Here it is. The entire month of December for the year 2000. Don't you just feel like a part of my life? Doesn't it make you all warm & fuzzy inside to know that I'm sharing a part of myself with you? I know it does. Read on, starting from the bottom.
December 9th, 2000: So, my first quarter at OSU has come to an end FINALLY, so to commemorate the occasion, I called my supervisor at COSI to talk about when I will be working over Christmas break. Ted told me that I'm not on the schedule yet and asked when I was available. I told him that I'll be in Florida from the 13th until the 23rd but that I can work until the 11th and from the 26th to the 29th. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "Well, what do things look like for next quarter?" When I told him that they would be about the same as this quarter, me only being available at night for afterhours events, he said, "Katie, this is very unsatisfactory." I told him, "There's really nothing I can do about it. I have class all day. I'm a full-time student. You knew that I would be when you hired me." He replied, "You're not making yourself very available to us. I can't afford to keep you on the payroll if you can't ever work. I've got ten other people who can work the exact same hours that you can." I was totally astonished that he would even insinuate that he could just get rid of me like that. I spent nearly my entire summer at COSI, never asking for a day off, putting up with Ted and his wall-staring. (I'm actually enjoying the wall-staring now, though. I'm trying to figure out if Ted will see me out the of the corner of his wall-fixated eye if I mouth weird things to him.) It's totally like me to say something horribly sarcastic just to see how ready Ted really was to fire me, and it's not like I need the money or anything, but I love COSI way too much to throw it and all of my COSI relationships away. So, when Ted said, "You won't give us weekends or days, and I don't you at night as much," I broke in and said, "I can work weekends sometimes." Ted stopped his babbling and said, "Well, now, Katie. That's VERY satisfactory." I totally wanted to reach through the phone and slap him, because I know how proud of himself he was for forcing me to give him what he wanted. (Whoa, that totally sounds rape-like, doesn't it?) He then told me that he wanted to make sure that he had my available days straight, so he said, "Okay, you'll be here from the 13th to the 23rd and the 26th to the 29th?" I told him that the 13th through the 23rd are actually the days that I'll be gone, and he said, "Oh, that's right. You'll be gone that entire time." Then, he asked why I'm not willing to work on the 30th, and I told him that actually, there wasn't a real reason, just that I wanted to rest up before school started back up. But he coaxed me into giving it to him, too. I don't understand myself. I'm so taken advantage of. But I just sucked it up and listened as Ted told me when he would be needing me, thanked him for being such a doggoned great guy, and went back to my little OSU world.
I moved out of my dorm yesterday morning. It was so fun throwing what took me eight separate trips from home to OSU all into my car as a single trip back home. I had to be moved out by two yesterday afternoon, but I also had to work until six, so I just threw everything into the car at 8 A.M. and went to work from there. Theatres didn't have too many people coming in to work, so Ted had told me over the phone that I would be helping them out for the day. I arrived at nine as scheduled and went upstairs to the Theatres break room to find out what my duties for the day would be. When I walked in, the only person in there was the Theatres supervisor, Patricia, who was putting a cassette in her tape player. She welcomed me back from my month and a half break from COSI and told me that she thought I had died. Patricia asked me how I had been, I told her that I was fabulous, and I asked her how she was. She said, "Blessed by God. Very blessed." I just accepted that, because after all, Patricia IS the same woman who answers her phone by saying, "Praise the Lord." Crazy. She turned her tape on, and as expected, it was a gospel choir, most likely her church's. After this, I sat down and took a special interest in my fingernails as she went back to her office to do some work. When her tape ended (oh, the sadness, the sorrow), Patricia came back out the break room to switch it. The door to the room opened, but a set of lockers was blocking my view of the door, so I just continued to file my nails with content. Patricia said, "Hi, Mike." Now, I knew that one of the Mikes wasn't going to be there yesterday, because I had talked to him the night before, but somehow, when Patricia said hello to the person, I just assumed that it was the same Mike. But it wasn't. He came around the corner of the lockers and was totally surprised to see me, from what I gathered. He and Patricia made small talk while he grabbed some of his things and I kept filing. When their conversation was exhausted, Patricia went back to her office, and Mike grabbed a glass of water from the cooler. He stood on the opposite side of the room from me, but he wouldn't look at me, though I was staring at him. I wanted to say something, but I felt like I had been silent for too long and that anything I would have said then would have sounded forced, so we stood and sat and said nothing. He finally broke in and asked how I was, and it totally did sound as forced as I thought my words would, but at least he was willing to sound that way to talk to me. I told him that I was cold. Just cold. He said that it actually felt pretty good to him. I told him that he was wrong. I'm cool like that. I think that put him off a little, so he turned to leave and do some work. All I could muster is a "have a good day", but I wanted to say so much more.
