Here it is. The entire month of November for the year 2001. Don't you just feel like a part of my life? Doesn't it make you all warm and fuzzy inside to know that I'm sharing a part of myself with you? I know it does. Read on, starting from the bottom.
November 22nd, 2001: Chicago Mike came home from college this week. Up until the time of his arrival, Jonathan and I did a great deal of discussing what would happen when he decided to Ashville-ise himself again. I firmly said that I was uninterested in seeing him, citing the fact that he had neither written nor called me in over a month. However, Jonathan was very set on my accepting that Mike has changed and wanted me to treat him like I always have. That worked out well, despite my not wanting it to. Mike got home on Tuesday evening and apparently called Jonathan right away, as Jon bragged about the fact that he had been phoned first. Mike called me in the middle of art education yesterday to see what I would be up to last night, and I lovingly informed him that I was going over to see Asian Dave and Dave’s Mike (who has recently been renamed Replacement Mike) but agreed to call him when I was done there.
Dave and Mike’s friend Keith was already at Dave’s when I arrived, and he, Christian, and Dave were playing an XBOX racing game that involved some sort of running bunny/kangaroo/rat-type animal. (By the way, there are no kangaroos in Austria.) Replacement Mike, his brother (Chris), Chris’s friend (Christina), and I took over when they were done, me losing slowly and painfully. (Oh, and just as a side note, I've just been informed by Replacement Mike that Christina has a boyfriend in Arizona, and the two of them are apparently under the impression that they're actually going to make a long-distance thing work. So, basically, Chris is just standing by as Rebound Guy, poised to lay some pipe when Christina finally rids herself of this guy. I love being Rebound Girl. Lucky, lucky you, little Chris.) I think that Chris and Christina only became friends because their names look so ridiculous next to each other when I write them, and knowing this, Mike began ferociously flirting with Christina when the game switched to Dead or Alive 3. Mike’s a total usurper, you know. And if you know anything at all about Mike and me, you’ll know why his flirting amused me. We began watching The Grinch, because
Chicago Mike opened the door to Jon’s for me and gave me a half-hug, but when I put my bag down rather than hugging him back, he made the hug into more of an uncomfortable arm slap. I realised that I was just being stupid and gave him a hug, so I get my friggin’ gold star for that. Mike introduced me to his friend Jason from college, who claims that he came home with Mike because he didn’t want to spend money on a plane ticket home to Oregon. Jonathan and I think that Mike is gay, however, and wanted his parents to meet his boyfriend. Mike’s mom even likes Jason! Upon hearing this, I developed a theory that Linda dislikes me because I have a vagina, but that was disproved by Jonathan, who also isn’t liked, despite his supposed penis. I was a big fan of Jason, though. He was a pseudo ass, making fun of me almost from the beginning. He fit right in.
I drove us to Blockbuster after a 5-minute stand-off in Jonathan’s driveway in which I eventually conceded after being threatened with having to sit in Jonathan’s subwoofered back seat. Once again, the role-switch that has occurred struck me with Jonathan pointing out bad movies to me rather than Mike and me pointing them out to each other. Jonathan and I went out to my car while Mike and Jason paid, and then we went back to Jon’s to make pizza and watch Desert Blue, which turned out to be less-than-great, in spite of the more-than-great cast. I randomly fell asleep during different parts of it, though, so maybe I missed the really spectacular scenes that made the movie. Then Jonathan did his usual thing of lying down on the opposite end of the couch from me and attempting to injure me with his feet, while Mike pretended to ignore us like he didn’t want to be part of the action. It was just like old times, save the fact that Jason was there and couldn’t partake of the sexual fare, seeing as how he doesn’t really know Jon and me. Mike and Jason decided to go home while I decided that I was unwilling to move from the couch, so they went out to Mike’s car to grab something that Jonathan had left behind. In the meantime, Jonathan pounced on me, and when Mike came back inside, he had to go and comment on the fact that Jon and I are going to end up sleeping together someday. That forced Jon to tell me that I couldn’t spend the night, so I gathered my things and followed Mike and Jason out to the street, where we piled in our cars and said and unaffectionate farewell and departed.
