Lately

• Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
  ~Berthold Auerbach

Lately, I've been thinking about what to do this fall. I feel a bit left out, since everyone's going to college but me, probably. I mean, Jeff Smith isn't, but that's cuz he's not gradgeeated yet. Chelsea, Elmore, Brenden, Randi, and Eric are all doing their thing, except that Eric's going off to the military. It feels like everyone's so planned out, and I'm just floating along, confusedly turning to one thing, and then another. It's hard to know what you want to do when everything you THOUGHT you wanted to do, turns out to not be what you ACTUALLY want to do!

So, here's the deal. I'm probably going to end up renting a single room from someone for a while. Just a room, not an apt, I can't afford that yet. I will probably be working two jobs, ColdStone Creamery on Thursday mornings and Friday mornings, and on Monday-Wednesday mornings, working at Wallace Group Services at a desk. It's a nice change of pace, at least I have two jobs that are completely different; one sedentary and one active.

I'll look around on Craigslist for room opportunities. Meanwhile, this fall, i WILL take one class: Sinfonia! :) Again! I'm so excited. If i can pay for it, it'll happen.

I AM THE MAN

Well, I don't have much time to write a whole lot, since I have to start getting ready for work here pretty soon. I need to be out of here by 9:45 and it's 9:12 right now! O.o ...but I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite stories. It happened about two months ago.

I was riding along on the bus with Brenden, and we were chit-chatting about something. Who knows what-probably music or songs or somethin'. We heard the bus driver, at a stop, raise his voice to a passenger that had just stumbled on. "Are you gonna be good today, George?" "Mhsldfm." "George? Do you hear me? You gonna be good?" "Msdfohdmfm." Painfully drunk, a tiny, scraggly native man came shuffling through the bus and decided to plop his inebriated self down right next to us. Across from us, rather. And up a level, but still. It was too close. I could smell the stomach-wrenching reek of his alcohol. Brenden and I just kind of rolled our eyes and kept talking. I believe I was telling him about my new piece.

"What I really like about it is the harmonics that it has in the 4th measure. It's like, you're in first position, you slide up and hit a harmonic, but you have to be back down to first position so fast that it's a great challen-"

"I AM..." -pause (as I stop in the middle of my sentence)- "THE MAN."

I looked around for where that came from, but the drunk guy was slumped up against the bus window, and appeared to be sound asleep.

However, a few seconds later, here it came again. This time I was watching. It was the native guy-he looked asleep but must've just been closing his eyes. He suddenly did a full-body twitch, and yelled, "I AM THE MAN!"

(Brenden and I tried to control our spasms of laughter.)

The bus driver, profusely angry, stopped the bus, came storming back, and demanded that the man shut up. Now, imagine, if you will, a sumo-wrestler.

The driver resembles one.

Now imagine an angry sumo-wrestler.

Again, the driver resembled it.

So you can imagine the intimidation that the drunk guy would've felt. Or should've.

He mumbled something to the driver and the sumo-wrestler stalked back to the front of the bus. Just as the engine started up again, Oh Tiny One looks up through the darkness of his hat with glaring eyes and says, slurring his words, "Yeaaahh...Real..intimidating."

(Surprisingly, he didn't get kicked off.)

Of course, there was another time where we were just boarding a bus and a drunk native guy was leaning over a trashcan, swaying, talking to himself, and occasionally yelling, "I LOVE MYSELFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!"

And now it's 9:24! I really must go.

First, a dialogue between me, Annie, and the IT guy at her work.

"I didn't say you were old!" -Annie
"You said I was like fifty!" -IT guy (Joe)

"I was just joooooking." -Annie

"Well, y'know, you do kinda-" -me

"SHUT UP!" -Joe

-raising hands- "Shutting up." -me

...minutes later...

"MARIANNA! What did you DO to this computer?! It's all messed up!"

"Hey, it wasn't me! The only one who ever touches anything besides My Documents and the Internet is you!"

"Well, it wasn't me!" -Joe

"CHILDREN." -me

"MOTHER." -Joe (...silence from me) "PWND!"