Hacks and Hemingways, scribes of all genres

May I have the attention of the class, please. Today's lesson: The art of being stealth.

Say you're sitting in a hotel lounge bar, enjoying the above average piano man and the company of friends who smoke. Since they're not allowed to do it indoors, they step out. You stay in to hold the fort and engage in some hunting and gathering. People watching. Yarn-spinning.

In the sofa set across from yours sits a man, a man five to ten years your junior, a man talking enthusiastically with a friend or colleague of his. You make note of his drink, how he's dressed, his demeanor. Imagine what he does for a living. Play around with options and scenarios. Snatch pieces of him. He makes note that you do.

Your friends return and you return your attention to them. When they step out again, and again, you step back into another world, the world of what ifs, with your play date. So the night evolves. His friend leaves but the man stays. And the roles are reversed. He is doing the watching, and suddenly you can't dive into the realm of fiction, you are too aware of the here and now and the fact the observer is being observed.

You excuse yourself and head for the ladies to be stopped on the way back by your watcher. He doesn't introduce himself. He doesn't ask your name. He says you have been checking him out all night. You admit you have. Now. This is where you insert a white lie. "Do I know you from somewhere?" Or, "You look like so-and-so. Are you?" Maybe even tell him the truth.

Think for too long and you may be told that they can see that you're married and so are they but they're not married in this town they're just visiting and staying in that same hotel and maybe you're not married in this town either and perhaps would like to spend the night with him instead of wherever you happen to be staying. Since you were checking him out and didn't even bother to deny it.

His adaptation is so far removed from yours that for another moment you say nothing. Then you regain your footing and find the words, the ones that tell him you thought you knew him but he's not the man you thought he was. Which is only the truth. In your version he was several things, just never a man in town on business who picked up a stranger in a hotel lounge bar, fucked her upstairs then called his wife to say goodnight.

A cautionary tale. Lest you be caught stealing. Do I have your word you will be more careful? I said, do I have your word? G o o d. As you were. As long as you promise you'll be more wily than I was.

Bashers and orators, trash talkers and smooth operators

May I have the attention of the class, please. Today's lesson: The art of speaking your mind in public.

So you are sitting in your local coffee shop unloading to your lady friend and anyone who happens to be sitting within hearing distance about what an awful, Awful!, week you've had. You're not only hating the week with a vengeance, you're loathing your life, everyone remotely connected to said miserable existence, the weather, the lucky bastard who won a gazillion euros last weekend, and how music these days is nothing but ruminated rubbish.

You find yourself one more target. Then you take it apart with more enthusiasm than finesse. I mean, they're just sitting there, practically waiting to be stomped on by you and your foul mood, and, best of all, those stupid-good-for-nothing-go-back-to-where-you-came-from-get-out-of-my-country-and-outta-my-sight foreigners don't understand a word you're saying.

Or so you think, because, let's face it, you're not thinking at all. Your frontal lobe stopped functioning some time Monday morning when the week started going sideways, and it hasn't straightened out since. Not only can they hear you, they understand you just fine. What they can't for the life of them fathom is your line of reasoning. But going from someone's appearance to a detailed account of where they are going and what they are doing with their life doesn't require reason, does it, only a foul mood and a mouth to match.

So sorry you're unhappy. Very certain I had nothing to do with it. And your mama was right. If you don't have anything nice to say, please take the drama somewhere else, we're all stocked up here at the den, m'kay? M'kay. I got my eye on you. Oh yes I do. Ears, too. Behave.

Poindexters and space cadets, improvisers and men on a mission

May I have the attention of the class, please. Today's lesson: The importance of perfect timing.

So. Nature calls in the middle of your walk home from wherever you happened to be at such an unnatural hour. Do not, I repeat, do not make your presence known before the utterly unsuspecting woman you had never laid eyes on in your life prior to the moment you had to take a whiz in the wild is long gone.

For the love of all that is holy, do not jump right in front of her, even if you are all done, even if it is a hundred below and you and yours are both freezing, even if your intentions are good. She might not care. She might be inclined to take your head off, just to be on the safe side, and, let's face it, gentlemen, jumping from the bushes, headed straight at her, displays truly appalling judgment on your part, the time and your timing considered.

