by Mia Lipner
I'm not sure why this story has gotten stuck in my head recently. Maybe it's because I'm back doing the personal ad/first-dating thing and I keep remembering the worst date of my life.
Summer of 1989: I was 21, subletting an apartment with my friend Cheryl, and interning for no money or its near equivalent at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. I had gotten into the habit of occasionally going out to bars and indie clubs on my own, since neither Cheryl nor the people at work were into that sort of thing.

One night, I met this guy David, a part-time intern at Warner Electra Atlantic Records (he said), a "rock buyer" at Tower Records--and a pretty obvious cokehead. But hey, it was fun to talk about music `n' shit with him, and I knew he was a sleaze but I figured I was smarter than him anyway. And he liked me because, "You don't often meet girls who know their shit" (about music), and "You don't want my drugs," which I didn't. I'd started, got hooked on, and kicked cocaine the previous summer, and although hanging out anywhere near the shit still got me a little edgy, as I didn't trust myself not to do it again (the only drug I've ever had that experience with). I was young and bored and as I said, smarter than him.

We made plans to go see the big stadium show: New Order, the Sugar Cubes, and I can't remember who the third act was. He said we'd probably get to go backstage, he being "in the business" and all. Shrug, yeah whatever. I've never been particularly awestruck by connections or name-dropping.