idle hands are evil hands

today I'm just tired as fuck. I don't really understand why because I was in bed by 11:30 last night, and that's early for me. I only drank three Stellas last night, but that shouldn't matter because that never matters. I'm bored. Bored across the board.

This weekend Rick comes back from Michigan because it's his birthday. I'd forgotten, so I went online and got him a poster on Henry Rollins' website. He'll dig it because

(1) he doesn't expect me to give him anything for his birthday
(2) it's signed by Rollins
(3) it's a picture of a naked chick covered with $100 bills y'all.

Rick currently lives in Flint, MI. with his girlfriend at his girlfriend's mother's place. He probably won't be hanging it up. It would be rad if he did.

Rick's deal: we became friends at college when we were both out for the rowing team. Rick had rowed at his military high school, so he was already way into it (I was a total novice). At first I thought he was a punk with his Basic cigarettes free promotional baseball hat and 18 year old attitude. I quickly grew to respect him in the boat, he was a powerhouse.

Near the end of his freshman year he got busted by the university, and then the police department for breaking into his dorm's store and stealing food (no money) with some of his jackass friends. Somehow this was considered a felony (buy a lawyer, buy your way out) and Rick was kicked out of the dorm (but not school). Rick asked me if he could crash on my couch, and my roommates didn't care, so for the last month of school Rick wore the same three changes of clothes and finished classes.

We remained friends throughout college, and my last summer in the city before moving to Chicago I lived at his house. It was a good summer... after working all day stocking shelves with Nabisco products, I'd come home, call in my hours and mileage (I raped em, this was a summer job, I was out of there at the end of August anyways), light a j and then Rick and I would play a couple games of chess before heading out to a bar or a movie with friends that were still in town.

That fall I moved to Chicago and Rick finished his last year and a half in school, getting two degrees - one in mechanical engineering and the other in electrical engineering. Rick soon figured out that he hated engineers, thought they were all hard-ons, and didn't enjoy the work environment. So he decided to go to the University of Tennessee - Institute of Space for a graduate degree and to become an astronaut. Living in a trailer, Rick decided that he hated Tennessee, didn't like his teachers or fellow students and didn't want to be an astronaut anymore so he moved back to Chicago and got a place with his girlfriend.

Rick decided that he wanted to teach high school, so he enrolled in DePaul's credentialling program for education and got a job as a butcher at Whole Foods. A year later he was hired to teach Physics to flunk out students at an impoverished, predominantly hispanic high school on the southwest side of Chicago. He bought a condo, moved in, and decided after two years that he hated teaching. He thought the system was fucked, the union was ineffective, his co-workers were an angry bunch and that his students didn't care. He feared burn-out, so he bought a car wash in Flint, MI.

His girlfriend's mother had owned a number of car washes in the Flint metro area for several years and hooked Rick up with the deal. Rick quit his teaching job, rented out the condo and moved with girlfriend to girlfriend's mother's house. He says that Flint is totally different from Chicago. I think I believe him, site unseen.

Because running a car wash is relatively hands off, and because he hired a minimum wage 19 year old (who he's been buying bud off of) to sit there, he's got plenty of time on his hands. Idle hands are evil hands. So now Rick is getting involved in real estate to pass the time.

idle hands are evil hands.