17 posts tagged “music”

There's this guy, we'll call him Married Drummer Boy (MDB), who plays at my bar a lot. I've seen him probably a couple times a week over the last couple months. He's cute. We started talking more and more about a month ago and I mentioned to DD that I thought he was cute.  She replied, "Sooooo cute, too bad he's married." Boo. So I wrote him off.  As you do.  Alas, I still see him all the time, talk to him often and man, why are all the good ones married?  Recently he's started touching me.  Just a friendly shoulder squeeze when he comes in, if I am too busy to say "hi."  I've complained before about unwelcome touching from guys, but this is welcome, but also friendly, casual and not at all icky.  When I talk to him he goes out of his way to ask me about my art projects, to bring up things from past conversations, to ask how my week was.  He was clearly very shy at first and is becoming more and more comfortable with me and friendly and funny and open.  I found myself laying in bed last wondering if DD was wrong, maybe he's not married at all, maybe she confused him with the bass player or something.  Hope springs eternal.  The things is, of the guys in his band that are married, their wives all come down and hang out occasionally, see the show, whatever.  In eight months, I've never seen his wife.  She exists, I'm sure she does, but man, it would be so much easier if I could talk to her and satisfy myself that he was happily married.  In the mean time, I'll keep hoping.

This morning I woke up crying from a dream about CK in which I thought I'd found out from a friend of his what had happened, and then found I was misinformed.  As I awoke, in the dream I was sitting on the side of a road int he dark, with his friend crying my fucking eyes out.  I haven't cried about it much in real life yet, but if the dreams are any indication, it's coming.

Generally I hate Regina Spektor, but for some reason, this is the only song I want to listen to this morning.

I haven't been posting much because every time I sit down to write something I find pretty much all I want to do about how lame the long distance relationship thing is.  And man, that's not interesting to anyone, not even me at my most self-involved.  So here's a couple bright lights in the dimness of the distance thing.

I was a little whiny to CK the other night as our schedules haven't been matching up and we haven't been able to talk as much recently.  Since then he's been making a clearly concerted effort to call me at random times (when he's waiting for his train etc.) just to say hi and see how I am.  I know he's doing it because I was whiny, but I really appreciate that he makes the effort.  I don't know that I've dated many guys who would bother.  They'd just say, "Sorry I'm busy, we'll talk when we can,"  but CK makes 'when we can' an actual thing.

Yesterday we had a conversation where he initially misunderstood where I said I was, once clarified he said, "Oh, didn't think you had any aptitude for handguns."  I laughed, "Hey, I could have secrets!" He paused and then said, "No, not really," in this really sweet way that makes me feel like he's really been paying attention to me.  Like not just in that moment, but over all.  And even if he isn't, he's really good at making me feel that way.  Making me feel it in a way where I don't feel like he's intentionally charming me or trying to convince me that he's doing something that he's not.  He's genuinely interested in me, in what I have to say, he is paying attention and even when he's not he manages to convey his unconditional but not always focused interest in a way that makes me feel valued.

Last night I had a night off from the restaurant.  Yet still I worked 14 hours yesterday.  And still I've a few hours worth of tasks I need to catch up on.  Of course who knows when I'll manage that as I'm at both jobs for the next four days.  All this and still barely making ends meet.

Remember how I said my job satisfaction was plummeting with my day job? Well, apparently the bad director is stepping down. Sometime in the next year.  Not soon enough.  In the meantime they laid off the only person I genuinely liked in the office.  Indeed the only person who was holding the organization together in any kind of competent way.  They are not replacing him.  Instead the already overtaxed, inept bad director is going to be taking over all the tasks. Maybe.  They don't actually have a plan. And finally, in January they are moving the office to a new location that I find objectionable, both for commute time and for my own personal, moral reasons.

I can not continue to work here.  Partly because the place is clearly going to fall into ruin and drag me down with it under a huge burden of work I wasn't hired to do and am not being adequately compensated for.  But also I've hit the point where I go on autopilot every morning and come into work without thinking at all, because if I dwell on it, I burst into tears and no one needs that first thing in the morning.

I don't know what to do.  "Find a new job as fast possible," is the obvious answer, but that easier said than done in the two weeks before Xmas or right around the new year.  I have some idea of what I want to do, or where I want to be, but no idea how to go about getting into those positions.

Part of the problem is that I'm inadequately experienced for this city.  I've either way, WAY overqualified for jobs I'd want, which then don't pay enough, or I can get jobs that I'm actually a little underqualified for (for lack of better candidate pool) and be paid well, but then I'd be working more than I am now and I'm already drowning.

