Saturday, July 16, 2011

Community

I have noticed over the last couple of days that the same faces keep turning up in the Barnes & Noble I now call home. Not all of them, but there are some that appear every day, just like I do. One is an old man who always has a magazine on his lap but is inevitably asleep in his chair. There was another man that was reading the same book three days running, which is actually how I recognized him. A teenage kid who I think is here reading a series that he's interested in, but not interested in buying, because he has gone though two books, I think, with similar looking covers. It makes me feel less weird for being a constant presence here. I'm part of a community now. The weird people with no place to go any day of the week.

And we do similar things, this community and I. For one, we know where the outlets are. We know where the comfy chairs are. We know where the non-comfy chairs are.

I came in after looking at a room for rent and was hoping to find a comfy chair, but the chances are slim at this time in the afternoon. No comfy chairs, no non-comfy chairs. So I walked into the corner by Religion and Philosophy where there had been one of those plastic step-stools the other day. It's across from cookbooks, too, and I went through a book on jell-o. Made from scratch, flavored on your own, jell-o. Weird. Anyway, I went to that corner to find the stool and I turn the corner and there's the stool, with the teenage kid hunched over one of the books in his series! I laughed because of course he knows where the stool is when all the chairs are full, he's here every day, too.

Luckily I have a backup corner. It's by a window and an outlet and a shelf so most people don't fit back here and it makes for a nice spot. I'm also not in anyone's way if they're looking for books, which is the benefit over sitting in the middle of the floor elsewhere. Though there are plenty of people who do and it's pretty acceptable.

I went to look at an apartment today. Well, not an apartment, just a room that's for rent. But I get to use the rest of the apartment. It's less than a mile from the zoo. My walk to the zoo would be shorter than my walk to the library I worked out. And with no hills. It's in a great great great neighborhood and I was so excited. The apartment itself was a little disappointing, I'm not gonna lie, but it's in a perfect location. Absolutely perfect. I was ready to move in. And then the guy showing me the place says "There's someone staying in this room right now, she's a guest of my roommate's and I'm not sure when she's leaving. But he's out August 1st so it won't be later than that." I TOLD YOU in my email, I TOLD YOU, that I needed to move in right away. I said, "If everything goes well when I see the apartment I would like to move in the same day." Verbatim. That was in the email. WHY would you not share this little detail with me? So now I'm very upset because all this morning I was so excited, I thought this was going to be it, hooray hooray. I told him again what my situation was and told him he should call me when he found out when she was leaving because I would love to move in but I need to move in right away.

What a disappointment.

So now I'm back looking, but people seem to post less on weekends so there's not a whole lot I haven't seen up right now.

This is getting ridiculous. Flat out.

And I cannot tell you how sick I am of fast food. Of dollar menu fast food. Of those nasty grey little hamburgers. I'm eating less because it's such an unappealing activity right now.

In between craigslist searches I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books. I'm into the third one now. It's pretty distracting. Last night it got dark out--which is my cue to go to my hotel--before I could finish and I got back to my room and all I could think about was that last 40 pages. Today I'll have to leave the third unfinished and I'm sure that will have me thinking about it all night again. The third was my favorite so I'm excited.

Back to reading for a little bit.

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