Thursday, March 9, 2000

This was not a good morning. I went to shower only to find myself so dizzy I had to sit on the floor of the stall to keep from falling down. (In retrospect, this was probably not a good idea considering what those stalls do to one's feet; I'll most likely have a strange rash on my ass in a few days.)

Needless to say, if I couldn't stay vertical in the shower, I wasn't going to do so hot on air at WAIH in the morning. I called the station manager to say I wouldn't be gracing the morning show airwaves with my voice. Then I went back to bed, setting my alarm clock for 10:00AM, in the hopes that I would feel good enough to go to work by 11:30.

The sleep cured whatever gripped me, and I put in one and a half more hours of minimum wage labor. After finishing my job for the day, I ended up going back to sleep. This caused me to miss both of classes today.

Of course, I would have missed Problem Solving anyhow. I got an email from the professor in that class telling me that I hadn't gone for weeks and also that I had missed the test. Wasn't the early alert enough? I've already chosen to fail, I know I'm failing, let me fail in peace.

It was funny, the email, because I was told that if I didn't withdraw from the class and continued to skip it, the professor would be forced to give me a 0.0. The grade would, "make neither you or I happy." Snippy fuck that I am, I felt like replying, "My happiness does not depend upon the grades I earn in classes I don't care about." The fact is, since I don't care about the class a 0.0 in it will not crush my little world. All I can say about my professor's happiness is, "deal with it. Life is full of disappointments, and in your class I'm going to be one of them."

Thursday night is open mic night at Hurley's. It's the night several others and I live for. People come to Hurley's Thursday nights to listen to their friends play music, hang out, converse and drink mediocre coffee. Open mic isn't just a weekly event; it's a gathering of the coffeehouse faithful.

I walked into Hurley's a little after 7:00 in the evening, like I always do. The headliner was on stage just getting started. I stored my keyboard and stand in a safe place and grabbed myself a couch in the back where I could watch unnoticed.

I sat listening to the headliner for a while. My friend from Vassar came in about halfway through the performance and we ended up shooting the shit most of the night. The Silent One also showed up for open mic tonight - the first time this semester. She sat on a couch nearby my friend and I.

I was the third person to perform, counting the headliner. I was midway through one of my older songs, "I See Nothing," when someone walked in and sat down at one of the tables in the middle of the room. I found myself starring straight at Goth #2 as I sang the lines, "I look for you, but I see nothing...there's nothing to be seen...I look to you, but I see nothing...how could you have been so mean?" A thick storm cloud of irony rolled in above my head.

I moved onto cover songs. My first was "Some Kind Of Stranger" by The Sisters Of Mercy. I have played this song at least 20 times at Hurley's, never making a mistake in it. The first time that Goth #2 actually comes to Hurley's and is finally there when I'm playing, I fuck up a couple of chords in the beginning of the song. Frustrated with myself for being distracted by her presence and angry with myself for still having some sort of feeling for her, I somehow managed to pull my shit together and play the rest of the song without incident.

I followed up "Some Kind Of Stranger" with another song by The Sisters Of Mercy: "Something Fast." No problems there. Sensing that the downbeat nature of my set list was depressing the audience, I finished with "American Music," by The Violent Femmes.

I got off the stage and Goth #2 ignored me. I asked her what she thought of my performance. She said that it was nice and resumed ignoring me. It would be really nice to be the one crushing people's hearts all the time, rather than have mine being the one constantly put through the shredder.

I need to forget about her. The thing is, whenever I try to get away from her and just go on with my life, that is when she starts appearing just randomly. It's very strange and a bit disturbing. I think the cosmos is fucking laughing at me again: "Look at his pain! Hahahahaha!"

I settled back in the couch with my friend from Vassar and we watched the other performers, while drinking coffee and chatting. He, The Tall Guy and I plan on going to Canada tomorrow. Vassar Guy wants to get us totally shit-faced. I'd like to just go to a club and hang out. Maybe I'll get a little drunk - I may just be able to kill the brain cells that remember Goth #2.

The night grew later. I sat next to The Silent One for a little while. She still barely talks. If I ever meet another person as laconic as her, I'll be quite shocked. When open mic finished up, she hugged me goodbye. Vassar Guy had commented to me that she had been glancing in my direction most of the night. I guess there's some significance in those things.