Musings

Listening to my co-workers talk about mortgage payments, golf and babysitters, I am reminded that bourgeois respectability continues to elude me.

Mar invited me to see Troilus and Cressida, assuming she can get tickets. I wanna go. It's not like I have a bunch of people dying to go see Shakespeare with me. My upstairs neighbor Bethany laughs at me whenever she hears that I've seen Mar. "David, you've got to get her out of your life. NO-Mar, David! NO-Mar! No-Mar!"

There's definitely some bad blood between those two. They used to be friendly. Mar became extemely jealous of Bethany early, which struck me as odd. Bethany is a friend---I drop in on her sometimes or she drops in on me, but it's not like we hang out together in bars a lot or go to movies. She comes over with cookies from time to time and drove me to get an air conditioner last summer---thoughtful neighborly activities. But nothing more. I finally told Mar, "Look. One of us DID make out with Bethany, but it wasn't me."

This happened last spring. Mar's brother was in town and Mar, her brother, Bethany, Len and I were at a bar. I went back early and fell asleep. An hour later, a very inebriated Mar landed on top of me and initiated perhaps the clumsiest sex I have ever had. The next morning she told me that had kissed Bethany. We both thought it was pretty funny. Her brother had the best line: "Dude, I turned around and---normally I'd be turned on, but that's my sister!"

Bethany's boyfriend at the time, however, flipped out when she told him. To placate his anger, she promised that she would not hang out with Mar anymore. Maybe I have a double standard---I definitely would have been pissed if she had kissed a guy.

Upstairs neighbor Cathy and her boyfriend were in a big heated argument this morning. It's like living with Charles Bukowski. How low does your self-esteem have to be to take a guy back who beats you and calls you names? A big warning sign is for a woman to tell me that she's dated a bunch of guys who have beaten her. One guy, yeah. Several? She's got some issues that I will not help her work through.

I've been running outside lately. Serious marathon training starts in the first week of June---I'm currently running 18 miles a week, and that will jump over the next four months. I'm not into health food (I like to eat well, what can I say?) but I had the great idea of switching from the micros and heavy eurobeers to Bud Light for decreased calorie consumption. Bad idea. I switched back. I hate the swill. Will someone tell me why the most powerful nation on earth with the most advanced consumer culture history has ever seen regularly produces the shittiest beer? You have to look for the good American beer and then the small breweries get bought out by the Big Boys and they discontinue some of the lines.

My high school reunion is in a couple weeks. 20 years. Everytime I go back to Iowa I'm struck by how FAT people are in the state. I walk into The Hungry Cow Smorgasboard or some-such place and see 300-pound people loading their trays past capacity. Overall, people are definitely thinner in the city.