I'm Studying You

I would like to change your mind.

A good good evening to you, Studyees. Now that the smoke has cleared on today, allow me to reflect a little on what has become a most cranky Monday....I'll start with a song that hasn't been able to be purged from my brain lately and always seems to come on when it's about the time I turn the radio up after conversations...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaYVklxf7qg

9:30am: Wake up on the day J and I both do not have to work. I remember Alex came in early and said he wasn't feeling well and might not go to school. J's discretion leaves it up to him. His room is dark when I greet the day, his books are on the table, and yes, he is the next victim of my sickness last week. I smoke a cigarette in partial agony of what else may lead to today.

10:25am: Decide to get McDonalds (holla back at your boy for Breakfast Burritos!!) while J, still asleep (because she informed me that she is sleeping in today last night) mumbles something like "You can't make yourself breakfast here?" No, I can't...we don't have those perfect little sausage balls that McDonalds has. Plus I need a newspaper and anything I might need whilst spending the afternoon at my house while she has lunch with a friend of hers at 12:30pm. I ask you, loyal Studyees, to keep that last sentence in mind, as it is important to the story.

11:05am: Arrive back at 40 Broe, reprogram the remotes so I can watch ESPN while eating my fantastimatic breakfast and bitch at the internet while it keeps dropping out in-between trying to get my Facebook action on for the day and reading the ESPN.com columns they don't broadcast on-air. I'm a details guy...I need the behind-the-scenes stuff and the insight.

11:15am: Alex comes down from upstairs. In his jeans from last night and wrapped in a blanket. Shirtless. Ladies, slow your roll; he's 13. Girls, hit me up; he's 13! We hang for a few, he tells me there's stuff to make breakfast in the house (as if I didn't know; I do my share of grocery-buying), and he says I should friend his dad's girlfriend's kid on Facebook. I do out of respect to Alex. Like this kid, who I just met on Saturday, will know who in the blue fuck I am.

11:19am: Sleeping Jessicutey arrives from her sleep and just about loses her shit because "the house looks like a mess and nobody cleans up after themselves and *insert audible banging and clanging and general frustration here* and ALEX, get this, this and this outta here, I've told you how many times, and, *insert indescribable audible disgust here*".

11:22am: I'm done with my 3/4 of my 2nd breakfast burrito. Alex is down to one egg and wants to make some french toast, and asks Jess if she thinks it'd be ok if he asks me to go to the store to get some eggs. Momma's boy, totally, but that's another story for another time. He asks, I oblige. As I toss my tasty remains into the recipticle meant for trash, she's done bangin' for the most part in the kitchen and says she's gettin' in the shower. I say I'm gettin' some eggs. She's on schedule, by the time she showers, applies all her cosmetics and creams and beautifics and blow-dries, plus whatever I decide I want to do....I'm either dropping her off for lunch at Tully's to meet her friend and go to the mall, or having her drop me off at 542 so I can read the paper and be left at peace to my own devices. As she's getting out of the shower I tell of my options and she snaps at me "It's our day off and we always spend our days off together!" I nearly had to hold myself back from reminding her that the thing she was getting ready for first and foremost was her lunchdate with her girlfriend.and that I had nothing planned for today. I almost died at this freakish contradiction.

11:50am: What is to be a short trip to get some eggs is made five minutes longer by the conversation with an old friend in line behind me, who wouldn't have recognized me if I hadn't said hello. Meanwhile, Alex is about to make himself french toast and Jess is half-naked weeping on the bed. I've pretty much made up my mind that maybe I should just head back to 542 and she can come get me when she hits me with the bawling "I'm sorry, I wasn't meaning to be mad at you, blah blah blah...do you still love me...ummm, Alex wants to go to Best Buy with you if you drop me off at Tully's, is that ok?"

Holdupwaitaminute... Alex can't go to school cuz he's got whatever we had last week, but he's up and making himself breakfast and now he wants to go to the mall and Best Buy with me? Are you effing moffing kidding me? When I was a kid, if I pulled that kinda knowledge, I'd be getting driven back to school in a heartbeat. But no, Jess isn't that kind of parent (her own words). So me and Boy Drama Queen are headed for a trip to the lame mall. At least it could be the cool mall, but no.

12:15pm: Jess is ready to go and has just about enough time to get to Tully's, while Alex is asking if he can watch a dvd of some movie that he's already seen. She confirms that he can come with me, sealing my fate. I step out to have a smoke because Boy Drama Queen gets overly-dramatic when anyone smokes within 30 yards of him. He also struggles to get ready. Pay attention to this detail also, Stoggers...

12:20pm: After J has scolded Alex because she's got somewhere to be at a certain time, we get in the car and she tells me she has to get her friend a card. Preparedness does not run in the family.

12:33pm: J's friend texts her asking where she is. J's friend is punctual. I enjoy being punctual. We're almost 10 minutes away. But some people are too punctual...which isn't a bad thing when said friend texts an hour earlier if you're going to be on time and you confirm you will be...and then you aren't. It makes me feel like less of a slavedriver when trying to keep her punctual. She rarely is.

12:51pm: Drop her off, and Alex and I head over to Best Buy where I spend a whole lot of time not finding what I want, which is a hard case for my iPod. Then I start looking for things...reaching...sandals (specific ones), an Orange NY Mets hat, speakers for my HK receiver that I brought over weeks ago, Shit that I can't find in this crappy mall.

2:31pm: She texts me that she's done, and where she should meet me, so I tell her the Electronics dep't of Sears, which happens to be the closest entrance to the mall by the restaurant she's in. And up to this point, Alex hasn't really been sick, or annoying. But I'm done with this mall, that we've lapped front to back twice.

2:50pm: After not being impressed by anything inside Payless Shoes the first time we went in there about an hour or so earlier, I remarked to Alex that his mom would want to go in there. By the time we got there, her take on the day and mine had already silently clashed. When we passed Payless and she wanted to go there, I looked at Alex and said "I told you so!" She flipped her shit. Threw a big baby fit. She wanted to do more shopping, but I was done; and then she wanted to do more farther away from home.

See, her mom and I had conspired on a gift for her for Mothers Day. We were going to get her a Patio-type of set of furniture. Mom M wired me the some money and I told J about it and the day turned from my shopping trip to hers, which always happens. Always. Her reciepts can prove it.

I will not bore you with the rest of the story. I ended up with a few cds and a dvd that made me happy, we found a patio set that we like for the patio we don't have, smart remarks were shared all over, and Alex had a good time, for which he thanked me for. Plus I found an orange NY Mets hat, so bonus for me.

I have to try to get to bed reasonably, but I'll leave you with my favorite track from a cd I thought I had but I didn't until tonight. And since it's not a big deal that I didn't know the Beastie Boys reissued "Check Your Head" complete with a bonus cd behind my back, I'll be happy with getting this cd used and firing off this video of a mellow, much-enjoyable song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx9br5ISRpo

Kinda fitting. Peace out homies. Good good night NOW!!