Written for Autobiography class:

The Third Time in as Many Weeks That Sofija Jovic Disrupted My Life
Or
How I Learned to Stop Hiding and Love Myself, Maybe
(From notes scribbled on a Woyzeck program draft, March 29th, 2004)

Our class ended early so Sofija asked if I wanted to go somewhere and get a cup of coffee. It was an absolutely beautiful early spring day, the breeze brisk, sweet, cooling. The sun shone not harshly but softly and bright, in the manner of all storybook spring days everywhere. It was just warm enough. The city glowed yellow and bright, and the cloudless sky above could be said to have been sparkling. If there were justice in the world or trees in the city, it was the kind of morning on which birds should have been chirping.
Somewhere; birds were chirping. I am certain of it.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. You decide. Be a man. Take me somewhere against my will.”
***
Sofija has an infectious laugh, and a mischievous grin that belongs on a young boy. A young boy that is up to no good. Her voice is crisp and a lovely almost-baritone, that an American woman just couldn’t pull off with the same gusto. Sofija’s words are shaped by a Serbian accent that sharpens her vowels and makes her consonants all slightly sibilant. It is a voice that has been known to strike terror into the hearts of those that hear it; in times of intensity she tends to sound a little unsettlingly dictatorial; a fact I believe she both knows and exploits. She is the only theatre director I know who can get away with a sharp clap of the hands and an exclaimed “OK! Chop chop! Choppity chop!” to her actors. If I tried that, for instance, I would get laughed at. Her actors fucking chop chop, you know? Her use of invented verbs to intimidate those she is commanding heightens the experience, as I have previously overheard her say variations on “I will genocide you” and “I will Holocaust you,” the first time in my knowledge that either of these two terms have been used in this way. You sort of think you ought to be offended when she speaks like this; but something about the way she smiles once she’s said it somehow makes even the most appalling comments seem harmless.
I think I might kind of be in love with her. OK, not really. I knew she was going to read this and thought I’d throw her off right near the beginning. But she does mystify me in a way that makes me completely rapt in her presence; a fact which I believe she both knows and disgusts. She will do the flirty thing with me, but most of the time she seems to poo-poo any compliments I throw her way, or any near-serious assertions that I think she’s one swell lady. Maybe “school-boy crush” is a better way to describe it. School-boy crush is actually perfect; no school-boy crush would be complete without the girl on the receiving end that just totally doesn’t give a shit that you have a crush on her.
God damn. It’s too bad she’s married.
***
“OK, well let’s go somewhere we can sit outside. It’s such a lovely day. So let’s go to that Starbuck’s, not this one.”
“You aren’t cold?”
“No, but if you are…”
“No, let’s go.”
She bought each of us a hot chocolate and herself a lemon poppy-seed muffin (which she absolutely fucking forced me to have a bite of, which I think is like this whole other story. Suffice it to say that I took a bite just to get her to stop trying to make me take a bite. It was actually a pretty great muffin, and when she said “Oh, I like it very much. It’s very bitter. I like bitter things.” And I said something like “That’s not really a surprise.” And then she said “Yes. I like all sorts of bitter things, like really bitter chocolate. You’re right! It’s not surprising!” and then she laughed in that way that just fucking slays me). I did not protest much when she offered to pay for my drink. Despite being poor at this point, I would have normally made a fuss and demanded to pay for not just my beverage but everything. But, as you may have caught me intimating [;)], Sofija does scare me a little bit and I’m loath to question her in any situation. Also, frankly, I felt she owed me a cup of something warm and soothing after what she had put me through in the weeks previous. Hot damn, what a transition.
It started innocently enough, it seems, with the two of us doing one of our patented flirty-type banter things early in the Monday morn, yea on these three weeks ago. This particular exchange—I don’t remember what it was we were discussion, probably I made a pass at her and she made some incredibly lascivious, dirty, and like quadrupule-entendre’d sort of thing that would make me blush. It’s amusing the disparity in her language. This is a girl that can make incredibly lucid, amazing, philosophical points in English but stopped me cold in a conversation to make me explain what I meant when I called her a “meanie-head.” She actually said, “What is this meanie-head?” Anyway, this most recent bit of banter ended with her saying:
“David. I must find you a girlfriend.” Her vocal pauses tend to sound like periods rather than commas, so her speech has a punctuated and precise pattern.
“Sofija,” I said in a mock-whiny tone, “The ladies-- they don’t love the Dave McGee.”
‘Well,” she said, the beginning of a smile working its way into the corners of her mouth, “That is because not every girl is excited that you hide behind your intellect.”
“…” I said. “…” I added quickly, not at all just sitting there with my mouth gaping like… like…
That is because not every girl is excited that you hide behind your intellect.
What a load of what a bunch of what a stupid thing to
You hide behind your intellect
Of course I don’t I don’t even know what that means I couldn’t possibly
You hide behind your intellect.
Stunned. Shocked. Absolutely blown away. No response. She’s wrong. That’s the response. She’s wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. She must be wrong. I don’t do that I don’t do that she is wrong she is wrong I am not hiding behind my intellect. I am not she is wrong I am not doing that. I do not hide behind my intellect.
I don’t.
Oh fuck.
I do.
“Sofija…”
She laughed, and walked out of the room. I don’t think she knew that she had just destroyed me.
She owed me a fucking hot chocolate, that’s for sure.
***
Short excerpts from our brief foray into the Starbucks:
“But men are so unlucky. You don’t get to have babies…”
The only thing Sofija has ever whined about in my presence is her desire to have a child. A desire which frankly scares the living shit out of me. She actually whines about this; it would be adorable if the thought of any of my friends having children of their own wasn’t so fucking horrifying.
“Uh, you can keep it.”
“You don’t get to have breasts.”
I squeeze my man-breasts at her, I brandish them like weapons.
“I do!”
“Shutup! No you don’t.”
This is one of those times in which Sofija scares me into silence. I simply nod and move on. I know I’m right though. I do have breasts.
***
“But there is something about being a man… you may not have that deep, physical connection… that “I carried this” kind of… that singular maternal instinct. But there is a connection there. It’s primal and it’s just as important… this knowledge that you are the first line of defense. You know? “Nothing will touch this thing.” Not like… not like I’ll attack anything that comes near my child but I’ll fucking kill anything that comes near it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. That’s sexy.”
***
“So I had this great conversation with Melanie. A world-destroying conversation, and we had never met before. Briana told me later how Melanie described it: she said you know how when you speak more than one language and you get really drunk or really tired or really excited and you slip into that other language? It was like that, but with English.”
She looks down at the table for a moment.
“I’m worried to tell you this.”
“Oh, now you have to tell me.”
Let the floodgates fucking open.
“Sofija, I think I know exactly why I’ve built up these defenses.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I’m ugly…”
“What?”
“It’s not just that I feel unattractive, Sofija, I feel… despair when I see the way I look. I figure if I can be clever enough and smart enough then maybe people won’t notice how ugly I am. Or it won’t matter so much.”
“Oh my god.” Her tone is sharp, and I’m worried that she’s actually going to kick my ass. She could too. “Do you honestly think you have nothing to offer physically?”
“Yeah.”
“Well you’re wrong. You do. There is something about the way that you hug that… I don’t see this on the surface. I got this all the first time I hugged you. All this “first-line-of-defense,” you need to show more of that. You need to show that you are sexy like that.”
“I’m not sexy.”
“You’re not understanding me. It’s… I mean… Ugh! There aren’t words for anything.”
“You have to be clear though, Sofija, so I can remember this later.”
“You don’t need to remember it word for word.”
“I’m going to botch this when I try to write about. I’m not going to capture your voice closely enough. I want to be able to write exactly what you said I want to record this conversation.”
“You don’t need to. This is not for you to write about. This is for you.”
“But later when I try to thank you for it, why do you try to minimize the gift you’re giving me? In a minute you’re going to unleash a string of words and phrases that I think are going to fundamentally change my life and then after a few more hours of class, after you’ve held my hand through the whole next class while I cry constantly and the teacher insists on asking over and over if I’m alright when I try to thank you you’re going to say “Oh, come on, it’s not me.” “No!” I’ll say. “I will not let you absolve yourself of the responsibility for this gift you have given are giving will be giving me in a moment. You must take responsibility for this because you changed are changing will change me.” And you will say “I am just giving you something that somebody gave me.” And that will have to do, I guess, because you’re not going to know don’t know didn’t know how much all of this will change me.”
“OK.”
“How do I say what you said to me? I want everyone to know.”
“How does it feel?”
“It feels like a whirlwind.”
“…”

