Beware The Watcher...
01 November, 2002 :: 10:53 a.m.
Okay, first of all last night wasn't anything special, but it wasn't a bad night. I did what I do best...went out and watched people. And yes, I realize I just wrote about not liking to be judged and I'm sitting here rattling off impressions of all these people I don't know, but that's only because I don't know them. In a situation where I got to know anyone of these people, I would give them the opportunity to show me they aren't that initial image I had of them. If I didn't let people show me they aren't what I initially think of them, I'd have never become friends with Pat. Hell, I wouldn't have friends period. And then there are always those people that you just catch them saying something that makes you know you'd never want to know them. But we all have our costumes that we wear daily...I'm the possibly gay, possibly sad and artistic, but more likely angry and a serial killer type...that's the vibe I give off and there's nothing I can do about it...But I know a lot of people who think I'm some form of the above description until they get to know me.
I started at The Gas Light here in Wellsboro...the only bar in town that I will set foot in, unless I really want to play Pool which requires going to Smokey's. Anyway, I stopped down and wasn't sure about going in because from the back where it's best to park, you can't really tell if it's busy or not and while I'm not crazy about packed bars, I hate an empty bar too. But once I started toward the door I could hear sounds that it wasn't too bad...actually, for me, it was perfect. About fifteen other people incuding two guys I graduated from high school with. Chris who is not the brightest guy in the world, but genuinely funny and fun to hang out with and Dave who I never got along with...unfortunately Chris and Dave are best friends and now that both are back in Wellsboro, I only bump into Chris when he's with Dave so sitting and chatting with them was out. They were the only two that I knew...there was a girl from my intro to gov't class, but that was two years ago and walking up to her and talking to her for the first time based on that seemed slightly "out there"--I mean I'd be freaked out if someone remembered me from one class we had two years before. The reason(s) I remember her: 1)She usually sat in front of me and had a tattoo just abover her butt which was usually visible due to her fondness for low ride jeans 2)she was cute--that probable should have been #1, fuck it--she wasn't spectacular but all her features just worked together 3)she genuinely walks with a bounce in her step and it's the only time I've ever noticed someone always walking that way...
Anyway, I just watched. Cute-tattooed-bouncy-step-girl and her friend, Chris and Dave, an old guy and some girl my age sitting and chatting to my right, two couples playing shuffleboard to my right, Ron--the owner--and his girl and a few people they know, some cute blond with a sexy stomach and the greatest long blond hair I've ever seen who bounced from one group to another... This is my idea of what a bar should be...people just genuinely out to hang out with a couple of friends and having a few drinks and conversation. Saturday nights should be about going to dance clubs, Thursdays should be for a few drinks and conversation with friends. At first I wasn't thrilled because I was lacking that friend to sit and conversate with, but I got over it and I just sat and had a few Guiness bottles and a few Newcastles and was totally content to watch the other people. And the music was good too...the Gas Light has an internet jukebox so there's a huge variety of music and no one was picking anything particularly bad.
Contrast this to my stop at the Marx Bros. in Mansfield. Typical college bar...Halloween night and few people dressed for it, most opted for their usual costume--there was the grunge intellectual circa 1992--knit cap sitting precariously on top of head, big flannel shirt, ripped jeans...and with the shaggy looking goatee that says I don't care what I look like--completed by a pair of round, look-I'm-intellectual frames. He was accompanied by his grunge-hippy girlfriend and he just talked and talked and tried to sound smarter than he was (especially since he was drinking and while it may not make you dumber, I've never met anyone that it makes smarter, they just think they are)...there were the pretty boys, the jocks, my personal favorite--the look at my vintage-style clothes and the way my hair falls, it looks like I don't care about fashion or what I look like, but the secret is I spend hours and $100s on this style. Of course there were the I know I'm beautiful and I'm popular because I sleep with plenty of guys type of girls, there were the girls that obviously were still new to the bar scene and uncomfortable, there was the 40-something redneck and in this area there's always at least one of them anywhere there's a lot of young college people--you can spot them because they're the ones that seem to be trying through sheer willpower to convince a new generation that the mullet is a legitimate hairstyle. And lastly there was one of the guys that I always spot that have no fashion sense at all, this one was sporting some horrible hairstyle that brought to my mind what a mullet might look like if it was chopped down a bit...I don't know how to explain it...anyway, this is the guy whose soul purpose is to drink until he either has no liver left or gets dismissed from college. Most of these people were still in school, some of them I recognized, one I talked to--Lloyd, from my trip to Boston who is actually a really good guy despite the fact that he had come from a party where he went as Don Mattingly...ugh. Sprinkled in were the people that graduated around the time that I started school, but they can't seem to let go of the college life and make the transition to the real world.
So that was my night as the watcher. Not bad, but I should have settled for staying put at the Gas Light. But I might not have appreciated it as much if I hadn't reminded myself of what I dislike about the college bar scene.
In other news, I need help from someone who knows html better than I do. Frankly I'm amazed I managed to do anything to this page, but I am having trouble with fixing that archive thing. I understand in principle what I'm supposed to do, but whether I go through AOL or Explorer, when I try to view the source, it's not letting me. Also, what is already archived is broken into two pages and originally I was going to do it by months like I've seen on other diaries, but I don't know how to go about that...anyone want to give me some tips?