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Boris Yeltsin – Thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

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Chapter 10 – I Don't Like Straight Things

I don't like straight things.

It's a general rule of mine. As a cartoonist, I've never struggled to draw a face. Nose, hair, mouth, ears? No problem. I can even attach that face to a body. Any body, of any shape or height or sex or whatever. But as soon as I have to add a background to that person—a background with walls and floors and other very flat things—I want to crumble up the paper and throw it at a wall—but, of course, Monica wouldn't allow for that, so I always fold the paper neatly and place it in the wastebasket, but that's beside the point.

The point is, I can't draw straight lines. And I've grown to hate them because of that.

And then there's my hair. It isn't exactly curly, per se, but a straightener is defenseless against its natural wave. So my hair isn't straight, and trying to make it so is a pain in the ass. So I don't like straight hair either.

I constantly struggle to get my thoughts straight, to get facts straight, to do this straight and that straight and everything straight.

It almost seems as if, for the life of me, I cannot do anything . . . well . . . straight.

These thoughts occupy my mind as I wake from my groggy thirty seconds of sleep. The noise that I was wakened by continues, a loud and angry knock at my bedroom door. Yes, even the knock is angry. I pull myself out of bed as a male voice shouts, "Anna, wake up! I need to talk to you."

"All right, I'm coming, I'm coming. You can shut up now." I unlock the door and pull it open, finding a pissed-off Ross on the other side. My usual joking demeanor dissipates. "Hey, you okay? What's up?"

"Why?" is all he says.

"Ross, I don't know what to do with that. I just woke up, and I can't get my memories straight enough to remember whatever we were last talking about before I fell asleep." I swear, I can see steam coming out of his ears. I want to laugh.

"Why is he here? Why did you bring him into our lives?"

I quirk an eyebrow before it hits me. "Oh. Paolo." Ross nods, almost sarcastically, if that's even possible. "Yeah, he's a total crapweasel. Pretty ugly, too, don't you think?" I chuckle a little, and I can't help my confusion when Ross doesn't do the same.

He sighs, turns, and says, "I'm out of here." He takes a step forward, as if to walk away in some dramatic display of anger and hurt.

I roll my eyes and say with all the passion I can muster (which isn't much), "Wait, Ross. Don't go." My voice is practically monotone. Ross turns around as I come up with an excuse for stopping him. "I, um . . . Let's see . . . I could get Joey to hang out with Paolo to get him to leave Rachel alone. Or maybe I could get him to hook up with Phoebe or something. I dunno." I shrug.

"Fine," Ross says. "Do one of those. I need to get out of here."

"Wait, why?" I ask, but by then, Ross is already gone.

So rude.

Fine, I guess I owe the guy for whatever reason. I can't really remember. I still can't get my thoughts straight. I'm half-convinced that I'm still completely asleep. Or maybe I'm completely convinced that I'm still half-asleep. One of those.

I walk out to the main room where the three other girls are all fondling Paolo's arms and chest and—oh my god, did Phoebe just touch his ass? Oh, I almost forgot: Paolo is an ass. My tired state makes me delirious enough to laugh at my own stupid joke. My loud laughter causes the four to look in my direction. I stop laughing.

"Hello," I say.

A moment later, they resume their fondling as if I'm not even here. I find Joey on the couch, squinting at the scene of these three girls going crazy over the weird Italian man.

"I just don't get it," he says.

"Me neither."

"What does he have that I don't?" Joey looks genuinely upset.

I shrug. "Girls confuse me."

"I mean, he's hot, but I'm hot," Joey continues.

"Me too. I'm hot."

"He's got muscles. I've got . . . some muscle, somewhere in there." He pokes at his bicep.

"I'm hot," I say again, as if to convince myself.

"Why doesn't Phoebe caress my butt?" he whines.

"I know!" I knew she touched his ass.

Joey sighs. I sigh louder.

"Hey, Joe?" I say.

"Yeah?"

"Maybe you could, I dunno, take Paolo around the building and find some women. He may be able to give you some pointers."

Joey finally sits up and looks at me pointedly. "I don't need pointers. I'm hot."

I sigh again. "I'm hot, too. But we all need pointers. Plus, it's dark, and the women here are scared. They might want some company tonight." Right? I think. I'm not the only one who's scared of the dark, right?

He sighs. "Fine." He gets up and walks over to Paolo. From this distance, I can't make out what he's saying, but I can tell that there's some communication difficulties between the two of them. Finally, Paolo seems to understand, a look of realization appearing on his crapweasel face. The men walk out, leaving us four women behind.

The other three give me angry looks that say, You took our Paolo away.

I smile innocently and, as usual, say the first thing that pops into my head. "Wanna play Monopoly?"

Another short chapter, but you can't complain about two short chapters in one night, can you?

I hope you guys enjoyed!