Hip, Slick, and Cool

Hip:    Cool; groovy.
Slick:  Superficially convincing but actually untrustworthy.
Cool:  Happening; hip; in; trendy.

One of my friends was fixing up his coffee at the meeting this morning at the coffee-fixins table.  I snuck up behind him and gave him a big bear hug.  I'm a guy who hugs Guys a the drop of a hat - whether they want a hug or not - and Gals when I'm sure they know I'm married and harmless and scared to death of my wife.

He said: "Come outside a minute - I want to talk to you."

This guy has had a rough life.  He's not educated and he's not articulate and he has about half of his teeth.  He looks like he's seventy but I bet he's younger than me.  He didn't earn his living sitting on his ass in a car, I'm sure of that.  The point is should you care about the point is that he's not a guy that I would have gravitated to when I was drinking.  But I've learned in this most democratic of institutions that I don't know where my friends are going to come from.  I tend to walk into a room and mentally separate people into groups and then I decide where I'm going to best fit in.  You're really cool like me or you're not.  The problem I keep running into is that the really cool people like me are jerks half the time.  Like me.

This guy basically told me how happy he is that I've moved here and become an active member of the group.  He's a little disjointed when he talks but I got the drift.  One of the cool guys in the group, one of the guys I thought would be a good fit for me - he lives on his yacht - blew by with nary a wave.  We're friendly but the relationship hasn't gone further than that.

Go figure.  Maybe . . . possibly . . . could be . . . that I'm somewhat less hip, slick, and cool than I thought.