As I was saying...
I met J.C. about eight years ago yesterday, give or take...
I was working at a production house, making really cheap, lousy commercials for local car dealerships & the like, when word came through the grapevine about a job on a documentary series that was being produced by a sister company. They needed a supervising editor for the project, and because I used to get high with one of the executive producers, I was able to weasel my way into the gig.
They set us up in a little house & sent me to work early setting up the equipment for the show. The plan was to hire (I think) six producers to work on the series, doing two episodes each, with me doing the remaining episode. The first producer they hired was a guy whose claim to fame was producing the video for....well, an extremely famous theme song to a big hit comedy from the 80's, so basically they spent about half of the budget to hire this guy, and filled the rest of the positions with some journeymen around town, and a couple of first-timers. By the first day of production, I had met everyone else, except for one of the first-timers; all I knew about her was that she had worked as an assistant editor at a rival company to the one I had worked for, and that her name was J.C.
On that first morning, I was setting up an editing system in the middle of the front room, when this mousy little girl with short, brown hair & glasses walked through the door, carrying a cup of convenience-store coffee. I remember her holding out her hand to shake mine & introducing herself to me as I brushed the dust from the floor off my hands. I didn't really think twice about her, other than she seemed nice. It's not that she wasn't attractive, but she just didn't immidiately catch my eye, and there was no golden light shining behind her head the first time I saw her, like some other people.
The only other clear memory I have of her that first day was that something was wrong with the computer I had put together for her, and she called me over to ask me if I could fix it for her. I remember that, as I leaned in next to her, I noticed that she had bad breath. I wasn't repulsed by it or anything, but I do remember it, and I remember thinking about it months later, when she asked me what the first thing I had noticed about her was, and deciding that I should make something up, instead of telling her that...
We worked in the same room, basically, for another few days, but I don't really remember anything that happened then. Next thing I remember is getting a call from the head office a few days into the job; they had another show in the pipeline that less than a week away from the deadline, and some huge tragedy had happened where they had lost several weeks work & had to make it up in about 3 days. I was apparently the only person who could get the job done fast enough, for little enough pay, and with no regard whatsoever for my personal health, so they drafted me away for a few days to save their ass. So, I did.
I came back to the new office a few days later, and I remember I got there a little late that morning, because I was getting new brakes on my car. When I arrived, everyone was moving furniture out the door, becuase the boss had apparently found another office down the block that he could rent for about $50 cheaper, and he was having his whole production staff haul everything over. So, I rolled up my sleeves & prepared for moving day.
And then it happened...
I remember seeing one of those long, fold-up office tables being carried out the door by a pair of unknown hands. As she put the table down, I could see that it was J.C.; she was wearring jeans & this little rainbow-striped shirt that reminded me of the seat covers in my mom's old Volkswagen. She had her hair up in a ponytail & she was huffing & puffing from carrying the big table out the door, and her face was all red & flushed. She had a light sheen of sweat on her face & neck that made her all shiny & rosy in the sun....and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she was hot.
I also noticed that she was considerably more...well-proportioned than I had thought...maybe it was the clothes she had been wearing, I didn't know. All I know is that she had one particular asset that I had no idea how I had missed. But still, I should be honest & say that I was just more surprised at her sudden cuteness rather than lovestruck by her beauty, and the only blinding light was still the natural one from the sun outside. I still didn't have any thoughts at the time of persuing her.
In fact, I hadn't been persuing anybody for a while, then....about five or six months, as I recall. I had broken up with Veronica yet again the previous September, and the whole ordeal with Jenna had just happened that Christmas & it all still had me a bit reeling. So, I went on about my business & we moved into the new office. There was a little space upstairs that I immidiately claimed as mine, and the rest of the crew moved in downstairs. It was a day or two later that we finally got everything set up & unpacked, but the first thing I did in my office was the first thing I always do: hang up the Springsteen poster. And that's what really started it...
I was sitting in my office a couple of days later, cutting together some footage, when I head J.C.'s rather charming, southern voice behind me ask "Do you like Bruce?".
Ha. Do I like Bruce...
She came in & checked out my poster, and then we talked for a while; about Bruce, at first. Turned out she liked the more recent, happily-married, acoustic-heavy Bruce, while I'm still more a fan of the old streetwise, hot-rodding, blue-collar, steel-mill Bruce...but in any case, a female Bruce fan was somewhat rare in my life at that time (this ain't New Jersey, folks), and I was quickly enraptured...sort of. I remember thinking about five minutes in to the conversation that we were flirting with each other, but I still wasn't sure. She left after a few minutes & we exchanged a couple more words that day, but she was definitely growing on me.
