(Originally published September 21, 2013)

——————————————————————————-

Me: “Hey, Ry (my big bro), did you hear the good news? I think I went on a date last night!”

Ryan: “You THINK you went on a date? What does that mean?”

Me: “Well, you know…I wasn’t sure if she was looking for a new friend or if she’s interested in more than that. I think it’s leaning towards more than that, which means I think I went on a date last night.”

Dating. Wow. What a crazy thing. I wasn’t even nervous to see Clare last night because I went into it with the assumption that she’s just looking for new friends in Denver. (We met through book club.)

We had drinks at this cool bar called Mario’s Double Daughter’s Salotto. It was fantastically strange, as you might gather from the logo:

It’s very dark. The walls are painted black and then strewn with big chunks of glitter to catch what little light there is. There are two huge black trees made out of paper (maybe?) that stretch toward the middle of the room. Many fake birds dangle from the ceiling. The slats of the banister leading up the stairs to the restrooms are actually axes. It’s the kind of place my friend Julie Godard would create, given the time and materials, if asked to design a slightly creepy but very cool bar. There are numerous bright red circular booths lining the right side of the room and bar stools along the left.

The drinks are creative and VERY STRONG. The instant buzz I got from drinking on an empty stomach (and, let’s face it, I’m a lightweight) undoubtedly helped the conversation flow more smoothly.

Me: “So, in your experience of dating [because she’s on a dating website and actually does this strange thing called dating], how do you know who should pay? It’s so much more obvious in hetero dating to know that, of course, he’s going to pay. How have you found it to work with lesbian dating?”

Clare: “Well, I think the one who paid for the U-Haul doesn’t usually also have to pay for dinner.”

It was all I could do to not mouth-spray my drink everywhere from this hilarious response! This girl is funny. And has amazingly expressive eyes. And she reads. This is going well.

After drinks we walked through a bit of Downtown Denver until we reached the Contemporary Museum of Art (somewhere I’ve never been). We were there for an event called Pecha Kucha. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

PechaKucha or Pecha Kucha (Japanese: ペチャクチャ, IPA: [petɕa ku͍̥tɕa],[1]chit-chat) is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (six minutes and 40 seconds in total). The format, which keeps presentations concise and fast-paced, powers multiple-speaker events called PechaKucha Nights (PKNs).

PechaKucha Night was devised in February 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham…as a way to…allow young designers to meet, show their work, and exchange ideas.

This was a fun event—I would highly recommend it! The presentations we saw were very impressive and I was exposed to amazingly creative companies doing brilliant things, such as tres birds workshop.

The event was hosted outside and the slides were projected onto a giant screen. This picture is of a guy who was talking about an interactive video game he designed for the huge screen at 15th and Champa in which the people down below use their own bodies as a way to control what’s happening on the screen. The idea was to get strangers to bond more easily through the medium of play.

The best presentation by far was from the Wafflich guy. His presentation was hilarious because he basically had no point (the theme was “in the middle”) except to entertain with adolescent humor that made me guffaw a few times. We did buy one of his Waffliches (a sandwich pressed and heated in a waffle iron) and it was yummy.

After Pecha Kucha we got another round of drinks, chatted more, laughed more, and then I drove her home. It was such a good night that I wasn’t even angered by the parking ticket on my windshield (my meter ran out 10 minutes before the cutoff time and they nabbed me!)—it was worth it for such a fun night out.

And the rest…well, I can’t say. I’m not one to not kiss and tell.