Luna's Journal

Time:

11:12 pm.

Tonight my domineering roomate invited some of her classmates from Spanish Cinema over for a screening of "Habla Con Ella" for a project they are doing in class. She invited my other roomates Rianna and Attilio (the latter from Sicily) and I to come into the living room and partake of the Spanish cinematic action.

The last time I'd sat through a foreign film was "Amelie" with Lisa, my ex-girlfriend, before we'd split up. And the last time I'd seen "Habla Con Ella" was with my ex in el teatro before I think we'd discovered she'd gotten into Law school up here in Davis...before our lives had shifted as they eventually did.

The film brought back memories of that time, but it also ignited a passion in my self that longed for my most recent of love affairs, my little Spanish woman: Christina. There is a story to go along with this...

I've been seeing this very sweet and debonair Spanish woman named Christina, off and on. More off than on. I met her at a party that, towards the end, I had unexpectedly been walked out to my car by her and kissed passionately on the mouth. It had been a few weeks only since I'd broken up with my girlfriend, but it had been a long time since anyone had kissed me with that much depth and passion. Her lips were soft, her tongue was playful; her small soft hands moved up around to the nape of my neck and her fingertips caressed the lobes of my ears. We fell into my drivers seat in a feverish embrace, she still holding my face in her hands as I held hers, continually kissing her and shyly squeeking out a giggle. I hadn't been kissed like that in monthes. I made her promise to come to my shop the next day as I had work early in the morning, hence my leaving the party early.

She called my shop the next day toward the end of my shift to invite me out to tea. She didn't drink coffee. That following day I was a bit unsettled about what I'd actually gotten into and I sort of made a decision not to let myself go to far ahead and fall for someone rebound-fashion. So while out at tea with this sexy butch I remained reserved and talked pragmatically about random things that didn't make a difference whether or not they were discussed. I complemented her shirt that had a bull sillouhette on it; she explained the billboard situation in Spain and the monopoly the famous vineyard in Spain has over advertising by using the bull as a symbol of the country's heritage as well as getting out the name of the winery. These dry facts were the fuel our our conversation while we sipped our peppermint and plum herbal teas (hers and mine, respectively). We threw in dashes of where we were from in life, though not much from her side and where we'd lived. I asked about Spain and the veterinary hospital she currently worked at. We talked about her Ibizan hound, a dog I later researched and discovered was taller than Christina herself when he stood up on his hind-quarters.

We didn't accomplish much in the department of touch. We never held eachother's hands, played with our feet together. Never tried to kiss, didn't ask about eachother's sex lives much. It was all very dull, really. When we both decided that we'd had our share of the atmosphere we'd subjected ourselves to that afternoon at Ciocolat in downtown Davis, she and I headed in our own seperate directions. I wrote her off at that point as never hearing from her again, though she had my number now, but I not hers. I left it all in her hands.

A week later I got a call from Christina. I didn't call her back, the machine had taken the message and I didn't pay close enough attention, though I should have. The next night she called me yet again. I had rolled a joint that night and had smoked a lovely portion of it after work and was sitting down to eat with my roomate when she called. She was inviting me over to come to dinner with her friends and herself.
I was too high to drive and was already obligated to eat what my roomate had already prepared for us. I regretfully declined. However, before hanging up she wanted to invite me to a barbeque her friend was having the next night. It sounded like a good time and I hadn't really given her the time of day thus far and decided I would go. She offered to drive me (and now that I rememeber this minor detail I kick myself for not having takend notice of it previously), but I was stock-closing that night at work anyway and would have to drive myself. I asked for the directions and her number and told her I'd give her a call the next afternoon before the barbeque to find out exactly how to get there.

