Themes and Variations

My improv class ended a few weeks ago, and I am now attending a Saturday afternoon workshop perhaps mostly because that there is a very cute blond women that I have a inkling for (I am not the world's most passionate guy - I think I am too old for crushes, but too young for total apathy). Forty or so people show up for these things, and there is a break in the middle in which we mingle and chat about pennant races and quality burritos.

Unfortunately on this Saturday Tara, the funny blond Cornell graduate in the aforementioned inkling, was already surrounded by a pack of testosterone vultures. I always feel stupid in these situations - it is as if I am playing bachelor number three and the other two guys have picked the cool ice creams answers to the question and all I am left with is "vanilla."

With shoelaces in the usual somewhat untied fashion I stumbled towards Tara but as I get closer I overheard her mention something about her boyfriend. I figured that this was a good time to come up with another strategy. I have 11 months until I smack into that 30's barrier and I think it is time to lower my standards.

I noticed that there was a guy talking to this somewhat-but-not-really-very attractive women. I decide to sneak into this conversation. The three of us get to talking. Her name was Berta not Roberta and she had only tried doing improv for a few months. The guy, a future Hollywood star but now a waiter at Chevy's, was rapping quite well with her about coffee shops in San Francisco and the importance of the San Francisco Chronicle's little man theater reviews. About three minutes into the discussion she turns to him and says "Of course you realize that I am a transvestite."

This is what I call a conversation stopper.

I really don't know if my life has some weird built up karma - that it is supposed to have a soundtrack by the Kinks (the flip side is that he might not have told and I would have wound up in the Crying Game). For the second time in four months I have run across a trans something or other. The first being my sophomore neighbor from boarding school at our reunion. I think twice in a summer time is a fairly bizarre theme.

I mean what ever happened to the WYSIWYG interface? Shouldn't Microsoft release a product like Dating 97? Aren't there protocols out there? Is it really supposed to be this tough? (There is also a strange disappointment about the transvestite liking the other guy more.)

Anyway next week I am going back being one of the many vultures around Tara, the blond with the main feature of not being a trans-something. And when that ice cream question of love gets to my turn I am saying "Rocky Road."