See, a couple of weeks ago, Mike and I had a night. And when I say "a night", I'm not talking about a passionate night of dirty sex in his dirty apartment. Actually, it wasn't even an entire night. It was probably about fifteen minutes, and it was in a public shopping area. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I was hanging out with Tracey and our friend Erin. Erin is home from college and was sick of her parents, so we headed up to Easton, a big open-air mall near us. I made them fondle my crazy stripe chunky scarf at the Gap for a bit, and then we went over to the Virgin Megastore. I wasn't really shopping for anything, so I just went to the wall o' listening stations and looked to see what the CD101 station was offering while Tracey wandered off and Erin followed like the puppy that she is. There was some decent stuff, but I wasn't really in the mood for any of it until I got to Modest Mouse and Caviar. I had to make a decision, and since I've already listened to the Modest Mouse disc about two hundred times by now, I chose the Caviar. I was in the middle of Tangerine Speedo when Modest Mouse just started calling to me. I could hear its weird-y goodness in my mind, and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to concentrate on anything else, so I switched to it. I listened to 3rd Planet for a moment and then flipped to Tiny Cities Made of Ashes. I was totally lost in the song when I opened my eyes and realised that Mike was just standing there, waiting for me to notice him. And notice him I did. I've admired Mike from my earliest days at COSI, because he's just so different from anyone else who I've ever seen. He wears these long black shorts with big white socks that he pulls all of the way over his big black boots. I mean BIG black boots. It's a horrible combination, really, but Adam did the sock thing over the summer, and we all know how all over that I was, so it's no surprise that I dig Mike. So there I was, seemingly alone at Easton, face to face with one of my men. He was wearing the boots, too. The boots and a black hooded sweatshirt. I didn't really know what to say to him, because I've never really said anything to him before. We've had tons of head-nodding sex, though. I mean TONS. Mike seems like he's totally in a rush at all times, but when he came into work every day over the summer, he always seemed to linger at the door just long enough so that I could look up and say hello. He never just said hello back, though. He would always nod his head and say, "What's going on?" Every day. I mean EVERY DAY. And then he would scurry off in his big, black boots. I also once talked to him about the laser shows that we used to have in the Dome Theatre, because he was always the one running them. I just imagined that they were computer-operated, but when I mentioned that to him, he said, "Oh, no. I have control back here." He then told me about all of his different responsibilities back in the control booth, but I don't remember hearing a word of it. I do remember thinking that he seemed all too happy to make me think that he was Master of the Dome. So, when I took off my headphones at Easton, he nodded and said, "What's going on?" Of course. I explained that I was listening to some Modest Mouse, because it was calling my name. He asked what Modest Mouse is, so I told him that they made my number one album of the year, that they're the coolest band that I've heard in a long time, that I went to see them this summer. I made the mistake of saying that I went to see them with Adam from Box Office, though, which I immediately regretted. His face fell a little (or so I imagined), but he just nodded as if he totally understands what I see in Adam. He asked me what I had been up to, so I talked about missing work and missing him and missing everyone else, and he asked where I had been for so long. I said, "School has been f-ing with my life," and he just kind of nodded and waited for more. But there was no more to be offered by me. I asked if he had been working a lot, and he said, "Well, I kind of have to with my new promotion and all." I had forgotten about the promotion. Mike had been put in charge of the teen volunteers at COSI, which means that he will now be working there for the rest of his life. (It's a rule that once you work there for six months or if you get a promotion that you will never be able to shake COSI, that it will follow you all of your days and force you to take care of it. Or so I've heard.) We talked a bit more about COSI happenings, and then Mike said that he had better go. I knew that he was just leaving because all female contact makes him uncomfortable, but I had just noticed something about him while he had been talking, so I couldn't let him leave. As he was backing up to depart, I stopped him and said, "Wait. Don't go. Stay here and talk to me some more." I realised that I had just totally opened myself up to him thinking that I was coming on to him, so I explained that he reminded me of someone, and I couldn't figure out who it was. Mike does something with his mouth while he talks that one of my college friends does, and I totally had my finger on who, but I just couldn't get my brain to picture the person. So, after some more random talk, I let Mike go and told him that I was going to be frustrated all night because of him, so I was just going to leave him. He watched me walk away, so I stopped at a rack of CDs to wait for him to move on. When I looked back at him, he was turning to the CD101 station, putting on the headphones, and picking up the Modest Mouse CD. I giggled. Right in the middle of the Virgin Megastore. There's no better way to a Katie's heart than through her favourite bands.
