Tragically stuck without a D&D game for the evening, I decided to have a look the the classifieds on Craigslist.
1) Apparently there will be a Frida Kahlo exhibit at the art museum. Woot! So going. But I bet the guy looking for someone petite to accompany him wasn’t looking for me.
2) I might be meeting some other random guy for coffee.
3) I did meet up with someone looking for appetizers & drinks tonight. It was… odd.
So he left me a voicemail (because occasionally my phone just doesn’t feel like ringing) that said something like, “I will be on time. I am wearing [generic colored] pants, a shirt with [some bland pattern], a green corduroy jacket, and a [some color] vest.” So I left him a voicemail saying, “I am wearing a bright orange shirt.” Because, really, that’s so much easier. And, yes, I did change out of a beige shirt into the orange shirt – but not just for easy recognizability, but also because I spilled tea on the beige shirt two seconds before leaving work.
We went to a nifty place that Philadelphia Magazine mentions frequently: SnackBar. Sadly, (or happily?) despite the crazy avant garde foams I’d been promised, their menu was a bit creative, but basically solid.
But first – let me talk about the random date guy. He mentioned that he’d been having a rough week. I mentioned that I’d had better weeks, too, and that I wanted something fun to do over the weekend before my birthday. So we got together, if not to be romantic, at least to bitch in luxury.
Man, he totally wins for stress. He’s working on Clinton’s campaign. So he spent the entire time (while talking a mile a minute) trying to figure out whether his team was going to have to fly out that night to Virginia or whether they’d be going tomorrow. Mind you, I get off work at 9pm, and we met up at 10pm, so he finally arranges for the charter to leave at 11:30pm and had the driver pick him up at 10:45. Shortest date ever.
Yet oddly, not a total loss.
We went through a lot of politics. He (accidentally) evened out one of my concerns about Obama. We talked about the difference in payroll between Democratic and Republican campaign workers (Democratic campaign workers are paid 5% off the top of the funds spend, including funds spent on television ads, so they have to raise that much more money off the top. Republican workers are paid largely in a victory bonus, if the campaign is successful.) He talked about how incredibly boring it had been to be on staff (instead of just trying to get elected) for [a local politician]. He’s been working on political campaigns since, I think he said, Al Gore’s presidential bid. And right now he’s a grad student in economics – he’d been hoping to write his dissertation in the space between March and September, but it’s not looking like the election will give him any free time.
Freakishly, he even managed to be interesting when talking about economics. He recommended two books he has read lately – one about the manufacture of a t-shirt, but he couldn’t remember the title (maybe this book?), and the other was The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, which he claimed was economically solid and contained actionable steps.
And we talked about how if the democrats don’t win, we might consider emigration (as you do). He suggested Montreal because being bilingual would mean they’d have twice as many books for the library (yes, we did find time to talk about me, too). I mentioned that that would be no use, since I am pants with French. And then we started comparing Toronto and Vancouver… and he mentioned Battlestar Galactica being filmed in Vancouver. I was all ready to discount the geek quotient since I’d already primed him with the knowledge that I was a wee bit geeky, but then he added that the entire bit on Caprica had been filmed on a local college campus. And I have no idea, but I am well pleased that he thought that was worth knowing.
But with being all stressed, he wasn’t at all prepared for a relaxing evening. Despite having clearly stipulated that we had to go somewhere with a liquor license, he ended up only having ice tea. I, on the other hand, had some house cocktail with apple cider and stuff that went down easy but wasn’t particularly noticeable. And since I wasn’t going to try a new restaurant without trying anything on the menu, I got the brussel sprouts small dish. OH! It was wonderful. It was thin slices of brussel sprouts with sweet apple and big chunks of rustic bacon with a coarse mustard sauce. Mmmm! After that was so successful, I was tempted to try the salmon with bok choi and stuff, but my date had already left and the price was a little much – besides, with just one dish the restaurant had a great record going – a shame to break that.
All in all – far from the worst date I’ve ever had.