Mumblings of a Hermit

life’s too short to even care at all….

But in a way, I do care.  It just seems that my mind is lost in this constant fog of desire.  It isn’t a desire of love, but a quiet desperate desire of wanting to be with someone. 

It all goes back to this, and I think I am getting to the point where I am just a little pathetic.  I’m just a little pathetic lost puppy wanting to be found.

It has to stop.  It just needs to stop.

All of this attention given to girls that aren’t interested.  Why?

Why am I like that?  Sure there is the attention that I give and the little that I receive, but is that all?  Or is there something different?  It seems that all I’m approaching are the girls that I have no chance with or know that it isn’t going to work out.  They are too young. 

Their life just barely beginning.

Why am I just silently, willingly torturing myself?  Why?

It just needs to stop.  I think it is this, this this, that is just making me sick. 

My body is fatigued.  I am tired.  My tired body is rebelling against me. 

There is something wrong with me.

*    *    *

I’m tired. 

My body.  Is. Tired.

I haven’t been this tired in a long time.  This is out of the ordinary.  This is not normal.

There might be something wrong with me and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

There’s a part of me that thinks I’m just out of shape.  I just need to start working out again, getting my body into shape, my stamina up.  I just need to work out to get more energy.

Another part of me thinks that my dear old friend is back again.  But I don’t know.  This doesn’t feel like the deep dark depression that I am familiar with.  I don’t even want to call it a depression, because for the most part, I do feel fine.  It’s not even the blah of the blahness ennui that strikes me from time to time. 

Emotionally, I do feel fine.

I feel fine.

Yet, there is the part of me that is very soft and sensitive.  Thoughts of dad just tighten my heart.  It pulls at the strings and I miss him even more, pulling the tears from my eyes.  I miss the man.

But my body is screaming.  It is tired.

There might be something seriously wrong with me.  It could just be a nerve thing from sitting on the ball.  I don’t know. 

I’ll just do some simple tests.  No more ball. 

That’s the only thing I change in my normal day to day.  Instead of my chair, I have been using the ball. 

That must go and I’ll see where my body stands. 

Even with out the ball, the important thing is that I need to get some exercise.  I need to get back into shape.

I shall run at night.

I shall stretch in the morning.

I shall just be more active.

I shall just be.

*    *    *

I find it funny that I’ve been saying that to myself for quite some time now.  It still hasn’t happened.

Hopefully, it’ll start soon. 

I just need to stop focusing on things that are out of my control.  Girls.

I need to just focus on things that I can control.  My health.  My projects.  My writing.  My photography.

I just need to focus on me. 

What happened to my yearning to be a little more distant and away from people this year?  What happened to that?

Will I be able to get back on track and be a little more antisocial than I need to be? 

I have already been a bit social with B5 and the Blox.  Am I going to start with the Non-Artist?

What am I to do? 

There are times that I think these are things that I just need to go through.  These are just things that happen in life.  Living it.  Experiencing it.  Being with people.  Being around people.  Interacting with people.

Is it?

Didn’t I kind of do that with the D?  Didn’t I?  I would like to think I did, but what came out of that?  Nothing.

Just a dwindling friendship of my undoing and just people who know us trying to get us together. 

Out of everything, I think that is the funniest part. 

The other people trying to get us together.  Whether it is a simple recommendation of her being single thrown out by her boss or a simple thought of playing matchmaker. 

Just Funny with a capital F. 

Funny. 

*    *    *

Change.

I say it takes time and I am smart enough to know that it does take time.

But it also needs to start.  That small snowball that will eventually turn into a avalanche will need to start sometime.

When is that time? 

Will it be tonight?  Will it be here.  Now.  As I stake my claim to make this change in myself.  To just be. To just avoid.  To just live my life and be okay with it.  To just…just. 

It is time.

I know I have said this many times before.  This may be a part of that growing collection of false starts, but I will keep starting and starting.

Here.

Now.

I’m starting.

It’s time for that CHANGE.

Let it simply….begin.

That daunting whiteness stumps many writers and I am no different. 

