Manic Monday

Well, tomorrow is going to wind up being a much busier day than I figured a few days ago. First, I made the deadline decision to sign up for a couple of classes at Harold Washington College for the fall semester, which starts tomorrow. I did not go to the school and sign up, because I didn't feel like going there unless Whitney Young High School had sent my transcript to them, and I found out over the phone that they haven't yet received my transcript. My application for financial aid will not be processed until Harold Washington receives my transcript. So how did I sign up for classes? Online. Anyone who had a Harold Washington I.D. last semester can use it to log on to their computer system and register for classes in that manner, and you can even pay for them online if you have a few grand on your credit card and you trust the security of the server. I had to do it by Saturday at 6P though. If I didn't sign up by then, I would have to wait until Monday for late registration, and there's an extra fee for late registration. It gets more interesting: There's a 48-hour grace period for paying for the classes, so I decided not to pay for the classes with my credit card yet in case they receive my transcript tomorrow and they can process my financial aid. But if they don't receive my transcript, I'm going to have to pay for the classes now and have them reimburse me later after they determine how much financial aid I will receive. Boy, I just can't do things like normal people, can I? It's funny how much this past week standing in line at the school and running around trying to get proper documentation reminds me of last year at this exact same time. Still stinging from being dumped over the phone by "Sarah," and desperate for some kind of purpose for my pathetic life, I decided to sign up for classes on the last day of open registration, hobbling along the way due to a gout attack I was having at the same time. A year and 22 credits later (and hell fucking yeah I'm proud of those 22 credits, even though it takes about 120 to receive a bachelor's degree), here I am again, rushing and trying to beat the deadline and not completely sure that I know what I'm doing. I think I get off on doing things spontaneously like that. If I planned things out in advance, I'd have all that extra time to be afraid and convince myself that I'm a loser and I'm not going to do well and I'm never going to amount to anything. This way, I don't have time to think about it. Just do it, like Nike.

So tomorrow would be hectic anyway, what with me intending to go up to the school early before my literature class starts at 5:30P in order to find out the status of my financial aid. (My second class follows immediately afterwards, social science 102 at 7:05P, and both classes are Mondays and Wednesdays.) But I received a phone call today that made tomorrow downright apocalyptic. It's a job interview! It's just a temp job, but I'm still excited because I haven't been able to get anyone to even acknowledge receiving my resume when I apply to all these jobs I see online. And finally, someone called me back. I applied in an e-mail around 5:00P, and they called me a couple of hours later. It's a data entry deal on Madison and LaSalle, four blocks from where I used to work for ten years, as well as five blocks from school. I don't know much about it except it's a temp job that will end around the holidays and it's $10 per hour. The person who called initially told me that the hours were M-F 8:30A to 5:30P, but when I explained that my classes start at 5:30P, he assured me that I would be able to get out of there around 5P and get to class on time. So they seem friendly and not hardcore, but of course I won't know until I meet the gang. A potential problem is that he told me to dress professional for the interview, and my best clothes aren't what one would call professional. I don't own a suit, so it's going to be the same slacks and tie and painful suede bucks that I wore to that sports marketing interview way back on January 24. In addition, I had already charged my electric shaver for eight hours in order to shave my head today, before I even knew I had a job interview. So I start the preliminary trimming process, and the battery sounds like it's ready to die immediately, so obviously I need a new battery. So I'll have a nice furry head for this interview, but I'm used to having a clean-shaved head to go with the clean-shaved face, so I'm going to be self-conscious and hope that the hair isn't a bad impression even though there's nothing weird-looking about my hair, it's very normal looking black man hair, still very short, now complete with slightly receding hairline as a reminder that I turn 30 in December. The 839 pimples on my face are something that I can't take care of before tomorrow, so I'm not going to think about them.

It's been a weird week as far as my dealings with women. I've suddenly become popular in the MSN online group that I met "Torrie" on, and I do mean suddenly, out of nowhere. A 40-year-old New Jersey blonde e-mailed me out of the clear blue. At first she was commenting on a message I had posted, but at the end of the e-mail she informed me that if I ever found myself in Jersey, I would be "a mountain she would love to climb." Um, okay. One of the managers of the group, a 30-year-old Texan BBW, all of a sudden started flirting me on the message boards, one of the messages being simply "Will you marry me?" I'm as honest and straightforward on those message boards as I am in my blog, so I must have said something that made her take an interest in me. I think I mentioned a dominatrix whip called cat-o-nine tails in a post as an aside, and she perked up to that because she fancies herself a fictional mistress. I've played along with her because it's harmless fun, and because I'm flattered by the attention, although I don't find her attractive. "Laurie" is in the same group, however, and I don't think she likes it that much, but with the amount of flirting she does there, I don't think she has a leg to stand on. She's going to Florida in October, and she has told a member who lives down there that she would want to see him. She claims that she doesn't do hook-ups, and I tend to believe her because she's been celibate for two years, so she could have already hooked up if she wanted. But she made me promise that I would tell her if I hooked up with a Boston Latina who posted the message to me that she would be coming to Chicago this weekend and wanted to meet me (not for a hook up, and I haven't heard from her so we didn't meet anyway). I promised, then I made her promise the same thing. A different woman privately e-mailed me and told me that she would be in Chicago next weekend and wanted to meet me. She's 35, Seattle BBW and a redhead, and I've never had a red, so I admit that when I told her okay it was with the intent of hooking up. I've since decided that it wouldn't be worth lying to Laurie, or worse, telling her to her face that I couldn't wait two lousy weeks for her to come to Chicago and fuck me. The redhead woman and I talked for forty minutes Saturday morning, and she seems cool, so if nothing else, I'll make a new friend. To top things off, Torrie stunned me by sending me a text message Friday morning saying she missed me. I told her that I missed her too, and for no other reason than I didn't know what else to say to her, I told her if she needed anything let me know. Her response: "What I want from you I can't have, you're too far away." I told her that I wished I could help her. What I didn't tell her is that I could help her by flying up there and fucking her brains out right this second, but I won't do that because I'm holding out for a shot at a hotter, non-smoking, not-a-bisexual-slut woman, and losing myself in the great sex and good times we always had could ruin that shot at the hotter, non-smoking, not-a-bisexual-slut woman. It's incredible, that may have been the most popular week I've ever had with women...and save Torrie, I've never met any of them. Wondrous invention, that internet.

Anyway, gotta run, I have to spend an hour or so screwing around with fantasy baseball stuff before I get some sleep and get ready for my big day tomorrow. To think, I signed up for classes so that I wouldn't have too much spare time on my hands. Tomorrow might be the beginning of a crazy couple of months where I have no spare time on my hands. Wish me luck.