I just realized that we haven't talked anywhere near enough about my childhood imaginary friend Jex; who I secretly sort of believe in...in a very 'neighbor friend who moved when you were 4 and a half and you'll never ever see them again so they might as well not exist' sort of way.
I had a large assortment of return characters in my imaginary friend repoitoire, including Shelley Welley- who was beautiful and angry and stubbon and had long black hair, and Sicky Dickey- who was green and weak and had trouble keeping up. But Jex was my Best Friend.
Jex was never worried about anything. He had a solid escape plan for every situation. If I accidently made my kindergarten teacher yell at me, Jex would swing through the narrow ground level windows on a vine and swoop me up. We'd swing away to the mountains, where he had been stockpiling Oreo cookies for months. Dad and sister arguing about Aerosmith posters? Jex makes the livingroom curtains into a bridge that transports us to California, where we sing and live with The Beach Boys and drink Orange Juilus' all the time.
Jex was taller than me with darker hair that fell in his eyes (we here in the future might refer to them as "Indie Rock Bangs"). He wore jeans with holes in the knees and red t-shirts, and he never had to wear a coat (but he had to wear boots in the snow).
My parents were remarkably accomodating when it came to Jex. He got a place at the table if I asked politely. When we would drive to Coeur D' Alene to go to K-mart or something, I would shout "Mom! You gotta slow down the car! Jex is riding on his bike to catch up and you can't just keep speeding up like that!" And my mom would decelerate and I'd roll down my window and Jex would jump in. Sometimes Shelley Welley would come along on trips, but only because Jex wasn't interested in looking at My Little Ponies, and Shelley was.
Jex was no good at counting to twenty, but he had a better vocabulary than I did. Jex knew all about the magic of plants and could talk to my favorite dogs. He felt bad when I felt bad. Sometimes he felt worse than I did, and..at five years old..I was glad for it. Sometimes we would fight and we would have the worst of things to say to each other, each insult angrier than the last and more biting, more spiteful. But we always apologized, and then went back to discovering everything we hadn't discovered yet.
I woke up at my convenience this morning to clean house, put rollers in my hair, sun the plants and get ready to meet friends at noon. We had 3 dollar lunches because we're all almost totally jobless, and now I'm getting ready to go to the fabric store with my mother. Mom has agreed to make me 5 little uniform dresses in different pastel colors with an 'S' embroidered on the shoulder so that I don't have to ruin my regular clothes at work. I think it's going to be freaking adorable.
Can I please note something else? When I get up before 5am, I get the hiccups. I get them when I first go outside and then I get them maybe 4 or 5 more times during the day. Wake up at 6 am? No problem. Maybe 4 cases of the hiccups a week for the past few years because of my 8am start time. When I worked at 5 at Amazon, I got the hiccups at exactly 4:53 every morning as I walked down Terry to downtown.
I would also regularly semi-hallucinate that I could zap myself over to Queen Anne hill if I closed my eyes and jumped.
Hello lovesicles, I've missed you.
I started at Top Pot on Monday in the afternoon. KC (my awesomely rad boss and actor friend) had forgotten about the national holiday and scheduled me to train thinking that it would be slow. Instead, it was beautiful all day and busy like a weekend. Here are some of the things I learned:
1: the higher the donuts are stacked, the more people want them
2:standing up for several hours feels a lot better than sitting down for several hours.
3:nobody treats me like their underling: either because I have the Magic Survival Tonic, or because I'm not the first person to pick up the telephone.
4: I'll answer the phone anywhere. Like a robot.
5: Just being able to smell the donuts all day is enough. I pull in an extra 300 calories through my nostrils.
Yesterday I went in for the opening shift at 5:30, and magically managed to stay awake through my 8:30 class. My professor had stopped by the coffee shop early in the morning and left me a fat tip, so there was really no way I could skip. I sat up totally straight the entire time and kept my eyes really wide open.
"You alright, Sonya?"
"I've been up since 4:30 Nate. Press on with the lecture."
Alley-Oop! We got a giant Larry's cake with my name on it and enough people showed up to eat the whole thing. I very nearly cried.
Last Day! Due to some poor calculations, I'm going to be dangerously poor until April 2, but I'm still so, so glad to be done with this.
I got to class yesterday and realized that I haven't done any of the reading for this week, I haven't written my response papers and everything I busted my ass to get turned in last week was wildly crappy. Obviously, the only thing to do was cut the second half of class, go home, and make a stir-fry.
Work wise, I can't help but tune out. My last day is in 2 days. Last of 4.5 years of employment here. It's strange to consider that the people here are the ones I spend the most time with every week. Like prison buddies or something.
I start at the Top Pot next Monday. I finally get to fulfill my dream of always wearing an apron to coordinate with my outfit.
The fear set in when I had to put a 500 dollar deposit down to get a cell phone. I know it's totally useless to entertain these kinds of thoughts, but what if I have to live in a box? Worse yet, what if I have to live in Kent?
This week is all sorting stock options and file folders and emailing myself stuff. Walking on the balance between 'Oh! I know! I'm so sad to be going' and 'but I'm so excited to really start focusing on my studies."