It stares back at me, taunting me to type, to ruin its perfect whiteness with letters, words, paragraphs.  It taunts me to write the story, but I don’t know what is holding me back.  Something is holding me back.

Is it the empty thoughts that cloud my mind?

Is it the thought of B5 feeding me wontons or the times that we hung out together?  Is it the separation from Ms. D that I’m feeling?  We are there, but not always there?

What is it?

Or is it just the fear of what all writers go through?  I need to just write it out, conquer it.  Just write. 

I’m trying a different trick, focusing my mind on something else until the story chisels its way out of my mind and onto the page.  I’m just looking for that one thread that will tie everything together, and right now, I have nothing to tie together.

Maybe that is my problem, as my mind has been a little preoccupied as of late. 

My mind has been filled with little thoughts of this and that and it accounts for nothing.  They are just fleeting thoughts that have no lasting impression.

They are nothing but mere musings of the heart, of the soul, of just playful teases to keep my mind busy and on something else.

I’m in a state of mind of that is not conducive for creativity. 

Am I in it again?  Another visit from this old long lost familiar friend of mine? 

It doesn’t feel like it, but it is something different, something I haven’t been able to shake.

I don’t know what it is, but it is definitely something.

*    *    *

When will it be over?  How long will this friend of mine stay this time?

I’m blocked.

I know I shouldn’t be looking toward this as a creative endeavor but more as work, as a assignment like I am making this little post of mine.  It is a assignment and I have no problems putting my thoughts into words here.

Why make the other any different?

It is the same.  Thoughts on paper.  Thoughts into words. 

Just do it.

Write.

Think.

Create.

Flow.

Stream the singsong streams of shoes and traveling.

They should be perfect for you; the inner wanderlust should be able to write it without any problems. 

Tap it.  Tap that inner soul of yours, that little child that I know you to be and just write you motherfucker.  Write!

Create.

This is it.

This is what you want to do.  Ever since the thought of writing came into your fingers, to your soul, it is what you’ve always wanted to do.  Write.

And now you should do it.  Just write.

Fucking write.

No need to brainstorm, no need to think.  Just let your fingers do the work.  Your mind and your fingers are one.  One thought.  One stream of consciousness that flows.

Words appear and soon a story of little shoes.

WRITE.

Words.

Sentences.

Paragraphs.

WRITE.

My thoughts slowly drift away and all that is left is a nothingness that is welcome.

No more screams. No more tears. No more fears.

There’s just an emptiness of tranquility.

That is what I am embodying in my current state of mind.

That is what I am here to doing, a mental meditation to get me in the game, to get me into the right mind state to do what it is that I need to do.

Maybe this will last till my dying days, running away from any distractions that might come my way.

Will this peaceful mental stability last?

I don’t know as I ramble on incoherently in this welcomed state of mind.

* * *

Closed Diary.

That is what I was coined last night as my friends had to pull information that I was more than willing to volunteer to them.

It just never came up.

They brought up the question on when will I find me someone and it was then that I let them know what my current situation is.

With all of my hangout sessions with B5 to the cop out of Ms. D. Everything.

It’s not that I am a Closed Diary, which I can totally see people thinking that I am, it’s just that you have to ask about it.

I guess in a way, I do put out the total private vibe, but it’s just weird that I totally never see myself that way.

Weird indeed.

Did you touch her?

That was one of the funnier questions of the night as they were trying to get more details on how I am with B5. I am openly flirtatious with her.

Then Partner Partner opened up about how I am all handsy, especially with the waitress, letting on that I have more game than he is. I totally don’t even remember that happened, but I guess it did, ’cause I do tend to get a little handsy from time to time.

Just funny.

* * *

Keeping myself busy.

Ever since the beginning of the year, I’ve just been trying to occupy myself creatively.

Working on the current projects with Scott, thinking about the rewrite of my current script and trying to get into more prose writing.

As I get my new camera, there will be other creative projects.

Maybe new video shorts and maybe Lego stop motion shorts.

I just need to stop fucking around and just do stuff.

* * *

Writing is becoming tougher and tougher on here.

My mind, these juices, these thought vomits aren’t becoming easier and easier.

Nothing hangs on my mind, but everything is on my mind.

Maybe I just need a break from certain things, from these heart spillings and brain meltings.

I just need to step back and just focus on other things, like a kid’s shoes walking over town, seeing things that it has never seen before.

Maybe, just maybe.

….and that is what it should be.

It shouldn’t be the be all end all of all things that everyone makes it out to be. It shouldn’t be at all.

It should just be this. No pressure, no commitment. Just two people, two souls, being together, here now, just hanging. Just being.

Just enjoying each other’s company.

There shouldn’t be any pressure to make it more than it is. Take all those pretensions aside, all of those expectations and throw them out the window.

Just be…in that moment, in that time. Just be.

That’s how it should be. That’s what I am seeing more and more. That’s the way that I’m going.

* * *

I guess it is finally happening. That one part of me that is on the precipice of keeping that innocence or swaying and plunging into my usual jaded cynicism is making its decision. It is finally getting to the point and falling in line with what I truly am, a bitter, jaded, cynic fool.

The Hopeless Romantic in me is growing up. Finally?

Maybe.

Here’s to hoping, right?

* * *

So for some reason or another, I’ve been hanging out with B5 afterhours. It’s nice.

I do genuinely enjoy her company. She’s cute, independent, funny, and she’s just good peeps.

I rambled on and on about her from time to time on this little thing of mine.

And I think it is with her that I’m starting to get it. Things should just be, exist, just being together, not expecting anything.

I am just genuinely enjoying her company. No big grand gestures, no long term thinking, no expectations.

Nothing has happened per se and I don’t expect anything to.

If something happens, great. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. I get to hang out with her, just doing something and I am enjoying it.

It’s nice.

* * *

Just let go and let it flow.

Let it slide away, melt away. Just let it go.

There’s nothing you can do but just learn to forgive, if it is what it is that I need to do.

Just forgive and let go.

It’s over and you have no choice or say in the situation.

It is what it is.

Just let go, and give him a chance.

Is that it? Is that right?

Is that what needs to be done?

Just let it go. Let it be.

* * *

…and from her lips she drew you hallelujah

It’s just time. It’s time for honesty. I have to.

Things have been pestering away at me for a while now. Things have just been in my head.

I feel like a dick. I feel like a asshole, but you know, I think it is something that I need to see through. I have to.

I am just going on information that I have gathered, information that I have seen and mulling things over, I’m doing the right thing. Right?

…it’s a cold and a broken hallelujah

It has to be. I need this. I need to be free, I need the catharsis of not having my heart strings pulled and tangled into this mess of mine. I just need it.

There are times when things are just crystal clear and there are many where things are just a muddled pool of muddy waters.

I don’t know.

Why can’t communication just be clear? Why can’t things just be honest and straightforward instead of these little games that we have to play? I have no idea what is happening.

Maybe it is like that epic literary rom-com of Pride & Prejudice; you are my Lizzy Bennett and I am your Mr. Darcy.

Maybe. Just maybe.

But alas, I don’t know. I don’t see.

Sitting at my usual spot just people watching with my new found long lost younger sibling from another mother, I see you. I notice you. It’s hard not to. You were there, and my gaze is just naturally drawn to you. You make your way over, but you don’t say anything…and sadly, nor do I.

It was a stalemate, a Mexican standoff of who will cave first, the first to acknowledge the other. I tried, but I got no response.

As you look over my fellow sister, my partner of people-watching, giving her the up and down, what are you thinking?

Ugh.

The confusion in my head, the cloudy thoughts of just not knowing for sure.

As I consult others, the unreliable source, my little sister who knows about the situation, they all say the same. Move on.

Move on.

And so I did. I am. I’m doing.

I need to. I need this.

I made the effort. I made the reach out. I did it.

But things just fell flat. What is it?

Maybe you were busy and couldn’t make it. Maybe you did exactly what I thought you did, scheduling it with another. It was an out of hanging without the actual hanging or the pressure of my intentions.

