Et tu, Brute?

I love gay guys. Usually, if I see an attractive man, I instinctively know that he must be gay, because I am like Grace and there is no escaping that passion. But unlike Grace, I don’t have a Will. I want a Will, but there aren’t any available. A story for another day.

The thing is, I love to watch gay men on dates. There’s just something unjustly cute about it. If I see a straight couple, I think, “Great! Another frikin’ one! What about me?” I get jealous. I whine. People want to hit me.

But a gay couple is adorable, like puppies in a window.

While visiting my hometown, I stop for a bite at a local restaurant with my best friend and her mother. I order a water, which chills and refreshes my soul. I order pasta and randomly acquire an allergy to mushrooms. I am poking a burnt piece of French bread when I see it:

A table. A table with a sexy twenty-something in glasses and a white button-down shirt.

His perfectly-preened hair makes me feel guilty for the whole fifteen seconds I spent on mine this morning with a $5 brush and an old hair tie.

‘He’s the one,’ I think. ‘I am going to marry this sexy man with emo glasses!’ I affectionately name him Charles and decide that we will have three children named Vladimir, Patricia Josephine T., and Queen Elizabeth. We are going to live next to a river and eat out every night because we both hate to cook. Our life together will be romantic and beautiful.

I watch in horror as an athletic man in slacks enters my field of vision and gives Charles a sensual hug.

No! No! No! …And then, two blinks and I’ve accepted it. ‘Ah,’ I chuckle inwardly, ‘Should have seen that coming. Duh.’

I continue to watch, taking occassional sips of water. Their body language flirts with each other as they make shy conversation. I am enjoying the show; it’s just so darn cute.

They both turn at the same time.

‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ I think as I hastily look away. I peek at them from the corner of my eye. Neither has looked away. In fact, if I had not been the first culprit, their stares would be quite rude. As I mull this over, I start to get annoyed with their rudenss, and in my annoyance I viciously stir my glass of water with my straw. I am anxious, annoyed, and now my hand is getting sloshed with water.

Woofsh-clang. An icecube shoots out and lands on my spoon.

…

I stare at it.

“I saw that!” our waitress proclaims. “That was pretty cool!”

I give a nervous laugh and reply, “No, you didn’t see anything! Really!”

She laughs at my meager humor and delivers either our meals or the bill. It doesn’t really matter; I’m frazzled enough to eat either.

 

Highlight of the Day: Not Dying

I lock eyes with her. She has soft brown hair and freckles. She floats as she comes towards me…in a black SUV. A black SUV barreling around the corner as I drudge to my 8AM math class. The vehicle narrowly misses my nose.

Naturally, my first thought is, ‘Bitch.’ My second thought is, ‘Fucking bitch.’

“Nice!” I yell after her. “Thanks a lot!”

Shaking my head, I continue a few paces and reach the crosswalk. Notice, here, that I say I am at a crosswalk. Yes, doll, I use the frikin’ crosswalk! Cross-walk. Break the word up.

A white car speeds past me. I stumble backwards. All I see is that the driver is female and wearing a ponytail. I can’t hunt her down with that kind of vague detail. Drat.

“Also nice! But you hesitated, so you lose ten points!”

Aw, what the heck, she can lose 9.8 points. I’m in a giving mood. But, next time, I’m hurling a grenade through the back window. Match and set.

Now, I’ve pretty much accepted that cars like to run me over. It’s not that I’m a particularly interesting target. My clothes and hair are disheveled. My book-bag is an ordinary, cancerous growth on my hip. There is nothing spectacular about the items I yield at death. In fact, running me over is like beating a boss in super easy mode – you don’t tell your friends about it. Perhaps this is why I would make good roadkill.

Like a possum or a skunk.

It is now roughly noon and I am making my way back across campus. A green something-or-other faces me. The sportsman behind the wheel sizes me up, determines me easy pickings, and speeds up just enough to set me off balance as I jump onto a curb in terror. Arms crossed, I watch him drive away. He reaches the nearby stop sign and half turns to look at me. I glare. He bolts from the scene. ‘Okay,’ I think, ‘I am asking for a machete this Christmas.’

 

I will stand in the cold for hours.

I look at the woman behind the counter. She has black, purposefully poofy hair and I think, “Your hair sucks. What were you thinking?” She tucks a loose strand behind her ear.

“Have you applied for residence hall access with us yet?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I have. Several times.”

The woman asks for my last name and flips through a wad of papers. “Well, looks like you’re on my big list. So…we’re looking at access maybe later today.”

“That’s what I was told on Thursday.”

