and the thunder rolls
Random thoughts:

I don’t like Willie Randolph. Sometimes you can actually pitch to Barry Bonds, like the opposite of every time it occurs to you, buddy. Stupid. Speaking of which: Keith Hernandez. Are you kidding me?

One of my co-workers, who apparently falls into the realm of “hockey fanatic” and who has already informed me that he will be taking me to games next October, said that the Hurricanes were going to sweep the Canadiens. He said that was a prediction from ESPN or something, and he agreed. I said no, I didn’t think they would sweep. As it turns out, I was right, but I also didn’t think they would lose the first two games at home and look bad doing it. I never publicly said that (until now) so I’m not accepting responsibility for being wrong there.

Free cherry soda is really good, takes me back to my childhood (when I drank Faygo Red Pop, oh my God, I might die soon), but it is probably very, very bad for me.

I talked to this guy yesterday, and he sounded like someone who I have decided I should never see again. (I decided this in December, so you can figure that one out for yourself.) It made me miss him.

My alarm is set to the radio, which is set to the local country station (shut up), and this morning it came on in the middle of “What Hurts the Most,” and while I think Rascal Flatts is annoyingly and almost unbearably whiny, the songs that they sing ALWAYS get to me. Because they are true. And I can never decide if it’s good that other people feel these things too, or if it’s bad, because then what you felt wasn’t really that special or unique after all.

I need a new crush, and the only guy who's even tickling my fancy is a bad, bad idea, in so many ways. I need a crush because I am not moving on (which is another Rascal Flatts song...sort of). And today that thing happened, that thing when you're talking to your friend of the opposite sex, and you have that thought, you know the one, where you think, hmm, maybe this guy... but no. No, you can't think that. The last time I had that thought, I ignored my gut instinct and finished the thought (about a week later) and look where that got me.

and it came upon me wave on wave
Fun fact: The Carolina Hurricanes record prior to Feb. 8th was 38-12-4, good for a winning percentage of .704. The Carolina Hurricanes record after Feb. 8th was 14-10-4, a winning percentage of .500. That's not as impressive. (I am master of the obvious!)

Tom Glavine, 04.19.06: "I was happy with it. I wasn't happy with how it ended." Amen.

How is it that you can simultaneously never want to see someone ever again and yet regularly miss that person so much it hurts? (That can be about whoever you want it to be about.)

no ace left in the hole
Sunday is my birthday. I'll be 26, and that feels old. I don't know.

Last year, to mark my 25th year of existence, Sarah took me out to dinner. We went to the Macaroni Grill, because that bread they give you as an appetizer, IT IS DIVINE. I would go for that alone. But I also wanted a birthday bellini, and Macaroni Grill, for your birthday, gives you this huge piece of chocolate cake covered with hot fudge sauce and toasted pecans (I think) with real whipped cream on the side. It is one of the top two restaurant chocolate cakes ever (also the chocolate souffle cake from CPK). The last time I did the Macaroni Grill thing for my birthday, which was probably five years ago or so, they brought out the cake, very low key, ate it. Yay. (Actually now that I think about it, it couldn't have been five years ago because that's when I turned 21, and I was working for the Astros, and Tom Glavine was pitching against them, which actually became a source of much embarrassment later on, but I am getting way off track.) Back to the Macaroni Grill. Sarah and I are eating, and then, across the room, the waiters start clapping, and singing, in Italian of course, for some guy's birthday on the other side of the restaurant. I immediately realize two things: (1)if I want the cake, I will have to endure the operatic happy birthday, and (2)hey, that guy just stole my thunder! Anyway, we finish our meal and Sarah says, to our server, "Hey, by the way, it's her birthday." And not two minutes later the opera-singing guy is coming over and asking my name. ("You can make something up if you want. Most people do.") I tell him, he sings, I blush. But I get the sweet, sweet reward: my chocolate cake, with a cute little candle in it.

That was actually the day before my birthday, because that was when I was still working for the Redbirds (now 1-11, love it!), and we started a homestand on my birthday. So I had to work. After work, I felt like drinking. Heavily. But I didn't want to go out because mostly the bars in Memphis suck, or the people in them do, so yeah. So, Sarah and I decided to just go watch movies at my apartment, while drinking heavily. (Okay, fine, I'm boring. I don't care.) We commence drinking. She is going to make me a cake, a deep dark chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, that I absolutely adore. I check my e-mail and look for cheap travel fares out of Memphis while she is in the kitchen. Which means that I am not really paying attention to what she's doing. Set the timer, continue drinking. Timer goes off. Cake's done. Sarah calls me over to look at it, because she's not sure if it's done. I stick a knife in it to test, 'cause I don't have any toothpicks. And it's a white cake. We then have the following conversation:

M: This is a white cake.
S: It is not.
M: Yes, it is. Look at it.
S: But I followed the recipe.
M: The recipe is for deep dark chocolate cake. This is white. Did you forget to add the cocoa?
S: No! I did not forget the cocoa!
M: You did! Hahaha. You forgot the cocoa!
S: No I did not. I opened it just for that.
M: Well maybe you opened it and then forgot to put it in.
S: (grabs recipe book) No, see, here it is, I added it right where it said to...here...3/4...oh. It says 3/4 of a cup. I might have added 3/4 of a teaspoon.

We ate it anyway, and it was good. And then we drank some more, and Sarah started calling random people, which was fine, until she made me talk to the Leffer, at which point she got mad because she likes him but he's an idiot, and he was talking to me instead of demanding to speak to her again, AND THEN, while I was in the bathroom, she went into my phone and found a number she shouldn't have and called Warren, while lying to me and telling me it was the Leffer. Fun times!

it's too late to regret it
I was sitting the break room at work today, folding event invitations that were to be sent out to local schools. One of my managers -- the one who knows entirely too much about my personal life and advises me on it -- was sitting there and commented on how neat the creases were.
Molly: Well, I'm anal.
MGR: And that's why it didn't work. You want to know why? That's it. Because he was anal. And two psychopaths don't work together.
Molly: Did you just...? What?
[Receiving manager enters. He says something to the already present manager.]
Molly: Just don't make her mad. She'll call you a psychopath.
RM: What?
MGR: I didn't say you were a psychopath! I was just saying that in some ways, she's like her ex-boyfriend. And he's a psychopath.
RM: Do we ... know this person?
[pause]
MGR: It's your former psychopath.
RM: Oh, you mean Alex.
Molly: It wasn't exactly the best-kept secret around here.
RM: Oh no. We knew from the very beginning. The way you two would talk out on the floor.
Molly: But nothing happened at the very beginning! Nothing happened until the middle of December.
RM: Uh huh.
MGR: He was in the store the other day, you know.
RM: Really?
MGR: Yeah. He came by and was all friendly, and I was like, "What are you doing here? I don't want you here. You were a no-call no-show on your last day."
[Okay. I have heard this statement now from four different people, and ... you think I have problems letting go of stuff? Well, you're right, but still. For what we get paid, and the crap we have to put up with, can you really blame someone for not showing up? I mean, it's not in the best taste, but seriously? Not that big a deal. And I am still defending him. Anyway.]
MGR: He said he had his first day off in eight days, so he finally had some free time, and he thought he'd come see a movie by himself. But then he ended up talking to [Eye Candy] all night, and he didn't make the movie.
RM: His first day off in eight days, huh? Was he burned out? That's what he'd always say to me. "I'm burned out." So I'd say, "Well, do you need me to cut your hours? What can I do?" That's what pissed me off. I tried to work with him every step of the way. He was burned out, so I'd try to cut his hours, but no, he didn't want that, he needed the money, but he was burned out. I didn't know what else to do. And then when he left, he gave two weeks notice, and I said, "Thank you. Thank you." Because I know my receivers, they aren't going to stay around forever, and he gave me two weeks, and I appreciated that. But then he came in and said it was actually one week, and he told me that on Tuesday, and then Friday he didn't show up. So it was more like two days, not two weeks. And it wasn't me, it was my other employees that it affected. People had to switch their schedules and work harder. That's what made me mad.
MGR: See, he doesn't show any consideration to anyone else. He's just an asshole, and you and [Eye Candy] are the only ones who don't see it.
Molly: Nancy spit in his drink.
MGR: What?!?
Molly: She was in the cafe that night.
MGR: [laughs]
RM: So I guess we shouldn't piss off Nancy. ... Is he still working at the RBC Center?
Molly: I don't know. He's not talking to me. But I assume he is.
RM: Why isn't he talking to you? What'd you do?
[That is so NOT what I needed to hear.]
Molly: I don't know!
MGR: She's too good for him, and he figured it out, and that's why he broke up with her. [RM], you know him, and you know her. Tell her she's too good for him.
RM: [forms an L with his thumb and forefinger and holds it to his forehead] He's a loser.

love is a burning thing
This was originally written about a week and a half before I went to Seattle:

