Yesterday when I was talking to Stephen in the snack shop, Elizabeth turned
\nup her nose at the soup she was eating, declaring that it was butt garlic.
\n She offered it to Stephen, who accepted it. When he had finished, he said
\nto me, “If anyone ever offers you soup, you should take it. You’ll get a
\nfree lunch that way.” I pondered his advice and agreed to follow it…
\nunless I was full or it was poisonous or otherwise nasty or for some other
\nreally good reason.<\/p>\n
Today as I was at the budget office window trying to order a transcript, i
\nheard someone yell as they walked by, “Oh my gosh, it’s that introvert
\nfreak!” It was Denise, of course. We went to the snack shop where she
\nbought a chicken soft taco and then went out to the fountain and sat on one
\nof the benches and watched the couples on the other benches “making babies”
\nas Denise calls any two people who are all over each other. I laid back and
\nwatched Denise eat her taco with my new sunglasses on. I also complained
\nabout how beautiful a day it was. I hate being in a good mood, and I was in
\nan incredible one. I hate being that happy because I know it won’t last and
\nI’ll be down in the dumps later on. Like I am now… for no particular
\nreason at all.<\/p>\n
While we were sitting there, Elizabeth came up with her soup and bread from
\nthe sub place in the snack shop and joined us. (heh, this has nothing to do
\nwith any of this, but it makes me laugh to think about it. One day I was in
\na really good mood. I have absolutely no idea why, but I saw Elizabeth
\ncoming out of the snack shop. I just went up and hugged her. She was very
\nsurprised. “What was that for?” she asked. I shrugged, “Why not?” I just
\ndon’t go around hugging people. I guess I really caught her off guard.)
\n After a while Elizabeth got up to leave. “You want my soup?” she asked. I
\nlooked at it. “what is it?” “It’s the stuff you like. Vegetable.” “It’s
\ngot okra in it. I hate okra.” But then I remember Stephen’s advice. So I
\naccepted it. And I finished it off. It was actually pretty good. And I had
\na free lunch.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t find Stephen to give him yesterday’s Zippy the Pinhead. We made a
\npact. Since he gets the afternoon paper and we get the morning, he’ll cut
\nout Dilbert for me in exchange for Zippy. But I couldn’t find him. Not that
\nI really looked. I was heading toward the stairs, but Elizabeth came off the
\nelevator asking if I’d seen him. Since she was most likely coming down from
\nthe theater dept, I figured he wasn’t going to be up there, and I had no clue
\nof where else to look for him. So I got in my car and started to drive away.<\/p>\n
Instead of making the turn to exit campus, however, I kept going around the
\ncircle and over to the dorms. I hadn’t seen Mark, and I really felt like I
\nshould check up on him. Sure enough his car was in the parking lot. So I
\nrustled through the junk piling up in the front seat and found an unassuming
\nreceipt. Then as I was looking for a pen in the trash bin that holds all my
\ntapes, someone bounded out of the door of the cottage in front of me and came
\nover to my car. It was Larry. The freak. “Hi,” I said through my cracked
\ncar door. He came up and leaned over it to talk to me. Then he offered me a
\nstick of gum. Trying to quit smoking.<\/p>\n
I eventually got out with a pencil I’d retrieved from my bookbag and leaned
\nup against my car. We must have talked for an hour. In that time I noticed
\nthat Mark and Jeannine were in Jeannine’s truck. I kind of felt grateful
\nthat the freak had come over to talk to me. Otherwise I would have gone to
\nMark’s door, knocked on it, maybe talked to his roommates, and then left a
\nnote, or something, all while he was right there. And then I might have
\nnoticed or.. anyway.. it kind of saved me from an awkard situation. I told
\nthe freak this. I dunno. I was flat out honest with him about everything he
\nasked me. He’s actually an interesting character. I don’t get it when I rip
\na guy to shreds and he loves it. But that seems to be the way it goes. I
\nwasn’t mean, although he accused me of it once with a grin on his face. He
\nsaid I was like a brick wall and mused whether he could kick it down to get
\nto what was inside or not. He asked if Mark and i were friends. I shrugged
\nand told him that Mark can see over the wall somehow, so I try to keep on his
\ngood side. It was an interesting conversation. I couldn’t really leave
\nbecause I didn’t just want to hurry off with Mark and Jeannine talking right
\nnear by, though far enough away that I couldn’t hear them at all, just see
\ntheir faces. Larry looked at them and tried to fill in the conversation. He
\nwas doing a pretty convincing job too. I laughed. I swallowed my gum.<\/p>\n
A real interesting guy. His dad is American. He went to an American school
\nin Nicaragua. He speaks flawless English. Whenever I’m talking to someone
\nfrom a foreign country, I try not to use as many idioms and big words, but
\nunderstood everything I said. Well, as well as anyone else ever does.
\n Sometimes, though, he’d want to say something but couldn’t pull it out in
\nEnglish, so he’d say it in Spanish. It sounded beautiful. I just wish I
\nknew what he was saying.<\/p>\n
Mark left the truck and Jeannine drove away eventually. I waved at Mark. He
\nwaved back but walked the other way. I told Larry that I might as well leave
\nbecause there was no longer a reason for me to stay. He asked if staying
\nbecause he was there was a reason. I smiled and said no. He asked if we
\nwere friends. I said not yet. Then he said, “I’m going to try to be the
\nbest friend you ever had.” I agreed with him that it was a very lofty goal.
\nHe said his intentions were totally innocent. Then he asked how he could
\nachieve them. I told him I didn’t know, but if he tried too hard I’d run
\naway.<\/p>\n
By then Mark had come back over. Larry showed a lot of sensitivity by
\nleaving at that point. Mark and I talked for a while. He’s still screwed
\nup. His roommate is an older guy who’s legally blind and busted his foot
\nover spring break. So we went with him over to the cafeteria. Mark got me a
\nglas of grape koolaid and some oven baked chicken, which is kind of illegal
\nsince I don’t have a meal card. Then he went over and got me a hot dog and
\nsome potato chips. I may have hurt his feelings by refusing to eat them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday when I was talking to Stephen in the snack shop, Elizabeth turned up her nose at the soup she was eating, declaring that it was butt garlic. She offered it to Stephen, who accepted it. When he had finished, he said to me, “If anyone ever offers you soup, you should take it. You’ll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonclassified-nonsense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}