no time to perpetrate on front street
Which Moral Minority persona are you?
It's not forum 2000, but anyplace with a Mitchell persona is good enough for me. I'm also amazed that, for once, an online personality quiz actually describes me accurately (though I'm not too afraid of gay men. I think.)
Yesterday I went to Marcelo's wrap party for his outstanding one-man show Tales of Broken Heart. I took the bus down to Allston rock city, and as I jumped off the bus at Comm and Harvard I realized I did not have beer to present to the host (even though he couldn't really drink any). Allston being the student ghetto that it is, however, you can't stumble half a block without finding either a liquor store (usually with hilarious displays of what kids try to pass off as fake IDs) or a quickie mart that sells booze. I also realized that I'd be paying a hefty student premium on whatever I bought. Dammit.
So I walked into Marty's Liquors right there on the corner, and was surprised that the fine brews from Stone Brewery had penetrated even this wretched hive of fizzy yellow student swill. I was looking for something unique and was feeling a little mischievous, like dropping a sixer of Ruination in the cooler and waiting for some unsuspecting sucker to say, "hm, this looks good, I'll try this IPA". But they didn't have any in the cooler (and they like to put coolers in various corners of the store). So I grabbed a pack of Dogfish Head brown and made my way to the stuck-up Christina Aguilera wannabe at the counter, and had literally the rudest customer service moment of my life. Now, in a joint like that, I really don't care a whole lot about how the cashier treats me, I'm walking out with my beer in less than a minute and that's all I came for. But in terms of sheer amazement at how passive aggressive humans can be, I don't think even movies or TV shows parodying such attitudes could top this. Now, as I recount this story, try to imagine this drrrrty grrrl trying her hardest to use as little energy as possible in dealing with me, including not even moving her face when she talked.
Me: "Hey, do you have any Stone brews in the coolers? I didn't see any but I just wanted to know if I missed them."
Christina: "What."
Me: "Beer from the Stone Brewery? Right over there? I was wondering if there was any cold."
Christina: "..."
Without another word she rung up my six-pack of Dogfish Head brown ale at $10.79. I could get the same at the Buy-Rite for maybe $7. (That's the price on the sixer of DFH chicory stout sitting in my fridge right now.) I, however, was looking for an answer to my query, if for no other reason but to ensure that at some point during the transaction I didn't suddenly a) become invisible or b) have my voice put on mute, as I often dream.
Me: "So you don't have any Stone brews in the cooler, eh?"
Christina puts my beer in a bag as if such courtesy were mandated by law, then puts her arms down and stands there, apparently challenging me to a staring contest. At this point, even your below-average cashiers will push the bag a few centimeters in your direction, doing nothing if not expediting your departure from their magnanimous presence so they can go back to their passive paranoia that the world is too lazy to be out to get them and instead is just forcing them to deal with morons like you. Christina wouldn't allow me even this most basic acknowledgement of being human and after a brief pause, for dramatic effect, I reached across the counter, collected my beer, summoned the depths of my sarcasm powers and directed it all into a "have a nice evening". And I swore, I'd sooner go to a party empty handed than pay a premium for the unique service offered by miserable liquor store sluts.
Marcelo and I were weekly columnists for the college newspaper, and his party was like a mini college reunion. I met up with four of the six columnists during our rotation at the Freep, and a whole bunch of Marcelo's buds from COM and elsewhere in the university. One of the reasons why I like Marcelo as much as I do is because he's had the same geeky friends that I've had, and (at least in his case) they always show up at his parties. I got hit on (I *think*) by one of these chicks. You know the type: big dorks in high school so they go the dark silky clothing route and try to pawn their dispopularity off on being mysterious and unfathomable (EXCEPT TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE, OF COURSE, and these people always, sure enough, happen to be their friends). I was talking to my buddy Dave M and he jumped up to go see someone who'd just arrived. Such a party state is ephemeral and generally understood to be a good opportunity for observant lurkers to strike up a conversation. This woman, who'd been talking to another friend of mine when I arrived and said my greetings (and complemented on her choice of beer), ducked into a seat next to me and tried to produce conversation with a "so, tell me the first five words that come to mind". Figuring I'd play along (but too smart to actually be forced to explain my first five words, which simply wouldn't be coherent), I thought a moment to the Red Sox record breaking first inning and counted out "How 'bout those Red Sox". Which I thought was pretty clever, because I really didn't have anything to say to this chick that I didn't find especially interesting. So she tossed a curveball right back:
"What kind of guy are you? The first five words in your head don't have anything to do with sex?"
