What Else Is Going On

So this weekend didn't quite go the way I wanted it to. For one thing, I never made it to the nightclub like I wanted to go to. One by one, my friends all came up with some reason for not going. "I don't have money." "I just don't want to, man. What'll we do?" What'll we do, they ask. There are only three things to do at a nightclub, and those would be 1. drink 2. mingle 3. dance. Lacking the first, we could try going out and being social with those outside our peer group for once, but I guess not. I didn't think it would be the most fun thing ever, but it would be different, and that's really what I'm looking for. Something different.

Instead, we played Fury of Dracula, which is different for them but the same for me. I was Dracula. I would have won easily (they thought I was in Italy, when I was in fact freebooting around in Spain) if I hadn't made an error and been forced to reveal my location and lose health points, which ended up costing me the game. No matter. It was still interesting.

Meh. I just wanted to do something different. Which I did end up doing Sunday morning, actually, when I made crepes for my parents and sister and grandparents. I felt like a short-order cook. About every forty-five seconds, I would finish a crepe, and as soon as it was done, someone would snatch it up. And everyone wanted theirs differently.

"Burn mine a little bit."
"Make mine thicker than usual."
"Don't cook it too much on that side."

It was all I could do to eke out a few for myself. It's my cooking, I wanted a few, which I got. It was then that I discovered that putting honey in them rocks, as does powdered sugar, as does melting a few slices of cheese into one (though I suspect that would have gone rather better if I had made "dinner" crepes as opposed to "dessert" crepes). So that was entertaining, and new, I've never really cooked breakfast/lunch for a bunch of people before. Not the biggest and most world-shattering experience, mind, but anything new. I feel I'm grasping at straws, yet, it doesn't seem to matter.

I'm wearing my hat now. Even to class. My black fedora, which I keep at home and keep forgetting to bring back. I wore it on the bus ride back, and have now decided that it's my lucky hat. Exactly why this is I will enumerate shortly.

I've actually become rather decent at pool, because of all the times I go to the Union and play pool with any combination of Mike, Zack, Kevin, Steven, Chris, Rachel, and John. Maybe someone else I'm forgetting...no, I think that's it. My new pool catchphrase, whenever I sink a shot that's even mildly difficult, is "Yes! I'm a genius!" Which I'm actually getting to say every so often, as I'm learning how to sink shots.

My sister did not yet have her baby. It's at full health, though, in fact healthier than a normal baby at this point. We feared her drug use that ravaged her body would have caused some mental or physical defect; to all scans, the baby is perfectly healthy. We feared that her methadone use (legal) would cause the baby to go into withdrawal; bizarrely, there is absolutely no methadone in the baby's bloodstream. Somehow. We feared her smoking would stunt the baby's birth weight, the baby weighs over eight pounds.

I am continually baffled by this turn of events. My sister believes that this is God's reward for her giving up heroin and various other sinful habits, that He is protecting her unborn child. I don't know about that, but as I am wont to say, I believe that there are a lot of things that I don't understand. For now, I'm just thankful that the sins of the mother have not been visited upon the child.

I may have to go down again next weekend when the baby is finally born, but honestly I'm going to ask my sister if I can come down a few weeks from now. I can't afford to come down weekend after weekend, it's taxing on my limited funds, and frankly newborn babies are...I don't want to say ugly, because obviously they're amazing and beautiful miracles of nature (that's my story and I'm stickin' to it), but they're a bit undeveloped. All I would really be able to do would be to ooh and aah, I wouldn't trust myself holding a near-newborn. Plus, I got plans this weekend, and while I can abandon them if my sister desires me to be around, I would prefer not to.

I'm not doing very well, physically, at the moment. For one thing, I'm on two hours of sleep, on account of I stayed up way late last night as a result of not managing to read my book (which I had to write a paper on last night) or study my notes for today's test on the way home on the bus, so I had to stay up way too late. So late, it was, in fact, early. Energy drinks helped. Are helping.

Plus, I may have a cold. More on this in a bit.

