Sprinklers
July 4, 2008
I remember two summers ago, watching fireworks out on the fields… the band playing in the background… balloons, sweets, sno-cones, walking with Nell. Being alone on holidays sucks. Being alone sucks, period.
Still can’t get a job. Found a place to stay, though only for a month. It’s been an interesting week. Sunday I went to see about a house for 500 a month, and everything was cool that night. On the way back to the co-op (20 dollars for a cupboard) it started pouring down, and I had to walk a few miles in the rain. It kept following me just like my bad luck.
But the weirdest thing that happened was this funny looking person asked me what time it was. I had to eventually ask if she was a guy. She had these huge inflatable (I kid you not) tits and an inflatable ass. It was hilarious, but she was like, “I’ve never had an Asian dick before” and she wanted to see if it was small or not. She led me to a stairwell of a parking garage where I showed her. I would never do anything that crazy though. A flash is as far as I’ll go with someone who looks like a guy who bought women parts at a dollar store.
Monday I got a cell phone. I think the phone girl was hitting on me. I’m not sure why anyone would, but… I was in there before to get information, and then I went back and she was like, I was going to tell you how to do this and this and such and such, and then out of nowhere she kind of flirtatiously asks about my necklace to tell me she liked it. Karen, the cute cell phone girl. Yum…
And then I was about to move in to the house, but just as I got there the dude drove off. So I left my stuff and walked around for a few hours, when finally at 11, he calls me and tells me that they gave the room to somebody else. I didn’t know if I should have been mad at them or mad at myself for making them want to do that. I must have done something wrong.
By then the buses stopped running and the night owls were the only ones. I was carrying everything I owned 3 or 4 miles from the night owl stop, and I wasn’t going to kill myself. Moments like those are the times I want to just fall over and give up, or I might wish a car would hit me. But I’ve come too far to let it all go to waste. Well, I slept on a bench that night, and somewhere around midnight the sprinklers turned on and my guitar bag got wet (and me too).
I miss her so much… I thought I saw her on Tuesday. I was sitting outside Nuno’s and a girl and a guy walked up to the hotdog stand. I swear she looked exactly like Nell. I followed them like a creep for like two blocks. They must have known I was following them because they kept looking back and somehow I lost them. I was devastated that I didn’t talk to her when I had the chance, and I started thinking about Nell again. I emailed her that night… still no word. Wednesday nights at the 311. Ben on guitar/vocals, Robby on sax, me on guitar. Robby’s girlfriend Victoria thinks I’m interesting… that’s two people who don’t hate me so far. “The best thing to be is young and talented,” she says.
Dreamt about Nell last night: she was a princess who’d talk to everyone but me, but then the castle started flooding with water with her stuck in a room at the top. I saved her, and she finally acknowledged me.
Similar dream last week where she had on a dazzling outfit and wouldn’t talk to me so I let the door slam on her arm. Tonight?
It was tough carrying both my bag and guitar. When I got the call that I didn’t get the room I was expecting, I was stranded. A hotel was out of the question and anywhere else was too far away, especially because the normal buses stopped running at that time. So I slept on a bench. When the sprinklers came on I laughed at how oddly pathetic the situation was. It seemed like a punchline in some shitty romantic comedy.
Somehow I felt like I had chosen this for myself… that I’d chosen a crappy time alone in Austin rather than sitting at home following a designated road to college and a regular job. To mindlessly do the latter was restrictive and far less of a choice than running away. Yet running away wasn’t my choice either… I was forced to try to get away from everything that was dragging me down.