I'm really, very smart.  I have a very broad range of work experience.  I'm good at most every thing I put my mind too.  I have excellent references. Why can't I seem to find myself in a satisfactory work position?  My mom says I'm sabotaging myself.  But I think that's only because I don't want the kind of jobs she thinks I should have.

I need more money.  I can't work any harder than I already am, there simply aren't enough hours in the day.  I can't figure out how to get someplace better, there just isn't time to devote to that. I'm not above asking for help, but I don't really even know who to ask.  I feel stuck.  Really, really stuck.

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'm cold.

Or my toes are anyway.  The universe got, what, three, maybe four weeks of me not complaining about the weather? I'd be less whiny about it if it weren't all grey and dreary.  Maybe.  I'm going to microwave my coffee--I know, yuck, but I usually drink it cold all spring and summer, just now, I'm so cold I need it warm--and see if I can think of anything intelligent to say.

Okay, here I am.  I've eaten my lunch (lightly dressed spinach salad and with chicken--why can't all meals be huge plates of BBQ, oh, right...) and now I'm sitting here, alternately typing and holding my warm mug of coffee in front of me and staring at the screen with an expression that I hope makes it looks like I'm thinking about work or something.  HAHAHA.  I love fall because clutching a warm mug of tea or coffee and not working while you do it is acceptable. Anyway, I am clutching the mug and thinking, just not about work.

Recently, as I was slowly starting things with CK, a friend got confused and thought I was getting involved with someone else, who we will call, um, Super Ninja Badass.  So this friend of mine, thought all the time I was spending talking to CK was actually with SNB, and she expressed concern about it, as SNB is married.  The story of that came up with some other friends last night and I find I'm still brutally offended by it.

Don't get me wrong, SNB, is probably one of the greatest guys ever.  Every woman in the world wishes she had a husband like him, or at least I do.  However he's already someone else's husband and therefore verboten.  I have a pretty strict no married guys policy.  No married guys for hookups when I'm single, certainly no dating married guys.  It is, I guess, a moral decision of sorts, though the truth is, it simply wouldn't be fair to me, or to his wife. And really, what kind of fucking emotional fuckwit dicks people around like that, and why would you want to date someone you know would cheat? Yuck.

So someone implying (and it was implied) that I was actively trying to steal SNB away from his wife (and kids!) was a slap in the face. Like do you even know me at all?  Sure I'm not exactly filled with moral turpitude, but nor am I the picture of innocence and clean living.  But for someone to think that I would do something that goes so completely against my basic nature really hurts, and not only that, it makes me wonder how much some of my friends really know me.

Amusingly, several of the last few guys I have dated have been legally married.  All separated for more than a year, and papers long since filed. So sure there's exceptions to my "no married guys" rule, if the marriage is already clearly over, it doesn't matter much anymore.  (Well, except that part where I seem to end up setting myself to get hurt, as those guys are carrying some heavy relationship baggage.  In my defense, I usually don't find out they are in that situation until after I'm involved with them, as men never seem to be completely forthcoming about such things.)

And yeah, if SNB, or someone as amazing as him came to me and said, "My wife and I are ending it, based on a mutual decision, and also I'm in love with you,"  I'd like to think that I'd act right: give it enough time for the dust to settle and slowly see if that was the direction in which my happiness lay.  But you never know.  I'm certainly not casting stones at people who get involved with others while married. Though I have no hard evidence, I believe my father was involved with my stepmother for quite a while, before he and my mom split. My parents were together for 3 years, all told. My father and stepmother have been together for nearly 34 years (counting from when my parents split).  Now, it fucked me up and destroyed my relationship with my father, but on the other hand, it seems to be lifelong love with him and my stepmother, so who am I to say you won't meet the right person after you've already committed to someone else?

Hmm, this is taking a turn I didn't intend when I started typing. Um, did I even have a point?  I think it's in there somewhere, over near "do my friends really know me" and "I'm no poster child, but I do have some values."  I think the stuff with my father snuck in because I've been thinking about that a lot lately, but that is it's own post for another day. Yeah, I should have done "ten things that I'm thankful today" or something more cheerful than this, I guess.  Maybe next time.

I am so fucking worn down.  I've been saying that for a long time, but it never seems to stop being true. I feel like I've been on an endless two steps forward, one step back track for a very long time. Which isn't, you know, getting me very far.

When I moved out here I didn't leave anything worthwhile behind (except, of course my family).  It was a fresh start, of sorts, with three things I really needed to resolve: my romantic life, my career intentions and my interpersonal relationships with other people.  Right now I feel utterly stuck in all of these things.

Romantically, well CK is great.  More than great, but you know there's the 800 miles away thing.  And it's all well and good that I'm totally into him and he he seems to really like me, but even if it works out (however that may be) right now the other two factors are affecting this.

