The sixth day of the third moon, the year 2013AD

A mind that concentrates too much on doing everything correctly and not enough on actually doing something is an entertaining trait to have. It makes every task a challenge.

I woke up today with drowsy eyes. Not a particularly uncommon thing, unless you take into account the severe jetlag I am still experiencing. A day ago I was making breakfast at 5 AM - now I am attempting and subsequently failing my search for sufficient motivation to crawl out from under the blanket. 
You see: yesterday we - my American friend, his little sister, and I - were watching a movie about an evil book bound in human flesh that summons crack-addicted demons to possess people, and of course we had to incapacitate ourselves in true Californian fashion to enjoy this cinematic masterpiece to its fullest. The aftereffect of such debauchery is a dulled mind, empty eyes and the overwhelming desire to get back to your blissful state of procrastination. 

Well I got up eventually and, during what I call a moment of divine willpower, even had a shower. I spent most of the morning performing unnecessary tasks, trying to avoid the windy and dreary-looking outside world, full of people who want to scream at you like angry apes and maybe even fling some poo at you when you´re not looking; I cleaned that which needed not be cleaned, talked to faceless friends on the internet and even meditated for an hour. Incidentally this little session of guided meditation from YouTube that I listened to with headphones (This is how they do it in Tibet´s mountain temples, right? How else would you do it?) was a huge factor in me overcoming my basic instincts and jumping off the peripheral branch to spread imaginary my wings. Although even this boost was only a drop in the raging inferno that is my deeply engraved laziness. The thought of finding someone to distract me from the loneliness-induced heavy sigh that was my day, was too intoxicating to be played down by such feelings.

The first thing I decided to do was find someone to train my unfortunately non-existent social skills on. As it so happens to be, every morning (at about 7 or 8 in the AM) the sweet sound of gangster rap and reggae starts blessing my dulled ears. My room-mate and I first thought it was the neighbors having a great time next door, but that is a story from another chapter in the beautifully weird adventure that is America... I had long thought of meeting whoever was playing that music, because frankly I was thinking myself to death in that lonely apartment of mine and didn´t really have anything better to do with my time. As always I had this specific scenario of what was about to happen repeating itself in my head like a movie:
I walk into the shop with a look of intent that implies that I am exactly where I need to be. This beautiful girl with cat-like elegance and paradoxically strong eyes, that radiate a sweet air of innocence, sees me coming in, smiles and says:

“Hey! Can I help you?”

I look deeply into her eyes and tell her in a confident but calm voice: “Hey! I´m the guy who lives upstairs.Without trying to sound creepy, I have been looking forward to meeting you. My room-mate and I heard some pretty decent music coming from somewhere. At first we thought it was the neighbors and went in front of their door with a plate of waffles and a perfectly rolled joint, but that is a tale for another night. I was hoping you could show me around, and maybe get some coffee later.”

“Oh,” she giggles, “Wow! Sure! You´re so cool! Ill show you the parts of town you are too lazy to go to by yourself and then maybe have sex with you later.”

Things got out of hand once my mind started loosing focus. Well, this is how it actually went down:

I entered the shop, all awkward and self-conscious as I was, and immediately decided that I should have a more confident posture because I desperately needed someone to occupy my time during workdays, when my other friends had a career or some such foolishness to attend to. That, however, made me realize that I was massively over-thinking every move I made and had no control over it what so ever, because it felt like my whole body was on auto-pilot and the program was constantly contradicting itself. Anyway, hearing the familiar music behind the empty counter of what seemed to be a little pastry shop, I walked deeper into what my mind, at that moment, considered to be the cave of an evil beast that wanted to eat my intestines. This somewhat chubby girl with a mean yet disturbingly vacant look walks up to the counter and, in a sleepy tone which implied that she had other places to be and unimaginably more important things to do than serving me (some actually fairly good-looking and moderately well-priced) chocolate truffles, said:

“Hello, what can I get you?”

I start stuttering out this phrase I consistently repeated in my head before I walked in the door: “Uhhm… Hey! Hi, I´m actually your neighbor from upstairs. Me, I mean my roommate and I, were actually wondering where… Well, where this cool music was coming from. We can hear it pretty clearly upstairs and were wondering-“ (I am f*****g this up.)

“Oh! Is it too loud?”

“Oh, what? No, no. No, it´s cool. I was actually worried that my music was disturbing you. Haha.” (What?)

“Ohh… No, no it´s cool if you wanna play guitar or something…”

(Wait, what? Where did that come from? Where would she get that idea? What does that even mean?) “Haha, no, it´s kind of like… it´s more like minimal techno n´ s**t…” (Minimal techno? Really? Now she thinks I go to drug-fueled raves every weekend.)

“Oh... Well, can I get you anything?”

This was the moment I realized I did not want to be in that shop anymore. However I came out of that dungeon I call my apartment to practice my “Do you want to get some coffee with me or something?” , so I asked her where I could get some lunch. I did not want to ask for a coffee place since this district was littered with them, making the question feel kind of forced and slightly retarded. It didn´t really matter however, because I was mostly just tired of seeing the living incarnation of that inexplicably distinct feeling you get from the realization that you are more awkward than a pastry shop cashier with a slight weight problem and a confused look that irritates some distant part at the back of your skull. Like the brush stroke of an insane artistic savant whose every piece of art becomes reality, the cashier asked the most blatantly irritating question humanly possible at that exact moment:

“What kind of lunch would you like?”

"What kind of a question is that? Have you stood there behind that cash machine so long, that all you know how to do when an actual human conversation is taking place, is look hopelessly for some meaningless variation in a mundane question?" is what I thought I should say. Fortunately however I got that "You are taking this way too personally and are obviously over-thinking the situation again." feeling, which seemed to tame my inner demons.
I told her: “Something mild” because, at the time, I couldn´t think of a more vague answer to the most vague of questions. She muttered some capitalist propaganda in my face and told me to try out some bakery place a couple of blocks down the road. When I subsequently started backing away from the counter and out of the shop I stumbled onto a bike that - to my great misfortune - was parked in the doorway and of course I made the proud European people look like a retarded tourist with the smile of a socially awkward man-child.

Leaving the shop I had only one thought in mind: “That went better than expected.”
I smiled.

Author's Note

Any hammer blows of criticism to the dull blade that is my pen, untempered by time and experience, are appreciated.