I just got back from Thanksgiving break. Well, not just, but about five hours ago. I invited both Angie and Yaou, both chinese women ( fellow Ringling students) to come along with me. Yaou bailed out on the plans at the last minute. I could tell she was nervous to do so, but as a fellow flake, I understood, and we moved on. So it was back to just Angie and I after that, and we took off to visit my grandmother's house in Vero Beach. The college has become very demanding as it goes towards the end of the semester. There's a kid right now as I type, flooding the bathroom, it's bothering me. He's showering, fuck, I'm going to go back in there and check if he fixed the problem..
.. alright, yeah, goddam kid, fuck. I told him that his shower was leaking, knocked on his stall, told him. He turned off the shower and said, "oh, okay". I said, "alright", then began heading out the bathroom, and I heard the shower turn back on. So he'd disregarded what I said, then I came into this room to write, and got all heated, and went back. And lo and behold the water had gone from the shower out into the hallway, and was making a larger pool on the carpet, and he's in there still 'showering', which a shower doesn't take much we all know. What a fucking idiot. So I knock on his stall again, "hey buddy! Your water leak has now extended into the hallway. You should change stalls, or get out." And he masked his voice when he replied, in a lower tone, like trying to sound more 'manly'. "Oh, yeah, oh, okay."
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah."
"Have you become drunk?"
"No. Cold"
I let the silence hang..
"Oh, yeah, yeah I see what the problem is. The drain isn't draining. I took the cover off, and it's clogged."
"Im going to call maintenance to let them know about the water on the floor, and then I'm going to bed."
"Alright", he said in his masked voice. What a coward. I know who it is too, he rooms across from me, and After I placed the call to maintenance and came to bed, I heard that door open and close as he slithered in before the maintenance crew could see him, but certainly after I had gone into my room. School wouldn't be so hard if the students had been raised right. What makes school nearly unbearable is cowards like this. I digress.
I'm twetny-six, which feels silly sometimes. I love to work, and there's not much harder work than this illustration program, if done right (fat). I sometimes (often, and since I was about fifteen) felt like I was rotting, spoiling. A lingering lack of application, that makes me feel useless. I really hate it here. Sometimes, I get to working, and I have a good day, but it's like some big simulator, and having a great day within a simulation is downright depressing. It was cool to see family. Just my parents, and surviving grandparents were present, along with me and Angie, it was perfect- no kids, no racist uncles, just old people and us. It was very manageable, and a respectful environment- we could even talk about politics together. I'm reading some Nietzsche, from his 'book' Will to Power. It's interesting, and is helping me to see more pragmatically. It's hard to sound smart beyond saying that I'm reading it so I'll move along. I had a most wonderful time with Angie. I became very nervous about the trip just before we took off. I told her I was nervous- she guessed. Before we got in the car (she'd gotten in, then I, then I asked that we get out and talk about the trip), I smoked a cigarette, and I asked. "Okay, so Vero is three hours east, straight shot. We'll get a hotel when we get there. Would you like your own room, or one room for both of us? Or two beds or one big bed?" She kind-of said "I mean, whichever." "Um, okay. Alright. So probably one room. So, what if I walk around in my underwear?" "That's fine." "Nudity?" "Whatever." "Alright, okay." And so we went, and a minute in she asked if I was nervous, and I said yes, really nervous, and she asked about what, and I said I don't know, I guess expectation, and family, and I guess I don't want to be a creep, and we moved on to some other topic, all smoothly and without awkwardness. When we pulled into town, and I'd thought I would look for a hotel somewhere comparing and such, we came to a 'Knight's Inn', and Angie said, "That one.", and it was perfect, problem solved- we knew where we were staying. The hotel room was nice, nothing to it. We watched some television. I got down to my underwear after a shower, and spent a little time laying out atop the covers until I felt e'r more naked, and put on some shorts. It's hard to say what Angie was doing, not much of anything- simple things- reading on her laptop, changing the channel. We'd read for a long time in silence beside each other for a long time me Nietzsche and her some thing on her computer. Everything felt very natural. I was really loving our time together- nothing to it. She did the cute thing of falling asleep all-the sudden, and I turned off the tv and looked up at the ceiling a bit, and concentrated and went into my pre-sleep routine (in which, on my back I nod-off, having a vivid dream that climaxes somehow, rendering me awake again, as if my body is saying 'no-no, it's not safe to sleep on the back, though you're tired, it's time now to roll over', and I roll over onto my still flat-ish belly and take the large portion of sleep for the night). We woke late, around eleven. We hadn't touched in the night, we kept our distinct sides of the bed, as that's how we sleep. We talked a bit in the morning. She went into the shower, and I walked down the street a bit to get two black coffees and two hash-browns from McDonald's. When I came back, I think she was already dressed, and if not, it was not a song-and-a-dance of a dressing, and we sipped our coffees and she read on her computer, and she'd