Public Transit

So today, like everyday Monday through Thursday, I rode the train to school. The public transit like train that I get a free pass to ride through school because I pay for classes. (What an incredibly useful thing that little card is.)

So I get on the blue line, hop off at the transfer platform, and get in the red line. There I am, standing in the doorway passage walk-way area, minding my own business, looking out the window, thinking about how cool it would be if I had a really big dog that I could feed potatoes, and something unexpected happens.

It is the third stop on the line, and the train comes to a stop. I move out of the way, letting people go by, when this old guy in a red hoodie with a giant lunchbox holds up this scrap of paper in my face. I snatch it out of his hands, and my face instantly reads, "What the mother fuck is this?" Because I literally have no way to school my face into anything other that what I am feeling when I am caught unawares.

The really big black guy that was right behind him sees my face, sees the paper in my hand, and starts busting a gut.

I look at the paper. It says:

RANDY

Plus his number. I briefly considered putting on here... But then I thought that would be rude. I mean, most people give out there numbers to communicate.

Except that I am not going to... um, hook up?... with a fifty-ish dude from the train. Uh...

That was basically my day today.

Oh, and in my Human Sexuality class we talked about vaginas. That was fun. I learned a lot of new words to describe the lady parts. Though, disappointingly, no one offered up "fanny," "the downstairs compartment," or "downtown." And while there were many good words to describe boobs, "nunga-nungas" was not one of the ones anyone knew. Oh well.

Scaring My Pants Off

So, my friend Gage, (mentioned previously HERE) told me I should play this game called Slender.

I should now mention that I am now fearful of everything. And on top of that, I live next to some mother fucking woods. Mom laughs at me. But holy shit buckets. I am fucking scared of this game. Especially since the music and thumping and jumping out Slenderman shit is so NOT funny.

So I am making a pact with myself that I will only play at school/in daylight.

But I must find all 8 pages.

So...... I might just get my pants scared off all the time because I know I will get addicted and have to play at night.

Maybe I should invest in a night light.

Fuck my life.

Going to University

My first week at university began like any first day of a new school: I was incredibly nervous AND forgot to put on deodorant. Typical.

So I had to use the public transportation all by myself for the first time, too, and I was definitely afraid I would somehow screw that up, along with screwing up getting my idea, and the free pass for the train. Luckily I did none of those things.

Like I said, I began my week by staying out too late and drinking too much on the weekend, (a bottle of tequila and a night I literally don't remember...) then on my first day forgot deodorant. I managed to somehow drag myself from the warm confines of my duvet and into the bitterly cold Tuesday morning. I didn't have gloves, but I had on long socks, jeans, a long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, and a coat. So basically I was hot while on the train and still not all that warm while waiting on my transfer.

When I got to school, I was mega early, (not knowing how long it would take) and so I got a coffee and decided to get my ID made. My picture looks awful. By which I mean, I look either half asleep, (which I was actually), or like I have a weird lazy eye. Apparently the guy thought I should retake the picture, and asked me if it was okay. I waved it off, of course I don't mind my picture looking like a beat-up, half asleep, zombie monster.

He printed the card out, and I went in search of my first class. It wasn't hard to find once I got my map in my head orientated to the actual world. (I hate looking/feeling like a tourist. I never carry around a map.) I found my class, found a seat, and sighed in relief.

Until the room started to warm up like butter in a microwave. I was getting more that toasty. I started taking off layers, and I tied up my hair. By the time I was cooling off again, class was over. I had to go out into the biting cold again...

But to my great surprise, it was snowing. I couldn't help smiling like a loon at the swirling white stuff. I love snow with an incredible passion.

So for the rest of my time at the school, spent getting my train pass and then walking to the train, I was smiling like a crazy person. No one talked to me, so maybe it was a good defense against weirdos.

The next day went much smoother, and I was even more tired from not falling into a fitful sleep the night before. Though I did have a weird dream about being a P.I. for the ninja turtles. Donatello lost his shell, and since the shells are "one of a kind" I was naturally hired to find the shell. I don't know if I did...

