"Whatcha studying?"
The instant someone asks you that question, you know you are hearing from an idiot. To an academic, it's the equivalent of asking an otherwise busy bomb disposal technician, "Hey, you think that thing's gonna explode?"
Seriously, I got back up to my apartment and asked Animala to take off the sign that said, "Talk to me! I'm busy!" She informed me that I was an off-putting moron, leaving me craning my neck and spinning like a dog trying to toss a belligerent chipmunk from its back.
What part of not looking up don't people in my apartment building get? If I wanted to talk to you, I would be living with you. It's that simple. Assume that I hate you. I assume that you hate me. Don't go and spoil my day by proving me wrong!
I was also visited by my wandering schizophrenic neighbor. Ever since his dad told me that the son was schizophrenic, I have started to understand the guy a little better. And his brain is constantly racing, and he can't hear what I'm saying, and has to has to has to get out whatever damned thing pops into his head (and everything pops into his head all at once, it seems). He just makes no sense, and trying to talk to him is like...pissing into a running water hose. Don't try it, it's not as fun as you think.
Today, he was spinning stories about how people could coat water bottles with a substance that made them melt. And I couldn't tell the difference between his jokes and his genuine musings about the subject. I did not hear him enter and he said, "Hi," while I worked on tomorrow's reading. "Hi," I said, feeling my pockets for a cyanide capsule. "Did you like that? I was doing an impression of you saying hi. Did it sound like you?" "Honestly, no." "Hahaha," he said, enjoying the lark. He got his bottled water from the vending machine and that started the thing about bottles. With me he has a couple of topics that he seems to return to compulsively. He talks about his dad and him fighting, he talks about the good ol' days when I would say hi to him when he walked around and around and around the apartment building creeping us out (before he went on his crusade against nails in the parking lot). He talks about air filters. And today, he produced a whole list of things that he is not allowed to do, like go into water deeper than his knees and how he was not allowed to have friends come into the apartment building. "Didja ever notice that?"
"I'm too busy trying to hide from you," I did not say. "Really? I guess," I actually said.
And don't try to jump in. He just doesn't stop. It's a stream of consciousness only...less coherent. Things don't seem to really follow from one to the next like normal conversations trains of thought. His mind is episodic and repetitive. I really do feel sorry for the guy. It's a bad hand he's been dealt and it doesn't kill me not to snub him, though I often wish it would. I don't know if he is really relating to me somehow or...just associates me with someone who is not actively hostile to him (really, for all my posturing here, in real life I'm as kind as a kitten).
And then 10 minutes after my schizophrenic neighbor left, a new guy showed up and wanted to talk. Never saw him before, and before you knew it, I had spent 20 minutes pretending that I was enjoying the discussion of Mr. T. Also, for such a short conversation, he brought up Dungeons and Dragons a real whole lot. This was odd because he mentioned that he did not like Dungeons and Dragons. People confuse me.
Oh, well. Found another plagiarist. Am going to stomp brains tomorrow.
Go and sin no more.
HJ
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