So, the next day (it might not have been the next next day, but I think it was), I was pretty hyped when the exec. producer came to me that morning & asked me if I could go over to the big office & help J.C. with putting some images on the photo manipulator (an ancient, dinosaur of a machine used to put still images on film that has been obsolete for years, and is roughly as difficult to operate as a stealth bomber), which was apparently about to come alive & crush her. I remember I stopped to buy some gum on the way over, so at least one of us in the room would have fresh breath.
When I arrived, she was wrestling with the controls for this ridiculous machine and listening to Semisonic (a band that I would have never known existed were it not for her) on the little CD player she had brought in. I showed her how to manipulate the manipulator, and then just hung out the rest of the day talking to her. We talked about music, mainly, I remember, and we were definitely flirting. So, when lunchtime came around, I asked her to come with me.
We took my car to a nearby generic chain restaraunt, and I remember asking her if it was ok for us to sit in the smoking section; she agreed although she didn't like smoke, and I remember thinking that was probably a pretty good sign that she liked me, as deadly & thoughtless on my part as it was. It would also be the last time she & I ever sat in a smoking section.
We had a really good time that day at lunch, and we laughed a lot. I remember the first thing I asked her was what her initials stood for. She told me that she didn't like her full name, but that it sounded like "a type of stone, a color, and a part of the body". She was right, but I would have never guessed what it was...she had a very unusual, southern name, like a heroine in an old Tennessee Williams story. Personally, I thought her full name was lovely, but she always insisted on being called by her initials.
We talked a lot about movies & what it was that made us want to get into the business...and I remember thinking that her taste in movies was pretty cool. She was a big fan of Blade Runner (or at least she said she was, although thinking about it now, it was never in her collection & I never remember her mentioning it again), and that scored some points with me. We also exchanged short life stories, and realized that we knew a lot of the same people. In fact, small world as it is, she had gone to school with Roxanne...although she, being only a year younger than me, was not in her class.
I remember us driving back to work that day & definitely having the sense that something was going to happen between us, but I still wasn't sure what. For one thing, she seemed like a much more...together person than the women who usually come my way; more in Maria's league, and we know how long that lasted. Still, she interested me enough to make me take a shot, so at the end of that day, before I went back to the new office, I asked her if she'd like to go out that Friday night. She said she would. So, we did...
I was working at a production house, making really cheap, lousy commercials for local car dealerships & the like, when word came through the grapevine about a job on a documentary series that was being produced by a sister company. They needed a supervising editor for the project, and because I used to get high with one of the executive producers, I was able to weasel my way into the gig.
They set us up in a little house & sent me to work early setting up the equipment for the show. The plan was to hire (I think) six producers to work on the series, doing two episodes each, with me doing the remaining episode. The first producer they hired was a guy whose claim to fame was producing the video for....well, an extremely famous theme song to a big hit comedy from the 80's, so basically they spent about half of the budget to hire this guy, and filled the rest of the positions with some journeymen around town, and a couple of first-timers. By the first day of production, I had met everyone else, except for one of the first-timers; all I knew about her was that she had worked as an assistant editor at a rival company to the one I had worked for, and that her name was J.C.
On that first morning, I was setting up an editing system in the middle of the front room, when this mousy little girl with short, brown hair & glasses walked through the door, carrying a cup of convenience-store coffee. I remember her holding out her hand to shake mine & introducing herself to me as I brushed the dust from the floor off my hands. I didn't really think twice about her, other than she seemed nice. It's not that she wasn't attractive, but she just didn't immidiately catch my eye, and there was no golden light shining behind her head the first time I saw her, like some other people.
The only other clear memory I have of her that first day was that something was wrong with the computer I had put together for her, and she called me over to ask me if I could fix it for her. I remember that, as I leaned in next to her, I noticed that she had bad breath. I wasn't repulsed by it or anything, but I do remember it, and I remember thinking about it months later, when she asked me what the first thing I had noticed about her was, and deciding that I should make something up, instead of telling her that...
We worked in the same room, basically, for another few days, but I don't really remember anything that happened then. Next thing I remember is getting a call from the head office a few days into the job; they had another show in the pipeline that less than a week away from the deadline, and some huge tragedy had happened where they had lost several weeks work & had to make it up in about 3 days. I was apparently the only person who could get the job done fast enough, for little enough pay, and with no regard whatsoever for my personal health, so they drafted me away for a few days to save their ass. So, I did.
I came back to the new office a few days later, and I remember I got there a little late that morning, because I was getting new brakes on my car. When I arrived, everyone was moving furniture out the door, becuase the boss had apparently found another office down the block that he could rent for about $50 cheaper, and he was having his whole production staff haul everything over. So, I rolled up my sleeves & prepared for moving day.
And then it happened...
I remember seeing one of those long, fold-up office tables being carried out the door by a pair of unknown hands. As she put the table down, I could see that it was J.C.; she was wearring jeans & this little rainbow-striped shirt that reminded me of the seat covers in my mom's old Volkswagen. She had her hair up in a ponytail & she was huffing & puffing from carrying the big table out the door, and her face was all red & flushed. She had a light sheen of sweat on her face & neck that made her all shiny & rosy in the sun....and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she was hot.
I also noticed that she was considerably more...well-proportioned than I had thought...maybe it was the clothes she had been wearing, I didn't know. All I know is that she had one particular asset that I had no idea how I had missed. But still, I should be honest & say that I was just more surprised at her sudden cuteness rather than lovestruck by her beauty, and the only blinding light was still the natural one from the sun outside. I still didn't have any thoughts at the time of persuing her.
In fact, I hadn't been persuing anybody for a while, then....about five or six months, as I recall. I had broken up with Veronica yet again the previous September, and the whole ordeal with Jenna had just happened that Christmas & it all still had me a bit reeling. So, I went on about my business & we moved into the new office. There was a little space upstairs that I immidiately claimed as mine, and the rest of the crew moved in downstairs. It was a day or two later that we finally got everything set up & unpacked, but the first thing I did in my office was the first thing I always do: hang up the Springsteen poster. And that's what really started it...
I was sitting in my office a couple of days later, cutting together some footage, when I head J.C.'s rather charming, southern voice behind me ask "Do you like Bruce?".
Ha. Do I like Bruce...
She came in & checked out my poster, and then we talked for a while; about Bruce, at first. Turned out she liked the more recent, happily-married, acoustic-heavy Bruce, while I'm still more a fan of the old streetwise, hot-rodding, blue-collar, steel-mill Bruce...but in any case, a female Bruce fan was somewhat rare in my life at that time (this ain't New Jersey, folks), and I was quickly enraptured...sort of. I remember thinking about five minutes in to the conversation that we were flirting with each other, but I still wasn't sure. She left after a few minutes & we exchanged a couple more words that day, but she was definitely growing on me.
So, the next day (it might not have been the next next day, but I think it was), I was pretty hyped when the exec. producer came to me that morning & asked me if I could go over to the big office & help J.C. with putting some images on the photo manipulator (an ancient, dinosaur of a machine used to put still images on film that has been obsolete for years, and is roughly as difficult to operate as a stealth bomber), which was apparently about to come alive & crush her. I remember I stopped to buy some gum on the way over, so at least one of us in the room would have fresh breath.
When I arrived, she was wrestling with the controls for this ridiculous machine and listening to Semisonic (a band that I would have never known existed were it not for her) on the little CD player she had brought in. I showed her how to manipulate the manipulator, and then just hung out the rest of the day talking to her. We talked about music, mainly, I remember, and we were definitely flirting. So, when lunchtime came around, I asked her to come with me.
We took my car to a nearby generic chain restaraunt, and I remember asking her if it was ok for us to sit in the smoking section; she agreed although she didn't like smoke, and I remember thinking that was probably a pretty good sign that she liked me, as deadly & thoughtless on my part as it was. It would also be the last time she & I ever sat in a smoking section.
We had a really good time that day at lunch, and we laughed a lot. I remember the first thing I asked her was what her initials stood for. She told me that she didn't like her full name, but that it sounded like "a type of stone, a color, and a part of the body". She was right, but I would have never guessed what it was...she had a very unusual, southern name, like a heroine in an old Tennessee Williams story. Personally, I thought her full name was lovely, but she always insisted on being called by her initials.
We talked a lot about movies & what it was that made us want to get into the business...and I remember thinking that her taste in movies was pretty cool. She was a big fan of Blade Runner (or at least she said she was, although thinking about it now, it was never in her collection & I never remember her mentioning it again), and that scored some points with me. We also exchanged short life stories, and realized that we knew a lot of the same people. In fact, small world as it is, she had gone to school with Roxanne...although she, being only a year younger than me, was not in her class.
I remember us driving back to work that day & definitely having the sense that something was going to happen between us, but I still wasn't sure what. For one thing, she seemed like a much more...together person than the women who usually come my way; more in Maria's league, and we know how long that lasted. Still, she interested me enough to make me take a shot, so at the end of that day, before I went back to the new office, I asked her if she'd like to go out that Friday night. She said she would. So, we did...
6 Comments:
except for her breath ;)
Lovin that your back!! I can't wait to read more.
This makes me want to carry breath mints every where I go. Thank you.
Its good to hav u back :-)
Looking forward to reading more...;-)
Dear God,
Please never let me be in a situation in which my inate hotness is undercut by terrible swamp breath.
Many thanks,
S
Hint: when a guy/girl offers you a mint/gum/BrushUp...take it.
That said, glad you're back :)
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