signs and strangers

zebra said, "what do you think about socks?  do your socks have to match?"

he believes virgos have this thing about matching socks, matching their need for order and organization.  the girl sitting at the table with us had just reaveled she is a virgo.

i had guessed her birth month correctly.  september.  not an astrology subscriber myself, i made my guess based on the idea that each sign represents a movement forward in the cycle of birth and reincarnation; each sign represents a movement and development in wisdom and enlightenment, with pisces as the culminating sign.  at least this is how it has been described to me, though i have no adequate understanding of astrological mechanics.  that being said, i supposed the woman to exist mid-cycle, still young in the reincarnation cycle.

as an aquarian, toward the end of my spiritual development, i supposed i'm a bit cranky and this woman annoyed me.  my own fault, i instigated her attention: i asked her what book she was reading when zebra left the table to use the restroom.  we had been drinking beers at the red fox, developing an idea for a screenplay we want to write together.

this young stranger had insinuated herself into our conversation with our blessing, our invitation, and she and zebra had taken to each other easily.  zebra says pisces and virgos attract each other in strange ways.  perhaps he saw in her a reflection of his spirit, the vigor of his spiritual youth, of something in a past life.  i welcomed her company initially but quickly grew annoyed.

like perhaps you would expect from someone at her stage in the lifecycle, as a twenty-something year old or a virgo, she seemed mature, well-rounded, well-read, educated.  as we talked, she came to almost ignore me, talking directly to zebra and cutting me out of the conversation.  she seemed self-congratulatory, revelling in the references she made to us, almost as if expecting i would not be familiar with proust (she obviously did not know who she was talking to.)  i became annoyed that though she seemed very intelligent and could understand different arguments, could follow the conversation, she seemed to fall back upon beliefs, seeming to righteously spout conventionalities without even anecdotal evidence for her beliefs.  i could have at least gained a good story from her, but instead i garnered nothing but frustration.

i take the sign under which a person to be born as a gamble, and we gamble with the people we engage with at bars.  i said, "what are you reading?" and she responded and her acquaintance could have been a magical thing.  we could have become great friends.  instead, at least, we met and put this beautiful karma of openness and friendliness into the world, even if she annoyed the fuck out of me in the end.