Maria, I've just met a girl named Maria/
and suddenly the name will never be the same to me...

Went to a birthday party last night at the house of an old friend. It was an 80's party, so I was rocking the skinny tie, tan sportcoat (collar up), and Chuck Taylors. Thundercats and Transformers t-shirts, bangle bracelets and crimped hair also made an appearance. (Sadly, most of the guests did their shopping at Hot Topic, I was the only one who went to Goodwill for my outfit.) I also was reminded of the awesomeness of Street Fighter II, and the difficulty of Ghosts'n'Goblins.

Earlier in the day, another friend sent me a text. She was in town from Austin and was wondering what I was doing for the Spurs game that night. I told her about the party, but she was going to a wedding, but said she'd try to make it afterwards. She arrived with her sister, wearing a shimmery brown and gold number. After introducing them to the party hosts and guest of honor, we went to the kitchen to get a beer. And that's when it started.

I've known this gal for over a decade, we first met at UT while attending a summer program before our freshman year began. We fell out of touch for a while, until a Chinese New Year party here in town where we ran into each other. A few weeks ago, another chance encounter at a downtown restaurant gave us another chance to catch up. This time, I got her number. I'd tried calling a few times whenever I was in Austin, but never successfully meeting up, until last night.

I'd always thought she was cute. She was also smart, first majoring in math, before going into communications. She's now getting her Ph.D. She's also brown, bucking a lifetime trend (first noticed by my mom) of Hispanic women not giving me the time of day.

We talked about how she was doing in Austin. She said that she was setting a social goal for herself of going out more, especially with guys. She told me there always seemed to be some sort of dealbreaker when it came to men. Too short, too round, not smart enough, not sarcastic enough, being a garage guy (code for pot smoking, which was going on in the garage of the house at the time).

"Ever try the online thing?" I asked.
"No," she said. "My friends usually try to set me up."

As you can probably tell by now, I like her a little. I'm trying not to go overboard this time as I've done in the past, but I know there's got to be some middle ground between "falling head over heels" and "I don't like you in that way." (link probably NSFW) What that is or where to find it, I don't know.