A Surprisingly Sober Smitty Ramble

There are people who think I don't "go out" very often. People who feel that I "stay in" too much. I'm not sold on this idea, myself.

For example, on Thursdays normally I would "go out" to Brandon, to a group called Drinking Liberally, people who are interesting and fun to be with (though my personal political philosophy differs somewhat from most of my drinking companions). I enjoy my time out there on Thursdays. But I can already tell you, at this early hour on Thursday, that I won't be doing a thing tonight aside from fretting about the loss of civil liberties in this country--and that I'll be doing in the back of my mind, silently. Silence would be nice right now.

This has been quite the week, in case you're wondering why I haven't been posting. The blog can survive a few days' absence, as I hope can you dear readers, though of course I'm very much present here in Tampa at the moment. Monday, for example. What did I do Monday?

No really, I'm asking. What did I do Monday? I don't recall, exactly. Probably nothing. It was a Monday, nothing goes on on Mondays, here or anywhere else for that matter. Tuesday, then. Surely I did something Tuesday...

Yes, that's right. I went to a baseball game. It so happened that on Tuesday morning our local Major League Baseball Team called up my buddy J.R. and offered him four free tickets behind home plate for that evening's game. This was a great deal; free tickets to anything are worth having, for the most part. Even if the Devil Rays can't usually carry a bat, much less win, free tickets to see the reigning world champions (that would be the White Sox of Chicago, for those of you who don't follow baseball, you commies) are always a plus. And when the Rays actually win the game… well, it's hard to beat that.

Oh wait. I forgot. It's hard, but not impossible, to beat a Devil Rays win over the Sox. For example, you could call up a girl you met recently and invite her to the game, and have an absolutely wonderful time with her. That would beat a simple win. Meeting a girl with whom I can feel comfortable after just one night? Yeah, that's a win no matter what. And what's better, we're going to go see the Marlins play (and hopefully lose to) the Rays on Friday. Sweet. Maybe this time I won't be quite such an awkward schmuck. Oh wait… it's me. Of course I'll be an awkward schmuck. My only hope is to find someone who thinks that's charming.

Oh, and what about Wednesday night? I ask this past tense, since it is technically Thursday. Odd, actually; I was home before 3'30 tonight, earlier than I expected. I wouldn't have been home so early, but the DJ stopped spinning and they kicked us all out of the club about, oh, forty-five minutes or an hour ago.

That's right. Smitty went out. To a club. Where there was music.

And he danced.

I know what you're saying. "Smitty, I thought it was considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions on torture to make anyone watch you dance." See, that's what I thought, too. But apparently, if you dance with wild enough abandon to the number 1 trance DJ in the world, DJ Tiesto, nobody really cares. I even spent most of the night on the platform in the center of the dance floor.

That's right. The platform in the center of the dance floor. I had to make multiple assaults on the summit before I finally made it to the top. The key, as I determined early on, was to find an attractive female so we could make the assault together. Alone, a male stands no chance, certainly no male as average as Smitty. But with a lovely young thing by my side no summit is too steep.

Let me point out for the record that I do not know the name of the girl I ascended the center platform with. Nor does she know mine. Does it matter? I believe she was actually at the club with some other guy, but he was too much of a slacker to actually brave the daring ascent to the center peak of the dance floor. After scouting the available, um, talent, through several aborted attempts at the summit, I picked this pretty young thing out, grabbed her hand, and off we went. In no more than ten minutes we were there, at the top, dancing amid a throng of, oh, six other people (it's a small platform; there were hundreds more on the dance floor, insignificant plebians compared to us), and we stayed there for much of the evening, at least an hour or more. And not once did the jealous boyfriend attempt to attack me, and not once did the girl try to hide from my hideous gyrations. Indeed, it was a wonderful time.

Of course, Tiesto stopped spinning eventually, around three or so I'd guess, and once he finished his set and the house lights went up the girl disappeared, and I drained my seventh or eighth bottle of water, while the guy who bought the tickets (ten tickets he bought, and of the ten of us only he and I bothered to stay until the end) tried in vain to close his tab, and eventually we were all thrown out onto the street (7th Ave. to be exact) and had no choice but to make our way home.

How my friend made his way home I cannot say. I rode my bike. This was considered something on the order of high comedy—even the cops I passed on my way out of Ybor City had to chuckle at the idea of a skinny white guy riding a bicycle home through the ghetto in clubbing attire at three-thirty in the morning. I suppose I'd have thought it funny myself were I not used to the situation. If you seem serious enough and intent on where you're going the odds of your being molested are probably more remote on a bicycle than in your car. Going through the ghetto. Going through the suburbs I'm sure would be far safer but some of us prefer to live someplace a little more real than out in one of the burbclaves.

Besides, no matter how much water I drank no one would think I should be driving home. Not because of alcohol; I stopped drinking by midnight. I shouldn't be driving because I still can't hear anything. I'm aware of the fact that I'm typing, for example, but I can't hear a sound. Good ol' Cinders has been crying for his dinner (which I've now fed him), but all I had to go on was his open mouth; I heard not a sound. It's not that I'm deaf and locked in a world of silence; it's that the roaring in my ears blocks out all regular sounds. That's why I'm here, typing away, rather than trying to sleep. I could lie down, of course, and probably should. But it sounds like a jet is taking off in my head right now and it hardly seems worth the effort to lie down and try to sleep. Earplugs don't work on sounds that are inside your head.

Tomorrow will no doubt be a thrilling day, consisting of going to work and trying to imagine I'm not there, and leaving at lunchtime. I had intended to leave at lunchtime today, as I had intended yesterday, but to no avail. There are errands I have to run. I have a nice fat property tax rebate coming my way if I can ever get around to driving up to the VA office on the north side of town and filing the paperwork, but I haven't got out of work before three-thirty any day this week (and then it was to get to the gym). I'm inclined to just stay up and go in to work early, but why would I want to do that? Nobody I need to talk to at work will be there if I show up before eight. Hell, half the time nobody I need to talk to is there when I show up after eight. Office hours seem to be sort of a freestyle thing these days, not that I'm complaining. I just have some issues to deal with at work and want to actually get them dealt by lunchtime so I can go to the gym and come home.

Ah, coming home early. If you've never skipped out of work early on some flimsy pretense (medical appointments always work) then you are truly missing out. Nothing beats coming home at one and taking a nap on the couch. Really. I mean, I suppose certain things would beat that, but nothing that a single man has access to on a regular basis.

Anyway. As for tonight… well, I plan to grill up a nice steak on the gas grill downstairs, and read the rest of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and generally behave as though I have nothing at all of consequence to do, regardless of what the truth may be.

That's for tonight. Friday, as I mentioned, there's a baseball game, and Saturday I will be departing for North Carolina, though I won't make it there til Sunday. I plan to spend a week writing, and hiking a bit, and hopefully getting closer to finishing the first draft of Fort Lauderdale. This means, by the way, that I won't be posting to the blog. I know it will be difficult, but you'll have to survive for a week or so without any brilliant insights from Smitty. How ever shall you cope? I don't know, really, but I suggest you go out to Ybor and dance the night away at some club to a terrific DJ. That makes the time pass quickly. I'll be back before May is over, with something brilliant and significant to tell you about, I'm sure. Til then, I hope you have at least as grand a time every day as I've had tonight. May all your assaults on dance floor summits be successful, and may the ringing in your ears diminish enough to allow some sort of peaceful sleep each and every night.