I haven’t wanted to write at all whatsoever this year. Thanks, Trump! As John Scalzi pointed out, it’s just incredibly difficult to focus on anything else in the world now. I can go out to a festival for a few hours and get distracted, but other than that.... Also, between that and someone watching every single thing I do and reporting on it at work, GOD FORBID I be doing something that isn’t work for 30 seconds, like checking to see if we’ve nuked anyone yet or if anything is on fire. Seriously, I didn’t even know the Sonoma fires were happening until Hillary Clinton told me.

Yeah, that’s how the year is going.

I haven’t been able to do any journal entries for shit in the last year, as you can see from the sidebar. This year I didn't bother to do any kind of novel for NaNo, but decided to use the time to attempt to reconstruct the last year. That went really well, all things considered. So on days when nothing much is going on, I think I'll try to recapture the lost year over here.

Anyway, I'm posting this early today because tonight's activities involve going to some standup and improv shows, so I might be a little busy.

I had a few weird moments at work this week: I got some super weird defensive girl calling me and she was being cute in her answers AND making sure she got all the details of who I was and who my supervisor is right off the bat so she can inevitably report on me to him. (Since he's out this week, this wigged me out. I normally send the argumentative ones to him because he is fine with that and I am NOT, and they don't listen to me anyway.) Now, it turned out her biiiiig problem boiled down to "I found your stuff and will put it in the mail in 5 minutes" and after that she was sweet as pie, but.... wtf? Don't act like that, people. Unless someone's rude to you from the getgo, you don't have to go to war with them right off.

Also, a former coworker came by to visit and it turns out her new job is even worse than here, by a lot. My office has gotten pretty trainwreck over the years, but the new one she is at takes the cake. Everyone is leaving and nobody knows anything. Poor girl. I've heard shitty rumors about that place before when I first started here, and I guess it hasn't improved. Yeesh.

In other news, I found out this week that my college ex has wanted to contact me via Facebook--which I ignore like the plague that it is. I haven't logged into the thing in many years, don't recall the password, and all e-mails from Facebook go into the Clutter setting along with the mailing lists I can't get off. However, Clutter periodically sends some kind of "do you still want these in here" emails and I about choked when I saw the name. But of course I can't see the message without logging into Facebook.

I have been debating whether or not to respond. I probably won't because I refuse to give Facebook what it wants under pretty much all circumstances, but if he had just tried to e-mail me directly (I'm presuming he doesn't remember what my e-mail is and/or did not figure out how else to track me down), it might be another story.

I then had a dream about him Thursday morning in which he came back into my life and was being all charming and adorable.. and that gave me a whopping shitty emotional hangover all day, to the point where I wore my "Bite me" sweatshirt to work. (It's a Christmas sweater and features a gingerbread cookie. My assistant adored it.)

Once upon a time in college I was a smothering clingy psycho who drove him up the wall and did not take hints about how I was being Too Much, causing him to get fed up and break up with me. We attempted to "be friends" afterwards--that's a big thing with him--but I continued to cling and smother ANYWAY and generally not get the damn hint, so he literally stopped answering my phone calls. Which took some doing since he wants to be friends with all exes.

I've learned to not be a limpet since then and not act like that, but a stage 5 clinger is always a stage 5 clinger at heart, even if she doesn't act like it on the outside any more. There's long lines of stage 5 clinging in the both sides of the gene pool. I've looked at smothering from both sides now and I don't want to do it to anyone else any more, but I fear if I ever dated again I would absolutely go nutterpants.

I ran into him once years ago (can't recall if this was within the scope of this journal or not?) and it messed me up for days in hopes of having him in my life again. Which is ridiculous because he has moved on ten billion times over, we don't live in the same town any more and why would we be anything but "Facebook friends?" If anything, he probably just said "hi" and wants me to not be mad at him any more and that's all he cares about, because that was his definition of "friendship," along with "say hi on the street." U mad, bro? Hell, I don't even know if I'm mad or not. Yes and no. I certainly understand why and agree that my immature behavior demanded a cutoff. It was the best move he could and should have made. It sucked anyway.

I miss him on some level---at least in the occasional dream, anyway-- even though it has been nearly 20 years (dear god). I really haven't found anyone like him since in the world I live in. I wish I could. I would probably be a lot cooler with the idea of being token online friends with him if I was already emotionally occupied in that niche/knew someone like him but better, instead of missing that feeling. There was always something about him. I can't explain it, but virtually everyone adored him back in college and I assume that's still continuing. I've heard Bill Clinton has that effect on people in person (not that I'd know, he's come to my town a few times and I never went to any of the speeches) and he supposedly has whopping charisma. I'd guess this ex has some of that as well.

Even in a dream, you guys. I hate dreams. Do I even want him back romantically? I don't fucking know, it's been nearly 20 years so probably not, logically speaking. He sure as hell doesn't want to so there is no hope of that (see below). And in the meantime my heart has keeled over and is now about 95% dead and is darned over the idea of coupling. I find very few dudes interesting romantically, I haven't been interested in anyone IRL in over a decade now and I don't think it is ever going to happen again for me. But the dude was compelling and I miss that. It was addictive, somehow.

Anyway...I know I can't open that Pandora's box and talk to him again. Once a stage 5 clinger, always a stage 5 clinger. I won't get what I want (whatever it is?) if I try to reconnect with him again and the few times he's contacted me over the years has screwed with my head when I even considered the possibility. He said very memorably during the breakup that the chances of us getting back together again were microscopically infinitesimal, which in Optimist Speak probably translated into "not unless you're literally the last person left on earth to bone." I know the dude is a drug and I can't relapse. Even nearly 20 years later when my heart is dead, the little bit still left alive would wonder. Gawd. Who needs this shit?

Coincidentally, I'm memorizing lines for a scene right now (more on this later) and one of the lines in it is "But a person can be momentarily seduced by the idea of something they think is wrong." Ain't that the truth.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry