Sunday, March 30, 2008

Cool People

Because of this post, I'm writing this when I really should be sleeping.

I wrote this story and thought it went well. There was something about the writer that I liked. I wanted to meet him on opening night because... I dunno. I just like something about him.

Anyway, I went along and knew it wasn't going to happen. Packed theatre, my tenuous connection with him was preoccupied with everyone else. I set Ann's jacket on fire and then we went in to see the play.

At the end of the play these two old ladies came over and just started talking to Ann about her hair. One wanted to touch her dreads. Then they kept talking about chick stuff and I was starting to get a bit thing about it all. I mean, I wanted to see the play and meet the playwright, and here are these two old women, charming and lovely as they are, going on about Ann's hair.

I kind of wanted to leave because the night was not what I'd planned, but they were really quite cool people and fuck it, cool people are cool. We chatted and it was really nice.

Then one of the women asked me what I thought of the play. I said I liked it. We talked for a bit and it turned out that she had read my interview with the writer and liked it a lot. Turned out she also knew the playwright quite well; he is her nephew. The other woman his mother.

Moments later, Caleb came over to say hello to his mum and his aunt. Aunt Jill introduced me and he was civil but was obviously having a night when every bastard wanted to chat with him. Then Jill told him I was the guy who wrote the Gorillas In Our Midst piece and his face melted into happy creases and his hand shot out for a real handshake... it was just a totally good moment.

Playwright In Demand was devoured by the night, Ann and I spent some more time talking to these lovely older people, then we went home.

There will always be the boy from the fucked up family in the dreary suburbs whose eyes will flicker over at the end of a night like this who will think as he drifts into sleep, good yeah? Yeah, good. Yeah, sometimes it's pretty good.

4 comments:

Kathryn said...

That is the best! What a mind-blowing night, I bet. How do these things happen? It's like...magic. :)

Y said...

Wow what a fantastic bit of happenstance. It even eclipses Ann's hair... even though hers was the drawcard to begin with.

Lee Bemrose said...

Sometimes, Kat, it's like the cosmos is gently nudging things a certain way. Yes, like magic.

That's what I thought was so funny, Miss Y. I had a twinge of that feeling - "Oh God, not more about the hair again", and started getting fidgety, but then the women were pleasant to chat to and I just thought what the hell. You're at a drinks thing and strangers bother to chat to you and they're okay so whaddaya do but settle in and enjoy it? And you just never know who you might be talking to. Love this kind of stuff.

Y said...

It doesn't happen often, but I love it when strangers start chatting to me too. More often than not, they are, at the very least, nice people.