Stinky

August 6, 2004

"You wanna meet for dinner tomorrow night?" I asked my friend Virgo Supercluster the other day.

"Sure," she said. "If nine o'clock isn't too late. And if you don't mind me being all stinky and sweaty."

I told her I didn't mind, but was curious as to why she’d be stinky..

"I have my Capoeira class until nine," she explained.

"Oh. That's fine," I said, and told her about riding the subway the other day next to a girl who must've just come from a yoga class.

She was wearing sweatpants and a tank top. Her hair was stringy and wet. She had a tattoo of a lotus flower on the top of her foot that I stared at every time she took off her flip-flops and stretched her toes, which she did a lot. A purple foam yoga mat was rolled up in a bag and slung over her shoulder. And she stunk to high heaven.

"And you know what?" I said to Virgo.

"No, what?"

"I kind of liked it."

So Virgo and I met for dinner last night. We hadn't seen each other in a while, and immediately after hugging her sweaty body hello, she asked, "Have you lost weight?"

That's the kind of thing that a lot of people like to hear. But me? Well, that I'm such a skinny ass punk to begin with, that when people ask me if I've lost weight, it usually means that I look like a scarecrow. And she was the second person to ask me that this week.

"I think I might've," I said, feeling my pants start to slip over my hips. I pulled them up and cinched my belt.

"I was sick recently."

"Yeah, I know."

"Oh what, did you read it on my blog?"

"No," she said with a laugh. "My boyfriend did."