suggested I maintain my instagram, so I sat nearby her and went through people that I follow and deleted more than two thirds of 'em, until I was done, and it was nearly time for Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's house, so we drove there. The food was perfect. Home cooking, the choicest dishes. Conversation got off to a pleasantly slow start, and devolved into what we'd heard on our respective news shows, and suspicions about what the future holds and what the government does. Angie sat quietly, and when asked gave a most appropriate answer as to what we were discussing, noting the eddying effect of media, which aims to make capital off its consumers. She really swept the whole board on that one, and that's about all that needed to be said. She was received well, and then the others mostly went back to talking about their suspicions, because they're old and idly talking helps pass the time. A cousin was coming over it was announced after considerable time digesting and talking and going through photos of my sister's first baby, and she would bring her two kids. This was like a fuse lit, and Angie and I made our exit as to not have to make introductions, or deal with kids. We drove to the hotel to change clothes, and to grab alcohol, and then we drove to the beach, where we found a dark spot by the grasses, and looked out at the sea and each drank a bottled beer. I lit a cigarette, and we passed my jacket back and forth between us in intervals. The beers became drank, and we got up and Angie went to use the bathroom in some restaurant, and I asked if she wanted a beer and she said yes, so I got a beer and we rendezvoused outside to drink it, and I chain smoked and told her about a handful of times I'd turned gay for a bit. We had a good time, and I got another beer for us to share, then we drove back to the motel. I got naked at the motel and slid under the sheets. I said "I'm naked." and she said with a tone, "Oh boy.", and that's all that came of that. Iput some shorts on. She turned on some movie called Mr. Nobody, and we watched the whole thing. At some point in the movie I got out my drawing pad, and we passed it back and forth on a collaborative drawing. We went to sleep at some point. My father planned to plant a mango tree in Eula's yard, because there was a perfect space for one, and I'd said that I'd meet him up in the morning when he called me, but lo come morning, I was very tired, and set him a text saying so, and he planted it himself. I didn't know whether to wake Angie or not, as it approached ten, then ten-thirty. I placed a hand on her shoulder and gave a rub- nothing. Then a small arm rub, nothing, then little kisses on her hand, which wrapped around her shoulder as she faced away from me, sleeping- still nothing. I said, "Hello Angie, hello.", and with that she came to. I was so excited to see her. I got on top of her, and rolled with her across the bed, and we had a quick laugh, then knowing how late it was, got out of the room in quick time and drove to my Grandma's house. The tree my dad had planted looked very nice in it's spot. My dad was in a hurry because he'd been up since six and he was ready to get moving off to Blue Cypress Lake, our day-trip-adventure. So Grammy and Donna in one car, my parents in another, and Angie and I in this red rental car I'd got for the weekend took of to see the big lake and after thirty minutes, we arrived at the old fish camp and a little inlet of the lake. We walked around the fish camp for a little bit, not much to see, and told stories, and chatted up the bait-shoppe owner, and took some pictures, and took some cool breeze air under a big cyprus tree, then said our goodbye's to one another, then they drove off, and Angie and I agreed to go chat up this couple that the shoppe owner told us about- this couple who was road-tripping from California together, she a painter, and he a writer. Angie and I drove our little rental car across this little land-bridge archipelago thing and met the couple. They were friendly for being hassled by a couple looky-lou kids, and as it turns out she was a painter akin to those of (or maybe featured in) Juxtapose Magazine. She showed us this oil painting she was working on. It looked like Mark Ryden's work, but I didn't say so (I didn't know his name off the top of my head at the time anyway, but her style and technique was familiar somehow). I tried to play the name game for a little bit, but we didn't come up with any mutual friends. She was making the painting for a show in Murykami's space in Japan, and she handed Angie and I a bookmark with her website on it. I looked up her instagram and followed her. She had twenty-five-thousand followers! We didn't hear much from her writer husband, and afterwards used our imaginations to discuss (make up) a narrative for him that worked with his wife. Angie and I drove back to Sarasota, in very agreeable circumstances. Upon our return, we went to a mall, which I'd not yet been to. It was fun making commentary on corporate consumption and such. I think Angie gets my sense of humor very nicely. I took a couple markers for us from an 'art' store, and gifted her one. We went into a 'pet' store and visited with a cat that Angie really wanted. We moved on and went into the big main mall, where we got a pretzel after exploring perfumes and colognes, which bored the snot out of me. We made it out having spent under four dollars, and a couple hours. Somewhere in there, I realized we were in the middle of 'black Friday'. We made it back to school in time to eat dinner at our cafeteria, and meet again with friends to discuss our respective little holidays. I walked Angie back to her apartment, she carrying her things, and said goodnight. She thanked me for taking her on the trip and I told her she was welcome.
