"What's your sign?"

"Uh, I'm a --"

"NO! No, I bet I can guess."

"O... kay."

"You're a Vvvvir ...librageminitaurrrrrrutariussss ... icorn … io...?"

"Scorpio."

"I KNEW IT! I knew it. I could see it in your eyes. You're VERY intense. Scorpios can see things, am I right? You see people. With your eyes."

"That's true. I see several people right now, in fact. With my eyes."

"I totally knew it. What's your rising sign?"

"No idea."

"I bet it's Virgo. You're totally a Scorpio Virgo rising with a Geminicular Saturn hippypie starburst.
Under goddess."

"Shut up."

"Moonbeam!"

I have a mild interest in astrology, but don’t get all Miss Cleo and try to explain the world based on the dawning of the age of Aquarius. And it’s probably best to avoid playing psychic when you’re so drunk that your third eye is seeing double.

Later in the evening, I was talking to some friends, and my drunk Psychic Friend busted into the conversation, grabbed me by the arm, and yelled, "This girl. I LOVE this girl!" Then she went inside, grabbed anther drink, hiked her short black dress up around her hips, and started gyrating her booty like a fly girl with rheumatoid arthritis.

So I backed away from her and went to a different part of the house, where some friends were passing a joint while one woman yammered about the importance of Following Your Bliss and Being in Your Joy. Oh, Jesus. I’m studying a Creative Arts Therapy field at a superhippy school in San Francisco. I hear a lot of chakra talk on a daily basis. Please pardon me if while at a party, I make myself a margarita instead of listening to your new agey self-help stuff about Being in the Light and Supersucking the Misery from Your Soul and Subverting the Dominant Paradigm.

I love San Francisco.

Walking from the office to school one day, I walked by a young man who composed a couplet for me after I passed:

Twitchin’ an’ twatchin’
You know I’m watchin’!

Disregarding the Yuck Factor, it cracked me up. Because … What the hell is “twatchin’”?

How the fuck should it be spelled? Twatch looks like it should rhyme with hatch, when, in fact, it rhymes with taught. But “twaughtchin’” has way too many goddamned syllables for a made-up word, so twatchin’ it is.

Similarly, I often wonder whether the plural for “hard on” is “hard ons” or “hards on.” That’s why I stick with “boner.”

Further along that street down which I apparently twatch, two men pace the sidewalk wearing sandwich boards bearing a passage from The Book of Revelations. The passage begins “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, that hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” I don’t remember the rest of the passage, but it details ways in which sinners and fornicators will pay for their wrongs, and bring to destruction their great city. Blah, blah, blah.

The interesting thing about the Sandwich Board Posse is how unassuming they are. They walk up and down the street, hands in their pockets, taking periodic breaks to talk quietly to one another, probably about something as mundane as what they’re having for lunch. They stand there with their message emblazoned on their plywood aprons, and silently judge the same people who silently judge them, in return.

They don’t offend me. They’re part of the fixtures of Market Street. There’s the Gap. There’s the hot dog vendor. There’s the Maniacally Religious Sandwich Board Posse.

I’m much more annoyed by the fucking representatives from the Save the Children Foundation and Greenpeace. I hate those fuckers.

The kids employed by these organizations have good intentions, and were probably hired due to their wide-eyed need for a cause, and because their desperation for a job coincided happily with the fact that Save the Children and Greenpeace will hire absolutely anybody. The employees are usually young, pseudo-hippie cutiepies trained to recognize other pseudo-hippie cutiepies as being One of Their Own.

So, in the spirit of labeling, I’ll admit that I’m a bit sloppy indie rock with a side of granola. Needless to say, these causey youngsters feed on me.

You have to admire their guilt-inducing hook lines. When some kid stops you on the street and begins a dialogue with “Do you care about the environment,” nobody wants to say “No.” Likewise with “Do you care about impoverished children in underdeveloped countries?”

In response, I either make funny noises, or say “Yes, I care about children, but I’m not in the market to buy one today.” In the case of the Greenpeacers, they usually let me pass if I make apparent my lack of concern for the environment by lighting up a cigarette.

The other day, I was coming out of my office building, when a cute punk kid with bright blue hair approached me, grabbed my hand, pulled me to him, and began flirtatiously lobbying in support of starving children in Sweatshop, Afghanistan. Or whatever.

”How are you today, Miss?”
“Fine. Just getting my lunch, and then I have to go back to the office.”
“You’ve heard of the Save the Children Foundation?”
“Yes, and I’m not interested in donating in anything today.”
“Aw, come on. Don’t you care about children?”
”Of course. Um, I have to get back to work soon.”
“YOU WANT TO SPONSOR A CHILD!!???”
“BLAARRGH!”

And he let me go.

Of course, I wish them luck. Those jobs must suck, and as unsupportive as my actions are, it is a good cause.

Still. Leave me alone.

I’m getting bitchy. Honestly, I could use a hug. Poor, poor me. I have homework! My life is hard!

As I think I’ve explained, my roommate Chuck and I have established a sibling dynamic. He is a bossy know-it-all, and I am a spazzy retard. Thus, we enjoy hours of antagonizing one another. I do something careless, he tells me to SLOW DOWN or BE CAREFUL, or he stops me mid-action to tell me the correct, Chuck way to do something. I roll my eyes and make fun of him. We enjoy this.

It’s funniest when Chuck attempts to use the Socratic Method in calling me on my spazziness. Example:

“Kelly! What are you DOING?”
“Why, Chuck, I’m balancing this bucket of sulphuric acid on my head!”
“Sulphuric acid?”
“Yup!”
“You know what that does when it touches your skin?”
“It eats through flesh and makes me die!”
“Right.”
“Chuck? Are you saying I shouldn’t be balancing a bucketful of acid on my head?”
“I’m not telling you what to do.”
“Good. Because this is always how I’ve done it, and I haven’t died, once.”
“Kelly, PLEASE.”
“Does this bother you, Chuck?”
“Do what you want.”
“Because if it bothers you, you can tell me. In your own words. Tell me, ‘Kelly, it makes me nervous when you balance bucketfuls of sulphuric acid on your head.”
“Do what you want.”
“I fucking hate you.”

Of course, then I take the bucket off my head, because, God bless him, the fucking bastard’s usually right. To my own credit, I haven’t died yet. I do things The Chuck Way when he's around, to put his mind at ease. When left to my own devices, I'm just fine.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Ratso Rizzo - 11.11.05

Chunks - 11.06.05

Treasure Hunts, and Why I Have "Psychic Tony" Programmed into My Cell Phone - 10.24.05

The Lights Are Much Brighter There - 10.10.05

Concert in the Park - 10.03.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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