Des Moines Crrunk

I've met a couple characters out here in Iowa, no doubt. Here are just a couple of them.

Diante is five years old. He lives across the street. We leave for work at the same time; I get dirty while he's at kindergarten. He likes playing frisbee and impressing girls. Once he saw a police car drive by and yelled, "Hit the ground, Cops!" So cute. His cousins live next door, and when they're around Diante plays basketball with them. The first time I met Diante he mooned me, the next time he was walking in the backdoor of our house like it was nothing. Kid is hillarious.

Today I met Pastor Phillip who lives a block down. He took a seat after I told him I had a B.A. in B.S. we must have talked for an hour and a half upon meeting. He gave me his card and we're meeting up again tomorrow. Is that the way it is everywhere? And why shouldn't I give him a call tomorrow?

Our project sponsors are pretty cool (except for Gary... what a dick), but my favorite has to be Vern. He's 72 years old and has a dog that gets second place every year for long distance diving. My first day on the job with Vern I cut a 2x6 of greenwood a foot short. He calmed me down, being upset for ruining an expensive piece of wood, and showed me how to lead a group of volunteers. By the end of that day he said, "you keep around me, you're gettin' gooder and gooder." Now we are comfortable enough to shoot the shit, and since he's lazy, we have a good time shirking work to talk.

There was a lot of work this last week. My team were the grunts for a Builder's Blitz project where two houses were built side by side. Chaos was alive on the worksite. At the end of the night the doors hung crooked, but were attached and swinging. No worries though, we'll be there for two more weeks before the families move in.

We lost 4 people from the corps this week... and I'm glad I'm not one of them. Alex had to leave for medical reasons. Janiece was tired of dealing with "the hate" from her team. Forrest puked in his roommate's bed and refused to clean it up (who does that?!). Team Leader Katie left for reasons at this point unknown. When it gets down to work, it's very hard to stay and not be frustrated.

The only reason my team is doing so well is because we've banded against our team leader. Zar is the weakest link on our team, and its really beginning to stick. At 27 he's the most immature of us; just a little taste... We finished these two houses this week, and prepare for the handing over of keys ceremony, so we all go home and put on our AmeriTuxes. The media shows up and everyone is taking pictures. We're clad in black and white lined up in front of the houses... what does Zar do? Shuffles his feet, hands positioned satisfied on top of swelling belly like a happy cat, half excusing his shortness half saying "this is my team and I lead them". Cameras start going off, he changes poses, hands on his knees leaning over and looking up like he's posing for a grade-school class picture. It's too bad he thinks he can talk to me about these problems that he has with the team, because its those very issues that I have with him. He's tried talking to me about it, but once that door opens, he's gonna get his feelings hurt because of his sensitivity. It doesn't help that he excuses himself every weekend to go hang with his wife and get away from the team. See... we don't have family to go home to, and I think most of us are jealous that he can... and that he doesn't trust us... and is a little power-drunk...

This weekend has been a full rebelling from the entire team. Zar's gone right? So we've been partying it up. Tonight I'm going out to the Garden, the local gay bar, again tonight. Probably should head back home and get ready for that. Everything's going well, I was just too tired this week to get some writing done. Laaaame, I won't have the same problem again. (we'll see!)