05/06/2004 - 3:15 a.m. | replace it with somethin' else

OK, sad bastard alt-country (shudder at the term) all set? Yes, you bet. OK, then, shall we dance? Meaning I write this, and you read it and correct my typographical errors. "Where have you been, man? We used to be close!" I've just been so busy at the office and all the stress and stuff. How about we go out, just you and me? Get a nice steak dinner.

Who the fuck ever thought that was a good idea? Anyway, when we last left, I was talking to some people about some stuff (4 out of 5 girls on the internet think I'm not as ugly as I think I am!), and then Andrea came over in what I have been told was a "booty call." I don't know anything about that; mostly I know about the cover of the movie of the same name. See, the 2 O's in "booty" were some black woman's ass cheeks! Cuh-lassic. Andie was a bit tipsy, but luckily she's no mopey drunk; she giggles a lot and thinks that pouring water on me is top of the pops. Man, MTV's John Norris was practically coming right there on camera as he introduced the super-risque video for Jay-Z's "99 Problems." See, at the end, Jay-z gets shot, and that's waaay too hardcore to show before 3 am. How terribly underwhelming.

I almost stepped on a baby rabbit the other day because I didn't see it, and it was too dumb to run away from me. I tried to help it out by insulting it very loudly for several minutes. "Wow, you sure are quite dumb!" And so on. This is going nowhere.

Tuesday was spent smartly, with a downright refusal on my part to even start looking at my biopsych notes. I am well aware of how the hippocampus functions in memory! Maybe you are asking me because you don't know! How about that, huh? Some say that Maury Povich is a cruel man, inviting freakishly deformed people onto his show (Little Squid Boy, Bluesman Quasimodo) and pretending to be nice to them, but it is far crueler to applaud for their heroism while sitting in his audience because you know they are the dirty shits who all be callin' them "alien" in the first place. Crueler still is capturing clips of the mutants performing so that one can watch them over and over and cackle at God's forsaken. Good thing we don't know anyone like that.

The Buckle was dead for my night shift. Luckily, they have plenty of other mundane tasks to focus upon, like reorganizing sale racks by size, color, and style. I dunno if she was bullshitting me, but Danee was like, "These are the best the sale rounders have ever looked! Nobody does them this neat!" which makes me wonder how the other people could, you know, not do a good job. I just imagine spraying shit all over the jeans and throwing them in a pile. "All done!" Anyway, if you don't know me so well, I don't take compliments very well, so I just mumbled something about my OCD finally coming in handy. "HAHAHA!" says Danee, who I think prides herself on being smarter than most people. "Nobody else in the store would've gotten what that meant." Hm. Pause. "So, wait... you don't really have OCD, do you?" ".... I was just kidding?" "AHAHAHA" "I have to get back to the jeans."

So, thing is, if I have trouble taking compliments, I have an even worse time giving them. Like, even with people I know pretty well. Andrea was singing the other day, and I thought her voice was very pretty, but it took a whole lot of mental beating to get it out. Still, what I would like to do at work is, you know, occasionally tell people when they look good in something (when I mean it, of course... I'm not one of those other employees who just flat out lie to everyone. "Yes, that halter certainly looks swell with your gigantic tummy hanging out the bottom!"). I think it would help people decide if they wanted to get something if they thought someone really liked it, but I worry that people will think I'm just being a scum. Not even a scumbag - just scum, singular. Either they would think I'm just lying to get a sale or that I'm some sort of creepy leche just lying to get into their pants, and I like to think that I am neither of those. So yeah, this one girl came in, and she was trying on the classic beerslut tops, but she actually had the body to pull it off (Not quite the face, but I'm trying to focus on the positive here!), and I felt like I should say something - obviously not my previous comment... but something. I'll, uh, just keep folding jeans.

This mom came in ahead of her daughter to scout for stuff that she (the kid) might like to wear. One of the things she grabbed was the pleated skirt (!!!) and when the daughter came in, I was like, "YES! Try it on, dear God!!" Mentally, I mean. Why is it always the ones who shouldn't be wearing the stuff are the ones who want to try it on whereas Perfect Girl is like, "Nurh-urh." "To fuck with you, personally." Oh, thanks, God. Didn't know you cared.

I hate how racism seems to be part of the Buckle's policy. I dunno, maybe it's just Danee, and maybe the statistics do agree with her or something, but I will never feel right about how I'm supposed to creep around the large groups of minorities that come in sometimes and exercise some "loss prevention." Should I confront her about this? Write a letter? I feel stupid not doing anything. The best I do for now is just watching any large group that comes in, regardless of race, because I figure if we're going to mistrust one group, might as well do them all. It makes me feel dirty. Not dirrty.

After a quick run to Borders ("Nope! Everything still sucks here!") and yet more fast food, I very slowly dragged myself into the world of how memory works. It turns out I really did know like everything they said. It's kind of boring when false confidence becomes true. Slowie McAndrea eventually got herself together enough such that we could go out for bubble tea, but Evo decided to round up 15 minutes on closing times, so we were stuck with the mediocrity that Ragamuffin has become. Man, the mango one was especially ass. In fact, it is sitting right next to me right now, fermenting, and I think I will chuck it out the window. "Hey, guy." Andie discovered my permabubbles, so pretty much everything in the room (myself included) is coated in a fine layer of weird mucus. I keep finding it in horrid new locations.

