Saturday, June 24, 2006

I'm boned

I think I might have broken my foot last weekend when I was in Philadelphia. Well, maybe more fractured than out and out broken as I have been able to walk on it all week. Not a serious fracture, but still, it hurts and isn't completely symetrical with the other foot (there is a bump on the left foot - the potentially fractured foot - that isn't on the right) and the bruise isn't healing as fast as I would like.

Thing is, I have no health insurance, I don't work enough hours at Starbucks to get it through them, and I can't afford it on my own. So I have to try and find a free clinic or something much cheaper than a regular doctor. My mom suggested just going to the emergency room.

My response (sarcastically): Yeah, because the emergency room doesn't charge a tremendous amount of money.

Her: Then what to people without medical insurance do when they go to the emergency room?

Me: They go into debt, which is why many people don't go to the doctor, they pay their rent and buy food instead.

Her: Oh.

So here I am about to try and find a free clinic or something that I can go to, because I don't want my foot to be screwed up for the rest of my life. And if I have to go to a regular doctor (not that I'm not saying free clinic doctors aren't real, because they are), I will. It's just that I probably won't be able to afford going to a doctor and getting all the x-rays and casts and everything, and then fly out to Winnipeg for the wedding I plan on going to.

So either way, I'm boned.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Shhh... I'm hunting Wabits

Brooklyn, for reasons beyond my understanding, remains a very romantacized borough in my head. Queens was never that mysterious, and Manahattan - though intimidating - never had that same romantic quality. Which is not to say there is no romance in Manahattan, there is plenty of romance about the isle; just not the same type of romance found to my south. Staten Island is plain and seems very suburban, while The Bronx holds no appeal to me what so ever. It's all about Brooklyn.

When I think of Brooklyn I can't help but picture every last Jewish New York story. In my mind they all occur in Brooklyn. And it's always the 1930's or 40's. This is partly due to Woody Allen and Martin Scorcese, but mostly due to listening to all my grandparents stories, and the stories of all the old men and women in my father's synogogue, hearing them regail about their youth in that particular boro. It reeks of the immigrant experience so much more so than the other boroughs, and as such, has a romanticized appeal. I can't really explain it.

Which is why I was so overwhehlmed yesterday walking on the Coney Island Boardwalk, then catching a Coney Island Cyclones game. Coney Island - the place where all our grandfathers took all our grandmothers (and potential grandmothers) out on dates; to ride the rides, see the sites, smell the ocean. The cyclone roller coster, or the wonder wheel ferris wheel, or the parachute jump whose name I don't know, and which has since closed down.

My foot still hurts, but I forced myself to walk around as much as I could, as if I was in some sort of magic wonderland rather than a mildly delapidated urban beach. The smell of the Original Nathan's hotdog stand (established 1916 - and if you've ever been to NY you know what Nathan's is) wafted through the salty air, causing me to desire to break my vegitarian habits and wolf down a hotdog with everything on it (well maybe not sourkraut).

I wish I could say that the Baseball game was exciting, but the Cyclones are a horrible, horrible team this year. They lost their first game to the the Staten Island Yankees 18-0, and last night lost again 5-2. So I guess they are at least going in the right direction. The park, however, was gorgeous, small, maybe 9000 seats, and not a single bad one in the house. We sat about seventeen rows up a little past first base but not quite yet right field. I really wish I was a better writer and could describe the experience in it's fullest and romanticized glory, but really I just had a good time.

Oh yeah, the reason for this posts title check this out.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

I can't come up with good title

It's very sunny outside. It's sunny outside and I'm having a panic attack.

This morning was uneventful.

I ordered "the skeleton key" on HBO on demand. It wasn't very good.

It's sunny outside and I have to go to work in about a half hour.

I walked to the library. I need reading material for the ride down to Philadelphia this weekend. I walked because it's just that nice outside. It's really very nice.

I'm wearing new jeans that I think might be girl jeans due to the way the bottom of the legs are all frayed. They are only frayed in the front around the cuffs, not the back. It bothers me that pants now come pre-frayed, but that's not why I'm having a panic attack. It's just a little thing.

But it's sunny outside and as the pants fit pretty well, I'm not going to really worry as to whether they are girl jeans or not (I'm pretty sure not as they are maked 30 x 30 and not in some girl size). Soon I'm going to have to change my pants because I have to go to work and jeans are not allowed at Starbucks.

On the way home from the library, under the bright, bright sun, I had to sit down on the curb just to keep from hyperventilating.