Pause. My girldar has just reported a bogey looking to engage.
The last thing I wanted to do was get into a sex talk with a chick like this, because although it's one of my favorite subjects, I barely talk about it with friends, and I certainly wasn't going to have my words misconstrued, even slightly, as having that sort of interest in this girl. And yes, honestly, in talking with that girl, not the first five or five million words out of my mouth would have anything to do with sex. So I deflected the issue by saying I was raised Catholic and it's tough for me to discuss that sort of stuff with strangers. We said a few more words to each other and then she was off to find more susceptible booty. The rest of the party was pretty uneventful; I drank a lot, waited for the night owl which never showed up, and cabbed it back to N. Cambridge. I fucking hate the fucking T when their fucking incompetent drivers decide to run buses late or not at all. But waiting on the corner of Harvard and Brighton at 3am is certainly not boring. I got home so late I forgot to cushion the hangover with water, but oddly enough I awoke this morning bright and early at 10am (pretty good when I walked in at 4) with no ill aftereffects. I think I've developed a resistance to hangovers. Word!
Though I slept like an insomniac the night before, meaning not much at all. I thought I could get by with fans on, but no luck. The air conditioner went in that morning and has been blasting chilly dehumidified goodness with the force of a Rolly Royce RB211 since. I am still amazed at that marvel of engineering. (The air conditioner, not the turbofan.) That machine is at least 15 years old, and to my knowledge it has never needed service, recharging or other sundry AC accessories. It's been dropped I don't know how many times, from a height of up to six feet, and it just keeps on cranking out those BTUs. (Or not. however the fuck BTUs work.)
That day, against my wallet's strenuous objections, I went and bought three coolmax shirts and two pairs of shorts (and a membership) at REI. A couple years ago, realizing I simply cannot wear cotton t-shirts in 85°F+ weather, I discovered the apex of modern textile technology: dri-fit, and its cousin coolmax. These fabrics are ultra-light, breathe incredibly well and you don't even notice you're sweating. I had a couple I used for the gym, but after ignoring almost all my other shirts in Italy for a dri-fit and a XL biking jersey, and the ridiculous summer temperatures we've been sledgehammered with here in Boston, I definitely needed to expand my collection. I'll probably be wearing only four shirts this summer.
Tomorrow I would be playing kickball and seeing the Slackers, but I'm doing the family thing (I *think*) for my parents' 29th anniversary. My mom asked my sister whether we "felt" like having dinner, "or not, it's up to you", which is a really weird thing for her to say. In my family, that would be like her calling us up and saying, you know, if you guys wanted, we're probably having a turkey that third thursday in november and if you wanted you could come over for dinner. Not passive aggressive or anything, but almost disinterest. Which was why it struck me as weird. I don't know, they must be having empty nest syndrome or something. My little sister has essentially left the nest and I can certainly imagine that house being very empty and lonely. My dad being unemployed doesn't help matters much; he's been a little surly by my mom's judgment (simply pensive in mine). It's very weird, having grown up in a decidedly nondysfunctional family, to see these two Gibraltars in the cape swells of my life show signs of being, for lack of a better term, tired of the bullshit. And they won't often talk about this sort of stuff with "the kids", so that makes it doubly frustrating because I don't know if there's anything I can do to help.
I'm bouncing off the walls here. I think I'll bike to the gym.