Work is sucktastic.  I love my restaurant job.  If I could work twice as much there and make enough money to live on I would totally do it.  It would give me time to pursue my other plans.  But that's not really a possibility at this point.  The day job is slowly sucking my soul out, as day jobs do.  For a simple, part-time office job it's taking up more and more of my time, of my creative energy, of my ability to think.  I'm assured that once our major event is over (next week) it will scale back to being simpler.  But I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, man, I know that's not the case.  I'm over qualified for this job, and too competent. They know it now and there's no way it'll ever go back to being simple clerical tasks and mindless office work. Sure I can ask for more money, sure I can threaten to leave if they don't pay me what I'm worth for the work they are going to want from me.  But all that means is more work for me, and sure more money, but what good does the money do for me if earning it takes all the time away from all the things I want to be doing?  Because I do know what I want to be doing, I just need time and money.  Honestly I could probably even find investors or something, to start the damn thing up and pay myself, but even doing that takes more planning, work and time than I have the ability to do right now.  I'm stuck here, sucked down into a never ending loop of not having enough time or money to do what I want to do.  And yeah, this affects the possibility of making things work with CK, as I need more money to maintain a long distance relationship, and also more time off for travel. Two things which seem mutually exclusive at this point.  And if I can't get the travel aspect of it together, well there's no relationship.  So work more, earn to travel, try and get time off to go try and  have a real relationship.  Where I am work-wise, right now, it feels like this is just setting myself up for failure.

Sure, I could start looking for a different job, something better paying and more flexible.  It's not impossible, I guess, but it puts me right back at starting all over again.  And I suspect, puts my plans for what I want to really be doing, not just on the back burner, but off the stove.

Interpersonal relationships? I mean, you know, having friends.  Just fucked.  I know I put way too much pressure on myself here, but I can't help it.  By my own standards I'm just really bad friend to almost everyone I love.  I know I'm hindering myself even thinking about it this way.  For years the bulk of my Zen practice has been about letting things go and I can mange it, in some aspects of my life, some of the time, but not with my friends.  I don't call people enough, I don't visit enough, I don't devote the time I feel I should to making sure people know I love them.  I'm always too tired, too busy, otherwise occupied and I don't know how to solve this.  

I know what I want, I want to be more to my friends.  I want to be the girl who is really there when they need her.  I want to make them laugh when they are hurting, to shoulder some of their burden so they can walk lighter through life.  I want to bring people joy and comfort and encourage them to realize their own dreams.  I want to do for them all of the things I wish someone would do for me.

And of course my current living situation has me financially and emotionally beholden to two other people.  My sense of responsibility to them overrides everything else, at this point, to the detriment of my own happiness. FF moving down here is great.  I'm so happy to have her around, don't get me wrong, but it does limit the choices I can make in the next year or so about my own life, because I really do have make sure she's settled and happy and able to create a new life for herself.  And it's okay, I can work with that.  I need to be here to do the things I hope to do professionally, and she can even, possibly help with that.  We're even, we need each other, it's fine.

UN however is a weight.  She's pretty much incapable, despite what she thinks, of taking care of herself.  How she became my responsibility is irrelevant at this point, it's just how it is (the irony that she encouraged me to leave a similar situation back home and then saddled me with the same shit isn't lost on me).  She's insanely needy, clearly doesn't want me to be a relationship that she feels will a) take attention from her or b) will physically take me from her (make me move, etc). She's repeatedly expressed her abandonment issues and how everyone but me has abandoned her emotionally or otherwise (this is code for: don't you leave, bitch). She's managed to be such a complete flake that while she has some financial resources, she has no way of managing them, leaving me essentially giving her an allowance, taking care of all the bills and household expenses.  She relies on me for transportation (as she can get insurance in the US until she gets a US driver's license which she seems unwilling to do). In short, she's a burden on multiple levels. And I'm not sure how this balances out. I'm sure she thinks it balances out by her being such a good friend to me.  Which she is, she really really is, when she's not being smothering, needy or outright inconsiderate.

The obvious answers here are: remove myself from the UN situation and devote some of that energy to caring for my other friends; get a better, more flexible job and/or get my own plans in order and work for myself; and make all of that fit around CK, so we can have at least some semblance of real relationship, so we can see if this really is a thing, is the thing.

And while I'm not saying any of those things are outside the realm of possibility, they are all just very, very complicated right now.

