Chapter 105: Thinking Of You

Today was a pretty decent day. I woke up just before my alarm went off at 7:30am and was kind of reluctant to get up out of bed. Maybe reluctant isn’t the right word, but more like… just tired. Last night when I went to bed I put on the Angel Taylor album, (which I have been listening to pretty constantly,) and the next thing I knew I was waking up. It was one of those times where I woke up kind of feeling like I had never actually gone to sleep. Clearly I had, but it was one of those strange sensations where I just kind of felt like I didn’t. It was very odd. After I got up, I smoked a couple cigarettes, had a cup of coffee and worked out. The workout soundtrack this morning was Gwen Stefani’s “Sweet Escape” album, which makes for just as good of a workout soundtrack as “L.A.M.B.” did. Gwen Stefani has been a major source of inspiration for me lately, in terms of fashion, exercise and general lifestyle. I just feel like she kind of embodies so much of what I want out of life that it would be silly not to look to her as a source of inspiration.

Work was pretty slow today. I spent most of the day today reading “How To Make Someone Love You Forever In 90 Minutes Or Less” again. I really feel like I am learning a lot from this book, to be honest. For example, as I briefly discussed yesterday, the whole concept of needing to find your “Matched Opposite” is something that I find really appealing. It kind of broke people down into four separate categories – Analysts, Controllers, Supporters and Promoters. Each of those four categories have a key feeling that they seek to find in a partner and that is vital to their happiness in life – for Analysts it is feeling intelligent, for Controllers it is feeling powerful, for Supporters it is feeling valued and for Promoters it is feeling important. Which category you fall into is basically determined by whether you are a rational or an emotional thinker and if you are more socially reserved or socially outgoing. Analysts are socially reserved rational thinkers, Controllers are socially outgoing rational thinkers, Supporters are socially reserved emotional thinkers and Promoters are socially outgoing emotional thinkers. It seems pretty clear, breaking it down in that way, which category I would fall in to. I am a Promoter. As a Promoter, I have a need to feel as if I am having an influence on the people around me and like I have an important role in all of my relationships. I know this to be true because, honestly, right now I don’t really feel like I have an important role in any of my relationships and I really dislike it and find myself extremely frustrated by it. Essentially, though, you need to find somebody who is the opposite of you in one of those ways and the same as you in the other. For example, a Supporter would be my matched opposite because we are both emotional thinkers, but they are socially reserved while I am socially outgoing. Another matched opposite for me would be the Controllers because we are both socially outgoing but they are rational thinkers and I am an emotional thinker. That way, you have something similar that bonds you but also have something different so you can both complement one another in those ways. It all makes a lot of sense when you break it down like that. Another thing the book covered that kind of spoke to me a lot was the idea of finding ways to meet your Matched Opposite. This book basically told me what I already knew all along – in order to meet somebody you need to go out and meet everybody. Okay, not EVERYBODY, but you have to put yourself in situations where you are going to come into contact with others in order to find the ones for you. It also emphasized the idea of making new friends. One of those friends could wind up being a gateway to meeting your Matched Opposite. That makes a lot of sense. The thing that got me the most, though, was how much the book emphasizes the need to be social. In fact, the book states that you should start entertaining or doing something socially at least once every week. I really like that whole idea and am trying to come up with different ways that I could pull that off.

I was approached earlier today by this guy who I have been kind of maintaining a small crush or interest in recently. I have known him for quite a while now, but have never really gotten to know him well. We don’t seem to get the opportunity to converse very often but this morning when I was on my first break he came up to me and asked me if I wanted to try out the elevator. The elevator at my work had taken a shit recently and has been being worked on for a while now and this morning they believed it to be finished, but nobody had used it yet. So, he asked me if I wanted to go be the first. I’m not sure why, but I thought that was very sweet of him. We talked a little bit about some random things, and then went to the elevator. We were both joking that it was going to wind up getting stuck, but it wound up working just fine. It sounds like a really insignificant exchange, but I don’t know… there was something about the whole thing that seemed almost flirtatious. I am very intrigued by this. It may not mean anything… but it may. Who knows? I don’t know what to think of it at all, but I am going to make the conscious decision to not think anything of it at all unless something else happens to further prove or disprove the theories developing in my head.

