I've been listening to a lot of 90s music. Tis strange. A kid at work has been blasting decade themed music every Friday lately and I requested grunge and C+C Music Factory for the other day. Listening to 90s stuff makes me feel like an angsty kid again. Strange how those songs just bring all the weirdness back. Good thing this was nostaglia week I suppose.
I'm kinda upset about work. I feel like the situation is getting worse and it frustrates me to feel like I'm basically in the same position as last year, except halfway in the poor house because of the paycut. Adulthood blows. PrincessNella and I are masterplanning a trip for March again. The main draw for Miami is lessened a bit this year, so maybe California this time around. I've got a little under six weeks to get my license -- I've decided that since my learner's permit (shut up, I grew up three blocks from the subway and they didn't do driver's ed in my Manhattan high school) is expiring, I'm going to get a damned license instead of being embarrassed by renewing the fucking thing -- so maybe we can even tool around in a rental. I promise to avoid crazy LA drivers and fire hydrants.
A rather bizarre thing in my world right now is modern technology (yes, as all encompassing and vague as that is). I feel like I'm getting more socially inept as I get more connected to things. Recently, I've been friended by these DJs I see a fair amount out and about since I'm on their mailing lists and they play the shit I like to hear and all. And they've been vaguely communicating with me via these technological things and for me it's like "well, now what?" I'm strangely too chickenshit to bridge the gap and being a known unknown freaks me out. Dilemma, dilemma.
In a fit of randomness, I ended up swept back into the Sapph scene tonight. Crazy C and her ragtag bunch of friends. Being around them makes me amazed at my lack of a drug addiction. The super blast from the past was The Brit and his brother. His brother is a nutter and he's so obsessed with my laugh. He makes me feel self-conscious, especially since he has a totally different picture of what went on with me and The Brit than what did (which I'm sure he didn't try to set straight). Speaking of him, we didn't speak at all. It's been a year and a half damned near and we barely know each other anymore at this point. The episode was fairly painless. How different my past year + would've been if I'd had some barely worth recording flirtation that never got off the ground with the boy. But, as I thought to myself bitterly one day, the wrongs are always the easy ones to catch and the hard ones to throw away.
I'm trying to switch gears and it's not going so well. Another weekend, another late night, and me doing a walk alone. I've been turning around in my head: is it better to walk alone than feel alone in a crowd of people? Neither is ideal and I'm at a loss. Something's missing and I don't know what it is. I hate it when the emo sneaks up on me. There's also a lot of shit going on in the non-flighty areas of my life. It's hard to be off making random connections when there's actual fires that need to be put out. I'm sure it'll all work out sooner or later.
The other weekend, I went to a party in Greenpoint where the old warehouses meet the homes. I had traipsed from home, where I had been holed up all day on my computer. I had been trying to convince a work friend to come along, but I had accidentally insulted him over IM. I thought about backpedalling, but gave up instead. Our relationship is built on almost sibling-like verbal sparring and it wasn't worth it to me to back down. So, I was alone walking the dark streets. When I'm alone lately, I have these strange morbid thoughts of realizing I'm not as big as I think I am and anything can happen to me when off on one of my crazy late adventures. The hazards of watching SVU repeats before going out.
I waited on line and I saw some friends I hadn't seen in a long while. We chatted briefly and it was fun and good for a sec. They were in a big group and I guess the sensible thing for me to do was join, but I didn't. Sometimes I'm just strange like that. I watched a performance and wandered around and chatted briefly with people I know and some I didnt and then went home. A night like any other.
They say curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought her back. This past Saturday night put me face to face with the thorn in my past's side, The Boy. I had been holed up in the house all weekend and was restless as midnight rolled around. I decided to keep it slightly beyond walking distance local and go to this bar a short bus ride away. I strolled in and tried to get used to my surroundings and there he was. With an extra special guest, The Ex-Fiancee. The whole thing was almost funny if it wasn't so absurd. I think I thought I'd be more torn up inside about seeing him. Especially since in the case of Farmer, just thinking about him sometimes kinda tears me up. The Boy drudged up a major case of irritation and also some relief. Sometimes I want to scream from the rooftops how happy I am to be rid of him. It hasn't been too hard not to see him these past couple of months because he doesn't know about anything on his own. Without me giving him info, I can go plenty of places in peace.