So I was talking to my lesbian lady lover (ha! Google hit!) Sarah last night. We have the same conversation repeatedly, actually several conversations that we just re-visit over and over because we have no resolution, or something, but anyway, it was the one where I talk about HWMNBN and then she talks about the Leffer. And I said to her, "The thing that I really want to know, and that I probably never will know for sure, is why HWMNBN and I never had a chance at a functional relationship. Was it because he decided he didn't want a relationship with me, or was it just bad timing?" Now, he has told me that he wanted me after he'd freaked out about the whole thing, for lack of a better term, but he was, you know, freaking out, and there were all those extenuating circumstances. But, because I like to overanalyze these things, I wonder: did he just want me as a piece of ass? Or did he want me? Or did he never want me but he was being nice and letting me down easy? It's not like knowing the answer to the original question (why we never even had a chance) would make me feel good. I mean, either I was just a piece of ass, which no one likes to hear, or we could have had something but we missed it because of...timing. So, yeah, neither option is good. But I really want to know.

And then today I was thinking, really, I just want to know the answers to all this stuff. Like, do I ever get to meet the right man? Do I ever get the right job? What gives? It's the limbo part that sucks, and what sucks about that is that the limbo part is...life.

Okay. Well. That was fun.

Do you note, perhaps, a certain similarity in my feelings? I think that what TLB did, not being honest and saying he wanted to be friends and basically just disappearing, was about the worst thing he could've done (not quite the worst, but almost), BECAUSE THAT WAS THE SAME DAMN THING THAT HWMNBN HAD DONE. Funny (funny ironic, not funny ha-ha) is what follows in this entry, which, in case you can't figure it out, is about TLB, sort of a beginning, if you will.

In other news, I was positively charmed the other day when a (single!) co-worker gave me a Carolina Hurricanes foam finger. See, I had been giving him crap about the Hurricanes, because he works over at the RBC Center as a bartender on gamenights, and he said, "Well, for that, you're getting a Hurricanes foam finger." (Oh my God. This sounds so, so stupid as I am typing it.) Didn't really think any more of it, until the next time we work together, and he says, "I just wanted to tell you that you're my Hurricanes good luck charm, because that day you gave me a hard time, they beat the Maple Leafs, but the next game, you didn't give me a hard time, and they lost to the Thrashers. The Thrashers!" So I said, "Well, haha, where's my foam finger?" And he said it was in his truck, and then he said he had to walk around and around before he could find the last open souvenir shop to buy it, and I guess the moral of the story is I'm easy because I just thought it was awesome that he actually got it for me.

Yeah. Awesome.

Ooh, new news: the plane ticket for my trip to Des Moines (via Kansas City) has been purchased. I WILL FINALLY GET TO MEET THE LEFFER.

some of the best times you'll never remember
The new boy: gone. I don't think my heart was really in it, and he was nice and all, but there was just no spark. And I thought maybe it would happen in time, because I've fallen for friends in the past (not that it's worked before, but whatever), but I was thinking way too much about it. And I figured if I had to think that much, then it was a bad sign. And I asked one of the guys at work so I could get a guy's perspective (incidentally, it was one who does NOT know the whole sad story, and one who has not previously given me any sort of relationship advice), and he said you can tell right away if it's something you should pursue, if there's that connection, and if it's not right there, right now, well, then why waste your time? He took it a step further and said if anything ever happened to make him realize he couldn't marry the person, he would stop everything just like that.

Just for kicks, I was reading my now-defunct old blog this evening. So for the time being, instead of posting new entries, I'll just re-post old ones. Actually I see that while the names and faces and locations have changed, the big important things haven't, so I'm not any better off now than I was then. I'll have to keep chalking it up to experience, I guess, and hopefully one day I'll learn.

This is what I miss about my old job:

-----Original Message-----
From: Molly
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 12:49 PM
Subject: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

[information about the people they signed]

-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:01 PM
To: Molly
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

Wow we just added a ton of star power :)


-----Original Message-----
From: Molly
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:03 PM
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

I know, right? [Mutual friend] and I are commiserating over the lack of [certain favorite player] on the list.


-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:22 PM
To: Molly
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

So does that mean he is not coming back?


-----Original Message-----
From: Molly
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:28 PM
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

It doesn't mean anything for sure. He hasn't signed anywhere yet (or it hasn't been announced), and of course as you pointed out, he is as old as the hills and may retire to spend time with the missus and the little [family name] boys. I saw that [another person] and his wife, just had their third kid - that is one fertile family.


-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:30 PM
To: Molly
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

HAHAHA...you crack me up. I guess I will have to spend a great deal of time consoling you and [mutual friend] if [certain favorite player] doesn't come back and the fact that we have no [other player who is dumb as a rock but funny]...whatever will you two do? I guess we still have [yet another player] "hey I'm winter" [with a cool nickname].

