Love and Other Things I'm Bad At (10 page)

9/26

Right now Mary Jo has soft music on, some country-western singer singing romantic crap . . . what’s up with that? It’s either just her bad taste in music, or she’s in love.

“Why do you have to be so far away . . .” the song twangs, over and over, which only makes me think of Grant.

Does it make her think of him, too? Caught her yesterday staring closely at one of his photos. She said it was because she thought she saw a horse in the background—which was true, the picture was from when we visited a vet school—and wanted to know what kind it was, but now I’m not sure. Wasn’t she really checking out Grant? And what was with those long phone conversations they have when he calls and I’m not home? Can’t she just let the machine pick up?

Why did I have to get a roommate who communicates so well with animals and with my boyfriend?

9/27

I’m working at Funders right now. Have to write this down because it’s very funny.

Corny/Wittenauer just came over and said, “So Courtney, it’s all set for Saturday, right? The football game?”

We have big plans for our CFC protest. I’d ironed them out with Corny at the end of our meeting on Sunday and he was calling everyone to coordinate.

Anyway, the ever-present Dean Sobransky was hanging around. He thinks that just because he’s our supervisor and we work downstairs from his office he should drop by constantly. He happened to overhear. “What’s that?” he asked. “What’s all set?”

“Oh, Courtney and I. We’re uh, having breakfast,” he said.

Dean S. raised his eyebrow. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, of course you didn’t,” Wittenauer said, sort of winking at me.

“You’re such a genius at this job. If you don’t mind giving Courtney some tips. You know,” Dean S. said in a tone I guess he thought was low enough for me not to hear. “Show her the way.”

“Which way is that?” Wittenauer joked.

Out of town? I’m thinking. Really fast? Dean S. is way too nosey. He should not be in charge of Student Affairs, he should leave that to us. Not that I’m thinking of having one, just, you know. He’s overinvolved. Needs his own life.

9/28

Nearly fainted from shock when I got home tonight. There was an actual boy in our room. I was wrong! Mary Jo isn’t after Grant—she has a boyfriend of her own.

She’d been talking about someone named Joe for a while, but I honestly haven’t been around much and I wasn’t paying attention. I sort of thought it was one of her brothers.

Instead it’s this freshman who is tall and skinny and has lots of nervous tics. But Mary Jo loves him.

Mary Jo and Joe. That’s like a double Joe. (In other words, a large coffee?) If they have any kids, they can name him or her Jo-Joe Johannsen. If he lets her keep her name. Which he wouldn’t. I can just tell.

But I’m hoping they don’t get married, have kids, or even stay together for one more week, because even though Mary Jo and I have nothing in common and I can’t wait to switch roommates and live off campus ASAP, I think she deserves way better than this guy. I guess he is her study partner, because they met in chemistry and got to know each other in class and while Mary Jo helped him with his homework. (Refuse to believe he could manage material on his own. Too stupid. Also, too much of an opinionated jerk.)

“Courtney’s from Colorado,” Mary Jo said when she introduced us. They were drinking giant Sprites and going through her CD collection, playing all the really awful stuff. Which is all of it.

“Oh.” He almost glared at me. Like what is wrong with Colorado??? And even if there were something he didn’t like about it, how is that
my
fault? Did I discover the state?

“What’s that bumper sticker?” he grunted as he pointed at the T or D one on the wall.

I told him it was a place where I used to work. In the evil state of Colorado. I said it was a really popular place to hang out. He looked confused when I described the smoothies. “It’s like Dairy Queen,” I finally told him. Doofus.

“I hate Dairy Queen,” he said. Idiot.

“Me too,” Mary Jo said. “There’s not enough butterfat in the ice cream, it tastes watered down or something.”

“Well, it wasn’t
like
DQ, really,” I said. But there wasn’t much point getting into it, not if they didn’t know what I was talking about.

I left and went to the library, where I am now. If they keep dating, I will be spending a lot of time here. Which is just as well, I can ace all my classes and get my degree in 3 years.

9/29

GO AWAY. If you concentrate on something intensely enough, it will happen. Right?

Oops. Forgot crucial component of my thought.

Go away, JOE.

I’m waiting. Nothing’s happening. It’s practically midnight, and Joe has been here since like 4:00. First he and Mary Jo were doing math homework together. So I went out for a while. When I came back, they were using my computer to look up favorite country singers’ websites. Had to listen to bad songs filtered through my computer.

Went out again. Came back again.

