U – G – H!

(Originally written on September 16, 2009)

.

I just read the following post on Tomboy’s Facebook wall from her best friend (other than Gaston), who just happens to also be Gaston’s ex (not Heartbreaker, though):

I can’t wait to see you and Gaston at the LSU game.  Speaking of…tell that there boyfriend of yours that I saw a lonely black sheep wandering around on his farm earlier.  He should go find it.  Then maybe your lonely brown cow will have a friend.  Good luck out there – I hear running a virtual farm is tough work.

Ugh!  Not only do I now know for a fact that Tomboy and Gaston are actually dating (well, I’m going to cross-reference that with Rowdy, just to be sure), but they’re going to be in town together for MY football game – the only one that I get to go home for and attend all year.

Communication Breakdown

(Originally written on July 25, 2009)

.

Bluto is here…that’s odd.  I can’t believe that he made the five-hour drive down here just to help Gaston move.

They were all here yesterday/last night:  Bluto, Gaston, Rowdy, Napoleon, Leto.  I was trapped inside of my apartment all day and night in order to avoid running into them, but that didn’t stop me from periodically peering out at them through my blinds (childish, I know).  Then, they had a little “party” at Leto’s apartment last night; her living room is right below mine.  It went on for hours and they were being SOOO loud, I couldn’t help but hear them yukking it up down there.  Especially because I had the volume on my TV turned down low and I made a conscious effort to make as minimal noise as possible – I just prefer that they not know I was there and I wanted to be invisible to them, not even an afterthought in the backs of their minds.  Oh well, I’m glad to see to see them leave.

•     •     •     •     •

Gaston sent me a text that simply read, “Hey”, at 12:30 this afternoon as he was in the process of moving out.  That’s the first time there has been any communication between us at all since June 3^rd.  I hope he’s not expecting for me to respond.  And even if he is, he could have at least tried a little harder than just, “Hey”…

Rampant Miscellany

(Originally written on April 23, 2009)

.

Graduation from my Master’s program is less than a month away and Beast and Martyr keep asking me what I want.  First, allow me to share with you what happened with last year’s graduation present:

The deal has always been that I would get a new car upon graduating from college.  I drive a 2001 Nissan Altima that I got when I turned 16.  Yes, I turned 16 in 2001, but Beast, being his frugal self, got a great deal on it.  It had been some dude’s business car for a year – so, considering it was only one year old (since the 2001 models were released in 2000), it had a lot of miles on it…hence, the “deal”.  Okay, so anyways, when I graduated last May I didn’t need a new car since I was staying here for another year and my little Altima runs great. *  In lieu of this, I instead got $1,000 (which – hey – I’m not complaining, something’s better than nothing!) and Beast got a brand new motorcycle for himself.  I just felt a little jipped, that’s all.

*  Random memory/thought triggered:  I’ve never been one to name my car.  However, in high school my best friend (at the time) and I decided that we thought that my emergency break looked like a penis and that we needed to name it something appropriate.  We decided that Newt was a very fitting, penis-sounding name.  I still refer to it as Newt to this day!

Back to what I want for graduation…  It’s hard to ask for anything until I know what I’m going to be doing with my life.  Whenever I eventually find a job and depending on where it is, I might not need a car.  Martyr is insistent upon doing a mother-daughter massage.  Whatever, that’s cool.  Other than that, though, I think I want an iPod touch.  Chip and Dale are graduating this May too (from high school).  I asked Dale what he thought.  He liked the idea and thinks he’s going to ask for the same thing.  Good deal.

Speaking of job uncertainty, I was supposed to have heard from the HR chick at Bacchus on Monday.  Still no call.

In order to become better acquainted with the wine business processes and Bacchus’s products in general, Beast helped me set up a “shadowing”, if you will, for this Friday. I will be going around with one of the wine salesmen from his distributorship for the day.  I’m definitely looking forward to expanding my knowledge about my beloved wine and its industry, BUT this is going to require a full day’s work starting at 7 in the morning!  I mean, not wake up at 7am, but be there and ready-to-go at 7am.  That is going to be rough…

•     •     •     •     •

I FULLY COMPLETED the campus newspaper crossword yesterday ALL ON MY OWN!  Woo-hoo!  I knocked it out in record speed:  all of it during my one-hour-and-fifteen-minute class while also paying some attention and taking notes.  It was a mini-achievement for me.