As it pulled closer and closer to sunrise, we still weren't sleeping, and Kyle and Shelly still weren't working on TAM (unless you count making French toast as Crucial TAM Stop #1), so we all joined up and played Pictionary together instead. Michelle's nearly choking need for competition kept rearing its ugly head, as opposed to my eagerness for just, you know, fun. "But how is it fun unless someone wins and someone loses?" That's when I start threatening people. Anyway, it was pretty fun, mostly because of the way Kyle draws. Usually no one has any idea what he's going for. Even his "sounds like" ear looks like a space vortex. Dunno, he adds something much needed to any Pictionary game. I'm not going to say what it is, but he definitely adds it.

A pretty tiring day today, I guess. Up early to cross, then a brief nap, followed by the remainder of studying, then the test. I sat next to some chubbo whose arm kept brushing against mine ("spilling over" might be the correct term) and whose stomach kept growling at enormous volumes. However, this was balanced by the amazing girl on my other side. Yes, I am trying very hard to fight the inevitable. Just call me a nervous guy. I've been pill-less for a couple days now. The test was fine, and now I'm pretty much off until the abpsych final, which I believe is a week from Friday. God bless LAS.

Very slow at work, and not just in sales. Like I said, some higher up is coming in, so we have to purdy up the store a whole bunch, which for Shawn and me meant building and rebuilding and building again the same damn wall of Luckys. Luckies? Yeah, that looks right. Everyone kind of looks confused with I call the plural of the Silver Matrix jeans "matrices," but dumb shit like that matters to me. Everyone was very punchy today, which makes for a happier environment for me, I think, because my singing seems less inappropriate by comparison. They kept talking about the mosquito bites on my neck, which I thought was a weird subject to keep approaching. And later, Shawn put on a bunch of our "urban" shit and started posing while Heather started shaking her ass and talking about "my baby's daddy." I told them they should go stand in front of the store and do that. We'd never have a customer again.

I'll tell you what pisses me off a bit, though: Everyone is so competitive for sales. Like Heather, who is typically a very nice person, yeah... she gets all crazy and grabby, running up to punch in her ID number for a sale just because she opened a dressing room door for them. Not even unlocked it - just opened. Yeah, you deserve the $80 sale for that. Or sending me out on errands for people that she is helping and that she will be getting comission for while I get a swift kick in the face. Grrr. Along the same lines is how while everyone else is pulling jeans out willy nilly in an effort to try and make a sale and actually earn something, it's usually me who ends up reshelving and organizing the shit they took out, just because I'm always supposed to be doing something. Maybe I should start getting that "me first" attitude, but I don't think I really want to do that. Perhaps a more viable option has come up, though. I got a call back from the candy store today, and I set up an interview for next Tuesday. I can definitely stand around and weigh jelly beans. But then I wouldn't have work with Stevi Fox (porn star name, right?) who has a total thing for me. Urg. Because of the dancing, no doubt.

Going from one who never, ever goes to Dairy Queen to one who eats there twice in a day. Sign of the impending apocalypse? APOCALYPSO would totally the nam of my band of island rhythms, but that's neither here nor there, now is it? Anyway, the first was to increase my happiness score (Proclaimers + Nerd Blizzard = Miracle Cure) and the second was out of a bizarre need for some really, really generic fast food. Done and done. So, I'll just wait another 20 years, and we'll be all set for visits numbers 3 and 4. I was so disgustingly ill and exhausted after that that I actually crashed on the couch and watched all of God damn shitty "The Planet's Funniest Animals." Now, I can mostly take the fact that none of the animals are funny at all and that all the laughter is canned and pretty much randomly placed, but I'll tell you, the host must be shot, and if I have to rot in prison for that, it will be well worth it to know that he is no longer delivering his fucking punchlines that actually - no, I am being entirely serious here - make me just a little bit sad internally. Here's an interesting thought, though: Well, actually, I kind of play this game with everybody in my mind, but here's just a good example. How many times has this queer little fellow received a blowjob, and how does he look during said oral sex? But yeah, some blonde girl, sort of chubby, short, sickening animal lover, has pictures from his website on her wall (ooh - here's a good one! I hate 2/3 of the people in this picture, but I am indifferent to you, Mr. Valentine. God damn Angus T. Jones. "WE DID IT DAD WE SAVED THE JUNGLE" you no talent hack), masturbates to them, etc. "ohmygodiloveyouranimalshowsomuch!" *gobble* Well... you'd have to see inside my mind to get the complete picture, and that's something I don't think you could handle.

Hmmm - this entry is sort of devolving... or maybe it didn't start so great to begin with. But I'm worried, so I'll write quickly. My hilarious plan for an hour-long nap obviously turned into a 4 hour one, then I ran over to Dank's to watch some Korean animated movie that was not very good at all. Even the art wasn't really worth appreciating. Sorry, guys - I already played FFVII. Spritz had a horrid craving for coleslaw and blueberry muffins, so we ran over to Perkins, and I crammed more shit down my mouth. There will no doubt be a monsoon fast approaching. As opposed to a mongoose.

I hope not anyway.