Dilettante & Tyro (A Series. In Conversation): A Post-Graduate Correspondence
Dear Ty,
How's life in the city? How are the women? All is not so well here. My only interaction with women is my family's distaff. And this whole graduation thing—and being unemployed—has left me impecunious, yet I lack the impoverished filigree of, say, Oscar the Grouch, or Charlie Chaplin's Tramp to make a good go at it. I am looking for one scintilla of hope that this period is transitory. My mother forestalls me in front of the bathroom everyday with the same acidulous request to talk to my uncle (the one with the white, toothbrush mustache) about becoming his vassal or something. My remonstration is nonexistent. I merely shrug and clean out my system before heading to Starbucks where I feign reading for about two hours. This brief two hours is the analgesia to my otherwise abominably banal existence.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Your friend,
Dilettante
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Dear Dil,
Don't be so hard on yourself. Things will get better. Your florid vocabulary leads me to believe you are studying for the GRE. I hope writing the letter to me wasn't merely a studying exercise. I understand, however, if you are simply killing (excuse the cliché) two birds with one stone. You always were a multi-tasker. It's just that I don't have a dictionary on me as I write this letter, so you may have to excuse me if I missed anything. Life in the city is in some ways what I expected and others not quite. For example, yes this place is chock-full of women—big breasted blondes, flat-chested brunettes, and all cup-sizes and hair colors in between—but the women always seem to be going somewhere, meeting with someone, and ignoring me. I fall in and out of love every five seconds. Take today for example. On the subway platform, a real beauty to the right gives me a few milliseconds of eye contact and that's that. She's glanced at me and passed. No words need to be spoken. I'm still in love with her; I just can't do anything about it. Then there's this short, shy Hispanic girl who gives me even less time. Never gives me time. I love her now. And on the train the two sit right next to each other. Across from me and to the left. I writhe and look to the right. Where do these goddesses come from? Where are they going? Why are they riding the subway? To the right there are three girls who no doubt are in high school. They are just as beautiful. Coming into their age before they can fully appreciate the natural appeal of their unsullied bodies. They'll waste it on some zit-faced fifteen-year-old who's only making sure he isn't the only virgin in his class. Neither party will savor it until it's too late. This is what I deal with. And don't get me started on dating. I went on this blind date with this model/poet, a real Sylvia Plath (suicidal tendencies and all), right, and things were going well, real well, so I got a second date. This time I met her at her place. Only she lived in a women's residence (at this point I'm wondering when she's going to stick her head in the oven!). It's the 21st century! Why do these places still exist? I had to be escorted by this real troll of a lady with a solitary chin hair that curled in up to her bottom lip. She smelled like a cross between baby powder and Newports. And I was supposed to respect her because Sylvia said she sang on some Dylan track in the ‘80s. Naturally things didn’t work out between me and Ms. Plath. I couldn’t go back to her place without being castrated first, and the two Sudanese refugees I live with are so judgmental that I’m afraid to bring anyone home.
That’s all I have to say for now.
Best,
Tyro