The Wee Democracy

facts, not fiction

today started like any other day, stumbling out of bed at an indecent hour, eyes gummy and mostly closed bumbling into the bathroom to free myself before i pee all down the front of my pants. tuesdays are trash days, so i bundled up the kitchen trash (particularly smelly today, though i don't know when the last time i had tuna fish of any sort lately, so the stank odor is mystifying and offensive), grabbed the trash bag from my room, and the bathroom, and went out into the drizzle to dump it all.

i take a shower even though i'm not leaving for the interview for another couple of hours, though i don't feel as confident about the whole thing as i did yesterday, and i'm finding myself wishing that it hadn't been postponed, OC marathon notwithstanding. i was ready yesterday, and i wanted to have it over with. my budding confidence is ever growing, but it's still fragile, and i'm not sensing good things about these two prospects, so my fantastic plans of being out on my own by february are slowly fading away.

i cut myself shaving, right under my left nostril, which, if you've never done it, or you're a girl, is a particularly painful place to cut. this is the second cut in that spot in as many months which pisses me off cause i've been having to shave for a good 6 years, and i've only cut myself the two times. sure, i've knicked pimples but that doesn't count. they're responsible for their own demise, and it has nothing to do with my ineptitude with sharp objects.

i go to the interview and i'm ridiculed shortly before i leave for wearing my heavy overcoat. i do this, i say, because it might rain and i don't want to get my suit wet. well, you'll look ridiculous, the voice says, and against my better judgment, i take off the coat. i forget to take my cell phone out of the front pocket, and realize this about 10 seconds past the point of no return.

the interview goes alright, but the highlight is the moments before i go in, reading a sports illustrated previewing the yankees-red sox matchup in the ALCS. it's nice to read what's going on, after you know the end result, and i do catch more than a few photos of bekah's future husband, jesus damon. the interviewer seems a dab preoccupied, which sours me on the whole thing, but i try to remain positive. i leave....and almost forget my umbrella.

the irony is that, aside from the fact that ridiculous or not, i should have worn my overcoat, if i'd simply left the umbrella behind, i'd have made it to the bus stop some five minutes ahead of schedule, and would have avoided the torrential 'road to perdition' type downpour that ended up soaking my suit and rendering my wet and grouchy and riding a smelly bus. again with the smells.

downtown by the transfer center, i've got a good fifteen minutes to wait for the next bus and by this time, the rain has stopped, so i go across the street to one of the three liquor stores. you have to wonder about the evolution of this place. what came first? the bums and winos and degenerates who simply hang out in this transfer center furtively sipping their liquor from black plastic bags or....i forgot where i was going, but i didn't want to give up on the chance to paint a picture of the types of people i see riding day to day downtown. a colorful bunch to say the least.

so i go in, eager to take my place among these people whose simplicity of existence i'd admire if it didn't involve going so long without television or showers. one bottle of whiskey please, the medium one, and a large plastic bag for my leather portfolio.

a bus comes, and while we're driving it has cleared up some. then it pours. then, as we're closing in on my street, it clears up. then, seriously, no bullshit, three stops from mine, it starts coming down again, with the lightning and thunder and things of that nature. so all that drying off i'd done on the way home was quickly and efficiently undone.

time out: i've been riding the bus to go to work for almost a year now, and only once have i been really affected by the considerable rainfall that 2004 has had to offer. up to now, i'd considered myself just lucky. i felt confident walking out to go to work without an umbrella, cause i figured my rain luck would hold out. but today, the day i most need and want to stay dry, an umbrella does the equivalent good of shaking my fist at the sky and yelling for the sky to stop vomiting on me.

nap.

wake up. as i mentioned, it was my grandma's birthday today. she's 79. she had a stroke a few years back so words don't come to her as easily as they used to but she still makes good hot sauce and round steak and fideo (for the non-hermanos, that's a mexican type of pasta that's pretty tasty). so we all go to uncle julio's. that's a restaurant famous for fajitas, not my actual uncle's house, though i really do have an uncle julio.

and that brings us to the low point of this otherwise crappy day. we're joined by two of my uncles and their wives, and two of my cousins. they're young these cousins, around 8 and 10. the younger one, a boy named michael is a handful and tends to say whatever is on his mind, no interlocuter needed. the other, a girl named kaitlin finds a way to mention britney spears in just about every conversation regardless of how irrelevant said statements may be.

"do you like girls?" michael asks me, and i'm really starting to wonder what my family thinks of me.

"do you want a girlfriend?" kaitlyn asks. sure, i guess, i say, figuring my explanation of the new me won't really amount to much to these tots. but they're expensive, i add.

"yeah, you have to buy them everything. that's how you show true love," she says. what the christ is this kid talking about, i think when all of a sudden, out of nowhere....

"you don't have a girlfriend!" michael exclaims, for all in the immediate vicinity to hear. and that's it. here i am, sitting, drinking my margarita, thinking about that bottle of black label i've got sitting at home, and realizing with full consciousness that my game has just been publicly lambasted by an eight year old. it really doesn't get much worse than that. really.

dcfc - a lack of color