Every breath you take

Tonight I went with a friend to get dinner and watch basketball. He dropped me off at my car when we were finished. As we pulled up I noticed a piece of paper under the windshield wiper.

I said, "That had better not be a flier from somebody. If it is I'm going to be pissed. I hate those things."

My friend asked, "What else would it be?"

"It had better be a note from my stalker."

It was.

Got a spy glass a pencil and some paper

Last week I found a note under my windshield wiper that read: [Minnow], I'm watching you. Marry me?

This week I found this "note":



Next week will probably end up with me being chloroformed and tied up in an attic* somewhere.

I might be okay with that.






*Houses in Vegas don't have basements.

My sweet baby, I need fresh blood

Maybe* I'm twisted, but any music video that includes a beautiful woman, a creepy stalker guy, and men in luchadore masks is okay in my book.








*There's no maybe about it.

Made a phone call and left a message, the story was a laugh from the beginning

A week or two ago I went and saw The Hangover on a Saturday afternoon. Very funny movie. I watched it at an outdoor shopping mall where Girl Who Won't Be My Girlfriend likes to hang out. As I left the theater and walked to my car, I saw her car in the parking garage. I gave her a call to see if she wanted to meet up.

She didn't pick up.

I didn't leave a message because I was just going to go along on my way, but knowing that she likes to hang out and study in a nearby coffee shop, I thought that I'd walk over and say hi real quick*. So I called her again. This time I left a message saying, "Hey, I just saw you parked near me, so I'm going to stop by real quick in case you're there. I'd like to say hi."

I went to the coffee shop.

She wasn't there.

I walked back to my car.

Hers was gone.

I couldn't help but think that she hurried and left because I said I was stopping by. I called her again and left a message telling her that I was sorry I missed her, and to give me a call.

Nothing says "stalker" quite like that sequence of events**.

It made me feel a lot like Mikey***:








*I realize how pathetic this makes me look.

**Even though it was just coincidence***.

***But at least I wasn't wearing a wife beater.

****I swear!

Don't worry about me baby, see you when I get there

Girl: You're still here?

Me: I'm stalking you.

Girl: You are?

Me: Well, this is the second time you've seen me today. But I guess that would make me a bad stalker.

Girl: It would?

Me: Yeah. If I were a good stalker, you wouldn't know I was stalking you until I was standing in the bushes with a piano string.

They keep calling me, keep on calling me

Friend: How do you feel about that?

Me: There's a part of me that doesn't like it, and another part that's ok with it. So I don't really know.

Friend: In that case, you should let the universe figure it out for you.

Me: But the universe hates me.

Friend: What? No. The universe loves you.

Me: Actually, you're right. It won't stop calling.



First thing tomorrow morning I'm going to go get a restraining order on The Universe.

Lurking behind every curtain

One of my friends has been hanging out with a new girl. She recently broke up with her boyfriend. After my friend hung out with her once or twice, her ex-boyfriend started sending him emails. Yesterday he was telling me a little bit about it. Let's just say it's a weird situation and leave it at that.

As we finished our conversation my friend jokingly said, "Oh, and one more thing. If I should end up dead, you know who to send the police after. Also, feel free to look through my CDs at the house and take whatever you want."

Is it wrong to start secretly rooting for the ex-boyfriend? My friend does have a lot of good music.

Every breath you take, every move you make

The other day someone mentioned something to me about stalkers. Specifically, they mentioned something about how they were going to start stalking me. I'm pretty sure they were joking, after all, a real stalker wouldn't come out and tell you they were going to do it, right?

Now I don't know about you, but every time I think about stalkers, I think about someone hiding in the bushes with a piano string. Which brings up the following questions: Where does one buy the piano string without looking suspicious? I'm sure that there are people out there who build or repair pianos for a living, but it doesn't seem like that would be a very large proportion of the population. I'm sure that these people would have no problem getting a piano string, but what about your average Joe who wants to start stalking someone? Is there a store he could go to, or would he have to convince one of these 'piano men' to sell him one under the table? If it's the former, are there obligations for the store clerk to notify the police if a suspicious looking person purchases a single piano string (as opposed to an entire set)? If it's the latter, how do you find a crooked piano builder who is willing to sell you some of his precious string? Also, is there an optimal size of string that should be used? If you go too thin will it break? Too thick and it won't actually slit a throat? Or is the main goal asphyxiation instead?

This is why I wouldn't make a good stalker. A good stalker would know the answers to these questions.

Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true, that you love me, and I love me

Two weeks ago I finished teaching the first of two lecture courses that I got the opportunity to teach over the summer. My lectures are for an hour and a half every day, and each course lasts for five weeks. Apparently that's enough time for an unhealthy crush to develop. And this time I'm not talking about the one that I developed on my hottest student, I'm talking about the one that one of my students has on me.

About three weeks into the course I got an anonymous email. It was from a name that I didn't recognize, and it read "Can we go out?"

I didn't respond. Then a few days later I got another one from the same email address (which had a name that was not on my class roster - I checked). This one said "I hope you're not mad. Just think of it as a joke, ok? You're always joking around. Email me back, ok?"

I still didn't respond. A few days after that I got another email that said "What is DNA? You should email me back because this time it's about lecture."

I wrote back and said "No offense, but I haven't responded because I don't know who you are."

They replied "Fortunately, I'm one of your students."

I just left it at that. Then, a few days after the course ended a student showed up at my office. At first she said that she wanted to pick up her final exam, but that she had something else to ask me too. Then, after working to get up the nerve, she told me that she wanted to get to know me better than as a professor and wanted to know if we could go out on a date. Even with the emails that I had received, it completely caught me off guard. I didn't know what to say, and I could tell she felt stupid for asking, so I said that I guess there wouldn't be any harm in grabbing lunch sometime. That turned out to be a mistake. I was thinking that we could get a bite to eat, and then I could tell her that it would be a bad idea to see each other again. Instead I think it led her to believe that I was interested in her. I started getting a bunch of emails, she started hanging around my lecture so that she could see me before and after class, and she showed up at my office with brownies. I can't really blame her, because all of those things would be fine if we were entering into a relationship, and I think that in her mind we were. But it got to the point where it started to freak me out a little. You hear about it all the time, but I think it's the first time that I've been put off by someone coming on too strong.

We didn't go out for lunch. I told her that I felt awkward about the whole situation, and that the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be a bad idea. I listed a few of the nicer reasons of why I didn't think we should go out, and kept some of the others to myself so as not to hurt her feelings. Thankfully, she understood, and didn't seem to take it too hard. Hopefully she'll have the confidence to approach the next guy she gets a crush on.

I was telling some of my friends about the whole situation the other night. I jokingly referred to her as my stalker. One of my friends had seen the emails, and had seen me talking to this girl, but I hadn't told him about the rest. As I was filling him in on the details we had the following conversation:

Friend 1: "I guess you found out who was sending you those emails then."
Me: "Yeah."
Friend 1: "Was it that little Asian girl who's come by the office to ask you questions?"
Me: "Yeah, that's the one."
Friend 2 (to Friend 1): "So you've seen this girl?"
Friend 1: "Yeah, I've seen her."
Friend 2: "Is she cute."
Friend 1: "No."
Friend 3: "If she was cute, he'd be calling her his new girlfriend instead of his stalker."