The best part of my Wednesday was my Psych class. Human Sexuality. My teacher is great. Basically the whole class was her just rambling on about how she was going to teach the class. Then she would pause dramatically and say things like, "VAGINA!" and then wait, "Is everyone alright? I don't want to frighten you with my language!"

Yesterday went even smoother, and I managed to learn something. Something being a new way to do character sketches for writing. (Since obviously I love to write.)

Just for you guys, I will give an example of how to do this exercise.

Character                               Wants                                  Actions
Gardener                               Award winning                     Creates own
Short                                            garden                               natural fertilizer
Easily sunburnt                     Own plant shop                    Uses natural and
Hates Cacti                           Find a husband                          artificial light
Loves Corgis                         A jacuzzi                             Steals special seeds


See you just start with the Character part.

Then make what your character might want. Like And award winning garden.

Then, once you pick what you want your story to be about, (the want) you decide what actions the character might or does take to make that want fulfilled. There was some other gobbligook about stuff like flat and round characters. But I thought that stuff was more fun, and definitely should help me with creating characters quickly.

Especially since I have to actually write some serious papers for the class.

Battlestar Galactica

My dad got a Netflix account. For a normal person, that isn't a huge deal. For me, this is like finding the holy grail.

Because I love television. Especially in marathon form. It makes my day to just sit around and watch hours of television for no other reason that it is on the television. And with Netflix, I can literally do that twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with the appropriate caffeinated beverage at hand.

So, imagine my surprise when I found this wonderful show, (called a cult television show) Battlestar Galactica in my dad's Instant Queue. "Let's watch this," I said to my father. The first two episodes are an hour and half each. Are all the episodes this long? I wondered. I liked long episodes, unlike most people. I sat and watched the whole miniseries "The Promise" on Hulu. (Which was sort of amazing, I might add.)

Dad and I watched the first two episodes, and we were hooked. It was... awesomesauce. There is no other way to explain it.

We agreed that we would watch the show together, by which I mean, I would come over and we would watch the show in the same room at the same time, and not watch ahead of each other.

I thought it was going to be a fine and dandy arrangement. Dad and Sharon had Breaking Bad to watch together, Dad and I had Battlestar Galactica. There seemed to be no way that our arrangement could go awry.

Of course, this is foreshadowing.

He started watching episodes WITHOUT me.

Basically, what it came down to was me watching episodes to catch up, and him just watching the next one. That was, until he had to go to work. And unlike me, Dad doesn't have the stamina, (constitution?) to watch episode after episode after episode. I basically have the opposite of ADD/ADHD. I can sit and do something until it is finished, no potty breaks, no water, no food.

So I watched eight episodes of uninterrupted Battlestar Galactica. Almost six hours. I was a boss.

Or so I thought. Instead, I am so far ahead of where my dad was, hat I can't hang out with him on account that I am notorious for spilling everything about plots, subplots, and so forth. I am liable to tell him exactly who the Cylons are what they are planning to do, who is banging who... I am just terrible. I ruined the whole Bones plot line of Angela and Hodgins and their sexual tension for Sharon when I pointed out that they got married and had a baby. (Needless to say she was mad. And for anyone who hasn't gotten to that part in Bones... Oops again.)

I went over to their house today, (expecting a free meal, and getting dog sitting duty) and had to go and sit by myself at Sharon's computer and watch Grey's Anatomy, (though, honestly I wasn't complaining.) just so I wouldn't ruin that episode that dad was watching.

It is a vicious cycle. Of course, I want to keep watching Battlestar Galactica, but if I go to far, I will somehow inevitably ruin it by blurting out critical/secret information. So instead I have to sit and wait for him to watch what I have already watched. Hopefully, he will be done by Sunday when I go over again, this time for a promised meal.

Oh well, in my boredom, I have found a different show called Dollhouse. Apparently it is only two seasons, (on account of cancelation) but thus far, it is pretty awesome. And I love that the girl from Firefly/Serenity pops up in the show. She is adorable even if she seems to play crazy characters.

Weekend: Irresponsible

Ambria is starting school on the fourteenth, and while I don't start school until the twenty-second plans were made to finish winter break with a bang.