-----Original Message-----
From: Molly
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:33 PM
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

Good ol' Winter. He's married now, too, you know. Maybe [another person] will be single. His [picture] is fairly nice. But certainly, I will need a great deal of consoling. (Not over [dumb-as-rocks player], though he was funny.) I feel sure that [mutual friend] will find a new [favorite] among the players... ;)

-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 1:48 PM
To: Molly
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

HAHAHA...I am sure she will. Why can't we ever have a good team? Why do we continually have to suck? I would like to see us win more than 30 games at home. Did you know that they offered me a tryout for the [team]? They saw my cannon of an arm and the fact that I could throw from very shallow center to the pitcher's mound without a bounce. I think I may make the team. My average couldn't be any lower than [former player who was bad]'s. :)


-----Original Message-----
From: Molly
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 2:00 PM
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

See, what had happened was that they got you confused with that other Ryan [last name] and they thought you were already under contract with somebody else. Otherwise they would've signed you. I wonder if "[bad player's nickname]" will sign on with anyone.

We have to suck because the [parent club] want to beat us down. They want morale to be low. They will probably sign Barry Bonds to go play at [the Double-A affiliate]. And Michael Jordan will come out of retirement again to play there as well.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 2:02 PM
To: Molly
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

Are you being sarcastic or are they really trying to beat us down? By God we are the crown jewel of minor league baseball. Lets go be affiliated with the 75-time World Champion Cubs (in my mind). I am better than the other Ryan [last name]. He, and the rest of the baseball world, just don't know it yet.

-----Original Message-----
From: Molly
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 2:03 PM
To: Ryan
Subject: RE: [THE PARENT CLUB SIGNED SOME PEOPLE]

I was being sarcastic...

don't mention Memphis

 I just have to say, with baseball season upon us (and I am really excited about that, more than I thought I would be), that any mean thoughts I might have regarding anybody who has ever broken my heart do not even come remotely close to the intense hatred I feel for [certain Memphian]. I never had any trouble seeing his red asshole flags waving. I don't wish bad things on most people, except, you know, the occasional sprained ankle on a Duke basketball player, but [Memphian], he deserves so much worse. Karma, you know. I don't know when, but hopefully someday it will bite him in the ass.

Oh happy day: Tom Glavine and Roy Oswalt starting on Opening Day. And the possibilities that are lining up for my trip to Des Moines, the possibilities...

here's to the past, they can kiss my glass

I'll go ahead and admit it, it bothers me that I had absolutely no control over the TLB situation. He's the one who decided it was going to end. He's the one who decided that we weren't going to be friends, that we weren't even going to communicate EVER AGAIN. He's the one who decided not to give me any sort of explanation. I didn't get to decide anything. Also, I don't like losing friends. It's that simple. (Ha. It's anything but simple.)

Yesterday I got a co-worker intervention about my selection of assholes as dating partners, or even just as friends. A group of four co-workers informed me that it was blindingly obvious that TLB was an asshole from the very beginning, and that I should have noticed, how could I be so stupid as to go out with him? But ... I don't see it. We were friends. I enjoyed talking to him. As we were just friends, I wasn't analyzing it in a sort of "hmm, how would we be in a relationship" kind of way, but still, if I had thought that he was an asshole, then I wouldn't have gone out with him in the first place. Even trying the "hindsight is 20/20" thing, I still fail to see it. I see other things, like how he just up and quit the job, which is, you know, not the same as quitting on a relationship but does show a certain lack of commitment, but I don't see the red asshole flags waving. Until the end, that is. I see them then.

Apparently, everyone else saw from the start that he was self-centered and needy and always felt compelled to one-up you. And he didn't take anyone else's feelings into consideration, and OH MY GOD, THE ISSUES. Co-worker #1 said, "Well, I guess I can understand why you didn't see that...love really is blind," but that still doesn't work, because FRIENDS. We started out just as friends, so I wasn't wearing lust blinders. (I was wearing NSG blinders, as it happens, but that just makes it more likely that I would have noticed problems with TLB, doesn't it? I don't know.) Co-worker #2 said, "I mean, we wanted him to be happy, but we just figured if he was going to ruin someone's life, he should do it to someone we don't like."

I am all screwed up. I am trying to write this now so I get it out and I don't fuck up the next one. The next relationship, I mean, not the next guy. I couldn't take responsibility for that if I tried.

Co-worker #3 told me yesterday that he wraps sausage a lot, and it is hard to wrap. That cracked me up.

+++

I finally got tagged.

