The Social Butterfly (can still cause hurricanes in Miami)

As far as my social circle goes, things are picking up. Whereas a year ago I might have avoided most or all of this, now I'm actually trying to be more social. Imagine that.

Yesterday I went through the local supermarket, where my friend Adam works. He wasn't there, but his girlfriend, The Jen, was running a register, so I went through her line and talked to her a bit. "I heard you have a girlfriend," she said. I confirmed. "It's about time." I agreed. Of course, as you readers know, there's a lot more detail I could have gone into there, but I'm hanging onto my usual sort of discretion in such matters. The tale is too long to tell, for one thing. For another thing, she was just too damn happy for me and I didn't want to piss in those Corn Flakes. Time enough for that later.

Last night while at Borders I was visited by Ian, who I used to work with at LSI (he'll be 'Hiro' in the labels, so as to distinguish him from my brother-in-law). Now, I wouldn't say that Ian and I were exactly close, like Starr and I were, but he's a good kid and we have a number of overlapping interests ... even though he's perhaps more of a nerd than I am. And rest assured, I am a nerd. Anyway, before I left there he'd given me his e-mail, and it was only this week I got around to writing. Nothing against him at all, but for a while I was serious about the whole dropping off the face of the Earth thing as far as people from LSI go. Then I decided: fuck it. I benefit nothing from being non-social. And plus, I wanted to get some dirt.

He probably stayed a good two hours, and we talked about this and that, my job, Heroes, computer stuff, but especially LSI. As it happens, they *are* struggling in my absence. Like he said, "You know how we always used to work short, and somehow we just got everything done even though we had no help? Well, the week after you left, suddenly, we have people in from all over the place, extra people catching, other people around to help out." He's working mostly in screen-making now, and he's buried under orders that need screens, and he's had to remake numerous screens for Starr, who's doing all the stuff I used to do, but for some reason pops a lot of screens. And he mentioned there's an overlay job that he keeps having to remake for her for whatever reason. Because she's printing scrap, that's why. Heh heh heh.

This morning I had an appointment at Midas to get some work done on my baby girl. The apartment search is upcoming, but my biggest priority right now is to keep Jade up and running, and she was in desperate need of a battery. Also, I was hoping they could tell me why she sometimes stalls out when the weather is really hot, because that's annoying ... and worrisome. Anyway, while there I ran into Cindy, who also works at LSI, but in a different department. I've known her every since we both worked there on second shift. I like her because she's the one lady who always makes it a point to ask how the writing is going (and she did today). She asked me about the new job, and I gave her a glowing appraisal, and she was genuinely interested, which was nice. My policy with LSI people is that I'm never going to say anything negative whatsoever about Rugers (and I would do that even if I didn't love it there), or about Jen (despite, you know). She and Ian both asked about Jen, too, and I mentioned how happy she was at Rugers, just in case it comes up with any of the rats back at LSI, and then it would go back to Sue. I'm sure that Jen and I are still a sore spot in Sue's britches, and I mean to keep it that way.

After Midas I went down the the speedway in Claremont. Allen (aka Cooter), my friend from work, asked if I wanted to come down and see the mud bogging competition, so what the heck, I'll go. And it was pretty fun, although I can't tell a Ford from a Chevy just by looking at them across the pit, like a few of the people there could. Apparently, Ford vs. Chevy is the Coke vs. Pepsi of the redneck set, but being a city boy that stuff is lost on me. But the mud bogging was fun to watch in the same sort of way that the demolition derby is fun to watch up in Norwood. I'll go again, too.

I also met Cooter's girlfriend, Amy. In the eight weeks I've worked at Rugers they've been a couple, broken up, had all kinds of drama, and gotten back together. They act like an old married couple when they're together, too, even though she's 19 and he's 22. She has an application in at Rugers, too, for one of the assembly cells, and if she gets hired that should be all kinds of interesting. At least, for frikking once, it's somebody else and not me. She's pretty nice and we kind of hit it off right away. While they were estranged Allen sort of hinted about hooking me up with her, which would have turned out disasterous, and I knew it, so I stayed far away from that. She did sort of hook up with (former assembly employee) Jason, and it was disasterous, and caused all kinds of problems. Plus, I knew she and Cooter would get back together eventually anyway, and I'm not the sort of person to steal somebody's girlfriend out from under them. Maybe once upon a time I would have considered it, but it isn't 1998 anymore.

They also have a kid together. She was there, too. Her name is Allison, and she's like 1 and 1/2 or something. I got to interact with her a little bit, and she is so adorable and animated that I thought about my ultimate plans again, and you know what? I'm more convinced than ever about them. I want to have one of those, and someway or another I will have one. I'm also convinced that I'd be a pretty awesome dad, too. If in doubt, I can just look at my own dad, who is really good at it himself, and figure out what he'd do.

Speaking of, tomorrow I'm off to Massachusetts to see the folks.

Next week, everything I've started goes into overdrive. I'd better buckle up now.