06/20/2004 - 10:37 p.m. | one too many blows to the head

AND ON THE FOURTH DAY.... I wrote a diary entry. Actually, it's sort of important that I run out to Schnucks soon because it would seem they have Rice Krispies Treats cereal 2 for $4. They will pay for their generosity. I will be wonderfully concise, except on stupid things, where I shall be woefully verbose. Aren'ts I a good writer?

On Wednesday, I drove to Springfield to visit Andrea. Got caught in a monsoon, then lost for an hour because of a line Mapquest deliberately left in to fuck me up. "Oh - and, uh, take a left to Minnesota." I guess probably should have realized. Springfield is a weird city. It seems a lot more rundown on the average than any other place I've been to. Like, Chicago has ghettos and stuff, but even the nice parts of Springfield are kind of suspect. But I am hardly a city planner, so shut up. I think there is always a feeling of obligation during visitations like these, like, "A journey was made - things must be done!" but what the hell is there to do ever, hmm? We went to Panera (God bless my father and his surprise gift card), and I had a weird salad with big pieces of cold steak on it. And dead fish stew. I have got to learn to make better choices.

We went to the park to eat bagels or whatever, and there were all these cute animals that have trained us humans into feeding them whenever we're around. The squirrels were more willing to approach us (and claw up our faces while trying to wrench muffin chunks away), but I liked the ducks a lot more - especially the chief and his stupid bitch friend who would snap up anything I threw to him. Anyway, scratch any plans I ever had - I'm getting a duck next year. No bed or desk or anything in my room. Just a kiddie pool and one crazy ass duck flapping around and shitting everywhere (Clipping his or her wings would be cruel, stupid!). Spritz would come in, "Want to get something to eat, ma-OHGODMYEYES" *aflac* I need a haircut. I'm sitting here freaking out because the length of it is making me... dunno... jumpy. Why did I pick tonight to start the coke?

Of the rest of her family, I only met her dad - Andy (Sort of odd, that... kind of like instead of the usual "jr." name, he named his daughter with the female derivative of his name. Like me with Natalie). Mom was out ... somewhere, and her brother I only saw a self-portrait of, and nobody can draw people in this day and age. I forget what I was saying, or why I even started on that tangent. Anyway, maybe I was just being paranoid, but her dad seemed in sort of a pissy mood, but then, I am often in a pissy mood after 8 hours of work, and my job hardly constitutes work. God, I wish there were late night haircut places. Or I could just drive until I crossed into a time zone where barbers were opening... or still open... I don't understand time zones. I dunno if it is some secret punishment for me that Andrea consistently introduces me as her friend Nate, but considering my particularly skewed world view at the moment, I can't say I mind at all. Does that make me a whore? Well, I guess I should put up that stupid poll now. Anyway, Andie needed to get her bike from the bike shop, which required taking her dad's van, which I think he was going to use as some sort of masculinity test to see if I could pull if out of the garage correctly.... I don't like to think about it. There are very few masculinity tests I feel I could adequately pass. I am the girliest guy I know. Not even a metrosexual... more like a sort of butch lesbian. It gets complicated.

I put on a stocking cap, and now I seem to be able to focus a little better. We went to the bike store, and I gave an audible moan of longing. Maybe I'll just wait until we move to the house first, though. Besides, I miss coaster brakes, and all the bikes they had there with them were these $400 antiques, and like I so often mention, thanks to the miracle of direct deposit, I have no idea how much money I'm being paid - if I'm being paid. Depending on how you look at it, I had the fortunate timing of visiting on the same night that Andrea's friend Miriam was having a going-away party at her house.

ON THE FIFTH DAY... still hadn't finish the diary entry. Whoops. Dunno if I caught a little bit of Kyle/Shelly's ADHD, but I suddenly had to go out to the grocery store. Right at 3 am. In the Powerpuff Girls hat. If you want supplies for pretty much the rest of your life, go to the store at 3 in the morning hungry. My room looks fucking war torn with grocery bags. I was the only person in the store, being slowly chased by the floor waxer guy each time he went down a different aisle. Being really, really tired is comparable to being drunk (right down to the hangover), so I don't really even recall what I bought. Each new day is an adventure! However, I am sure that I purchased a small bottle of MSG. The plan is to add to pretty much everything from now on (side effects??) so that the macaroni and cheese I'm eating suddenly becomes THE BEST MACARONI AND CHEESE IN THE WORLD!!!! When I got back, Kyle and Yousaf were watching "The Sopranos" and despite my better judgment, I sat down to watch with them. When I finally did pass out, I woke up sweatier than I have ever been. God damn hat. I feel like I should have worthwhile plans today, but unless any of you gets motivated, I don't see that shit happening. Where was I?