I don’t know what it is, but my spidey senses, my intuition, my gut is telling me, screaming at me…it’s never meant to be.

* * *

What’s that look in your face? What is it that you are thinking? What is it that you are feeling as I sit there?

Our are thoughts the same? That you think The Blox is my sig-ig? Is that what you are thinking as you look at her, checking her out, doing your little calculations in your head, comparing her to you?

Is that it?

I don’t know.

My gut could be wrong. Many times, it is.

But I don’t know.

What is it?

Is it a sign of disappointment that things didn’t happen afterwards, as we gave our final hug goodbye, you saying that we’ll see each other?

Is that what you mean? I have no idea.

None.

Ugh.

* * *

So, now, here we are.

There’s a radio silence between us. The only communication are the thoughts in our head, spewing out things that we wish the others would say, or at least that is what I’m hoping.

That means that there might be something there, that there might be a chance, but I don’t know anymore.

I don’t know much of anything anymore.

You know me. You know my habits. If I’m not there, it means something and you can ask. We can talk. We can be honest.

You know where I am. You know my number. You know my addy. You know.

But you don’t reach out. Not at all. Maybe that is it. Maybe that is the concrete thing that I need to finally realize and take in and embrace.

You never reached out.

* * *

…i need you like a heart needs a beat but it’s nothing new

Sorry.

It must be done.

It has to be done.

She was disappointed.

She was just surprised by you.

You are not my type at all, and that was something that she expected.

You are different from the mold that my heart has an affinity for.

You are different.

It is the you that I fell for. It is the girlish charms that you possess that makes these heart strings strum.

It is the inner you that my heart beats for.

It is you.

But no more.

It stopped.

Slowly, the beat dies down, not because can’t beat on any longer, but that it must. It must stop beating for you.

Stop.

Over.

Flatline.

Declared.

That is how it is. That is what it is. That is what it must do, because honestly, I can’t see a way out of this if it goes on and on and one.

My heart just can’t take it anymore.

My heart is just done as a plaything.

So, I’m hunkering down for the long haul, until this thing of mine is over and done with. Until my heart seals and becomes whole again.

I’m done and gone. Gone and done.

Done.

Tired.

It seems that is all I’ve been saying or even feeling lately

Tired.

I’m tired all the time. No energy. Lethargic. Just lazy molasses of just moving nowhere; getting nowhere fast.

But it is me and it is something that will change, eventually. Whether it is something voluntarily or something that is more forced, eventually I’ll get to that level of doing something.

* * *

Here it is.

It has started, it has begun.

How long will I last before I cave, if I cave?

My convictions are strong this time, believing that what I’m doing is right, believing that it is the best thing for me, ’cause it is and honestly, I just need to do it.

I need to move on.

No reason in staying in this perpetual cycle of Sisyphus, pushing and pushing, making advancement and then falling back down again, having to push it back up and up again. The sick cycle.

In many avenues of life, this existential mentality/philosophy works, ’cause it does. But in other aspects, it is something that we shouldn’t strive for, but something that needs to be abandoned at the quickest possible moment.

Be free.

Move on.

No more.

The pining, the lingering, the hoping of something. It needs to end.

It has to go.

Out the window and onto something else.

Another affliction of the heart, another affliction of the soul.

Just hoping that the next one will be a little easier to swallow, a little easier to manage and a lot less pain. Maybe a little happiness for once.

Who knows?

The future is a stillness that is just waiting to be filled in. A polaroid snapshot just waiting to be used, spat out and shaken until the image magically appears locking our future into history.

* * *

What is it?

Why?

Is there just an innate fear instilled in me, destined to wrap me up in this dancing movement of one step forward and two steps back, making no forward movement in anything at all?

What has gotten into me?

Something is definitely wrong and I don’t know whether it is physical or psychosomatic. Something is definitely putting a damper in this party that I call life.

This is different than the many others that I have experienced. Something definitely not like the dark days of yore, but the newer brand of ennui, the generalness of the blahness of everything

It is the blah blah of the blahing blah blipity-blah of everything that I have dreaded.

It is a workable settlement of life at its just barely bearableness.