So, later yesterday morning at COSI, I was assigned to a checkpoint with my sweet Laura, but neither of us really felt like checkpointing, so we just stood in the Atrium and talked, and we knew that we could get away with it, because Ted was out to lunch. Laura was telling me about all of the COSI gossip that surfaced while I was gone. Like eight people quit, mostly for better-paying but less exciting jobs. A woman named Ingrid was not only fired but also banned, which is cool, especially because she was so obviously a psycho from the beginning. She had been totally burned somehow and had no fingerprints, so she always talked about how she could rob banks and no one would ever be able to catch her. Freaked me out. Well, when she was fired for some reason or another, she threatened to have her supervisors killer, so she was banned from COSI. Imagine that. Patricia in Theatres had been pregnant and told absolutely everyone about it, because she was so darn excited, and then a week later, lo and behold, she had a miscarriage at work. When I heard the news, I thought back to my time with Patricia in the break room an hour before when she told me that she was very blessed. It kind of made me wonder what God's deal is. My life is amazing, don't get me wrong. I don't have a mom, which I can see myself being eternally bitter for, and I almost died in 7th grade from my little appendix episode, but other than that, it's been smooth sailing for me. Oh, I forgot about my six car accidents, too. But other than that . . . Sometimes, I find God so incredible that I can't stand it. Like, a couple of months ago, I sat down on the bus in a seat next to a random blonde guy as I was riding out to west campus to get my car to go to work. The guy looked over at me and said, "Hey, you're in my math class." I said, "Am I?" He said, "You are." And we proceeded to have a twenty-minute conversation about math and life until I got to my car. We talked in math every day after that, and it turned into a beautiful relationship. It actually kind of frightens me to think that if he gotten on a different bus or if I would have been two minutes later getting ready for work that I could have sat by him in math for an entire quarter and never said a word to him. Or like the other night at COSI, one of my co-workers, Julie, asked me to go ask one of the Dome Theatre ushers a question since their radios weren't on. I trekked up to the Theatre, asked my question, and headed back downstairs, but as I was telling Julie the answer over my radio, she asked me to go back and ask something more. When I was done, I came out of the Dome, and as I did, I passed Mike, who was just coming to work. We had ourselves some good nod sex, we did. Now, if the Dome would have had their radios on or if I wouldn't have had to ask the second question, I would have never gotten the chance to be satisfied by the nod. So amazing.
