buzzzzzz

(edited to remove some of those pesky "zzzz’s)

Here I am, in one of my revolving-wireless-coffeshop hangouts. Drinking my 563rd cup of coffee today. You have to buy something at this one, and all they have is.. coffee! Good thing I love coffee. I tried going to the campus library, but there’s a football game so no parking for miles. So, I’m taking what I can get. I’ve snagged the one outlet in the whole place because I’ve already been here long enough to run my brand-new-but-not-very-good battery down. And I’ve got the tall bar-like table by the outlet. Then this guy who is ALWAYS here came in, and looked very distressed to see me occupying the tall table. This is where he always sits. He did manage to find a spot where he can plug in, so I don’t feel bad. He could have shared this one, actually – I was afraid he was going to ask. It’s big enough. We could have pretended we were playing Battleship.

Yikes – I can see what he’s doing from here, since he’s sitting with his back to me. He’s working on photos, and I recognize them from the Christian Coffee Shop – he’s got them for sale there. A real live photographer! Well, I’m working on photos too, thank you very much. I’m uploading my Charleston ones right this minute! Maybe I better keep my screen out of sight. I’d hate for him to laugh at me.

Syncronicity Break: I’m uploading pictures of the beach at Sullivan’s Island. Between iPod songs, I heard someone at the cash register say, "Haven’t you ever been to the ocean?" And then the song starts, and the Magnetic Fields sing, "Summer summer summer slowly turned into fall / me and my baby doll / never went to the beach…" ooOOOooo!!! I’m sure it means something. Probably that I want to go back to the beach.

Speaking of weird things, I had a kind of weird thing happen today. I went over to the Shoppes on the Parkway, our outlet store mall thing, to see if I could find a yogurt maker. I’ve been having strong urges to make my own yogurt lately. And I do actually have a yogurt maker, which I rarely use because I am rarely able to find the yogurt maker, the instructions, and the thermometer thing all at the same time. And you need all three. But last night I DID find them all, and I made some yogurt. And it didn’t come out all that well. I don’t think it came out all that well last time I found all three things and made some either. And it could have something to do with the fact that my mother bought this yogurt maker when I was in high school, so it’s something like THIRTY YEARS OLD.  So I thought maybe I should invest in a new one if I’m really going to start making it myself, and a more current one might both work a bit better and not be as likely to burn the house down. (I’d like to make a side note here that even though there are at least three acceptable ways to spell "yogurt", I STILL keep spelling it wrong.)

So ANYWAY, I’m at the Shoppes on the Parkway and I’m looking through a bargin bin thing outside the Corel place, and I hear someone telling someone else that the utensils they have out there are pretty good basic utensils and would be worth buying, and as they’re going inside I look over at them.. and one of them is an old friend of mine. Who I’ll call Phil. Because that’s his name and I don’t think I need to make up a fake one since nobody knows who I’m talking about anyhow.

I haven’t seen Phil in YEARS. He grew up in the same nutcase church I did, and he and Steve and I were inseparable for most of our childhoods and into our teens. We didn’t see each other that much after high school, although we’d run into each other once in a great while. Our mothers are still good friends, so I’ve kind of kept up with him through their grapevine when I don’t see him for ten years at a time. I haven’t seen him since he got married, I don’t think – they moved down way south of Asheville. And had a baby who I’ve never seen, and is probably at least 6 by now.

Anyhow, there was Phil going into the kitchen store, and he was with a girl who was not his wife, and was not his sister. And as I was watching them, thinking, "Is that PHIL????" I heard her ask him what kind of dishes he was wanting to get, and they went over to where all the Corel stuff is.

Well, being the socially avoidant loon that I am, my first impulse upon seeing someone I haven’t seen in a million years and who hasn’t yet seen me, is to run like hell. But I’d left a sink strainer I wanted to buy inside the store so that I could go back outside and get a couple of gadgets from the bargain bin that I didn’t get to begin with because I didn’t know that I’d buy anything else but then I did so I wanted to get the gadgets too…ANYHOW, I went back inside and got in line and kind of eyed them when I could see them. They never did see me. And before I got done I realized I’d LOVE to see Phil. I’ve really missed him, and on the rare occasions that we do get together (like ten years ago when Baker B and I had a rare party and invited him and his then-girlfriend, just before they moved away) it’s just like we’ve never parted. So I’m thinking, okay, I’ll go over and say hi.

But THEN I’m thinking… where is his wife? Why is he purchasing bargain bin kitchen utensils and cheap Corel dinnerwear??? Has something happened? Have they split up? And how awkward is it going to be if I do go say hi and either ask how his wife is and how his kid is, or totally ignore that he’s there with a girl who isn’t his wife? I actually walked all over the place at the Shoppes, thinking maybe I’d run into them, but maybe I didn’t WANT to run into them, and maybe he’d rather not run into ME, and being really perplexed as to what to do.

I’ve come to the conclusion, which may be totally and completely as wrong as wrong can be, that he and his wife (who oddly has MY first name) have in fact split up, and furthermore I’ll bet he’s moved back up here. Because he  loved it here, and I don’t think he wanted to leave. And although I liked his wife fine the two times I’ve been around her, she was NOTHING like him. They seemed like a bizarre pair to me. She was very preppy and perky and chatty and just wasn’t who I’d have ever thought he’d end up with. This girl he was with (who could have been ANYBODY – she could have been a friend out shopping for wedding presents with him for all I know) was kind of a hippy-chick. Much more his type, I’d think. But I’ve been wondering all afternoon about this. And thinking, maybe he IS moving back. Or already has. And if so, I’m overcoming my socially-avoidant nature and calling him up and inviting him over. Baker B liked him too, the little he’s been around Phil. Phil is impossible to NOT like. And I really hope I’m just jumping to crazy conclusions and his marriage is perfectly fine, but that’s very strange. We’re hours from where they live, for one thing. And the Shoppes on the Parkway aren’t something you’d drive HOURS to. Although it’s a very pretty touristy area, so who knows.

Okay, I have literally been HERE for hours. Where does the time GO when you’re on the computer?? I’m posting some pictures of my lovely Charleston, and then I’m getting out of here.

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Ships going by Sullivan’s Island. I especially like how the guy on the beach looks like he’s running frantically away from them.

More Sullivan’s Island. You can see Charleston in the distance, and the bridge.

The very unattractive lighthouse at Sullivan’s Island. You can’t really tell from here how ugly it is, but it is very very very ugly.

Charleston!!!!

Trying to figure out that whole taking pictures at night thing.

George Washington presiding over a downtown park. I’m not entirely sure why.

Shot through a door, all stalker-like. It was apartments, not someone’s house, at least.