“Well, yes, and it hasn’t changed. There are three hundred people on this list and he has to manually input all of them.”

“I meant, I was supposed to have access on Thursday. And there were three hundred people then too.”

“That isn’t to say none of them have been helped yet. Trust me, there are a lot of people coming in here about the same thing.”

So?

“Do you have the number for your on-duty RA?”

“No.”

“Do you have the number for your service desk?”

“No.”

You were supposed to give me those when I moved in, I seethe.

As she scrounges in a closet for a new pad of post-its, I stare at the betta fish on the counter. He is quietly floating around the bottom of the lonely plastic tank. A sticker on the side proclaims, “Hi! My name is ‘Dude’!” Dude, I think, you poor, sick bastard.

Finally, after answering two telephone calls, the woman finds the post-its, carefully opens the package, and writes down the telephone numbers.

“If you knock on the door before 10PM, there should be someone right there,” she adds.

You have never been inside the halls have you?

I thank her without a smile. I slam my body against the door and exit.

My best friend waves a yellow piece of paper at me as I rant.

“That’s cool,” I say. I don’t really look.

“What!? It’s a $25 ticket!”

“Fuck.”

“$25!!!“

“Bastards.”

 

Death Becomes Her

A shrill beep summons me from, well, not sleep, but from the dull stupor befalling one about to sleep. As I reach for my pajamas (toasty from the laundry), there is a flashing white light out of the corner of my eye. The sound does not bother me as much as this pulsating light. ‘And now I find out that I’m eptileptic,’ I bemoan. The beeping light continues. “Woh! Woh! Woh!” I noticably flinch every time. And then, I spy the source, hanging just inside the bathroom door, a red box. A red box with the word “FIRE” neatly printed in white.”You have got to be kidding me,” I say, staring at the box and trying to will it out of existence. “It’s…” I look at the clock. “It’s a quarter to eleven!”

My door is propped open and I can see everyone beginning to walk past, towards the emergency exits.

“You have got to be kidding me!” I say again.

My first instinct is to cover my laptop with a pillow to protect it from the sprinkler five feet away and then I look around. Where the hell are my shoes? I’m not going outside without shoes. I get one foot in and someone gives me an odd look. ‘Fine!’ I think. ‘Is this weird? Fine!’ I tear off the first shoe and stand up. I hear a voice down the hall: “If this were a fire, you’d all be dead by now.”

I stop.

This is a drill?

I look back at my shoes. I look back at the clock. I am barely coherent as it is.

I walk down the hall in my socks. I walk down the emergency stairs in my socks. I walk down the sidewalk in my socks.

“Everyone needs to get on the grass!” an R.A. orders, motioning his hands as if to push us all back at once. “Come on now!” He almost knocks me over.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mutter, taking off aforementioned socks. The grass is cold and wet, just like grass at 11:00pm should be.

“It will protect us from the fire!” a friend proclaims.

“It had better,” I say. “Because if I get sick out here, I’m going to kick their asses.”

The entire building is standing on the grass now. I have lost the feeling in my toes. And I am not enjoying the knowledge that my door is still wide open and I have a fortune in technology, games, and books in there.

Fifteen minutes later, “All right! Good job, everybody!”

What? I thought we were dead.

 

James Lemke

I cannot for the life of me pronounce the word “hajimemashite” without stumbling over the first three sylabols.

“Ha-gee-may…Ha..Ha-gee-may..maash-tay,” I mumble. “Leh-muh…key dess.”

In essence, I’m introducing myself. “Yo!” I’m saying. “Name’s Lemke. James Lemke.”

Except, if someone came up to me and said “yo” I think I would spit on them. Just because, well, that word is aggravating.

Of course, I’m God, so I can say it all the time.

I stare at my Hiragana practice sheet for “a”, “i”, “u”, “e”, and “o”. I pick up my pencil; it hovers a few inches from the paper. Hesitantly, I lower the lead to the surface. It snaps.

Fuck.

Okay, maybe I’m a little tense… Let’s try this again:

I successfully sketch the first line.

SNAP.

…

“Dude, you want me to kick your ass?” As if I ever carry through on that threat.

“Yes,” it replies. “Just you try: kick my shiny, pointy lead ass!” Indeed, inanimate objects are real snobs.

I throw it at the sterile, white wall on my left. It bounces and stabs me in the arm. Rolling, it falls onto a pillow and glares up at me.

Oh, it definitely needs to die.

“Just you wait,” I tell it. “There once was a bonsai tree that tried to kill itself. So I lit it on fire. You have done me actual physical harm. Just wait and see.”

