It took a few weeks to convince my flatmate to go out with me.

We were standing in the sunny kitchen of our shared flat in San Francisco. The walls were green, paint thick from many applications, and there were mice.

Blood pounded hot and sweet in my belly when I told him Sarah Harmer was playing at Bottom of the Hill, a grunge bar, and asked if he’d like to go.

I was pretty sure it was a date, that he knew it was a date, that is.

I’d been turning on my unpracticed 19-year-old charm for a month or so. Apparently his initial resolve not to date this far-too-young Canadian this was beginning to crack, like the paint on the ragged shingles of the house.

I don’t remember the bus, walking, or being driven across town in his crappy little white Honda hatchback.

The bar was dark, small, intimate. We stood close together, a row or two back from the stage and I remember the lead being so much more beautiful than I’d expected, as she chatted to the crowd before launching into throaty, beautiful, haunting lyrics.

I didn’t think a famous person would be so human, standing up there a few steps away from me.

And I couldn’t believe I was standing there with a tall near-stranger in this dark bar in San Francisco, so far from my small-town childhood.

Afterwards, we had pizza, standing under streetlights. Did we touch? Did we kiss? On reflection, I’m sure that all came later. This was an almost date, never quite crossing the buzzing boundary from acquaintances to lovers.