With My New Layout, These Things Are Invisible.

And just as suddenly as it began, Dane's and my rift is over. I don't think it was ever a rift, actually. It was more like my imagined issues. But even so, it was still disturbing. I hate to think what it would be like if we ever did get into an uber-fight.



I would be so distraught that I wouldn't be able to sleep.



In other news, I would kill--kill--to be graceful and lithe. Do you know how hard it is to do show choir when you aren't light on your feet??? Especially when everyone else has had some type of experience, be it last year's performing or musical theatre or actual dance! I am suuuch a clod. And a klutz. A clotz? A klud? Whatever.



But I'm gonna be fabulous. I'm gonna get my Capezios and my snazzy dress and, at the very least, have fun with it. Because I can suck but be confident and be accepted, but I cannot suck and pathetically slink away. Because then I will be shunned. (At least by Dane.)

Friends of a Strange Quality

So Dane felt ill today. And I really feel like crap, but not physically. Mentally. Because I was being my usual self (obnoxious, snarky, et cetera) because I didn't know. And now I feel so guilty, because hello! I was sick not too long ago too and I would have smacked anyone who acted so...Anne-esque. (And oh God, I do not want to become her.)

It's so stupid. I want to be friends with him and I want to be friends with other people, but the latter requires me to be a moron eighty percent of the time. And furthermore, being a moron is just me. Yes, I can be serious and intelligent, but there are times when I can be loud and stupid. And those are happening with more and more frequency.

The thing is, I feel like I'm under more pressure because of the fact that we're friends. He's not gonna rip into Wendy, a slighty stupid (read as: braindead) blonde, as much as he would me for being late or talking or anything else that ticks him off.

Sometimes I don't know if he even likes me.

So if the object of this message ever happens to read it, I'm sorry for being typical. And you know I don't want to be typical.

Yugh.

I hate people. Honestly. Especially when, in a crowded bus, they insist on shrieking, singing, clapping, and being generally hyperactive fifth graders. Yes, we just went over a large bump and almost hit a tree. Ha ha ha ha ha. We are singing songs we learned at Bible Camp. Eeeeeee. See my thrill? Sense my joy?

No?

All I got out of this evening was a headache and a deep, deep depreciation of Anne and Lynn. And various others that do not deserve names.

Bitchy? Yes.

Called for?

What do you think?

"Our last summer, walking hand-in-hand..."

She would never know how it happened. One minute they were in his car, the radio playing muffledly…”Taking Chances” by Celine Dion, that was something that she would remember forever. And he pulled up in front of her apartment building, and there was silence for several seconds. She looked over at him, he smiled, and she leaned in closer. “You’ve got something in your hair,” she said in a voice that didn’t exactly sound like hers. She brushed a speck of paper out of a tuft of his brown waves and he caught her hand.

His lips smashed into hers.

And so began the inevitable course.

Their affair was something that they never publicized or even spoke about. It was an unspoken pact between the two. At the end of the day, he would go home to his wife. Both of them knew that she was the one person he loved in the world more than anyone else.

“She’s gone for a week,” he said conversationally one day. “Conference.”
“Really?” she asked. “So what’re you up to?”

“Do you feel like Mongolian?”

She grinned. “Sure do.”

That night was the first night she stayed with him. She’d always left directly after, or scrambled for their clothes so they wouldn't tie up the supply room for too long. But this…this was luxurious. They stayed in a guest bedroom and when she woke up to the light sound of rain, with him next to her, she felt whole.

This went on for six months. She knew it would end. They both did, but they never discussed it. Then one day, he dropped the bomb that she knew would eventually explode.

“She’s pregnant.”

All she could do was nod. She couldn’t fake a smile or a word of congratulations. He knew her too well to buy a thinly veiled emotional lie.

“And that means…” He trailed off. “We can’t do this anymore. We never should have started.”

“Why did we?” she asked.

“Because I love you.”

“You’re still talking about it in the present tense.”

“But I love her more.” He sat down next to her. “If I had met you somewhere else…sometime else…we could have worked. But we didn’t.”

“Will you ever tell her?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t need to know.”

“I would want to.”

“Then you tell her.”

She bit her lip, wishing valiantly to reappear in some alternate universe where he had met her first. “I’m sorry,” she said simply.

And she left the room, the building, and his life. She transferred, unable to bear the pain of watching the man she loved and the woman she wished to be build up a new life. She’d monitor their Facebook profiles through her cousin’s easily hackable account and one night, he’d popped online at the same time she was. A bing indicated a new chat message, and she bit her thumb as she read it.

Long time no talk! How's it going with you?

She could almost hear his voice speaking to her. And not wanting to, she typed an answer.

I’m okay. What about you?

It took what seemed like forever for him to respond.

I’m good. We’ve got a third member of the household now, so it’s pretty crazy.

She swore inaudibly.

Really?

Yep. A girl. She was born about a month ago. You’ve should come visit us sometime.

She couldn’t handle it anymore. She closed the window, laid her head on the keyboard, and wept. He'd cheated on his wife and gotten a family out of the deal.

She channeled the pain into her work. She beat her heels down auditioning--literally. And when she landed a minor role in Wicked, she threw herself into it. Becoming someone else was a way to get out of thinking about the crappiness of her life.

And for the next four years, that’s how she dealt with what had happened. She’d lost the one man that she’d ever loved to his wife. Thinking about it made her truly realize how screwed up her life had been.

One night, after a performance of The Producers, after she’d gotten out of her Ulla persona and back into herself, she traipsed out of the theatre into the grimy snow of the city streets. Before she’d gotten ten feet away, a voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

“I knew you’d make it here.”

She turned around to see the man she’d wanted to get out of her head forever. “You came?” she asked, and that was not the snappy opening she’d been planning on starting their first post-breakup conversation with.

