Day 188
I suck at looking at other people's pictures. Honestly, I just don't care. This doesn't stop people from showing them to me. This especially doesn't stop one of my favorite neighbors from whipping out his I-Phone and scrolling through. This morning's delight was his "orchestra" photos collection. This involved him and many others that I don't know wearing feather hats and green suits. That was the most exciting photo of the 12 I had to look at this morning. What am I supposed to say? "You look so happy in the back of that photo where your head is just a tiny spec. Thanks for showing me. That's really inspiring?" I am starting to think these photo sharers are on to me. They know I don't want to look. They seek me out, make me look, and probably publish on gotchatolookatmyphotos.com that they got a hater to look. Okay, so I just tried that address and nothing. They must have a more clever name for their website.
I spent two and a half hours this morning reading a novel so I could finish it. Did I mention that there were only 55 pages left. I read slower than a dyslexic first grader. Imagine how long it takes me to do homework. Anyway, normally I would stop reading a book if it didn't really hold my attention, but with this book I kept on. I heard online that people have cried at the ending. And for some (probably fucked up reason) I wanted to cry. Instead of crying, I closed the book and said, "Hmm. Okay, done with that." I wonder if I am cold-hearted or people who rave about books on the internet are saps.
Do people normally get homicidal at the post office? If you would've asked me that question just yesterday, I would've said, "No," not anymore. Today I went into the post office to get letters stamped, buy a booklet of US stamps and, for the first time ever, mail a package to the States. This all should be a doable endeavor where no one feels like they want to stab anyone with the nearest ballpoint pen, but real life has twists. Usually, the twists are the lemon in your eye variety and the man working at the post office was the lemon.
So, he takes my package and puts it on a scale and just stands there staring off into space for 45 seconds, talking to his co-worker about a cord, and avoiding eye contact with me. I waited. He looked at me with a, "What?" look. I said, "Am I supposed to be filling something out? This is the first time I mailed package to the States and I don't know what to do." He looked at me for a second and said, "You okay? You look flustered." When we finally got everything ready to be sent (hopefully) I took my receipt from him and without even realizing it said sincerely, "Thanks a lot for all your help." Had I not promised my friend a sandwich I would've went straight home, straight to the airport, and straight back to my home country where hopefully, if it's not too late, I could re-learn how to not be nice to people who are complete assholes.
If the post office wasn't enough I was hot, had a runny nose, and had to wait in line for sandwiches. All of this I could handle, what I could not handle was the tiny Asian man who was in line behind me. He was standing so close to me he was touching my backpack. My turn finally came and I nearly leapt at the counter to get him off my back. I started to order my sandwich when I felt something on my backpack. I turned to get out of the way of a passerby, but no it was him AND he was joined by a friend who was standing even closer to me. I purposely knocked them with my bag, and they didn't back off. I grabbed the sandwich bag and ran.
On my walk to the department I realized that I am no longer capable of dealing with fetching sandwiches or mailing packages and that I have to get myself into a position that provides me an assistant. If that means that I have to write Romance bestsellers or get married, then so be it. All I know is that I never want to fend for myself in this wild world again. Not when I am clearly some sort of freak flypaper.
In class today we finally discussed the Personal Essay. Now, if you don't already know, I have been bitching for over a week about having to read examples of the Personal Essay. As far as I could tell they are essays about cliched metaphors of life. What I learned in class is that some people actually like reading about how some strangers life is like a ying yang symbol or that we are all part of the animal kingdom. If I wasn't blanking out, eating chips, and concentrating on writing hateful things in my notebook left-handed, I would've wrote down the names of those people so I can avoid them.
I have never had a nickname. Okay, so that's not true. I wore an orange shirt to school once when I was young and my classmates called me "Pumpkin" for a week. I also have a last name that is unfortunately similar to a cartoonish Hollywood personality and was called that character's name for years. And once, my friend and I decided that we should have hooker names (what else is an 8th grader to do) so I was called, Trixie and she was called Gertrude. I wouldn't mind a cool nickname, something like: Moxie, or She-Ra. The thing about nicknames though, is that they are not something you decide, they are assigned to you by your peers. I suppose the best nicknames are invented by peers that have clever and original ideas. My peers, the creative writers of the future, have come up with a nickname for me: my last name. I fear for the originality of literature to come.
Tip of the Day: If you see a bug at the sandwich place, kill it, but don't let it ruin your pastrami on rye.
-Canadian Castaway
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