destruction - 03.15.2009 - creation

*** 11:32 pm ***

- what i'm like -

thursday night, hoping i don't come across too much like a dork, hoping to impress. not to get in her bed after, just enough that she wants to hang out again. meet up. what's the right word for this sort of thing? i'm not trying to date anyone. i'm not trying to have a relationship. i'm not looking for sex or fucking or anything more than friendship. i'm looking for people who share some interests, who'll help keep me afloat, who'll excite me with words and collaboration. i want growth opportunities.

friday morning i invite malice to saturday night's rock band. it's a friendly email, opening with how i liked meeting the night before, a few positive thoughts, the invitation and directions to my place, then looking forward to seeing her again. nothing aggressive, nothing, i thought, that would throw her off. drive her away. make her not interested. yet, she doesn't respond. on im, maybe i should have messaged her, but i'm nervous, don't want to seem desperate, don't want to seem pushy or needy or forcing myself on her. i sent the invitation, the balls in her court. right?

all day, and that night trying to get to the tricky show, and most of saturday, i'm thinking about her. i want to talk to her. i want her to talk to me. i want her to listen to my rambling. i want her to like me (i want everyone to like me, dammit). saturday morning i'm cleaning, thinking of what to have for snacks when people come, and thinking about how malice likes to cook. i want to impress her, right? don't bother with chips and salsa, don't bother with greasy frozen junk, make something. cook from scratch (or almost scratch) and impress her. impress everyone (which i did).

this is what i'm like. i meet someone i like and i want to impress the person. i meet someone who really isn't my type of person but somehow i think the person is cool, and i do what i can to be around the person. i hang around longer than is necessary. maybe i laugh louder, or more readily, at the person's jokes. i find myself wanting to emulate the person, wanting to be in the person's good graces. it's a mild crush, i guess, but not a romantic one. i suppose it could be envy, as in i want to be so cool, and maybe if i spend time with this cool person it will rub off on me. only cool people don't try, and i do.

so there i am, doing thinking of tellint her my stories, as though she'll find them interesting. doing things hoping she'll be impressed, as though it matters. buying diet sunkist at the store because that's what i drank when we had dinner thursday night (crisp being out of diet orange crush). all the while i'm overthinking everything that happens, imagining all the possibilities, hoping for something beyond my control.

all my life i do this. always i am disappointed. this is how i live and breathe. this is my daily existence. no wonder i long for an idealized past. no wonder i miss the people who made me happy once. the thought of finding new ones terrifies me, because it seems so difficult. i feel like it as easy then, and has gotten much harder now. i'll never replace what i've lost, and i'll struggle mightily to find substitutes. i won't be satisfied, and everyone will let me down. get used to being this way, star, and maybe you'll be ok.

*** 10:56 pm ***

- lets you down -

lovescope: You may be basking in the glow of recent career successes, and enjoying the thought of the increased prosperity that these are likely to bring. You might want to take your significant other out on the town tonight to celebrate. The position of the planets indicates, however, that your celebration won't stop with dinner out and perhaps a trip to the theatre. You could end with a wonderfully passionate night!

i spent the day indoors. probably a nice day, but i didn't go out. i stayed in, took it easy, cleaned a little, played some games, got some bills paid. it's nice not to have any pressure, and do things the way i want. as usual, i feel i didn't have enough time for everything i wanted, but i got enough done to matter.

baby just landed at o'hare, and will soon be boarding a blue line train for home. i was about to go get her, but this early i'm not sure whether it would make a difference in her travel time. maybe five minutes. possibly ten. i save time and fuel if i don't go. i asked whether she wanted, but she didn't reply. so i'll sit here and wait, try to get some things picked up while i wait. make the place look a little better. be ready for bed when she gets home.

yeah, no romantic dinner or heat in the bedroom. awake past midnight, and tired tomorrow. must make it to the gym, though. must stay on track. must keep focus. not that it changes anything. not sure what to do to make the body i want. it doesn't change.

the weekend was pretty good, but i have one nagging disappointment. met malice for dinner and comedy thursday, and afterwards, thinking we'd had a good time (at least i did), i invited her to rock band saturday. she said i should email her the info, so i sent her a message from work the next morning. i still haven't heard from her. she seemed pretty cool, and i felt she was someone i could get to know, talk about things with, maybe over time have a friendship, but i'm not so sure anymore. i'm up for it, but if she's not interested there's nothing i can do about it.

i'm tempted to write her in a week, before boy comes friday, and ask where i went wrong. what i could have done differently. how i could have been more impressive. essentially, help me not make the same mistake next time. partially it's because i hope to make more friends and don't want my dorky personality getting in the way, but also when baby leaves i'll eventually want to look for dating partners, and then i'll really need to know how to impress, and how i'm not impressing. i'm not a conventional person, and i'd appreciate a debriefing session to ease the hurt and confusion, the disappointment, of not hitting it off as well as i thought i had. though if she writes me this week, even if she doesn't apologize, then i'll be cool. start over, try again.

*** 10:47 am ***

- the fun part of yesterday -

last night was fun. only four of the potential six showed, but we had fun. four means we can't all play at once. that's good, because some of us can't sing certain songs, or play drums on other songs, or need breaks. the problem with being the best drummer is that when they get to the song they can't play i have to stop making grasshoppers and play the song. that said, the hiv is making some wicked progress--we were all playing at medium to gain more fans. people were improving. it was cool.

what was also cool was my baking. cooking. i made three things: oatmeal m&m cookies; spinach and kielbasa en croute; jessie donahue's swedish ham balls. the latter two were from grandmother's cookbook. people really liked them all. "en croute" seems to mean "in puff pastry," because it's cooked, seasoned spinach spread on puff pastry dough and then wrapped around a piece of kielbasa. i didn't bake them quite right, but they turned out ok, and delicious. i have most of one left. the swedish ham balls were messy to make, but turned out well. they have to bake an hour, and i ended up cooking most of the afternoon. somehow i managed to have everything made and the counters clean by the time al arrived at 7:30.

we talked and ate for a little, then got down to playing. initially some of us would play on easy, but we couldn't earn more fans that way. not until we all stepped up to medium could we get anywhere. i tried to let them play when i wasn't needed, but i was the drumming savior, and a few times the singer who could best tolerate the song. al was our ace guitarist, while everyone got by on bass. one song in particular kept kickig our ass, and i think i should practice it so i can help more next time. there's one section i can't quite figure out how to play. it'd be good if i could figure that out.

*** 12:01 am ***

- train kept a rollin' -

edwardian sideboards

regret - 03.15.2009 - blame