Act natural

( Friday, May. 16, 2003 11:38 pm )

>I thought there was a virtue in always being cool

Hello there. I just woke up from a three hour night-nap and am currently proving my inability to sit in front of an open package of Archway Frosted Lemon cookies without having any.

I was tired from several days of sleep deprivation (two being from early-early days at work and one being a Call-night, normally sleepless, but made doubly so by a 1 a.m. showing of The Matrix Reloaded. Today I went to work early, came home, drank some beer, danced around, ate many lemon cookies, downloaded "Fight Test" by the Flaming Lips, emailed Ruby and Annette, ate dinner, and pretty much passed the heck out. I forgot to mention that I'm on my own this weekend, Juney having winged her way to Florida this morning to attend a Bat Mizvah. Call is also out of the picture, since I ran into him on my way home from work (did I ever mention that Big Chain Bookstore is two blocks from his apartment?) and he said that he'd be busy writing his thesis-thing until Tuesday. Should I be concerned? I can't explain how it is, but when I'm not with him I think constantly that we should break up, yet when I am with him I want to climb inside his clothes with him he's just so appealing. Drunk on the smooching again, that's my diagnosis. Sort me out, somebody.

Work is OK. I've had a lot more hours lately, which is good. It is somewhat torturesome to constantly discover books I'd love to sit right down on the floor and read, but to not be able to. I still am not really friends with anybody there, though they are all pretty friendly. I'm just weirdly shy around people, and find myself falling into this thing I do around certain people that I think are cool and dryly funny, which is that I can't actually talk to them but I laugh convulsively at everything they say. Even when they're not really kidding, there's something about the deadpan-ness that cracks me up, which I think tends to give the impression that I am a little soft in the melon, y'know. And so many of the kids I work with provoke this reaction. If you see the gently smiling idiot blowing her nose amongst the Penguin Classics, that is me.

Well, I am growing popular with certain regular customers who are frequently mentally ill in colorful ways or else just sartorially very strange indeed. Matt's friend, my zoo buddy, threatens to come into the store and act insane, but he doesn't realize that the crazy bar is already set extremely high. There's the guy who said he could read minds, and the guy dressed like Elvis, and the enormous, enormous fellow who comes in daily wearing the same black Australian-bush-fatigues outfit--he's very mild-mannered, and I count back his change into his huge palm. The employees have nicknames for all the regular crazies, and that cracks me up too.

Oh, and my cold? I'm getting better--I'm still sick but feeling great, because man, that phelgm is moving, and it is good.

OK, time to read Lucky Jim and try to fall back asleep.

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