Thursday, April 18

Wednesday was Chad and I's four year anniversary of meeting!! It was four years ago yesterday that I saw him dancing at a "rave" that the Purdue University Beat Society held in a church on campus. I told a friend of mine at the party that I thought he was cute and the next thing I know, my friend was pointing me out to him. We talked, we discussed meeting at a another party later... maybe... maybe not. The friend I went to the rave with dropped me off at home because we were both tired. I ended up walking to the party that Chad was supposedly at and then couldn't find the house. Turns out Chad went looking for me at the same party and then went home after discovering that I never turned up.

Didn't see much of Chad for the next month or so... but heard that he was the president of the Purdue Leftist Student Network (my boyfriend the Communist) and that the LSN was going to Washington DC to march with the Socialist Workers Party and demonstrate their support. Thirty-five dollar bus ride and 15 hours of uninteruppted time sitting next to the boy I had a crush on? There was no way that i wasn't going. (plus there was the added bonus of getting a civics lesson... or something like that.)

The march was weird, the bus ride was weirder... (testimonials abounded..."I joined the Communist Party because, 'like we should all live in teepees, 'cause that's, like, better'" Lots of memories of Chad, and other assorted good friends waving red flags and shouting "The People United! Will Never Be Divided!" in Spanish, came out of that trip.

Then summer came, Chad dissapeared for it's entire duration (turns out he was holed up with his parents in Elkhart, IN) when he came back to school in the fall. I had turned 21 and we decided to do penny beer night... each night for about 3 months. God bless college drunkenness. We've been together, almost, constantly since then... and our relationship seems to do nothing but getter better and more honest and real with each passing day.

That in mind we had the funniest (in an Alanis-Morrissette-"Ironic" sort of way) anniversary we've ever had yesterday. I took my little Chad-o-line out to dinner today at a very nice local vegeatarian restaurant. (vegetarian... except they serve fish... what is it that everyone, even the vegetarians, have against fish?) I double checked my account balance over the phone before we went to make sure that i had enough money. (dunh dunh dunh... foreshadowing) This restaurant has a very nice bookstore inside it and I had Chad order for me while I went to the "bathroom" and went next door and bought him a book he's been wanting for a while. My card went through in the bookstore! I had my (somewhat explicit but not really) book gift wrapped and then I went and had dinner.

Dinner was delicious, Chad loved his gift, we ordered coffee, we ordered dessert. The bill came, I paid with my debit card. It came back declined. Twice. Fuck. A couple of things I hadn't accounted for had gone through on my account while we were having dinner. I ended up having to take the (somewhat explicit gay themed) book back to the store and convince the owner (who normally doesn't do returns) why I needed to return this (somewhat explicit gay themed) book...So that I could pay him for dinner. I was so embarassed. Luckily... Everyone involved was very gracious and kind and accomodating. I'll be buying Chad his book next paycheck.

Sheesh. Love is strange. (My accounting practices are stranger.)
posted by Paul at 1:47:00 AM


This week has been a strange one. The restaurant I work at has been without power since Monday, that being the day that the Utah skies decided to whip up a killer dust storm with 30-40 mile an hour winds making the sky green and really ominous looking. If I were back home in Indiana, green skies would be an indicator that the tornado sirens were about to go off. No such luck. So, each day I have been going to work, coming upon a dark and very closed place of business and then turning around and heading home. Actually today, the boss man hooked up his coffee maker he brought in from home and powered it via a very long extendion cord to the neighbors outdoor outlet. Seemingly, our store and the laundrymat next door are the only places without power in the entire neighborhood. So we brewed coffee and gave away croissants by candlelight today (it's very dark at 6:30 in the morning when the skies are overcast.) Typical idiotic customer question today: "so you can't fix me any food then?" (fuck no we can't! and do you really want food that hasn't been refrigerated since the beginning of the week?) Fucking people, i swear.
posted by Paul at 1:22:00 AM


Geez if I waited another eight days... it would be a whole month since my last entry. I suppose life away from the computer is getting the upper hand. I'm working 20-30 hours a week, giving (free) massages a couple of hours each week and then add in (minor things like) going to school and clinic... not to mention trying to have some semblance of a personal life... and there you go.. a recipe for absoulutely no time on the computer. It's actually been quite refreshing. The weather (up until this week) has been great so I've been spending a lot of time outdoors walking to work, the gym, and school. Love it!
posted by Paul at 1:11:00 AM