Introductory post for now_ish
Okay, it was totally weird. People don't just wake up and realize that they aren't who they want to be. It takes years of behavior modification therapy, or at least highly complicated conspiratorial brainwashing techniques. Or a isotopic modulator cube, maybe, like in Planetary. But, that's what happened to me -- I just woke up and realized two things:
1) I'm too perky to be a goth. And I didn't like the music as much as Michael thought I would. I mean, it would be cool to be all "I wear black on the outside because it's how I feel on the inside" but, it's just not me. I'm Andrew. I missed my red hoodie. I missed my blue jeans, my roots were growing in blonde and all this black eyeliner was making me get sties in my left eye.
2) I'm doing the wrong thing. I shouldn't follow Michael and Tamara to New York to embark on their new life. I'm worse than a third wheel, because if anyone should be a third wheel, it should be the baby.
So, I decided to bail out on the whole moving to New York plan.
It's the first time in pretty much ever that I'd just made a decision without being directly influenced by my best friend, or someone who might stab me or something. I thought on it for a while.
The conversation started as a result of the crushing boredom of a being on a roadtrip, but sitting in the backseat. It was somewhere in Missouri. Playing "I Spy" with an infant is totally lame. I'd be all, "I spy, with my little eye, someone who is driving the car." And the baby couldn't even get that one -- and that was totally easy. Her mom, Tamara, was in the passenger seat, listening to a book on tape with Michael, who was driving. I read a couple of comic books and tried to nap, but something kept nagging in my brain. I asked Tamara if we could switch up a little; I could sit in the front seat and she could sit in the back and play with the baby. Maybe she was tired or something, or maybe I was being annoying again, but Tamara snapped at me. She said something about stopping the car if I kicked the back of her seat again.
I don't think telling Michael and Tamara (that I wanted to strike out on my own) right after that seat-kicking incident means that I was overly defensive. I'd been thinking about changing my plans for about 12 hours, since I'd woken up in the middle of the night. I just started feeling horrible about how I'd left LA. How mean I'd been to Gwen. How stupid everyone thought I was with my new look, how fake everyone was to me when they greeted me.
How no one really knew me anymore, and how that fact was both liberating and lonely. I could just... leave. I didn't need to latch onto a family to be okay. I needed to be more independent. I'd spent too long latched onto Tucker, or Jonathan, or Warren, or Buffy and her friends... I needed to make my own decisions.
It was kind of weird, though, how Tamara and Michael didn't argue at all when I said I wanted to go. I mean, they weren't into leaving me at a truck stop, like I wanted, but they didn't stop me. They didn't try to convince me to 'just hang in there' to NY. Michael didn't even argue with Tamara when she told me that 'you gotta do what you gotta do." I don't know, maybe I thought Mike liked me more than he does, but he didn't argue on my behalf at all.
So, I left. Tamara gave me $100 dollars for a bus ticket back to LA, if that's where I wanted to go. I didn't want to head back right away, though -- it would be cool to have some time on my own, just wandering the world, you know? Unfortunately, in the time I spent planning my new Kung-Fu/Jedi lifestyle, I spent $100 just on food and two nights in a hostel in St. Louis. Within three days of being leaving Michael and Tamara, I didn't even have bus fare to get to the library to use the internet. When I ran out of money, I tried to stay in the park, but some guys kept scaring me, so, I just found a little corner of the bus station and slept there.
It was pretty cool, I guess. And, by 'cool' I mean, the most humiliating week of my life. More humiliating than my first bowlcut. More humiliating than gym class at Sunnydale. I was not 'street,' I was just itchy and my socks smelled. After getting called 'faggot' by some high schoolers, I threw away all the gothy accessories and asked for various items from the lost and found. I'd admit it, I spare changed people. When that didn't work, I cleaned myself up in the bathroom and "borrowed" bus fare from strangers until I had enough to buy a bagel in the store.
It was really, really horrible. My back hurt. I was lonely and I'd sold my comic books to some girl who was wearing an X-Men t-shirt. I didn't make any friends, although I tried to talk to some of the other kids who spent the night in the bus station. They are, as it turns out, a very tightly knit group. And no one wanted to hang out with someone who was "from LA" and "weird" and... well, me.
I brought everything that had ever gone wrong in my life on myself. Four nights sleeping in the bus station told me that. I actually felt myself turning into the kind of of man who could admit when he'd messed up. It was hurty. But, men like that are men that can own up to mistakes. I'd blown it by leaving LA, where I had a room of my own, and clean clothes, and people who knew me when I was evil. People who knew how far I'd come. They needed me there, and I needed to be there.
I only had one phone number to call. I mean, that's what happens when you kill your best high school-era friend, disown your brother and mom, and never have a real job. I had one phone number to call and I didn't have enough to direct dial.