OK, so we went to Andrea's friend Miriam's party. I had met (and liked) Miriam once before but didn't know a God damn soul otherwise. This was compounded by the fact that the party was stone cold sober, so neither they nor I were in particularly friendly moods. There was a lot of clumping, and if you'll allow me to be just a touch shallow (Sassy black judge: "I'm gonna allow it, but it better be good!"), this was not one of those social scenes were the beautiful people gather. In fact, Andrea and myself were more or less the top of the pops, male and female. One takes out the line one has written here because one will be in enough trouble as it is. I had been vaguely aware that Andrea was once upon a time a dramafag (now a chemist hockey player?), but here I had been thrust deep into their society. A society where the guy with the biggest manboobs ("Mitchell") was the most adored. Where minute details of past plays and adventures were relived in painful, inside-joke-riddled detail. Sarcastic chubby Jewish people as far as the eye can see. To be frank, this is not my scene. What does one do when not in one's scene? Same thing he does everywhere: Make fun of everywhere as much as possible while self-deprecating just enough to seem worse by comparison. Ah, the strategies life teaches you. I know, I sound like a bad person. But you've got to fight to survive, and there are a lot of scenes I could not fit well in, so you have to take and give far better (faster, stronger, longer) than they can do to you. I was reading The Rules of Attraction, and when they'd slip into some pretentious art/music/poetry-fag slipstream conversation (This is satire, of course), I knew a person could be eaten alive in that sort of thing. We cannot let that happen, and overt aggression is not allowed. So good luck.

Try and get the other outsiders first, because they probably aren't getting the inside jokes and shit either. Two of the guys were total music dorks - well, one of them a lot less so, but he kept being sucked in by the ubergod, black hole type who arrived after him - and the one was a singer, and if you walk the tightrope between gay and straight and are as witty as we all know you can be (I was), she will be in love with you by the end of the evening (She was). She kept asking me to marry her; I told her I was saving myself for Cusack (You can imagine the behind the scenes: "Wait, is he serious? I was a little suspicious of his rolled-up sleeves and designer jeans, but he kept staring at that one girl's tits?" No I didn't). And ubergod, incidentally? Maybe in your mind, pantomimed violence is on par with irresistable flirting, but back here in reality, I think we were all a little freaked out. I'm very glad you can pick up that girl, but I don't think it's going to win you the blowjob.

That done, you move on to the insiders, the prettier ones if you can help it. (Andrea and Miriam, meanwhile, are unable to help you because they have concocted this insane scheme to play a trick on one of their friends. See, a while back Miriam told this fake rumor about Andrea to the friend - Jennifer - and Andrea is denying it and is pretending to be all pissy at Miriam, who keeps "accidentally" alluding to it and insulting Andrea, all leading up to a climactic battle at this very party, fake slaps and everything. It all goes surprisingly well - Jennifer totally believed some huge rift was going down, and she started freaking out and screaming at them and junk - but I think it would've been easier to just throw up on Jennifer's shoes. Wouldn't projectile vomiting be a cool talent?) We start with the weird older guy who looks sort of like Drew from IMPE (Is it the Native American bloooood?) and who is also the only one drinking. He starts telling me racist jokes. Goody. Not to be outdone, however, I tell the following: "What do you get when you disembowel a 6-year old with switchblade?" Dunno, what? "An erection." When you can horrify the racist, you've done your job. I guess it was a plus that he already had kids.

Another one (was this a plus?) was that everyone thought I looked like this guy Josh who they all used to know, so people kept thinking he was back visiting for this party. He dealt drugs or something, I think, and he's living with three girls in Arizona now, but I was fairly flattered because unlike me, he was damn hot (Thank God they had a picture of him because I'd have been bothered to death by the thought of yet another AlterNate out there). Mostly we just have the same facial structure; you know, the H and all. They kept talking about it, though. I wanted to tell the one guy that he looked like Bill and this other girl that she perhaps was Betsy Cooper in all but appearance (and pretty damn close there), but I suppose if you don't have at least one other person around to do that, you seem crazy. Good thing I know the lyrics to pretty much every song ever because nothing wins you friends faster than hollering Dashboard louder and more accurately than everyone else. "Who is this kid?" OK, enough italics for the Italian. Miserable bitches.