Now he and Mary Jo are deciding what kind of pizza to order. Which means he’ll be here waiting for pizza, then eating pizza . . . then I’ll be listening to Joe talk about how Wisconsin pizza is so much better than Colorado pizza . . .

“So, um, Joe. Do you have a roommate?” I finally asked.

“Yeah. He’s really loud, though,” he said.

And you’re not??? Go away!!!

Mary Jo just went to pay for pizza downstairs and I am stuck here with Joe.

“Are you writing a paper or something?” Joe grunted.

“This is my journal,” I said.

“Journal?”

“Like . . . a diary,” I explained. How long exactly
has
he been living in civilized society, anyway?

“Oh.” He looked fairly bored. “My little sister keeps one of those. She writes all about boys. I stole it once and read the whole thing. Pretty boring.”

Just as I thought, he’s such a wonderful person.

JOE: If you are reading this right now?

You’re too close.

GO AWAY!!!

9/30

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Thyme said as we marched toward the football field this morning. Her, me, the rest of the Badicals. Wittenauer couldn’t be there as he was busy dancing in front of the crowd, sparring with opposing school’s mascot, which was a cow, which could destroy ear of corn in seconds flat.

We set up at the CFC end of the field. I draped a banner from the uprights that said “Ozone End Zone.” Yes, my brilliant idea. Thank you very much.

Whenever cheerleaders chanted “C—F—C!” we waited until they were done, then chanted, “No more C—F—C! No more C—F—C!” and “Change the name! Change the name!” Somebody had stolen some bullhorns from a gym office, so we were very loud. We interrupted the halftime show by charging across the field carrying flags and spray cans, wearing CFC sweatshirts with big circles and red lines through the initials. The one campus security guard that was working kept trying to chase us, but Corny/Wittenauer diverted her by chasing
her
instead—great comic relief, especially when she slipped on the field and fell in the mud. It was
so
awesome
.

Except for one small problem.

Nobody knew what to make of us. Nobody got it.

Also, my floor seems totally split about the whole thing. Early in the game, before the football team forced us to get out of the end zone, Tricia and some other girls from the floor went by and glared at me. I heard Tricia mutter something like, “She doesn’t even eat meat,” and “
so
on the fringe.”

But then Annemarie came over with the other half of our floor and they all high-fived me and Thyme, and said we were hilarious, so we felt better until Thyme pointed out that this wasn’t supposed to be funny, it’s a very, very serious issue. While she was talking, Mary Jo and Joe came walking up.

“Um, what are you guys doing?” Mary Jo asked. Like all our signs and banners didn’t make it totally clear.

“This is a joke, right?” Joe asked. “Nice sweatshirts.” He kept laughing at us.

“Some of us are less evolved than others,” Thyme said.

“Why would I
want
to be involved in this?” Joe replied.

“Evolved. Not
in
volved,” I told him.

He looked at Mary Jo and they had some secret exchange and then they left. She’s not home tonight. Ew.

10/1

Just got back from cafeteria. Have another protest group idea. They started this new “theme” meal-thing tonight, called Oktoberfest. Basically it’s supposed to reflect German cuisine, so the bins are full of meat simmering in cabbage juice and there’s potato salad with bacon bits.

Who invented bacon bits?
Why do they seem like a good idea for any kind of salad? Wrong wrong wrong.

I asked how long this theme was going to go on and Larry, Caf. Supervisor, said “All month!” and I said, “Okay, but what Oktoberfest feature do you have for vegetarians?” and his smile disappeared and he said sauerkraut was a vegetable.

That’s when I noticed that lots of people in the buffet line were staring at me. Pointing fingers. Should have gone to a bigger college, where no one would remember me. Should have colored my hair a boring brown, or should maybe wear large hats from now on. But that would be running away from my idea. I can’t do that. I believe in what I’m doing. Even if it means that my floor is broken into factions and some people don’t want me there.

When I got home, Joe was in our room. I didn’t want to be there. Thyme was fighting with Kirsten. So I knocked on Annemarie’s door. She turned down the music, told me to come in. I asked if I could hang for a while. She said sure, I slammed door behind me, she turned up music. Music is so loud I can barely think, let alone focus on completing sentences. It’s perfect, actually.

10/2

Like dishing up glorified pigs in blankets is not bad enough! I got this ultimatum from Jennifer today re: the regimental hairnet. She found one hair in the cheddar spread and claimed it was mine because it was orange, and my hair is sort of reddish. Never mind that the cheddar is
orange
!!!

“Courtney, I’m not telling you again. Either wear your hairnet, or get your hair cut short. And don’t forget to mop the ladies’ restroom.”

