So, are you BLU?

Jeff Wyatt's Musings:
Comparing Apples and...
By Jeff Wyatt / Summer 2008

In a tale recalled in The Bible, and I’m sure suffered through on countless occasions over the entire course of human existence on this earth, some form of temptation always leads to some form of forbidden fruit being ingested by some foolish, misguided soul. Throughout my adult existence on this earth, I’ve been smart enough to avoid all forms of said fruit, much to the chagrin of my nutritionist. At least I used to be able to say that and not be labeled a liar.

I woke up on a bright Sunday morning rather famished, and headed into the kitchen. I looked in the refrigerator. The only thing available for a 9 a.m. snack was day-old ramen noodles, or an apple. Foolishly I pierced the apple, sliced it into more agreeable wedges, placed it upon my plate and simultaneously started viewing one of my good friends in a much different light. 

Truth be told, there was no eureka moment, nor did a compact fluorescent bulb cast an unsettlingly white light upon my heart. The realization was more akin to the slow, slinky crescendo of the opening clarinet line to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It started just as Gershwin’s clarinet line did: small, and soft, like the faint, shy rapping of a child’s knock upon the door of a stranger, the first time door-to-door candy sales are thrust upon the youth as some form of Little League fundraiser. 

This eventually grew into the confident, bombastic expressionism that brought Gershwin’s jazz from the speakeasies of New York to great concert halls of the world. Not to mention myself, and a parent or guardian, to Disney World at the end of the baseball season via an arbitrary almond and cocoa-based economy. It’s amazing what can be achieved in door-to-door sales with just a little confidence and gumption. 

And much like the first onslaught of horns in Rhapsody in Blue, it’s a startling realization when you are presented with the fact that your “good friend” has unexpectedly become the person you wish to be intimate with. The first month of these unwanted affections consistently felt as though I was placing bare hand to a steel kettle for tea and having to quickly, and foolishly withdraw it. I dismissed it as an inappropriate flutter of the heart which I was certain would subside. Over the course of the fall and early winter, our chats grew longer as days grew shorter and the faint flickering flame I let burn slowly grew into a…well…really freaking big fire!

Throughout the eight or so months I allowed these feelings to linger, I did all I could to not let on, and keep the status quo of our relationship intact. In the spirit of keeping up appearances, I went on countless dates with countless forgettable women and ended up, no matter how sweet, or beautiful the girl, completely sabotaging the evening. If you can find a good review of me from any of those women, I’d love to hear it, because it simply does not exist. Truly, there has never been a time in my life where no matter what I was doing, someone persisted at the fore of my thoughts. And on these dates I cursed myself for being with them when all I wanted was to be with her.

So, inevitably, I one day decided that now was the time to grow a set and cop to the feelings I held for her. I wish I could say that the words were elegantly floated to her while on a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, while laughing and enjoying one another’s company; you know, that glorified, Tinsel Town “I love you,” we all have built up in our heads. She may have been my Meg Ryan, but I was most assuredly no Billy Crystal or Tom Hanks. Or for that matter, Tom Hanks again, for all you Meg Ryan film buffs reading this.

No, that I fear would be much too wonderful. The words I had desperately wanted to say for so long came out while the both of us were mildly tipsy in the back of a cab, on the way to her place after a night of drinks with friends. Though not slurred, the words didn’t quite land with the impact I had hoped. I had rehearsed them, perfected them, and when the time came to deliver them I spoke assuredly to her and simply said, “I am foolishly, selfishly, and hopelessly in love with you – whether you feel the same towards me in this moment is of little consequence – because, for right now, I need you to know that I am in love with you.”

Just as a point of fact to all reading this, when using a run-on sentence to profess your love, using the phrase “in love with you” twice so closely together doesn’t enhance your chances for a favorable result. It will, however, greatly increase the shocked and startled look on the woman’s face, and give the cabby quite a laugh, as he has seen this gamble played out on countless occasions in the uncomfortable closeness that not even a Plexiglas partition can separate. And so the cabby bet on black, I placed my chips to red; the cabby doubled up. It truly is amazing how much one will tip after a crippling embarrassment. Pain aversion therapy perhaps? All I know is a 20 dollar tip for a cab ride lasting 12 blocks is obscene.

Needless to say, I was not invited up after the cab ride. 

I went home, defeated, and popped Sleepless in Seattle into my DVD player and cried into my pint of Rocky Road, as Meg Ryan reached the top of the Empire State building to find Tom Hanks there surfing the Internet while putting small book shop owners out of work and videoconferencing with Billy Crystal at a diner with a very loud woman…

Well – as could go without mention – that entire night, and the preceding months, were just as confusing as that last paragraph, and the only thing I truly know now from all of it is this: In the future, when comparing apples and oranges, I will forever side with the orange.

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