•     •     •     •     •

I had a test a couple of weeks ago in a class that is utterly pointless.  Just yesterday, I picked it up from my campus box, only to realize that I scored a 75 on it.  Wow.  My “I just don’t give a shit about school anymore” attitude has drastic effects.  My GPA is a 4.0.  Guess I won’t be holding onto that for the remainder of my education…  And I still don’t care.

I’m over it.  The entire school deal in all.  I am just ready to be done with it and enter the real world.

•     •     •     •     •

Upon getting back to the apartment after class Tuesday, I paid a visit to Gaston.  He was in his boxers, just being lazy and lying in bed.  It turned me on a little, not gonna lie.  So I laid with him for a bit and tried to coax him into hooking up. Yes, I actually had to persuade him to have sex.  This went on for quite some time.  At one point he said it wouldn’t be as fun because he was already practically naked, besides the fact that he had errands that he needed to run.  Then, at some slightly later point, he ended up just putting on a pair of shorts.  Then he took a call from Bluto.  This was my window of opportunity.

I started kissing down his chest and stomach…he made no effort to stop me (he had laid back down with me on his bed).  I proceeded to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his shorts – he hadn’t even zipped them up!  I then slid off both his shorts and his boxers.  He still had made absolutely no effort to stop any of this, by the way.  And then I started going down on him (yes, while he was on the phone with Bluto).  It was quite entertaining, actually.  He couldn’t hardly get out a complete thought and Bluto asked him what was wrong (I have a huge grin on my face right now).

Needless to say, he gave in – yet he warned me it wouldn’t last very long since I had been “playing with [him]” – yes, those were his actual words – for 10 minutes already.  Then once I got the condom, he just went straight to it!  I was like, “What?  No warm up for me?”  And he brought up the errands he needed to run again.  Anyways, he lasted longer than I expected, given his warning.

Then, as soon as I got on top of him, my nose started bleeding.  He happened to have a roll of toilet paper right there because of his allergies.  So…he ended up cumming while I had a wad of toilet paper sticking up/out of my nose…  One of the weirdest, most awkward experiences of my life – and you know how I feel about awkward!

Looking back, he took up just about as much time bitching about his errands leading up to sex as it took for us from start to finish.  The deal was:  if he had sex with me, I would go with him to run his errands.  We ended up going to a drive-up ATM to get his account balance and then to the grocery store, where he just got Fudge Rounds, Andoille sausage (apparently he’s making Jumbalaya for me sometime soon), and Gatorade.  Seriously, that was it for his errands.

Stepping back a bit to when we were debating having sex:  Gaston revealed to me that he doesn’t like kissing – he doesn’t dislike/hate it, but he doesn’t like it.  WHAT?!  I don’t even know how to verbalize my feelings about that right now.

•     •     •     •     •

I had an appointment with Angel Tuesday for the first time in a while (my shrink suggested I see him since I was under so much stress and experiencing so much anxiety).  I told him about my worries about school/finding a job/not having health insurance once I graduate and he went on about those for a while.  I mean, yes, I’m worried (at least, somewhat) about all of those things, but I realize at this point that all I can do is take them as they come.

Then, we got onto the topic of my love/dating life.  Here we go…

I told him about the whole Gaston situation and why he won’t make our relationship official.  Angel then asked me a few questions that I never saw coming.

From what you’ve told me about Gaston, your relationship with him reminds me a lot of your relationship with X.  I keep hearing more and more negatives.  Why are you still dealing with Gaston? What do you actually like about him?

Wow.  This threw me for a loop.  My immediate response:  “He’s nice; he’s…” and I went on.

Okay.  “Nice”.  When I was in a sorority and going through rush, we thought of “nice” as an adjective we only used to describe a girl that was either just okay or had northing great/memorable/outstanding about her.

Even now I see myself trying to block this out of my mind.

Then Angel asked me,

Why are you doing this?  How does it make you feel that he won’t make the relationship ‘official’?

