A Waste of Time

Just a quick sketchbook page for today.  I have a billion drawings like this, because this is basically what comes out when I’m standing around with nothing in particular to draw.  I bring my sketchbook to bars and public places a lot, for different reasons.  One of the obvious reasons for bringing it to a bar, of course, is that I can go there and hang out until something happens without just standing on the wall and staring at people all creeper-status.  Although, I’ve been known to do that too.  The sketchbook-in-bar thing is also good because if somebody wants to approach me, it gives them an easy excuse for conversation.  The problem with that is that it’s sometimes a little too easy, and some pretty gross old men have thought they had an in with me if they’d pretend to care about what I was sketching.  I have trouble striking the perfect balance between aloof and available.

Most people don’t seem to think it’s strange to see someone drawing in a bar, and some people even seem to think it’s cool, but occasionally I do get somebody who just thinks it’s freakish to see a fellow patron with something in his hand besides a drink or a crotch.  I was standing in a bar, I think the same one where I drew this sketch, and some guy comes up and starts talking to me, mostly about himself.  He was cute, though, and offering drinks so I feigned interest.  He talked about how much money he made, and how much he liked it in LA, where apparently he was from, but explained that he came to San Francisco about once a month to, “unwind.”

“But it never turns out that way, haha,” he said.  ” I always think I’m just gonna relax up here, but next thing I know, I’m doing coke offa some guy’s cock!” Yeah, don’t you hate it when that happens?  I wish guys would just keep their coke and their cocks to themselves, for chrissakes.  “What are you doing with the book?” he asked.

“Sketching.”

He gave me a look a little bit like I had said I was using it to beat stray dogs.  “Dude, that’s weird.”

“Why’s it weird?”

“Cause you’re coming to a social place to be anti-social!” he tells me.

“How am I anti-social when I’m talking to your right now?”

His brow furrows, I can sense the wheels turning a bit behind frustrated, blank, but awfully cute eyes… “Whatever, dude.  I’m meeting a friend at Lookout.  Wanna come?”

I do go to Lookout, but I meet up with another friend and stop talking to the guy, which seems OK by him because his friend has a couple of other friends, and I think the group of them are deciding to get friendly.

A month or two later, I ran into the guy again and am surprised that he remembers me.  “Oh, yeah,” he said.  “You’re that guy who reads!”

“Um, well, yeah, I read, but I wasn’t that night.  It was a sketchbook.”

“Yeah, right, right, you had a book!  In a bar!”

I’m starting to feel a little bit like Belle talking to Gaston as the guy puts his arm around my shoulder and introduces me to his passel of of cute 20-somethings; different 20-somethings than last time, of course.  “Hey everybody!  This is my friend who reads!”

Some sets of bleary eyes wandered in my direction for a minute, I waved and then excused myself.  I was feeling like I didn’t really belong there, somehow.  I was the guy who reads!  I guess that’s what I get for hanging out with somebody from LA, right?