Tuesday, May 31, 2005

A prize for myself

Go to helllllllll!!!!!Out of the seventy nine things that I was planning had to do today, I settle for three and added a special prize for me if I manage to do them all. The first one was to go to the post office to drop a couple of bills that were already due; the second was to go to the bank to deposit a hell of a lot of cash that was burning a hole in my pocket; and the third one was to go to the library to return those two books that I picked up many months ago and never even bother to open, and to pick up two more -I'll pay the fine sometime later this year.

Once I left my condo and passed the first traffic light, I showed my middle finger to the guys from the Chinese Buffet who were smoking a cigarette outside the door. And at that very same moment I realized that I'd forgotten the books. Damn! I said to myself and cranked the music even louder. Oh well, "what the fuck" I thought and narrowed my tasks to two: bank and post office.

And as there was only two tasks in my mental list, I went to get my prize: a computer video game. The last time I got one was maybe three years ago, and I guess was that early version of Rainbow Six, so it was about time to try something different. After doing a little research on titles and prices, I settle for Medal of Honor and the two expansion packages that came with it: Breakthrough and Spearhead. Fancy names I have to point out.

Needless to say I've been in front of the computer killing friends and foes alike for the last six hours or so. When I close my eyes and I can see all the little soldiers running around shooting at me but being killed by my machine gun. In these games you always have like a group of soldiers that walk with you and help you kill enemies, but sometimes those bastards get on the way so I also shoot them. Recklessly.

I got a bit hungry so I went to get me a little snack in the grocery store, which is located beside the library, so I said "I'm going to kill to birds with one stone" and grabbed the two books. Inside the library I was looking for something to entertain my brain these days, so I went to check good old John Grisham. I picked up the last book in his section with the title "The Partner", turned to see the back cover and in large white letters written on a dark grey background that resembles the shadow of a man running it read "It began when he disappeared. But it didn't really start until they found him. . .". Now, who can resist not picking up that book, ah? Not me.

Have to do some more killing before going to bed. . . oh, and taking a shower of course.

What should it be?

I'm off today because I had a shit load of stuff to do, and I was am planning to do it all today. But it's almost 11AM and I'm still wearing my PJ's and I've just had breakfast.

Even though I woke up at 7AM I've been doing a little bit of everything in order not to do what I really have to do. Procrastinating, that's the word, but isn't it nicer to explain it? I've read all the news, checked out some blogs and all my four e-mail accounts, I made coffee twice, I listen some music for a while, I also did some thinking. . . but didn't reach any conclusion nor came up with any new idea; I washed the dishes and put in the refrigerator the pot of rice that I made last night and that I left outside all night in order to cool down. I also re-installed and played the good old Rainbow Six and after killing and getting killed quite a few times, I decided to uninstall it.

I'm struggling now on what to wear. Should I shave, take a shower and dress up a little bit; or should I just put on my sandals, shorts, t-shirt and a baseball cap in order to cover my soon-to-be-washed red hair? Decisions, decision, decisions.

I'll go for plan "C": some more Rainbow Six -but this time on the easy mode- and I'll figure what to do later today.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Downstairs People

Got home last night around 8PM after I gulp down quite a few glasses of wine and noticed that my downstairs neighbor had left the keys on the door. This is a new neighbor who moved in just a few days, or perhaps weeks ago, and as I noticed that he is not a pretty young girl but an old-ass guy with a lot of free time in his hands, I wasn't even planning to say hi.

But as I am such a cool guy, I knocked on the door to let him know in a very polite way about the keys. It took him ten minutes to open the damn door, yelling like five times "coming", "hold on" and so on. Maybe he had the porn cranked at full speed in his TV or maybe he was cutting the stuff into one gram bags or who knows what. When finally he came out, I just pointed at the keys on the door saying "you left the keys on the door". This guy barely noticed the keys hanging from the door knob but instead he started shaking my hand and introducing himself and asking me if I had cats because he loves cats and that this is such a nice place and so on. I pointed out that I don't "own any pets" and tried not to say much, but when I said my name "Jean-Francois" he started chewing some words in French and started asking me about my origins and background. I reply "that's a long story", a very polite way of saying "it's not your fucking business".

