totally freaking weird

5/29/99

I wasn’t really having such a great day, to begin with. To start, I went to sleep around 6 this morning, after a long conversation with eric. Not such a big deal. I dragged myself out of bed around noon and tried to reach John. I was a bit worried—he left a message for me last night saying he’d call me when he came home, drunk or not. Never called. When I tried him at 6 am, his voice mail said he was on the phone. ??? I figured he’d knocked the phone off the hook before passing out. But he didn’t call. He didn’t call when he woke up. He didn’t answer my messages while I was gone today. I’m hoping he had a long gig today; it’s quite likely, considering the holiday.

So I spent the early afternoon puttering. Did some dishes, watched Austin Powers. Didn’t like it as much as I was told I would, but I’m short on patience today.

Finally I left. Took the car and went on one of my random drives around the state. Toyed with the idea of driving to the Upper Peninsula, but I got an hour away from home and realized that no matter how far I drove, I’d still have to drive home, and the Mackinac Bridge wouldn’t be so much fun on Memorial Day weekend, anyway. So I tooled around a bit, thought about the lake, hmm...the other lake...nah...what about that other lake...maybe that one lake...or some random lake. Traveling in Michigan generally leads to one lake or another.

Ended up in Mount Pleasant. Remembered there’s a casino there where J and I had had a decent time once. Stopped in, dropped a few bucks’ worth of quarters into the slot machines. Not so much fun to do alone. The casino is a noisy, foul-smelling place. So many tourists and old, weird Michigan folk with that dazed, jingling look in their eyes. I only depressed myself further by staying.

I had about a dollar in quarters and I idly (dazedly, jinglingly) fed them into a slot poker machine. Then the sixty-ish, smoke-wrinkled woman next to me seemed to have a stroke. She clutched at her heart. I looked up with concern, only to see her screen blinking: “CALL ATTENDANT! $1750.00 PAYOUT.”

A few jealous souls, including myself, congratulated her. I thought about sitting pathetically at my machine with my spare change to see if she’d share, but decided I was above that. I zapped myself out of money and wandered toward the door.

Began the drive home feeling sorry for myself—O, no money, no “sniffle” slot machine winnings, no b-b-boyfriend. Left the windows down (no air conditioni-hi-hi-hing!) and sang along with my Cake CD and felt better. When I was about 20 minutes away from Lansing, a red car pulled out to pass me, but then stayed in the left lane, right next to my car. I stubbornly ignored the driver, looking out the other window, leave-me-alone-ishly.

Must have been more than 5 minutes later that I looked over and saw the driver waving crazily. It was Mitch! Mitch, whom I haven’t seen in months. (Tubist and conductor back at Michigan.) He’d recognized my vanity plate. How uncanny. How weird.

We shouted through our windows while parked at a stoplight, then arranged a meeting (going 70 on the highway) for a McDonald’s in East Lansing. Hung around together for an hour or so before he headed home. He’d been up in Alma for the annual Highland festival-thingy. Conicidence Day: the Bagpipe Ensemble from John’s AF band in GA performed in Alma today, and Mitch heard them.

So we did the catch-up thing. Mitch’s ex-roommate just won a symphony job in Atlanta, so we jawed on that guy for a while. Mitch is my favorite storyteller. I could egg him on for hours.

So after all my whimpering, and all my thinking the day was a dud, things turned out wonderfully. I even remembered to pick up cat food on the way home.