It seems not to hear me, and then, “Crap.” Good, it understands.

 

Halifax Sux

I am sitting on my bed, cross-legged, laptop between my knees, and the cat beside me. I am listening to that Halifax cd I got yesterday; it isn’t very good. My bedroom floor is aflood with plastic bags, papers, books, clothing, and boxes. In 24 hours, I realize, I will not be here anymore. In 24 hours, my room will no longer be my room and I will be sitting on a new bed, raised high off the ground so that I can fit a dresser and small bookcase beneath it. My laptop will have a cable lock, and my cat will be a photograph on my bedstand. Instead of looking out a basement window at a carport and a propane tank, I will stare down three stories at a dusty campus.

I am crying because the thing I will miss most is this room.

It will not miss my family or friends or cat as much as I miss this place. I will not miss opportunities I didn’t seize, chances I didn’t take. Instead, I will miss the hours I spent in this room, through five years of depression and happiness. I will miss the days of hunting for that one poster, for that one calendar. I will miss watching my pile of cds and dvds climb.

I am material. So these things are important to me.

My relief was enormous when I called my roommate yesterday, because there is a chance of having a single room now. I won’t have to sacrifice all of it too quickly. But I’m also angry. I’m fucking furious! I wanted a roommate so that I would have to make choices. So that I would have to limit my possessions.

I have been trying to reach Kimberly for three weeks. I’ve called a dozen times and left four messages. Finally, I make my last ditch effort to contact her. The phone rings twice.

“Hello?”

Oh crap. It’s actually…a person. What do I do?

“Um, er. May I please speak to Kimberly?”

“She’s not here right now. Can I take a message?”

“This is Alisa. I’ve been trying to reach her for a while. I’m her CSUMB roommate.”

“Oh… She’s not going to Cal State anymore.”

…I beg your pardon?

“She’s actually already at her new college.” I don’t catch the name. This woman is a mumbler.

“Okay…”

“Sorry for the confusion. But maybe you’ll get a single room!”

“Yeah. Well, thanks.”

“Yeah. Well, bye!”

Click. It was all too cheery.

I look at the phone in my hand. I look out the window. I look back at the phone. The thing seems vile to me now.

“What did she say?” my best friend asks from the front seat.

“She’s not going to CSUMB. She’s already at her other college…something that starts with a ‘P’. Um, yeah. …Yeah.”

The drive continues. But. Dude. I’m kind of frazzled.

An hour passes. We are walking into the mall.

“I can’t believe she’s not going to CSUMB,” I blurt. “Can you believe it? I can’t believe it.”

 

My bite is worse than my bark.

It has been two years since my last dentist appointment. Two years. Typically, this would be due to my neglectful spirit, but that is not the answer this time. You see, they just didn’t send me the usual happy postcard a year ago, stating, “Alisa! You’re freakin’ awesome! You need to come see us, so we can fill your awesome cavaties with awesome filling goo.”

So, I step into the dentist’s office at 11:43 (for my 11:30 appointment) and glare at a white wall before being whisked into the back.

“Sorry I’m late,” I mumble to the medical assistant. “We…took a wrong turn?” We hadn’t. Duh. My internal monologue says, ‘You’re fat.”

“Oh, it’s all right!” she replies cheerfully. “Those things happen.” She sounds sincere. Dude. I feel bad.

I sit down in my chair and stare ahead of me. Another white wall.

“We’re going to do this really quickly.”

Um…okay. After all, it’s only been two years since my last visit.

I sit for twenty minutes with her hands in my mouth. The taste of the blue latex gloves gags me. My saliva gags me. The plaque pick she nearly drops down my throat gags me. I hate this. And then, just as I begin willing death upon some third world children, it’s over. Suddenly, my social consciousness floods back and the internal monologue begins again:

“I’m a terrible person. I’m a terrible person who wants third world children to die. I should die - I pictured them being stabbed by stick-wielding elephants. And then the elephants trampled them. OMG. I need to do something to help them. Have some money! Have some money! Take my goddamn money! The karma will get me if you don’t… Wow, she’s still pretty damn fat.”

I watch the assistant waddle away. Ten minutes later, the dentist walks in, looks at my teeth, and says, “Ideally, you would get some orthodontic work…”

“No. My teeth don’t bother me as they are.”

After all, they’re straight. There’s no crowding. No, I am not going to have my jaw broken and moved back for vanity’s sake!

“Are you sure?”

Just as sure as I was two seconds ago, thanks.

“Yes.”

“All right.” He stands and leaves.

So…am I done? You’ve walked away. You didn’t say anything. Am I done? Come on, tell me. I’m not just going to sit here forever.