The rest of the day at work was pretty bland. I discovered an issue on an account that could wind up getting one of my co-workers into trouble. I gave the information to my team lead because it was an issue that I wasn’t sure how to handle. I did the right thing, but I can’t help but feel kind of guilty because that co-worker may now get bitched at for it. At the same time, though, this co-worker has a tendency to constantly be calling people out for things that they have done wrong and there is definitely a part of me that feels slightly smug about seeing them get a bit of comeuppance. Those are the type of negative thoughts and emotions that I need to be working to purge, though. There is no use in me wishing for somebody else to get some comeuppance. In fact, that will only serve to affect me negatively. I am sure this person will not wind up in any real trouble, but I still do have a very minor amount of guilt about the whole situation. Still, I know I did the right thing because I wouldn’t have known where to move forward with that account and it is better that I relay the information to a team lead than to do something I am not sure of on the account and further mess things up. If nothing else, at least I can say that I made the right decision for my part on this account.

This evening after work, Rachel came over to hang out. I had been looking forward to this all week and it was a lot of fun. Rachel and I just did what Rachel and I almost always do – watched TV and talked all night. I also made dinner, which was pretty delicious. It was one of those “working Mom” dinners, made up of things that were already prepared and just needed cooking – like boxed pasta and chicken breasts that were pre-seasoned. Still it was a good dinner. We also made plans to go spend a day wandering around town and seeing what we could find. We had already kind of made that plan previously, but we discussed it further. We discussed possibly going and spending part of that day at the Ringling Museum Of Art, which I have never actually been to and have always wanted to go to. I have a great love and appreciation for all forms of art and would love to go see the works that are kept at this place. I’m not sure exactly when that is going to happen, but sometime in March when Spring Break happens so she will be out of school. She also made the point that during Spring Break there will be more people out and about town – more people to meet, which is something that I need to be doing right now. I am really looking forward to it. I am also really looking forward to the Lady Gaga flash mob on March 13th. I don’t know exactly how it is all going to go down, but I am sure that it is going to be pretty epic. I can’t wait.

One thing that we discussed this evening was my ex-boyfriend. She had kind of briefly mentioned how attractive he was and my Mom got on board talking about it, too. I made the brief comment that it would probably be near impossible to find anybody else who is as attractive as he was. I was only kidding, but thinking about it further it is really kind of a good point. He WAS pretty exceptional looking. He was pretty exceptional in a lot of ways. We all kind of agreed that it would be hard to find anybody like him again. It kind of reminds me of the song “Thinking Of You” by Katy Perry. The first verse of the song says, “Comparisons are easily done once you’ve had a taste of perfection. Like an apple hanging from a tree, I picked the ripest one and still got the seed. You said move on, where do I go? I guess second best is all I will know.” I can certainly relate to that sentiment in some ways, but at the same time I understand that, while he may have been pretty exceptional in a variety of ways, if we had been truly compatible and right for one another I wouldn’t be typing this woeful paragraph right now. Besides, it took me a very long time to get to where I am now, where I don’t think of him very often and don’t find myself missing him almost ever. There is certainly not a need to revisit that place again and I don’t intend to allow myself to go there. After all, I have kind of come to understand myself much better than I did at the time and, even more, have come to understand the fact that any damage that was done to me by this or any other relationship in my life is damage that I have done to myself. Like another Katy Perry song says, “I can’t stop. I don’t care if I lose. Baby, you are the weapon I choose – these wounds are self-inflicted." It is so true. It is this understanding of myself and of the fact that we can only be affected in ways that we allow ourselves to be affect that makes me feel like I am finally in a place where I am ready for another relationship. It is also these understandings that make me believe that I may actually be able to make a relationship work this time. We’ll see, I suppose.

It is 12:47am and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow is Friday and I couldn’t be happier to end the week. I am really hoping that my debit card will come in the mail tomorrow and I will be able to deposit my paycheck when I get off. We’ll see, though. The main reason I am concerned about the arrival of my debit card is less about the fact that I want to deposit my paycheck and more about the fact that I found this gorgeous Roberto Cavalli shirt on Ebay that I really want to order but I want to wait until I have more cash in my bank account to do it. I mean, I have plenty in the account currently. I have only spent about $30 of the initial deposit of $100, on the John Galliano shirt I mentioned yesterday, and this Cavalli shirt will only set me back about $40. Still, I don’t want to let the money in the account get that low this early on. So, we’ll see. I may just wind up doing it, anyway, if my debit card doesn’t wind up arriving. The best thing about this Cavalli shirt, btw, is the fact that it has a lot of purple in it. The Galliano shirt is purple, as well, and I am thinking of making purple my color for Spring/Summer. We’ll see, though. Right now, the only thing I need to think about is getting to bed and dreaming little dreams of fashion… fashion in purple!