Your back in a bush is far preferable to your face in hers, trust me. Since that is no place or time for small talk, big words, asking for her number, a cigarette, or the time, only one thing left for you to do, really, i.e. nothing. Do. Not. Move. Should she detect you, she'll have time to decide between fight and flight, time to make sure the coast is and remains clear. Present a clear and present danger and run the risk of a can of unforeseen consequences to be opened on your person.

Do we have an understanding? I said, do we have an understanding? Excellent. Class dismissed. Behave.

Living on the edge

You know when something has to be good? When the topic itself doesn't interest you one bit but the presentation is such a delight you wouldn't miss it for the world. What am I talking about? Top Gear, sweetie darlings, one of the few TV shows I try not to miss. No, seriously. It's a screwball sitcom and talk show. With va-va-voom. Brilliant! The BBC version. Accept no substitute.

I'm not enthusiastic about cars per se. It's a necessity, not a baby I nurse in the free hours I don't have anyway. I do love driving, though. One of my guilty pleasures. Coupled with all those miles spent in the skies regretting a carbon footprint the Titans would be proud of... Gu-hil-ty!

Can't help it, still love it, especially now that it's winter and I really get to drive that thing instead of just sitting there steering while taking calls, eating lunch and putting on some Gigantic Titanic Absolutely Out of This World Volume mascara. Of course I don't. I have children. But the things I've seen on the roads of this tiny speck of compressed stardust of ours... Talk about living dangerously.

It is an extreme sport going out, even for a walk, now that the Big Chill has descended upon us. Ice falling off roofs, the ever-present possibility of limbs akimbo on those slippery pavements, and people driving as if they hadn't noticed the road conditions have drastically changed. I don't care what kind of acronyms your car came equipped with, it will not drive itself and it will still act like a car. Okay? Okay.

I took a winter driving course, which is actually mandatory up here, rightly so, and highly recommendable. It clearly demonstrated in a safe environment how a car handles or rather doesn't in extreme weather conditions. There are tricks and there are secrets to keep going where you were headed if you suddenly lose traction. Still, you can't control everything, especially other drivers. 

Picture little ol' me in my nifty motor vehicle approaching an intersection when along glides a 4WD, and I do mean along glides a 4WD after cutting the corner going way too fast and losing traction. It's coming right at me in as graceful pirouettes as a monster of a car can manage. With no time to back up and nowhere to go because I don't know where it'll end up, hoping it's not on top of me, I watch the guy's hands first spin like crazy then freeze and squeeze because he doesn't know either and because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. 

His car ends up spinning on its axis right before a collision that never comes with little ol' me staring at the shaken putz and the stunned fool staring right back at me before backing up and taking off as if we hadn't just been an inch of a Monster Jam all our own.

Picture little ol' me driving home, walking in, going straight for the good stuff and downing a shot with Hubby looking on then saying, "Happy to see you, hon." The feeling was, as they say, mutual. 

Horndogs and gentlemen, players and player haters

May I have the attention of the class, please. Today's lesson: The art of giving a sincere compliment.

Do not, I repeat, do not start out by saying "You're not my type." Bad intro. Baaad bad bad. Heard yourself saying so? Sweet baby Jesus, do not repeat what you just said. Believe me, that's an opening line sure to catch her attention, and I don't mean in a good way. I mean the Okay-Getting-back-to-my-drink-now-I-think-I-need-another-Thanks-for-the-compliment-If-you-don't-have-anything-nice-to-say-you-have-the-right-to-shut-the-hell-up kind of way.

So. Do not follow up by stressing how "You're really not my type." Yes. Thank you. She heard you fine the first time and is now waiting for a list on all the ways in which she really isn't your type/for that drink to arrive/to see if she'll waste it on the insides of your pocket because the thought crossed her mind/for her friend to get back from the ladies', and what the hell do other women do there anyway, it's taking forever.

Two wrongs don't make a right, gentlemen. "But you're a very sexy woman," after you've just told her you're not that into her, won't turn the game in your favor. Since you don't really fancy her, that was probably not your objective to start with, but, and I can't stress this enough, if your intention was to let her know you do find her attractive, despite all the ways in which you don't, enough to approach her and speak your mind, why oh why oh why didn't you just say so?

Class dismissed. Behave.