Honestly, I know what I want:  a relationship (obviously), and I would (I think, at least) really enjoy one with Gaston.  BUT – I realize that I may be moving somewhere new and far away once I find a job:  so I’m hesitant to start a relationship just in time to move far, far away.

Am I just making excuses?  Just to cope with Gaston’s unwillingness to commit?

Angel suggested that I sit down with Gaston and talk about it – which I would love to do, but Gaston does continually remind me of how he only thinks about the “here and now” and doesn’t look into the future.  I just feel like that’s all I would get out of that conversation.

I also talked with Angel about X.  I’ve been thinking lately about getting together to talk to him (X) about working on becoming friends.  My intentions here are mainly so that I can work on moving on – not just for Gaston, but for me and the rest of my potential love life.

One night a couple of weeks ago or so, I was upset (and probably slightly drunk…yea, chances are pretty high) and going to bed.  All the things I wanted to say to X were flooding my mind.  In order to get them out of my mind and to ensure that I would remember them, I got out of bed and wrote X a letter addressing my feelings and concerns:

X –

To be perfectly honest, I feel insulted that the first thing you always ask me about it my cats.  I mean, even if you didn’t know me (which you kinda don’t anymore), you would at least ask me about the whole job thing.

You and what’s-her-face can get over the whole “me dating again” thing.  Because, just like I told you a while ago, it may be YEARS before I even date again – IF I ever even do.  You can have full confidence in the fact that I am over you; HOWEVER, I am not over what you did to me, and I may never be.

Please, at least give me the opportunity to be your friend – both of your friends.  That is the only way I can foresee myself getting on with my life.

BUT – if you prefer to remain strangers, please let me know.

I mean, I am jobless and have no idea how I can possibly get out of this town and out of your hair.  We can’t ignore this forever.

Elliott

Now, I know it comes across really bitchily, but I think I phrased it well.  I told Angel that I was thinking about meeting with X in person and handing him the letter so that I wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting to say anything and I would be there to let him know that I honestly didn’t mean it in a rude way, that I just didn’t know how to better phrase it.

Angel convinced me that it would make X defensive and that I shouldn’t hand him the letter, even if I’m right there.  Instead, he suggested that when I meet with X I bring the letter with me for reminder purposes, but that I should just talk through it with him in a less offensive manner.  This made sense – I think I was under the impression that it would be easier to do it the way I had originally planned.

•     •     •     •     •

Talk about timing, I ended up setting up a meeting with X later that afternoon for that very evening (still Tuesday) – dinner and drinks.

Surprisingly, “How are your cats?” wasn’t his first question for me, it was probably his sixth or so.  I jested,

I’m actually surprised that my cats weren’t the first thing you asked me about.

He smiled and did one of those mini-laughs.

Really?  I guess since I’ve gotten my dog it’s just something that I talk about more.

Okay, I’ll take that.

I then brought up the whole friend thing and, surprisingly, he told me that his girlfriend had told him that she would like to meet me as well.  Wow.  I had thought that she hated my guts.

All in all, the meeting was a success and we’ll just have to wait and see how things move along.

•     •     •     •     •

Once I got back from meeting with X, I joined Napoleon and Gaston for the end of American Idol.  The plan was to go out.  They both needed to shower and then Gaston asked me if I would iron his khakis and a button-down shirt for him.  Napoleon then barked out, “Yea, woman, aren’t you supposed to be domesticated?”  Whatever, it’s not like I was doing anything else wile they were showering.  BUT THEN – Gaston didn’t even end up wearing the shirt – and that’s what was such a pain in the ass to iron!  Oh well, I quickly got over it.

Then Rowdy came over and we all played Name-That-Song-and-Artist-Power-Hour.  We continued doing this while waiting on Snoopy.  Gaston had told him to come over and we would leave for downtown at 11pm.  Turns out, Snoopy thought he meant “come over” at 11pm.  Then, he was late even for that time because he decided to run through Taco Bell on his way over.  Then, we had to wait for him to eat once he got there!  Dear god, it ended up turning into Power-Two-and-a-Half-Hours!

