Chapter 146: Fools Like Me

I have been making it a point lately not to start my blogs by saying, “Today was a boring day.” However, today WAS a boring day. I woke up and didn’t work out because I was in a bit of a panic – I was still a hot mess at the piece I was supposed to be playing at my piano lesson this evening! My Mom went to the gym at our apartment complex instead and I stayed here practicing the piece. The little bit of practice I was able to get before work was really not much help at all and I was feeling the opposite of confident about the piece when I left the house this morning. I did dress myself up really nice to make up for it, though. I figured since I would be sitting outside for an hour after my lesson and the weather is still slightly chilly right now I should wear something with long-sleeves, so I threw on one of my biggest fashion essentials, the plain white Calvin Klein tee, with a black Marc Ecko cardigan with pink, red and gray designs over it and felt like I looked really cute. I did a nice pink and purple theme with eye makeup and was feeling pretty confident about my look. Of course, that didn’t help at all with the fact that I didn’t practice the piece for my piano lesson and was going to walk in looking a fool… at the very least, I would be a cute fool!

Work was the most boring part of the day. There was a little excitement in the first couple of hours that I was there because I missed a call from a Tampa area code and I figured it was Viktor, my piano instructor. When I went on break, I called him and he was very sweet and rescheduled my lesson for this week to Monday of next week. Then I will go back on Wednesday for next week’s lesson and go back to business as usual. This was a major relief to me because not only did that mean I wouldn’t have to arrange a cab ride to get there and spend the money for that, but it also meant that I now have four extra days to actually practice the piece and hopefully be able to go in on Monday looking slightly more competent than I would have today. My department also got pulled off the production floor for a special meeting today encouraging us to set a good example for our new neighbors, a brand new account full of people fresh off the street and since we are all so tenured, (I am the newest hire on my account, and I’ve been there over a year now,) we should be setting a good example for them. Essentially, we were being told to behave and keep our conversations work-safe, which is not very likely considering the group of people I work with. It’s just funny that they put my department next to the new people because we are so well known for being completely inappropriate and filled with drama. It should be interesting, anyway. I met a couple of the people who are our new neighbors today and they seem… interesting. The supervisor for their account, though, is very good-looking, which is always nice. I always appreciate having something nice to look at in the workplace.

I also confirmed plans with my friends April and Devin to go out to dinner on Friday night, which I am pretty excited about. It’s been a long time since I have seen April and Devin, and even longer since I have actually gotten to sit down and talk with them for a decent amount of time. I am really glad to be doing this. It all kind of came about after April reached out to me in the comments of one of my blogs over the weekend, where I was being completely pathetic and going on about how alone I feel. Those blogs actually wound up doing a bit more than I expected, actually. First of all, like I said, April reached out to me after reading, which really meant a lot to me. April and I have always gotten along really well and have a different kind of connection than I do with most people. I don’t know how to explain that, really, but April and I have a lot in common on a deeper level than just shared interests or anything like that. I like to think I have things in common on a deeper level with all of my friends right now and that is a big part of why I feel so strongly about trying to hang on to the people in my life right now. I went through a period where I kind of felt like April didn’t want me around or something and I developed a bit of a complex about it, which is another reason why it meant so much that she reached out to me. I’m really excited about hanging out with her and Devin. It’s really been far too long. Just a little while ago this evening, I received a text from Whitney referencing those blogs, as well. I honestly wasn’t sure she’d ever wind up reading them but somehow I had this feeling that she would. As it turns out, she did. They made her sad. I told her that I was sorry but that I was just saying how I felt so I really shouldn’t apologize. I also said that I missed talking to her and just generally having her around. I didn’t get a response, which sucks but isn’t overly surprising. I mean, I could see her being upset about me writing those blogs and I can understand why she would be but I am writing this blog to express how I am feeling in my life over the course of a year and that was something that I have been feeling a lot lately. Even though I was only being honest with my feelings, I surely could have been more discreet about it. I don’t know how to feel about the whole thing. I still feel really alone, though, and I am not going to be surprised if expressing that in this blog doesn’t leave me feeling even more alone than I did before. This whole thing sucks, basically. I hate it. I am reminded of a song by Lisa Loeb, called “Try,” which says, “Your girlfriend never smiles and no one ever calls, You begin to wonder if they were your friends at all, You frown, You take a look around, You shout, ‘This will never get better,’ but the doubt that you grow when you feel desprouted is turning your fields into a deeper valley, You’d find that the mountains aren’t so high if you’d only try.” This is just such foreign territory to me that I have no idea how to try. All I know is that I just feel really alone and now I feel like I’ve probably pissed off the person that I am really trying to mend my relationship with. I hate it.

I’ve talked a bit lately about how I want to find a boyfriend or some sort of companion but the more I think about it the more I feel like that would probably be a really bad idea. In a lot of ways I feel like that would be trying to replace my broken relationships with my friends by finding somebody to have an even more intimate and likely even more fucked up relationship with. I don’t know if that’s really true. I don’t think I would be trying to replace my friends and I don’t necessarily think that a romantic relationship would be fucked up or any more intimate than my relationships with my friends. I’m just feeling cynical tonight. If I am being completely honest, which I swore I would be in this blog, as confident as I feel in my life in general I don’t feel entirely confident in dealing with potential romantic partners. It’s like I can love myself all day every day until an attractive boy comes around and suddenly I feel like a fat, unattractive, useless lump. That’s not entirely true. It’s not that I feel fat, unattractive or useless… I just feel less than good enough, which is terrible in comparison to how I normally feel – better than the best. I don’t know how to articulate what I am trying to say here except to say that I definitely feel like I am a long way off on my quest for a decent relationship and it is probably better that way. In his song “Don’t Wanna Be Alone,” Simon Curtis says, “love is a game only played by the dumbest of fools.” At the same time, though, in her song “Fools Like Me,” Lisa Loeb says, “love was surely made for fools like me.” As much as I have always thought of myself as a person who lives by the Simon Curtis quote I have come to realize more and more that I live my life much more by the Lisa Loeb one. I understand that it’s all a big mess and nothing is ever going to last but I can’t imagine ever COMPLETELY giving up on it. Even for the past few years that I have been saying that I had, I never COMPLETELY gave up on it. I doubt if I ever will.

For the time being, though, it is 12:32am and I should really get to bed. Tomorrow is a brand new month and my Mom and I are both determined to get up in the morning and workout. We are talking about possibly going to the gym at the apartment complex instead of doing the DVD thing tomorrow, which I think could be a really good way to switch things up. It concerns me because it would be a bit more time consuming than the DVD is, for me, but at the same time I could definitely stand to take things up a notch and could probably cut down on my prep time in the morning to make it work. I just think it could be a really good way to switch up the workout, which I am beginning to feel like is necessary. If we are going to start that tomorrow, though, I should really get my rest tonight. I downloaded a new record from Lisa Loeb that came out two years ago but I just found out about last night, called “Camp Lisa,” which is a children’s record filled with old campfire songs. I love the concept and I have been a fan of Lisa’s for years and years, so I am pretty excited to listen to this. Concept albums are always a tough sell but I think this one may very well work. I’m not sure what it is exactly but I have really been listening to her a lot lately. I am feeling very connected to her music lately and it has been helping me get a little more centered than I have been managing to do for myself lately, so I really appreciate that. I don't know, maybe things are looking up - I finally got a response from Whitney saying that we need to talk tomorrow. I'm very glad to hear that. Anyway, for now, I’d better get to bed. Goodnight.