I just got an email from a friend I interact with a few times a year. She randomly emailed me to tell me something cute about her new boyfriend. I responded as was required of me. And then she replied just gushing about the guy, his washboard abs, how his skin feels, how he tastes when she kisses him, what his voice and his hands are like. And wow, yuck. I can not think of anyone I would really gush like that too. I mean, I understand the feeling. And maybe a close friend, very close friend, might hear something similar from me. But I think it would be more along the, "he is awesome" line and less of the intimate details line.
Also it's sort of surprising that anyone who knows me would choose me to gush too. She must be really over the edge and telling everyone this stuff, if she's telling me.
And I have PMS and hate the whole world. So maybe she wasn't out of line at all. :)
I love my mom. More, in fact, than anyone else in the world. Which I guess at my age I should have a husband or a kid or something that have become primary for me. But I don't and so my mom is still number one. I'm sure there's some psychological problem with this, eternal adolescence or something, as I haven't properly developed adult relationships or something. Or maybe it's normal and fine I don't know. In any case, my mom is aces. Unfortunately my relationship with her, need for her approval, etc. means that no one else can as easily as she can. And vis versa. Lately we're just reciprocating ball of misery, feeding off each other.
I called her last night, just to check in, chat, make plans. My mom, dad and sister coming down here for a week at Christmas. My sister has visited, but my parents never have. Though it's never been explicitly said my mother has refused to set foot in Tennessee because as far as she's concerned the whole state stole me away and she wants nothing to do with it. While I know she thinks this, and it's very obvious, she thinks she's cleverly hiding her feelings and making it easy on us all, instead of more awkward and painful. Last night's phone call turned to:
Me: So, we've got 7 days, what kind of things do you all want to do while you're here?
Momma: Convince you to move back home.
Me: We'll if we're going to spend 7 full days doing that, I don't think anyone will have any fun.
Momma: Sorry, I didn't mean that. Well, I did, but that's the only time you'll ever hear me say it. [She says that every time, that's the only time I'll hear her say it.]
Me: It's okay, I miss you too.
Momma: You don't need to worry about our visit, I'm fine just sitting in the hotel room and reading a book.
Me: Well, the city does have some things to offer.
Momma: I guess I'd like to see the university campuses and other pretty places to walk...
And so on, we made plans for museums and some other stuff. But now it's like there's this shadow over their whole visit. I was all ready to show them all the great things about Nashville, and make them see it through my eyes and love it. So at least they'd understand a little why I am here. But now it feela like the whole thing is stacked against me, and she won't even quit being sad/mad about me moving long enough to try and appreciate this place at all.
The only thing I have back out west is my family. And I love them, but a grown girl can't stay some place forever, just so she can be close by when her mom calls, you know?
---
IRB came into the restaurant the other night.
Once when we were dating he told me that no woman in the world was as perfect as his sister. And that he'd probably only get married again if he found a girl just like his sister.
I'm sure it's okay to to think things like that, as long as you don't say them out loud or act on them or anything. Anyway, he came into the restaurant with a girl that I thought was his sister. She looked like his sister. I set a waitress to them and tried to avoid that part of the restaurant. The waitress came back and told IRB and the girl were holding hands. "Are you sure it's his sister?" She asked. Not 100% no, but even it's not, YIKES, he's dating a girl that looks enough like his sister that it fooled me? EW.
As they left the girl glared and scowled at me, though she'd smiled when they came in. I suspect she found out some time during dinner that he used to date me. Hey girl, don't glare at me. Glare at him. He should have picked some place else for dinner, he knew I'd be here.
When I was last visiting him, CK took me out. We went to a musical, opening night, and the cast party afterwards. (I brought a friend for the show, since he was in the band.) I was all dressed up and feeling lovely. After the party we walked down the street past his friend's coffee shop which was closed, though his friend was inside and let us in, gave us drinks and let us hang out until he was done closing up. Then we caught a cab home, got ice cream and watched a movie. It was both at the time and in retrospect a perfect evening. Sitting in the dark coffee shop, in my fancy party clothes, holding hands and talking felt like a scene from a movie.
