A SHARK is After US

Every single day I go to work at the same time, and get out around the same time.

I wake up early, because the girl I’ve been wasting away with works a full time job starting at 8:30 in the morning. I don’t go back to bed, because the minute I kiss her goodbye I text her and wish that she has an awesome day at work. We text all through the morning, which I spend on my couch blasting Pandora radio and smoking hookah while I text her about anything and everything.

All during this, my roommates gradually rise from the grave and make their appearances, cracking jokes and playing pranks. One roommate leaves for his afternoon job, and the other joins me on the couch. We sit there and crack jokes, talk about girls, and share sex stories. Sometimes I fall asleep and nap, and sometimes he does, but never at the same time. I wake up to a text every time, and it’s always something I want to hear.

Once it comes time to get ready for work, I pack the final coal on the hookah, and put on my dirty dish washing clothes. I wait til the very last second, and longboard to work. I look at my phone, and see that she is wishing that I have a pleasant day at work, and suddenly I don’t hate going in. Some sort of warmth comes over me, and everything is suddenly all right.

We continue to talk, and I keep a towel in my back pocket so I can dry my hands just to text her back. I blast Pandora radio in the confines of my work station, singing and dancing in solidarity to whatever comes on. For some reason, it doesn’t suck being at the bottom of the food chain.

The end of the day comes and I clean the whole kitchen, being egged on by the beautiful waitresses via Twitter and in person, and I return the playful flirts as the minutes wind down. I alert the beauty I look forward to seeing that I am out of work, and we always find time to end up together at the end of the night.

She comes over, partially drunk off of some tequila, and me off of a few 40s. We laugh and joke, play Beirut, and witness the craziness that happens every night as the guest’s blood alcohol levels rise. Eventually she tells me she wants to go to bed, and changes into something I like.

The next morning the whole process is repeated, and I swear I could do this every day for the rest of my life.

I’m writing in an effort to divert my attention from my rumbling stomach.

Now that I am living on my own, and school has ended, I no longer have access to any food unless I buy it myself. That may seem like, “duh”, but it’s really a new idea for me. There’s no bowl of cereal for me to wake up to, or even any milk to drink. There is no bagel to put in the toaster and there wasn’t even a knife to spread cream cheese until a few days ago.

I’m hungry. I haven’t been eating well. I get out of work and drink until I’m not hungry anymore, or until I pass out. I have no energy.

It seems like every meal is a minimum of five dollars. I don’t have five dollars to waste on food.

It’s kind of funny to talk to somebody you’ve been recently seeing and then talk about all the things you learned about each other through means other than conversation. She found out I did better than her on the SATs, and I found her secret photo albums from years ago.

As we seek to learn more and more about each other, curiosity rises and suddenly even reading the other person’s horoscope is a semblance of happiness to fill the time gap when she isn’t around.

As much as I disagree with horoscopes, mine was completely on the dot and correct, and that’s scary. Hers was right as well. It could very well be coincidence, or some sort of sub-hope that everything will go according to textbook, but just thinking about it is fun.

Neither of us believe in horoscopes, and yet the one time we get curious they happen to be exactly, perfectly right.

And I couldn’t have been happier.

Waking up next to someone on a random schedule has been a roller coaster of emotions, but never in a bad way. It gives me a reason to want to get out of work, gives me something to look forward to at the end of the week, and god dammit it just makes me so happy.

I spent the last year single and in a drunken daze, angrily increasing my misogyny with every passing hour. I was mean to a lot of people, and generally just a mess.

Then I lost all my beer weight, shaved my face, got an apartment, secured two jobs, and almost out of thin air my dream girl opened her arms for me. I held her up on a pedestal from the day I met her, hoping maybe for a little conversation, but ended up with much much more.

For God’s sake, I fucking deserve this. It’s my turn to be happy. 

What am I even writing about