05/10/2004 - 1:45 a.m. | your plot elements are stupid

I have been so tired lately. It's not even midnight yet, I don't think I've even been awake 12 hours, and I'm still entirely ready to flop down for the night. God damn mono. I don't know what else could be making me so sleepy. I'm finally to the point in the year where I theoretically could stay up all night and sleep all day without penality, and Mr. Circadian Rhythm is like, "Nah, early to bed and all that Ben Frankin bullshit." Well, I'm not gonna get any further than 3 days behind, I'll tell you what.

Actually, not much to tell about Friday. One thing I have noticed about all of my stupid jobs is that while they themselves are not so time-consuming that I'm never free, the way that they are oddly-spaced makes it sort of difficult to find enough time to do things. Example: I was gonna go over and watch "The Critic" with Dank, but because I had to guard the cross in an hour and then go to the Buckle an hour after that, it just didn't seem worthwhile. I still had two hours of nothing then; they just weren't lumped for my benefit. Unlike your breast. *weak rimshot* Enough awkward cancer jokes, though!

You know how I complain about how I never get good weekend hours at the Buckle, so how I could possibly manage to sell anywhere near their psychotic expectations? Yeah, it's hell being right. I finally got this shift on Friday night. It wasn't even all that busy of a night, but I still sold $860 worth of shit. Besides the fact that I had the second highest total sales of the day (And the only person who had me beat there was the manager - and she'd been there since the store opened) amd the highest average sale, that's also, like.... $10 an hour, I do believe. So don't tell me I need help selling, damn it! I do it better than your hall of retards, it would seem. I'm throwing out ideas, giving shirts and shit out, being all friendly and cute, playing with the little kids, singing and dancing, being commended for my neatness and efficiency - and I'm still kickin' your ass! We Walshes were made to excel; everything else is just circumstance.

I was helping this really funny black guy pick out an outfit (Ha - there's a disparity, no? But maybe he liked me because I tried to help him instead of constantly checking to see if he was pocketing shirts or something) and while I was ringing him up, he was talking to either me or himself or his little cousin, and he goes, "Nigga's gonna look good tonight!" Then he kind of stops, looks at me, and laughs, saying, "Guess I'm not supposed to say that around you, am I?" And I'm kind of like, "What? No, I think it's me that's not supposed to say that around you, man." And he's like, "Now you're catchin' on!" Meanwhile, if that one Mexican guy really did take some shoes, it was the ballsiest move ever. Come into the store, slowly amble all the way to the back, try on some shoes without getting noticed, and walk out with the new shoes on and the old ones in the box. I'd almost say he deserves them, but then the Buckle would almost surely track this down, and I would be considered an accessory.

As soon I walked in, a red-faced Spritz stumbled up and yelled, "Time to catch up!" Sometimes I'm a little slow. "With what?" Anyway, the plan was that Brytne and Jason Kahn would come over, that we would drink, and that we would wander the neighborhood looking for a party. Andie would be coming, but she was only "nearly ready," which is code for at least another hour of your time. Milk Duds and generic red twists? Oh yes. We congregated around the shitty Keystone Light. Well, minus Jason because he had already left on a booty call or something. I think that, without an ally, he was just backing out of his misguided plan to be straight-edge. "sXe!!" *someone vomits on his Chuck Taylors* Funny how quickly the spite surfaces. Well, more like cheap shots in place of spite. Of those remaining, the two underaged had managed to acquire identification that, will not "fake" exactly, certainly was not featuring anybody on it who could technically be called "them." So, plans changed to us going to Joe's for dancing, which - turns out - requires Andrea to get more ready. The mind reels.

I guess we probably should have figured that something was up when two fights broke out just in the time that we were outside waiting in line, but I didn't make any connection with the actual bar we were going inside. Unfortunately, I neglected to remember that it was "Beats & Rhymes" night at Joe's, in which the normal, comparatively nerdier, tamer white person crowd is replaced by a bunch of huge, scary black people. I would not say that unless I meant it. I swear that there were at least 4 or 5 guys there who just towered over us, and staring + huge definitely = creepy in my mind. And the dancing is not so much dancing as it is full on assault. I mean, normally the frat guys come up and just start grinding into you. That's bad enough. This night, this one guy just kept running up with the apparent intent of smashing into Andrea over and over. I dragged her away. And this other guy felt that grinding wasn't showing his intent clear enough, so he skipped ahead onto full-on rocket thursts of his crotch in her backside. Confrontational but passive, I whirled around so that he was suddenly sending his penis flying towards my ass, which had him freaking out quite seriously. That would be a pretty hilarious thing to have been killed for. And the one guy who had his arms open as wide as he could and would not give an inch to anybody. Almost clotheslined me, he did. Even the girls were more aggressive. This one girl was ramming her ass into mine at a pace that can only be described as menacing.

Anyway, it wasn't too bad once the four of us had marked off some territory of our own, but we got hot and sweaty fast, so we left maybe an hour later for what is surely my favorite part of the drunken Spritz evenings - the hassling of people on Green St. Pizza Planet has this brilliant system where they have all these large pizzas ready made. Hand 'em $5, grab a flavor (and a generic fruit flavored soda if you are amoral thieves like Andie and Brytne!), and sit by the old Wendy's and cackle away. Once again, a cause I would consider well worth getting beat up for. Maybe my tune will change someday, but right now I am seriously lacking in fear if it is for a good cause (as determined by my faulty world view, of course). Plus the drug dealers on the way home. Nah, I made that up. This, however, is entirely true: We were still walking on Green, right at the west corner of Lincoln, when this car turns the corner by us. They yell "REPENT!" and toss a bunch of copies of "The Servant King" from The Passion of the Christ booth at the theatre and drive off. I just like to think of the preparation time it took for them to get to that point.

