Lessons From the Kissing Booth

Something about this chilly-raining-sunny-raining weather has me listening to "Baby Britain" by Elliott Smith over and over and over again. Am I the only one who has this problem? And can it even be considered a problem, since it's such a great song?

Hey, Seattle? I don't remember taking back the no touching rule. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there's only one name on my dance card right now. You're still sort of freaking me out, Seattle, so much so that I threw a bunch of ice at one of you last night, and only refrained from throwing the whole glass because it would have been terribly rude to my dear bar staff. And I'm not really a 'throwing stuff at strangers' sort of girl. (I am a 'throwing stuff at friends' sort of girl, though.) So if you could just take your fingerprints and climb right back out of my shopping cart? That would be great. Thanks.

The thing is, you know, that I like all sorts of touching from all sorts of people that I like. I'm all for hugs and friendly socks on the arm and 87 games of thumb wrestling and twister. It's just that for some reason strangers always want to touch me, to lay a hand on my arm or my knee or whatever, and I am Not OK with that. I vote against touching until I've decided if your fingerprints are really something that I want on my skin.

I realize that I have a unique talent for starting my evening calmly drinking champagne and pomegranate soda and talking about the weather and ending it somehow across town being psychoanalyzed by an annoying blond guy in an ugly sweater and introducing myself as "Sarah," and being completely sober the entire time, but still. (Remind me to tell you sometime about the night this summer that I started out eating pie and talking about shoes in Roosevelt and ended up in Ballard telling a drummer from California in a band I hadn't heard to please put his equipment away as it was not coming in contact with my body, thanks, and then escaping with the cab driver that we had convinced to come to the party with us. It's a prime example of this phenomenon, and also wicked funny. Although now you've already heard most of the best parts.) I don't really have a point here, except maybe that I should become a girl who throws things at strangers, because it seems to keep room for the holy ghost between me and the interesting assortment of total freaks that I meet on my adventures. Maybe I should become an enforcer.

Maybe what I need is a little pink switchblade and some silver-plated brass knuckles. Just in case.