Excuse Me Ma'am, I Can See Your Ass

Dory is not my friend.

I have been working under the idea that this girl, as strange and competitive as she is, genuinely enjoys my company. And I was wrong.

Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time, I was friends with a girl we'll call Sam. Sam was a lovely person when I was hanging out with just her, but as soon as another person entered the room, it would become a contest of attention-grabbing. And her, being more conventionally attractive and forthright than I, would always win. If ever the person's attention would waver, she would do... Something. Something dumb, occasionally slutty, once in awhile entertaining. And sure she fucked the guy I liked in my house, but she was my poor, unfortunate, insecure friend... Right?

Soy incorecto.

Sam was not my friend. Sam liked hanging around me because I was kinder, less bold, less pretty, and I took far longer than the average human to rid myself of her toxic influence.

Dory is starting to show many of the same symptoms; she challenged me to a contest she's sure she can win, she carries a better-than-thou attitude, but now she's trying to grab Alex's attention.

We had a small, impromptu movie night on Saturday. To make a long story much shorter, I drank an entire bottle of wine and was sitting on Alex's lap as she stuck her butt out and brought up sex every five minutes. I messed up. I showed my hand. She knows that I still love him, and now she's going to sleep with him.

(You're right, it does take two to tango-and Alex has his dancing shoes on. He does want to sleep with other people but you know what, I don't even have it in me to transcribe THAT series of conversations right now).

And today she invites the two of us to a brewery tour. Oh, no. I've been third-wheeled before. I've played this game, and there are no winners. She wants what I have(Alex, the muse, good friends) and she's not used to getting what she wants. She doesn't spend time with me because she likes me, she hangs out with me because she thinks I'm an easier target. I'm the weaker, slower antelope and she wants to be safe when the lions come.


Dory is not my friend.

Now, Weight A Minute

When I was a young lass, perhaps 7 or 8, I was one of only two girls growing up in my neighborhood. The other was Becky, a spunky girl my age. One day, as I was outside with my dad, Becky ran into my yard and said "Hey! Wanna fight?" I looked up at my dad. "Can I?" To which my father, shining paragon of child-rearing, shrugged and said "Well, if she wants to."

So I turned around and clocked her right in the nose as hard as I could.

She ran off crying and bloodied. I don't remember exactly what happened after that; I know that I never got in trouble, and my dad recalls the story with some pride in his heart. And to be perfectly honest, I never felt bad for hitting her. She asked for it. Literally asked for that fight. As far as I could tell, she never held it against me either.

The point of this foray into my childhood was to reveal something very interesting about my personality: I do not pull punches I'm asked for. It's a little incongruous with my overall gentle nature, I know, but the fact remains. If you ask for a fight from me, you'll get one.

Which is the exact reason I normally don't enter competitions with friends. No matter how much I love them, I will absolutely do what I can to win(Not in an "after-school special on sportsmanship and cheating" kind of way, more a "play as well as I possibly can with no regard for who needs that win more" kind of way). I don't trash-talk. I just give it my best effort, and take what prizes I can.

But when new friend(Let's call her Dorothy, Dory for short) Dory proposed a weight loss contest over the span of a month, it didn't sit right with me. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe because she's vastly smaller than I am anyway. Maybe because it's another in what's become an ongoing series of "friendly rivalries"(the first of which is the one she thinks we have over the muse; little does she know that it's not friendly or a rivalry). Maybe it's just that my weight is such a hot-button issue for me anyway.

Whatever my unease, my natural reaction was still "Absolutely." Because I know, deep inside, that I'm going to win. I know more about my body than she does; I know how fast it takes me to lose ten pounds one way, or five pounds another. I work best in three day cycles. Monos work well, intermittent fasting doesn't. This is a language I am fluent in(to which one might reply "But why don't you lose more weight then?" To which I would say "Because it is exhausting and I cycle from caring immensely to not caring at all which keeps me stable in the numbers department, but don't be fuckin' rude and let me get on with my blog post").

Long story made slightly less long, we weighed in yesterday. There was an outlining of the rules and a mutual "Oh wow, you don't look like you weigh that much at all", rounded out with a discussion of poundage vs. percentages. We settled on percentages. The loser buys the winner a new outfit(within monetary reason, of course). And now, the game is on.

I discussed this whole matter with Alex when I got home. He brought up the idea that despite all the wonderful things she has going for her, Dory is, at best, an extremely insecure individual. She wants to have a contest of weight loss with someone wayyyyy larger than her, who also happens to be close to the current object of her affections? A little symptomatic.

Unfortunately for her, I don't pull punches when asked for a fight. So I'm going to whip her little butt.

Of course, my coworker just brought me a slice of pizza, so this might be a little harder than I thought.

Radio Overplay

Let's keep with the radio theme, since I like detailed metaphors.

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought "Wow! What a great song! I hope they play this one again!" And then they do play it again. And it still sounds great. Which leads a few other people to say "Wow! What a great song! I hope they play this one again!"

Eventually, the great song will be playing all the time. It's good, at first; you learn the lyrics by heart. But in time the song gets old. It feels less and less like a familiar friend, more and more like a tiresome routine. It has fallen victim to... overplay.