What am I thinking here? Ooh, good question. One that needs to be sorted out sooner rather than later. I'm incapable of tooling other people, but that might leave me open for toolishness myself. I guess I just really miss the days when I had problems to deal with or talk about or make vague references to. Of course, my "problems" were mostly imaginary and stemmed from a chemical imblance, now corrected, but it sort of leaves me boring, doesn't it? I mean, I was never very deep, but at least I had my crazy neuroses. Now that they've left, it's just the shallowness. Wahhhh, I guess. I just don't want to be some sort of weird, living masturbatory tool.

While Andrea slept on in the crazy hot sun, I started going through another one of my stupid "comedy" galleries. Except this one had a lot of vulgar stuff in it, which would have been embarrassing to explain had Andie woken up to see me looking at it. "No, it's not porn, actually. It's comedy, see, because she got sprayed in the face with so much semen that she can't breathe. Well, yes, some people do have differing views of what is funny as compared to you or I." Once we finally both lurched out of bed and straightened ourselves up some, we went out to get food for a picnic. Andrea has this hilarious fascination with weird little junk weed flowers, like clover and dandelions and violets, so she made a little crown to wear for the day. Hey - remember when I was the indecisive one in the relationship? How I long for those days. Now I not only have to decide, I have to egg Andie on to try and get her opinion out of her as well. I can usually make a decent stab at it, but it's no fun until someone has been annoyed into submission.

We went really far south, down by Japan House, and spent God knows how many hours there. Some parts of lunch were better than others. The artichokes in the samiches were kind of rubbery, and the blackberries were crud, I'm told, and the mayonnaise of course was bad, but that's just the inherent nature of mayonnaise. Still, it was a really healthy and yummy lunch (except for the chocolate meringue pie, which was so rich that I can't eat more than two bites at a time), and I don't have too many of those lately. Like I said, I've been so, so tired lately, so after a walk by the water (fish!) and through the "forest" that seemed so intimidating when Kyle and I were stumbling through it at night, we crashed on the grass for a couple hours. Outside is nice, and I'm glad Andrea isn't entirely sure of what to do out there either. We both suck at sports and junk, so we just sleep and eat.

It was early evening by then, so I drove her home so she could study (she must nearly have started by now, I bet!). Kyle and Spritz just woke up on Saturday and decided that it was time for them to revist their youth and start playing "Infantry" again. God, how I did not miss that game and the way it dominates their lives. Kyle is back to old form again. And I mean like the scary old form where he doesn't respond when you ask him questions. Likewise, the topics of conversation have revered all the way back to sophomore year at IMSA, about maps and how awesome the shotgun is and keyboard setups and macros and HOW COULD THEY STILL HAVE THINGS TO TALK ABOUT! They beat the horse to death 4 years ago! It's just horse bones now! You can't beat horse bones to death! Anyway, they've pretty much been out of commission (from my perspective anyway) ever since then, as has everyone else, so I've taken to trying to plan lousy RPGs and then sleeping as early as I can consider acceptable. Like I've said, I'm a waste of youth.

Today was even worse. Most of the day was spent watching junk or reading junk or playing junk or eating junk. Then I finally got up to shower when my lightbulb burnt out, and I got so pissed that I thought I might start chucking shit out the window. It did not help that Kyle's fucking Body Spa shower head finally bit the big one. Well, I guess the shower head itself works as well as it ever did (not very), but the little clasp on it so that you can hang it up is totally fucked. So, you either try to shower while holding it in your hand the whole time (which is awkward) or you try to knot it so that it successfully hangs on its own at a somewhat proper height (which is seemingly impossible in my case, instead knocking down every shampoo bottle 3 or 4 times each). Finally, I flipped out, unscrewed the head, and tossed it out of the shower. The water now comes out in a thick, solid flow - kind of like God is peeing on me - and while it is not very pleasant, at least it is static. I put a shock to your system.

People may never understand why I can't tolerate Disney Channel garbage like "Even Stevens," but it all comes down to the little details. For instance, Louis was in some sort of dilemna today about whether or not he should hook up with the ex-girlfriend of his best friend. All the arguments inside his brain were made by two ancient Jewish men who sat arguing in a deli. Sometimes they didn't even argue over Louis' problem - they debated who paid the bill for the corned-beef hash last - causing Louis to scream at them out loud and get the funny looks lolololol. It's just really good, all right?

Tonight is 2 for $3 Night at Arby's, so Kyle, Shelly, Spritz, and I took a trip to the creepy isolated one down by Savoy. I dunno what CD Kyle was listening to, but it was really creepy and atmospheric and reminded me a lot of bad 80's movies, so I just started inventing one to go around the songs. Raspy, masculine voice: "We're gonna have to make it down to Loredo if we're going to get Ted in time. That son of a bitch will pay for taking this eye." I would love to make a career out of that, but I don't think that Hollywood would want a career out of that for me. I forgot I hate onion rolls, it seems. The "EVIL" t-shirt is having mixed success - some people get it very well (100 million points to mstan for actually getting the reference, but props nonetheless to the Arby's staff, whom we all expected to do much, much worse) and others do not at all (Bill). We stopped at Baskin-Robbins, and I had me up a Shrek 2 Swirl cone. Green apple and grape sherbet with soggy Pop Rocks type things. Why would they make this? Why would you order it? Ooh, good one. Certainly not to throw it in the parking lot of Shelly's apartment, I'll tell you that much. I guess that's about all for now. It is nearly 2, so I don't feel too guilty about thinking about sleep now. Do you?