Daily Aggravations and Regrets
and I... am... outta here!
June 18, 1999. Friday
A great man once said "a-beditabeditabedit... That's all folks!" Oh, Porky! God Bless you and your pantsless bottom! So... know what today is? I don't have a lot of time to waste, so I'll just remind you that it's the LAST day I will ever, EVER come to work here. It's my LAST day of work, kids! I'm actually feeling very weird writing this. A sort of nervous excitment. I don't know what else to write. So much to do, so much to say. Hmmm... well, I guess I'll just write about yesterday.Mail to G-Rock
I spent a good deal of the morning and afternoon psyching myself out about going to the dentist. So when I got there, I was convinced that teh novacaine wouldn't work like it was supposed to. The dentists kept asking "um... or you ok?" I guess because I was clenching the armrests of the chair for dear life, and he kept saying he was watching my right eye twitch everytime he started drilling. I was just really afraid that the novacaine wasn't kicking in. There's no pain quite like a sharp pain in the nerves of your teeth. That'd be one of the most effective forms of torture, I think. Anyway, the dentist had all sorts of little stuff my previous dentist didn't. Like the solution that stained decaying tooth fragments, so you could see if you;d gotten rid of all the decay. Maybe that's why I have so many fucking cavities under my existing fillings. Bastards. They're just milking me for all i have. Seriously, I think these four cavities bring the total up to at least 12. They also had this new filling for your teeth. It's this gooey enamel type stuff that sets by exposing it to intense light. They had to wear goggles so as not to burn their retinas out. I was impressed. it save a lot of time, too. Whereas the old fillings would take a few minutes to finish, this method set the fillings in about 10 seconds. All in all, it wasn't really that bad. Everyone there is very friendly. The most problematic result of the trip was that it left me a numb, drooling maniac for a few hour. i was really tired, but I was scared to take a nap when I got home. I didn't want to bite through my numb lip. Not that I bit my lip in my sleep, but for some reason, it really worried me. maybe because at one point the dentist said "Greg, stop biting your lip. You'll hurt yourself." I was just seeing if it was numb. But he treated my like a 6-year old the whole time. I kinda liked that.
So in the evening, Matt and I decided to walk around the neighborhood and go get a cupa Java. We went from place to place, and no where really looked good, so we ended up back at XandO. I don't know why I keep going back there. Ther coffee isn't very good, and it's overpriced. I guess it's just the atmosphere. I like it's spot on the corner of R and Connecticut. while we were there, Matt bet me that I couldn't name all fifty states in ten minutes. This spawned from a story he was telling me about how his boss lost a bet because she couldn't eat 6 Saltine crackers in a minute. She said it's a bet you can always beat someone with, cos by that third cracker, things get a little unpleasant. I dunno about that one, but I'd be damned if he thought I couldn't get all the states in ten minutes. And I know we've had this discussion before, so at random times I've actually just tested myself. Nora and I actually did that on the way to Lexington last month, so I was pretty confident I could do it. And I did. I mean, please. I was actually sweatin it for a while. After 6 minutes, I had 49 states. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out the last one. West Virginia, Jed's home state. So I won. i was feeling guilty about ordering two different drinks, since I'm really pinching pennies, but after the bet, my guilt was alleivated.
So after we left XandO, we walked by the back alley, where we saw a guy fumbling through the pockets of some other guy, passed out in the alley. I said something like "Didja see that?" and kept walking. Matt thought the guy was robbing him. It seemed quite obvious to me then that, why yes, he was robbing him. "whaddaya know," I said, and kept walking. Matt said "should we do something?" and I'm all "What the fuck do you wanna do? let's go" But Matt wanted to investigate the situation. Since we had already missed Friends, I reluctantly followed him back. "You got my back right?" he asked. "Uh-huh." "I'm expecting you to have my back." "Right..." Truth be told, if this guy happened to get vilolent, I don't know what I woulda done. So I stood at the sidewalk, as Matt approached the lunatic derelicts and asked if they were ok. The guy who was doing the robbing said that this guy was his brother. He was the dirty looking Mexican dude. He reminded me a lot of that painting, Los Barachos, by Velasquez, I think. Anyway, he kept going "Come on bro!" while trying to drag this guy by the arms. All he really succeeded in doing was to move this guy around from the torso. I really thought the guy was dead. Even when his arm hung up in the air on it's own, I thought it was due to rigor mortis. Soon enough though, it was discovered that he was indeed alive. Matt kept telling the robber to help him, and the guy just kept trying to drag this other guy around. Everytime a car passed though, the guy would just walk away, out of the alley. Matt followed him out, and kept telling him to help the other guy on the ground. The guy walked away. Matt thought maybe he was trying to help. Why would he rob hiim then stick around? Personally, I'm pretty sure that he was robbing him. Maybe he was friends with the guy, maybe not, but he was definitely fumbling through the guy's pockets. As for why he was sticking around, I was pretty sure that he just wasn't finished robing him. I mean, when he was trying to drag him around, he pulled the guy's pants leg up and was looking in his sock, for christ's sake.