But then there are the times when not-so-amazing things happen. Like Patricia losing a baby when she was so, so excited about it. Or like my sister's first car accident on Thursday evening. I'm a horrible driver, and I've accepted that. For this reason, I haven't let Dad buy me a new car yet. So, as you can imagine, I was a little . . . or maybe more than a little . . . jealous when Dad bought Joanie her '98 Mustang when she got her permit. Now, Dad had offered to buy me any car that I wanted, so he offered Joanie the same. While I chose something that I could hit people with repeatedly while remaining uninjured, Joanie chose something she would be worshipped for. I must admit that at times I wish that I would have gone that route, but with my driving record, it's probably a good thing that I didn't. (Just so you know, I could buy more than one brand new car with all of the dollars of damage that I've caused to the minivan that we used to own and to other people's cars. How cool am I, really?) However jealous I've been, though, I've always prayed that Joanie would be a little less accident-prone than I am. But on Thursday after school, Joanie was driving by our church (oh, the irony), and as she went to turn the corner, she slipped on some invisible ice, slid across the road, and hit a phone pole smack dab in the center of the front of her Mustang. The phone pole cracked in half and hung over the top of her car, so she grabbed all of her whatnot and prayed that the pole wouldn't fall on her. I asked her how bad the car is, and all she could say was "BAD". Poor, poor girl. Dear, sweet Mustang. It actually kind of makes me angry that it happened after I've specifically asked God not to let it. It's one thing for me to get in accidents, but it's another thing for it to happen to Joanie. I'm sure that there was a reason for it, though. Right.
So, when Laura was finished with the gossip, I told her that I would make Mike wear the boots to bed with me. She wants Mike as much as I do, but she has a boyfriend with the second-most perfect name in the world already. (Ben, that is. The most perfect being Jared or Jarred, of course.) So, we stood discussing Mike's endearing qualities until he saw us watching him and moved over to the Box Office to talk to my friend Josh's mom. He turned his back to us, and at first I imagined that he was trying to escape our stares, but then I became firmly convinced that he just wanted us to gawk at his butt as he leaned over the counter. And gawk we did. In fact, I continued to gawk even when Laura started talking about a bunch of Guest Services people getting drunk at one of the parties that I had to miss because of midterms. And when Mike turned around to head back up to the Dome, I was still gawking. Gawking so much, in fact, that he glanced at me, and then glanced away quickly as if he was embarrassed. But as he was walking toward the stairs, I saw him look back and smile. I'm so good. Oh, yes. I am.
The problem with Mike is that he's not good enough for me. In fact, I don't know that I've met a single male who's good enough for me. Ever. Mike was a volunteer at COSI when he was younger and racked up 1600 hours of service before he became employed by COSI, which is a turn-on, since you have to be a good person on some level to want to devote your time to something that you're not getting paid for just to benefit others. (That is, unless, you're a pedophile who just wants to get closer to the little children who overrun the museum, of course.) However, Mike hasn't gone to college as far as anyone knows, and well, I don't want to mess with that. True, he's the Team Leader of Volunteer Guest Operations at COSI, and true, he may very well end up being a vice president some day with everything that he does for COSI, but somehow, that just doesn't do it for me. I need more motivation from him. I guess he does have plenty of motivation, actually. I just want him to be motivated to go to college. Also, I'm not really sure that I could take him home and have my family approve of him. Usually, I don't care what my friends think about who I'm dating or whatever, but there's something different about my family. See, I have a weird place in my family. Up until a few years ago, I was the one who listened to the "devil music" and had all of the dirty sex and did all of the drugs. Now, you and I both know that none of was ever true, but my family sincerely thought that of me. I just like to say things that push their buttons and make them wonder about me. Joanie does the exact same things that I do, but she never talks about them and just pretends to be a docile innocent, so they don't suspect that she's a carbon copy of me. Still, it's kind of important to me that they know that I'm not hanging out with bad people. They love Tracey and my other friend Mike. Oh, they love Mike with a passion. But I'm not so sure that they would love COSI Mike. I'm totally fine with who he is and all, but I imagine that if I brought him home in his long shorts and big boots that my family would start to think things about me, mainly things about me regressing into what I supposedly once was. Plus, I'm not even sure if I could be with someone who dresses the way that he does. It's cute now, but if he's following me around to doctor events in his big boots, there may be a problem. I just don't date guys like him. I date the usual J. Crew/Eddie Bauer/Gap pretty boys. Oh, how I love those boys. I'm not so sure that my Gap-loving self could deal with Mike. I don't really mean to say that how a guy dresses is the most important thing about him, but good clothes do help make a good first impression, and I'm all about that. Maybe I should just give up on men completely and live with Tracey or my other Mike for the rest of my life. Sounds like a plan.
Note: Since the time of the writing of this story, it has been determined that Mike has, in fact, been enrolled in college. So there.
