Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down
"People Are Strange" - The Doors
Several incidents lately have made me really wonder what makes people tick. Sometimes, I gotta be honest, I just don't get it.
At work, David continues to labor fervently on his Top Secret Project every night without fail. No breaks; with the only "entertainment" being Pandora (actually, I don't even think it's Pandora, maybe his iTunes?) playing through his headphones.
Susan has gotten out of hand again. She's on the warpath for some reason and now I'm in her crosshairs. Never before has she even suggested I was lacking in my overall focus regarding what I do at work but she'd just this week called that into question in a very demeaningly-worded way. Things may be a-brewin' to a head with her.
On the homelife front, Ric, who's still no more now than just a Facebook friend, is reportedly semi "on-the-wagon" again and has, without his knowing about my initiative, started a weight-loss regime of his own. But he posts shirtless pics of himself constantly to his Facebook account and though it's evident he's lost some weight, he still looks demented with his glaringly-fake smile and crazy-eyes stare. Why do some people pose so badly for the camera? They go into "camera smile" mode the second before the pic is shot and it always looks awkward and artificial.
I again had to have maintenance come by this week; again for the massive occasional leaking from the upstairs bathroom. Again I'm given a post-ticket wrap-up diagnosis that's gotta be BS (this time: her toilet tank was overflowing...right.) The same maintenance guy as the last two times, Alex, an incredibly tall and lanky black guy showed up. (So distinctively tall in fact that as I thought about it I fully assumed that if you asked someone "Which maintenance guy came to help you?" they'd answer, in leiu of knowing his name, of course, "Oh, the tall guy." rather than "Oh, the black guy." How rare is that?)
Alex and I chatted as he was Wet-Vac-ing my bathroom floor and he seemed, like before, very personable, pro-resident, and intelligent. He decried the "cut-corners" attitudes of the complex's management and scoffed at maintenance methods of "jury-rigging" things to cut costs. But then, out of character, as he shakes his head telling me that the sticker on my A/C unit reports that the last professional contractor maintenance was done for the unit back in 1987, I discover later that he's actually rubbed out the "incriminating" date on the sticker to make in illegible.
But is that deceitful behavior really out of character? Remember, this is the same guy who after he finished replacing my garbage disposal a few months ago went and just discarded the old PVC pipes onto the breezeway.
Finally, I'm the strangest of all in that I've delved zombie-like into full on sleep-depriving marathon sessions of Brave New World, ignoring almost all other activities and interests. Single player still. (BNW likely changes multiplayer drastically, I'll have to check it out soon...)
The new activities and gameplay aspects are simply unbelievably engrossing. Like every review I've read, the game has now been transformed into something I'm sure Sid Meier spent countless nights dreaming up back in the '80s when he first created this series...only he was restricted by the technology limits of the day from materializing his fantasy into then-reality. But now...we have the technology. I'm freakin' lovin' it! And of course, it's far less odd and creepy when I'm in my Civ digital world, you know. People aren't strange there.
Probably because there aren't any.
People, that is.