bang, bang.

In actuality, it was only one bang. But “Bang” was never a song by Sonny & Cher and covered by Nancy Sinatra…geezy-peezy I love that song. And Kill Bill Volume 2 with which it will ever be associated. Back to the action.  It was not my baby who shot me down, nor was it I who was shot down, but it could’ve been! (Not really. We’re asking Truth to scooch down a bit so that Drama can join us on the couch.)

I arrive at my DOWNTOWN LOFT last night around 11:15 PM. Sarah, Roommate Temporalis, was chilaxin’ on the couch, watching some Atonement. She asks the perfectly legitimate and not at all paranoid question of, “When do the lights in the parking lot go off? Because I feel like they already are and that doesn’t make sense.” She’s right. It doesn’t make sense. Enter Danger.

BANG.

Waco is not a buzzing metropolis. The central Texas pace makes it quite easy to forget that Waco is still crazy dangerous. There’s a hopping drug trade and a substantial amount of the population lives below the poverty/desperation line. So when a girl hears a gunshot outside the window of her DOWNTOWN LOFT, concern may furrow itself across her brow.

Me: “Uh. That was a gunshot.”
Sarah: “Yeah.”
Me: “Uhhh. It was pretty close, huh?”
Sarah: “Yeah.”

We did the only rational thing: we ignored it. We did not go to the windows. We did not freak out. Sarah continued to moon over James McAvoy and his sepsis while I tried to wash a shift’s worth of steamed milk off my shoes. Then we heard the sirens. And saw the pretty lights. And realized they were gathering our parking lot.

According to my count (punctuated by a lot of “Ooh! Ooh! There’s another one!”’s) there were no fewer than eight cop cars, ten cops, 30 yards of yellow tape, two witnesses, and four frantically sweeping flashlights. Shortly after arriving, one cop ran back to his car and took off after someone/something.  Since I’m a cat owner, sudden movement and rabid intensity after no perceivable threat doesn’t faze me, but I’m sure he was riding to the danger zone.

At this point Sarah and I are huddled at my bedroom window, trying to peek without really peeking.  We don’t know what happened. We don’t know if anyone was hurt. We don’t know much. But we do know this: our mother’s never need to know that we live at ground zero. And life in a DOWNTOWN LOFT is substantially more exciting.

 

Filed under life i guess | Comments (2)

exclamation point.

“Ooh, I have a blog! Ooh, I’ma gonna update all the time! Blaaah.”

But really, I am. This past week has been one of extenuating circumstances.

If you’ve seen me in the past week, you’ve heard me bitch about this already. But I know you want a recap. I stayed up all night last Sunday to finish the thesis; I turned it in at 5 AM and immediately started packing. I had to be out of my apartment around  noon Monday and it hadn’t occurred to me, not even once, that I should put my metric ton of worldly belongings into boxes first.  My parents and uncle came to help around 8:30, by which time my bathroom and half my closet was packed. It was a long day.

My mom and dad have helped me move more times than anyone is biologically obligated.  Since May 2005, I’ve moved seven times; my long-suffering parents have moved me at least four of those.  Moving always seems to happen in the spring, which is never a good time for me.  They usually walk in to find me huddled in a corner, crying into my cat, amid mountains of dirty laundry and booze that they wish I didn’t drink. To make the whole job more fun, I’ve been a literature student for the past 6 or 7 years, so I have an ever-expanding collection of books to heave along. The parents complain, they sigh, but they always help me move.  Now I’m just left in a new apartment with boxes labeled in my mom’s handwriting, “BOOKS,” “BOOKS - HEAVY,” and “MORE BOOKS!”. It’s the exclamation point that makes me laugh.  My mom’s little Sharpie reminder that I am crazy and only technically hers.

Despite my boxes and limited access to The Internets (I shake my fists at you, HP), I am pleased to be living in a DOWNTOWN LOFT. My DOWNTOWN LOFT is in a building built in 1914 ( or something) and has exposed pipes and brick and an elevator. It is also in downtown Waco. So. There’s that. It’s the only time in my life I’ll be able to live in a DOWNTOWN LOFT, so I try not to dwell on the technicalities.

The best and worst part about downtown Waco is that it is downtown Waco. It’s quaint and old and precious. Also, it is filled with the most unique homeless population in Texas, second only to Austin.  Earlier this week I walked Mary Z (future roomie) downstairs to her car. Up comes one of Waco’s premier transients, toothlessly laughing.  He looks at me and says, “Gimme sompin’ to eat!” Crazy laugh, crazy laugh. I admire his forwardness, but unless he wanted to gnaw on my keys, he was out of luck.  This story is better when I can do his voice, trust me. 

I’m getting tired of typing in the student union building. So we’ll continue this another time. In upcoming news, I’ll probably be moving the blog to my own space this upcoming week. Keep yer ear to the ground. Also, I don’t intend to do many “sooooo. this is what I did today” posts, but I felt the need to explain my absence. I also have some Netflix responses due. Soon, loves.

Filed under life i guess | Comments (2)