“Believe it or not, I’ve heard of you,” he said. “You’re good.”

“It’s thanks to you,” she replied.

A look of shock crossed his face. “Really?”

“More or less.”

“I…” He trailed off. “I feel so guilty for what I did to you. We never should have gotten started with what we did in the first place--”

“No,” she agreed. “We shouldn’t have.”

“She found out,” he said. “She said she always knew but she couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

“Why?”

“She grew a spine.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Her words, not mine.”

“So…” Her mind struggled to grasp what she’d been told. “You two are over?”

He nodded. “You know how I said that if I’d met you someplace else? Well, here we are.” He spread his arms to indicate the sprawling street.

Her naïveté leapt. But another part of her, the part with the decent memory, flared with anger. “You forgot one part of that equation,” she corrected him. “We would have worked somewhere else in another time, yes. But only if I was another person.” She put her hands on her hips. “Sweetheart, I’m not who I was. Now get your ass out of my city.”

Without a look back, she walked away.

That night, for the first time in four and a half years, he didn’t invade her dreams.

And that made her slightly sad.

So this is what happens when I decide to invent some fictional problems. Quite entertaining.

I am going to go to sleep now. Finally.

Ay caramba.

Anne is driving me absolutely freaking nuts. She has no fashion sense and thinks that looking like a bag lady is good enough. My new term for her is a sleaze hag. Feel free to steal it and share it freely with your friends.

I have a feeling that I've probably stated the opening sentence on another post about the not-entirely exciting life of me. There's quite a lot of repetition here, if you haven't noticed that.

Go Forth And Multiply (Apparently)

So I'm pretty sure that everyone in the friggin' world is pregnant. There are two underage sluts (forgive the unpolitically-correctness of that) at the School from Hell, Shandra (a graduate of the Conservative Christian School), June, and Bea, the CCS's artsy lady. What is with this?

I am in such a crappy mood. I have been for the past week. It's just...I want somebody to think that I am the most important thing in the world. And my parents, while wonderful (okay, my father's more annoying than wonderful, but moving on...) don't count. I want somebody to get to know me, then love me, rather than the other way around.

Is that too much to ask?

...I am so whiny. Just shut up.

Dismal. That's The Way It Is.

Have y0u ever had someone in your life that both made your day and broke your heart? All in the same hour?

Screw the same hour, try the same minute.

I have that person. He is witty and snarky and an all-around nice person. When he wants to be, that is. There are times when he's a total ass--unresponsive, uncaring, and unhuman. (I know that's not a word but...it fit with the sentence structure.) And today, he's leaning toward the latter side. And he doesn't mean to. That I know. It's just a byproduct of his hectic life and his lack of knowledge of how much he really means to me.

When we have conversations, I want to slap myself. Because I'm just as bad as he is. I close myself off. And I think it's because, if I let myself go too far, I'll say something that I shouldn't. Something like "I love you." And also because the things that I want to do--put my head on his shoulder, hold hands, ruffle his hair--are things that I cannot do without repercussons.

It'll screw us up if I do anything. I know that. I....no, I don't accept it. But I'm trying.

I will only tell him how I feel when there's nothing left to lose. And I truly mean nothing left to lose. If I'm dying of cancer, if we're in a plane that's on fire, if we're being held hostage by eighty armed gunmen, or if I know in my heart of hearts that we will never ever see each other again.

That is very dismal. But it's the only way that it can be.

"You're a conundrum wrapped up in a riddle, babe."

It is so hard to keep him from popping into my thoughts. The first time he kissed her....when he proposed.....the first time he told her that he loved her. (That one hurts.) I just....I wish I could see that side of him. The non-sarcastic side. For once, I want the sweet and loving and intimate man that's hiding underneath.

These are sweet moments that only they share. I get that. I just want someone of my own to build that kind of structure with--made of inside jokes and shared memories and utter love for one another.

I am so sick of dealing with this, it's not even funny. I just want someone. But I don't want to settle. It's a conundrum.

But you know, it's not like there are people beating down my door. I'm a little too left of center, a little too unconventional, and a little too closed-off. It reminds me of one of my mother's friends from college. She was musically talented, friendly, personable--but she's never found that one person to share her life with. What if that happens to me?

It could. Truthfully. Because no one can measure up to him. The standard is way too high. Even if someone was madly in love with me, they would have no chance. Because whenever I'm with someone else, I see him.

Yuck.

Fabulosity...Or Lack Thereof.

Chemistry. Is. Not. My. Friend.

I have recently learned that I have to be explained to how to do things before I can actually do them. Which is surprisng, since books and I usually get along well. I suppose reading for entertainment is different than Reading For A Grade That Will Affect Your Future. (Heh. Let's not speak of my D+ in Algebra, shall we? Good.)

I am having issues times twelve with Anne. It's strange. Last year, her know-it-all attitude didn't seem to annoy me. Maybe because it wasn't friggin' there. But now, she's got this "high and mighty upperclassman" thing going on.

Is that it? Is she so excited for seniority that she's treating even her friends like her subordinates? I've never thought of that until right now. I mean, it seems plausible now that I mull it over.

Oy.

In other news..............oh, I can't think of anything that fabulous. School tomorrow. It will be The Week The Earth Stood Still, The Freshmen Watched In Terror, And The Seniors Milked Their Status For All It's Worth.

The first week of classes went fabulously. I mean, really really fabulously.

"Why?" you ask with bated breath?

Because I am now in Distinction Choir!

That made my life. And it's encouraging about the whole situation, really.

On a different note, I am never having Anne over for longer than three hours. She's driving me nuts. Have you ever known a story-topper? That's her. Yugh.