(no subject)

[brigdh]

Wow, so much stuff to write about...

First off, thanks to imbrii for the new icon. I have a Club Hisoka icon, I have a Club Hisoka icon, I have a Club Hisoka icon! Wheeeee!

Secondly, got my grades today:

Anthropology 401 - Fundamentals of Archaeology B+
Biology 113 - Energy Transfer and Development A
Comparative Studies H367.01 - American Identity in the World A-
Japanese 101.51 - First Year Japanese, Individualized Track B+

Meh. I really could have done better if I'd tried, especially in Japanese. On the other hand, it was a really hard quarter, and it's not like I'm failing or anything. But still. I'm disappointed that I only got one A.

Well, I didn't find a place to plug in my laptop on the ride, so it'll be another few days until I get around to sending feedback. Or writing anything, though I do think I might have a plot bunny for the ClubSoka epic. Oh, and Dorian Gray's written a new story, The Kingdom of Ends, and it's as amazing as all her other stuff. Go read right now, but be warned, severely depressing. It made me cry.



And now

The Greyhound ride up to Saddlebrook, NJ, was quite nice. No one bothered me, and I had a whole seat to myself for almost the whole ride. At this point I was thinking that Greyhounds seemed liked a nice, cheap way to get around the country, if one can't drive. I changed my mind later.

Got to the hotel at about 2 or 3 on Friday, and met up with miss_edith, buffybot and captainnacy. We dropped off our stuff in the suite (Jacuzzi room!! Jacuzzi room!! Jacuzzi room!!) and decided to go buy groceries. But Juan, the hotel concierge, gave us the wrong directions (He gave us Page 1 and 3 of the map, but neglected to tell us that we were missing page 2), and got us lost for nearly 2 hours. Along the way we visited historic Saddlebrook, Fairlawn, High Mountaintop, Paterson (where they can't even spell the name of their own town, sometimes it had one 't' sometimes two), and West Paterson (much nicer than plain ol' regular Paterson), homes of unisex hair salons, pork stores, county jails right in the middle of town, the worst drivers ever, and a Harlem Globetrotters dress. Yes, a dress.

After we managed to find the hotel again, I got to meet thebratqueen, madpoetess, wolfing, wesleysgirl (and the boy!), lucifrix, stakebait, byrne, zortified, justhuman, bonibaru and thete1. Whew. Hope I didn't forget anyone. Some people I knew before, some I was meeting for the first time, but every one was very cool.

Robin Sachs made a fantastic guest of honor. He came down to the dance on the first night, and danced with me. (Pause for fangirl Squuuueeeee!!) And, of course, there was hot lesbian action performed for him, which you might have already read about here and here.

There were sing-a-longs, and elf vodka, and jacuzzis, and stickers and t-shirts, and bible study (work with your hands!), and MST3K, and panels, and autographs, and very little sleep. On Sunday, MissE, Buffybot, CaptainNancy and Lucifrix took me back with them to New York, so that I could hope on my return bus when it made a stop there that night. And I would like everyone to know, captainnancy has the most beautiful apartment ever. Even if all we did in it was lie around and then discuss insect infection while eating. And later, there was wrestling on TV at buffybot's, which was so much more fun and bloody than I expected it to be.

And then I had to go home, by way of Port Authority, which had much less pee and homeless men than I'd been lead to expect. But that's where the bad part started. (dum dum DUM)

I got on the bus, and managed to get an empty seat. I was happy- I had a good seat, I'd had a great time, I was going home- it was just a general, overall good feeling. So when I saw some guy outside filming the bus with his handheld camera, I decided to be silly and wave at him. Wow, was that a bad decision. He finished filming the bus (which yes, was parked and just a plain Greyhound, I have no idea why he was filming it), and got back on, and moved so he could sit next to me. Now, I don't think this was entirely because I waved at him. From what I understand, someone had taken his seat while he was off playing with his camera, and he had to sit somewhere. And this guy didn't seem skeezy. He was about 20, looked clean and nice. I'm sure if I'd met him somewhere other than on a bus I would have no problem with him.

But he sits down, introduces himself, tried to get me to talk, and is absolutely and completely flirting. I just want to be left alone to sleep and/or read, but I don't want to seem rude, so I talk as little as I'm obligated to. He tries to show me his vacation footage on his camera and I watch a little. I consider telling him I'm gay, just to see if he'll go sit somewhere else, but I didn't want to get stuck next to a homophobe for a twelve hour ride.

Anyways. The bus starts to leave, and I pull out my CD player. "What kind of music do you like?" he says.

"It's a mixtape my friend made for me, I don't know what's on it yet." Which is true, but also a conversation ender. I put on my headphones, and turn as much as I can to look out the window.

Ten, fifteen minutes go by. We're out of the city. He taps me on the shoulder, and immediately I cringe. I just can't believe that he won't leave me alone. I turn around, lower the headphones, and look at him. He says, "So, you'd rather listen to music and look at the lights outside than talk to a stranger?"

"Oh. Sorry." I turn straight back to the window. By this point I know I'm not longer polite, but I don't care. This goes on for the next few hours. He leave me alone for ten to twenty minutes, then try to start another conversation, which I end as soon as I can. Finally I've stopped even turning around when he says something, just nodding and trying to ignore him.

He leans over and asks, "If you fall asleep, you can lean on me. Do you mind if I lean on you if I fall asleep?" But see, the problem is, I thought he said read. I thought he was talking about turning on the overhead light. And since I was already uncomfortable with the thought of sleeping next to him and planning on reading later, I say, "Yeah, go ahead." But a few minutes pass, and he doesn't turn on the light. I thinking about it, and I realize what he really said.