I hope he doesn't end up like my other downstairs neighbor, a nice old lady that everytime she sees me she stars talking non-stop recounting the same stories over and over again.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Threshold

From 7 PM to well pass 10PM I took a nap. I got home at around 6 PM and after checking my e-mail and reading some news I lie down in bed. The blinking, which started fast and far apart as I recounted my 12-hour day at the office, got slower and closer as the minutes were being left behind in my night table clock.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nostrils, expelling the air tiredly. That was the moment when I turned the key on the threshold to a nice and unplanned nap.

When I woke up, I got rid of my tie, suit, shoes, car keys, glasses, wallet and dived into my PJ's. Five minutes later I was deep inside my bed on a nice sail through seven more hours of sleep before heading back to the office again.

Speaking of the Devil. . . I better keep going if I want to make it on time to the first of a series of [unfortunate] meetings where a lot will be discuss and not much done.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Star Wars

Black looks good on you, MisterJust came back from the movie theater where I wasted two and a half hours watching the last episode of Star Wars. Yes, I said it right, it was a waste of time; I didn't like it and don't know where the big buzz is.

Actually I know: Marketing. That's what this movie and the last three are about. Creating a big, enormous anticipation, filling stores with paraphernalia and the TV channels with specials on almost anything Star Wars related in order to create an image in your retina that could be wiped out only by going to the movies to watching it.

I have to say, in order to be fair, that technologically the movie was excellent. But that means that the surroundings, backgrounds, spaceships, vistas, robots, androids, shots and so on are great and really picture a whole different world that looks and feels real. But the content of the movie and the actors and drama in it is poor at best. There's so many elements and characters in the original three parts, that this movie, as well as the second one, is just like a bedspread made of remnants trying to make sense of the original three.

There's no time to develop any character, not even the young Skywalker who's the main character, and the way he passes to the Dark Side of the force is so fast and so sudden that if you go to the restroom for a long pee and come back, you may ask yourself if you're really in the same theater. There's also so much traveling by all the characters that somehow you wonder how come there's no a terrorist watch list or restricted air space in any of the planets where they land, not to mention visas and passports and security at the airports and so on.

I could go on and on saying all the things that suck about this movie and the ones that kick ass, because there's quite a few, like the open scene, but I'm just going to let the hate mail begin with these few ideas.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

PS3 and XBOX360

Forget about terrorism and reform to social security; and forget about all the fighting and killing that is going on in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world in the name of, er. . . I forgot why we started fighting to be honest. The real fight and the real war begun just few days ago with the unveiling of the new gaming consoles.
Allow myself to introduce myself: PS3
In one corner we have the Heavy Weight Champion for the last years: Sony Corporation with their Playstation, which is now in its third redesign, the PS3 -that's why it is call like that. duh. It has a lot of specification and ports and slots and plenty of memory and processors and micro processors and memory RAM and REM and RIM and maybe if you mix some RUM with Coke it could be a nice afternoon wasted in front of the TV driving fast cars and smashing them against whatever you can find in that virtual world, or perhaps immersing yourself in those futuristic shooting games where you can forget that is Sunday and that is sunny outside and just shot people or monsters or aliens for hours at a time.

On the other side there's Bill Gates and his wife Melinda. No shit man, they are the proud owners of Microsoft Corporation which also owns pretty much everything under the sun -excluding my rotten soul- and that now wants to have you hooked to their new version of their gaming console: the XBOX 360 -is only the second version, but I guess the 360 makes reference to the circumference of a circle, but on the other hand if you turn 360 degrees, that means that you're exactly where you started. But what do I know?

Anyway the web is filled, literally filled with pornography, we all know that. But it doesn't matter for this little article, what really matter is that these days, after the unveiling of the two consoles, the web is filled with people commenting on which console is better and which one is going to dominate the market. The current "discussions" -which are pretty much non sense at this point- are based on the technicalities of the products: which one is faster, or have more memory, therefore the graphics in one will kick ass even though the other console's graphics will look pretty much the same, etc., etc., etc. There's even people threaten others in chats and using the F word (fuck you) arguing that they don't know what the "fuck you're talking about". And everybody is also kind of taking sides on what console they're going to buy this time. Funny enough, the final decision on this on line forums comes down to what games they like and which console plays them, more than anything else.

