I want to run away. I want to drive to New York or Chicago or Nebraska or pick a spot on the map and...

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:18:39 -0700

I want to run away.

I want to drive to New York or Chicago or Nebraska or pick a spot on the map and be there. I feel sick and hopeless and I’m realizing that all the reasons I used to justify aren’t really the reasons at all.

It’s more. That’s scary.

And I don’t know how to be close to people. And I don’t know what I want or why it’s all so fucked up.

Seattle summers are so rad. (I didn’t notice the guy on...

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:47:28 -0700

Seattle summers are so rad.

(I didn’t notice the guy on the bench smiling until just now)

I’m unemployed. And for a bull-shit reason and I was framed.I mean, technically, I’ve...

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:32:41 -0700

I’m unemployed. And for a bull-shit reason and I was framed.I mean, technically, I’ve only been suspended until Monday when HR makes a decision whether or not to fire me over a $2 pair of god damn socks. But even if they don’t fire me, I’m fucking quitting. Since this all went down, my boss has allegedly been talking shit about me, telling everyone I steal, that it’s all on camera and how I betrayed everyone. Awesome, dude. I never stole. I never cheated. I gave a kid a pair of $2 socks and paid for them myself later. I never lied about this situation. I was completely upfront and don’t think what I did was wrong. But, allegedly, I’ve been stealing for months and am a completely immoral and unethical person.

So I went on a little bender/movie marathon this weekend, punctuated by the occasional resume sending or cover letter writing. I don’t want to work retail management anymore.

I had an epiphany today.

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:17:04 -0700

I had an epiphany today.

I’d just like to take this moment to say a very special Fuck You to my printer, which decided...

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:58:44 -0700

I’d just like to take this moment to say a very special Fuck You to my printer, which decided to stop working in the early Friday morning hours after I had just sacraficed all of my sleep for the night to homework. Fuck you, printer.

Thanks for not printing my essays at 5am. I thoroughly enjoyed staring into that little blinking green light of yours for 15 minutes hoping, just maybe, that you’d eventually just give in and work. That stand-off could have lasted several hours (I never back down), but as my caffeine supply and patience was running low, I decided I’d just have to hit the library before class. Only I didn’t get to the library before class, did I? As soon as my head hit the pillow, at approximately 5:30am, some asshole bird starts fucking screeching outside my window. I’m not sure exactly what time I finally fell asleep, but I do know what time I woke up. And that time was way after my classes had started, or 10:53am.

Buzzed.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:44:36 -0700

I just spent over $25 on energy drinks at 7-Eleven.

I have to pull an all-nighter tonight.

I work a nine hour shift tomorrow.

I’ve consumed two 24oz drinks in the last hour.

My face feels kind of tingly.

Another Capitol Hill Stabbing

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:07:40 -0700

Another Capitol Hill Stabbing: So, crazy thing is, I know this Brandon guy. Well, sort of. He was in the math class I dropped last quarter. After the first day of class he struck up a conversation with me at the bus stop. He told me about how he had recently been hit by a car and was able to afford to go back to school from the insurance settlement. Nice guy, but he clearly has some kind of curse.

I think I was involved in a serious accident as a child and blocked it out. Really. I...

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:57:57 -0700

I think I was involved in a serious accident as a child and blocked it out. Really.

I recently bought my annual pre-summer tanning package so I can hit Lake Washington in a few months without blinding my fellow boaters, and not look so lobster-esque after a few hours in the sun. While I love being tan, one unfortunate side-effect is that it highlights the fact that I have a lot of little scars. On my hands, arms, legs; a result of being a scab-picker and incredible clumsy child.

So the other day I get out of the shower, and I’m checking out my tanning progress and I notice all these little white spots across my ribs, starting under my left boob and extending down across my left side. Hundreds of little scars. What the fuck? I mean, they’re not gross or disfiguring or anything, they actually look kind of cool. I just want to know how this happened. Did I fall off a swing and skid across the gravel? Pecked at by a flock of crows? Am I a leper in remission? Or are they just rare albino freckles?

It’s probably the result of a particularly itchy patch of Chicken Pox, but I kind of wish I had a cool war story to explain it.

Craig: So I was reading through Crystal's copy of Cosmo in the back on my break and there was this whole article with tips on how to "Drive your Man Crazy in Bed." This one guy said he loves it when women speaks a foreign language and how one time this one girl would scream out "Mucho Gusto" and it was so hot.

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:54:59 -0700

Craig: So I was reading through Crystal's copy of Cosmo in the back on my break and there was this whole article with tips on how to "Drive your Man Crazy in Bed." This one guy said he loves it when women speaks a foreign language and how one time this one girl would scream out "Mucho Gusto" and it was so hot.
Me: "Much Gusto" means "Nice to meet you!"
Craig: I KNOW!
Me: Personally, I like to conjugate verbs.

I accidentally punched a girl in the side of the head on the bus this morning while trying to put...

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:02:34 -0700

I accidentally punched a girl in the side of the head on the bus this morning while trying to put on my jacket. It was satisfying.

Photo

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:18:22 -0700

I just discovered the most amazing thing ever: Frozen Pop Tarts. Fuck the toaster, man. Life’s so...

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:17:00 -0700

I just discovered the most amazing thing ever: Frozen Pop Tarts. Fuck the toaster, man.

Life’s so rad right now. It’s been a good couple of days.