I detailed our Saturday date when he was last here: a long, leisurely stroll through the insanity of the Opryland hotel and it's weird indoor gardens, watching the WSM midnight jamboree show live, late night at a Waffle House. Again, lots of hand holding, talking and just enjoying being where we were.
Both were such simple evenings, casual to a point and very relaxing. I find I'm a little surprised at how fondly I remember them and how often, when I'm thinking about him, that I flash back on to specific moments in those evenings.
It is cold here now. There is no pretty boy in my bed to warm my toes. It is only ten days until I see him again and yet it feel like forever. It almost seems worse to have a day to count down too, instead of just a vague hope I'll see him. No, that isn't true. Just the whole waiting thing is so hard. I am not yet entirely convinced I'll be able to weather this as a long distance relationship. Not because it isn't worth it, as so far it does seem to be, but rather it seems such an added burden of suffering. No, it balances out. It really does. I'm just feeling whiny. As I said, it is cold. I will go do some work and then maybe clean my room or watch TV for a while. Read a book. Work on a craft project. Get ready for bed and get into it alone. CK will call, we will talk until one of us absolutely has to go to sleep. I will fall asleep alternately happy from talking to him and sad that he isn't here with me.
It stormed like crazy tonight. Nothing was safe from the water, the wind sent the rain horizontal. Everything on the porch is wet. I got caught out in it and came in soaked to the skin.
Now I'm dry and warm, bundled up in bed listening to my iPod which is giving me nothing but an endless stream of sad songs. This might be because I listen mostly to sad music? I don't know. I'm sure I listen to happy music too, it just doesn't seem to be coming up on shuffle tonight.
I don't know if I was lonely before the string of sad songs, or if it's an outcome of that. I hate CK being so far away. Seriously I don't know if I can do this. I just want to curl up with him tonight, we wouldn't even have to talk, but it's not a choice I have.
I need to call my mom, but I keep putting it off. I might feel better if I talk to her. I might feel worse. I can't if the positive possibility is worth the risk of calling. 50% chance I'll get off the phone and just be horribly guilty for moving so far away and homesick too. I don't know if I could take that on a night like this.
Is it High Fidelity where the protagonist asks which came first the pop song or the feeling of it? I feel like that now. So many sad country songs I can't help but wonder if I'd be cheerful on a stormy fall night, all alone, if I listened only to polka music or something? Well, maybe not polka specifically, because that would make anyone suicidal, but you get the point.
I have gotten a lot of work done in the last couple days. Not as much as I'd like, but I'm trying to remind myself that I can only do so much, that it's okay to spend part of the evening watching Heroes (even if it is sucking this season), that I am accomplishing things, and I can't rush things because it doesn't make more get done. I've been trying to set small goals for myself, in 10 and 30 day increments (well I start with 10 and hope to make it to 30). I think the next will be to spend 30 minutes a day meditating. I'll go easy and include walking alone in the park etc. anytime I'm alone, undistracted and thinking. I have been so out of practice that I think I need to go back and start contemplating the Four Noble Truths that Buddha gained understanding of when he sat beneath the bodhi tree:
- Nothing lasts forever
- Suffering comes from attachment and desire
- The end of suffering is attainable
- Through living by the Noble Eightfold path (which is basically speaking, acting and thinking in a right or morally correct way).
I didn't mean for this to turn into a lesson, but now I'm thinking about it. Because the meditative aspects of Buddhism have always worked for me int the past, particularly my personal understand of that the Eightfold Path means and how to follow it. Actual serious Buddhist practice is beyond me. I was raised with it and I can't commit to the five basic precepts (essentially vegetarianism, abstinence from intoxicants, no lying, stealing or killing, no rape or sexual violence--obviously it's only the first two that trip me up, the rest are fairly easy for me and, hopefully, most people). I have never been able to commit myself in the way necessary to follow the closest thing I have to religion. I suppose I should start by meditating on why that is. Ha! Um, I find that really funny. The whole thing is so circular.