I'm honestly not sure how I filled that time there - did I talk, what? - but soon we were all going outside to play Red Rover. Our team ended up winning - I like to think it was partially because no one knew my name and therefore could not summon me over. Also my hands are like claws that latch on and never let go. Claws of Death, if you will. We moved onto tag, which was a dumb idea with all the drama people we had - I think like me and the one music guy were the only ones who could run at all. Exhausted, we got out some sort of lousy fireworks and set those off for a while. Of course, I only think fireworks are fun when they are really dangerous or really, really lame. I mean, the little bumbeebee things were cute, but if we whipped them lit at eachother, it would have been a lot more interesting than all of that "Stand back!" nonsense. Needed more black snakes (which I got, remember?!) and those shitty shitty little rocket powered cardboard cars ("MONKEY DRIVE!") that more often than not simply burst into flame in place. We'd better be getting some shit is all.

A late night trip for burritos and then back to Andrea's for her curfew and my car. We made out for a couple minutes, and we tasted like hot sauce. That's not interesting to you, is it? In my earlier rage at Mapquest, I had forgotten to give Andie her belated birthday present. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, but you know how she likes the little junk flowers the rest of the world call weeds? Well, I made a little planter thing out of popsicle sticks, painted it, got some little flower pots, and was going to fill it with those type of flowers, but I could not find anything besides dead clover. Wal-mart instead for the wilted shit they had. Wahhh wahhh. I'm such a cruddy person. The drive home was fun because it was so, so late, and I was exhausted and kept going on different exits to try and find a gas station for coffee and sour candy. I know I shouldn't enjoy being alone so much, but it just prepares me for the future, right? I got a tack stuck in my foot and slept eventually.

Late Night Arrogance (by Nate Walsh): I could have any girl I wanted. I mean, if I really, really focused on it. I mean, maybe I'm not so attractive that I can just get the attention and the looks and the grinding right off the bat, but honestly, if I put forth effort, it would be a breeze. I am charming and funny and polite and caring, and I could win pretty much anyone over if I was so inclined. Good thing I am not.

Thursday was going to be almost entirely a bust - didn't shower, didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything but read and yell at myself for not writing one of these crazy entries. Luckily, Heather called and invited me to another party gathering at Shawn's. You'll notice I've made it into the inner sanctum now - I get invited to small group things, not just the big shit. Then again, Kenney was there (arg). Then again again, I was possibly there because Kim was. Round out the number of couples, see. The effect of the cause. I'm suspicious by nature. Word has spread of my gentlemanly nature. Well, fuck. So much for the bad boy image I had been relying on. "Playa," says Shawn. Anyway, we grilled burgers and messed around in the pool (which was warmer than the hottub), got yelled at for glass containers by the security guards, etc. It's so weird that I am hanging out with 27 year olds. Then again, Shawn spent pretty much the whole night pining for weed, so maybe I'm not so far behind anyway. He definitely is one of me top five favorite people. Kim asked me to walk her to her car so she could give me back my pyjamas. "Riiight," says Shawn. She was leaving early because she had to work the next day, and there was another one of those awkward pauses where I think maybe I was supposed to kiss her, but I never realize this shit until ten minutes after the fact when I'm giving the random black guy directions and dodging security as I crawl under the parking gate to get back inside. You'll forgive me for my ignorance. Polish blood + SSRI = total immunity even four beers later, but I sure as hell hadn't planned on driving, so I just walked home with a soggy ass, that "oops" feeling already starting to build. "See, it's cool to not hook up with someone the first time you're with them," it says. "But it's just gay to fuck up the second time." Is that what I'm feeling?