Then Sofija said in no particular order and with me completely botching her voice
whirlwind:
“The difference between you and me is that you don’t believe in any Truth. There’s a difference. You can say “this is true” but you can’t ever say “this is the truth.” You don’t have a sense of Truth. You have to learn to feel this sense of being overwhelmed. You have to learn to feel that there is this time when you cannot breathe and you are completely unable to respond. You have to learn to act, to say “yes” or “no” without thinking just knowing. You have to… your sense of humor, it’s like OK. I get it. But it’s just a distraction. It’s not sexy.”
This next part of the conversation never happened
“You’re not supposed to know this much.”
“Shutup. I’m talking.”
“You didn’t really say that.”
“I know. But concentrate…”
“I can’t. My life is going to change because of this conversation.”
“You don’t know that yet.”

I know it now.

Sofija tore my heart out of my chest and showed it to me. With a flick of the wrist and a turn of a phrase she pierced directly to the center of nearly 22 years of carefully constructed defense mechanisms. Some I didn’t even know I had. I can’t tell you everything she said. I can’t remember it all.
Amalgam of several conversation fragments.
“You have to find someone that is just as scared as you are.”
“What like a John Patrick Shanley play? I’m fucked up so I have to find somebody else fucked up so we can be fucked up together?”
“No. You are not understanding me. This is why I was scared to tell you this. For fear of the Patrick Shanley comment.”
“I’m not meaning to misunderstand… look, when I met Melanie I felt…”
“You don’t need to tell me what you felt. I know what you felt.”
“How do you know what I felt?”
“Because I know you both. You both have these brains, these huge brains and you’re both so vulnerable.”
“How do you know I’m vulnerable?”
“It’s like when you’re in the most intense pain you have to relax. There are people for whom intellect is a… is a… like “I don’t get you.” Well that’s not you. I get you.”
“I don’t want to hide behind my intellect anymore.”
“You don’t need to.”
***
I can’t tell you everything she said. I can only tell you how it made me feel. Defenseless. Wonderful. As if my life were beginning new.
“Everything I could say to you Sofija would sound like hyperbole right now.”
“Like what?”
“I feel like my life will never be the same.”
“That’s never hyperbole. That’s always true.”

I feel. I am allowing myself to feel. I am trying to recognize that. I walked more upright today. I felt freed from my responsibility to the defenses I have built up. I still feel that way. I am excited to live. I want to act out. I want to act without thinking not irresponsibly but just off the cuff for once for once.

I want to ask a girl out on a date. Like for real. I can say just how I feel I can say I have no idea how to ask you out on a date. But I really want to go with you on one.

And maybe that’ll be OK, and maybe that won’t be a simplistic way to respond to this amazing thing that happened to me today. If for a moment I can break down those defenses and know this… know this… know this… and when I told Marleen that I had had my heart torn out and shown and that I felt destroyed she said

Well that also means that you were ready to hear it.

And you know something?