13 June 2002 ~ Dimmer than a forty-watt bulb on downers...

It's a thousand degrees outside today. In Olympia, it rarely gets above, like, seventy, so when it gets to be a thousand degrees, people get really, really weird. Bitchy, in fact.

I was in town today looking for a job (jobs in Olympia are as rare as days that reach a thousand degrees). On my way between businesses, a grand total of FIVE vehicles -- four cars and a bus -- attempted to run me down. Unaggravated vehicular assault. It was kind of weird, actually; not like normal cases of road rage, where somebody's tail-gating, and you force them to pull over, and then pistol-whip them. Oh no; this was Helena, merrily walking down the sidewalk, humming a merry little song, when out of fucking nowhere, four cars and a bus made 180-degree turns in order to try to deliberately SMASH Helena-the-merry-pedestrian, and her merry little song.

(Well, it went KIND OF like that....)

Could not find a job. Decided that, since I was feeling kind of moody (not being able to find a job, AND having four cars and a bus try to smash you will do that to you...), I would try to find a cool place to sit with some orange juice and a cigarette.

The closest I could find to the above criteria was Oly World News, a quaint, but shabbily-run little coffeehouse-ish type thing. There was a new guy at the counter. He was big and hulking and of an indeterminate age. I said, "do you take checks, or do I need to run to an ATM first?"

The Hulk looked at me like I'd asked him to explain nuclear physics.

"We'll take checks," he said, then paused. Thought. Thought some more. Appeared to scratch his genitals in thought. Amended his statement with: "Well, we'll take checks if, um, they're from a bank like, around here."

Now, one could logically presume that "around here" was The Hulk's equivelent of "in-state." But this was Oly World News, and Oly World News is REAL weird about some things. For instance, they won't allow you to say the word "decaf" in the store. And this woman who may or may not own the place has a habit of walking her pet wolf (yeah, you heard that right...) through the store and then screaming at all the nice little kids who want to pet the wolf... Just to be on the safe side, I asked the guy behind the counter, "that means you take checks from in-state banks?"

The Hulk looks at me like I'm a four-pound Pomeranian standing next to a sign that says, "warning, attack dog." This patronizing, "aw-isn't-that-sweet" smile. He STILL looked dimmer than a forty-watt bulb on downers, so that grin made me kind of mad.

"We take checks that are from banks around here..." he said, as if that explained everything.

Okay, I'd try another tactic...

"Are Bank of America checks okay?" I asked.

"Is that around here?"

"They're like, everywhere, dude," I said, getting really kind of exasperated. I mean, I think you have to live in a fucking CAVE to not know where the nearest Bank of America is; it's like not knowing where the nearest Starbucks is. They're fucken everywhere. "There's one like, RIGHT over there... On Fifth Ave."

"Then okay, you can write a check."

Gee-zuz.

"Okay, then question number two: got any orange juice?"

"Um... well, let me check..."

What on earth kind of a coffeeshop does not have orange juice? What kind of a coffeeshop isn't SURE, at any given time, whether it has orange juice?

The Hulk comes back from peeking into dark little OlyWorldNews cubbyholes. He says, "no, I can't make you any orange juice right now, but I can make you some lemonade."

"You can't make me any orange juice?"

"Yeah, we don't have any seltzer water right now."

"SELTZER WATER?"

Kids, people do not MAKE orange juice. People SQUEEZE orange juice. Lacking proper equipment to do that, people POUR orange juice. Orange juice has never, in the history of oranges (which dates back to the 1600's or so, at LEAST...), been MADE with SELTZER WATER. Orange juice with seltzer water in it is called an "aranciata." I mean, The Hulk was striking me as slightly less than a rocket scientist, so I wasn't expecting him to know what an aranciata is, but STILL...

I shouldn't get so worked up over these things. But after all, it is a thousand degrees outside, AND four cars and a bus tried to smash me, AND nobody will hire me.

I said to The Hulk: "Uh... you make orange juice with seltzer water?"

He got kind of pissed at me. What the fuck?

"I don't HAVE any seltzer water right now. I can make you a LEM-UH-NADE if you want, but I CAN-NOT MAKE YOU OR-ANGE JUICE."

"Lemonade." I was about ready to crawl over the counter and kick his hulking ass. It was hard to restrain myself, let me tell you. I crossed my ankles so that I would trip if I tried to kick his ass. I didn't REALLY want to kick his ass, after all. I detest violence. He was just really tempting me, is all...

"I can't make you lemonade with seltzer water. We don't have any."

"You just SAID you could make me a lemonade!"

"Not with seltzer water. We don't have any. I'll have to make it regular. Do you mind?"

Breathe, Helena, breathe.......

"That will be fine."

Helena's Recipe For Lemonade
*put lemon juice in container
*put sugar in with lemon juice
*put tap water in with sugar and lemon juice
*stir

People should not put seltzer water in lemonade. If they do, it isn't lemonade anymore. It's a limonata. Not, of course, that The Hulk could be expected to figure this out. The Hulk probably spent three hours every morning counting his toes to make sure they were all there. Lemonade, apparently, is WAY too advanced.

The lemonade was $1.89. I had found two dollars in my bookbag as The Hulk had been making the lemonade. One dollar bill, and four quarters.

Now, let's review. One DOLLAR BILL. And FOUR QUARTERS. The word "quarter" comes from the Latin meaning "ONE-FOURTH OF A DOLLAR." If you have four of them -- quarters, that is --, it stands to reason that you have A DOLLAR. And if you add the DOLLAR BILL together with the FOUR QUARTERS that make up a DOLLAR, how many dollars do you have?

The Hulk took my money. He looked at it. He poked at it so that all of the quarters were visible to himself and to me. He said, looking straight at me: "How much is that?"

I just looked at him. I was, so to speak, dumbstruck.

"Is that two dollars?"

"Uh... YEAH..."

"Oh. Okay."

He gave me my change. He gave it to me in pennies and one nickel. Eleven fucking cents, and six of them are pennies? On a day when Olympia is a thousand degrees outside, I REALLY wanted to be carrying around six more pennies in my bookbag.

You know, maybe I wouldn't have been so worked up about the fucking moron behind the counter at Oly World News if four cars and a bus hadn't tried to smash me.

How did this hulking waste of flesh get a job when I can't get one? Not saying I'm a rocket scientist or anything, but f'gahd's sake, I can count FOUR QUARTERS.

And I know that orange juice isn't made out of seltzer water.

I am currently in the Evergreen State College's computer lab. I came here to type an entry so y'all know I'm still alive and kicking. I happened across something I thought I might like to print out, too. So I clicked "print" and went over to the printers to wait for it. There's another kid standing at the printers waiting for his thing, too. He stands there, and I stand there, and we don't say anything to each other for a minute or two. Then the kid looks at me and says, "Are you waiting for something to print?"

No, I'm waiting for monkeys to fly out of my butt.

I think I made a mistake. When it's a thousand degrees in Olympia, Helena gets bitchy, and everybody ELSE turns into a fucking dumbass.

I'm going to go home and sit on my roof and look at the mountain now. The mountain will cheer me up.

Love,
~Helena*

PS -- Made the world's best black-and-tan last night. I made it for my friend. He took one sip and didn't want it, so I sat on the roof all evening writing letters and drinking the world's best black-and-tan all by myself. Fine by me. I prefer sunsets, notebooks, and alcohol to most people's company anyway.