Needless to say, I had gotten pretty drunk, so once we got to Polly’s I just drank water.

It’s Always Something (Continued…kinda)

(Originally written on April 21, 2009)

.

Saturday afternoon, I was frustrated because Gaston had said on Friday that he would call me when he left south Georgia.  Thus, I was expecting a call around 3:30pm.  At 4pm or so, I texted him saying that if he wanted to stay there, that was fine, but to just let me know so that I could make other plans.  No response.  Nevertheless, I continued “prepping” (hair and makeup and the whatnot).

At 7pm I decided to go with Napoleon to the cookout at Rowdy’s place.  At first the group of us was watching Superbad, when Gaston eventually ended up calling at around 7:30pm to say that he was just starting to drive back from south Georgia. So we ate and drank and played beer pong until around 10pm-ish when Gaston finally arrived.

Before we left, however, our friend Snoopy had gotten shmammered.  This is an incredibly unusual occurrence – Snoopy doesn’t normally drink that much because his family has a history of alcoholism.  Nonetheless, he imposed some classic quotes upon us in his drunken state as he was retrieving a ping pong ball from the side of the hill:

Snoopy:  You might have to get in here and pull me out!

All:  That’s what she said!

and:

Snoopy:  The spiky thing got my foot!

Perhaps it was funnier at the time, but we all found these comments hilarious.

Anyways, Napoleon, Gaston, and I were all tired and left around 11pm.  When we got back, Gaston was talking about how exhausted he was.  I mean, you could just tell from looking at him.  We went back into his bedroom and I said,

I was wondering why you decided to drive back so late.  Why did you do that since you’re so tired?  I wouldn’t have minded if you stayed in south Georgia.

I wanted to come back to see you.

Seriously?

Yea.

I felt kinda bad after questioning him, but he can frequently be full of shit and great at spitting out those one-liners…

We ended up not going to the fraternity party and just stayed in bed.

To the Point

(Originally written on April 10, 2009)

.

Yuengling thinks that everything between Gaston and me is done after the whole April Fool’s thing.  He’s torn between thinking it’s awful and funny.  I wish he had spoken up on the former of those two feelings when the idea was originally brought up at Los Compadres because it is one of my biggest regrets.  Actually, my only regret.  I don’t believe in wasting time worrying about what has been done because there’s nothing that you can do to change it.

Downtown at Polly’s Tuesday after the movie, Gaston called me Slutty McSlutterson and asked me if I had ever met Dirty Steve for like the 100^th time (realistically somewhere around the 7^th).  Two insults rolled up into one – how efficient of him!  I don’t feel the need to explain why I was pissed about him calling me Slutty McSlutterson (he wasn’t even drinking –  ANYTHING).  However, Gaston took me home with him to south Georgia back in January.  During this visit, I freakin’ met Dirty Steve and we hung out with him all night.  He asks me this question on a regular basis (often sober) and by now I just feel that he should remember.

I went to see my friends’ band play on Wednesday with Yuengling (the same band I saw when I ran into X).  They played really well and I really enjoy their music and lyrics.  The one that I found most relevant to my life:  “I can’t help but worry about it.”  I just can’t.  About anything, really.

Yesterday afternoon/last night Gaston, Rowdy, Leto (Belle’s roommate) and I sat outside on Gaston’s porch drinking Mint Julips and watching the Master’s tournament.  We ended up grilling out and later on the beer pong table came out.  By this point, Napoleon had returned from work.   Gaston and Rowdy were taking on Whitie (Gaston’s albino friend) and me.  Game 1:  Whitie and I win.  Game 2:  it was time to break out the distractions – Gaston can never help but be fully affected by them.  My distractions, although not modest I suppose, consist of me shaking my butt or putting my thumb on the top of my jeans and pulling them down so you can see that hipbone line.

Out of nowhere, Napoleon announces (he’s still off the sauce for Lent), “I’ve been meaning to tell you – you look like a prostitute.”  Call me sensitive, but this really pissed me off – enough so that it was to the point where I sank Whitie’s and my remaining two cups on my next two throws with ease.  Immediately afterward, I retired to my apartment for the rest of the evening (where, not too much later, my nose started bleeding because my anger caused a sever spike in my blood pressure).  You can try to say that he was just kidding, but as many asshole lines as he has given me, I know better than to believe that.  The mere fact that he shouted it in front of everyone was embarrassing, degrading, and flat-out inappropriate.