I never called her, but instead found the nearest gas station after changing clothes in my car after work and located the map of the city where I found Douglass St. in it's little cell, D4 I think it was. It was near Oak and so I discovered Julia's house (pronounced Hoo-lia, the correct way to prounounce such a name). The barbeque was only partly underway when I arrived. A few people were in attendance and amid them was Christina, beer in hand, looking hotter than ever. A hot shock shot through my body; it was almost orgasmic, the way her lips had felt on mine the night of the first party. The way my body had responded to that stimulus, that was how I felt when I looked down at her upon first arriving to the barbeque standing on the top of the 4 short stairs that lead down to the backyard patio. I was very nervous things weren't going to go well. I mellowed out after a beer and a glass of wine. My friend Mark, an artist, was there and we talked for awhile until I began to feel the effects from my alcohol I'd ingested. That's when Christina and I began to tear down the wall between us. We laid in a hammock in the backyard for possibly a half hour as the party began to fill up. We talked about a lot and touched more. I was less uptight, less pretentious, more open....

>>>Needless to say, somewhere in the period of then and now we were intimate on more than one occasion, but I noticed a pattern with her towards the end of our short period seeing eachother. Her interest waned and she was calling me less and I was calling her more. One day, Mark showed up at my shop when we were closed and I was just hanging around reading while my fellow coworkers finished their tasks. I couldn't get him any coffee, but he sufficed with a lovely chat out in front of my store with me. He really is a sweet guy, he's got absolutely dazzling eyes that you can't help but trust. I told him what I thought could be happening with Christina, that she was not interested in me and how bummed I thought I was becoming because of it. At that moment two mutual friends of ours and Christina's pulled up in their car and informed Mark and I of a party that night. Mark had been on his way out to his studio to do some work, but I had had absolutely nothing to do that night except pine away for a social life and friends and lovers that actually cared about me...you know, nothing really. I went home, got ready, came over to the house that was throwing the bash and didn't find too much going on just yet and definitely no car of Christina's out in front...so I decided to go over to the Co-op which was maybe a block away and see if some kind soul would buy me some beer or wine to bring with me to the party and share. They were short on kind souls at the co-op that night; turns out they had freshly sold out right before I'd come in so I headed off to the party empty handed, having nothing to contribute to the party except for my own devil-may-care attitude I'd decided to adopt earlier in the evening in preparing for tonights party.

I was afraid I wouldn't know anyone at this house, but as I walked back to the party I found Christina's car parked out front and I knew if no one else, at least I had her to talk to if I got desperate. I honestly didn't think anything would ever become of us as Christina hadn't even called my house that evening, as I would find out later upon returning home, sloshed and sobbing.

The evening progressed and I ended up meeting many people that I'd never encounter again, though I didn't treat the conversations that way. I became more and more intoxicated and became more and more critical of myself and analytical of Christina's actions. The time came when I got up enough courage to tell her how I felt. My emotions took ahold of my pragmatism and I soon found myself in tears, my face flushed, my sobs heavy. Christina ushered me outside to the front patio where we sat down side-by-side, I was very embarassed by my outburst and knew now that it was all downhill from there. We had the whole talk about what was I doing in Davis, where was I going in life, self-pity is death and I need to go back to school to make something of myself and stop pushing coffee and tea until I woke up 30 and undereducated. I took her words to heart; she was right. Though drunk and now, I thought, having publicly embarassed myself in front of the international folks that I'd come to regard as the best people in town, I stayed on and recuperated. I got my bearings back and the music began to flow from the huge speakers. I began to dance and let my inhibitions go. It was the one time at the party I'd felt truly free.

I left that night alone and very sad. I had been given very good advice, but my ego and heart were very bruised.

I've recently begun to talk to Christina again, though I'm not stressing too much when I do talk to her now. She's moving in November, starting a new job at a veterinary hospital in San Francisco and I may never hear from her again. She'd said once that timing was everything and that at the time I'd met her, she wasn't ready for another relationship...I understood and I understand.

...But after watching "Habla Con Ella" I want to do just that...I want to call Christina and talk to her. I want to kiss her again and feel her hot breath on my neck and hold her soft body to mine. I want to get closer to her...but I guess only time will tell how this one goes...