February 10, 1998

2/10/98 -- Went down to Borders and Barnes N' Noble and dropped off my applications today. Kind of a waste of a $1.00 bus fare, but what else was I gonna do? The CLICC network was down. Now I'm back in my home-away-from home. I'm afraid someday I'll come in here and one of the front desk goobers will say, "Hey dork, you're in here too much. Go home. No, you can't come back." But I digress. I'd probably rather work at Borders than Barnes N' Noble because the dress code at Borders is evidently a little less rigid. All the guys at Barnes N' Noble gotta wear ties. I don't own a tie. At Borders, they dress like, well, like me. Plus Borders has a music section so I can get discounts towards my purchases of Yanni CDs.
     Ran into Maya today in Westwood. Forgot to give her my new digits or my new e-mail address. Has nothing to do with the money I owe her. Really. She even has a birthday present to give me. Maybe it's money...yeah, cash flow is low. Yesterday I bought 15 packs of really cheap Maruchan ramen for 22 cents apiece, rather than go with the more expensive but much more satisfying 89 cent Shinyun ramyun. Also bought that Thai hot sauce and some spaghetti and Ragu, instead of rigatoni and that good expensive sauce with mushrooms and basil and roast duck and shit. Oh, and cheap burritos, of course. Let's see, I'll have no fruits or vegetables, and my only protein will be from the burritos. Lots of fat though! Wonder if I'll get the scurvy? Not like my teeth need any more problems.
     What a stupid statement. Who needs problems? Oh, I do! English is weird. Oops, I'm sorry, American is weird. Only stupid limeys speak English.
     Had a weird experience today (as opposed to those normal ones) -- I'm walking up Bruin Walk to the library, when I see this girl walking down towards me, talking to her friend. I look at her, and she's pretty damn cute, but then, she seemed familiar. I looked away because I didn't want it to seem like I was staring, and then looked right back at her. Not only did she still seem familiar, but when I looked back, she was looking at me, like she recognized me! Now all this is strange because there aren't too many cute women that I know...well, anywhere. Certainly not anymore at UCLA, which is a cute woman academy. So I look back, and then it dawns on me that it's Janice, Brian's girlfriend. Brian's this really tall guy who is buddies with Albutt. So she says "Hi", I say "Hi", she asks how I'm doing, I say "Pretty good (my standard response), and I keep walking. Damnit, how come all the cute girls I know are all taken or not interested? Fucking A.
     I go so out of my way to avoid bums. If I see one way up the street, I'll make plans on how to avoid him, inconspicuously if I can. I'll do something not-so-crafty, like look at my watch and remember I have somewhere else to be. I dunno why, I guess like most people I don't like being hassled for money. But also I guess I don't like being reminded of how life sucks so bad for some people. Making eye contact and smiling at them depresses me, but it also scares me because I get scared they might want to talk to me. I'm not scared of talking to bums, per se -- I talked to one the other day. I'm just scared of talking to strangers. I always think it's weird if a stranger wants to talk to me. Well, more to the point, I think they're weird. And with bums, some of them really are weird -- they spend most of the time talking to themselves about God knows what. Much to people's dismay, I'll actually give bums money.   I know you're not supposed to, because they'll spend it on drugs or booze or whatever, but hell, so do I. And they need to buy food, even if they are junkies or crazy. So I'll give em' money. I just don't want to talk. Hell, I'll give any stranger money so they won't talk to me. Unless they're really cute. Then I won't know what to say and I'll feel like shooting myself. Then I'll tell Ray how some really cute girl talked to me and I didn't know what to say and he'll yell "HAOLE!   That's your chance, man!" Then I'll hit my head and moan out of frustuation of my macking ineptitude.
     Another weird CLICC lab coincidence -- remember how yesterday was Korean fobby-person day? Well, just as I was typing the above paragraph, this strange girl next to me asked why screen was flashing when I typed (it has to do with Composer and typing in Garamond). I mumbled something about Garamond and wished she went away. Well, she went back to whatever she was doing, which is almost as good. No, I don't think she's cute. Yes, I'm a pig. I just hide it better in public.
     People are strange, when you're a stranger...