I'm not the only one having a bad night.

[February 22nd, 2006] I'm not the only one having a bad night.

I'm waiting in front of the Hawthorne Subway for the last employee to lock up and come out. She's a pretty goth girl, who is looking increasingly flustered, culminating in her dropping the keys when trying to lock the door. She glares at the sky for a moment, and I stifle a laugh—she looks like me for a second. She finally gets in, slamming the door, and her mood lightens suddenly upon finding a girl cab driver behind the wheel and Morphine on the stereo.

As we head downtown, she tells me about her night. Scheduled to work with two new people. Ran out of bread. Some old pervert pestering her for a date. Five people coming in five minutes before closing time. I don't remember how we got onto genetics, but she tells me her geneticist boyfriend said there would be no more natural blondes in a few hundred years. News to me—how interesting. I'll have to look that one up. I mean, why, how is that maladaptive? Hmm.

We talk about school. Her boyfriend went to mine; his name sounds familiar. Her dad had promised to pay for school and then reneged. I can relate to that one, too. It's Saturday night, but she's probably going to end up studying later. I say Saturday night is overrated—I study then, too, all the time. By the time I drop her off, we're almost friends. The cool people never ask for my card.