November 16th, 2001: Tonight, I truly epitomised the white trash self that I try to repress. Jonathan and I had decided some days before that we would do something together, so after he left a voicemail that said, “Hey, ho. Call me,” I did. (Yeah, Jonathan is quite the articulate one.) We sat around, listening to his techno/drum and bass collection, sharing thoughts on Crystal, and touching each other inappropriately. (Probably wasn’t supposed to mention that, was I?) We had the choice of going to a random benefit concert, eating Chinese and seeing an undoubtedly horrible movie, or going to a weird clothing/electronics sale thing downtown. I was all for the Chinese, but Jonathan was all about buying cheap Gucci, so we met Crystal at Veteran’s Memorial and went a-shoppin’. I should have known that things were going to be bad when we spent the first 15 minutes trying on yellow sunglasses that were buy one, get two free. Things only went downhill from there, with us examining 2200 copies of a $3.99 Cheap Trick album, the ugliest shoes ever made, and carved Buddha statues, while a Super Shammy demonstration took place in the center of the room. Jonathan and Crystal then spent 20 minutes choosing knives that they will never use except when wanting to appear thug-like, but at least it allowed me the chance to become very well-acquainted with a pair of nun-chucks. Having our fill of white trashdom and feeling as if we were all about to contract a case of trachoma, we headed further into the ghetto to Jonathan’s house to eat pizza and watch Unbreakable. Jonathan took the pepperoni off of my pizza for me, and it was so sweet that I just wanted to rip out Crystal’s nose hairs for not being in love with him. We ditched Unbreakable for Mallrats, which Jonathan owns but had never seen. Crystal left for home, and Jonathan and I found ourselves in the midst of a conversation about breasts, penises, and the single near-sex experience that I allowed my body to have. I can’t discuss that with any of my female friends, and yet there I was, discussing the poor guy’s girth without his knowledge nor consent. I love that. Jonathan was quite surprised by the whole ordeal, which made it all the better for me. We went upstairs and tried to talk to Crys online, but I found myself in Jonathan’s bed after a short time. I don’t know what it is with soft things at Jon’s house and me. If I’m in love with his leather couch, then I’m having a sordid affair with his bed. Once I’m on it, I have to be dragged off. No, really. I slept for an hour or so with interruptions by Jonathan every 15 minutes where he would pounce on me, poke my feet with sharp objects, or pull me off of the bed, none of which worked. He offered to let me stay, but I argued that I would be able to fight off the rapist wandering OSU’s campus with my pizza breath, so he started to walk me out to my car. However, as soon as we got outside, we noticed the overwhelming fog, realised that I was totally going to get myself raped, and went back inside to bed. And that was that.
November 5th, 2001: Last night, I rode to church with Jonathan and David, the boy who speaks with an Australian accent for no apparent reason. Jonathan and I suddenly have this really great relationship, because we've started to get past the superficiality of just being friends through Mike and have really opened up to each other over the past few weeks. I think that it began when Jonathan and I were talking about Chicago Mike at church one night, and I kind of let it slip to Jonathan that I was interested in Mike as more than just a friend at the time, which totally surprised him. I love the fact that I think I'm so extremely obvious about the way that I feel about everything, and yet Jonathan told me that after all of the time that he and Mike and I have spent together, he still thought that I was totally uninterested in Mike, despite what his parents seem to think. Jonathan asked why I had never said anything to Mike, and I informed him that I didn't want to do anything to our friendship, especially when I know that Mike is content with our being friends, so Jonathan told me the story of Cousin Craig and his best friend who went off and married some other guy just to spite Craig for not loving her. Jonathan made me promise that I wouldn't marry someone else just to spite Mike and told me that he would stop Mike from marrying some other woman if the occasion arises. And after all of this was divulged, Jonathan revealed to me that he also has a thing for one of his best friends, Crystal, so we found out that we were both standing in the same painful situation. The great thing about Jonathan is that he actually told his woman that he's all about her, even after he asked her to Homecoming and she turned him down only to ask David, the boy who speaks with an Australian accent for no apparent reason. David went with Crystal, of course, thus creating this amazing rift between the two men that they both pretended wasn't there. The beauty of it is that David doesn't like Crys as anything more than a random chick whom he sees at church every week, so Jonathan was basically going out of his mind with envy. Then, last night, Jon's would-be woman was heading to a row of seats from one side of the church, and Jon, David, and I were coming at the row from the opposite side of the church. Knowing that we were going to meet her in the middle, Jonathan RAN ahead of the two of us, seemingly to be able to sit by her. David left a seat in between himself and Jon as Jon more or less threw himself onto Crystal and her friends. I asked David if he had noticed the running thing that Jon had just done, and he said, "I stopped talking to her; isn't that enough for him?" I was amused.
After church, Jon, David, and I piled back in the car, me in back after being named "Short Legs", and followed Crys and Jon's friend John-Michael to Graeter's, as we used to do this summer. Soon after we sat down, Deb and her boyfriend/shadow came in with their skateboarding friends. The skateboarders immediately left, however, to display their "skeelz" on the side of the building. Doesn't get any cooler than high school boarders. Jon grabbed a spoon and dug into my ice cream when he finished his as a giant boy with wild orange hair came in and was introduced to me as Josh Rea. I think that he was mildly interested in me until, in the midst of our conversation, someone pointed out that he's the son of Cabot Rea. Now, Cabot is a local news anchor who I've admired since I was old enough to watch the news, so I looked at Josh and said, "Josh REA? I'm in love with your dad." He replied, "You're in love with my dad . . ." Then, I realised what I had just said and asked, "You probably hate being known for your dad, don't you?" And then Josh Rea left, and I was left feeling more lame than I've ever felt before. I am lame. I am so, so lame.
But at least I'm not jealous of one of my best friends. I love Jonathan to death and know that he will be such an amazing boyfriend to whomever he decides to try out, so it kills me to see the way that he is regarding David. They're just two very different versions of the same person, so it's hard to imagine Crys dating Jon if she wants the David type. Jonathan is super geeky, non-stop story-telling, terribly honest cool. David is super trendy, clever-joking, sport-playing cool. Like, last night when it was cold and I had no coat, Jon made jokes about hard nipples, while David put his coat around my shoulders, even after I told him that I didn't need it. I appreciated that Jon could make me laugh and that David could sacrifice his warmth for me. But Jonathan wants to believe that David is Satan so that he can justify his wanting to keep Crys for himself. And speaking of that, after we dropped David off, Jon asked me if it had looked as if he was running toward Crystal at church. He argues that he was actually just wanting to thank John-Michael for helping him during the play, but it seems to me that he could have just waited until we sat down. Ahh, what do I know?