Are Most of Your Eyes Blue?
September 6th, 2008Huck has been in and out of the studio all summer, adding the last bits of sonic bliss to their new album. Roger Lavallee is now mixing them together at Tremolo Lounge studio, and the next stop is the mastering studio. We still don’t have a name for the record, and it’s been suggested that the album just not have a name. I’m OK with that, partly because we’ll be able to use the word “eponymous” in some of our promotional materials.
Say that word over and over to yourself until it’s lost all meaning. Eponymous. Eponymous.
I was in the studio with the band on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, reviewing our schedule to get things wrapped up, and then I went to their show in Marlboro that night. I wanted to spend the weekend in and around Worcester, but I had to get back to the Vineyard to do some work. I also had to return my rental car, so I only stayed one night.
I rented the car from Enterprise, the company that advertises that they’ll pick you up and bring you to the rental location. That works great for me, because they give me rides to and from my ferry.
When I returned the car, I got a ride back to Woods Hole with a surly high school kid that they employed to wash cars and provide transportation to customers. He drove too fast, didn’t acknowledge me at all, and turned the radio up so loud we couldn’t have had a conversation even if he wanted to, which he obviously didn’t. I didn’t put my seat belt on, ignoring my own safety in favor of having the seat belt alarm go off repeatedly, hopefully annoying him. Of course, if we crashed, which seemed likely, I’d probably be dead, but I’d have the satisfaction of knowing I’d irked him just a little. Good plan, no?
Halfway to the boat I was rethinking my seat belt decision when I smelled something that seemed familiar. I quickly recognized it because I’d smelled it the day before when I put on a shirt out of my suitcase. It was a slightly musty smell, not entirely unpleasant, but not the way I’d prefer to smell if I have a choice. Maybe the new suitcase had a smell to it that was transferred to my clothes? It was pretty faint, and when I moved my shirt a little I couldn’t always smell it. I was wearing a new shirt; it had been washed once, so it wasn’t the shirt itself, but some sort of clingon from another source. I sat still for a moment and waited, and there it was again, faint but recognizable.
I used my peripheral vision to see what Rudeboy was doing — he was looking straight ahead, and I wondered if I could trust that he would continue doing that long enough for me to actually smell my shirt. For some reason I felt like I had to try; I couldn’t wait ten more minutes until I was out of the car.
I moved my right hand up near my left shoulder slowly, my fingers gliding over my shirt, feeling for the right place to tug on it a little while I looked straight ahead. I didn’t think he noticed, so I pulled it away from my chest and, very slowly, lowered my head, buried my nose in my shirt, and took a deep breath. No smell.
At this point I have to say that I have no idea why I think this is a big deal, or why, since I do think that way, I can’t just do these things in private. I could have waited, or turned my head in the other direction, or maybe, just maybe, I could have just sat still for ten minutes and done my detective work when I got home, when I could smell all my clothes AND my new suitcase in any way I chose. I haven’t learned to ask myself these questions before I unleash my idiocy.
The lower half of my face, from my nose down, was covered by my shirt, my head was lowered slightly, and the instant I inhaled, of course, he turned and looked directly at me, and, aware that he’d moved, I looked up at him.
Our eyes met.
He turned away quickly, both hands on the wheel, and looked a little disgusted. I sat frozen, unable to move, suddenly aware of what I must have looked like.
A normal man might have just stated the obvious — “I was just smelling my shirt,” — but I’m not that person, so I stayed silent and just let my mind race, trying to think of something better. I quickly rejected “do you smell something,” and “I wasn’t making eyes at you,” in favor of stunned silence.
Do people even still say “making eyes?” Of course they do. They also say “23 skidoo!” while they’re doing the Lindy Hop or riding around in a flivver. I’m very, very old.
At least I’d managed not to bat my eyelashes.
And the self loathing continues…
