Ambiguation

I might comment on this, once... But I might not... What do you guys think ?

NightLife

On Friday the 11th, I’m not going to work. Not much to do, we have prepared the exam questions with the very respectable Yannick, who is a fine fellow, and a great colleague, and we don’t know precisely if there is enough room for our little lambs to prepare their exams, so I decide I won’t show on Friday. So Thursday night, after lending a d12 and a d20 to Yannick so he can randomize the questions, I have nothing to do at all, and won’t until Friday night when we’re going to the amazing Mr. Bouddha’s new place to criticize everything, as we usually do (not really). So I get home and start an immensely cathartic Six Feet Under marathon, which just ended a few minutes ago, with me just bawling my eyes out, as it always does.

Anyway, back to Thursday… I am talking with the amazing Mr. Bouddha on MSN, and suddenly, out of nowhere, comes this seed of idea, this little stub of plan, which slithers into my brain and begins to make sense. In the interest of Science, and the Betterment of Mankind, I decide to go to a club on my own, and observe (and incidentally have a few drinks, maybe with a kindred spirit that I’ve serendipitously met there, or by myself if I have to). So when my fine fellow heads for bed, I put on my best shirt, some fiber gel in my hair, a little Jean-Paul Gaultier, and head out towards night life.

Now I’ve always been ambivalent about going clubbing. I sometimes like the people, I sometimes like the fact that they’re everywhere around me, I sometimes like to dance, but on the other hand I rarely like the music, I seldom like the dynamic of the people there, and I never, ever feel like I belong in the place. Anyway my mind was set, I had almost decided on the place, and I was all dressed up with someplace to go. So my steps first brought me to the MAD, which is a big place with sometimes good music, but whatever was filtering out didn’t appeal to me, so I went to the last place I had been, not so long ago, which is called the Loft.

The Loft is a small place, one dancefloor, a bar that closes at around 1, but it’s the place where a particular old friend used to go every week when we were younger, and as I already told you guys I had been there on December 6, after a particularly gruesome Faculty Council Meeting (I might start talking about Faculty politics sometime in the future, but it’s not something I’m very proud to be a part of), to a party thrown by the student’s association, whose door is right across mine in the hallway at work. They’re a great bunch. I digress, I digress, I know. Skip paragraphs if you want.

So, on with the show : 00:30, the stairs leading to the Loft. I am in line. I warn two persons of my master plan : the best sociologist I know and the person I’ve been clubbing with the most, you may know them as Cécé and Jojo, and then I wait for my turn. Apparently there aren’t many people. I feel the need for another digression. As some of you know, and as I’ve implied at the very beginning of this little rambling, the university students in our fair little city are preparing exams, and the next day was to be the first exam day for them, so I don’t expect to meet a lot of previously known faces (which, without further foreshadowing, I won’t). Anyhow, I am waiting in line, behind a few persons, when I hear this wet, splashing sound. A few steps below, someone is hurling his guts, splashing all those under him. The bouncer kick him out before he can even enter, so he and his friends leave. I actually hear one of them, after he’s done complaining about the state of his stained pants, tell his buddies that anyway it looks like a crappy club, and probably sucks. Needless to say, none of them apologize for the shoes of the girls which have been drenched before they’re gone.

Inside, after a stop at the bar, I started exploring.

Being the odd man in, as it were, is a bizarre experience : the alienation, at least for the person I am, is palpable. Eighty percent of the people there only acknowledge your existence when they’re pushing you out of their way. I am half dancing, leaning against a speaker, feeling the bass, and watching everywhere with half a smile. The music is mediocre at best, a sort of blend of bad R&B and so-so hip-hop, sluggish, saturated, and quite frankly a bit depressing. But I don’t lose hope of finding someone to talk to. After all, am-I not like these people (although I’m noticing more and more that they kind of look a lot younger than me…) ? I see two girls a little closer to the platform, looking lost. I wonder what their story is. Maybe they got stood up ? Maybe they came here for the same reason as me ? Sometime later I look around and they’ve been swallowed somewhere by the crowd. I hope they found what they were looking for, I wish them a good time. Maybe I resent myself a little not to have bought them a drink, but I’m not quite sure it’s why I’m here, and besides, it’s too late for that. There is another group of girls at the bar, talking and downing shots of whatever. They’re kind of in the way, and get their feet stepped on a lot. One of them rolls her eyes in a very funny way as an obviously drunk hunk tramples her pumps. Her exasperation reminds me of my cousin Sophie, who’s kind of a badass and doesn’t take shit from anyone. My smile returns in force. I’ve pretty much decided I’m not going to connect tonight with anyone, my being here is just an experiment, or a way to rationalize the fact that I’m self-fulfillingly prophesying that I’m not going to meet anyone interesting, but I start taking an interest. I’ve arrived in this place to look, to spy, to investigate, and I’m having fun just looking. As I’m thinking this, I hear a voice in my ear. “Hey ! Are you here alone ?” I turn around and see a girl with black hair, smiling at me. Busted ! So I am not the invisible, out-of-it beholder that I’ve convinced myself to have become. I suddenly become incarnate in the here and now… I could refuse to acknowledge her words, but… it would be rude, and I also start thinking I don’t have to be who I decided I was going to be tonight. So I start talking. Her name is Evelyne, she’s in High School, studying humanities to be a social worker. She asks me about sociology, I talk of Bourdieu, she never heard of him. I buy a round of vodka-strawberry shots, which is pretty gruesome, kind of like stomach medicine. She says she’s studying philosophy and sociology with the same teacher, and she knows Plato, and Marx. My feeling of conversational quicksand evaporates for a minute. Karl Marx, I say, is pretty much like God, and even looks like Him. She stops me right there : she doesn’t agree because, she says, she is a deeply religious person. She insists on the fact a few times. My famous irony, my double-entendres have led me in an inextricable impasse. I say I was just joking, but the discomfort is back in force. I laugh it off, internally, and start talking about something else, probably the weather. Then a kid approaches, one of her classmates, and starts to talk to her. She tells me she’s not going to blow me off just because I’ve now bought her a drink. As a matter of fact, she’s going to repeat the same sentence every fifteen minutes until the moment I leave.

In the meantime, I’ve talked to a very nice fellow from Zimbabwe whose locker I’ve paid for, entering, because he didn’t have coins. He seems pretty cool. We chew the fat for awhile, but my mission awaits, and I don’t want to miss my theological argument with Evelyne. I’ve danced a little. I’ve watched more people, without really noticing much, except that I’m surrounded by High School students. There is no bitterness involved : I just realize that these days are over. I am not them. I am not of them, and it’s pretty ok. My dissertation is being evaluated. I’m awaiting the results. I’ve done things I’m proud of, I have students who dig having me teach them stuff, my boss is rather pleased with me, in his own detached and weird kind of way. Besides, the shots are starting to kick in, and I’m getting pretty tired. So I go home, as I entered, alone and smiling. I didn’t waste my time. I just spent it in a very strange way, doing something I had never done before. I didn’t learn as much as I thought about the night scene, but I learned a little about myself. And maybe next time I’ll try to go to a student party when there’s hope of meeting a few of my students. All in all, it was a fun experiment. Then I fall, and sleep like a log.

The next day, when I wake up, there is an e-mail waiting for me. My dissertation director is pleased with it, and the guy he contacted to expertise it wants me to go on an internship in Chambery with his team. That’s right : I’ve finished my DEA, and have a shot at doing real research in the near future. The sun is already high in the sky. I decide to go out to get some food.