deja view askew

Had an interesting idea last night while half asleep.

In my late teens and early twenties, I had deja vu at least once a day. These days it happens perhaps once every few months, and it got me thinking:

Suppose deja vu is a quantum tunneling phenomenon, happening when our future selves are remembering the events we are currently experiencing.

Hey, I know what you're thinking, and no, I was not tripping balls. You shut your mouth when you're talking to me.

Tales From the Offsale - April 16th, 2010

My first friday at the offsale in quite some time has come and gone.

People were cheerful, I was friendly and funny, and the tips were good.

I didn't see a single fight or even a punch thrown, and on my side of the building nobody was too drunk to walk themselves out.

I did, however, see a couple break up rather noisily in the offsale. A tall, pretty, stylish brunette came in, a little upset, and talked to me for a few minutes. During this time, she made several disparaging remarks about my gender, the character of her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, accused him of trying to leave with another girl and accused this other girl of having a sexually transmitted disease. Sorry, a sexually transmitted infection, or STI. When did herpes become a Subaru?

She asked me if she could lay in wait for him in the store and I said yes (she may not have used those exact words). There was no way I was going to miss it when, normally, drama like this only happens on television. We actually chatted a little bit, and I had her almost happy again when The Other Girl walked out of bar and through the offsale. TOG smiled at me and said a chipper goodnight on her way out. It must be said that she was quite attractive, whatever the infectious status of her vajayjay may have actually been (I'm guessing fairly clean, based on what was said later). I was not made aware of the fact that this lovely lady was TOG until she had actually left, and then it was with a harsh whisper. "That's her. She has a disease. What kind of man leaves someone as hot as me for someone with a disease? Isn't that fucked up?"

I could only make vocalizations in assent with her right in front of me, but her charm was wearing thin; crazy showing through the more threadbare patches. It must also be noted that TOG was hotter than her, say an eight to her seven. With TOG out of the picture, she looked around for a good spot to stand where she would not be seen from the bar entrance and could launch her verbal assault utilizing stealth and the element of surprise.

Her ears pricked up like those of a cat to the sound of his voice. He was being pursued by one of Her friends, who was berating him verbally all the while, and when he saw her, he exclaimed, "[a]re you fucking kidding me?" And then, my friends, It Was On.

His blond, 6'1", clearly steroid-driven muscular frame was caught in a hellish, no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned crossfire. Volleys of venomous vituperation verbally vivisected him violently. When he tried to leave, his suddenly ex-girlfriend barred his path, threatened him with assault charges and resumed lacing into him. He told her she wouldn't be able to call anyone to press charges if she was dead, and that was when I sent my co-worker to get one of the bouncers. He called her crazy, said it was over and told her to get out of his way.

By the time one of the big boys got there, they'd both left, after a protracted period in which he made as if to go back into the bar, but instead hid behind a section of wall and peeked out when he thought she was gone. She wasn't. There was more yelling, then she stormed out. A few minutes later, he left by way of the same door.

Now, I'm inclined to side with her - cheating is bullshit and should never be tolerated. But though he was leaving with another woman, conversational evidence would seem to imply that dating this girl was a roller coaster ride of stress and emotional trauma. She's nuts, and he's a cheater; I don't know who was "right" in this particular situation, but I do know that they won't be procreating with each other and that, my friends, is a clear win for the rest of us.

Public Service Announcement 01

It's 4am.

This is not in any way unusual for me, except that it's almost summer now and I can hear birds chirping.

Fuck off, winged harbingers of daylight, you're ruining the illusion of the night for me.

That is all.

BEANBEANBEANBEAN *twitch*

No matter what I may or may not have written in a poem about caffeine, I have completely and utterly caved in to it for the duration of finals. It was clearly necessary for days of mental exertion in studying calculus.

I felt the first sip of coffee in my tingly bits.

Welcome home, Juan Valdez. Let me get your coat for you. The burro will to have to wait outside, I'm afraid.

Stairs, My and Charles Xavier's One Weakness

When I was really little, my mother made a Superman cape for my older brother. He loved that cape. He wore it constantly for about a year, and then was rather suddenly required to stop doing so, for reasons upon which I shall expound. I'm going to drop some nostalgia on it, son.

Since Superman wore a cape, and could fly, one can hardly fault my bro for the logical leap that lead to local leaping. Big brother was convinced that he had acquired the power of flight. He would demonstrate this new ability by taking running leaps over chairs, bounding over ottomans, and jumping onto couches.

Credit where it's due, his hang time was rather impressive.

Now, where it gets complicated is the plane of the intersection of my older brother liking to teach me life skills and him believing he could fly. He'd met with some other successes in imparting wisdom, notably mining for nose gold and my introduction to cursing, so you can forgive him for wanting to share his mastery of the aether with me.

Draping the precious cape over my shoulders and firmly tying the strings, he set me about my lessons, hopping over furniture. After some time had passed, and I had yet to demonstrate the capacity for leaping tall chesterfields in a single bound, frustration and desperation set in, and drastic measures were undertaken.

He stood me at the top of our basement steps, and pushed.

Well, shoved, really.

Heaved, maybe.

One might argue that at this point, I did surpass his previous airborne exploits, as I cleared an entire flight of steps on the way down. Man, I'm so glad that vacuum was there to break my fall.

Mother happened to be downstairs and not far from where I landed. I recovered fine, didn't even break a bone. Toddlers are resilient that way. My sibling senior got his butt paddled pink and that cape got put away.

True story.