Shabbat isn't bad at all if I have someone to talk to. Sure, it's not like the rest of the week, when I can watch five episodes of Felicity (J.J. Abrams' first show) and read a bunch of comics and play piano and do an hour of database entry and work on my game (in roughly that order), but it's not bad at all. Every Friday I go to the Feldmans to talk to Tamir and Eli (and on rare occasions, Harel). This week we all sat around and thought about who would win in a fight- Saruman or Darth Vader (for instance). We also played Sticheln, which I won. And I talked a little bit about random nonsense I wanted to talk about like how amazing that episode of Fringe was two weeks ago and how the audition went. (Tamir had already read the blog post, but I like to talk and he likes being silent too much to tell me not to.) It's always the Feldmans on Friday night because no one else stays awake past 2:00 AM.
In the day, I've got to go to someone else. There's only so much you can say about the latest episode of Heroes, and my life isn't so dramatic that I'd have much to say about life in general. So it's either Avri, Nati, or Moshe.
Moshe's the farthest away, that being a twenty-minute walk or so. But out of everyone I know, he's the most like me. So spending time with him is important to me. He's who I went to this past Shabbat. As I walked, I sang my audition song to myself • and bemoaned that I hadn't composed it one day sooner, so that I'd be capable of performing it without notes. (I'm still bitter about that.) I wanted to talk to Moshe about his audition experience, maybe hear some nervousness that'd make me feel better about myself, find out whether he thought he'd be in, tell him about my song and that we might be in this musical together.
It's a bit of a luck game, going to Moshe's house. I never know if he'll be there, and if he is there I never know if they've had lunch yet. They tend to have lunch really late.
This was one of the cases where they were having lunch late. I got there, and saw that they were just starting. (We'd already finished a lengthy lunch at home.) I asked when I should come back (not that I'd have anywhere to go from there), but Moshe's mother said I didn't need to leave. So I sat down in one of their comfortable armchairs and waited. And waited. And waited. There wasn't any point of conversation at the table which I'd be inclined to join in on, so I waited. I kept hoping that Moshe would get up and come over, just for a minute, just so I could let him know I'd tried out for 1776 and see his reaction, but he just kept eating and eating and talking and talking and seemed to forget I was there. He even kept eating after everyone else had finished, in both the main meal and dessert (which wasn't short to begin with).
That's not something I'd do. If I had a guest, I'd keep watching him to make sure he wasn't terribly bored. And if I wasn't up to doing that, I wouldn't let him in in the first place. If I have a guest, I understand that they're my responsibility. (This is why I don't much like having guests.)
I waited for two hours on that chair, and Moshe didn't come over to me once. And then he went off to do errands, without so much as a reassurance that he'd be with me in a minute. I don't know, maybe he would have been. But I couldn't know that. I'd waited two hours to talk to him, and had no guarantee. So I told the family's guest (who was the only one in the room at the time): "You know what? I'm going. Tell Moshe I left."
And I did.
It's not really that I'm angry. Okay, maybe a little angry. But I knew that if I waited long enough, he'd get around to talking to me. It was more a dramatic gesture, you know? That's not the sort of thing I'd do, and I spend time with Moshe because he's like me. It was unacceptable, and I wanted him to understand that I felt that way.
I didn't know he'd come after me shortly afterward. If I did, I would have sat at home and waited some more. It's not like I didn't want to talk to him. But I thought he'd say "That's a shame, I guess I'll talk to him some other time.", so I went out again.
Avri wasn't home, so I went to see if Nati was home. If he wasn't, I guess I would have checked to see if Harel was awake next. And if not him then Tamir and Eli again. Not that any of that matters- Nati was home.
Nati isn't like me, not really. He's not an Asperger or hyperactive, he doesn't play games or read comics or play music. As I was there, his mother noted: "What Nati likes, he's really passionate about." And I realized that that's really what I like about him. What he's particularly passionate about is movies. So whenever I go over, I always ask what movies he's seen lately. It's bound to be an interesting answer. This week the first thing I said to him was that I'd seen In Bruges, because he'd recommended it to me. (Excellent movie, by the way. I pass along the recommendation.) And somehow eventually the conversation got to me talking about elements of Ultimate comics which I'm surprised made it into the Incredible Hulk movie. He listens even when it's not directly about one of his interests, I guess because he understands how people can care about things.
Not a bad group of friends, not bad at all.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment