Army Post Road

My mother is a pretty unsympathetic person.  Which makes me pretty odd: highly sensitive and overly sympathetic.  I wonder how I got this way because neither of my parents are either very sensitive or sympathetic.  I tried talking to my mom about being so freaking annoyed that they changed my schedule at work (speaking of which, I have to work 8 days in a row because they changed my schedule and my new schedule starts on what used to be my night off.) and she just used that as a segue to harp on me about working harder at finding a new job.  She even said I should be happy that I'm working tonight because I get holiday pay for it. Who fuckin' cares when I go this long without a day off in such a shitty job?  Grrrrrr

I have to get ready for work now.

The idiots at QuikTrip are really starting to piss me off.  So I just HAPPENED to notice in our weekly division e-mail that two night manager trainees were going to be training with their trainer this week at my store.  That left me with the big fucking question, “Where do I work then?????”  So after freaking out for a few minutes, I looked up on the “My Store Schedule” thing on our goofy-ass company intra-web that my schedule is going to be split between two nights at my current store, two nights at one a mile further down Hubbell Ave and one 4:30PM - 2AM shift at that new store.  All this I had to come about finding on my own.  Our store supervisor (who probably made the change) never made any indication to me about this.  My store manager (who I have yet to determine if he knew or knows about this yet) hasn't said anything.  AND I'M SUPPOSED TO START AT THE NEW STORE WEDNESDAY NIGHT! And no one has breathed word-one to me about this.  Was I supposed to find out about this Tuesday night when I went to work and the manager trainer told me, “Oh I'm sorry, you don't need to be here tonight. We're training someone new for your job now.”  Grrrrrr.  Things that make ya wanna go, “Fuck you QuikTrip, I'm out.”

Sooner or later I'm going to have a day that isn't mostly discouraging. 

This is another time where thoughts are pouring through and turning over in my head and it just isn't worth it to put any of them down. 

You never know when you're going to turn the corner and start getting better.  I don't know if I turned that corner a couple of days ago after talking to a friend, if I did it wasn't before I caused even more pain and trouble for myself and someone else, or if that corner is still ahead of me. 

I talked to someone else this morning and she made the point that things don't usually get better until you're in a stable situation and can start looking forward to things ahead of you.  She was very right.  Nothing has been stable since I got arrested.  Hopefully now that it looks like I'm on track to move back to Iowa City in the next month or two that things will start being brighter.  Even if it isn't very detailed when I'm going back, there is at a minimum that no-later-than date of July 1 and there are people there that want to welcome me back. 

I got so embroiled in feeling hurt about so many things that I let myself think about everything far too selfishly.  I was too desperate to be in control of anything that I tried to trade concern and consideration for that control.  While I didn't form my opinions on what I'd been told, but from what I'd observed first hand and been a party to, I didn't handle what I knew very responsibly. 

Someone told me at the beginning of the week that I can't decide whether someone needs to be protected.  Either they'll make their situation work for them or they won't.  I should know that from my relationship last summer. 

Now I hope that the fracture I've caused in this friendship can be repaired. 

I tried to avoid saying it but I'm sorry.  I really am. 

Well here's an update on the moving back status.

I have an interview for a back-office job at Lowe's in Coralville on Friday morning.  Not to jinx myself (knock on wood), but I've never interviewed for a job and didn't get offered it.  Also, it looks like my supervisor is moving forward at a fair pace on transferring to Cedar Rapids, albeit he said I may only get 5-6 days notice and that I'd probably have to move on my regular days off.  So we'll see how all that proceeds.  Get ready folks, it looks like I'll be back soon.

I keep telling myself that when I move back to Iowa City our friendship will heal and that a lot of problems would fade.  I pray and wish so hard for that to be true.  But I think this is one that isn't going to turn out how I want or imagine.

I am ready for my trial in Hell to be over.

I made the comment a few weeks ago that I felt like a retard because I was having so much trouble communicating my thoughts and feelings and now I feel like a retard for even trying.  Why have I even tried at all for the last three weeks?  I feel like I get absolutely no respect and consideration at all.  And it hurts so, so, so bad. 

