May 11th, Madison: I wake up alone in the apartment in the early afternoon. I have plans to see a Brewer game in Milwaukee tonight but nothing to do for my afternoon, so I call my dad and ask if he’d like to play some tennis. As always he’s keen for it, so we make plans to have him pick me up from the Subway down the street. I pack up my things then go downstairs and checkout from the apartment. I walk over to Subway and find my dad waiting. We grab a quick sandwich then stop over at Martina’s work so I can drop off the makeup kit she left at the apartment.

At home I quickly get changed as we’re running out of play time. We go over to the park and play for an hour in windy conditions that makes the ball movement total havoc. When we finish my dad drives us home where I take a quick shower, pack up a few things, and grab some food. He takes me over to the Badger bus station and I purchase a return ticket. I text Joe on the bus to find out what time and where I should meet him and Brian for dinner and then spend the rest of my ride writing and wondering why the dude at the back of the bus feels the need to basically yell into his cell phone despite the woman with the child several rows in front of him constantly trying to shush him. Luckily after half an hour of said high decibel phone chatter he hangs up and goes to sleep, but not before he tries hitting on some woman 10 rows in front of him by yelling “Hey! What’s up” at her. When we arrive in Milwaukee he is still fast asleep and the woman with the kid jerks him awake with a high volume “SIR! WE’RE HERE!”

I walk down Wisconsin Street over to Uhle’s and greet Dave politely then exchange playful trash talk with Tamara and Trish. I rave at Dave about how much he needs to go see Star Trek for a while and have a brief cigar. I’m running out of time so I make a quick exit and hop on the 30 bus over to the North East side. There is an attractive girl sitting in front of me and I debate hitting on her but the bus is absolutely packed and I can’t think of anything socially appropriate to say under those settings (I guess I could always go with a simple hi how’s it going, but it’s always difficult with so many people in close enough proximity to hear.)

I get off in front of the restaurant, a Japanese place called Izumi’s. I find Joe and Brian waiting for me, so we grab a table and browse the menu. I order a pan fried pork dish, which winds up being more of a deep fried when it arrives. I immediately regret my decision and sort of pick at my food, annoyed with myself for my poor choice in ordering. Joe and Brian are interested in hearing what I’ve learned from my time spent pursuing pick up, and I spend a good 45 minutes unloading every piece of information I can for them. Like many guys who are well out of college, Brian has found meeting women increasingly difficult as a result of a social circle that has mostly paired up and been married and a job in an industry that is low on available options. I’ve spoke to many guys in the pickup scene with the same story, no problem meeting women throughout school, but then when they graduate and social circles splinter off and they get a job with no women around they start running out of the more traditional means of meeting women. Some flounder and go through multiyear cold streaks, something which would probably put me in an asylum considering it only takes about 48 hours without before I start losing my ability to concentrate.

After dinner Brian departs and Joe drives us over to the Brewer game. Joe and Rob have purchased 40 games of really kick ass seats at the stadium; the sixth row behind the visitor dug out along the first base line. We grab some food and beer and sit down to enjoy the game. The Brewers put on an awesome show by hitting four home runs including back to back blasts by Prince Fielder and win 6-3 in a game I spend much of running around and high fiving Joe when the shots go over the wall. It’s a damn good team they have this year.

During the game I made plans to meet my friend Derek after he finished work, so Joe drops me off at Twisted Fork on North Street. I thank him for the game multiple times and tell him to make sure to get me a patch that I can wear for him and Rob during the WSOP. Outside the restaurant a homeless lady approaches me
“Sir, do you have any change to spare? It’s cold out and I’m real hungry.”
“Yea I think I might, one sec let me check”
I fish through my pockets and find a quarter
“Here ya go, best of luck”
“Oh thank you sir! Thank you! Thank you!” she continues yelling thank you at me as I walk into the restaurant. I take a seat at the bar and order a glass of wine, then take out my laptop and set it up to write. A few minutes later the homeless woman comes in, takes a seat at the bar, and orders a drink. She turns around and sees me
“Hey! You’re that nice young fella that gamme the quarter! How ya doing tonight?”
“No complaints, how bout you?”
“Oh I’m doing fine, just fine!”
She returns to her drink. I always assume that any time I give a homeless person asking for money that it’ll go towards booze or something that’s not food, but it’s odder to watch it play out in front of you. Either way, once I give out the money what they do with it is of no particular interest of mine. Many people I talk to about it have polarized opinions on the subject and the homeless in general; I haven’t decided yet. Some say they are useless vagrants who put themselves in that situation with their laziness and apathy; others say they are the result of a combination of misfortunate and societal problems. My thoughts; well over 95% of the people who express their opinion to me on the subject probably haven’t done the research, homework, or critical thinking to come up with any real causality for the problem and should just shut the fuck up because their thoughts are clearly formed by a tiny, irrelevant sample size of interactions. The only concrete opinion I have is that I wish they wouldn’t bother me on the street so much, but given that we’re both going to spend that quarter on substance use who am I to judge?

At 10:30 I pack up my things and walk over to Whole Foods to meet Derek. He says he’d like to get a drink so we walk over to a local bar and he buys an enormous beer; I get a normal sized one. Derek and I discuss how much he hates his job, and I continue to pressure him to start writing online because I think he’s enormously clever. He tells me that since our last talk he has started to carry a pad and pen around with him so when he has a hilarious interaction or some witty thought he can write it down and use it later, and that guys like George Carlin did the same thing. We finish our drinks and then walk over to a convenience store to purchase munchies for upcoming pot use. Naturally I purchase milk and protein bars, though in order to have a nostalgic moment of when we were kids we also get a two pack of pop-tarts.

We walk back to Derek’s place and he quickly packs a bowl. We light it up and pass it back and forth. I do not ask him to shotgun. We cash the bowl then whip out the munchies and go to town on them. I am beginning to feel quite drowsy so I say to Derek
“Hey man I’m starting to feel real exhausted. Do you care much if I just crash on the floor instead of going to get a hotel room?”
“Ah, I don’t really know about that dude.”
“No worries then, I’ll go sort something out on your computer then.”
“Er wait, were you just going to go straight to sleep in a bit?”
“Yea, pretty much.”
“Oh man I’m so sorry, that was totally uncool of me. I thought you were gonna like call up some girl and pull her over here and start screwing on the floor while I’m right there on the bed. Sorry about that.”
“No offense taken, in fact I’d say that’s a pretty sick compliment if you think I could booty call a girl over here to have sex on this extremely uncomfortable floor in your trashed apartment with you like a foot away. I’m flattered. Damn, that shit would be epic.”
“Haha, yea it would. Let me get you a sweater for a pillow and a sheet.”
“Thanks dude, appreciate it.”

Derek gets me set up and I do my best to get situated. All that separates me from the hard floor is a very thin layer of cheap carpeting, and getting in a comfortable position proves quite difficult. I feel very tired however, and eventually I doze off despite the circumstances.

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