four

the new guy: there's another new driver at work. by new, i mean he used to work there, quit, and is now back. met him today. first impressions: cute, scruffy, young (maybe too young), talkative. and he didn't know who sarah vowell was. and then, when he asked who she was (because i've been re-reading the partly cloudy patriot in the office when it's slow), i found myself stalling, trying to figure out how to explain who sarah vowell is. i think i ended up saying she's an npr regular (isn't she an editor for this american life?) who's really into history and politics but isn't too happy with the current state of politics (but that could be almost anybody right now, eh?).

anyway. before i left tonight, he asked if i wanted to have a cigarette with him. i said sure.

him: so when did you start here?
me: late january.
him: i think you took my spot.

now, he didn't say that with any gravitas, but it still got me to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was sore that they hired me around the same time he originally wanted to return. after this, he started asking me a barrage of questions, which always gets me nervous. maybe it was the years i spent on the other side of the questions, but still.

nice people make me nervous. (that could be a shins song.) i'm sure he was just curious, but i can't help but feel he was also being ulterior motivey. it's sad because, while i'm sure he's not faz-like, and it's just me overthinking as usual in conjunction with my defense mechanisms.

him: so do you have any hobbies?
me: i read a lot. i've been writing a lot lately. working here and being with some of the idiots we deal with has kinda inspired me.
him: so what do you write? fiction? nonfiction?
me: a bit of both.

ok, that was really the truth, but it's one of the few times i've admitted that my job has reinvigorated the writer in me. i mean, this blog isn't fucking palimpsest or galapagos and probably never will be, but you have to admit it has made me more productive in the writing arena.

him: so how old are you?
me: 27.
him: way to be.

and this is a sign of how i tend to say i'm the age that i will turn that year. it takes me a while to get used to saying i'm a certain age, so i need a lot of practice.

him: so do you work anywhere else?
me: no. i've been a little slackery about finding something else. i make enough here to get by.

it's true. my delivery job has totally brought out the slacker in me. i feel like i should go down to a coffee shop and try to sell someone one of madonna's pubes. (ok, no, it really doesn't.) i still look for other jobs, but i do make enough to get by right now. i probably won't start to seriously look for a second job until the end of march, because i have to start paying my student loan again in may, so i'll need more money then. and i say seriously because the one job i've applied for lately (at the agency i worked for back in '04-'05), well, i don't expect to get that job. bah.

i know i should be more trusting of nice people. but i can't help think they're all just a little evil on the inside. or at least a little evil inside toward me. meh. i've just been backstabbed too many times.

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this is why i don't go to chain drive when it's not wednesday: after hanging out with rachel and leanne last night, i was feeling ready to hit the hay. but the closer to drove toward downtown, the more i felt like just dropping in for a quick drink at chain drive. although it goes against my better senses.

as i've told several people, chain drive is a safe haven on wednesdays, when it has live music and is overrun by breeders. i love it on wednesdays. some good (sometimes) live music, and i don't have to worry about some old drunk bear hitting on me.

on any other night, it's a haven of bad decisions (at least for me; i think michael has admitted to this as well). or i end up saying "i don't have to see that" a lot. i've made many a regrettable decision at chain drive on a non-wednesday night, the most notable being hooking up with someone i'd have to be drunk to hook up with, and he subsequently mildly stalked me. i think that was what drove me toward my wednesday-night-only stance.

while no regrettable decisions were made last night, i did have a major "i don't have to see that" moment. involving a certain guy i liked years ago that leanne nicknamed "skanky" because, well, he was. and last night, he certainly lived up to the name. he was walking around the place with his button-up shirt open, showing off his heroin-skinny chest and drinking swill. every time he came walking in my direction, i just looked down at the ground, hoping he wouldn't recognize me. (i think i was successful.) at one point, we walked up to the two other twinks in the bar, and they all started grouping each others non-impressive chests, and i actually did say out loud "i don't have to see that," to which the guy smoking next to me said "are you talking to me?" i said no.

i promptly left after that disturbing pda and came home to try and drink away the image.

ugh.

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incognito: lately, i can't decide how i look with my sunglasses on. i wear sunglasses that are a little large so that they can cling to my prescription specs. and i don't know why, but in recent months, when i wear them, i get two mental images in my head: that of a be-sunglassed uma thurman in kill bill after killing buck (who came to fuck) and that of a be-sunglassed buck sneaking into chuck's office in chuck and buck. yeah. take that as you will, dear readers.

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virginal: last night while driving in rachel's new car and joking about having sex in it, i remembered that, while my car has been in several scrapes and seen several trips to a body shop, i've never done anything sexual in it. as opposed to the car i had before it, which was the scene of many a sexual romp. i'd been thinking about this a lot lately, namely this past monday when i got a grease stain on the passenger seat from a bungled delivery. it made me remember that in my old car, there was a cum stain on the passenger seat that i never seemed able to get out, no matter how lady macbeth i got about it. it made me feel sad for my current car, which only has grease stains and cigarette burns.

not that this problem will be solved anytime in the near future as i've basically decided to go the celibate route once again. not that i had any takers, anyway.