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stalker channing 2009-05-19 12:41 a.m. “Don’t you have a list of things that you have to do in M-Town while you’re home? I certainly do.” I had a rough list, yeah, in my head, but they all required company. I did end up going to Crossroads and Thrift Town alone, but it was just too depressing to get Falafel’s Drive-in without Alison or shop at Savers without Julie beside me. This weekend has been a mental vacation that I didn’t really need, but it is nice sometimes to get away from people. That makes me sound like a terrible misanthrope (and I sort of am), but shrug. I wish I had a little more time in Berkeley with the fellows than just Saturday, but obviously we did what we could in a long ten hours. Lots of running around, possible felonies/misdemeanors (what does providing alcohol to minors count as?), all culminating in one of few times (but certainly the superlative) that I was genuinely ashamed of myself. You should be gasping out loud right now and clutching your chest in shock. Yes, I, Cat Ngo. Given the tight parameters of three words to describe me in, people usually muse, “Well, shameless…” and then no more is needed. If this is so, then why do I still consider the day successful? Guinness people, take note: I stalked eight people on Saturday (in chronological order): Julian Harmon All of this was possible by the fact that Julie and I brought our cars to B-Town. Alison and I drove up from Milpitas after many detours; Starbucks for brekkers, turned back to her house for her phone, got on the wrong freeway, etc. I was tired and she had a headache by the time we did get to Berkeley – forty minutes late. I blamed both maladies on a combination of carbon monoxide from the car and the fact that we hadn’t had a substantial brekkers or lunch yet. I wanted Barney’s or Zachary’s but we ended up going to the third of our usual haunts, Naan N Curry. Sounds ghetto? It kind of is.
After lunch, we split up into teams, aka no one wanted to indulge Julie and I and go bother the Benderz with us. The rest of them got lost around the East Bay while Julie and I did our usual thing. We parked by their house, and went to the dollar store to get Julian a belated birthday present (three months after the fact) for under $4. Yeah, we set budgets. It’s all very methodical. We got him toy water pistols and an air freshener for the van shaped like a cartoon lion. To accompany these treasures, we included a card originally meant to celebrate mother’s day.
We’ve done this so many times that this time we didn’t freak out very much. Julie actually agreed to be the one to put it on the porch, instead of sending me like a minion, as she usually does. She didn’t run up and down the stairs. We even calmly took the time to take a picture in front.
Oh, forgot to mention that before the Benderz Haus, Julie and I went to Ehrman Hall to find a certain freshman. Poor Jon Chu, he didn’t do anything. He’s just fortunate/unfortunate to be Chris Chu’s little brother and thus collateral damage. Luckily for him, and to our great disappointment, he was out of the room when we came. I left my phone number on the white board but not my name, lest by some chance he remembers my name and is scared off. The second word to describe me should be “memorable”. We collected at Ivy’s apartment, where people’s spirits/energy started to wane. Alison was doing homework, while Nella and Julie were sinking into naps. Lenine and I, despite every single person’s warning, decided to drive to Mr. Colburn’s house while they stayed at the apartment. It took some time to find it, but we were determined. She was a lot older than either of us expected. Her hair had more than a peppering of grey, and her clothes were the dumpiest options you could find at Banana Republic. Lenine nervously spewed her speech and introduced herself, while I tried not to keel over. “Hi Mrs. Colburn. I feel like I should give you a fake name so you don’t take out a restraining order against us, but I’m Cat.” Foot in mouth does not taste good. I dug myself a deeper grave by going on: “We’re not really here to see Mr. Colburn. We’re here to see Sam.” It probably helped a little to know that we weren’t there for her husband. You know, just her fourteen-year-old son. She stuck her head back in the house and called him out. When he rounded the door, I was speechless.
Mrs. Colburn had apparently gone in to get Mr. Colburn, but neither one of them came out. We heard her calling Sam, who said, “Uh no, I’m not ready. There are two people on our porch. You told me to stay here.”
“We’ll just go. Yeah, we’re just going to go. We’re so sorry again.” Before we were even halfway down the steps, I already heard the door close. As we left, Lenine and I moaned nonstop. We shared twin sinking feelings weighing us down: dumbbells of shock and humiliation. I couldn’t believe what we had done, and couldn’t legitimate it in any way. We were terrible. Once back with the others, we asked why none of them stopped us – or hadn’t tried harder to.
We immediately left for Tammy’s birthday dinner at Jupiter on Shattuck. It was a pizza joint with I’m sure meticulous cooks, and it didn’t help that there were more than a dozen of us. Sometime in the hour and a half it took to get our food, my phone rang and the little blue screen read: Little Chu… “Wait, did I just call you?” I love that he recognized that he had been duped. I apologized, and it was a much shorter conversation than the first. Earlier that afternoon, Julie and I already called him and inquired his whereabouts. He was at the beach with his roommate and a friend, somehow already done with finals. Even though we’re obviously deranged people, he stayed on the phone with us and had a substantial conversation. Not so this time. He was obviously perturbed that he had called me, and anxious to cut off contact. He hung up, and Julie and I took some time to muse over what we should do. Not think about whether we should stop. Plotting about what we should do in addition to the terrible things we had already done. It was rude, but we were desperate. We pretended to leave the table to make a phone call, but as soon as we were out the doors, we sprinted down the street down to my car – the only time we had exercised in five months. I was in such a hurry that I nearly ran a few stop signs and drove overall haphazardly. Halfway down Dwight, we happened upon a liquor store. Julie ran in as I idled beside a dumpster, then out with two forties clanking in her classy little purse. We got someone to sign us in at the front, then ran up the stairs so that we were breathless at room 209. Even if we hadn’t exhausted ourselves, the sight of Jon Chu wearing nothing but a pair of jeans made us speechless. We babbled a few incoherent sentences, then tossed the two bottles onto an inflatable mattress and ran back down the hall and to my car to get back to dinner. So… a) remembered and celebrated the birthday of a man we’ve only spoken to six or seven times; b) just barely restrained myself from unspeakable things with a fourteen-year-old and c) provided alcohol to minors. After that day, there was no need for any more excitement, and to be honest, I don’t think I could have taken anymore. I spent the rest of the weekend driving around town with Jimmy hanging on the passenger side. Popalops and I also spent some good time together; we went to mass in the morning, then I managed to convince him to not only go to the movies, but to see “Angels and Demons” with me.
It’s good to be back, but it was also good to be away. I really enjoyed myself this weekend – obviously too much.
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