We walked this girl down the alley, since this guy was passed out in front of the door to her dance class. I said maybe this guy was just waiting in line for a swing lesson. that got no repsonse. Anyway, when I looked at the guy, sure enough, all sorts of worthless shit like a comb and little scraps of paper- receipts and whatnot- were scattered about. I'm sure the other guy just left these useless effects. Then the guy came back. So basically a few cars almost ran over the passed out guy, and one of the drivers said he'd call the police. Matt also went to look for a cop, while I just stood in the alley. Eventually one of the XandO employees said he called the police and an ambulance was coming, so Matt and I were on our way.It was very odd for me to see Matt care that much about some vagrant passed out in the alley being robbed. I mean, I cared, but what could I really do? What difference can I make? I'm just one person! It was weird. matt's attitude made me feel a little worse about myself. Well, not really. But it just confirmed my opinion that this isn't the Matt that I used to know. the "demon boy" that we all loved to hate has subsided somewhat. Of course, it still manifests itself extremely frequently, but sometimes it's now overcome by feelings of goodwill. Whoda thought that? On the walk back, we always walk pass a series of nice looking townhouses, and at one of them there was a women sitting at a table studying. "I love this family," Matt said. "that girl is always studying, that guy is always (something or the other)," and so forth. He actually made us walk back up the street and past the house again so we could see them in all their wholesome glory. What's happened to this guy? The Demon Boy I could always count on to be a dirty sonuvabitch, now stalks wholesome looking families, just to appreciate how wholesome they look. The whole thing was very bizarre. I thought he was just gonna tell me there was some hot girl that lived there. How utterly disappointing...
I am going to miss hanging out with Matt, though. I didn't see him very much in the fall or winter really. Only in the past few months, really since Nora's visit, have we hung out that much. This is the most I've hung out with any of my friends since last spring. It's been really good I think. And I really like his neighborhood. I like being able to just walk down the street to a coffeeshop or a bookstore, or to get a haircut or whatever. All sorts of distractions are right there. But in 10 days I start my summer job, and that's not exactly unpleasant either. since last July, I've been waiting for this July. Rodzilla'll be there, you know. It's safe to say I wouldn't be going back to this camp counselor job without her. Most definitely not. But when's the next time I'll get to spend a whole month with her? a year? I can't believe a lousy 30 days is getting me this excited. It really sucks that we didn't get together until after I graduated. And now I have to try to get the most out of every moment. I hate that. It goes against my nature. but she'll be in France in about 3 months, and who knows what'll happen then. I mean, in a purely selfish way, I don't want her to go. But I know that if she doesn't she just spend the next year, or the rest of her life, wishing that she'd gone. Whether or not she gets that Fulbright, she's going. So i guess I hope she just gets the Fulbright. It'd be better than having to take that job that her ex-boyfriend found her. But man, I wish she'd just fucking move to New York.
What really worries me is that I think she's a little too much like me. She thinks she knows me pretty well, and I don't know her as well, but I don't think that's true. I think I really know how she thinks, what she thinks. Sometimes. But I think I know how we'll both act apart from eachother, in different, giant cities. We'll see.
Well, since my first day of work, back on October 19, all I was really waiting for was my last day of work. and here it is. I feel a little ambivalent about leaving. Not that much, but there of course is that sentimental part of me that hates change of any kind. And the time has really zipped by. Living month to month will do that. So now I'm worried that July's just gonna zip by, and before you know it Rodzilla'll be in France, and I'll re-enter that time-warp that had me living 30 hour days and 10 day weeks where the time just couldn't seem to pass fast enough. but I guess starting a new life will get things going a bit. I just hope I can get Nora or Jed to live in NY. With me and James, plus one or both of them, I think that'd be pretty rockin'. Then again, I'm pretty rockin...
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