A second medical assistant enters the room, unhooks the dribble bib from my neck, and begins to walk away. She pauses at the door.

“Oh, by the way, you’re done.”

Gee.

 

Silly Games

Dangling from the tree branch a foot above my head, the fat gray squirrel narrows its hard, shiny black eyes at me. With a mighty thud, it drops to the deck, snarling at my foot before finally dashing away.

“Aaaaa!” I bellow as I wave my arms after it. “Stupid fat gray squirrel! You scared the crap out of me!”

My outburst terrifies a nearby blue jay, which darts into the air, screeching obscenities. I wave the garden hose at it threateningly.

“You want a piece of me?” I taunt.

And then I remember the cavalry: three malicious blue jays that assume Triforce formation as they perch on the roof, watching me go to and fro between the back door and the laundry room. If I am singing, they will fly around me, cawing. Heaven forbid I be carrying the laundry basket under my arm. The blue jays are the only law ’round here. While I may feel brave with the hose in my hands now, I know that they will avenge the insult within the hour – and I am afraid. I return to watering the plants.

A moment passes. The blue jay dives at me. The squirrel reappears with three buddies. There is a bee hovering maybe two inches from my nose. And I have just witnessed a spider crawl up the leg of my pants. Who am I kidding? “Afraid?” As if – I’m quaking in my five-year-old, semi-rotten flip-flops. I yelp as I nearly step on a dead dragonfly being dissected by a few dozen ants.

It seems that I am terrified, which makes no sense. These things do not frighten me. I reassess the situation: I am irritated. No, not just irritated; I am furious. Here I am, taking care of the house while my family is away for the week, and my neighbors are playing silly games.

I finish the watering and stomp inside.

My cat is playing with a silly toy mouse on the rug, and I smile. She’s such a cutie.

 

Dr. Doug

I am sitting in my pediatrics office for the last time. Yes, I know, I have been 18 for a while now and yet I’ve been back to my childhood doctor’s office twice already. But this visit is final, if not primarily because I am off to college in a month, then because the new doctor reminds me of Doug on King of Queens. Not just “reminds” me – he must be. He is built like Doug. He walks like Doug. He even wears cologne that smells just as I would imagine Doug smelling. In short, he IS Doug…with a doctorate. This frightens and confuses me.

My mother has been researching what my ailment might be, considering that two EEG’s, a complete cardio work-up, and multiple blood tests have revealed nothing. So she walks up to Dr. Doug with a bunch of computer print-outs and declares that I must have some kind of vestibular disorder, aka. ear trouble. I sit around as she blathers. Doug kind of spaces out. Then he does the usual things new doctors do when they hear about my problem….he checks my eyes and ears and turns back to my mother.

“What are her symptoms?” he asks her.

Hi, I’m over here. But, alright, he’s a kid doctor; I’ll cope.

“She’s dizzy and lightheaded,” my mother tells him. “She’s had some fainting spells, and she was diagnosed with labyrinthitis last month. But she finished her medication for that and it didn’t go away. It just seems to be getting worse over the years.”

“Hm…is it a room spinning kind of dizzy?”

“I…don’t know.”

“No,” I declare from my corner of the room. “I just feel really lightheaded and weak. My vision goes black and my arms get really warm.”

Doug looks at me for the first time.

“Movie fade-out kind of black?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” Mumble mumble. Scribble scribble.

“So…?”

“Okay.”

Dude, “okay” what?

His questions continue. I recite the same list of symptoms and explanations that I have rattled off more than a dozen times in the past six years. Mumble mumble. Scribble scribble. Doug is starting to annoy me: he offers no conjectures, no possibilities. He just mumbles and scribbles, and then he stops both and sends for a nurse to check my blood pressure three times, while I’m lying down, sitting up, and standing. She makes me lean against the wall for fear I can’t tell if I’m going to fall over.

My mother asks for a referral so that her insurance will cover the physical therapy. He stares blandly. Physical therapy, mom? He never agreed with your conclusion. But, then, Dougie doesn’t really have any ideas of his own. We all start to leave, and then:

“Oh, and by the way – she was diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder when she was younger, and they mentioned something about ‘vestibular’ something-or-other. Does that add anything to this?”

No. SID isn’t medically accepted. It isn’t “provable.” You know that.

It’s obvious that he barely knows what she’s talking about.

“I don’t…think so…” he says cheerfully.

As we stand at the window to pay, the doctor walks over to answer the receptionist’s question about a referral. He looks at the computer screen and furrows his brow. Oh my God, he looks just like Doug! He is so awesome.