It is what it is.

Something has to change.

Whether I deal with this and accept it for what it is and be okay with it or I need a lifestyle change.

Honestly, I can’t tell what it is that I need or want to do.

That too needs to change.

This not knowing of what it is that I want has been with me for years.

It seems that once I figure out one thing that I want out, another bout of searching comes along.

What is it that I want?

….

….

I don’t know.

I guess that is something I need to figure out.

Hopefully. No, not hopefully. Definitely sooner, rather than later.

* * *

It’s too late. It’s too late to apologize…It’s too late.

No more.

There’s not point.

None.

At all.

* * *

Goodbye.

Gone.

It’s over.

All over.

Nevermore.

As the raven continued. Nevermore

* * *

I sat down, settled in.

Laptop, booted up. Client, blank and ready to go. Time to put my little fingers through the dexterity test; putting whatever thoughts that I may have in my mind down on the proverbial page.

But something stopped me. Someone stopped me.

I saw her earlier, Renee, as I later learned her name, stands at the door, sucking down her sweet milk boba tea. She looks over at me, staring.

I made the mistake of looking up, making eye contact. That was all the invitation that she needed.

I got no work done. No words typed. No letters. It was blank. Blank.

Renee is a fairly petite Asian girl, who can shed just a few pounds, not much more needed. Some may see that she’s not too bad looking; cute maybe.

She says that she’s 24 and I gave her the benefit of the doubt until she spun her little tale on me later and now I’m not sure how old she is. Maybe she told me that after she gauged how old I was and adjusted her age accordingly, hoping that 24 would be the right age for me to pay any attention to her. Too old and I might not give a damn, and too young, for sure I wouldn’t give a damn.

There she was, talking to me, out of the blue.

“What are you doing here so early?”

“Just working, chilling. You?”

“Patrolling.” she said.

Patrolling. That’s a weird response. My spider senses are going off warning me about the psycho that I eventually know her to be, a broken and damaged girl of ungaugable mental stability.

One thing lead to another as we traded our small talk and niceties, and there was a staring contest. Awkward, as she stopped talking and just stared at me, not breaking eye contact. I stared back, which ’caused giggle fits from her.

As she sits down, she looks over everyone that walks by or walks into the teahouse. EVERYONE. Up and down. Down and up, throughout the whole two hours we were there talking or her talking and me listening.

She sizes them up, thinking if she can take them if push came to shove.

Troubled.

Paranoid as she goes on and on about things that I have no idea what she’s talking about. “There are many eyes in the trees. They’re watching us.” She said.

“Really? Up in the trees? Sure. We should be careful,” I traded back.

Eventually, somehow the conversation came to a point where she was offering to climb the tree.

I almost kind of dared her to. I actually did dare her to. She couldn’t leave that challenge down, and so she went.

It was then and there that I knew for sure that this poor girl is either fucking out of her crazy fucking mind or she’s high on something and it seems good. I don’t do drugs but at that moment, I kind of wanted what she was having. Just a little.

As she perched on the small wall, like a Bird of Prey or even a Dark Angel, watching the traffic, watching the surroundings, “patrolling”, I laugh at myself, thinking, “Only this kind of shit can happen to me. My first real interaction with someone in this brand new year, it is with this fucking crazy girl, who is literally climbing a tree.”

My luck.

Soon she came back, finishing surveying the area, finishing showing off, finishing winning that “challenge”.

She sat down next to me and continued the roundabout conversation that I couldn’t keep up with. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.

The words that are coming out of her paranoid fractured drug enhanced mind are on a frequency that I have no way of tuning to. I was lost, but I nodded on, encouraging her to continue as we go about our little playful banter.

Why not?

There were times when I thought, she’s not bad looking, not so bad at all. If only she wasn’t crazy. Fuck, even if she was crazy, maybe a kiss or a fuck if I can steer it to that.

Maybe with my age and my dire need for some kind of physical attention, I was getting desperate, but then that thought just buried itself and suffocated and died as she continued to talk. She sure knows how to turn people off and she’s just isn’t my brand of crazy.