Scarlet raised the questions, “How can you call him a friend?  Why do you still hang out with him?”  Those are two damn good questions.  I think it’s because he was the one that helped me after I had been raped.  He called the police for me since I could hardly be understood through my tears, and he was with me while the cops interviewed me and searched my apartment in the wee hours of the night.  That is a debt that I feel I can never repay and that I will always be eternally grateful for.  I mean, we had just been hanging out for about a month by that time and we barely even knew each other.  BUT that is also why this particular comment struck so deep – it made me feel as though he probably thinks I was just asking to be raped.  I’m sure that’s not the case, but that’s how I feel.

I FINALLY had sex today!  Woo-hoo!  And the duration was fantastic and…ahh.  It was just phenomenal.  However, I’m not quite sure what to think because Gaston still won’t let me kiss him – not even during sex.  I just don’t know what to think about that.  I understand that I ruined his trust in me, but it just seems so emotionless (which he can be a lot of the time, but this is different).  I don’t think I could do that again because the only other time (other than the rape) that I’ve had sex without kissing was post-breakup sex with X – which isn’t a very positive association.

We then spent, like, three more hours together watching the Master’s while he wanted to (and I let it happen) cuddle with me – holding my hands, kissing my shoulders, and such.  I asked him if he would ever let me kiss him again and he replied, “Probably.”  With Gaston it is more than just sex, but I just don’t think that our “not-relationship” can continue if the kissing aspect remains out.

“I can’t help but worry about it.”

When It Rains, It Pours

(Originally written on March 24, 2009)

.

The past few days have been a bit, well, out-of-whack for me.  In a bad way.

Usually, I play trivia on Sunday nights with Gaston, Napoleon, Rowdy, and crew.  This Sunday, though, I skipped it because I was studying for the two tests I was supposed to have had yesterday.  Yesterday morning, I woke up around 4:50am in order to get some (okay, maybe a lot) last minute cramming in.  Scarlet picked me up because Flower-Child, the scatter-brained classmate that normally takes me to class, called to tell me she couldn’t take me – but it was okay because I got that all worked out.  After parking and grabbing a campus paper (I strictly pick one up every day for the puzzles:  one crossword and one Sudoku), a woman from the Marketing Department stopped us to let us know that the professor was having heart issues and that our tests were postponed until Wednesday (tomorrow).  We were in disbelief.  Don’t get me wrong, I hope the prof is doing well health-wise, but that wasn’t exactly the best way to start off the week.

I was cracked out on coffee and had absolutely nothing to do.  I was in the vicinity of Polly’s and decided to head there, even though it was only 10am at this point and figured they weren’t open yet.  They weren’t, but they were there prepping for opening for the day and they let me in to just chill.

I hung out there until Gaston swung by and picked me up to watch 24 (I don’t really watch any TV show regularly, but he does, and 24 and American Idol are his picks).   Once it was over, we finally had sex for the first time in nearly two weeks – needless to say, it was very, um…brief.

By the way, I’m an insomniac and I normally take sleeping pills before bed at night in order to remain holding on to my sanity.  However, I didn’t feel like running up to my apartment to get them and figured I might be okay since I had been awake since 4:50am and had been drinking all day.  Boy was I wrong!  Of course, by the time I noticed this, it was too late.  And it doesn’t help that Gaston has to have the TV on in order to fall asleep, which keeps me alert and awake, of course.  This has happened before, but he specifically let me know last night before we went to bed that he didn’t feel like cuddling – to which I obliged.  So I was laying there, flipping from being too hot to too cold and back again, and feeling like a creeper just laying there staring at him…

Eventually (around 4:30am), I decided I’d just go upstairs and hop in my own bed.  I drifted in (barely) and out of sleep for about two hours when construction work started (yes, at 6:30am!) in the lot right outside my bedroom window.  By 8:30m, which is when I was originally intending on waking up, I had a monstrous migraine.

