Thu, 19 May 2005

notice of events
I was living in the Black Hawk that summer, constantly on the pay phone in the lobby with my stack of stolen phone cards so that the waitresses in the cafe across the lobby thought I was a drug dealer, until the younger one asked, and I stared at her until she went back to work. My phone time was spent trying to convince this girl that she was in love with me, her affection obvious to everyone but her, and that in time she would learn not to want the things she knew I could not give her. I felt like I was approaching a breakthrough in September when I ran out of phone cards and money on the same day. I ended up stealing ten bucks worth of change from a drunk Santa a few days later, but by that I was living in the men’s shelter, and you gotta have stones the size of Utah to convince a girl she’s secretly in love with you when you sleep on a cot in what once was a gymnasium back when girls couldn’t wear slacks to school. I could still afford to send letters, or at least postcards, but this was one of those postliterate girls who appreciated the time and effort of a letter, in theory, but at the end of the day letters are kinda a cornball tactic. However, there was a fire sale at the Hallmark store, and for three dollars I bought a hundred of those greeting cards with little two-bit samplers in ‘em, so you could record yourself saying “Happy Birthday, Grandma!” or whatever, and so I recorded everything I had to say to this girl, my whole gameplan, on three hundred talking cards. At the time I considered this an incredibly bold and romantic gesture, but in hindsight I realize I could have sent an audio tape for half the shipping cost. Long story short, to this day in the thrift store in the town where this girl lived (I don’t want to say the name, you might know her) there’s a huge stack of talking gift cards, each with my voice enunciating one of three hundred reasons why you already love me, whether you admit it or not.
(12:25.05.19.2005) [/scrytch] #