I'm not an emotional guy, unless you count awkward as an emotion, then I'd be incredibly emotional. Really though I'm more dead pan. Not that I don't have emotions, I just don't really show them, doubly so when I'm uncomfortable and awkward (i.e the majority of my life).

I haven't been sleeping well all week. Lots of weird dreams. Most of them involve me running away or hurting people I love then crying about it, but that sounds lame and I'm not going to get into it.

I threw my back out on Sunday helping to clean out the garage (that's not a dream, it happened, though I wish it was only a dream). Apparently six encyclopidia judaicas are heavy and you shouldn't try to lift them all at once, especially not with your back. I learned that the hard way.

On Monday none of the other interns showed up at work and I was swamped. And my back hurt. But that really has nothing to do with the panic attack.

I opened on Tuesday, it's a pain, but not really a big deal.

Wenesday was fine.

Today it's sunny outside. It's been cloudy or rainy all week long and now it's sunny out. It's kinda cheesy really, but that has only a little to do with the panic attack.

Today, not so long ago, J_ called and asked if she could meet me outside. I brushed my teeth, changed out of my pajama's, turned off The Skeleton Key (I missed the last five minutes) put on some deoderant and walked out onto the front stoop.

J_, in my book is always adorable, and today was no exception.

Anyway, I've known for a little while that there is some guy out there with whom J_ is infatuated. She's mentioned said guy in the past but never who he was. Today I found out.

Today, under the bright sun, on my front stoop I found out it was me.

Her lips quivered and she did her best (and over all succeeded) to choke back emotion, as I sat her down.

"The thing is," I said, "I like you too. A lot. A lot a lot." I said in almost a complete deadpan. "But...." And I paused because I had no idea what to say next. Should I ask her out, should I leave it be? I'm eight years older than her. She just graduated high school last week.

"It's OK, you can say it, I'm a trooper." She said (and here is were she almost didn't succeed in choking back her emotion, but she is as she says, a trooper). And that was when my heart broke. I never before in my entire life wanted to grab onto someone and never let go like I did at that moment.

"You don't even know what I'm going to say." I said. She smiled, very encouraging. "But..." I continued still deadpan (damn I'm a jackass), "it doesn't freak you out I'm that much older than you, or that anything we might have has an experation date when you go off to college in the end of the summer?" Because those were the big concerns floating around in my head, two of the biggest reasons (the first more than the second) that I hadn't said or done anything before (also I'm a coward).

Apparently these were only my issues.

So I asked her out. And she said yes. And then I kissed her. And then she had to go because she was having lunch with freinds, and I had to go to the bank and the library, and buy a gift for my freind, all before I start work (in 12 minutes - I'm going to be late). So I'm calling her on Monday to arrange said date.

First I think I was a bit too forward with the kiss, and that's the first issue. The second, I'm eight years older than her and I feel like a skeeze. If I wasn't me I'd be making fun of me behind my back. It just seems wrong. So on my way back from the library I had to sit down because I was having a panic attack. Literally, I was hyperventilating and freaking out.

I finally got home, and called my freind Charlie, who helped talk me down. Charlie is possibly the coolest ever. "Well the fact that you feel so weird about it all is proof you aren't a skeeze." She said.

"Yeah, but what about when I stop feeling weird about it?"

And she laughed and didn't have an answer, which was cool, because I didn't call to get an answer and she knew t hat. Charlie is just cool that way, and I felt better after I hung up.

Then I wrote this post.

And now, still freaking out (but no longer in a panic attack), I have to change and run to work, and I wonder (as J_ and I work together) how much of this do my fellow co-workers know?

And I freak out all over again.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Because Rawbean asked

From August 25th until the 27th I shall be in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I have a wedding to attend (and I really should RVSP) on the 27th and I'm awfully excited.

And for any other stalkers who need to be updated as to my plans, I shall be in Phillidelphia from June 16th until the 18th for a bachelor weekend for the groom of the aforementioned wedding up in Canada.

Philly is all set, there's about five of us all crashing at a freinds place.

Canada is a entirely different sotry. I need to find cheap airfare to and then cheap accomidations while in the frozen north. I'm still waiting for the day when instant teleportation is both technologically viable and cheap enough for the public to use. That and flying cars. Man, that would be sweet.

Things to do before the wedding: find a good dry cleaners for my suit, get my shoes shined, and maybe buy a nice new shirt and tie. Also find out where they are registered (dear god please somewhere that has an outlet in Northeast USA) and buy a wedding present. But I still have plenty of time (said the hare right before he took a nap in the middle of the race).