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d-ring mothaload

When It Rains, It Motherfucking Pours...

2003-06-15::4:14 p.m.

(I wrote this Wednesday on the train to kill time- I'll update again tomorrow with the weekend's events. Nothing too exciting, however, in an hour I am going to see my first apartment in the area- wish me luck!)

Hey, how�s everyone�s week been? Mine�s been a fucking hectic mess, thanks for asking. You know you are in for a good entry when I have said fuck three times now in the first three sentences.

Here�s what my life has been like- for starters, I am writing this on an Amtrak train on my way home to Michigan for the second time this week. Happy happy. Joy joy. Let�s start at the beginning of the week, shall we? Worked Sunday and Monday in the hellhole known as the music department of the Lincoln Park Borders, as per usual. Then, Monday evening, it�s straight from work to lovely O�Hare International Airport to catch a flight home to Detroit. I didn�t write about it at the time, but my grandfather in Idaho passed away at the beginning of April. Since he spent most of his life in Michigan, we had a service, and buried his ashes in Flint on Tuesday. So, funeral on Tuesday, then it�s back on a plane Wednesday morning, back to Chicago to work my Wednesday night closing shift. Open the store on Thursday, have dinner with my friend Jen Y. and Katie, and pack to get on a 7am train bound for Royal Oak this morning. From there I am home until this coming Wednesday, then its back on the train to Chicago to work a 7 day stretch- just in time for all of the Harry Potter madness! Don�t you love my life? I sure as hell do!

So, why am I heading home again so soon? Well, you see, I have a fuckload of things to get done before I move back to Michigan- hopefully I will get a lot of it accomplished this week while I am home. The main reason I�ll be home is to get prepped for school- I have to go in and take some shitty placement tests, (I think like physics and computer competency, or some such shit), then I have to go in for orientation and registration. I am getting too old for this bullshit. God, how I love being a 23 year old freshman! Yeah, you heard me right, freshman- initially only 8 of my 99 credits from Wayne transferred; now I think I am up to 30 or something. And you thought things couldn�t get any better! Welcome to my world! Besides all of the school bs, I also need to a) secure a student loan already- Christ I have no money! b) obtain some car insurance that won�t cost me as much as my college tuition (apparently, unbeknownst to me, I got good and liquored up, turned my Saturn into a killing machine, and ran down fifteen innocent bystanders, killing them all, so now, to be insured, it will cost roughly a small fortune), and, last, but certainly not least, c) find the fucking apartment of my dreams for less than $550 a month! Can it be done? I hope so. Wish me luck, okay?

So, Kelly, I have heard your awful Mr. Snow stories, and I can completely sympathize. I, too, have had my fair share of the unwanted interactions with older men as of late. This week has been especially bad. It all started Tuesday, at the funeral of all places! One of the morticians, who also happens to be a cousin somehow through marriage, took a shine to me, and decided to chat me up during our ride to and from the cemetery. It was pretty annoying, you know, it�s my grandpa�s funeral, I don�t really feel much like making small talk, and sharing stories with some strange, lonely, thirty-something, pale mortician, thank you. It turned into quite a joke amongst the rest of the family, which they wouldn�t let me live down all day- �You know, maybe you should hook it up with so-and-so, he has a huge house, with a pond!� Oh wow, a pond? Well, hell, what was I thinking? Let�s hop on the next plane to Las Vegas and get hitched! Also pestering me on Tuesday was my �Uncle� Bob- again, related through marriage. All day he would run into me and hassle me about this or that- his favorite subject was my college career- he really had a good time riding me about my failure to complete my degrees at Wayne. Mind you, I haven�t seen this man in God knows how long, I sure as hell don�t remember our last meeting, and well, the whole Wayne State thing is a sore subject to begin with. I don�t talk about it really with anyone, and to have some asshole that I barely know joking about it all day-well, I wasn�t the happiest. So, he�s bugging me all day, right? Whatever, I pretty much just tried to do my best to defend myself, and dish it right back to him. He was annoying, but I was going to be rid of him the next morning, so I thought I would just grin and bear it, (I forgot to mention, he was staying at our house that night, and flying back to Idaho the next morning). Anyway, things didn�t get uncomfortable until later in the evening, when everyone was getting ready for bed, and he made some kinda pervy crack about me �sleeping� with him. I don�t know, he had been drinking, and maybe he didn�t even mean it in that way, it just might have been a joke that backfired, but that�s not how it came off.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday wasn�t much better. My first incident occurred that night while working. I hear a customer ask for help looking for a cd, I look up, and it happens to be none other than Peter. I know I haven�t written about him in here before, because the whole thing makes me wanna puke, and I didn�t want to document it, but for those of you who don�t know the story, here it is.