I gave myself just enough time on Friday afternoon (I thought) to run out to Parkland and buy my Marketing book before work. Too bad the bookstore is closed on Fridays, shitdick! With my spotty attention span and decision that note taking was for pussies, buying the book seemed like my best chance of actually learning something concrete for the test on Monday. Oops. On Saturday after work, I ran to the campus bookstores to see if any of them had the book. Closed. Finally, today I made it out to the IUB, and it's the wrong book. Oh no, what is College Student to do?! Go to Parkland 2 hours early tomorrow, buy that shit, and cram like one has never crammed before. It's the part of the lifestyle I love. Nate Walsh thrives under pressure. Shut up, ugly.

Is it kind of sad that I like work these days? Well, it was my first day back in four days, so maybe I just missed social contact, but it just sort of seems fun these days, like a stupid game where I get to entertain people at whim. Kara is fun to work with. We invent ridiculous games that I won't let her stop playing, even when customers come in (e.g. Playing catch with this horrible old piece of wrapped candy and two frog puppets: Each time we score, we play the little electronic frog noise. Loser has to eat the mushy, exploded candy). We sing along with the top 40 hits, sometimes with helium, sometimes without, and act excited each time "The Reason" comes on. We even started making requests - I asked for some Hootie and the Blowfish, but they didn't have that shit, so I went for Avril's new single instead. "Go Avril!" I cried when they played it. "You hold onto that virginity!" Kara tried to shush me, as I was yelling this in front of some poor little girl filling up a Pucker Powder tube. "She already knows what it means, don't you?" We are both in love with the one DJ, Mergens. Fucking Mergens. We just talk about him all the time! And, bitches, he's gonna be at the Urbana Schnucks this Thursday! So I'll see you there with your bosom to be autographed.

I guess they took down my wicked jungle display window, which I think is a bit disappointing. One man agreed, but then he also kept talking about how he was the world's biggest dragon freak and how he assaulted his boss at some family restaurant he'd worked at. "He took me downstairs to tell me off for moving the sign, and I ripped my shirt in half and told him that I had been working there a fuck of a lot longer than he had, and I thought we were about CUSTOMER SERVICE. ....... I'm the biggest dragon freak you'll ever meet!" Keep in mind, this was completely out of nowhere. All of it basically aimed at me specifically while Kara stood unnoticed, gaping, besides me. Someday they will discover the gene that makes me attractive to this sort of person. Once I find someone hot and crazy, I'll be set. Wait... nevermind. Pretty much the biggest pet peeve to a person in retail is a customer buying something very small and paying with a very large bill. However, as a direct result of this, I was able to enact the ultimate revenege - change entirely in ones. Everyone looks so, so hateful when I do this, so I take wicked pleasure from it. "1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... 11... 12... 13... 14... 15... 16... 17... 18 dollars is your change. Enjoy your seven gummi worms!" If middle-aged woman could actually shoot the fire from their eyes, I would be so screwed. As it is, don't be a frustrated demon whore to me. After all, you get to leave the candy store when you're done.

While cleaning up the candy bins that night, I spotted a Jelly Belly on the ground. Thinking nothing of it (I clean the floor after all!), I picked that shit up and popped it in my mouth, only mildly thinking at the last moment that this has at least the potential for disaster. Roasted garlic jelly bean. And it's everything worse than I've imagined. It's like being smacked in the face with the smelliest, grossest thing you've ever thought of. I didn't even bite the bean all the way through before I spat it out, and it still managed to lodge itself into my palette for the rest of the night. I ran to the basket of free candy and grabbed the biggest thing I could see - a sesame-flavored candy bar. OH FUCK. Somehow that was even worse! It tasted like a really buttery baked potato covered in artifical sweetener. In summary, trying stuff is for idiots.

After so, so much mediocre, it was almost disappointing to see 2 good movies this weekend. Dodgeball was far too funny. I don't remember when we all agreed to love Vince Vaughn (for me, it was right after Clay Pigeons), but he was amazing, and the movie was pretty much comedic perfection. I don't want to ruin cameos or anything, just because they are so much better as a surprise. But the standards have now been raised to impassable levels. Good luck. The next night, The Terminal raised the standards for cuteness as well. Amelie set the grade for several years, but Tom Hanks was just adorable, and his ridiculous accent wasn't distracting at all. And Gupta (Kumar Pallana from all 3 Wes Anderson films!) fucking juggling in the background of the one scene for no given reason only compounds my interest. LOL - banker joke! It's too bad you don't have a dick.