The reason I didn't get a chance to read my book or study on the way home was because I spent the entire trip talking to a very friendly girl named Cristina, whom I sat next to. I slept the initial period, but after we stopped for dinner, the entire rest of the trip, three hours plus, was spent in conversation with her.

She's a senior, majoring in economics (she started in pharmacy but hated the science courses), is slightly uncertain of her future, but is doing well in her classes. She likes to talk, but she also likes to listen. More specifically, she likes to listen to me talk, though I know enough now to constantly guard my rambling against subjects that I know a person doesn't care about, like in-depth discussions of video games or comic books or all that sort of thing. And yes, before you ask, I know the difference between someone actually paying attention and being interested and someone with the glazed-eyes look of "Dear God, why won't he shut the hell up?" I occasionally inspire the latter, but this was all about the former.

I told her about my new philosophy of life, to find new and interesting things to do. She expressed a similar interest to become "less boring." I told her I was starting to work out. She mentioned she was thinking of getting into that as well, so I invited her to come running with me, which she said she would like. (I'm going to hire a personal trainer, not exactly something on which I can bring along someone who doesn't have my specific goals, but I want to train my body to be something other than the inathletic lump of gristle that it is.)

She said she had a cold, and hoped I wouldn't get it. I mentioned how I get colds and literally don't even notice, on account of I constantly sneeze and blow my nose due to allergies, and a slight increase is nothing to write home about, so it wasn't a big issue.

My hat was never directly mentioned, but I get the feeling that it was well-received. I like this hat. I'm going to wear it often from now on. Just this morning, it kept a light morning drizzle from getting my glasses wet, which I always hate when that happens.

We arrived, I helped her carry a big box to her car, she gave me a ride home. We arrived at my place, still talking. I asked for her phone number, which she gave me. I leaned over and we kissed. I expressed my thanks for the ride, and wished her a good evening. She smiled and wished me the same. I leaned over and we kissed again. Then some more. I apologized mildly for not being very good at it, to which she giggled and said it was okay. I realized that we both had things to do that evening (she needed to study as well), so I bid her good evening again and went to gather my things. I even tipped my hat. I like this hat.

When I got home, I was confronted by Mike, who berated me for leaving dirty dishes in my room and leaving dishes in the sink, which he informed me I had to do. Normally, I would have been irate, for I hadn't even had an opportunity to put down my bags, but I was in such a good mood that I cheerfully accepted. I put down my bags and Mike followed me downstairs and talked to me while I worked my way through the huge pile of dishes. It took me about an hour fifteen to do them all. Normally I would have been upset at all the work, but all I could feel at the end was a sense of accomplishment for having finished all the work. Then I went for a walk.

I called Henry and spoke to him of the evening's events. He told me that he too had lots of studying to do, and expressed what I thought was an irritatingly large amount of surprise that I had managed to attract a girl when he was still without female attention. We promised to speak more about it in the morning. Being as he was more or less the inspiration of my personality shift, which is what caused me to gain enough confidence and fire to speak to random people (girls, specifically, he helped me learn how to speak to women, as I have previously noted), I figured I'd give him a status report, which he seems to be okay with. I picked up some energy drinks, came back, studied a lot, read the book, wrote the paper, went to sleep.

Woke up two hours later. Went to class. (I'm in class now, actually, but this is a nonsense lecture class that I really don't have to pay that much active attention to. I'm taking notes, trust me. This class is easy.) And yet, though my hands are shaking due to all the coffee I drank this morning, I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. Sure, I may have a cold now, but I'll just pop Sudafed and feel fine. I read somewhere once that positive emotion resulting from interaction with the opposite sex can boost one's immune system temporarily, allowing one to shrug off minor infections like colds (let's just say that if Cristina in fact had a cold, so do I), but even if not, that's all right.

I'm feeling pretty good, now. Better than I have in a while. We're scheduled to meet again on Wednesday for lunch, but I'll see if we can't meet today instead. I want to see her again. I can only hope she feels likewise.

Yeah.