Okay, so I am working the Sunday after Valentine�s Day, and some customer comes in and is chatting me up about some Ramones tribute album. I�m not really paying attention, I don�t really care, I am just doing my usual customer service smile and nod type thing. The guy leaves the store, and is just so �taken� with me, that he calls the next day, asks for me by name, and proceeds to ask me out for a cup of coffee. By this time, I can�t remember who it is, so kinda curious, I agree to have coffee with him in our caf� during my lunch break the next day. The guy is Peter. I don�t even recognize him, but already I can tell he is bad news. He calls the store on his cell phone from inside the store because he couldn�t find me in the music department, and where am I- are we still on for lunch? He seems a little miffed about staying in the store for coffee, although I told him the day before that I wasn�t going to leave the store with him as I didn�t know him. We sit down to eat lunch, and he proceeds to bore the hell out of me. He is in his thirties- he asks my age, but doesn�t offer his, so I don�t ask. He is pretty conservative, both politically and in his appearance. Very styled hair, preppy thirty-something dresser, very smiley and soft spoken, kind, but a little too eager. Ends up being a little racist and insulting on top of everything else. Why then, when he asks for my number, do I go ahead and give it to him? I don�t know, he must�ve slipped GHB into my coke or something when I wasn�t looking. I think it was just because he was so timid and sad that I would have felt awful trying to dump him right there in the middle of the store. So, I was dumb and gave him my number, and well, he calls, the next day, not even 24 hours later, while I am out getting my taxes done, and the message on the machine is all Creeps McGee. �Thought you would be home this morning, thought you had said you were working this evening�,� that sort of thing. If I hadn�t thought he was a little too desperate before, I sure as hell did now, and I was leaving the next day to go home for the weekend, so I figured I would just wait until I got back to deal with him. I get home, and there is yet another call from him on the CallerID, however, no message this time- I decide not to return his call at all- fuck him, he�s creepy, and I don�t owe him anything. A couple of nights later, I get another call- I don�t realize it�s him- he calls from his cell phone, and I answer it thinking it�s Katie�s boyfriend. It�s him, and so now I have to tell him I am not interested in him. I don�t remember the exact conversation, but I remember him being a little pissy, but whatever, he is out of my life now, right? Well, he was until he came into the store Wednesday and wanted me to help him find a cd. I thought perhaps there was an unwritten rule that he wouldn�t come into my store anymore- especially since four months have passed without a sign of him. So, I did what I had to do, put on my best customer service smile and helped him find his dumb Jack Johnson cd that he heard in the fucking Gap and just had to have, and no I didn�t just make that last bit up. I kinda played it off like I didn�t know who he was, but of course he had to ask me how I�ve been, and of course I had to answer and ask him back. Very awkward. Luckily, I think I was a good mix of cold and polite, so he didn�t pursue any further conversation- just hung out for a few more minutes and then left without another word. I totally lucked out- it could�ve potentially been very creepy. However, although Peter was gone, my night was not completely perv free. Later that evening, I was standing at the bus stop, waiting for the last bus home, when I hear a rather loud drunk, speaking his drunk speak, walking down the street. My big mistake, looking at him and accidentally making eye contact- that right there is an open invitation to be harassed. The interaction was pretty uneventful- it culminated in him telling me what a beautiful mouth I have, (the better to suck you off with? God, I hate drunks), and asking me if it was okay if he said that. Too late for whether or not it�s okay, you already said it. Really, he was just asking for permission to harass me further. However, luck was on my side for a second time that evening, as just then I could see my bus approaching. Why, oh why, is this my life? Lately, unless a man is 35+ or drunk, in most cases, both, he will not even give me a second look- I just get all the desperate middle-aged men, all sad and pathetic. Frankly, it makes me more than a little sick.

That's pretty much been my week, thus far. I hope the rest of it goes a little bit better. However, given my track record, things'll only get worse, I'm sure.