Reading this without reading the first part would mean you don’t really care for callbacks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Occasionally I have a week where I tag most emotions I experience as adolescent emotions. These are the kind of emotions that burn twice as bright and half as long - limerence, hypomania, etc. They are fun until the candle burns, and you are left searching in the dark, wondering what happened. It does not take much to kickstart a week like this - a single good date in Pease Park on a lovely spring evening can do the trick. These types of emotions make me struggle for words and write things like how brown face is subversive actually.
After I wrote that, I decided its time I went back to the sauna again. Even though it dries my hair out really fast, even though its 85 degrees in March, and even though there's that one guy who's always in the sauna no matter what time of the day it is. The heat is a respite and gives me something else to focus on. When I walk into the locker room, I see a guy sheepishly struggling with the lock and his exasperated friend yelling "you forgot your passcode? I didn't know I had a dumb ass for a friend." I missed this place.
I was regaling the previously mentioned date with stories from the sauna (as one does on dates), when she mentioned how boring the women's sauna is. Apparently, it's just a couple of women in LuluLemon's, wearing socks and texting on their phones. So much for all the things I imagined about the women in saunas. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the men's sauna with two guys, one of whom appears to be hitting on the other. The blonde guy being hit on is aloof, distant and does not seem to care enough but gives just enough attention to make the other guy palpably enthusiastic. He lavishes praise after praise upon his blonde idol and then asks poignant existential questions. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was sitting next to blonde Jesus and his disciple.
"that's so cool."
"that's amazing."
"wow, that must have felt good."
The man keeps saying to the blonde in what seems to be his deep podcast voice. To all of this, the blonde faintly replies "yeah" or "mhm" with just enough vocal fry to keep the other guy hooked.
"Do you know what bread crumbing is?" the date asked me when I told her this story.
"It's giving just enough attention without expending much effort," she told me. That is an excellent dense word. I realize one of the things I do on weeks like this is breadcrumb my little adolescent emotions. Give them little fantasies and plans that will never materialize. Meanwhile, I miss details in reality and, forget things in restaurants, twist a knee cause I was not focused enough on the bouldering problem. As it goes in the HBO show The Wire, Life is the shit that happens when you're waiting for things that never come.
Saw someone with a sauna hat to protect the hair recently