lovely.

See I had this date with this hot chick today. Let me tell you, she's quite the vixen. I've been seeing her every once a while, taking in dinner and a movie and sometimes a post-flick cup of joe. Nothing serious. Our relationship is real low-maintenance.

Hint: This is Sandra code for saying "I went out by myself tonight."

Some people cannot do this. Not go out with me, a lot of people cannot do that, for entirely different reasons. Some people cannot go out alone. Obviously, it's not a problem for me.

I used to do it a lot when I worked at the restaurant. I spent all day long talking to people, yapping all day long to strangers, so much that when I got home I didn't want to talk to anyone. So I took myself out, had someone wait on me for a change and then caught a film at the buck-fifty theatre.

These entirely self-involved and frivolous evenings of mine would not be possible without the buck-fifty theatre. The good thing about a theatre like that is that the movies don't have to be great. They just have to be a dollar and a half good, which is a whole lot less than seven dollars good.

And most of the time, I don't have to even jump in the Toyota to enjoy these evenings. The theatre? Two blocks away. My favorite coffeeshop? One block away. Four or five tasty restaurants geared toward the college budget? Three blocks away or less. One of the things I will miss most about this old apartment is the central location of downtown. Everything is just right here. Half a dozen times I've decided to take in a movie five minutes before the constant seven o'clock showing time, thrown on some shoes, put my hair up, and made it into a seat somewhere in the middle in time for the previews.

It's a pleasant way to spend two or three hours, being entertained and fed without having to say much more than "A medium vanilla latte. Decaf, please," because the evening is wearing on, and sometimes I do drink coffee for the taste and the warmth of it. Sometimes I bring a book or a notebook, but most of the time I just observe all the people, content to quietly take it all in.

I don't have to keep up any conversation, I don't have to impress anyone or be funny all the time, because the only person paying any attention is me, and I think I'm a riot. I don't even have to look all that good, just good enough to meet my own standards, and they're quite low. However, this evening, a gentleman in his thirties said to me in the coffeeshop, "Well, you're lovely," before stumbling off to continue his drunkenness elsewhere. I did shower before I came.
And she, my date, was lovely. The whole lovely evening was lovely. We should do it again sometime.