My Lovely Day Off

So, my friend D., with whom I spent about two hours on the phone on Christmas Eve, came back into town yesterday to go back to school. This is about the third (or fourth?) time that he has attempted to finish his Bachelor's degree at LSU, having settled last year for an Associate degree in Psychology. He told me that this semester would "make or break" him.

D.is an intelligent guy, and certainly capable of finishing school and getting his B.S., but he carries a little baggage with him. First of all, he likes to get fucked up a lot, and when I say fucked up I mean TOFU'd. He is an expert on how to combine OTC and prescription medication in order to get as totally fucking wrecked as possible. His big thing used to be Robitussin DM and Mini-thins. Robitussin DM contains Dextropomorphan, which is a morphine analog, and Mini-thins (which, I think, are no longer availible) contain pseudoephedrine HCL, which is used to make crystal meth. His behaviour on this cocktail landed him in the mental hospital and in drug programmes several times and led to his being granted a large amount of money which now allows him to attend college virtually for free, without having to take on student loans. If there is one thing that he is good at, it is working the government to get stuff for free.

He got in touch with me before I got of work, and came over after I got home and hung out for a couple of hours, and we talked about a lot of different things. I told him that what he needed to do was lay off the drugs and alcohol and trashy sex while he is in school and just concentrate on passing his courses. He is probably the least disciplined person I know, and, I told him, school requires quite a bit of self-discipline, as I know, having worked my way through university. He doesn't have to work, I told him, so he really has no excuse for not passing his courses, especially sinced he is carrying only 12 semester hours.

Typically of D., he hit up on quite a bit of my wine and I wound up feeding him a grilled chicken dinner and some steamed vegetables. He can really be the biggest mooch: Travis and I used to demand a deposit from him when he stayed with us, because he would eat everything in the pantry and fridge while he was staying. He asked me if he could stay the night, saying that he was lonely, and I told him no, that I had writing to do, and he would have to go back to his dorm, which is less than a mile away (he came by bike). I know him: he just didn't want to have to ride back home. Oh, yeah: laziness is another of his character traits.

He had gone to see my former friends, Bridget and Christie, who were directly responsible for my living in the street, and stll owe me $430, which I will probably never see again. He told me that they had explained why they didn't feel that they owed me anything: that I had "disrespected" them, which is, of course, just an excuse not to repay a debt. If I don't pay my car note, and the bank "disrespects" me by sending me a letter asking for payment, does that mean that I don't owe them the money any more? If I use this as my excuse, and disregard the letter, they will eventually "disrespect" me even more by sending a man around to take the car away, and then, they will sue me. Of course, I have no such recourse. So, I guess I will never see that money again. No-good deadbeat bitches. Some friends, huh?

So, today, Travis and I went to the water company, where I payed the deposit to put the water in my name and went to the storage space and picked up some things, including my TV. We stopped at Wally World and I bought a cheap rolling drawer thingie and plastic shelves, and, when I got home, I got all my clothes squared away and put up and hooked up the TV and LO, I HAVE CABLE! I'm going to watch Adult Swim tonight!

I treated Travis to lunch at Louie's. The head cook there is an old friend of mine, who used to live in the same complex where I did, years ago, before they tore it down and built Jack-in-the-Crack. We ate lunch, and the same awesomely cute little boy who waited on us before was there (but he didn't wait on us). God, but he is adorable! He's so little, too, but he's got the hottest little round butt .... oh, well. I can forget that. He's way too young and cute for me.

So, I am blogging and watching TV. I have eaten, and the cats are both passed out. I got hold of the manuscript to Bughouse, which I haven't touched in almost a year, and, so, I will be working on that now, besides my blog and a couple of other projects. I am supposed to be off tomorrow, but if they call me in, I will go to work.

Not a bad day off. Got a few things done. Everything's kewl, for a change.

And the Rains Came ...

South Louisiana isn't noted for its wide range of seasons.We get about eight months of Summer, which is unbearably hot and wet. There are about three months of Winter (or something resembling Winter), when it is cold and wet. There is about a month, combined, of Spring and Fall, when it is comparatively nice, and wet. The operative word here is, of course, "wet".

It has been raining every day now for about a week. So far, I have been pretty lucky to miss most of it: it has rained a lot while I was at home and a lot while I was at work, but not too much while I was in transit, which is good when you ride a bicycle everywhere, like I do. Well, it looks like my luck ran out today. The image on this post is the view from my north windows of the Jack-in-the-Crack parking lot, and it is a veritable monsoon. It rained last night, but only after I got home, and again, about 3:00 AM. It started raining again about 20 minutes ago, and, from the look of the skies, I am either going to have to catch a ride with Travis at 4, when he goes to pick up Fernando, or pack dry socks in my backpack and brave the flood.

Fortunately, I texted him, and that is not a problem, since they live in the next block, and I can walk there. Of course, that means that I will have to find a way home tonight when I get off at 11.

I really love riding my bicycle. I do it all the time. But weather like this takes all the fun out of it. The rain is so hard that it feels like having gravel thrown in your face. The water drips down in your bike shorts and soaks your nether regions, and your shoes fill with water. When I get to work I have to strip off my wet clothes in one of the stalls in the employee bathroom (people at work are used to me using it as a dressing room, so this doesn't shock anyone), dry off, then change into work clothes. My underwear is usually wet, but I wear lightweight nylon underwear (a good thing to do when you ride a bike), so it usually dries of in an hour or two.

The main problem is the maniacs on the road.At their best, Baton Rouge drivers are incompetent idiots; at their worse, they are insensitive, overaggressive road demons. They have absolutely no concern for anything on two wheels, other than to become annoyed when they are forced to slow down for you, in which case they show their displeasure my leaning on the horn or blowing past you with a rush of acceleration, or both. Often, they drench you with standing water as they pass. I know I have posted about this before, but it is such an annoying fact about living here that it bears reposting. You would think that, in a place where it rains so much of the year (5-6 inches per month)that people would learn to drive in it, like people learn to drive in ice and snow up North. There, you would be wrong.

When it rains in Baton Rouge, drivers are transformed from simply annoying assholes into psychopathic juggernauts. They actually drive faster and more recklessly, presumably, to get out of traffic and the rain, more quickly. The number of traffic accidents doubles: sirens are heard everywhere. They take chances. They cut each other off. They drive as if they were in some kind of soggy demolition derby, they object of which is to take out as many vehicles on the way to where they are going as possible. Riding a bicycle on Baton Rouge streets in the rain is, well, suicidal.

So, why do I do it? Well, with no automobile (I can't afford one), I don't have a choice, a lot of the time. I have to get to and from work, even if I curtail other expeditions in poor weather. Maybe some of it is bravado: I pride myself on being a tough, competent street rider, capable of negotiating city streets under any conditions. Maybe I should reconsider that. I have to admit, though, that out of all the times I have been hit by vehicles while riding, only once has it happened in the rain (which is probably because I go a lot slower and take fewer chances). Hmm.

Maybe some of those idiots out there should do the same: go slower and take fewer chances. Naw. Where's the excitement in that?