Tuesday, May 10, 2005
music, work, and isolation
Tegan & Sara are always there for me when I need them, even when the rest of the world has gone totally fucking insane. Even when my best friends have left the city or the province or the country, and the love of my life-thus-far is gone forever, and even my mom has gone out of town and taken my sweet fuzzy little cats with her -- especially then these girls speak to me:
"I cried so hard that you pushed me
Further away
I screamed so loud you called the
Police on me
You pack your bags
You say I love you but I cannot stay
So I started smoking
Thought the signals
Would scare your wolves away
I got so city girl on you
I went so crazy I
Didn't know what to do..."
-City Girl
"This week or last week
I don't really care about it anymore
I write myself this later
I tell myself you let me go
Without me
What's wrong with you?
Monday Monday Monday
Your house or mine
I don't really care about it anymore
I close my eyes
I make myself unhappy so you'll go
Without me
What's wrong with you?
Monday Monday Monday
Oh, and I
I say damn your mood swings
I'm calling out
I don't really care for your city anymore
I spend the night
I lay awake and miss you when you go
Without me
What's wrong with you?"
-Monday Monday Monday
Ah yes. Those girls say it best.
I did actually crash yesterday at 4:22 in the afternoon. I had an okay, though somewhat troubled nap. I cancelled tutoring, skipped ceramics, and stopped by stunting for only a minute to drop off the keys. I had no choice, really. I was in total mental and physical collapse, and unless you possess Alanis Morissette's songwriting skills, that's never a good thing. I slept for two hours or so and then didn't feel like sleeping through the night. I tossed and turned in the worst way. I wanted to actually get out of bed and start the day at about 6:00 am, but I resisted. By the time I actually had to get up for work at 8:15, I was ridiculously tired and felt like total crap.
I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed and pour on some clothes and a pleasant demeanor and make it to work exactly on time. There was tons to learn on my first day on the job, of course, but all the people there were really nice and no one was unfriendly, mean, or impatient with me. I did feel like a retard much of the time, though I managed to learn most of the basics by the end of the day. The store is beautiful, and all the little kids I saw today were beautiful too. The best part was that I didn't have to do a damn thing for those kids except smile and give them presents and play peek-a-boo. I was the good guy. Much, much better than baby-sitting.
Almost everyone who works there is female, which would normally bug the hell out of me. Women in big groups usually turn into catty, gossiping monsters and I don't want anything to do with them. But these girls were actually pretty damn cool. In the morning they all crowded around to play with my hair, which was fun. There was a lot of cooing. Julie, the woman who trained me for most of the day, was a really cute redhead who was also funny and charming and really just completely chill to work with. She helped me out a lot, and never seemed to get annoyed with me. At the end of the day I got invited out for pizza and beer with a bunch of employees (all of whom were considerably older than me and had much more seniority), and so I went, because it was just too cool that there was a group of girls on the planet who were genuinely into pizza and beer.
I feel at the moment like I am carrying some heavy baggage around. It never quite leaves me but there are moments where I feel happy, even giddily so.
I just wish the loneliness wasn't so relentless.
A Dutch woman came in today with her little baby girl and there was an odd moment where I wanted to ask her if perhaps she knew JaG. Then I came back to reality and remembered:
1) There are some 16,407,491 people in the Netherlands, and
2) I don't even know her name, and
3) I've never even met her in real life.
Wow. The people I think I know often turn out to be so very far away.
The isolation of it all just makes me want to go to a bar and meet some total stranger and do something completely random and stupid, just to feel like I'm not all alone in the world. It's stupid, I know. The worst feeling is being intimate with no one. It is in some ways worse than feeling dissatisfied and unhappy. I hate the fact that at some point in the next week I have to decide whether or not to go off the Pill, which I have been on for five years (since I was 16 for fuck's sake!). I have no idea what that will do to me on a physiological level, but I know what it will do to me emotionally. It will feel like a big red 'rejected!' sign on my forehead. I know that is ludicrous and superficial and shallow, but there it is.
This was supposed to be a happy post.
I apologize for my moroseness.
The other shit thing about break-ups is how quickly people get sick of listening to you whine about it.
The Boy wrote me an email today in which he said he felt sadder than he thought he'd feel, and that sometimes he felt like he was watching a 3D movie without the glasses on. That's the furthest from stoic I've ever seen him, believe it or not. I don't know whether to feel a lot of Schadenfreude or whether to just cry because he's hurting.
I am sick of this.
Are you sick of me yet, Bloggerland?
-N
