The other night Sean's sister took him out to see a movie, as a belated birthday gift. Before going home they stopped at a Taco Bell, and saw a stray kitten running around in the parking lot. He fell in love. Attempted to catch it. And when he didn't, he convinced himself to go back on the weekend and try to catch it again...with help from me.
The boy is obsessed with cats. As much as I am a cat person, he tops my love for felines. He has had several in his 26 years, not including the strays he likes to feed in his neighborhood. It's sort of weird. Cause he doesn't take me for a cat person. I figure this because I associate myself with cats all the time and he is often annoyed with my mercurial personality. I am playful one moment and then cold the next. I like affection only when i am in the mood for it. And I fall asleep a lot. Like a lot. These are all things that he seems completely perplexed by. Perplexed. And yet in felines this is acceptable, adorable and manageable qualities he as a pet owner likes.
We closed last night and as we were hanging out in the back he tells me about the whole Taco Bell-kitten-imma catch you- night he had. He recently lost a cat (death) and felt some weird kinship to the little guy in the parking lot. I'm nodding my head, somewhat listening, somewhat wanting to continue reading my magazine when he says "--so i'm going back tomorrow night...do you want to come along". Asaywhat?
My relationship with Sean is very weird. We are friends who flirt. We are crushes who are friends. I like him a lot. But there are obvious reservations. I am afraid of losing him. As a friend. As a crush. As a person I look forward to seeing. So when he asked if i wanted to go with him, 20 minutes outside of where either of us live, alone, to spend an hour in the parking lot trying to find a kitten, i agreed without even considering how insane the plan was.
We couldn't go after work that night because he was driving people home, so we decided to go tonight. I had today off to celebrate Kats birthday (which was splendid and awesome and full of laughs) and he had to work all day, but he said he would pick me up after work so we could drive over to the parking lot and 'catch us a kitty!". Last night we got in a mini argument though because I decided to get a ride home from someone else. And i thought this argument would ruin our plans for today.
I hate closing with him when he's driving four other people home. I don't like how crowded his car is. I don't like that we cant talk. I was planning on walking home (instead of getting a lift from Sean) when someone else offered to drive me home. I said yes and as i am heading to the parking lot with my other coworker Sean, who sees that i have departed from the pack of people he is driving home, yells "beckett. beckket. what are you doing?". I turn around, a little annoyed because he didn't offer to drive me home in the first place. He just assumed that he was giving me a lift. At the sound of my name, everyone who has closed and is now heading in their respective direction stops and turns around. He puts his hands in the air like "what the hell" and says 'what are you doing. your coming with me". I point to our co-worker and yell back that he offered to drive me home so i was just going to go with him.
"But i offered first" Sean yells back. So now there is this weird awkward standoff. Everyone is looking at us. I'm standing in between Sean and nice co-worker just as my dumb manager, who is also watching the weirdness unfold, yells anticlimactically "who you gonna choose beckett. who you gonna go with'.
Now the said co-worker who offered the drive home was the Preacher guy (Kat's crush), who Sean is convinced I have the hots for. He is pretty don't get me wrong. But the preacher thing (and the married thing. and the kat called dibs thing) is quite the boner killer. I'm nice to him because Kat likes him and there have been many times when she has asked me to play the 'wingman' in their interactions. Regardless, Sean seemed to be making a bigger deal out of the fact that it was Preacher who was driving me home rather than me wanting to not be in a car full of people.
So i point to Preacher and say 'i'm going to go with him". Sean looks pissed and he turns away abruptly and begins to walk away. I yell back "please don't be mad at me" but I'm not sure he heard it. As we are walking away the preacher apologizes for creating any awkwardness between me and Sean. And i apologize because I'm not really sure why Sean made such a scene. Of course after this happened, i thought Sean would bail on tonight's plans because he was mad at me. I woke up prepared for disappointment. I was a terrible breakfast date as I shared my worries with Kat about the prospect of him not going through with his promise to pick me up so we could 'catch a kitty!'.
Sure, it was never really about the damn cat. I have attempted to catch many strays in my life and you learn quickly that kittens are especially hard to catch and generally are not trusting of us human folk. But i couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out with this boy. Even if just for a little while. If it would have been any other guy i would thought he was fucking insane for wanting to return to a parking lot days after spotting a stray cat to catch it in a fucking crate. Crazy! But because it's Sean, i was just elated that he wanted me to go with him. Around 6:30, when i received no text or phone call from him, I was convinced he was going to bail on me. I began to dress anyone just in case, but i started to mope and feel like shit and curse my dumb stupid brain for being a dumb stupid girl.
And then 7:15 came around. And I get a call. And the call is from him and he wants to know if I'm ready for cat hunting cause he is prepared for a cat stake out. Playing it cool i reply 'oh, so we are still doing this? sure I'm down!" then i hang up the phone and dance around in my room like a lovelorn girl.
And while the bulk of my night with him was spent walking around a Taco Bell parking lot, whistling softly, throwing food on the ground and checking behind dumpsters, I was so fucking happy to be spending time with this boy. So fucking happy. Of course we didn't see the kitten. There was food laid out and water set in the bushes but no cat or signs of the cat for us to continue waiting around. He seemed generally disappointed at the missed opportunity and i felt sad that we didn't have a kitten to doll over on the way home, but I would have done it again. In a heartbeat. I'm not really sure why he even brought me alone. This is obviously something he could have done by himself. I actually think he would have stayed longer if he wasn't so concerned about keeping me out late. It's a shame that he'll never know that I'm a stupid stupid girl who would willingly participate (again) in stake outs with him just so I can sit in the car as he patiently stares out his window waiting for his chance to catch the cat that stole his heart but that he let get away.
Le fucking sigh.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Freshman
So i got a new job.
I know. I know. This is big news that i should have immediately documented. I mean I have written about my many failures in the job hunt. From horrible interviews to rejection letters from jobs denying me employment that i don't remember applying to. And this time around I finally land something and I want to keep it a secret until the night before my first official day. Weird I know.
To be honest, this job came out of nowhere. A while back i applied to a part time position with a college in my area. I remember doing so because i was getting shit hours at Le Sad store and was broke and miserable. By the start of summer my hours picked up. I was making enough money and enjoying the slacker life not to worry about finding new employment; at least for the summer.
I understand that eventually I am suppose to get a real persons job and have a a real persons routine and bring packed lunches with me to my office gig where I am locked in for a 40 hour work week. I know this. But at 26, I am sort of enjoying my less than perfect life. I have awesome smart but lazy friends, an adorable crush (w/a girlfriend unfortunately) who i hug and touch and inappropriately say things to all the time. I get to sleep in til' noon, if i like, and watch trashy daytime TV. I bake cupcakes, and read books and head to the city on the weekends. And while I am incredibly broke, dehydrated and anxious, i am enjoying my stupid little life these days.
So, I've put the real person job (and life thing) on hold for a while. I've decided to just take a break, right where I'm at, to enjoy what I've got and figure things out. But that still doesn't mean i don't need a livable income. So when I got a nice email a few weeks ago from said university to set up an interview, I decided to go in. The hours at the store aren't a guarantee. People are always leaving, schedules are always fucked up, and I'm still petrified on falling behind. Sure I've taken a break on big important real people things, but it doesn't mean I'm not aware of them.
The interview was short and awesome. At the end of it, i knew that I'd gotten the job. 20 hours a week. $12/hour with benefits and tuition assistance. How could i turn this down. Last week the position was finalized and tomorrow is my first day. And i am jitter-less.excited. ready to start this shit. When i was in college i absolutely hated it. I was awkward and nervous and scared of people getting to know me. I am still all of those things but to a lesser degree. There is something to be said about not worrying, all the time, what strangers are thinking about you. It's a little empowering.
I walked to the campus today(practice run), which is 5 minutes from the bookstore (where i remain a part time bookseller) and got excited just to be on one again. There is a library and a garden and benches just mere steps from the building I'll be in. There were some students, looking down at papers and trying to figure out where they were going. I made eye contact and smiled and felt oddly comfortable. Tomorrow is the first day of something and it excites the hell out of me.
Of course, Kat was the first person I told about the new job, who immediately asked me what I was going to tell Sean. My relationship with him continues to evolve and get complicated. I adore him. I love being around him. I like liking a boy who, while restricted, likes being around me too. And it ain't easy because it feels like if we'd only met each other sooner, first, then we could explore a relationship. Because we can't, our interactions often leave me exhausted and depleted because i can't have what i want.
I'm often confused by his feelings for me. I like that we flirt. That he'll go out of his way to hang out with me. That he buys me hamburgers and steals fruit for me from the cafe so i can eat. But these things don't tell me anything out what he feels for me, except that he likes to feed me. So i often look to our interactions so i can interrupt what he aint saying. I'm terrible. Last week, i played a little job on him to gauge his reaction. I told one of our coworkers to tell Sean that they'd seen my crying (it's a long story, he deserved it). When he found me, i was talking to someone laughing, so he knew that I'd made the lie up (once again he deserved it!). He was more relieved than mad, and drove me home despite my mean jab while we sang to dumb music. Before i went to bed that night, i checked my voice mails and one happened to be from him which he made before the lie was revealed to be one. He sounds so fucking concerned and worried and anxious and sweet. I have listened to it, a million times just because i like hearing this side of him all exposed.
Regardless of what i feel for this boy Sean happens to a) have a gf! and b) is naturally a flirty guy. He likes attention from women. He needs constant affirmation. And he will literally get it from whoever is around him. Often times I'm not sure if he actually feels anything for me if I'm another girl on the list of chicks who gives him the attention he ain't getting elsewhere. The only thing i have going is that he's cried in front of me. I keep that in my treasure of memories because it's the closest I've ever felt to him. I can still feel his body shake under the frailty of my hug. I held on so tight, so i both thought we'd fall apart if i didn't.
The point is, this boy confuses the shit of me cause our relationship has obviously crossed some emotional/physical boundary. It just has. But he still remains something that isn't mine. And he's made no attempts to be a single fellow. So sometimes i get sick of the flirting and the teasing and the touching when i know I'm not going to get anything else out of it. Sometimes, i want him to think that he is going to lose me if he doesn't make a move or admit something big to me. Soooooo, I may have let him think that i was leaving the store permanently to get a reaction. I may not have let on, at first, that the job is actually part time and that i would still be around with my regular ass hours despite my new gig. And Kat helped with this little fib. She told Sean (before my shift started) that she was upset because I'd gotten a new job and she didn't know what she would do without me at the store (her performance was brilliant). Sean, oh Sean, replied:
"understandable. She (me!) can't be replaced. There is no one like her. no one".
I felt like Bridget Jones man. When Mark Darcy tells her she likes her just as she is. Damn stupid boys and there damn stupid words. I waited a few days to tell him the 'truth'. He pulled me in real close and said 'don't leave me. please don't leave me' please' in a joking way. I patted his back and told him that I'd still be around, he couldn't get rid of me yet.
Of course, because our relationship feels like game, he tells me this weekend that he wants to move to Baltimore. His mom knows a friend in the fire department who may be able to get him into the academy there (oh, yeah, he wants to be a firefighter!). We were sitting in the back, goofing off when he told me he was 'going to go'. I asked him where, thinking he meant he had to get back on the book floor, but he clarified and said 'no, i think I'm going to leave'. That's when he told me about Baltimore and the academy. I freaked out and asked why he would want to leave New York, he said cause there was nothing to stay for. I tell him that i don't want him to go, to which he asks why it would matter if he left or not. I shrug and said i don't know, but that i generally like being around him and that him leaving would be painful. He seemed content with that answer and then told me on the way home that he might not go after all, he's just throwing ideas out there.
This is my life with this boy. He is part of the reason why i needed a change of scenery. I need a fucking distraction. it'll be nice to get paid for this distraction.
Anyway,
I'm excited as hell to have something new in my life. Le Sad Store is consuming me. I work there, my friends are there, my crush is there and my social life has sprouted from there, so having a place that is mine will be a much needed break. Plus two paychecks will bring me back to a nice cushy place financially.
More importantly, I feel like this is an opportunity to branch out a little. College was so fucking hard for me. By the time i began to figure it out a little, it was over and i already missed so much. This job is in no way a do over. I don't think the game has ended and I've been given the option to restart. But it does, in some way feel like, the small change i need so when i am ready I'll be able to manage the bigger ones.