And after auditioning, I remember why I don't audition. Because it's scary! even when I don't care about it. And I had the great pleasure of reading with Tim Gowran, who made me feel both safe and sucky because he's so Capital T Talented. I'm not an actor! I stage manage! With Gusto!
Holy shit I'm tired.
I'm currently getting my ass kicked with work and school, but I've already mostly-secured a new kickass PT job at a hip coffee and donut shop on the hill. My last midterm is tonight and I'm going to a random audition today with A Certain Theater in town for a one-week workshop. (same play I've read in twice before. About the deformed fetus.)
I need to get a cell phone and a cell phone plan this weekend. Any suggestions of good vendors are welcome after the cracktastic experience Tiny and I had with Sprint.
I watched Ladykillers after class last night, and actually made it through the entire movie with a little help from Cake. He watched me for the last 20 minutes of the movie and shook my foot every time I started to fall asleep. "You've almost made it! Just a few more minutes and you'll get to see the end!"
I just did it, and he made me feel so much like a commodity that can be easily traded or disposed of, that I'm double glad I did.
At least I'll be out of here with enough time to pull my grades out of the crapper this quarter. Look out, Associates Degree. I'm comin' to getcha.
I just tried to give my notice, but I think my boss already left for the day. Why is this so freaking scary?
The bank said: Yes!
My parents said: We Don't Really Know, So Sounds Great!
Cake said: Have Fun With That
and I said to him: SAY SOMETHING ENCOURAGING, YOU JERKFACE!
so he said: Oh, I Mean...Everything Is Going To Work Out Fine!
at the very worst, I'll somehow not get the loan after they've approved it and have to get another job just like this one. So I'm going to call and ask his majesty the springloaded asshole to have a meeting with me tomorrow.
I think I may have found the escape hatch.
Suprising me and nobody else, it happens to be marked 'Student Loan'
"HELLO!?!"
"Poppa.......I... ugh."
"That bad, huh?"
"You gotta get me out of here. My nostrils are going to flare until they make my head explode and then I'm going to kill people with the sharp fragments. I have GOT to get OUT of here."
"We're working on it, sweetheart. Hold tight."
I have lots of homework due and I can't keep my eyes open to finish my required reading. But let us cultivate our garden, right?
I've been waking up before the sunrise whenever I sleep over here lately. Aaron and I are good sleepers, meaning that our bodies fit well in the crucial snuggling places (knees, shoulders, accustomed arm arrangement), so it's easy to wake up several hours before he does and not move for a long time. I like to lay awake as the sun starts to warm up the blinds and let my mind wander as wild and free as it wants to. I almost never get a chance to do that these days.
I wish I had a box of cookies.' I think to myself, Better yet, cookies that could turn you into a mind reader. (I've been thinking about mind-reading a lot lately.) I wonder if there's any sweets within arms reach. Does he even eat candy? Of course he does. Look at him. Candy-eater if ever I saw one.'
My mind drifts on to pictures of what cemetaries must look like underground, and what things I would have said to who if I had thought of them in time. I'm just in the middle of wondering what Jesus was like as a teen when Aaron starts to wake up.
"Hey there, pally. Good morning."
He looks at me through one eye as he yawns and stretches his neck. Puts a hand on my shoulder and gently pulls me down from my elbow and in so that my head rests kind of in his armpit. It's wildly comfortable. Like a mouthful of something soft. That's how I'd describe it. Like being a mouthful of something soft.
This is the most that we'll touch all day.
I can't figure out if he just comes from a non-touching family, or if I'm being used as a stuffed animal. Don't get me wrong, I love being with him, but I've never before been with someone who didn't kiss me goodbye on the street and sometimes want to hold hands at the plays in the park. I'm not saying all the time. Just a couple of times would be okay.
He still has his eyes closed, but he takes a deep, wakeful breath. He pulls his left arm from behind him and elbows under the comforter. He moves his hands from my shoulderblade to the small of my back, pulls me in so that our bellies touch, then moves his hands back up and down my spine.
I've fallen for you, Aaron. I love you. Can you read my mind? If you can read my mind, blink twice with your left eye.....hm. Do you love me back? You should, I'm rad. But I don't think you do, buddy. I just don't think you do.
He yawn/sighs again. "Do you want to go out for breakfast?"
"Sure. Where do you want to go?" He's going to saaayyy...um.......Ballard China Buffet.
"Ihop."
"For serious? You want to go to Ihop? You know they store the meat on a shelf over the flour, right?"
"But there's 4 kinds of syrup! Just kidding. Lets go to Cafe Flora."
He rolls over and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He puts his shorts on before he stands up and moves to the bathroom.
I stretch out under the comforter and try to soak up all the warm places before they evaporate. The warmth smells like him. Like lavender soap and vinyl and wheat bread.
He comes back in the room fully dressed and spikey haired. "You're still in bed! You're always still in bed when I'm dressed."
"It's warm and...warm in here."
He walks toward the bed and starts to lean over.
Kiss me kiss me kiss me do it KISS ME.
He leans right over me and I turn my head slightly to greet him, but he just keeps reaching and grabs the keys from the opposite bedside table. "I've got to walk Alfred. Come out when you're ready and we'll walk to the bus stop."
I get dressed in the skirt I wore yesterday and my tank top that I found in the trunk of his car last night, left over from some swimming trip. The sheets were getting cold, anyway.