As we continued this one sided fractured conversation, she began to tell me a story on why she’s going from a two-pack-a-day smoker to quitting. This was it. This was the long haul. This was where I truly found out how damaged she really was.

Renee made a note before she started. This is not a happy story. There is no happy ending.

And there wasn’t.

This is a story about love. First loves and from my experience, most first love stories never end well.

I’m not going to relay everything she said, ’cause I really can’t. There was a point where I stopped listening because the story is so fractured and filled with so many holes, that it was just pointless for me to keep up. It seemed she was making some stuff up on the fly as she pull little bits from her life to make it just believable, except for the inconsistencies and whatnot.

Ultimately it begins with her, at a young age. I don’t know, but I’m guessing around 14 or 15, even though she says that she was 17 at this time, or 23, depending where in the story you ask her. I’m guess it is a young age.

She went to a party, got drunk and had a 24 year old man take care of her. She was drunk. He was drunk. While trying to sober up at his place, dodging her dad and grandmother’s call, the man laid next to her on the bed, wanting a hug.

Renee thought he just needed a hug, wanting some comfort so she complied. Then he started to kiss her and she thought this was fine and eventually they did it. Again, I think she’s 14 or maybe 15 at this time.

Many will think this is statutory rape, and in a way, it is. But was it consensual? Maybe. Did he take advantage of her? Most definitely.

So there it flourished. There it was, love. Her first love.

Giddy and lovesick, she would sneak out and hang out with him during all hours of the night. She would ditch school to hang out with him, thinking she is learning a lot from him. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. She was blinded by what no one else can give her, not her father, nor her mother (which they are divorced).

Renee was blinded by a false sense of security that she was never provided. She’s latching on, for her life to continue feeling that way, that euphoria of young love of being the center of someone’s world. Love.

It’s a powerful and deadly drug if taken by the wrong person.

Seeing how she’s been misbehaving, her father decided to send Renee to her mom’s in Hawaii.

That didn’t fare well either as she felt confined, controlled. She rebelled and rebelled like any misunderstood and lost teenager would. Soon she’ll be sent back to her father.

Here she let it slip that she’s 15, even though she told me this all happened last year in March and she tells me she’s 24.

Soon, as with most relationships, he started to take her for granted. He’s jobless with nothing more than a GED. He can’t find a job and he spends most of his day playing video games.

He’s a catch. Any woman would be happy to have him, why not a troubled lonely unloved girl?

As she rambled on and on in her lost story, I put the fractured pieces together and soon it came to the initial story of why she’s quitting smoking.

But by then, I was already packed up and ready to go. By then, I was done with her story as I it seemed so unreliable and so full of holes that I dismissed everything she said.

By then I was done and want to get away from all the crazy.

I still remember her face as she reminisced, telling me the story. With a hidden strength of keeping her shit together, trying to hold in her tears, she reflected back on her life and the shit that she’s gone through. I see the melancholy on her face, the pain that only drugs can keep at bay.

There’s a kernel of truth in what she told me. Most stories have kernel of truths. It’s just a matter of picking them out and fitting them all together in their proper place.

Ultimately it was a story of a troubled girl with daddy issues who feels lost and unloved. The only thing that she knows about love is what was given to her by a man 10 years her senior who took it from her because of her naiveté; by a man, who manipulated her, raped her into believing that he loved her.

Maybe that’s why she found me, because I fit the bill, an older Asian man who seems nice who may be able to take her troubles away, to bring her back to that youthful euphoria that made her feel alive for once in her life.

But sadly, I am not that man who can give her what she wants. I will most likely fuck her up even more, using her and tossing her aside ’cause I just can’t deal with her crazy.

2011.

Vacation time. Off of the daily grind. Off on my own, to my own devices. Off.

I’m here, sitting again, spending the past half-an-hour wasting time, procrastinating from the usual finger tappings clearing my reader queue.

Here I am, starting, beginning, as I begin to think about the week ahead, deciding, planning, plotting on what it is that I want to do. How should I spend the upcoming week?

I know that the weekend is pretty much spoken for.