I know. I know. This is big news that i should have immediately documented. I mean I have written about my many failures in the job hunt. From horrible interviews to rejection letters from jobs denying me employment that i don't remember applying to. And this time around I finally land something and I want to keep it a secret until the night before my first official day. Weird I know.
To be honest, this job came out of nowhere. A while back i applied to a part time position with a college in my area. I remember doing so because i was getting shit hours at Le Sad store and was broke and miserable. By the start of summer my hours picked up. I was making enough money and enjoying the slacker life not to worry about finding new employment; at least for the summer.
I understand that eventually I am suppose to get a real persons job and have a a real persons routine and bring packed lunches with me to my office gig where I am locked in for a 40 hour work week. I know this. But at 26, I am sort of enjoying my less than perfect life. I have awesome smart but lazy friends, an adorable crush (w/a girlfriend unfortunately) who i hug and touch and inappropriately say things to all the time. I get to sleep in til' noon, if i like, and watch trashy daytime TV. I bake cupcakes, and read books and head to the city on the weekends. And while I am incredibly broke, dehydrated and anxious, i am enjoying my stupid little life these days.
So, I've put the real person job (and life thing) on hold for a while. I've decided to just take a break, right where I'm at, to enjoy what I've got and figure things out. But that still doesn't mean i don't need a livable income. So when I got a nice email a few weeks ago from said university to set up an interview, I decided to go in. The hours at the store aren't a guarantee. People are always leaving, schedules are always fucked up, and I'm still petrified on falling behind. Sure I've taken a break on big important real people things, but it doesn't mean I'm not aware of them.
The interview was short and awesome. At the end of it, i knew that I'd gotten the job. 20 hours a week. $12/hour with benefits and tuition assistance. How could i turn this down. Last week the position was finalized and tomorrow is my first day. And i am jitter-less.excited. ready to start this shit. When i was in college i absolutely hated it. I was awkward and nervous and scared of people getting to know me. I am still all of those things but to a lesser degree. There is something to be said about not worrying, all the time, what strangers are thinking about you. It's a little empowering.
I walked to the campus today(practice run), which is 5 minutes from the bookstore (where i remain a part time bookseller) and got excited just to be on one again. There is a library and a garden and benches just mere steps from the building I'll be in. There were some students, looking down at papers and trying to figure out where they were going. I made eye contact and smiled and felt oddly comfortable. Tomorrow is the first day of something and it excites the hell out of me.
Of course, Kat was the first person I told about the new job, who immediately asked me what I was going to tell Sean. My relationship with him continues to evolve and get complicated. I adore him. I love being around him. I like liking a boy who, while restricted, likes being around me too. And it ain't easy because it feels like if we'd only met each other sooner, first, then we could explore a relationship. Because we can't, our interactions often leave me exhausted and depleted because i can't have what i want.
I'm often confused by his feelings for me. I like that we flirt. That he'll go out of his way to hang out with me. That he buys me hamburgers and steals fruit for me from the cafe so i can eat. But these things don't tell me anything out what he feels for me, except that he likes to feed me. So i often look to our interactions so i can interrupt what he aint saying. I'm terrible. Last week, i played a little job on him to gauge his reaction. I told one of our coworkers to tell Sean that they'd seen my crying (it's a long story, he deserved it). When he found me, i was talking to someone laughing, so he knew that I'd made the lie up (once again he deserved it!). He was more relieved than mad, and drove me home despite my mean jab while we sang to dumb music. Before i went to bed that night, i checked my voice mails and one happened to be from him which he made before the lie was revealed to be one. He sounds so fucking concerned and worried and anxious and sweet. I have listened to it, a million times just because i like hearing this side of him all exposed.
Regardless of what i feel for this boy Sean happens to a) have a gf! and b) is naturally a flirty guy. He likes attention from women. He needs constant affirmation. And he will literally get it from whoever is around him. Often times I'm not sure if he actually feels anything for me if I'm another girl on the list of chicks who gives him the attention he ain't getting elsewhere. The only thing i have going is that he's cried in front of me. I keep that in my treasure of memories because it's the closest I've ever felt to him. I can still feel his body shake under the frailty of my hug. I held on so tight, so i both thought we'd fall apart if i didn't.
