Last Date For Lulu

-Hi reader.

(awkward silence)

Consider this our first date. The good thing about this one is I can't screw it up.

One I definitely screwed up: Let's call her Lulu. The first night I met Lulu, I somehow ended up in her car after a show. We sat awkwardly in the parking lot while she played me the entire Built To Spill album "There's Nothing Wrong With Love," the space between us filled by the kind of tension you can't feel after the age of 25 and the genius of a young Doug Martsch. In hindsight, leaning over and holding her hand during the chorus of "Reasons" could have led to something amazing, but I'm kind of relieved nothing else happened during that fateful sit-in. I really like that album, and some things do not deserve to be sullied by human emotion.

For Lulu, I wrote a song to play at my next show, the lyrics of which had only one purpose: to cajole her into giving me her phone number. It had some snazzy chord changes, and it must have worked, because I called her and we met one afternoon after I moved into town. I had just quit a horrible job and used the money I had saved up to move out of my parents' house and into the room of a friend who lived closer to Lulu, but not for that specific reason (although I have made stupider housing decisions for a girl). For the first hour, we drove around aimlessly in an SUV while listening to the soundtrack to the Royal Tenenbaums before either of us had actually seen the film. It seems like such a perfect fit now, but when these things are happening, you're hardly worried about cross-referencing the moments of your life with Wes Anderson films.

Anyway, I got the bright idea that we should go hang out at my new place, only to arrive and find the doors locked and my roommate gone, with the realization that I didn't even have a key yet. Dejected and even more uncomfortable, we drove the thirty minutes back into town to see an art exhibit at the community college, and at one point we were in the parking lot of a mall, weighing the pros (the possibility of ice cream) and cons (neither of us really wanted ice cream) of actually setting foot in the mall. The ten minute conversation ended with her driving me back to my car, after which we said polite goodbyes. And then we never went out again.

Now, I'm sure I called her afterwards, or she called me, and it really didn't end with that one horrible date, but as time erodes the little details away, it becomes easier to say that my first date with Lulu was my last date with Lulu. Not a success by any means, but not a total failure in the big picture of things. She introduced me to Built To Spill, I told her she should definitely listen to more Elliot Smith, and I am certain that I'm not the only one who remembers the day we could have had ice cream, but didn't.