Whoa! I’m totally updating twice in one day.
(That’s to cover up for being such a shitty emailer. Sorrysorry. I’ll do my best tomorrow, I swear.) Arabic class was awesome. It was intense. It taxed my feeble brain, which lately gets caught up only in loops of badass t-sql and plane-ticket-searching and these very words. It likes new tricks, too. The classmates are a trip. There’s a dude with a long blonde ponytail and glasses and beard, who’s a little too twitchy and tells us all his friends call him ‘Wolf’. Of course they do. There’s a woman whose husband is a Sudanese politician, who told us how the names for Ethiopian refugee camps are transliterated into Arabic. There’s her daughter, an overly sincere international relations student from Wisconsin, who thinks learning this language is the right thing to do nowadays. There are two older businessmen who bonded instantly, and I love them for it. There’s Ike, who wears a way-cute cap and monitors the city’s water quality. There’s my class-bff, who erupts into giggling with me when we have halting conversations using the 10 phrases we now know. There are about 12 people in the class, which surprised me. It’s going to be good. On the way home, I wanted to run. Like, I wanted to pull Chico over to the side of Lyndale Avenue, put on my Adidas (which ride shotgun until they’re mercilessly tossed to the back by my passengers, on at least an every-other-day basis), and just take off. Not in a bad way, like in the olden days in the back office at Ticketmaster, where suddenly my heart would slam against my chin and I’d want to make a dash for anywhere that wasn’t there; I mean, just run. Back when I was running, or making a serious attempt to, I’d run at night when it was cooler outside. For some reason, the daytime suffering was replaced by that sense of being able to go forever. Hitting my stride, even though I wasn’t familiar enough with it to know at what point that would happen. It was like meditating with a much higher heartrate. I loved that feeling. Tonight it’s 80 with 5000% humidity. I would have likely died. The only thing that really stopped me was the huge raindrops that appeared on my windshield moments after the I-should-run! idea presented itself. So yeah. Maybe next time. So on the way to class tonight, I stopped at my local Dunn Brothers. I have realized this coffeeshop has an entirely different personality, depending on the time of day. In the morning, it’s cool. There’s a lot going on. There are interesting people about, and generally at least one cute boy behind the counter. In the afternoon, the place is staffed by moody girls with Mac-makeovers gone horribly, distastefully wrong, and they’re different every time I go in. The customers vary, but they almost always look painfully lonely. Like, this entire establishment should be placed in therapy, but only in the afternoons. I don’t know what it’s like at night. Something tells me I don’t want to, either. Anyway! I was standing there waiting very very patiently, as is my style, behind two old ladies who ordered ‘ordinary lattes’ (I dunno either), then proceeded to deal with a matter of utmost urgency, involving a piece of gum which had affixed one of the old ladies to the rug. It was an ordeal. She was shoeless and squatting, clasping a piece of paper towel one of the unfortunate cosmetics models had given her. According to the clock in my head, it took her three years, five months, and two days to deal with the gum to her satisfaction. In the meantime, one of the other Mac-girls took my money (she knew my order, even though I swear I’d never seen her before) and started to indicate she was considering making my coffee. I sidestepped the gumshoe lady, wondering whether ‘affected’ was contagious. It was only then that I sensed the true danger, which had been masked by the carpet spectacle: the guy seated at the counter. I won’t say his name because he’s the type to Google first, kill later. A long time ago, he was the sound technician at the State Theatre. It was close to ten years ago that I met him, at a party that happened before I worked there. He’s the only thing I remember about the party, in fact. Before I even got inside the house, he was standing there talking. Everyone else was inside, but I was stuck there on the front porch with this superintense, freaky dude with black spiky hair. He told me his wife was dead, and he was nervous about his daughter being alone at home, because people kept taking extension ladders to the side of his house, climbing up and trying to kidnap her. I was horrified. Who the hell was this man, and why was he at a Christmas party when his daughter was at home being abducted? Later I was told that none of that was real, and he was just your everyday psycho. But a really great sound guy, I guess. So there he was! At the counter! Looking at me! He looked exactly the same as he had 10 years ago. Not aged a bit. His skin was powdery-white, and his hair was black and spiky with pink scalp glowing underneath, just like always. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn. And turn again. Then again. I kept telling myself, he’s not looking at you. He’s fascinated by the broken computers over there. He’s checking the time every three seconds on that ugly out-of-place neon grandfather clock thing. He has a physical disorder he can’t control; it makes his head rotate in your direction over and over and over. But whatever you do, don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact. (How many times a week do you have to tell yourself this?) DO NOT MAKE EYE– Goddammit. He smiled. Then he grinned. Then he said helloooo. I gave him the fake smile, the one that says ‘I wish I hadn’t just made eye contact, because now I have to at least acknowledge you; it would be too rude not to, even though I really wish I wasn’t occupying this space with you right now’. I said, ‘hey.’ And there was my coffee, so I left. That Dunn Brothers on Lake Street isn’t too much farther away. It’d be worth the drive, I think. Night!Jenni