The XBOX360; which looks pretty much like the PS3
On the previous war my younger sister -yes, you read it fine, my younger sister- bought the PS2 and I had the chance to play it extensively and to really enjoy it. When I came to the US, one of my roommates had the XBOX and I also had the chance to play day and night and I also enjoy it a lot. I kicked both my younger sister's ass and my roommates' fat ass in a whole variety of games and always had a very nice time. There isn't a big difference between both consoles when it comes to graphics, sorry to turn the light on for you.

The war comes down to marketing and convincing people to choose one over the other. In one hand you have the 'extras' that each console has, like being able to play DVD's or storage music, and in the other hand you have the technical specifications that promise you that one is better than the other one. But at the end it comes down to the games: the one with better and more popular games, will surely get the largest part of the gaming pie. Which you also have to consider that the more companies making games for one console, the better the chances to find more variety of titles and more kick ass games.

The price for each console with few games and some 'extras' and subscriptions and memory cards and whatever they sell, is going to be in the neighborhood of six to eight hundred dollars. Maybe it won't be that easy to buy both consoles as many people have vowed to do in those online forums. My prediction would be that PS3 will still dominate the market with more than 50%, but XBOX will gain more market share this time. The reason being that last time XBOX went on sale a full year after PS2 and it was a "new" console and no one knew anything about it. Today it is well positioned and is hitting the shelves for Christmas, way before PS3 which is planned for Spring '06.

As for me, I'm just going to sit back and relax. I know that my ex roommate will get the XBOX360 so for sure I'll bring the RUM with me to check out the new machine and to kick his -hard to believe but true- even fatter ass. And another of my friends for sure will get the PS3 so I'll also go and check it out. I ain't planning to buy neither one in the near future to be honest. For eight hundred greens I can build a PC that can play all the major titles on both sides of the 'console war' and so many more titles that will make the new platforms look like an Atari 2600.

But seriously, what the hell do I know?

Saturday, May 21, 2005

I'm tired and with a headache.

Even though I am really tired today and I've had a headache all day, I sounded like my ex girlfriend. At the beginning it was all smiles and sex with her, but then things changed and for the last weeks of our relationship she was always tired and with a headache. Maybe was too much sex with this other guy that she was seeing while going out with me, or maybe she was really tired and with a headache. Or who knows, maybe I gave her the headaches and she was tired of doing nothing all day. At the end I realized that I never really met her, never got to know her and she never got to know me.

Either way, today I'm tired and have a headache.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Going Back Home

But I don't want to go back!


. . . even though home is where the heart is.

Tourist

I went sight seeing. . . and end up drunk and with the picture of a big-O-frog.

I wrote it on my friend's carCould you tell me where the Margaritas are served?Am I on Acids or is that a big-O-frog?!










uh!

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Liquor is Quicker

BeforeAfterDon't really remember this pic

Yes I drank a little bit. In North Carolina you have to buy your liquor in a stupid store called the ABC, in Chicago they know how to sell this stuff: on a shelf in the grocery store right beside the milk.

I thought it was heaven. Seriously.

Fuel

Appetizer Entree


I ate like a pig. Sometimes three times a day, sometimes three times an hour. And drank even more!

Beach

This is from my trip to, er, Jamaica!

Looks like the ocean. . . and after three Margaritas you really believe you're in the Caribbean!

Panorama

Nice City!


An image of another place, another time; seems to me tonight almost like another world.

A five-day weekend trip to visit my friends up in Chicago. . . food for the soul.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Back!

Finally got home after a looong and nice weekend, resting and enjoying CHICAGO with my friends. More to come on the following days.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Dad

Big argument with my Dad tonight, he even hung up on me. What can I say, we belong to different worlds or maybe different universes. As far as we don't go too deep, everything is all right, but when they cross the line and start telling what I should do, I start talking. And that's not a pretty picture.

Anyway, I'm leaving for CHICAGO tomorrow and the beers are getting cold as-I-type. My cell phone doesn't work so far north, so this will be truly a vacation!

Cheers!

[I'M GOING]

. . . to CHICAGO this Thursday. I'll wake up before the crack of dawn and will get my butt to the airport in order to catch one of the first flights out of this town. After an stopover in Atlanta, I'll take a nap in the airplane and I'll wake up in order to fasten my seat belt and put my chair in the up right position because we're about to land in Chicago, sir.