Four jobs I've have had in my life:
1. media relations coordinator
2. merchandise cast member for Walt Disney World
3. bookseller
4. library page

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Love Actually
2. Bridget Jones’s Diary
3. Fletch
4. Bull Durham 

Four places I have lived:
1. Durham, NC
2. Orlando, FL
3. Houston, TX
4. Memphis, TN

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Grey’s Anatomy 
2. Gilmore Girls
3. The Amazing Race
4. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Switzerland
2. Salt Lake City, UT
3. Erie, PA
4. Amsterdam

Four websites I visit daily:
1. www.myspace.com
2. www.hotmail.com
3. www.chron.com
4. www.google.com

Four of my favorite foods:
1. mashed potatoes
2. pasta with tomatoes, basil and garlic
3. Moe’s burritos with salsa verde
4. chocolate

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Texas
2. Colorado
3. out of the country
4. in someone’s arms (ha! haha!)

even when I'm tempted by some stranger
Yesterday, at work, one of my managers (who was in on the "Molly's type" conversation) commented that I hadn't made a move on the new guy yet, and I said he didn't really do anything for me, I mean, he seems nice and he's kind of cute, but...he really doesn't do anything for me, and she said, "Oh, yeah, I guess it's because he's not skeezy enough for you." (I don't know how to spell that word, actually.) A co-worker who was standing next to me at the time said, "And he's not an asshole!"

I am starting to get a little bit upset by this whole running commentary on my taste in men. I realize that I bring it on myself by talking about them, but still. There happened to be two guys who I was sort of attracted to, at work, and I went out with one of them, and, you know, it ended quite badly, actually, but it didn't affect anything at work, because he wasn't working there anymore by then (which had nothing to do with me, thank you), and I'm never going to go out with the other one, but he is my friend and I do enjoy talking to him, and hanging out with him, and the continuous badmouthing of both of these guys is starting to wear on me. (That is a really long sentence.) Maybe I have crappy judgement when it comes to men, I don't know. I still don't think they are skeezy guys, or that they're bad guys. I think one of them has acted really shitty towards me, but I suppose he has some reason for that, one that could perhaps be valid, although since I don't know what it is I can't comment, and I don't think he's actually an asshole, even though it is fun to say he is right now, in a sort of cathartic way. (And I might be allowed to say it, as I am the only one directly affected by this, but no one else is allowed to! And they say it, and I end up defending him.) And the other one might be a self-proclaimed asshole, but I think he's a pretty good guy, too. So enough already, okay? It really doesn't help my state of mind if you say that friends (or former friends, as it were) of mine are bad people. That just insults me, not them, since they're not around to hear it, and I am there to hear you tell me that I suck at choosing friends, or lovers, as the case may be. To quote Bridget Jones: "...You really needn't bother. I already feel like an idiot most of the time anyway."

I went to the hockey game Wednesday night. I debated wearing my jersey but couldn't in the end. The Hurricanes lost, and I couldn't decide if that was a bad thing or not. The Capitals scored a really nice shorthanded goal, and their goalie stopped almost everything that got shot at him, and really the 'Canes just got their asses kicked. And of the 15,547 other people there, did I really need to see that person who I happened to see? I don't think so. (Ha! I am resuming my cryptic ways!)

give me a good reason why

In my high school psychology class, we learned about the five stages of death and dying, postulated on by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. These later were expanded to the five stages of loss, of losing a loved one. Handy acronym to remember them by for the AP Exam: DABDA. This stands for

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Which is all fine and good and interesting, except I think I skip around. Denial is a good first one: Well, he's kind of ... avoiding me, and there was that porno sitting on the floor by the DVD player, which seems like a bad sign... But then I sort of move into a depressed half-acceptance, half-denial/delusional phase: Okay, he doesn't want to be with me right now, but maybe one day he will. This is followed by a period of depression, and then some bargaining. Perhaps we could still be friends. We were friends, once, and there's no reason we couldn't be again (except that he's incapable of acting like a rational adult, but, hey, details!). Followed by some more bargaining. Okay, if he doesn't want me, that's fine. You can't control who you fall for, fall in love with, whatever, I get that. I don't see why we can't be friends, but if we can't do that, then fine. But can't we maybe be civil? In the company of mutual friends? And if not, then could I at least maybe get an explanation of what I did wrong, so I can avoid that in my next relationship? This, finally, is followed by a short period of intense depression and a longer period of barely suppressed blinding fiery rage. [See: Monday's entry.] Then I get to a point where I can accept it.

I mean, I realize it's just me, and I'm clearly an idiot (clearly), but this is a pattern that I have seen several times over. It varies in intensity, but the steps are the same. And they're not DABDA! They're something unintelligible and not cute and easy to remember.

I ... I think I need to go read some more self-help books. This too shall pass. Hopefully by Friday. Do you think it's bad to have a first date on April Fools Day? I'm just wondering.