I think the same can happen to people, and events. We go over them in our head so many times that we know the words, the chords. The lyrics have all been analyzed, we divine all the possible meanings we can, and we're left with a thorough understanding of something we once just enjoyed.

I've gone over every minute detail of that night, both by myself and with other people. Everyone is making the same conclusions. They're good conclusions, too. But I've gotten so wrapped up in what everything means, that I've let go of how it felt.

What I felt was elation. I had an amazing night with one of the best souls the world has to offer. For the first time in possibly my life, I felt entirely connected to another human being; that no matter how fucked up I think I am, or how lost, or weird, or different, there's someone that sees that and knows it all too well(which is not to say no one else tries to understand or accept me, just that he in particular has a similar experience).

So I'm going to stop overplaying the song and just enjoy listening to it again. I'm going to stop worrying how he feels, and just enjoy that he likes to spend time with me, and that I can be myself.

It just might turn out to be my favorite song.

Radio Static

I love to fly down a back road with the radio blasting, when the notes are crystal clear and your heart syncs to the drum beat. And then...

Static.

It creeps in, making the words a little fuzzy, the treble a little unbearable. And there's not much you can do but drive through it or change the station.

For all the radio silence, I've had a song in my heart for awhile now(if I had to be specific, it would sound like this or possibly this). But since nothing gold can stay, static has been creeping in, mostly in the form of Alex.

I'll be the first to admit that our relationship will probably never be strictly platonic. And after the years of history we've had, who would really expect it to be? But somehow, I've never really felt like the book was closed on "us". And it sucks. I don't want to end up a Rachel Green(because who in the hell gives up a dream job in Paris for Ross Geller?!). Maybe he's my lobster, but what if I'm not into seafood?

Friends metaphors aside, I'm not the only one of use that feels that way. We had a talk on our back porch the other night. I won't go into great detail, but we talked a lot about "us" and our problems. We admitted that we had been pretty great during all of the times we weren't a couple, but those eight months we were? Shitshow. I admitted that as jealous as I would be, he should date other people(or at least try). He admitted that all this with the muse had stirred up a lot of feelings. We laid out a few ground rules(Honesty, for starters. Romantic partners were welcome to come to the house, but no sex. Things like that), and decided that what we really needed was to rebuild our friendship.

Just as I was getting ready to go inside, he says "Can I ask a question? I mean, it'll make me sound like an asshole." Gearing up for what was sure to be the kind of question that made him sound like an asshole, I said sure. In a quiet voice he says "Do you think we're ever gonna get back together?' And he sounded so sad and hopeful that I wanted to punch him in his face.

Now, I could've lied and made it easier on myself. "No, Alex, we're totally done." I could've done that, and maybe i should've. But I was honest. "I don't know. Maybe. We'll just have to see how it goes."

And now there's static in my radio. Not because I question the feelings I have for the muse; If anything, I'm more sure of them. It's from the creeping feeling that my nice, clear drive is a fragile thing, depending on a few waves of broken up signals.

Time to switch to a CD.

Radio Silence

There's nothing more frightening to me than absolute silence.

Imagine you're in the car, and you tune your radio to one of your favorite stations, but nothing is there. Your friendly neighborhood djs are absentee, there's no music. It's creepy. I've always thought that an apocalypse would be known by it's silence.

But being the writer-type I am, the term "radio silence" has leaked into my vernacular for other situations(What can I say? It's a neat term). My dad not answering his phone? Radio silence. No word on whether the college is going to close for the snow? Radio silence.Have a great night with someone and think it's leading somewhere really positive, then having that person not talk to you or cross paths for the whole next week?

Radio silence.

It was a great night. A perfect night. Adventure, enchantment. Way more than I had bargained for, honestly. And I thought, I mean I really, really thought something was happening. It was like the tingle of electricity in the air before a summer thunderstorm. Or, to be less cliche, the feeling I imagine one would have if they were standing on the beach right before a tsunami hit, watching the water retreat and knowing damn well that they were gonna git hit like hell(much like the video below, a clip from the cinematic masterpiece "Deep Impact".)

To be perfectly fair, I don't know what I expected after that. Certainly not grand declarations of love; I'm a hopeless romantic, but not a fool. Maybe a text. That would seem appropriate in 2016. But absolutely nothing? I hadn't counted on that.

The rational part of my brain has come up with a handy-dandy list of reasons why this could be happening: Feelings are big scary things, he has other things on his mind, he wants to maintain the great friendship we have, we work together and he's not about that, it was a one-off and he was just feeling sort of cheeky that night, that something is still coming and I just need to be patient. These are all logical things. But as my rational brain only works for about 10% of my day, the rest of my brain has come up with it's own list of reasons that are far worse: He changed his mind, I somehow gave him the impression that I wasn't interested, or(and this is the very worst one) I'm making more out of it than it was and it's all in my head because I'm starved for affection.

Of course, the obvious question at this point is probably "Why don't you just ask him??" To which I say, "AHHHHHASDFHISKLAF;DAJ;." Which loosely translates to "I don't want to ask about something I'm half afraid I took more to heart than I should've and ruin what is at very least a fantastic friendship, also I'm not good at talking to boys."

Which leaves me sitting here by the radio, keeping it tuned and waiting for an update. So far, nothing but silence, but there has to be someone out there. Right?