I felt like Cinderella. Mopping the ladies’ while Mark/Marc sat in a stall and smoked his Benson & Hedges 100. Only consolation is that everyone gets treated the same way. Very very poorly.

10/3

Thought I had a brilliant idea today.

Need to stop having those thoughts. Wrong every time.

Thyme convinced me to get my hair cut to avoid having to wear evil hairnet, to avoid Jennifer’s constant reprimands. I thought about it for a while and decided I’d look okay with short hair. “Anyway, there’s power in really short hair,” Thyme said, throwing in some details about I wouldn’t be oppressed by society’s rigid standards of beauty, etc. She made it sound like she was going to shave my head, so maybe I should have stopped right there and then. But she was being so funny, pretending to run a real beauty salon. She gave me one of her roommate’s magazines to read while I sat there waiting for her to chop it off. She was getting everything ready. She said she worked one summer at a hair salon. I trusted her. Why? Couldn’t I just
look
at her hundred-braid hair and realize a short cut would not be her specialty?

But I was reading the magazine and having a great time until I came upon this article: “So You and Your Boyfriend Go to Different Colleges—Can It Work?”

They had all these stats about how few LDRs survive freshman year, and who cheats first, and all these way-too-easy-to-read pie charts that caught my eye when I tried to look away. The really big pieces of pie represented the couples that didn’t make it.

“This is all a bunch of crap,” I said as I threw the magazine across the room.

“Oh, I know, I
hate
those magazines,” Thyme said. “I just thought you might see a short hairstyle you want.”

I tried to smile. But then I saw what Thyme had done to my hair, how much of it was on the floor, how little was left on my head.

If only I’d looked at the stupid celeb hair photos instead of the article that was far too relevant to my personal life. I’d still have good hair and wouldn’t be depressed.

I called Grant to tell him about my new ’do. He couldn’t talk for long because he has a bio exam tomorrow at 8. Quite obvious to me that his program is about 100 times more challenging than mine right now. I am stuck in Intro World. Everything’s 101 and below.

Just got up to check my hair in the mirror again. “It’s very, um, flattering,” Mary Jo said. “It really shows off your ears.”

I need new earrings. ASAP.

10/4

“Courtney, you certainly look . . . unique.”

This is Dean Sobransky’s idea of a compliment. Isn’t he supposed to be making students feel okay about themselves?

Turned out his so-called small talk about hairstyles was just his way of stopping by my cubicle so he could ask me about what happened on Saturday. “Your little protest was, well,
unique
.” Like that’s the only word he knows how to use when he can’t say anything nice.

“Thanks,” I said. “We enjoyed it.” I turned around to start dialing. Didn’t even have a card ready for a person to call, but I didn’t want to talk to him about my C—F—C ban idea.

He hovered by my cubicle, then actually put his hand over the thingy to hang up the phone. “But . . . er, well, of course you don’t plan on continuing that,” Dean S. said.

“Well . . .”

“Do you?”

“Umm . . .”

“Good. I’d hate to create such a diversion on campus . . . which could create division . . . which might lead to dissension . . .” Then he got to the real point. “Especially with Parents Weekend coming up! We need to put our best foot forward. Don’t you agree?”

Totally forgot about Parents Weekend and the fact Dad has promised to come. Jotted down a note to call him before my shift was over to confirm.

Fortunately another Fun-Times Funder called Dean S. over to her cubicle just then. Wittenauer rushed over and asked if Sobransky was giving me a hard time.

“Parents Weekend is exactly why we have to keep it up, be vigilant,” Corny insisted.

“Yeah, but it’s different for you,” I whispered. “You’re in costume. You’re happy
corn
. No one knows you’re in on the whole thing.”

“Don’t give up,” Wittenauer said. “We’re all in this together, and we’re going to make things happen here. Okay? Trust me.” He rubbed my shoulder and I felt this weird pang. First human contact in 6 weeks. Okay, first
boy
contact. Hugging all the members of the food co-op when I met them doesn’t count.

Went to Wanda’s Wauza Beauty Shoppe this afternoon. Wanda gave me this sad look and started telling me if I wore more makeup and maybe got one of those push-up bras, maybe people wouldn’t look at my hair so much. And I should come back in 3–6 months for a trim. A
trim
. Like I’ll need one.

When Joe came over and saw my hair today, he just laughed. And laughed. And started calling me “Truth or Hairless.” Like that’s even a joke. Certainly not funny. Mary Jo was laughing, too. Too afraid to stand up to him and explain that it wasn’t my fault.