Waking up

Waking in the middle of the night to find a warm black fuzzy drooling purring cat nestled in my armpit was both disorienting and comforting.

Bus stories

A week ago I was a minute late for the bus, but as I approached the stop, from the front of the bus, in clear view of the driver, I could tell that he was waiting at the stop for a minute. I started to run to catch him before he pulled away. But he pulled away, drove right past me, and turned the corner and just kept going.

The older couple who get on that same bus with me everyday saw me that night and commiserated with me. “How could he do that?” they asked me. I shrugged and thanked them for the sympathy.

This morning the lady half of the couple was at the stop but her husband wasn’t. As she got on, she told the driver (SAME DRIVER) that her husband was running late.

“OK,” he said, “if I see him, I’ll stop for him.”

I was standing right behind her. I stopped and stared at him. “AND YOU WOULDN’T STOP FOR ME?!” came out of my mouth before I could hold back.

While the other lady laughed nerviously and said, “Oh, yeah…”, I stomped off to my seat and rolled my eyes and muttered bad words under my breath. I hope he got the message.

Yeah, I was pissed. But, what’re you gonna do? And getting angry at the drivers only makes them less likely to stop in the future. I just couldn’t help myself, though…

Beautiful freckled intern

Yes, I’ll admit it. I was checking you out. How could I not? You had long red hair, the cutest freckles across your nose, and when you turned to look at me I could have sworn I saw a flash of humor in your green eyes. Your work badge marked “INTERN”. What were you listening to on your iPod, I wondered?

My day had been pretty crappy but you were a bright spot. So what did I do? I had used up my courage so instead of talking to you I TEXTED MY FRIEND ABOUT YOU, asking for advice. And, yes, I tried to get a picture. I didn’t take one, though – felt too obvious. That’s when you looked at me. Those green eyes…

My bus came and I figured I’d never see you again. Untill I noticed you standing behind me waiting for that bus, too? I found enough grace to wave you ahead of me, for admittedly selfish reasons. Your smile then is still in my mind’s eye.

The whole thing became even more surreal when, on the bus, you pulled out a book. I was facing your way, took a peek, and was floored when I saw that it was a book by Albert Camus – IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH. Beautiful, lives in my neighborhood, and inteligent, too? Surely, I thought, someone, somewhere, is fucking with me.

I thought I’d slipped into some twilight world, where drunken gods set challenges before me when I didn’t have the strength of will to accept and overcome them.

And as I approached my stop I was again crushed by my own inaction. Until, incredibly, you pulled the bell. OK, now, now, I see that the drunken gods were indeed laughing at me.

I stepped off the bus behind you, you turned to cross the street, I walked on to my dingy dismal empty home, wishing for another chance, knowing I’d blown about a billion chances already.

Do I deserve another chance? Maybe not, but we don’t get 100% of what we don’t ask for. Or something like that.

This continues to fascinate me – the seeming difficulty for people (mainly, me) to strike up conversations with random people. I’ve done it before but not often. Most of the time I feel like I’m trapped inside my body while it just goes and doesn’t talk to someone I’d like to at least say “hi” to.

Reading the Willy Week today, their cover story is about the crowd reaction when an apparent bike theft is happening. They sent out an intern to seven different locations about Portland, and made him “steal” a bike that they had prepared ahead of time. He tried to be obvious, carrying a huge set of bolt cutters and hacking away at the chains on the bikes. They filmed him.

And no one tried to stop him, or accused him. Nor did they discreetly call the cops. Nothin’.

The author of the piece contrasted this with several recent incidents where a crime is foiled by quick action from an individual

The article ties this behavior to a kind of social pressure – the more people that are around, the more the “guilt” of not doing anything is shared and diluted to the point where no one feels enough guilt to actually do something. On the other hand, if someone feels that they’re the only one who is witnessing a crime in progress they have the whole burden of the guilt if the perp gets away with it – and it jolts them into action.

And the author warns that one shouldn’t feel all smug that they’d be any better – observations prove otherwise. We are all social creatures.

I think that a similar thing is happening with me. No, not with witnessing crime.

I feel a social pressure when I notice the crowd around me. I imagine them judging me if I try to step out of the “waiting at the bus stop” role. I see them around me, staring blankly ahead and not talking to each other, and it gets harder for me to act contrarily.

If lots of people are talking around me, I can step in and add to the conversation. But I’m rarely the one to get the talk started.

Likewise, in situations where talking to each other is socially permitted and even encouraged, I do fine. Like shop clerks or waitresses… or even other patrons when I’m standing in line, say, for a movie.

Have you ever tried to talk to someone in an elevator? Elevators are the worst – the social pressure to conform and be silent is gianormous. The few times I’ve talked to strangers in an elevator it’s been just me and the other person, or maybe me, a friend, and someone else. And in the last instance I started by talking to my friend, not the stranger. Don’t believe me? Next several times you ride in an elevator, face the back and don’t look at the floor indicator. It’s hard enough to stand sideways in an elevator, let alone face the completely opposite direction.