On Friday, we began our weekend of misdeeds by driving an hour and a half away to visit a Staples. Why do that? You ask. Well we wanted to print off a wonderful game known as Cards Against Humanity. I was introduced to this game by my mom's boyfriend Warren. He told me that the best way to get the card game was to go to Staples. Not only do they have the best deal, but the people who created the game also suggest it. (It's in the PDF file.)

So we drove out to the closest Staples, and proceeded to wonder how on earth to send the PDF file to the printer lady with our phones. On mine, I couldn't attach a file, but we finally made it happen on Ambria's phone by converting it to a Kindle file.

We got it printed. For less than four dollars. We then went to McDonalds for a super cheap dinner then drove back to Ambria's house. Then we proceeded to drink mixed drinks and beer and cut out the card. And then we decided to go one step further and "hoosier laminate" the cards with clear packing tape. It was going fine and dandy until we ran out of tape and still had a ton more cards to go.

We decided at that point to go to Walmart. At 1:45 AM. Totally a normal thing to do. We hopped in the car and drove down, collected tape and cinnamon rolls, paid, and were on our way back home. Once there, it was almost three in the morning, (apparently we had been wandering around Wally World for a ridiculously long time) so instead of doing the cards, we went to bed.

The whole next day, we lounged around in our jim-jams and laminated cards and danced to music on the TV "I Love Music" channels. And then we texted Angi to see if she wanted to do anything. We weren't being really irresponsible.

She said she would pick us up after she go off work. We started drinking the last of the champagne, then had a few beers. She got there around eleven. We went to one bar that was supposed to have some good bands playing. It was empty and there was a guy standing at the mic with a harmonica. We left.

We went to another bar and started playing darts. But then they told us to leave. So then Angi asked Manny (her boyfriend) if there was anything he was doing. He was going over to his friend's house to drink. We were all invited.

So we went back to Ambria's house, collected the rest of our beer, vodka, and rum, then got back into Angi's car and went to pick up Manny. Since Ambria had started drinking around six, we were already feeling pretty buzzed. So by the time we got to the house, we were picking up our drinking pace.

I will admit that I get to a point that I forget how much I drank previously, so I have at four different times made myself sick because I forget that I shouldn't mix my alcohols.

Thankfully, that didn't happen. While I was mixing my drinks, (plus drinking what was there) I managed to not get anywhere near puking my guts out. After all that we had brought, plus wine and gin and even more beer, I was just delightfully drunk. It was excellent.

All the way until I was giving relationship advice to one of the guys. I think my near exact words were, "Don't be the morning after pill! Be the condom! You want to be first line of defense against pregnancy! You don't wanna be an afterthought!" And then there was hugging. Like I had said something really profound in the scheme of things.

Maybe not really.

Anyways, it was almost five in the morning so we all decided to leave. Before we got in the car, I spotted one of those really old Treasure Trolls. I pointed it out to Ambria, and we smiled a lot at the guy whose house it was. We ended up procuring said Troll.

Getting into the car was probably not one of my brighter ideas. Of course, I wasn't driving, but we all climbed into the car with Angi who was just as drunk as any of us. She was so drunk she couldn't get the gas nozzle into her car. Looking back, Ambria and I should have called Jack, (Ambria's step-dad). We did get home safely, and without incident, but it was incredibly stupid, irresponsible, and moronic to have let her get behind the wheel at all.

When we woke up at eleven, we got up, put on our jim-jam pants and went to Starbucks for breakfast sandwiches. We ate them while we drove back to Ambria's, climbed back into bed and slept until four in the afternoon. It was glorious, but I was still hungover.

Finally, I decided to pack up and go home. Thankfully, Adam was making ribs, and I was able to nurse the rest of my hangover away on my mom's couch while still laminating my cards.

I am still not done with that project, but that is was tomorrow is for. Right?

Kicked Off a Bus in Mexico

I went to Mexico for my graduation present from my mom for my senior year in 2010. We were in Puerto Vallarta for ten days at a wonderful resort that had a swim up bar. Because I was eighteen at the time, I was allowed to by alcohol for myself, which I found highly amusing.