I'm absolutely cringing here. I don't want to touch this guy. But I also don't want to tell him no now, and look schizophrenic. I hope that maybe he won't fall asleep. No luck there, of course. He falls asleep and lays his head on my shoulder.

Now, not to be vain or anything, but I'm fairly skinny. I really don't think my shoulder would make a good pillow, since it's nothing but a bone edge. But I told him he could, so I don't say anything. Eventually his head slides off my shoulder, into my lap, and stays there for about a minute before he wakes up, sits up straight, and starts over.

I try to ignore him. I tell myself he's asleep and he's not doing it on purpose. And then it happens again, except when his head falls into my lap, he goes face-first onto my CD player. And doesn't move. This is where I begin to suspect that he's not really asleep, as most people would wake up when smacked in the face with hard plastic.

Fortunately, we make our first stop here. He gets off to stretch his legs, and I turn on the light and get out a book, figuring he'll leave me alone if I'm reading. When he gets back, he grabs the cover of the book (as I'm reading it), bends it back so he can see the title, and snickers. I was reading 'Lies My Teacher Told Me', which is a analysis of American history and how it is taught in high schools. But this guy quite clearly did not take the time to look at any of the review quotes or subtitles- which were right there on the front cover- but only read the title, made an assumption that it was whiny teenage angst, and patronizingly laughed at me.

So I'm already pissed. But then he starts reading over my shoulder. And not just reading, but forcing me to wait for him at the end of every page, though it soon became quite clear that he was in no way actually keeping up with me, but was only pretending to skim the pages. And repeatedly trying to make conversation about the book.

"So, you like history, huh?"
"Yes."
"You like remembering all those dates and names?"
"I don't have any trouble with it."
Another snickering laugh. "Not me, I hated history."
"Oh."

He also points out things in the book and asks me to explain it to him. Stupid, stupid, things, like when a sentence read "John Doe, the CEO of a major publishing company, had said, 'blah blah blah...'", he pointed it out and asked me, "Which publishing company?"

First of all, how would I know? Second of all, what does it matter? Like my seat buddy here is going to know the difference between the company policies of DoubleDay and Random House.

Finally I finish the book (I was thankfully near the end, so that took less than an hour), and get out another. As I pulling the new book out of my backpack, he grabs it out of my head and starts to page through it. This time it's "Idoru", a science-fiction novel by William Gibson. I'm forced to sit and wait while he studies the cover, reads the back, and looks through the whole thing. When he finally hands it back, I turn in my seat so he has no chance of reading over my shoulder. Thankfully, he leaves me alone and falls asleep.

Everything is fine for the next few hours. At 5 or 6 in the morning, I get tired of reading. I don't want to fall asleep, but I decide to turn off the light and just listen to my CDs. This was a baaad decision. The guy now readjusts himself so he's all curled up around me with his head on my shoulder, and starts to do the slipping thing again, where his head slides down towards my lap. Except now it's conveniently stopping at chest level. Every time he does this, I'll shift my arm so it hits him and he 'wakes' up and sits up. I still don't want to say anything, though, because we're almost to the stop where we change buses and I'll be away from him.

But now, he starts trying to put his hand in my lap. The first time, I shove him away and try to remind myself that he's asleep. But he does the exact same thing not even five minutes later. I shove him away, harder, and put my hand in the way so he can't reach my lap. A few minutes go by, and he tries to move his hand again, but he comes up against mine. He pauses, and then tries to curl his fingers around mine.

I have had it. I sit up, shove him clear across the seat, and yell in his face, "Stop it right now." The best part? He doesn't move. His eyes don't flicker, his face doesn't twitch, not a single reaction. As if I needed more proof that he'd been pretending to sleep the whole time.

A few minutes go by, and he asks, in the snottiest voice I have ever heard, "Switch me seats, because I'm trying to sleep and I need to lean against the window."

I explain to him that if he'll have to move so I can get by him. He does not stand up, but instead merely swings his legs to the side like a child, forcing me to squeeze past him.

We get to the station (In Pittsburg, in case anyone's following this with a map ;) ). There's a break of about 45 minutes until we reload, but I immediately get into line so I can sit in a different seat. Guy walks over to me. As soon as I see him coming, I back up a few steps and glare. He doesn't seem to notice.

"Well, there's an hour and a half until the next bus leaves..."
"I know." Actually, no, wrong, the dipshit apparently can't tell time, but whatever.
"Do you want to go and get something to eat with-"
"No. Please leave me alone." You'll have to imagine an really incredible harsh tone here. I was making the people around us stare. He shrugs and walks off.

Time passes, we're getting back on the bus. He comes up to stand next to me again- ditching about thirty people in the process.

"Is this the bus to Cincinnati?"
"Don't know." I did, but I was hoping he'd go get lost and die somewhere in the bowels of the bus station.
"Oh. To Columbus?"
"Yeah." I had to admit it, since it was obvious I wasn't standing in a line for a bus that I wasn't going to get on.
He stood next to me for a minute, then said, laughingly, "So... you're pissed at me, right?"
I stared straight ahead.
"I don't know why."
Still not answering.
"I'm sorry?"
I turned to him and hissed, "Don't you dare sit next to me on this bus."
He put up his hands in that 'I'm innocent' gesture, gave a little half-smile to the people behind us like, 'Geez, must be PMS day, huh?' and walked off.

And that was the end of my awful trip home. I take back all the nice things I said about Greyhound on the way up. Though I did see a lot of Amish people riding them. What's up with that? It's not a sin as long as someone else is doing the actual driving?

But. I did have a great time at Buffycon, and it was worth it.

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yay, dessert!

And, no, he did not get any of my nice chips. They are far too good for bus-freaks.