They're Coming for You
* * * Ickiness warning * * *
Isn't it awful when you have one of those cuts where there's a little flap of skin hanging off of it, and you're never really sure whether to sort of poke the skin back down ("Go back, Little Skin! Go to your home! This is my home, and that is your home.") or to say goodbye to it forever and clipper it off or something, hoping that your finger will once again be successful in regrowing that part and this won't be the one time you find out the hard way that leaving holes in your body can be permanent?
This particular injury was a rather embarrassing unwanted side-effect of an office party the other night which had an open bar, further proof that while an office party with an open bar may be a relatively Good Thing (as in, "Yay, free beer for all — wash away your work troubles together in freebeerness. . . .") but still is not necessarily a generally Good Thing, especially when it involves losing aforementioned pieces of finger on an abnormally sharp Heineken lid, not to mention mingling with people you're supposed to be acting professionally around most of the time but in this case with half of your Please Don't Say That sensors chemically disabled.
Let's just say that yesterday morning my sliced up finger was the least of my pain.
My friend Richard now has the dubious responsibility of forcibly removing any beer from my hand if it has somehow made it there on a weeknight and is not the first or second of a maximum of two drinks to get there. I feel like such an alcoholic all of a sudden.
Maybe it's the lack of any worries about how I'm going to get home. (Granted, crawling onto the SkyTrain platform is probably not much safer than driving somewhere, but at least I wouldn't be endangering anyone else.)
* * *
I took a walk after supper tonight, and ran into Demonic Poltergeist Woman again. This time she was almost right in front of my building, and was zig-zagging back and forth down the sidewalk, fingers threaded through the curly black hair on the sides of her head, eyes wide open, and croaking, "Help me! Help me!" in this strange otherworldly REDRUM sort of voice. Woman creeps. Me. Out. I'm sort of a skeptic when it comes to possession and all that, and there are plenty of crazies on the street, but there's still something very different going on. Just for example's sake, let's compare to the other street people who frequent my neighborhood:
My local homeless guy. For some reason he's become "John" in my head. I don't know if that's actually his name. I know I should ask, rather than making a name up for him; otherwise I feel like I'm doing an insincere noblesse oblige sort of thing like Homer Simpson in the infamous Jeebus episode of the Simpsons ("I'm going to name you 'Little Lisa'. . . ."). Anyway, he's friendly, conversational, relatively uncreepy, and genuinely appreciative of any generosity I show toward him. He's one of the few people I'll actually give money or food to when he asks.
Crying runaway girl. She's often sitting on Granville Street, near the Smithe intersection, and she sobs uncontrollably. It's heartbreaking. Not demonic, though.
Colors-with-markers homeless girl. She tends to hang out further south on Granville or Seymour St, and I've seen her twice sitting with a coloring book and markers. She sometimes has a hat or a cup for donations, but I've never seen her actually beg for money.
Talks to puppets man. I think he has some sort of genuine health issue, as his speech is slurred and he sits in a wheelchair. Stroke victim perhaps. Anyone's guess. Anyway, he often sits on the corner of Robson and Thurlow, outside one of the two Starbucks on that corner, and he gives a puppet show for donations. Oddly, though, because of his handicap or maybe just lack of puppet talent, he often grows oblivious to his surroundings and starts to turn the puppets toward himself rather than his audience, so it looks more like he's talking to a couple of puppets than giving a show. A bit of an odd one he is, but no exorcisms in order.
"I'm schizophrenic" man. "Hi, I have schizophrenia. I'm on medication right now, so I probably seem pretty normal to you, but it's a real challenge, and it often keeps me from holding down a job and having enough money for my meds. Can you please help out?" It's tough to tell if he's honest or not, but I don't really have any reason to doubt him, unless proven otherwise. So many people on the street are obviously schizophrenic, so it's no stretch of the imagination that some of the milder cases would be willing to tell you about it. He hangs around on Pender Street, near Seymour.
There are a handful of other people I encounter regularly, some pretty unremarkable and some pretty strange, but none of the others give me the oh-my-God-I-just-know-her-head-is-going-to-start-spinning feelings.
Maybe I'm just being naive or mean, but man is this woman scary.
Isn't it awful when you have one of those cuts where there's a little flap of skin hanging off of it, and you're never really sure whether to sort of poke the skin back down ("Go back, Little Skin! Go to your home! This is my home, and that is your home.") or to say goodbye to it forever and clipper it off or something, hoping that your finger will once again be successful in regrowing that part and this won't be the one time you find out the hard way that leaving holes in your body can be permanent?
This particular injury was a rather embarrassing unwanted side-effect of an office party the other night which had an open bar, further proof that while an office party with an open bar may be a relatively Good Thing (as in, "Yay, free beer for all — wash away your work troubles together in freebeerness. . . .") but still is not necessarily a generally Good Thing, especially when it involves losing aforementioned pieces of finger on an abnormally sharp Heineken lid, not to mention mingling with people you're supposed to be acting professionally around most of the time but in this case with half of your Please Don't Say That sensors chemically disabled.
Let's just say that yesterday morning my sliced up finger was the least of my pain.
My friend Richard now has the dubious responsibility of forcibly removing any beer from my hand if it has somehow made it there on a weeknight and is not the first or second of a maximum of two drinks to get there. I feel like such an alcoholic all of a sudden.
Maybe it's the lack of any worries about how I'm going to get home. (Granted, crawling onto the SkyTrain platform is probably not much safer than driving somewhere, but at least I wouldn't be endangering anyone else.)
* * *
I took a walk after supper tonight, and ran into Demonic Poltergeist Woman again. This time she was almost right in front of my building, and was zig-zagging back and forth down the sidewalk, fingers threaded through the curly black hair on the sides of her head, eyes wide open, and croaking, "Help me! Help me!" in this strange otherworldly REDRUM sort of voice. Woman creeps. Me. Out. I'm sort of a skeptic when it comes to possession and all that, and there are plenty of crazies on the street, but there's still something very different going on. Just for example's sake, let's compare to the other street people who frequent my neighborhood:
There are a handful of other people I encounter regularly, some pretty unremarkable and some pretty strange, but none of the others give me the oh-my-God-I-just-know-her-head-is-going-to-start-spinning feelings.
Maybe I'm just being naive or mean, but man is this woman scary.