holiday greetings.

as we all know, today is valentine's day.

as we all might not know, today is also ferris wheel day.

years back i discovered this, and never one to care much about V-day*, whether single or in a relationship, i fully embraced the fact that i could celebrate another holiday - a more entertaining-sounding holiday - instead. i managed to get a couple of friends on the ferris wheel bandwagon, and there's been a select little group of us celebrating the holiday ever since.

so where am i going with this, since i make it a point not to talk about my personal life on here? well, i'm making a slight exception today, since i have time on my hands and a holiday story** that i've always felt warranted a little commemorative spot on the internet.

***

it was 2 years ago, february 14th. i was single, missy was single, and a good friend of mine (A., for the remainder of the story) was single, and so we plotted for a night out boozing. A. and i met up first at this bar downtown and settled down at the bar. by the second drink, we had made friends with the bartender as well as this guy, Jose, who was sitting on the other side of A. (an apparent regular at the bar), and were all chatting. during this time, another guy, we'll call him the musician because the fact that he was one factors prominently in this tale (and i forgot his name, sadly), settled in to the right of me, and before long was swept up in our conversation.

well, by the time missy arrived at the bar a little later, our group had become BFF - taking pictures together, swapping war stories, etcetc. missy joined right in on the fun, and even wound up sketching a picture on a napkin for the musician. the musician wound up taking a bit of a liking to me, and so when i revealed my belief in ferris wheel day, he promised that he would perform a ferris wheel day song for me, if a little later on we would accompany him to this open mic shindig he was going to. we agreed, and so at some point later there we all were, traipsing to this other bar to watch this complete stranger sing a song about ferris wheels to me.

and he did. and i know you're sitting there saying "oh cliché! girl falls for boy who can sing to her". but frankly, i'm not the sort of girl you sing to -- i find that more creepy than cute, and i'd probably snicker at you the entire time. and so i wasn't completely entranced and blinded by the promise of this song, but i must admit when the time came i was quite pleased to be serenaded with a tune about a basically fake holiday that this guy just found out about a few hours early but would sing about it simply because i had immense enthusiasm for it.

fast forward to later in the evening, bar #3 - our little group of strangers is finally disbanding and missy goes to hail us a cab. as i'm saying my little goodbyes to the musician (i.e., drunkenly making out on the corner) and as he was without cell phone for the night, he had me write my number on his hand. getting into the cab i knew that number would not be legible after a few minutes and so i chalked it up to an interesting february 14th and mentally bade him well.

***

2 days later, i come home from work and there is a message on our answering machine in our apartment - and its the musician. the musician who i gave my cell phone number to. turns out, as i predicted, the number rubbed off his hand, and dismayed and wracking his brain to figure out how to find me, remembered that missy had signed her name on the little drawing on the napkin that she had done for him. once procuring my last name from the napkin, he looked me up in the hopes i was listed - and so i was. and we made a date to hang out that weekend.

this was one of those stories that made my friends swoon. everyone was eager to find out what romantically ridiculous thing would happen next.

and wouldn't you know - nothing. day-of supposed date, i didn't hear from him. and never since.

but at least i got a pretty great ferris wheel day story.

***


*except for conversation hearts. i really really like those.

**this story was originally meant to be included in a 2006 roundup of loveandcyanide's ridiculous experiences with men, since '06 was a year that was fraught with such experiences, and missy was working on a humorous month-by-month account of the nonsense. this would've been the february story. of course we got sidetracked and missy never finished it and just wound up stopping her contributions to the site altogether, and so here i am writing this giant post two years later.