I crashed at a friend's house. This is not uncommon, they live close to fun city nightlife, and I'm not a huge fan of drinking, driving, and crashing into walls. In fact it's been happening with such regularity that they know my Starbuck's order for the morning after.
It happened again.
We woke up, as usual, and he pulled on a hoodie and grabbed his keys, wordlessly making his way towards the door to go out and fetch me the one liquid that can turn me from a cranky zombie to a human being.
The door opened and closed.
I stretched and did the usual - starting cleaning the area. If someone's nice enough to fetch me coffee, I'm nice enough to pick up dirty places, recycle empty cans and bottles, fold used blankets, and put away video game controllers.
The door opened and closed again. Well shit, that was fast.
I turned around and his hands were coffee-free. Dislike.
"You need cash or something?"
"No... there's. Well. There's someone sleeping on the lawn."
"What?"
"There's like... a dude sleeping on the lawn."
There was. Average looking white guy, dressed in pretty standard male attire - a tee shirt and jeans, jacket bunched up as a makeshift pillow, asleep there on the lawn. We looked down at him.
"I guess he's one of my roommates' friends."
"Huh." I paused. "Can you still get coffee?"
He went on his way down the street towards liquid life, and I went about cleaning up. And then I thought that we might as well be nice to the semi-houseguest. I took an old blanket from the couch and filled a glass of water, gently covering the lawn-slumberer with the blanket, and nestling the glass of water in the dewy grass.
One of the roommates woke up, and said he didn't know the person on the lawn either. But we didn't want the mystery lawn-man to leave without an introduction or an explanation. So we sat and watched him.
Coffee came, and the three of us sat down on the front porch of the condo, staring at the small patch of lawn that was serving as a bed.
Roommate #3 awoke, and decided to join us, slamming the door on his way out.
The noise roused our slumberer.
We all stopped whispering and stared intently.
He sat us and dug his palms into his eyes sockets, clearly confused by his surroundings.
"Morning!"
None of us knew him. He didn't know any of us. Apparently, he lives in one of the condos about two blocks away, and after stumbling home drunk, when his keys didn't work he just laid down on the lawn, assuming his girlfriend would let him in eventually. He was hungover, but was very appreciative for the water and for us not calling the police. He got up and went on his way, and soon I went on mine.
Things out here have been going alright. Mostly, I work, work out, and then go home. The DMV has been driving me nuts, and I'm hoping by end of day tomorrow I can finally have a vehicle registered in the state of California. It's been so frustrating, and I've whined so much that the California DMV actually followed me back on Twitter.
I'm homesick though. I hear from friends regularly, and their lives are all going on as normal. I missed the re-opening of Tremont Scoops, the culmination of nearly a year of work and research from some of my favorite people and oldest friends. People are moving, slipping into new jobs, traveling, and going to the Cleveland International Film Fest, and I'm here. I get texts from people and read about all the Cleveland happenings, and I'm still waiting for this new place to feel like home.
The work week starts again tomorrow, so I've got some light prep work to do.
Again soon.
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