Classic Snivel


August 2, 1997.

OK. Well, I think I've found a place. I mean, I thought I had one picked out before, but I hemmed and hawed over it for a couple of days, and when finally we called them up to confirm my utter desire to live there, the girl very apologetically told me they'd managed to rent it out the day before. Which made me grouchy, because I really loved the place, but also because I've decided (thanks to experience) that house hunting is something I hate almost as much as job hunting. House hunting at least has the advantage that you're the one in the position to say yes or no, but ultimately there's still the futility of it all to contend with.

Which leads to me finding this new place, that seems swell, and yet, ironically enough, even more expensive than the place I was fretting over for four days over the price. After hydro, cable, and the phone (and of course I couldn't survive without my own line) it works out to something near $400 a month. Oh well. I can hopefully afford it, and it's a big, cool, apartment.
I have to call them tomorrow and give them the final OK.

I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it tonight.

And hey. I'm sorry for the continued sporadic level of updates. You may have to put up with me until I get settled into the new place... I expect that will be happening within a week or so, barring further tragedies. In any event, life goes on.

J u l y 29

If you had to ask me how I was doing, then whether or not you were expecting me to say anything harder-edged than "Oh fine, how about this heat though?" I honestly would have to provide the frank and realistic answer that right now I'm lonely and afraid.

I'd like to establish, of course, that I have it better than an awful lot of people in this world, and for that, I truly am appreciative.

It just seems like everything is happening all at once, however. I am a creature of incredible boringness. I enjoy my little ruts, even if as an individual I'm wacky and adventurous and dependant upon an almost addictive obsession for divertion from the doldrums of my brain. I deeply dislike change, though. Well, to be specific negative change. And everybody hates that. Bad things, shockingly, are bad. However you want to approach it, though, a lot of progressively bad things continue to happen, and refuse to abate. I guess I'm looking for just one thing to go right. I mean, I know they all will, with a little time. I have security in that sense. But presently all I can do is be afraid of what happens if some things just don't improve. All I want is something, just to tide me over.

Moving out is only the most stressful of my problems. It has the fewest implications though. I know I will move out, and probably I'll even like the place I choose.

My friendship with Lilith is still only a theory. She means well, and I mean well, but we still haven't seen each other since March. She was in Newfoundland for two weeks, and just got back. I'm hoping that maybe now there will be time to heal the wounds.

I got paid last week, but only for the shockingly low sum of $221 -- three days work. Considering that this was my third week there, I was expecting something much higher, so with confusion and fear I raced up to human resources. They had forgotten to tell me that as a term employee, I get paid two weeks behind everybody else. So the week I started was the normal payweek, and thus for the next payday (two weeks later) I got my three days of wages from the 7th to the 9th (which was calculated from the first payday, of the week i started). I can expect the money for the two weeks after that in another week, on August 6 (a month after I started). Not entirely convenient when you have to move out, not by any means, and still a little confusing. The best explanation is that they still owe me a check for two missing weeks when I leave on the 29th of August.

Charlotte and I began to talk again last week. I studiously avoided her until she decided to call, maintaining my faith in our friendship, which really doesn't allow for a lack of communication for too long. I feel pretty yucky about things of late. Largely I wish I'd said nothing about my feelings to her now. I mean, honesty is great, honesty is good, but I knew even at the time that the only conceivable consequence of such a confession would be a period of strain on our friendship; and while she was happy that I told the truth to her, what good is the truth if it makes your best friend look at you funny?

Which is what happened. Charlotte reacted initially to my feelings in a way I hadn't expected -- which is to say, she didn't react at all. She was happy I was realistic and had no expectations of her, or our friendship, and that was that. Maybe she was even a little flattered, but basically I was honest with her, as I only can be, and to my surprise she was very kind and understanding about the semi-inevitability of my loathsome love.

As I heard it later, though, she went home that night and did some further thinking. She started to feel pretty weird about things, and spent a lot of time pulling away, to be by herself. To be fair, she had so much on her mind, and it's difficult not to be blown away by sincere and heavy confessions. And of course, it's only natural that she feel apprehensive. It wasn't as if she didn't want to be my friend anymore... merely that she was taken aback. She needed some time to think about things, and get some space, and prepare herself for the return of her boyfriend.

But meanwhile, I was fretting and panicked and not sure what I'd done to provoke this sudden and cool response. I decided to utterly leave her alone until she tried to reach me herself, which happened on Thursday. Her boyfriend came back from B.C. last Wednesday, and was due to leave for England this Monday. They were up at her parents place for the weekend, in this odd situation, because her parents house is ten minutes from a concert that a new shiny friend she's just met will be attending this weekend (and who does not understand that she is/was going out with someone, so very probably he has his own designs for her), and she gave him her number there.

She had to tell him, gone for so very long and I guess hoping for a better resolution of their distance, that she doesn't want a boyfriend anymore. Understandably, this hurt his feelings, but there's little to be done. He leaves really, really soon, and he's not coming back... and heck, even I just get incredibly tired of the whole, frustrating, relationship/sex problem. Which is what she has to tell this new boy soon, and what I've known all along.

I'm actually kind of in a snit. But I always sort of am. Right before our little troubles began, I'd heard about the Radiohead concert coming to Ottawa for the 20th of August. Now, not only is Charlotte a tremendous fan of Radiohead, but she'd been complaining to me about how long it's been since she's been at a real concert, and how very much she'd like to go see one. Craftily, I had these plans of surprising her with tickets, assuming that the cool weekend of no-communication would eventually be replaced by our normal, wonderful friendship -- but of course my paycheck was tiny, so I couldn't. So I decided, once we were talking again, to just tell her, so she could figure out what she wanted to do before they sold out. There was actually an audible gasp of excitement when I told her, but I confessed that since I was poor, I hadn't bought a ticket yet. That was when she left to call Ticketmaster, and the next day I guess had made the assumption that I'd meant that I wanted to go, but wasn't going to so that I could save money, so she asked her friend (this is the new gentleman that she's met... he windsurfs.. sigh) to go with her. Which caused me to pout for most of the afternoon. I couldn't explain why, except that it's been awhile since she and I have really done anything together, and I was looking forward to a big shindig that would help take away the bad taste of the past two weeks.
I bought a ticket yesterday, after some degree of musing. Usually when stuff like this happens I just stay home and feel sorry for myself. I oddly enjoy doing that. But I'm trying to get a new perspective... thinking that perhaps what I should be doing is going to see a really great show with a really great friend -- and so what if life doesn't unfold precisely the way I want it to?

I'm basically just insecure. I don't know if you ever watched the old Mighty Hercules cartoon (it was made in the seventies, if not earlier.. the one where he had a magic ring..), but Hercules ran around and did good deeds with the help of his hyperactive sidekick, the boy-centaur Newton. So in one episode, there's this new centaur hanging around, named "Notwen." And he kicked Newton's ass, figuratively. Like, he could shoot more arrows, and run faster, and was smarter, and all Newton could do was screw up when he tried to impress Hercules in the same way. Ultimately, Hercules decides that Notwen's going to be his new sidekick, and that's basically the end of Newton.
And that's when Newton wakes up, and finds out that it was ALL A DREAM. Whew. Because after all, Notwen is just Newton spelled backwards.

But the moral is, sometimes I feel like Newton.



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