. Will she be cool? Will she be smart? Will she be frightened of my crooked teeth? The seal has been broken. The nerves begin to pile upon themselves. I’m 15 minutes early. I decide that’s a good thing. Maybe I can get a shot of whiskey before she arrives. Calm the nerves. Stop the voices.

I park my car. I still can’t parallel park. Not a skill I’ve ever needed. Luckily, my little Hyundai fits in a place with no need for real skill.

The bar’s up ahead. I’m sweating a bit. I stop at the door. Staring at it for a moment.

“Here’s goes nothing,” I say to myself as I grab the door, swing it open and go inside.