One time I was driving around wearing oversized retro sunglasses and blasting Bach—Italian Concerto—on my car stereo. I was feeling very moved, by the music, and very cool in the glasses. I was newly single and had been spending most of my nights bashing around town like a happy drunk lunatic but this time I was on my way to the store to get some good bread and good cheese to take home where I would eat it while watching bad 80’s British sitcoms like The Good Life, or French Fields, alone—or as alone as you can be while also being the owner of two large Labradoodles. Feeling good, and still blasting the Bach, I parked my car in the parking lot of a high-end grocery store, got out, bought some cheese, and went home.
A couple of days later my friend said “hey, you gotta see this, I think it’s about you!” She showed me a post in the I saw you section of the local paper:
“Were you the one wearing sunglasses and blasting Bach in the parking lot?”
I was, but didn’t know if I should respond. I was all for meeting—and with any luck bringing home—random dudes who saw me in parking lots but this Bach-loving guy might be a little too elevated for my skeezy tastes. Still, maybe it shouldn’t be held against him. And maybe I should.
Untethered by former restraints such as “love,” a “fulfilling relationship,” or “domestic bliss,” I had been making the most maybe a little too much of the city’s night life. I was really taking the old adages to heart: you only live once (so enjoy the ride,) carpe diem, and, maybe especially: grab life by the balls—which I took quite literally and applied to a large swath of equally untethered if questionably eligible men. Or is it eligibly questionable? But too many drunken nights with the wrong guy, or many wrong guys—or maybe none of them had been wrong but then again none of them had been right—had started to make me feel like I couldn’t go anywhere in the city without an awkward encounter. “Trying to avoid all the guys you’ve slept with in this town is like playing Frogger,” complained my friend. “Can’t you ease up for a while?”
Maybe this parking lot Bach-lover would make for a nice break.
I couldn’t decide, so I posted the question on facebook:
—Got an “I saw you” from some guy who heard me listening to classical music in my car. Think I should write Bach?
—Be careful. A lot of times those people who write "I saw you" have violin tendencies...
—I thought it was romantic. I'd buy him a drink, but I'm too baroque. Maybe we’ll just go out for an ice cream, or even a Schubert!
—Or take him out for Ligeti, somewhere nice like the Pärt.
—We can have dinner at Pizzacato!
—Or maybe just go to Pachelbel?
—I just want to fiddle around. I could sing my favorite song to put him in the mood: “Your kiss, your kiss is on my Liszt.”
—That makes me want to Greig.
—As he's pouring me wine back at his place, I'll tell him to be sure to Philip Glass.
—Normally I would say you'd best get Chopin, but you seem to have a Handel on the situation.
—If he does let me play his instrument I will try not to shout: "score!"
—Just make sure there’s no hair on the G-String.
—You might want to tune up that F-hole!
—Wow, that’s Franck, don’t make me come after you with a Charpentier!
—Pretty widdy, if I could I would trumpet.
—Let’s just hope it doesn’t all end in Dvorak.
I wrote back to the I saw you guy and we met up for a drink. Although he was attractive, it turned out that he was one of those grown-up types that have their shit together …an upstanding individual. Even worse, he was a violinist and played in a string quartet. Violinists tend not to be drunk tattooed DJ’s with commitment issues, so obviously I wouldn’t be bringing him home. I did play chamber music with him a couple of times while continuing to explore the sketchier contingent of the city and, let’s be honest—the greater metropolitan area—until I was eventually scooped up by the honest gentleman to whom I am now married. Who, although he is a very good guy, has a past …and even a couple tattoos, thank heavens.
It’s Bach’s Italian Concerto but I especially enjoy the inappropriate comment (and promise of a future orgy) starting at 11:14.
OMG, I never saw so many composers' names on the same page! And so well used in the dialogue. Anna, well done.
This is so fun!