The point is, this boy confuses the shit of me cause our relationship has obviously crossed some emotional/physical boundary. It just has. But he still remains something that isn't mine. And he's made no attempts to be a single fellow. So sometimes i get sick of the flirting and the teasing and the touching when i know I'm not going to get anything else out of it. Sometimes, i want him to think that he is going to lose me if he doesn't make a move or admit something big to me. Soooooo, I may have let him think that i was leaving the store permanently to get a reaction. I may not have let on, at first, that the job is actually part time and that i would still be around with my regular ass hours despite my new gig. And Kat helped with this little fib. She told Sean (before my shift started) that she was upset because I'd gotten a new job and she didn't know what she would do without me at the store (her performance was brilliant). Sean, oh Sean, replied:
"understandable. She (me!) can't be replaced. There is no one like her. no one".
I felt like Bridget Jones man. When Mark Darcy tells her she likes her just as she is. Damn stupid boys and there damn stupid words. I waited a few days to tell him the 'truth'. He pulled me in real close and said 'don't leave me. please don't leave me' please' in a joking way. I patted his back and told him that I'd still be around, he couldn't get rid of me yet.
Of course, because our relationship feels like game, he tells me this weekend that he wants to move to Baltimore. His mom knows a friend in the fire department who may be able to get him into the academy there (oh, yeah, he wants to be a firefighter!). We were sitting in the back, goofing off when he told me he was 'going to go'. I asked him where, thinking he meant he had to get back on the book floor, but he clarified and said 'no, i think I'm going to leave'. That's when he told me about Baltimore and the academy. I freaked out and asked why he would want to leave New York, he said cause there was nothing to stay for. I tell him that i don't want him to go, to which he asks why it would matter if he left or not. I shrug and said i don't know, but that i generally like being around him and that him leaving would be painful. He seemed content with that answer and then told me on the way home that he might not go after all, he's just throwing ideas out there.
This is my life with this boy. He is part of the reason why i needed a change of scenery. I need a fucking distraction. it'll be nice to get paid for this distraction.
Anyway,
I'm excited as hell to have something new in my life. Le Sad Store is consuming me. I work there, my friends are there, my crush is there and my social life has sprouted from there, so having a place that is mine will be a much needed break. Plus two paychecks will bring me back to a nice cushy place financially.
More importantly, I feel like this is an opportunity to branch out a little. College was so fucking hard for me. By the time i began to figure it out a little, it was over and i already missed so much. This job is in no way a do over. I don't think the game has ended and I've been given the option to restart. But it does, in some way feel like, the small change i need so when i am ready I'll be able to manage the bigger ones.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Gurl, Hydrate!
Soooooo,
Yesterday i admitted myself to the E.R and was there for four hours hooked up to an I.V and watching an inordinate amount of Saved By the Bell on TV.
Oh, my life is a bowl full of fun some days.
Where should i begin.
Lately life has been very very busy. From work, to anticipating my new part time job (did i mention i found another part time job. at a law school in my area. i'm going to make copies of shit and read magazines and answers phones if and when it rings!), hanging out, boy obsessing and galavanting around the city: museums, cafes, parks; i am more often then not running on a empty tank due to all this activity.
I eat when I can. I sleep when I can. It's not the best way to go about things, but i do.
Yesterday morning, I woke up very disoriented and lightheaded. At 26, i know my body pretty well. I can tell when i'm getting sick based on telltale signs. A tightness in my throat. A warmess in my face. Aches in my arms (i'm not sure why that happens). But these symptoms always precusor sickness. Always. Yesterday though the lightheadedness was throwing my off. I could barely stand and when I did I could barely walk. I stumbled to my chair, plopped down in it and brought my head to my knees hoping the spinning would stop.
When i did stand I was assualted by massive stomach cramps; similiar to the cramps I often attributed to heat stroke symptons. I immediately knew something was wrong. I tried to walk off the pain, i grabbed the only bottle of water I had in my room and took a small sip. Soon after I threw up in the garbage and damn near fainted.