One night, mom and I decided to ride the bus down to the Malecón for dinner. We paid the bus driver in pesos, walked along the cobblestone streets and saw many things I hadn't ever seen before. 

First thing I noticed was that there were police officers everywhere. Luckily they were really nice and helpful, especially when it was concerning things like crossing the street and giving directions. The second thing I noticed was the trucks that were carting around heavily armed soldiers. That kind of freaked me out. It was even more unnerving when the soldiers stopped and unloaded to get gelato at the place my mom and I had just been. I imagine that my eyes were bugging out of my head when the huge machine guns went bouncing past me.

After looking at sand sculptures and paintings, we made our way over to a restaurant where we ate chips and guacamole. Mom ordered some chicken dish and I ordered the duck. We sipped on our margaritas and smiled because our table was in the sand and we could hear the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing on the beach. The moon was bright in the sky, and the "pirate ship" that circled the bay was floating by.

After we paid, we went back to the army-approved gelato place and got two cups of gelato. Then we wondered up and down the streets, telling the street vendors, "No quiero nada," and "No quiero."

After a while, the buzzed feeling from the margaritas started to wear off and we were getting tired. It was almost eleven o'clock anyways. We made our way back to the bus station and hopped on the blue bus heading back to "the hotels." (That was hand painted onto the windows.)

We paid the driver then sat down waiting for our stop.

The only problem was, unless you wanted to leave, the driver didn't stop. So we passed up the hotel station, and kept going. Past the Starbucks, the super market, and the Sam's Club. All the way until we were out of Puerto Vallarta all together.

Mom and I were a little worried. I figured that the line had to loop back around. But he didn't. For a long time we just drove northeast.

It got really weird when we turned down a road that lead to a dirt road and bus driver turned off all of the lights. Like he was driving a secret agent bus.

By this point I was hot and sweaty, and it wasn't just the humidity.

The bus driver finally looked at us and said, "Where you going, chicas?"

"Um, the hotels?" Mom answered tentatively.

"No. You get off now." Mom looked at me. I looked at her. "You get off here. Wait for azul bus."

"Uh..." Mom stood up, and I followed. What else were we going to do?

"This bus is going to la montaña. The mountain. You wait here. The azul bus going the other way. You get on that. Bye now!" We walked out onto the dirt road. Across the street there were three large men sitting at a folding card table and old benches. They looked at us.

Behind us there were a two story square building with a basement. There was a neon sign that said something in spanish. I had no idea what is said. We stood under a street light that was next to a tree.

Across the street, one of the three guys got up and poked at a low burning grill. He threw on some hamburger patties.

We stood and waited.

And waited some more.

And some more.

I started drawing designs in the dirt with my shoe. I was pretty much convinced that there was never going to be an azul bus. Mom fidgeted.

"Maybe we should walk that way." She looked off to the right down the pitch black road.

"Or... not." The first rule to being found was staying put.

"There is probably a gas station or something. We could get a cab."

"No. There will be a bus." It had been a long time waiting though. I wasn't totally sure, but I needed to sound confident. A couple walked up behind us from the neon-signed squared building. The guy and girl were wrapped around each other like a snake that was constricting a mouse. They went and stood under the tree and made wet kissing noises.

The guy across the street slid the hamburgers onto buns and passed them to the other two guys, then sat down. They popped open some beers and began eating.

By this point, three blue buses and a green bus had gone by without stopping. I was feeling ridiculously nervous that my mom and I were going to starve to death or get eaten by coyotes or be killed by hamburger lovers. 

Apparently I wasn't slated to die that day though. 

A bus finally rumbled to a stop. Mom and I got on as did the girl who had been getting her face sucked off. I sat down with a sigh and wiped the sweat off my forehead. Never in my life had I been so glad for an old creaky bus.

How Not to Woo a Woman

Okay, so this maybe a partial reason why I am not dating anyone. In the past semester I have been approached by a few guys wanting to "get to know me better." While that is not a bad thing, it is really their approach that makes me think twice about me wanting to get to know them better.