I skipped class today, slept in, then spent an obscene amount of time showering and getting ready to go nowhere. I curled my eyelashes for like, 20 minutes; they’re at a 90 degree angle. Called Julie, who happened to be having a bad day and vowed to take her out and have FUN! Took several shots of three different liquors, put on my sweet Ray-Ban Wayfarers and headed down to the Ave. Hugged Teresa, warned Jen about that creeper Tom, almost fell down laughing about something I can’t remember now. Later we’re at a little restaurant on Pike (or was it Pine?), giggling over Mojitos and too expensive pasta, making eyes at the guy who re-fills our water glasses.

“How do you spell faux?”

“Um, F-O.”

“No, like, the French way. Is it F-A-U-X?”

Our waiter had a sweet faux-hawk. We told him so on our comment card.

"I love you because you drink in the middle of the day!"

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:29:15 -0700

“I love you because you drink in the middle of the day!”

- Teresa, who I just realized only sees me during my weekly drunken jaunts to the Ave.

Finally added to my star tattoo! Also, it was fucking beautiful...

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:45:40 -0700

Finally added to my star tattoo!

Also, it was fucking beautiful today. It was 79 degrees! 79 degrees! The guy who panhandles all day everyday just off the Denny exit wasn’t there today. I think he took a personal day and headed to Greenlake.

I think it's called Karma

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:03:01 -0700

I bussed it down to the U-District today to get my tattoo touched up. Unfortunately, they were booked for the day, so I made and appointment for next Saturday. I got a little shopping in and started heading for home after an hour.

Around Roosevelt and 75th a early-twenty-something guy gets on the bus and sits next to me. Whilst reading his worn paperback copy of of I, Jedi, he proceeds to fart every minute or so for the remainder of the bus ride. It was fucking disgusting. He’d even lift up a little to let them escape, and smirk while doing so.

I was feeling light headed from holding my breath by the time we got to Northgate.

“That’s my bus!” the Flatulence wispered while standing suddenly, and in the process, knocking his head against the hand rail. He then flew from the bus, without paying, and started sprinting to the parked 346.

Now everyone knows the 346 leaves at 5 and 35 minutes after the hour and it happened to be 5:29. Everyone except this guy, apparently, cause he was running, hard.

His cell phone flies out of his pants pocket. He doesn’t notice. In that moment, the planets aligned and the universe smiled down upon me. I saw it happen in almost slow motion: as his phone sweeps in a slow arch across the overcast sky, the 41 bus pulls into the transit center. In seemingly perfect choreography, the phone hits the pavement a mere second before the bus runs it over.

I laugh. Hard.

By now he’s standing at the empty 346, the driver gone, the door closed. A middle aged woman fishes his smashed phone out from under the bus and jogs toward him.

“Sir! Sir! You dropped your phone,” she yells.

“AND it got run over by the bus!” I add with an hearty laugh.

On school and vomit.

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:15:00 -0700

It’s the first day of Spring Quarter. My Sociology teacher looks like a composite of Mr. Rogers and Ronald Regan. And my Art History text book weighs, by my rough guesstimation, 7lbs. It has three built in ribbon page markers. You know it’s serious business when it has three built in ribbon page markers

A woman threw up on the bus today. I didn’t realize what was going on until a woman wearing a yellow baret in an adjacent seat suddenly jumped up and asked the bus driver for paper towels and three youths let out a collective “Ewww.” The woman in the yellow baret collected various paper towels, napkins and plasic bags from other riders and went to work cleaning up a stranger’s vomit. It was actully quite amazing. She was so organized, quick, and stoic. In less than 10 blocks the vomit was whiped up and the vomiter had been shuffled off the bus and left at a route that would take her to the community health clinic.

This made me realize a couple things:

1) I’m really glad I have don’t have a weak stomach and only puke when I’m extreamly ill or extreamly intoxicated, the former being qutie rare and at which times I wouldn’t be riding around on the bus.

2) I could never clean up a stranger’s puke. Mad props to the lady in the yellow baret for taking care of the situation.

There was a little boy running rampant through my store today. His name was Seymour and he liked...

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:55:00 -0700

There was a little boy running rampant through my store today. His name was Seymour and he liked Dragonball Z.

Seymour? Seriously? Poor kid.

It reminded me of this time at my last store when I was helping this ridiculous Bellevue couple. Their kid, about 4 or 5 years old and wearing sweatpants up to his armpits, was named Townsend. I kept accidentally calling him “Town and Country.”

"What?! Mom took you to buy pants?! Dad told me on the way to the dump to get rid of the swingset!"

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:22:16 -0700

“What?! Mom took you to buy pants?! Dad told me on the way to the dump to get rid of the swingset!””

- Kyle, on when he got “the talk”

Global Rich List

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:21:55 -0700

Global Rich List

I was going through a box of old photos and mementos when this...

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:18:00 -0700

I was going through a box of old photos and mementos when this ice-cream cone magnent fell out. It was on my grandparents’ refrigerator for as long as I can remember. After grandpa died there was all this unpleasantness and bickering over inheritances and who got what. It was sad and stressful and frustrating and some of my aunts and uncles still aren’t speaking to one another over the arguments that arose. I maintained that I didn’t need anything, but I snagged the cone when no one was looking. Not that anyone would have cared, really; it probably would’ve just been tossed. Which is totally unfair as the cone was pretty infallible all those 19+ years: Holding up mine and my brother’s scribbles, wedding announcements, coupons, and for the longest time a “what to do in case of a gas-leak” instructional card, despite the fact that the house had electric heat. I think it was once part of a Neapolitan themed set, but Strawberry and Vanilla have long since disappeared.