Seeing the two of them together was almost fitting. For the longest time, I knew nothing about that girl, but she was always the invisible third party, her shadow looming over everything. She had hurt him, so that was his justification to hurt me. And there they were standing across the room, overly concerned about me for a change. I was there to drink and dance and keep my beverages in their glasses unless I was drinking it. She kept conveniently passing me and tried to stand next to me on the bathroom line and chit chat. I wasn't cold, but still noncommittal. The face to face was strange. There's no contest between us because she doesn't measure up to me. And then there he was flitting around like that fly you can't quite kill. Ghosted. Life is too short. I hope he has fun making someone else's life miserable. Afterwards, I even treated myself to a milkshake and some White Castle cheeseburgers and a cab ride home. Alone, but for a change, it felt good.
I don't know if I can muster up the attention span to do mega-end/beginning of the year roundups like I used to. I've had shit sitting in draft for weeks with no end in sight, so I'm throwing in the towel on them. Last year was rough. I feel that much has been obvious around here. In some areas, I'm more distant and unfocused than ever and in others, stuff is/has come together in ways I wouldn't have imagined. Everything needs work though and I'm just trying to keep some sort of upward trajectory going.
I could list my regrets for days, but at least I really felt like an active participant in my story for the first time in too long. Everyone's annoyed at me for slowing the output here down to a crawl, but if it's a slight comfort, the less I'm writing here, the more I'm out there actually living. I need more of a balance this year.
Anyhoo, the resolutions:
01. Move
02. Ask for help
03. Rebuild my nest
04. Get the savings in better shape
05. Leave the past in the past
06. Stop neglecting my site
07. See one secret creative project to fruition
08. Go easier on myself
09. Kill the inner control freak
10. Have more fun
I was feeling pretty blah heading into the long weekend. I'd worked the dead week at a mostly empty office and all those things that I actually had to be getting done, just weren't happening. And I had a nice demoralizing convo with my boss. All in all, I could've comfortably laid in bed until New Year's Eve. But then I wouldn't be me, would I?
Friday was a miracle day: off work way early (not that it helped me in my fool's quest at Circuit City) and had an honest to goodness fake date that wasn't a disaster (well not from my perspective, but what do I know?). I was engaging, cracked jokes, made fun, made cute, and was unashamedly terrible at video games. We wandered around the greater downtown Brooklyn, chatting and laughing. It was...nice. I didn't think I had the capacity to be lighthearted and cool anymore. Occasionally, I surprise myself.
Way later that night, I ended up wandering around the Financial District after an ill-advised detour to Williamsburg. I was on my way to one of those parties I'd miss if (really, it's when about now) I leave NYC. And it was what I hoped it would be: good music, packed with people, more than a handful of those I knew and liked. I even got some blasts from the past: The DJ strolled in looking like death warmed over (drugs are bad, kids) and an old 68 High/Wes buddy (I was feeling inappropriately warm currents there. Let's try to pretend that didn't happen). I even ran into the boy gang from the building's 10th floor. I'm amused at how they travel in packs. The guy from 10 that I like sometimes despite myself rescued me from a confrontation with this random. I had been standing on the wall minding my business when this sweaty fool came in my face saying I had dissed him. I was gearing up to give him a good neck roll and stream of obscenities when 10 guy stepped in on the pretense of chatting with me. The weirdo kinda stood along there for a second before he went across the room to randomly spring up on the next girl. Again, drugs are bad.
Saturday night, Alafairnadia and I went to a party near the Gowanus. She left a little early and I made lemonade out of lemons by recruiting my nearby work friend Banana to the festivities. The whole place was a little bizarre: optional costumes with a table full of props to choose from (I passed), the planned bonfire with a wooden contraption, and the highlight had to be the giant stuffed Shrek packed with dry ice and then blown up. I would've hated to be a neighbor on that night. The two of us momentarily fell in with a pair of freaks. The ringleader of the two was flirting and at the same time saying "why do people think it's weird that I go out without my wife? Do you think that it is weird." Umm, perhaps a bit. And then the shy sidekick who wheeled around the backyard in a wheelchair and uncomfortably humped my leg. Good times...or something.
And then New Year's Eve at Alafairnadia's place. The early on crowd was packed with board people talking about the board and I thought my eyes would get stuck in the rolled position. Let's talk about the internet at a real life party! So fascinating! And let's use our board names because it's not like we're real people with real names! Super! Ugh. We hit the stroke of midnight on the roof watching the fireworks from Prospect Park. Another fun ringing in the new year with my friends. Let's hope '07 blows '06 out of the water. At this rate, it wouldn't take much really. A group of us wandered off to Studio B for minimal dancing but maximum chatter. I randomly found someone who had made the move from here to the West Coast some years ago and spent way too much time drunkenly talking about how I needed to just drop everything and go. Definitely not news to me. I'm not long for this town, but I plan to enjoy it while I still can.