Una Noche en San Francisco

Un dia como hoy, pero varios años atras, conoci a la chica con quien me queria casar. Si sigo el orden cronologico, mañana tendria que escribir "un dia como hoy, nunca mas vi a la chica con quien me queria casar". Asi y todo, estuvo buenisimo.

A los pocos dias volvi a la universidad y tiempo despues escribi la historia para el Broadcast (diario de la universidad). Hoy es la primera vez que la leo desde Noviembre 2005 y, la verdad, me la acordaba mejor. Igual la copio aca abajo. Si hay algo de feedback, tambien subo la otra que escribi que -creo- esta mejor.

If Not Now

Summer was ending. My last night in San Francisco. The following morning I had to catch the plane to come back to Brescia. It was late at night and somehow I found myself in this over-expensive bar in the Fisherman Wharf area with this dull French chick that I met at the hostel, who I knew wasn’t going to pay for her drink despite the fact that I never invited her. I couldn’t keep my mind from thinking how incredibly boring she was. I pictured her dying painfully over and over again, the same way I was dying painfully by listening to her pretentious effort to seem stylish while she couldn’t find a punch line to her irkish stories, not even if her life depended on that.

Then I noticed the awkward déjà vu about the situation. “This already happened to me,” I thought. It was two years before, in New York, with another French chick I had met at another hostel. Although my sample was pretty slim, I wondered if all French chicks were that boring. Anyway, I was hoping she will compensate her tediousness with putting out. Not so long later, while walking back to the hostel, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Still, she was looking forward to keep chatting. Somehow, I was interesting enough to pay for her drink and chat, but not to go further. She kept talking nonsense stuff for a while; fortunately, I had quit listening about an hour before. As we were walking in the lobby, I ditched her pretending to be sleepy and went to check my email on the hostel computers located in a nineteenth-century decorated cozy living-room, about twenty feet from the check-in counter.

I was just chilling in front of the computer when this other girl showed up out of nowhere. Tall, blond, and blue eyes, but far far away from stereotype. She was walking back and forth from the check-in counter to the computers. A worried woman in her mid-fifties was following her nonstop with the face of a needy dog desperate looking to be pet. I quickly and mistakenly assumed it was her mother. Finally, the girl sits next to me and says with an accent thicker than mine that I couldn’t place “I cannot stand her anymore,” and talked without even pausing to catch a breath for a few minutes. She was just trying to articulate random stuff in no particular order, explaining that several years before, she came to Cali as an exchange student for her High School senior year and the woman in her fifties was her host mom. Then she told me it was her last night in San Francisco. The following morning she was going back to Switzerland, were she lived. On one side, she seemed funny, interesting, easy-going, and simple. On the other, she was overwhelmed by the conflicts between her host mother and brother, she had to witness for the past couple of weeks and how she was doing her best not to get involved. She used the “being Swiss” joke in first person, and she had me. Even though I only knew her for les than ten minutes, and seven hours later she will be gone forever, at that moment, she had me.

It was passed two in the morning. We were on top of Fort Masson National Park drinking a Corona with no lime, watching where the Golden Gate Bridge was supposed to be as the fog prevented us from the view. We had been there, just talking, for over half hour, when we ended up kissing. It wasn’t meant to be but bound to happen. Things flow and naturally occur.

My heart didn’t skip a beat. The rest of the world didn’t disappear and it was just the two of us. Nor any other stupid elementary clichés occurred. In fact, I just liked her because none of that stuff happened. Instead, she was real and everything was good. But really good.

We already kissed, we are both in our twenties, we both admitted having one night stands in the past, and we both agreed on sex not being such a big deal. Mixed feelings popped in my head regarding if I should pursue more or not. A couple of hours before, with the French girl I was looking forward to it. But this time was different, I liked her.

I was dazzled, clueless. How come a few hours before I was looking forward to sleep with this annoying French chick; and now, messing around with this girl a million times better, having second thoughts. I knew I could have her if I wanted to, I just had to go for it. But how do I want to remember her? A one night sex thing with this European chick or the most romantic night I had so far? Does sex ruin romance? Or is it possible to have both? But is it worth it? Why do I have to think so much about it? Why can’t I relax and enjoy? Besides, if not now, when?

Few hours later, the sun showed up uninvited and the bridge turned back to bright orange. It was the end of a parenthesis after summer and before classes a little bit more painful I care to admit. And, in the end, my heart didn’t skip a beat, it was just real. As for the sex stuff, sorry, I don’t kiss and tell.