On Saturday, it was me and Jane, all day long. Actually, since I'm her right hand whatever (ew!), it was me alone for quite a lot of it. Fine by me. I can take more vague notes about people. Let's see... There was this bitchy girl with her bitchy mom, and the girl had one of those Britney Spears hats on, but sort of tilted. And, I dunno, her of all people. I just thought, "Tilted with deliberate intent." I imagined her standing in front of the mirror, carefully positioning the hat until it was in exact position for most sassiness. "There! This will be sure to impress the fellas such that they can degrade me." I know, there's prolly loads of hypocrisy here, but it's just what I was thinking. And I'll tell you what pisses me off a little bit. OK, the pink shirt thing sort of pisses me off, only because nodody would have worn that shit if threatened two seasons ago. But that's just like hating people for liking Dashboard now that they've gone mainstream, so we'll move on. The fucking tilted-up collar thing. FUCK. God damn. I mean, not only does it look completely stupid, I'm even sitting here trying it, and it even feels weird. It's rubbing up against my neck all strangely, and it ticks me off, so I've taken to letting people know about it. "Um, excuse me. Your collar's up." "It's supposed to be." "......... Oh." It's too bad I have such stupid passions to be persecuted for. A lady came into the store, and I asked her if she needed help finding anything. She smiled and had only one misshapen fucked up tooth, bottom row, off-center to the left. Maybe you should be taking a little better care of Old Chomper if he's all you've got left. Back off from the tubes of sugar a little bit.

Were the candy store ever to be robbed, I know how to confuse the burglar enough to buy me the time to punch him in the face. Ask him if he wants a bag. I had no idea this was such an amazingly tough question, but 90% of the time, it trips a person up at least momentarily, and maybe a third of the time, it blows their mind entirely. "Duuuuuuuh... a bag.....? Bag..... ............... A..... bag?" "Yes, would you like one?" "........a.... what now?" I guess most people are usually used to either automatically being given a bag (or not given one), and the fact that they suddenly have a choice is what gets them, but it's still absolutely hilarious on my end. I stand patiently with a blank grin on my face. You take your time, pal.

2 t-shirts to be made: a) Will Smith yelling, "Get off my car!" (once I can draw him accurately), b) "SHE'S GONNA GROW UP TO BE A HEARTBREAKER" with - if possible - a hidden camera picture of one of the chubby redhead girls downing a tube of candy powder. I'm not bitter about this standard, really. It keeps me plenty happier... Probably. It's just that we're right across from the Abercrombie, so all the boringly pretty girls walk close by and yet never come in. A girl can smile at a guy in passing and always expect a smile back. If a guy smiles at a girl in the same circumstance, he is almost certain to get a glare at best. Well, maybe it's just that I'm not pretty. But I was sort of cute. Hmph. A girl came in on Friday, and I was awfully intrigued by her and could not figure out why. Finally, a few minutes after she left, I put it togther: She had the Most Perfect Boobs in the World. I'm not really a breast fellow, I believe I've mentioned that, so it took me a while to put together, but I kept stealing confused glances at her. "She's not really all that pretty," I thought. "And while her shorts are ridiculous, her legs are no great shakes either." So I was happy when the truth finally dawned on me. How fortunate that I had ever seen them, right? I asked Kara about it. "Did you notice anything weird about that girl who was just here?" "Yeah, sort of." "Did it have something to do with her boobs?" "Hmmm... I think you're right. I'm pretty sure she stuffed them." Well, damn. So much for that. But! What if she hadn't, and they were mythically perfect?! It was like seeing a fucking unicorn or something! A unicorn with some creepy black guy, but I suppose there are mythical reasons for that as well. And then on Saturday, the Perfect Ass came in, too. Again, don't really like the butts, but she would not stop wiggling it in front of me. It's like I've been given this strange, useless gift. I have to start carrying around a camera. I'll be taken for a crackpot otherwise. Then again, there are also the times when the sort of chubby girl in too short of a skirt is in, and she keeps bending over, and I swear you could actually see cheek, and God in heaven, I am not ready for that sort of sight.

Hey, decades later, I am caught up! I watched "The Sopranos" today, and Will came, and we all watched "Quantum Leap" together. Kyle and I kept trying to yell out catchphrases, and I meticulously cleaned out Roomba's innards. "Oh boy."