I see two experiments I’d like to try with myself to break through this self-imposed social barrier. First, if I can somehow tune out the other people around me and try to imagine that it’s just me and the other person, just the two of us… that might help me speak up.

The other route, which may not be as successful or as useful, is to try to “de-socialize” myself to the point where I feel like, well, like an outcast. A misfit. That’s the mental space I imagine those punk kids are in when they shout out on the sidewalks or turn their music up loudly on the bus. They feel they already don’t belong in society so they feel OK to break the social codes. Of course, I’m not going to start wearing a Mohawk or color my hair blue or green. Probably. But maybe I can mentally work my self image until I can see me as being outside of the rules for a short while…

After I locked myself out

It takes a particularly bad and lazy landlord slum lord to not even lift a finger to help me get back into my apartment, telling me “You’ll have to call a locksmith for all I care,” after I’ve locked myself out.

It takes a pretty good neighbor to offer me a beer and listen to me bitch about our bad and lazy landlord slum lord after I’ve locked myself out.

It takes a pretty kick-ass sister to drive all the way across town on the off chance that she might have a key to my apartment among the myriad keys she’s got on her many keychains, risking the possibility of missing “Rockstar:Supernova”, after I locked myself out.

But it takes an awesome friend to drive all the way from freakin’ Canby to pick me up, drive me downtown, let me use her badge to get into my office building after hours, and drive me back home, all to retrieve my spare key, which, obviously, I couldn’t get to without my own employee badge, all after 8:30 PM, after I’ve locked myself out.

Each of these people will be getting what they deserve. I promise.

A series of texts

A series of texts from me to my friend. Her responses are in italic:

  • I’ve got Lindsay Lohan standing next to me.

    OK, it’s actually a girl that looks just like her. Only not so… used up.

  • Oh, and not as much up top. That’s not a bad thing, though.
  • bad for whom? =)
  • I have no idea how to answer that.
  • I keep trying to get a picture but it’s too obvious.

    She’s got green eyes, too. Damn.

  • She’s getting on my bus. She lives in my neighborhood?

    See, this is why I don’t believe in a loving god. Cary’s drunken gods seem more likely.

  • HOLY FUCK. SHE’S READING ALBERT CAMUS.

    IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH.

  • The pages are covered in notes! SHE WRITES IN HER BOOKS.

    I’m in love. And still… paralyzed.

  • Oh, I completely forgot to mention the iPod. I’m dying to know what she’s listening to.
  • I lost you, didn’t I? 🙁
  • if you tell me you she got off (or you did) without saying anything to her, I’m going to kick your butt!
  • You’re going to have to kick my butt, then.

    She EVEN GOT OUT AT MY STOP.

  • Stop that shit. =)
  • I KNOW!

    I’m laughing at myself so hard right now.

  • I’m not so much with the laughing and more with the butt-kicking.

…does that tell enough of the story?

Overheard

Heard this weekend in a coffee shop.

50-ish man in running gear covered in sweat: You gotta get up pretty early in the summer to go running, to beat the heat.

Other 50-ish man in running gear covered in sweat: I like running in the heat. I don’t have to work as hard.

“Snakes On A Plane” review (spoiler free)

It’s good to see that Dr. Forrester is still tormenting Joel and the ‘bots, trapped on the Satellite of Love.

…oh, and Mike, too. Or, I mean, Mike instead of Joel. If that’s your thing.

I’m more partial to Joel, myself, though Mike grew on me. Not literally, dork. That’d be gross.

Where was I? Oh, right.

Y’see… there’s some snakes… on a plane… And it’s exactly what you expect. There are no hidden tricks here, and there’s only the flimsiest bit of exposition to sit through.

Snakes attack people, people attack snakes, and it all starts right away and it all pretty much happens on a plane.

It doesn’t take itself seriously, and yet, it’s the most awesomest movie of all time.

Even the nitpicks I have about it only serve to make it more perfect, much like thorns make a rose smell that much better. Or something.

Jealous

I wish I was popular enough to get hate mail.

Maybe someday.

It would make blogging easy-peasy. I have more than enough snark to share.

Rockstar:Supernova update

Well, Storm is safe for this week. I’d worried that after the band trashed her last night that she might slip into the bottom three for elimination night. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

And… I’ve only been watching since week 4, I think, but this is the second time I’ve heard Radiohead’s “Creep” performed. And… why? Why do they do it? They don’t do it justice!

Magni, baby, you’ve got the whole bald Icelander thing going for you, sure, but you’re way way too clean and non-angsty to be doing “Creep”. You’re a freakin’ family man, for Elvis’ sake!

I’m blogging this at 8:48 PM. The band hasn’t announced who is going to be eliminated yet. After seeing the performances, I’m betting Zayra goes. Patrice impressed the band with her version of “Celebrity Skin” and they already said that Magni didn’t deserve to be in the bottom three, so they’re going to overlook Magni’s sedated version of Radiohead.

UPDATE

I was right. Zayra was, honestly, way too original for the bunch of has-beens that make up Supernova.

Ooh… did I type that with my out-loud fingers?