Saturday, August 20, 2005
Once more into the breach, dear friends
Fuuuck.
Just when I thought I was done with the stalker game, it comes back and bites me in the ass. Due to a recent privacy breach, I will have to remind you all that a really good way to make me lose ALL respect for you in real life or on the internet is to ignore my disclaimer. Obviously, this is on the fantastically free-and-invasive intraweb, and as such I respect the right of all total strangers to read what I write. I also reserve the right to be royally pissed off when people I know in real life read my blog without permission.
Fuck.
Anyway, moving on. The image above is a nice peaceful photo that I took of a butterfly, and I will try to remember it the next time I am frustrated by the world and the manipulative people in it.
I don't quite know why I got up and went to work this morning. I got about three-and-a-half hours of sleep, and felt like complete crap when I woke up. I debated calling in sick, which would have been fine if I could just have talked to Emma about it. She would have been sweet on the phone and she probably would have called me something nice like "gemlet," or "nuffles," or even "baby," and coming from her those are all nice things to be called. I simply adore Emma. She is one of those rare individuals who simply mellows me out. I feel better when she's in the room. And she just radiates beauty -- I don't mean physically, because she is what Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower would call 'unconventionally beautiful.' I mean that being around her is a beautiful experience. She laughs a lot, and she makes me laugh. In short, I am most glad I met her.
But in order to call in sick one has to speak to the rather curt Boss #2, who is all about the bottom line. She's the one who bullies people back to work when they're on antibiotics, and who yells at Emma -- utterly non-confrontational and sweet Emma -- more than just about anyone else on staff. The prospect of doing that was enough to drag me out from between the warm sheets and into a hot shower, which at least was pleasant and even mildly envigorating. I did way too much cleaning of the house in preparation for its owners' return. I still don't know if they plan to pay me. That shit bugs me. I do not clean hamster cages for free - I don't care if you're my best friend. Actually, I'd do it for Cait. But everyone else has to compensate this poor proletariat for her labour.
So, working on coffee and willpower alone, I cleaned, packed, and headed to work. Work was tough. It it always tough when I feel like total crap. Depression seems to really hit my immune system hard, and my appetite too. I never feel like eating when I'm sad. Nor do I feel like repeating stock phrases like "Are you in the customer file?" and "do you need it gift-wrapped?" and "would you like a bag?" a gazillion times in a day. All my coworkers were sleep-deprived too, and the other cashier was in a lazy mood so I ended up doing most of the ringing in of customers and the super-boring jobs like redeeming gift certificates, while she worked on a sign for a book display. I'm not resentful of her, though. She is a sweet person and it was a beautiful display.
I didn't really feel happier today, but I did feel more calm.
Oddly enough, while I feel lonely as all hell, I also feel like being alone more and more. I was supposed to go to an art show that Apple's boyfriend has some work in tonight, but I didn't go because I was a) sick, b) tired, c) too late getting back from dinner with my aunt, and d) not really in the mood. I had an awesome conversation with one of the artists the last time I went to one of these shows, but tonight the thought of going to a loud club somewhere downtown at 11:00 pm just really didn't appeal.
Here are a few more photos, for the complete hell of it.
This is a frog hanging out in a swamp that I really like. I took it on full zoom, because he was pretty small and pretty far away. I couldn't seem to figure out how he managed to skim on the top of the water like that. Clever little Jesus-Frog.
This is a picture of a picture of me when I was little. I think I was about four. I'm wearing a Cowichan sweater that somebody knitted for me. It was wooley and very warm, but I didn't much like it because it was itchy. I did like the pigtails. It's Halloween and my mom is picking out a pumpkin for the pumpkin-carving contest I won every year (mainly due to extensive adult assistance) until I was about seven. When I stopped winning, I knew on some level that my easy days of childhood were over. Catholic kids have their First Communion at seven. I just started losing pumpkin carving contests.
Two dumb conversations I overhead today:
1) A macho-looking guy in a tight t-shirt and sunglasses tried to chat up the waitress at the restaurant I went to for dinner. He told her that the phone number she gave him was out of service. She feigned ignorance. "Oh really (hair twirl)...I was sure I said 685 and not 527..." He seemed utterly unable to take a hint. "Give me your number..." he said with a lot of pleading in his voice. She replied in all coquettishness "No, give me yours..." Then he shook her hand the old-fashioned way, like he was going to kiss it, and she wiggled away in her little black skirt. She was wearing way too much eyeliner and her hair was disturbingly straight, as though she had stuck her head under an iron.
2) The guy at the table behind me asked his friends what he seemed to think was a brilliant question: "Uh...hey guys, do you think that when a mosquito lands on you, that it can sense where the blood vessels are, or is it just luck?" This was followed by several minutes of this guy's friends discussing the various ways to pronounce the word 'mosquito.' Then the guy announced that when you poke yourself with a needle, you have only a 50% chance of drawing blood. His friend raised a lame argument to the contrary, consisting of "but I thought that you could draw blood from anywhere....geez, I didn't know that it had to be on a blood vessel."
And so on. I don't think I'll be going to that restaurant again anytime soon. It was definitely not my scene. I ran into a perky, ironed-hair, too-much-eyeliner version of a girl I knew in elementary school there too. She was a hostess, and frighteningly made-up, but she had enough in common with the girl I knew from the playground for me to not be totally freaked out about how different I seem to be from all the people I knew as a kid. They're all into heavy-makeup, designer bags, and auto mechanic boyfriends. I'm all into children's books, poetry on the side, a rainbow here and there, and not a lot of gender stereotyping. Ah well. At least I'm not a totally pretentious twit, right?
I haven't seen Kylie in person for almost a month. We talk on the phone occasionally and talk on MSN a lot, but it is a sorry subsitute for her voice and her jokes and her flashes of energy. That, and the way she mellows me out. That I miss in a big way. I'm seeing her next Saturday for Sophie's show, which is not nearly soon enough.
I guess I should go to bed.
My own bed. What a wonderful thing.
Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.
-N