Because i live a mere block from the hospital, i decided that i had no other choice but to drag myself there. Living semi alone poises several irrational fears. One being, being injured and no one knowing about it until a weird smell starts coming from my room. I know, I know, morbib. I apologize but seriously this goes through my mind a lot. If i were to ever fall and can't get up (like those commercials with the elderly woman lying on the floor yelling "heeeeelp!"), or chocked on a stray kernel no one would worry until...well you get where i'm going.
To avoid this, i put on some raggedy jeans, a band t-shirt that magically popped out of nowhere and slowly walked to the hospital. Because of the trouble walking, i resembled a drunk person and several times i got the stank eye from people who saw me trip over my own feet. By the time i made it to the E.R, any life from my face drained and i asked to be admitted because of dizziness and nausea.
After making sure I had proper medical coverage, I was admitted, stripped, stuck with an IV and on a hospital bed for four hours while i got all hydrated. Hospitals make me weary. Sick people make me nervous and being there, by myself, was a little overwhelming. I was discharged that afternoon, with a solid recommendation to drink more water, lay off of gatorade (apparently that shit is good in small quantities) and get some rest.
Lately i am not use to rest. Being still annoys me. It's not that I want to constantly be on the move but i feel unproductive without plans. But because I never ever want to feel like i did tuesday morning, it looks like i'll be inside for the next few days, at least until i feel a little better. I've stocked up on books and water and plan my triumphant return to the world Friday.
Yesterday i admitted myself to the E.R and was there for four hours hooked up to an I.V and watching an inordinate amount of Saved By the Bell on TV.
Oh, my life is a bowl full of fun some days.
Where should i begin.
Lately life has been very very busy. From work, to anticipating my new part time job (did i mention i found another part time job. at a law school in my area. i'm going to make copies of shit and read magazines and answers phones if and when it rings!), hanging out, boy obsessing and galavanting around the city: museums, cafes, parks; i am more often then not running on a empty tank due to all this activity.
I eat when I can. I sleep when I can. It's not the best way to go about things, but i do.
Yesterday morning, I woke up very disoriented and lightheaded. At 26, i know my body pretty well. I can tell when i'm getting sick based on telltale signs. A tightness in my throat. A warmess in my face. Aches in my arms (i'm not sure why that happens). But these symptoms always precusor sickness. Always. Yesterday though the lightheadedness was throwing my off. I could barely stand and when I did I could barely walk. I stumbled to my chair, plopped down in it and brought my head to my knees hoping the spinning would stop.
When i did stand I was assualted by massive stomach cramps; similiar to the cramps I often attributed to heat stroke symptons. I immediately knew something was wrong. I tried to walk off the pain, i grabbed the only bottle of water I had in my room and took a small sip. Soon after I threw up in the garbage and damn near fainted.
Because i live a mere block from the hospital, i decided that i had no other choice but to drag myself there. Living semi alone poises several irrational fears. One being, being injured and no one knowing about it until a weird smell starts coming from my room. I know, I know, morbib. I apologize but seriously this goes through my mind a lot. If i were to ever fall and can't get up (like those commercials with the elderly woman lying on the floor yelling "heeeeelp!"), or chocked on a stray kernel no one would worry until...well you get where i'm going.
To avoid this, i put on some raggedy jeans, a band t-shirt that magically popped out of nowhere and slowly walked to the hospital. Because of the trouble walking, i resembled a drunk person and several times i got the stank eye from people who saw me trip over my own feet. By the time i made it to the E.R, any life from my face drained and i asked to be admitted because of dizziness and nausea.
After making sure I had proper medical coverage, I was admitted, stripped, stuck with an IV and on a hospital bed for four hours while i got all hydrated. Hospitals make me weary. Sick people make me nervous and being there, by myself, was a little overwhelming. I was discharged that afternoon, with a solid recommendation to drink more water, lay off of gatorade (apparently that shit is good in small quantities) and get some rest.
Lately i am not use to rest. Being still annoys me. It's not that I want to constantly be on the move but i feel unproductive without plans. But because I never ever want to feel like i did tuesday morning, it looks like i'll be inside for the next few days, at least until i feel a little better. I've stocked up on books and water and plan my triumphant return to the world Friday.
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