Here is one example:

I am sitting in the library, with my headphones in, a textbook on a side table, a highlighter in hand, and my computer in my lap. A guy sees me working diligently, (by which I mean I am completely engrossed in my work and probably have a "leave me the fuck alone face"). He walks over. Says something. Blink-182 is blasting loudly in my ears so naturally I don't hear him. He goes one step further by waving furiously.

Do I know this person? I look up. Definitely not.

 He says something again and motions taking out an earbud. I take it out. "Oh, hi. Can I sit here?"

"Yeah..." I answer drawing it out. "It is a public library." I go to pop my earbud back in. Instead he starts talking, and I feel obliged to be polite.

"So, you must be really good at science." I have a philosophy text book on the side table.

"Um, yeah... I guess if I want to be I am." I look at my final paper that I was working on so keenly. I want him to leave me alone. "So, I am working on this paper..."

"What classes are you talking?" He leans forward like an expectant puppy.

"Uh, you know, this and that. But I am working on a paper and have a class in a little bit." I don't have class in an hour, but he doesn't know that. It is almost two. I want to make a run for it, but it is fucking cold as balls outside.

I mistakenly think he will go away, and for the next hour I sit and and answer questions in as few of words as possible. There is really more nodding or shaking my head than anything else. Finally, I get fed up and start packing up.

"I really have to go. This was a... nice chat." I put my laptop in my backpack and hope he will just understand I am not interested. I don't know him well enough to be rude and just say, "Dude, not a chance."

He doesn't get the memo. "So can I call you sometime."

"Uh... no, I don't think so..." He looks crushed, "'Cause I am busy all the time, with work and school... I uh, don't even get to see my own friends or family..." I am panicking. So I nod and run away.

Here is my other example:

I am sitting outside my chemistry class, on my phone and listening to my iPod when a guy walks over. He makes some motion, and again, I feel obliged to be polite and look up, take my earbud out, and find out what he wants.

First he asks about my necklace. It's a rock on a sting that means nothing to me. He tells me about his ring of pink opal. Apparently it has hindu magic. I say okay, then turn back to my game on my phone.

He starts talking about the fact that I have Starbucks coffee. He tells me about a "cool coffee shop" near someplace that is probably out in West County.

I nod, some more, then put my phone in my lap, knowing he won't go away, but that the chemistry lab door isn't open.

And then for some reason, I think oh, he is actually kind of nice and normal. And then I think, I should give him my number if he asks. I should have known better.

When I finally do give him my number, I feel like maybe this is a good thing. Of course I know he wants to get to know me so he can ask me out, and that makes me feel good about myself. Look, people find me attractive!

Hey! This is Hirsch! How are you! He texts.

Pretty good :) I respond.

So I am going to Texas this week. But I wanted you to know that I have not stopped thinking about your long, slender, milky white neck all day. You would make a good weather person.

I make a really weird face and decide I don't have anything to say to that. Shit just got real.

A week later I get this:

U hvnt chkd up on me all WEEK! :( :( :( How r u gonna make this relationship wrk if we dnt tlk!!!

Disregarding the ridiculous "text speech" I decide again not to answer. Relationship? What the fuck?

A few days later:

Hey! I saw it was snowing, and I thought of U! I pictured u fallin n the river! :D

Uh...huh. 

If we dnt ever tlk i dnt think we r gonna wrk out! :(

Kind of the point.

So, I know why you aren't talking to me. You have been abducted by aliens. That is the only way you would not talk to me. Because I know you would otherwise. So when the aliens bring you back, I will be here waiting for a message. :) :D

Sorry, dude. HELL FUCKING NO. Definitely not going to happen.

At least I have been smart enough to tell people around me about this weirdo. My little brother even offered to "make him eat his teeth." His words, but it paints a glorious picture.

My last example, I will simply link, because it doesn't need to be written twice. My second example though is the best example as to why I am single though.

Oh well. C'est la vie. Vie is full of weirdo imagining me falling in rivers. And assuming I am good at science. And guys going to parties that were totally not invited, and no one knowing who they are.

I guess the saying that would be more applicable it Ma vie amoureuse est morte.