1-800-COLLECT. Their commercials totally sucked, but... it was all that came to mind.
God, I hoped that someone at the Hyperion would accept a call from a Mr. Andrew Wells.
1) I'm too perky to be a goth. And I didn't like the music as much as Michael thought I would. I mean, it would be cool to be all "I wear black on the outside because it's how I feel on the inside" but, it's just not me. I'm Andrew. I missed my red hoodie. I missed my blue jeans, my roots were growing in blonde and all this black eyeliner was making me get sties in my left eye.
2) I'm doing the wrong thing. I shouldn't follow Michael and Tamara to New York to embark on their new life. I'm worse than a third wheel, because if anyone should be a third wheel, it should be the baby.
So, I decided to bail out on the whole moving to New York plan.
It's the first time in pretty much ever that I'd just made a decision without being directly influenced by my best friend, or someone who might stab me or something. I thought on it for a while.
The conversation started as a result of the crushing boredom of a being on a roadtrip, but sitting in the backseat. It was somewhere in Missouri. Playing "I Spy" with an infant is totally lame. I'd be all, "I spy, with my little eye, someone who is driving the car." And the baby couldn't even get that one -- and that was totally easy. Her mom, Tamara, was in the passenger seat, listening to a book on tape with Michael, who was driving. I read a couple of comic books and tried to nap, but something kept nagging in my brain. I asked Tamara if we could switch up a little; I could sit in the front seat and she could sit in the back and play with the baby. Maybe she was tired or something, or maybe I was being annoying again, but Tamara snapped at me. She said something about stopping the car if I kicked the back of her seat again.
I don't think telling Michael and Tamara (that I wanted to strike out on my own) right after that seat-kicking incident means that I was overly defensive. I'd been thinking about changing my plans for about 12 hours, since I'd woken up in the middle of the night. I just started feeling horrible about how I'd left LA. How mean I'd been to Gwen. How stupid everyone thought I was with my new look, how fake everyone was to me when they greeted me.
How no one really knew me anymore, and how that fact was both liberating and lonely. I could just... leave. I didn't need to latch onto a family to be okay. I needed to be more independent. I'd spent too long latched onto Tucker, or Jonathan, or Warren, or Buffy and her friends... I needed to make my own decisions.
It was kind of weird, though, how Tamara and Michael didn't argue at all when I said I wanted to go. I mean, they weren't into leaving me at a truck stop, like I wanted, but they didn't stop me. They didn't try to convince me to 'just hang in there' to NY. Michael didn't even argue with Tamara when she told me that 'you gotta do what you gotta do." I don't know, maybe I thought Mike liked me more than he does, but he didn't argue on my behalf at all.
So, I left. Tamara gave me $100 dollars for a bus ticket back to LA, if that's where I wanted to go. I didn't want to head back right away, though -- it would be cool to have some time on my own, just wandering the world, you know? Unfortunately, in the time I spent planning my new Kung-Fu/Jedi lifestyle, I spent $100 just on food and two nights in a hostel in St. Louis. Within three days of being leaving Michael and Tamara, I didn't even have bus fare to get to the library to use the internet. When I ran out of money, I tried to stay in the park, but some guys kept scaring me, so, I just found a little corner of the bus station and slept there.
It was pretty cool, I guess. And, by 'cool' I mean, the most humiliating week of my life. More humiliating than my first bowlcut. More humiliating than gym class at Sunnydale. I was not 'street,' I was just itchy and my socks smelled. After getting called 'faggot' by some high schoolers, I threw away all the gothy accessories and asked for various items from the lost and found. I'd admit it, I spare changed people. When that didn't work, I cleaned myself up in the bathroom and "borrowed" bus fare from strangers until I had enough to buy a bagel in the store.
It was really, really horrible. My back hurt. I was lonely and I'd sold my comic books to some girl who was wearing an X-Men t-shirt. I didn't make any friends, although I tried to talk to some of the other kids who spent the night in the bus station. They are, as it turns out, a very tightly knit group. And no one wanted to hang out with someone who was "from LA" and "weird" and... well, me.
I brought everything that had ever gone wrong in my life on myself. Four nights sleeping in the bus station told me that. I actually felt myself turning into the kind of of man who could admit when he'd messed up. It was hurty. But, men like that are men that can own up to mistakes. I'd blown it by leaving LA, where I had a room of my own, and clean clothes, and people who knew me when I was evil. People who knew how far I'd come. They needed me there, and I needed to be there.
I only had one phone number to call. I mean, that's what happens when you kill your best high school-era friend, disown your brother and mom, and never have a real job. I had one phone number to call and I didn't have enough to direct dial.
1-800-COLLECT. Their commercials totally sucked, but... it was all that came to mind.
God, I hoped that someone at the Hyperion would accept a call from a Mr. Andrew Wells.