Great potluck.

Monday night I went to a pot luck at the Pedal People house. For the Sarasotians reading this think 47th street house on bike steroids. Carlos and I get there 15 min late because my soup took to long to cook. We walked into an empty house and met Ruthie and Alex. Ruthie has a beard and it took me a moment to figure out that she was a woman. At this point I am slightly concerned that I was going to have an awkward night with the bike freaks. That was not the case however. After some pleasant conversation I no longer noticed the facial hair and people started arriving. There were 4 people of significant for the story so I will talk about them but everyone at the party was great, but I couldn't get to know them all of course.
There was a log that guests could sign so that the pedal people had a record of who and how many people were at the potluck sitting in front of me so I decided to take it upon myself to direct everybody who came in to the log and get an introduction at the same time. Add a little humor and it was a great way to meet everyone who came in. Among the first wave of people was Andrea. In the course of the night I found out that she was going to New College next year, but we are getting ahead of ourselves here. "So you didn't puke yesterday?" Carlos was surprised enough that he asked about it the next day. I was feeling the resent loss of George Carlin and was keeping his spirit alive by being as abrasively funny as I could manage. It kick started a friendly banter that allowed for occasional input from the rest of the party. When cookies arrived I hid one under my bole so that Andrea would get one later. and later when she wanted her cookie I told her she would have to find it. She knew right where it was of course but I had arranged for a scavenger hunt in search of the cookie. The party had grown to about 12 by this point so I used the kitchen group of 6 to create and hide the hints. She was delighted. Right about now Jaz walks into the door. Andrea and Carlos where talking about dill being the devil and I hear someone say "Speak of the devil" and look up at Jaz. I fell in love. I had to engage her in conversation as quickly as possible so I said "Hey Dill!". She was a short, cute, Chinese American with scars all over her face and arm. She excused herself from the conversation quickly. My attention floated back to the hunt which was being combined with a house tour. Carlos came to tell me it was time to go. Shit! I told him I had to get 2 numbers before we left. Unfortunately I was not ready to get either number. Andrea would be easy enough at this point, at least we had flirted a little. I discreetly asked for her number. It was slightly awkward due to poor timing. I still had not had a conversation with Jaz. This seems like it would be a problem but she was very friendly and I figured I could easily get it just as a friendly contact. Carlos had gotten involved with some music so I led Andrea into the living room to listen. She walked ahead of me and landed about 3 steps away from Jaz. Standing next to Andrea would have put me facing away from Jaz and due to furniture position there would only have been intimate space for Andrea. I kept impersonal distance landing me halfway between both girls. I began talking with Jaz so Andrea moved to a more central spot in the room giving me space. A short conversation later I was standing next to a bookshelf alone. Damn it. Jaz told me she would be back but I knew she could easily get lost in the party. I couldn't follow her and I needed to be separate from the party so that she could join me again. I felt slightly at ends. Luckily Andrea had noticed that I was alone and came to talk. Jaz, Andrea and I talked about random stuff until I mentioned boku-maru, I found out another day that Cat's Cradle was one of Andrea's favorite books but for the time I was only interested in getting Jaz to sit down with me so that our souls could touch. Andrea left as Jaz and I started to get know each other. Actually we bonded immediately at this point. We began to stretch and chat on the floor of the party, mostly oblivious to our surroundings. I told her I had to leave but I would like see her again. As she looked for paper and a pen I rubbed Andrea's shoulders. Having accomplished all my goals for the night I was ready to go. Carlos wasn't. He had met some musicians and was sufficiently distracted. One of these was a woman named Dhyana, when we saw each other we tried to remember where we had met before to no avail but the next day I discovered that we had met at the Himalayan Institute while she was visiting with her sister. While waiting for Carlos I met David. He looked slightly morose so I introduced myself so that I could understand why he was the only one not smiling and laughing and carrying on. His father had recently died, and as a Jew he was obligated to observe certain customs. One of these was to not listen to music. I asked him about Jewish customs. I was interested in the customs themselves but also I wanted to bring him out a little. If my dad had died I would want to talk about it, but I wouldn't necessarily want to talk about my father himself.
Carlos and I drove home and I called and emailed Jaz. I knew that she wouldn't get the phone message until the next day and the email until the night. Carlos made fun of me for being excited about meeting her and then we sat for our nightly meditation.