I had decided that drinking a glass of beer was the only possible event that would salvage the day I had just endured. I work in hot, remote places and do incredibly dirty work for a living. I get compensated pretty well for the heat and location, but there isn't enough money in the world to compensate me for dealing with the gang of fools that I work with. At best they are incompetent, at worst they are dangerous.
I had survived another day, took a shower and had opted to go have a pint of Bent Nail IPA from a local watering hole. I live in a basement apartment and had never met the folks upstairs. Our upstairs neighbors seemed to be an ever-changing cast of out-of-state folks here to tap into the oil boom. I ignored them as best I could and tried to not make much over there comings and goings. But today was different. I exited my apartment and as I came to ground level, I knew someone was in the back yard. Rather than leave the house not knowing what was going on in the back, I stepped back only to be confronted by a sweaty redhead on a yoga mat.
While this maybe commonplace in some areas of the civilized world, this in not a civilized part of the world. This being the suasage-fest, known as the oil fields. Herein women gain undue attention for just not having a penis. This has had a terrible effect on man / woman relationships as it has shifted the balance of power from its normal teetering equilibrium to a state of totally tyranny. Women are scarce and even the most horrible of them demand an exacting price on anyone "lucky" enough to find themselves attached. Needless to say, the only thing more surprising than a girl in the back yard was a yoga mat. I digress, ...
As I saw her, she saw me. I naturally did the neighborly thing and went to introduce myself. I met Katja. While Katja was sweating like she had done something wrong (it turned out to be a product of her running that evening) she was very attractive and used English with a familiarity of those considered not stupid. I was immediately intrigued and began peppering her with questions about living above me. Eventually, I remembered that I was going to have a beer and invited Katja to accompany me. In a fateful moment of decision, she said that she would. Her protests that she looked terrible were swept aside and she went to clean up. Cleaning up has different meanings to everyone, so I opted to keep shouting that she should hurry up so that it didn't turn into a shower and another hour of meticulous primping. To her credit, Katja was brief in her ministrations and we departed "our" house directly.
While driving, the typical get to know one another conversations ensued. We bounced from topic to topic in what I believe to be a courtship ritual of modern man. Pressing likes and dislikes to more closely pigeonhole the other person into a more understandable frame and to decide if that person is someone that you would like to spend time with. As Katja failed to leap from the moving window of my car, I determined it to be a success. She was an interesting Californian girl transplanted to Colorado for work. Her employer, as it turns out, had rented the house above my apartment to her company for employees passing through the area. Kismet? We shall see.
Upon arrival, we were ejected as the place was closing and we opted to find another place to have a beer. Upon arrival at destination number two, we grabbed a couple beers and seated ourselves on the patio and began to talk in earnest.
Katja talks fast. The rapidity of her speech is only rivaled by the speed in which she changes topics. Initially, it was difficult to see how one topic was connected to the second. as the conversation lengthened, I was able to pickup in how these thoughts were threaded together though and I was greatly relieved as one of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for schizophrenia was a incoherent thought process. Dodged a bullet on that one.
While the conversation was like any other at times, when we naturally come to the part where musical tastes were revealed I was taken aback. Katja, without humor or even the slightest of wry smiles, stated that she liked country music. I was crestfallen. I suddenly had an image of her wearing wranglers and boots and listening to the Top 40 of country while trying to emulate what city people thought country folk were like. I, having grown up in a rural environment, knew and detested this affectation. But, then Katja began to name country musicians from the 50's, 60's and 70's. She reported loving the outlaw country heroes, she declared her distaste for the present state of pop-country and all of the sheep making it. My thinking had to do an immediate 180 and look at this tiny girl in a new light. She might know her shit. Then she went ahead and ruined it.
Katja declared with the same absence of mirth that she did not like reggae. I am unsure of how to write that sentence, I couldn't understand the statement and I surely couldn't wrap my brain around the thought. Who doesn't like reggae music? I could understand if you weren't a fan of dancehall or ska, but roots reggae is the international language of hippies. Love, peace, chicken grease. Patchouli oil smelling, tiedye wearing, bleeding hearts around the world cry out for more reggae. I tried to gently probe this idea and clarify the rationale, but she was tolerating none of it. That is the moment I had to wonder, does this girl have bad taste? She seems like a hipster in most regards, with hippie tendencies or course, but this was a conundrum.
We finished our drinks and drove "home". As impromptu as this date was, I knew at some point that this went from drinking beer with the neighbor, to this was a comfortable first date. We went into the house (her part, the upstairs) and I had another beer. We chatted about various topics, then watched TV while she conked out. I attribute this to her delicate constitution. While she will deny it, she was totally into me.
I exited her domicile through an interior stair that led to a shared laundry room. Upon getting to the basement, I began to contemplate what it would be like to date someone who lived in the same house as me. It was hard to wrap my mind around. That was when I chose to stop thinking about it at all. I did secure Kat's phone number and if memory serves. I sent her an SMS that night thanking her for going out with me.
I went to bed knowing that I had to go work on a project four hours away in two days and not clearly knowing what her schedule held. I also knew that I wanted to spend more time with the upstairs neighbor.