I'll see my good old friend and his wife and we will drink and eat and drink and drink and eat and then we'll hang out with the 'dudes' and their friends and we'll laugh and talk about the future and the past and the present and we'll walk and snap photos and make memories and we'll eat and drink and party and drink and party and drink and then they'll drive my fucked up ass to the airport next Tuesday and I'll be landing in the Bible Belt at around midnight, then I'll take a short nap and it'll be time to go back to the office and to tell the story of my trip to everybody who wants to hear it.

Unless, of course, like Alanis Morrisette's song says: Mr. Play It Safe [a.k.a. Jean-Francois]/ was afraid to fly/ He packed his suitcase/ and kissed his kids good-bye/ He waited his whole damn life/ to take that flight/

And as the plane crashed down he thought/

'Well isn't this nice...' /

[DISHES]

The dirty dishes have been sitting in my kitchen sink for the last five days or so, I can't really remember. There's a big-o-pot where I cooked pasta two nights ago; a sarten where I fried some chicken in a mix of butter and olive oil with a little garlic and onion; the green plastic thing that I got at the Dollar Store and that I use to drain the spaghetti; a couple of wood and plastic spoons that I use to stir whatever I'm cooking, or to smash against the wall those cucarachas that come from under the old stove; there's also plenty of cups and glasses where I drink my coffee or my ice water in this warm late spring days; a couple of plates sit at the bottom and at the top of all that mess as they witnessed my voraz appetite the last few days.

[INK]

All my trash cans, the one in my room, in the bathroom and in the kitchen, are filled with used toilet paper from all the times that I've had to blow my nose. In the left corner of my L shape desk, there's a pile of bills that I've been paying for the last days and that have taken my slim checking account even closer to the red ink.

[SEE]

I saw her today, and she told me that she saw her boyfriend last weekend. I turned my head and tried to see the other way, towards some people that were seeing something else in the distance. I don't know what they were trying to see; I just saw her words revolving in my little head. She saw that I was seeing something but didn't see what I was seeing.

[CHEESE]

I had again some more pizza for dinner, the three cheese stuffed stuff from Pizza Hut. Yesterday it tasted delicious, but tonight it was like border line, you know what I mean? It was like if my hunger was trying to tell me "enough with the three-cheese thing dude, move on or let's go back to the Chinese buffet". But I was given around one hundred coupons of 50% off on the three cheese thing from Pizza Hut and I was suppose to give'em to all my co-workers, but I kept'em for my selfish self and now I'm planning to use'em even after they've expired and grow a nice belly.

[VIRUSES]

I made the decision to call in sick tomorrow, so that the people at my office can talk on my back if they want without fearing that I might walk by and overhear their conversations. Maybe they wouldn't even notice my absence, or maybe I could get fired tomorrow, or promoted, who knows, life is full of surprises. Maybe my cubicle would get looted, or perhaps the IT people would take advantage of my absence to run some updates in my virus-infested PC and would find all the porn that I have in it and that I've filed under such code names as "contacts", or "templates", or maybe they'll venture even further and open that bigger-than-life file called "Confidential: Sensitive Projects" where I keep all the Heavy Metal Porn and then they'll have to read my rights to remind silent and that I have the right to a lawyer if I want and so on. Or maybe I should just stop writing so much crap and go to bed to see if I can make it tomorrow in time for the meeting.

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Mother's Day

There you go, ten thirty at night and I haven't been able to talk to my mom to wish her a happy day. She must be thinking that I forgot, because I never remember any birthday or anniversary or special day or stuff like that. But the truth of the matter is that I got a calling card and the "circuits" have been "busy" all evening, and when the phone call goes through the line is busy. Even in the twenty first century, international phone calls are sometimes a pain in the butt.

I'm dead tired from a very sunny Sunday here in the Bible Belt that started at seven in the morning with my usual cup of coffee, then right before lunch there was plenty of Bloody Maries, and its last rays of [moon] light are shining as I type this lines trying to digest a 3-cheese stuffed pizza with cinnamon sticks and a glass of milk that I've just had for dinner.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Who?

