subtext

Caramella206 (6:55:36 PM): i have to finish this article
egyptian karim (6:56:16 PM): anything i can help with?
Caramella206 (6:57:59 PM): yes it's about,
egyptian karim (6:58:58 PM): it's about commas?
Caramella206 (6:59:35 PM): haha, a town hall meeting,
Caramella206 (6:59:39 PM): in which they discussed the middle states report on the improvement / changes of umbc
egyptian karim (7:00:02 PM): i'll write it in news format
egyptian karim (7:01:05 PM): recently there have been many changes at umbc. some of them improvements, some of them horrible news-worthy type losses.
egyptian karim (7:01:11 PM): [paragraph break]
egyptian karim (7:01:38 PM): the town hall meeting discussed these things at length, yet managed to accomplish nothing.
egyptian karim (7:01:43 PM): [paragraph break]
egyptian karim (7:02:01 PM): the middle
egyptian karim (7:02:07 PM): [paragraph break]
egyptian karim (7:02:14 PM): states were also discussed
egyptian karim (7:02:26 PM): I'm AMY!
egyptian karim (7:02:30 PM): the end

brandon, you are never invited to a retriever meeting again. see, figure 1:

figure 1:

SPiffyest: HOW WAS YOUR DINNER LAME LIKE BRANDON
SPiffyest: i am so mad at joe for bringing that bad man to the office
Caramella206: i told him he dashed my dreams of becoming a real person someday
Caramella206: now i'm just a shell
SPiffyest: YOU ARE A REAL PERSON TO ME

see brandon. sarah is awesome and YOU are in grayscale and your photos suck and you're WEAK and YOUR LIFE STORY IS BORING.

i'm just kidding i love you thanks for the harry potter tickets see you tomorrow bye

shawn and i had just finished our marine corps marathon 8k in d.c., and we were watching the marathoners cross the finish line. an older guy in the gold wave (started at 8:45) was coming up at the finish line in less than three hours, and with like .1 of a mile left, he just fell to the ground. just collapsed, holding his quadricep, obviously in agonizing pain. he was on the ground for just a few seconds, halfway between kneeling and completely sprawled out, looking ahead of him as if he was contemplating crawling to the finish line, when everyone started cheering incredibly loud for him to get up, he was almost there. but what i thought was amazing was someone in the scarlet wave (started at 8:15) who didn't know him stopped and helped him up, sacrificing his own time to help someone he didn't even know off the ground so he could finish his marathon. and, he did it.

at one point tonight, an incident began with my shoe flying off on charles street and ended with a bloody injury on my arm, to which aged burning cream was applied due to a lack of better-suited medical ointments, causing my red-speckled tricep to in fact "burn" all night long as i worked for five hours only to make $37; as my night came to an end and i attempted to drive a co-worker home, he, albeit accidentally, smashed my side door into a very high curb, seating himself with the comment, "nothing a little paint job can't fix..."

i have this thing where i drive to baltimore and i imediately get into this excellent mood. i get to work and i am in my prime. any desire i have for doing costly things such as going out at night to an expensive restaurant, or bar, or club, is completely taken care of when i simply have to go to work. i get free food, free drinks, i laugh. god, i laughed a lot last night. i meet people. and then i dance when everyone starts going on the dance floor to the incredibly loud and tempting indian music.

i express my extreme horror at artwork they put in there for an art show that doesn't go with the ambience at all, and the other employees attempt to "hold me back" from the artist when he shows up as i try and determine whether this painting is of a cow, a bull, a unicorn, or a horse, or perhaps a combination of them all. then i realize that since the animal has a gaping hole in the middle of its body where there is a landscape and clouds inside, it doesn't really matter - it's god awful. and then i go home with money and feel like i went out to baltimore for the night and had a great time.

i somehow came into money two days ago. zeeba finally paid me a hefty check when i went in there before going to work at red maple and confronted kris about it. he wrote me a check on the spot with a "no problem!" wave of the hand and a, "i won't even take out any taxes!" i.e. "please don't cause a scene because i haven't paid you in over two months and never had any intention of doing so."

then i made $52 an hour at red maple in 5 and a half hours (yes i averaged my tips into an hourly wage, and no, we're not hiring, go away), and that was pretty cool. and during the day i did a book promotion with shawn at the national book festival in d.c. for four hours which gave us some decent money.

but it was great because what i *really* got to do was watch the anti-war march and feel the energy and look at all the cool signs. our favorite was held by an adorable elderly man: "proud of my son [insert big picture of son's face]. ashamed of this war."

shawn and i moved into our new place this weekend. to put it mildly, it was hell. ask brandy for details, as she kindly listens to me complain in the office.

the place itself is nice. brand new carpeting, massive space, two bedrooms, etc. but, there are bugs. i came home from work saturday night at 2am, turned on the kitchen light, and they all went running. i grabbed a paper towel and killed them all, and left the dead bodies there all kill-bill style, all TELL YOUR BRETHREN TO LEAVE HERE style.

i don't think it worked.

---

on work, i love it. red maple on charles street in baltimore. i get dressed to go there and i feel like i'm getting dressed up to go out. i'm there and i have a great time. i work two days a week, i make a lot of money, and when i don't, i enjoy myself so much that i don't even care.

a new girl started bartending the other week, and my co-worker chris was telling her to turn the candles so the labels face in. so, the rules = it's fine if we get wasted at work, but don't let anybody see the labels on the candles.

---

i need an intellectual partner. someone to come with me and go back and forth with me about random stuff in coffee shops. i need stimulation, because i'm doing it myself lately and that makes me feel solidified.

---

i think about romantic relationships in terms of self-preservation way too often.

so, i realized that zeeba owed me money a long time ago. and i let it go, pretty much, just occasionally calling my ex-manager (not tamer, who doesn't work there anymore, but the one kris, who i never ever saw and who now has all tamer's stuff/info/work hours of the employees). left kris just two messages over a three-week period, saying that could he call me and can i pick up my check and does he have it, blahblah. never picked up his phone, never called me back.

well today i decided to do my own calculations and figure out just how much money zeeba owes me.

$505 dollars.

and woah, let me just tell you that if there's one skill i've learned from my mother, it is harrassment via phone calls. i will be calling zeeba every single fucking night until they give me my money, and they will learn to not withhold over $500 from the daughter of kathleen segreti ever, ever again.