How do you tell someone that they new person they like is a scumbag and they're headed down a road to either become someone they really don't want to be or for a world of hurt when they figure out where they are? I don't wanna be the guy that sits around saying that every other guy is a dirtbag or a creep but wow, two in a row.  What am I supposed to do????????

So much frustrating.

I twisted my bad knee yesterday walking to church.  It hurt for a while but now it's just more sensitive than before.

Oy, I so don't like this predicament.  When are things going to start improving???

Why am I the only one making any effort to talk at all?  Right now, I only want to be friends, so why is talking to me something that I have to pester someone to do?

How're you supposed to decide whether to be mature and just let it go and let someone else be less than adult, decide to pitch a fit and cause a scene and let all be known, or when do you stand your ground and not let someone just walk away like that?

I wanna be adult and I don't want to just let the one friendship I had for close to five months fade away.  I know things became pretty uncomfortable at points, and that was largely my doing, but please dear god I don't want to start losing friends over it.  I know that the end of a semester is always extraordinarily stressful and people work, but I hate coming off as the desperate one begging for anything. 

Gaaaaaaaa

What I said last night was not to tell you something I've told you many, many times before.  I said it so you would know the level of frustration I feel.  At this point, it doesn't matter what I feel, but it still effects how frustrated I feel and how I think.

I increasingly am incapable of having a series of connected thoughts right after another.  I also struggle with discriminating between what is a rational, mature thought and what is paranoia, or petulance, or self-pity, or any number of other irrational things.  I get so angry about something and then the edge comes off it because I begin to wonder if I'm justified in being mad or just being jealous, or hurt, or vindictive.  I get so much welled up in my head and my heart that I want to say but then I decide a different tact is better. 

I have so much pain and anger and hurt built up and the person I want to talk about it with is also the person at the center of it. 

I want to rant and scream and cry about everything in my head.  I want it all to stop tearing at me every day.  Sometimes it hurts and I just want to get over all of it and stop letting it hurt so bad.  But then right after that I think that if I get over it I'll have lost the only good friend I've had since December.  And then when I think about how we'd had a relationship and then it was lost and the feelings of abandonment seem complete at that point.  Right now, today, the feeling of abandonment became complete. 

I want so badly to think, to know that the idea of Patti and I having a relationship isn't over.  But the feeling that that just isn't the case gets stronger every day.  And usually, and with most people, that would help to get over it.  But the feeling of total abandonment and the ever increasing weight of things going bad for me won't let me let go of the one thing that let me be happy to any degree in the past five months.  It made me very happy.  And since, I realized how much of a good thing it was on so many levels in so many categories and that realization is another thing making me want it back more than anything right now.  I don't know if I can say or do anything to reverse the trend and get back on the road to having a relationship.  I don't think she wants to get back on that road anymore. 

In a limited post before, I said that one of the things that hurt me the most was probably the asymmetrical nature of our feelings.  I feel so strongly and cling so desperately and want her so badly someone who I don't believe let's me cross her mind more than when I force the topic. 

I would love to wax poetic for hours, to her and to anyone who would listen, to go on about my amorous feelings for her and to convince her that I am worthy of those feelings in return.  But that's just it.  I'd be convincing.  I don't want to convince.  In November and December, I didn't convince.  I didn't make the case that I was someone she should hang out with and I didn't make the case that I was someone she should kiss.  I can romantically recall so many details about those initial dates and feelings, but so what?  Those feelings weren't maintained and now they're probably just memories and fodder for poetry and journal entries.  I want to be wrong, I want so badly to be wrong.  Sometimes I think, “No no no, don't beg, don't ask, don't convince, don't supplicate for someone's affection.  Be charming, woo her with a smile and a witty remark.”  I can't say if that would work.  Charm on the internet isn't very charming and I didn't get to a happy relationship by being charming online.  I would love for charming to work. 

These posts aren't very charming.  I would love to be charming.  I have to say all this before I can be charming.  I don't know if charming would work again though.  I hope upon hope I can be charming again soon, I hope that I haven't said things here and directly to her to bar charm and warmth from being effective. 

I hope I haven't lost all attraction in your eyes and I hope I can be charming again.

C'mon, bring it on.  Doesn't anybody else have anything they wanna throw on top to pile on some more?  I'm sure somebody out there's got something they wanna try and bury me some more with.