Friday, April 30, 2010

Whatever you do, don't blink.

I'm boxed in here. I seriously have trouble driving anywhere, because literally every single road is under construction. Excessive roadwork on every one of my typical routes to work. I'm seriously out of ideas other than saving enough money to by myself one of these and just flying to work.

On Wednesday I got called into work. We were playing host to the famous romance novelist Debbie Macomber. She writes books about God and knitting, so you may be able to guess what the audience was like. Three hundred plus 50-60 year old women all filling up the cafe area. Every chair in the store had been reassigned to the event, and there still wasn't enough room. The author herself seemed like a fairly nice old lady, but the evening was not terribly fun. Complaints that were lodged to me:

- They managed to miss the handing out of wristbands marking their position in the signing line despite having them at the top of the stairs before heading down. Fortunately, most people just got into line wherever they felt like it. A fight or two might have broken out, but most of them would have had to sit down and catch their breath after the first punch.

- The fact that Macomber started at about 6:40, when the event promotion clearly stated that she'd be starting at seven. She wanted to get started and get started she did - these authors have a certain momentum. She spoke for only about fifteen minutes anyway and started signing books. The whole decision process was out of my hands you could say, so yell at her.

- We did not account for the large amount of people with standing/walking problems. They were ushered to the front to the best of our ability.

We went an hour past close so that everyone could get their book signed. Got paid for essentially standing around, but still. Crazy old women. There was a particularly patient gentleman who had been somehow (and I don't want to think too hard about how) roped into getting his wife's book signed as she couldn't be there herself. There's a marriage that is either on shaky ground (speaking from a masculine standpoint) or fucking ironclad. When he finally got his wife's books signed, the old ladies behind him assured him that he was a great husband and that the good Lord would bless him.

I don't know, maybe God's a fan of the books.


And speaking of patience paying off, I finally got to register for classes next fall. I've only selected one so far, but it's an important one. ENGLISH 452 - SHAKESPEARE. Required for every single English major basically, this is the first year that I've been able to catch it - indeed, harpooned it like some great thrashing sea beast. I dunno how the class will turn out, but at least I'll finally have it behind me.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

By popular request

Gather around children, for I have a story to spin.

We were on our way to get pizza, my chums and I. The two of them having polished off the bottle of SKYY Vodka from the refrigerator, and I am of course perfectly sober. I am very much the escort, to make sure they don't get arrested for public drunkenness or get murdered for making rude remarks about the wrong gang member's choice of attire.

(Aside: I regularly serve this role, in the perhaps unconscious hope that some young lady will note my responsibility and care for my friends and throw herself into my arms. This has not occurred and Cody tells me I am stupid for thinking this.)

In any case, the three of us walk along North Avenue at 1 in the morning and something catches our collective eyes. There is a dude (the bro type, on his way to a sick kegger, no doubt) in the drivers seat of a parked car, and the woman in the passenger seat seams to be doubled over. She is ill perhaps, head resting in the guy's lap. Then we note that her head is bobbing up and down, and yep that guy's getting his staff spit-shined by a comically drunk young woman.

For those of you who have never seen an act of public sex, it is one of those things that tears you between two sentiments. One that says "Ew. The nerve. Get a room, you animals" and one that says "Wow, just like in the movies!" It's very much a religious experience. I keep calm and continue walking with a grin, but my friends are snickering and laughing until one of them gives the guy the thumbs up. The dude in the car comically puts his finger to his lips, miming a librarian's "Quiet, please".

They later briefly entered the restaurant we settled on and I resisted the urge to loudly say something like: "BOY, THIS EVENING SURE BLOWS."



So working caused me to miss what was apparently a really swanky shindig. Focus Refilled, which I am told attracted somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty people, winded down basically right after I got off work. There would have been tons of artsy-fartsy people to mingle with. Some of these people would have probably been English majors that I could have mooched advice from. Some of them might even have bothered to talk to me.

It doesn't help that one roommate just quit his job and the other one hasn't bothered with one to begin with. So while I am shelving books for minimum wage they're (I can only assume) playing awesome video games, and meeting cool people, and eating nice food, and kissing beautiful women, and making new friends.

I need to do something about this annoying "responsibility" thing that causes me to do things like leave social functions early to study and refuse to ever call in sick to work.