Scary Man in My Car

A couple of nights ago, I was walking to my car (which was parked in a lot at 11th and Washington). After opening the door and half-plopping into the seat, a scary old black man joined me. He decided it'd be okay to try to get in the car with me, telling me to scoot over. This really freaked me out. He had wedged himself between me and the door, making it impossible for me to close it. He said "you're really pretty" and tried to touch my face. I told him to get the eff away to which he replied "I got lotsa sisters and I got a mama I ain't tryin ta hurt you. Now just come shoot a game of pool with me." I was still freaked out and yelled again for him to get the eff away. He then said, "okay baby girl okay I hear you but can I at least get your number?" I think this actually made me laugh in a half uncomfortable, half genuinely amused way. This guy was basically as old as Ray Charles in those early 90s Pepsi commercials (Remember? Spotlighted in Rookie of the Year when Henry left the shoot to go build a boat with his friends?) and seemed kind of bummish. He clearly had no game, sneaking around trying to hop into my car at 2 a.m. I give him some credit for being sneaky...he came out of nowhere. Anyway, after he asked for my number I said "No...I need to drive home now...please leave me alone." He said "Okay I leave you alone but why can't I have yo number?" Instead of screaming at the top of my lungs " BECAUSE YOU'RE A PSYCO HOMELESS MAN WHO JUMPED IN MY CAR" or telling him simply "old black men aren't really my type" I just said "sorry I have a boyfriend." He looked embarrassed, immediately removed himself from my vehicle and stated "well I do apologize. He must be da most blessed man in da world," and casually walked away.

So, what did I learn from this tramautic/awkward/unexpected experience? First, I will never ever no matter what the circimstances may be walk to my car alone downtown late at night again. Second, kind of like the vampires in True Blood, it's possible for people to sneak up on me out of nowhere. And third, I guess I learned that not all people who try to get in my car late at night want to kill me or rob me or steal my car. Or if that's not true, maybe saying I have a boyfriend deters them for some reason. Last but not least, I think I was just really really lucky and hope I'm never in that situation again.

My Mom

My mom could definitely be Vice President if Sarah Palin could.

My mom sometimes still wears high-waisted, tappered "Mom" jeans, but when I come home she doesn't. She wears the jeans we picked out together at Old Navy and Ann Taylor. (We compromised.)

My mom is a nurse, but she hasn't worked as a nurse in over 15 years. She used to work with sick little babies and she'd let us see them through the window when we were young and I thought they looked like this small bean bag rabbit doll I had. She misses them all the time.

My mom has a beautiful wonderful smile and the nicest eyeballs I've ever looked into. When I look at my moms eyes it reminds of when I was a kid and had stomach aches and she used to rub my back and hold my hand, even if I was in the bathroom. And now that I'm getting a little chunkier and my hair is brown again sometimes I look in the mirror and think I look a little like my mom and it doesn't make me upset at all.

My mom likes to relive her younger days and go out on occassion. I like these occassions because she tells my brother's friends to buy her drinks and then eventually she ends up buying jaegerbombs for everyone and she gets excited and laughs and bounces around and looks so cute.

My mom loves E.R. (as in the show that no one else is still watching.) My mom is still watching, even now that Uncle Jesse is one of the doctors. Carter left, but not my mom. George Clooney moved on to bigger and better things, but my mom didn't. Goose even died, but my mom's love for E.R. never has. Now that the show is ending, maybe she'll focus more on Grey's.

My mom has put up with a lot of crap, and most of the time very gracefully. Dealing with my dad alone would have been enough to make the average woman throw in the towel. My mom kept on trucking, and now she has the joy of dealing with me and my siblings. She's a tough lady and people don't give her enough credit.

My mom's the bomb.

On the News Tonight

Tonight I watched the news, national followed by local. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. I finally learned all I need to know about "earmarks." This word, along with the words "maverick" and "track record," kept annoying me while repeatedly hearing them during the debates (especially spoken in Sarah Palin's horrific voice). Thanks to Brian Williams, I now know that an earmark is basically a little section of a bill that directs money to a very specific, localized project, a.k.a. an unimportant, crappy project. McCain's earmarks = approximately zero throughout his entire career. Obama's earmarks = over 100 for the 2008 fiscal year.

2. Apparently we're experiencing a "slow-motion stock market crash." This became reality when my 500 shares of General Motors stock went to $4/share (Yeah right. I don't even know what that means? I don't know what it means when the Dow drops 700 points? All I know is that it sucks and that gas prices are still going to be high and that I need to find an industry that's benefitting from this whole financial crisis and start applying for jobs while crossing my fingers because I'm not going to find one. It's times like these that I wish I was an accounting or psychology major, or maybe like a teacher or a nurse.)

True Blood

I've been disappointed lately by the lack of people who have heard of HBO's somewhat new show, True Blood. Along with The Office and Project Runway, this is one show that I refuse to miss.

Part-comedy, part-mystery, part-romance and part-borderline porn, True Blood combines the best of every possible genre. AND it's about vampires (but not in a gothic/Dracula/Interview with the Vampire way). The vampires in True Blood look like mortals (until their fangs shoot out of their mouths randomly) and don't die from crosses or garlic or anything dumb like that. Plus, Bill Compton, the main vampire, is incredibly hot. There's also an interesting dynamic between humans and vampires in that people are prejudiced against vampires. The VRA (Vampire Rights Amendment), "God Hates Fangs" signs, and the term "Fang-Banger" (a woman who sleeps with a vampire) illustrate this point throughout the show. To add to this amazingness, vampires possess special sexual powers, causing humans to buy and sell vampire blood ("V") like it's a drug.

Bonus: Remember Anna Paquin? The girl who won an Oscar for The Piano and was in that other movie about ducks migrating home or something? She's in True Blood and she can read minds. 

Here's Robert Blanco's USA Today review of the show. 

Can the creatures in this house just leave me alone?

During the middle of the night, I woke up because I had an itch on my leg. It felt like something was crawling on me. Sometimes I get paranoid and think things are crawling on me, so I just assumed that's what was happening. Anyway, I reached down to scratch it, AND A SPIDER WAS ACTUALLY CRAWLING ON ME! That's the sickest feeling ever. I panicked and turned the light on and saw that I had squished its guts on my leg. It was really gross, but I wiped it off and tried to go back to sleep. At least it wasn't a bat.

Lost

I often wonder what's happened

to all of the lost things.

Loves,

their letters,

the pens they used to write the letters,

my favorite pair of underwear,

and the boy who used to remove them.

Are they on the Island

with Others

and a Hatch

having flashbacks

of times from before they were lost?