I had a point? Oh, yes, regular meditation. I find just keeping this blog has made me much more introspective than I have been in recent months and that's helpful, but perhaps I need to go a little deeper. I often think of myself as the loneliest girl around, or the loneliest one in a crowd. I need to let go of whatever makes me feel that way. I just can't ever seem to slow down enough to think deeply enough to find the release switch to drop whatever I'm clinging to that makes me feel so empty.
Holy shit, man, I'm seriously contemplating not posting this at all. How did I end up talking about all this anyway?
I didn't do much in the way of Halloween. Worked last night and it was pretty slow, but not bad. The music was great and a guy I know came in as I was getting off shift. He tours with a pretty popular band and has been out on the road for a while. He was chatty and sometimes I forget what a great guy he is. So we ended up talking for a couple hours, I bitched a lot about work and got kind of an awesome lead on that front. I'm not going to comment on it because I am superstitious about some strange things, but if you have any prayers, good thoughts or your own good luck to spare, please send it my way! Plus it was just a nice mellow night hanging out in good company, which is always awesome.
It seems like a good portion of my adult life has been me sitting up every couple years and saying, "man, I really don't like my job, how can I get myself into something I really want to be doing and enjoy?" I do believe I get a little bit closer with each career step, but it's slow going. Slowed also by the fact that what I really want to be doing changes every few years as well. I'm hindered as well by financial concerns, in a sort of you need money to make money kind of way. Can't get my own ventures off the ground without capital. Alas.
Mostly though, the problem is that I'm waiting for whatever the right thing is going to be. Like literally waiting for someone to show up and say, "hey, we've been looking for someone with your skill set to come do X thing that you've never even thought of before." This isn't as lazy as it sounds. I have been actively positioning myself around people in fields I want to work in and meeting people and discovering the existence of many jobs I'd never even considered the existence of. I'm sure there's something out there for me that is a great fit that I haven't yet stumbled across.
Also, I'm willing to do pretty much anything for money, though that doesn't always work out for me. The chairman of our board at my day job is a guy I should see him almost never, however he's old, retired and bored and so he's in the office at least three days a week, calls me every day (some times up to 7 or 8 times) to see what's going on and generally makes me insane. He's very nice, sweet, and all but incredibly annoying and generally not helpful. (Like today he came in a left me a stack of letters to mail, which he printed at home, so now I have retype all the addresses for the envelopes. ARG.)
Anyway, he's been writing a book, that he's self publishing and the publisher wants it copy edited. He called me at work at the restaurant (since I won't give him my cell number) to ask if I'd help with this. I said I'd look at the draft and give him a quote for it. He bugged me every single day for two weeks about it, I repeatedly replied that my actual job was keeping me busy, but I'd get him a time estimate and hourly rate quote as soon as I could. I finally got around to looking at it the other night, emailed him a quote with a really reduced rate per hour for copy editing. (Most folks charge between $40-50 per hour for copy editing--not just proofing but actual hard copy, printer's marks copy editing, which is what he wanted--I offered him $20/hr.) So I send him my estimated hours, amount per/hr, total etc. And he writes back and tells me he's already over budget for this VANITY project and can't pay for copy-editing, but thanks anyway.
Um, WTF? I mean, I was very clear upfront and the whole way through that I charged for this kind of work. I have literally no time to do it out of the kindness of my heart. I don't really even have time to do it period, but I'd make time for the money, you know? I'm just really irritated that he spent so much time bothering me, to tell me, in not so many words, that he wanted me to do it for free. This instance aside, the guy is making my job satisfaction plummet. Not only do I have to micromanage the director, who does not take advice well, but now I have to babysit the Board Chair, both on and off the job. Lovely.
As I said, prayers, vibes, whatever, toward me climbing out of at least my work mess would be so much appreciated.