This weekend of bah humbugness is planned and planned and hopefully I’ll be able to execute it without any problems.

Looking forward to spending my time with strangers, helping them, volunteering my time to help feed the poor.

Then on the day itself, I’ll be on my own, with Pickles, driving away – Lake Arrowhead – The Salton Sea – Oceanside.

It’ll be a serene day. Hopefully I won’t be reachable as I try to cut communication with the outside world and just do my photowalks, exploring the different areas, different places I’ve never been. Just exploring.

* * *

There’s a plot, a plan that was put into action.

I just find it fascinating that many people is looking out for my best interest.

They find it in themselves to want to help me, or to see me get the best.

In a way it’s cute and it makes me feel loved that people would want to do that for me. But there are times when I’m like, why?

What have I done to deserve this? I am who I am. I try not to be anything but.

I do what is asked of me, because it is my job to.

And it just fascinates me that they feel comfortable enough with me to want to do this for me.

Going back to it:

The Plot.

It just came out of the blue as I went to visit the the Camp Counselor for something work related, which I don’t remember and then it started.

“I have a plan”, she starts. “I came up with it all on my own”, she told me.

She then proceeded to ask if I have any problems dating anyone from work. Given my circumstance, I said no. ‘Cause I honestly never did.

It is what it is. It seems that most of the people I have crushes on are from people at work, because there, I can be myself around. There’s no pressure. We have to work together, so, there are no pretensions on my side. This is me. Take it or leave it.

Whereas in a more social environment, I tend to get a little more clammy, shelled up in my own little psyche and uncomfortableness to let my true being come out and play.

She has a plan. She came up with it all on her own.

I asked her who she had in mind. Surprisingly she said it was the scene stealer.

Her plan. All on her own.

I didn’t let on, not yet. I asked her why. Why indeed? I want to hear from an outside perspective, someone who isn’t in the know and see what she says.

Cute. Smart. Nice. Just your general great qualities that I already see in her and know and like her for.

Then I let her in on my own not so little secret because in a way, it’s public knowledge. I have the biggest crush on her. I do.

She didn’t know.

The plot.

So, she’s working her little magic, her snoop snoop and trying to get intel.

I told her that the Ghofran had the inside scoop and that she doesn’t see me that way. She openly tossed that information aside. Not reliable information. Toss it aside.

So there it was.

As she scooped around, asking around, the more reinforcement she got that it was a good idea. A great idea.

All the time I can’t believe what is happening, laughing it off, but in a way hopeful. I’m not holding my breath, not hoping for anything, but just taking it all in stride.

I was the recommendation to her. This was before my knowledge of the plot. The the Camp Counselor did it all on her own. I was the recommendation, the suggestion. Others confirmed.

Just weird.

As she spoke to the Scene Stealer, getting the information. “Why?” she asked. Why me, indeed?

Smart. Generous. Funny. I can talk about a lot of different things. The blah blah blah of talking one up.

All she did was nod her head, taking in the information.

Maybe we can start with lunch or something…

So the the Camp Counselor says I should do it. Take my chance. Do it. Do it.

* * *

In a way I had always planned on doing it and in a way I already did. When are we going to hang out?….Yeah, we should. Maybe a movie or something. Just have to find something to watch.

And that was that. Weeks ago. Over a month ago and nothing came of it. It was like this time last year when I asked her to go watch a movie and nothing came of it.

Nothing came of anything.

In a way, it is my fault. I should be more forceful and strong and make it happen. I know I should.

I definitely should but there’s that fear in me that is holding it back. What if I fuck it up and then what we had, that friendship is forever gone and awkward?

That would be fucked and I’ll be sad to see that gone.

But I guess in a way, that’s what life is, taking that risk.

Taking that risk.

* * *

I did try but I took too long as we ended up discussing Shame.

I got cocked-blocked.

Fucking A.

Sigh.

But hope is not all lost.

* * *

So in a way, enough is enough.

People think it is cute. My Sister thinks it’s so cute that the hard-ass Camp Counselor would do some matchmaking.

Eh.

* * *