The phone rang last night and I picked it up. It wasn't who I was expecting nor who I would've liked to be calling me; and I wasn't who the other person in the line was expecting to hear.

We chat for a moment anyways, exchanging some information in a very polite way. It was a cordial conversation, but we both knew that it was gona be brief no matter what. Once we hung up I went back to what I was doing. I could tell the guy on the other side of the line was a bit troubled after our brief conversation.

A girl have given him her phone number on a napkin, but it was a wrong one, it was my cell phone number. He had high hopes, but now his poor heart is shattered.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Cinco de Mayo

No pretty co-workers for me...I am a hard worker, both in the sense of quality and quantity. Even though I am far from being the smartest or fastest cookie in the package, I do try hard at the office and I am up to anything. If there's shit to do, I won't volunteer myself first, obviously; but if I see that things are not in the direction they should be, or if people assigned to certain projects and tasks look like they're not gona make it, I usually step in and help. I also have very good relations with all my coworkers, all the bosses that I have, and those people that according to the company orgchart are below my position. I don't give to anyone of them the false impression that I love them, but they do know that from me they can expect respect and fairness. Until the caffeine worns out, of course.

Today around mid-morning I headed for the water cooler to get some more coffee, and also to get away from the phone that had been ringing all morning like crazy. Sometimes around the water cooler the usual group of people gather around and is a good time to talk about nothing, to listen to different stories from different characters, and forget for a couple minutes all my responsibilities. From Ray I'll get stories about Viagra and all the crazy sex that he has with his wife; from Ardelle I'll get a daily doses of whining and marital problems with her boyfriend -or is it ex boyfriend now?-; from Lex there'll be plenty of stories about his daughter and how boring his life is; from Rudy there's plenty of talking about how much money he'd been spending and how much he would like in order to buy some crap that he doesn't even need; from Gregorio (a.k.a. chubby) there'll be lots of jokes on his belly and my red hair; from James I won't get many stories, his life is so fucked up these days that he doesn't even know what to say; and from other people like "useless" Mike I'll get a lot of talking on football, basketball, baseball and shit that I don't care about.

From me they don't get much, I'm not really that talkative and specially not with these people that I work with. I'll tell them some stories everynow and then, usually good things and funny shit that happens to me on regular basis, but nothing really special. They don't know who I date, who I sleep with and overall what my life outside the office looks like. When I first got this job I tried to get close to them and to make them part of my life, but they were not really willing to let this red-haired foreigner in their lives; so after a couple of hard landings I learnt my lesson. Now that they know that I wasn't just a STRANGE alien in their office, but someone who's really cool and very professional on the things he does, they've tried to get close to me, but I'd built a big wall between us. At the beginning I was in need of friends and people to hang out with, but now that I got them outside my office the truth of the matter is that I don't need my co-workers outside the office building.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo carnal!So this morning when I went to the water cooler, Linda was pouring herself a cup of half and half with a splash of coffee -and not the other way around. She's the one that talks the most shit among the people I have to deal with, and her stories are so boring and so filled with half truths, lies, and tragedies that I always avoid her. I've made this clear to her with my actions and body language, but she still approaches me with her little stories. Today after exchanging with her the usual "hi, how are you" she went on to ask me if I also "celebrate the Cinco de Mayo holiday". I replied to her with a very icy tone "Cinco de Mayo is strictly a Mexican holiday". I then turned around, grabbed a Styrofoam cup and poured few drops of half and half before reaching for the coffee pot.

"Oh. . . , So, . . . do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo. . .?" -she asked me again.

If I have had my cup full, I would've poured the hot coffee in her face -figuratively speaking of course. But I managed to excuse myself and went to the restroom to splash some cold water on my face before having to stab her to dead with one of the plastic knifes on the coffee station.

I've told my coworkers several times about my past, my "racial" origins and the places I've lived in. A big chunk of my life was spent in South America therefore I consider that part of me is Latino; also, due to my appearance, my name, my parents, friends and part of my education I'm European; and that I also lived in China and that I just love that country. Now, after more than three years living in the heart of the Bible Belt, I've assimilated some of the trends, traditions and I've grown to learn and like/dislike the US, just as with any other region/country where I've lived in. I've tried to explain how's life outside the US borders, and how different people in different continents have different realities and different interests, and that there's also different currencies and different holidays and different national heroes. But after all that effort and all that talking that I've had with them about the world, to get her to say that pretty much south of the Rio Grande everything is "Mexico", at least this morning, it was more than I could swallow.

