No, Really, I Am an American

I grumbled a lot about my early Sunday morning shift. I never thought that 7:30 AM could be brutal considering I used to be the 6 AM server at Denny’s. But after eight months of mostly late shifts and 10AM mornings, that one 7:30 is enough to be noticable.

There were a lot of things that made Sundays worth it, however; the first of which being Firefly Sundays with the Fight Club, the second being Kate.

God only knows why Kate and I ever became friends; a fact I frequently question because quite frankly, the girl baffles me. I remember why we started talking in the first place, which was a fluke in the grand scheme of things — someone was talking about language and Elvish and lingusitics and come on, people, how could I not get in on a conversation like this? I remember thinking nothing of it.

A few weeks later, when we were sitting across from each other, at one point eye contact was made and I promptly looked away without saying a word. She made some remark about being rude and chagrined, I muttered some proper salutation and it just kinda went downhill from there.

Now she has such colorful and affectionate nicknames for me like “slag” and “scag whore” — which I looked up, and it’s equivelent to “heroin whore”…which of course degenerated to “crack whore”.

Damn Brits.

Yeah. It’s safe to say that I’m going to miss her and I’m wickedly bummed she’s moving.

Well, Kate got it in her head that she wanted to hang out with us before she left — us, meaning Fight Club. The Brit also got it in her head that I should organize this shindig since I have this affinity of befriending people who are want of decision making (not that I’m the best at ‘em, but I can do it when push comes to shove). After some impromptu planning and the like, we got the picnic organized and our Firefly Sunday was set.

Kate, Rob, and I finished at 3; after some brief errands, we went to Max Value and gathered some supplies: bread, roast beef, cheese, beverages, something green, tomatoes, chips, pop corn, general picnic fun.

Kate took us to this park by her house and I was wickedly impressed. I gotta say, it was a freaking amazing day to have a picnic. There’s this pond there, and a arching old-school foot bridge where old men and their grandsons were fishing, paved and trailed paths…it was amazing and I was kicking myself for not having a camera.

But Rob did. One of the reasons we even did this in the first place was because Rob said to the two of us at Alex’s Sayonova that he’d like to try out his new camera.

It was great hanging out with those two. We decided that Kate is like the Champion of all the people who’d ever been bullied, herself being a victim of such; since she related to us a couple stories of how she’s usually quite even tempered, but the second she notices someone being bullied, she just loses it. Like she did on these guys she knew in high school, consequently getting her in a bit of trouble with the administration. I remember her also telling me once that she would make it a point to sit with people who looked like they could use company during meals in the cafeteria.

As the sun was setting, we relocated to the gazebo across the pond so that the rest of Fight Club would have somewhere to sit and eat (we ourselves had situated on a stone bench near the banks of the pond).

Fight Club came and we passed the time playing the movie game (previously posted). I had asked Anna to make the infamous Filipino fried lumpia since Kate had liked it so much at the housewarming, and we shared in all kinds of food and drink.

The Brit parted company with us some time around 7:30PM or so as she wanted to go home and take a shower before we would all reconvene at Dunk for her party. We didn’t leave too much longer after she did.

Jacob was uncertain of his attendance; he was feeling tired and he didn’t really feel like partying. We decided to get cleaned up and he said he would see how he felt after. In the meantime, Helen was over — she ditched out on Firefly Sunday to hang out with Darya and read tarot instead.

Jacob had gotten his reading done while I was in the shower, and then I had mine read while he was in. *sigh* Al, we oughta go back to Decatur.

I took the house bike and met up with Rob since I anticipated staying much later than last train and I didn’t really feel like paying for cab. (Jacob had opted for the train, which he intended on catching…but like Kate the other night, he did not quite make it.)

Wow. Getting to Namba was MUCH easier the way Rob took me, and The Hill didn’t seem as bad on this route. Plus, added bonus, we managed to avoid the crazy foot traffic around Tsurahashi.

I hate to admit it…but Dunk that night wasn’t as much fun for me as it had been on Wednesday. I think it had to do with the people. I didn’t really know any of them that well and it seemed much louder than it had on Wednesday for Alex’s thing. I had mentioned this to Rob, and he said that it probably had to do with the fact that on Wed I got to hang out with the people I wanted to. He was right on some levels; but on the other hand, with no offense to Kate, her friends reminded me all too strongly of college parties with too much drink spilled and glasses broken. That’s not fair. Okay, let me rephrase that, the people who were at Dunk that night were remeniscent of such, since I know that things like that must have happened with the usual crowd at some time, too. (Although, since this was only my second time at New Dunk, I can only imagine that this is the case.) Anyway, I asked Dali about it, too. She laughed and said, “Yeah. These people are definitely a little more clumsy with their alcohol.”

They weren’t much singers either. It was more like screaming into the microphone. I looked at the rest of Fight Club and shouted, “This is why I don’t karaoke!” I left the room four or five times throughout the night in attempts to relieve my ringing ears.

It was all right. I was content to just kind of chill by the bar instead of by the window and watch. It wasn’t my scene in any way…but it was for Kate. She asked me to come, so I did. After all, I won’t see her much (or at all) come Wednesday.

As the night progressed and the rest of Fight Club preceded me in parting, it started becoming more and more like the parties I used to avoid.

While Kate was otherwise detained, I took that as my cue to slip away. I grabbed my bag, waved briefly to Phil and Melinda, and bolted out the door without so much as a good-bye to the Brit.

Phil had chastised me earlier when I mentioned running without saying farewell, but I didn’t want to say good-bye to her while she was inebriated. For one thing, I figured she wouldn’t notice; and more importantly, I like Kate. I don’t know how I feel about drunk Kate. Drunk people generally piss me off regardless of friendship and I really didn’t want to end up punching Kate in the throat.

“Besides,” I noted, albeit in a much raised voice, “I’ll see her on Wednesday.”

Sure, it’s because of work. But I’ll still see her.

I can say good-bye, then.

Who am I kidding? I’ll probably duck and run after last bell.

Crap. I have to give her her present. That might hinder the ducking and the running. And worse, it might result in…hugging.

*shudder*