What brought on this huge out pouring of my own crap?  CK told me last night that he was worried about me, about my health, that he felt I was over extended and not likely to stop being so hard on myself or stop over-committing myself. I'm not sure, exactly if he was simply saying he was worried, or that he didn't want to add to my stress, or that I'd have to get it together to make this work, or some combination of any or all of those things. In any case, his comment caused me to stay up half the night berating myself for not being where I think I should be in life professionally, personally or romantically. And yeah, the worry and anxiety over all of it isn't helping me.

I just wish I had better idea of where to start.  Make a list of the things most important to me and meditate on how to make those things happen?  Figure out how to remove roadblocks to my own happiness and start trying to break those down? Pick the few things I think I can fix and focus on those, while ignoring the other things until something can be done about them? No, actually I've been sort of doing that last one and it isn't helping much, though it has caused me to focus a little more on being healthier, in terms of my diet and how I'm living, so that's good I guess.

I was really hoping that writing this all out would make it clearer, but really I don't feel any less overwhelmed.  Indeed, if anything I feel worse now.  I need a plan to make all my other plans work, and there's just so much other work to do, so many other things to worry about. Ack.

So I'm about to click "buy" to get my plane ticket to spend a long weekend with CK.  And something flashes in my mind, so off I go to check the calendar.  And, lo, indeed, the weekend we picked is probably right when I'll have my next period.  So I sent him what was hopefully a casually worded email explaining the inconvenience and asking if he wanted to reschedule. He did, but then after some conversation with my girlfriends and considering alternate dates, I decided the original dates were the safest of the current possibilities. But really, universe, can't you work with a little here?  This is hard enough as it is, being 800 miles away.  I don't need additional complications.

Also CK is making me a little insane.  He's not calling me. He did call me a couple days ago to tell me, specifically, that he wasn't avoiding me, that he was thinking about me, that he did want to talk to me, but just couldn't do the phone whenever I'd called before cause he was busy or whatever.  So I stopped calling.  Said he could call me at his convenience.  He has since texted me a lot, emailed me a lot (including sending lots of very sweet songs) and sent a few MySpace messages.  He's clearly interested in me.  Just I wish he'd call.  And then I fucking hate feeling this needy and desperate for reassurance.  It makes want to say "fuck this" about the whole thing.  Which is mostly because I'm stubborn, but AUGH!  It's like fucking high school.  Why must it drag out?  Why can't I just be secure enough to think, "I know he likes me.  We'll talk when it's convenient for both of us."

I'm sitting here at work listening to a playlist of all the songs CK has emailed me, including the one he wrote about me and several of this other songs.  It's actually kind of depressing.  Mostly it just makes me want him so badly, I can practically taste it.  But he's still 800 miles away. And although I can visit and vice versa, chances are he isn't moving here, and I'm certainly not moving there so begins the same endless stress loop of whether I should be investing anything in this at all. Of course every time I talk to him I'm more convinced that it's worth it.  So why doesn't he fucking call me already. GAH!

And really, I know the bulk of my stress is coming from work right now.  Day job is, again, asking WAY too much of me and I'm teetering on the brink of telling them to fuck right off. Really it's wearing into my outside work time and generally interfering in everything.  Why can't I just get paid to obsess over CK? I think that would be excellent work.

The drama, does it ever end?

Aside from an email and a couple texts, no call from CK for going on three days now.  Oh, what's that, you say?  I could call him?  Well I could, except I've called the last four times and I'm starting to feel awkward about it, like maybe he should call once in a while.  I just don't always want to be the one to initiate contact, you know?  And I hate thinking like this.  Like is this defeating me in some way? If I want to talk to him, shouldn't I just call and not worry? Am I playing some stupid-ass girly game here, trying to get him to express interest by calling me? But even if I am, isn't it important? I mean, don't I need ot know that he wants to talk to me enough to call me?

I had a weird morning, in which I had an event planning meeting with a bunch of very wealthy, name dropping, old money Southern men.  They were all very sweet, bought me coffee, kissed my cheek, talked up my attributes (professional, not physical) and generally treated me very kindly considering that they don't know my family, I'm from the west coast and I'm covered in tattoos (I had no warning this meeting was today and I was essentially filling for someone at it, so I didn't dress appropriately, as I normally would have). Still it was strange and yet another indicator that I need to get out of this line of work.

I did call in yesterday, because I needed some time off.  Of course work called me a dozen times before I turned off my phone.  It's not a mental health day if they keep calling!  Then I spent the day trying to get organized around the house and do some stuff while the roommates read books and watched TV.  Thanks guys, glad you could help me since I know you are all so busy what with being unemployed and all, I'm just over here working 3 jobs, no big deal. ARG.

I need a weekend filled with isolated, solitary relaxation during the day and dirty sex at night.  Sadly I don't think I'll get either.