After that little encounter I went back to my office to do some more work and perhaps an hour later I went back to the water cooler. There I ran into Gregorio and James who were talking and having some coffee. Being Gregorio from Mexico, I told them the story about Linda and the "Cinco de Mayo" without missing the smallest detail, I even mention to them the plastic knife and my idea to stab her. We laughed like crazy, even more so when I told them that for her maybe south of the Rio Grande "everything was Mexico" and James said. . .

"Do you mean not everything down there is Mexico. . . ?"

That dirty rat. We laughed so much that even Rudy came to see what was going on. And when we told him the story, we all burst in laughs again.

This is what I mean when I said that you have to make the most out of any situation, even a silly little story like this one. So, Feliz Cinco de Mayo and no, south of the Rio Grande not everything is Mexico! Cheers!

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

A [little] Mistake

Oops! I did it again...My boss is useless, and the second in command just makes things worst. I've been working like crazy these last days on something that [Oops! Sorry Jean-Francois] we don't really need, because the project has taken a whole different direction -it took a different direction like a week ago as a matter of fact, but they didn't realize it, didn't ask a single question to our wonderful clients, and just kept piling up stuff on my desk.

When Rudy, my direct manager found out this morning, I thought he was going to kill someone. We've put all our energy on getting everything ready and suddenly is like "bring the shredder" in order to get rid of all those documents and shit.

Maybe the only good thing that has come out of all this, is that today my boss finally got his hands dirty trying to fix what he broke. And while doing so, he's realizing that is not cool to make that sort of mistakes.

Just a Little One

So at around six thirty, Eastern Standard Time, I decided to lie on my bed and take a quick nap after a long day. It sounded like a wise decision at the time, even though I was kind of tired to really be able to weight other alternatives; so I just lied on my bed with my khakis and my shirt on, as it was suppose to be just few minutes.

Five hours later I woke up; it was right before midnight.

Monday, May 02, 2005

The List

I made a list of sixteen things that I had to do today, I'm very good at it: I'll make a list of the things that I have to do, or to buy, or people that I have to call and then I'll do maybe nothing. I procrastinate a lot, because if you can do something the day after tomorrow, why the hell do you want to do it tomorrow? Today I thought about it, so it doesn't count, see?

But even though I forgot the list at home today, I did every single one of the things I was suppose to do. Awesome.

But now that I'm done and that I'm at home, thinking. . . I realized that what the hell am I suppose to do tomorrow? Everything is done!

Oh man, it never pays to be too clever after all.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Tired

I was tired as a puppyLast night I was beyond being tired. After a week of hard work and some bullshit here and there, the first day of my weekend was spent in my cubicle working for the man. All day behind my computer, going through files, updating shit and doing some work. By the end of the day I was very tired, but didn't realized how tired I really was until later that evening.

After taking a shower, ironing my short and heading for a friend's birthday party, I found my self in front of plenty of appetizers, liquor, beer, wine, sangria, food and loud music. Few known faces showed up and we all started drinking; later on some more people came and the drinking got heavier. Some of them were tall, some short; some girls were slightly overweight and some were thin; some of them -actually one of them- had a pair of breasts that didn't let me blink for quite a few minutes and her blonde hair needed to be dyed again, as the dark roots were becoming too evident.

By then my Usual Redbull Vodka had been sitting on the kitchen counter untouched, and all the different brands of beers that I tried tasted like cold medicine. The food was good, but my appetite was gone and the only thing that I had in my mind was my bed. While everybody was making plans to go to a club, I was trying to find an easy way out and back to my condo without rising too many complaints from everybody. The time to go to the club came and even though there was plenty of girls, and the alcohol consumption had been pretty good, my bed was calling me and it was irresistible.

On my way back home I was falling asleep at the wheel, and once I got to my condo I could barely put my PJ's on, brushed my teeth and get under the blankets before falling into a coma-type of sleep. They all made fun of me telling me that I wasn't tired, but that Steffi was waiting for me therefore I wanted to leave.

If that was the case, I would have never left home in the first place.