At this point, I was already contemplating skipping class.  BUT, I then decide to roll over and check my BlackBerry for e-mails.  Sure enough, the one message awaiting me is from the company I had a second interview with about two weeks ago, “[regretting] to inform [me] that [they] have decided not to extend an offer of employment at this time.”  It was confirmed:  class was out.

Two minutes later, I receive a call from Gaston, who is never up that early.  His Jeep has been in the shop, so he’s been driving his mom’s Cadillac…which wouldn’t start.  Normally, this may not have been that big of a deal, but he has to drive to the state capitol for a job interview on Thursday.  He needed me to jump him off.  Well, my jumper cables are really short and Gaston’s car was sandwiched between two others, one of which belongs to Napoleon (and the only car on that side of the Caddy).  So Gaston goes in, gets Napoleon’s keys, moves his car, and then I pull up to get everything set up.  The battery was completely dead.

Gaston insisted that he was going to go get the battery checked out right then and asked if he could borrow my car.  Letting him drive it with me in it is one thing, but I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of just letting him take my car.  If anything were to happen, Beast and Martyr would have my head!  I have a terrible driving record (with outrageous insurance that they currently pay) and so does Gaston, and my parents are aware of it – he has shared with them the story of when he took a turn going 90 mph and collided with a house, knocking it off of its foundation!

Anyways, we get to Pep Boys and, even though it’s pretty much guaranteed that the battery is dead, Gaston has them check it just to be sure.  I had originally gone in with him, but the smell was going to cause me to either vomit, pass out, or both (migraine). So I waited in the car for about 15 minutes, when he comes out to tell me the test is going to take 45 minutes.  I was hungry, so we went down the street to Chick-Fil-A for some breakfast.

With only 20 minutes to go and almost immediately after we finished eating, we each receive a text from Napoleon asking if one of us had his keys.  Gaston goes, “We’ve got to take Napoleon his keys.  Hurry, because we need to be back at Pep Boys in 20 minutes!”  My first response being, “Does he actually need them right now?  Or does he just want to know where they are?”  This apparently didn’t matter, and we start driving back to the apartment.  Napoleon is gone when we get there – turns out he just needed to go to campus to get a transcript (which didn’t require having his keys).

Once we finally get back to Pep Boys, it is confirmed that the battery is dead.  But they don’t carry it, so we still had to find it somewhere else.  Ultimately, we happenstanced upon another car parts store down the street that, thankfully, carried the battery we needed.

The car still wouldn’t start after initially hooking it up.  So Gaston had to play mechanic for a little while.  Everything finally worked out and I was able to chill at noon.

What a day, huh?

Random Study Retirement Thoughts

(Originally written on March 22, 2009)

.

So I officially can’t look at any more of this stuff tonight and am retiring to an early morning tomorrow.   I figured I’d lighten up from my recent posting patterns.

Quite a few interesting things came up last night:

• So, the other night after running into X at my friend’s band’s show, I handled it awfully.  I started crying and then my drunk ass sketched off and started walking home (at like 11:30pm).  Surprisingly, Gaston, Napoleon, Rowdy (Gaston’s cousin), and company left around 12am.  Turns out, Gaston was seriously about to throw down with X.  I mean, he literally called his buddies from back home in south Georgia and told them to come up to help him “take X out.”  Is it bad that this information made me happy?  When I asked him this question (via text, even though he was two people away from me, because everyone was around), he smiled and said “No.”  I guess I see it as a sign that he is getting closer to a possible relationship, with the whole possessiveness and everything.
• At Polly’s (the bar where we’re regulars) last night, Gaston kissed me in front of everyone (when I say “kiss”, by the way, I mean peck).  I mean, not just in front of whoever happened to be driving by at the time, like the other day – Napoleon, Rowdy, the bartenders, … people we know well.   This, of course, also made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
• So, Gaston is actually about a year older than me, but we are in the same “grade” (I guess another way of saying this is that we graduated from high school the same year).  Well, he is on the five-year graduation track in   college.At our University, at least, every fraternity has a huge theme party that lasts an entire week (he’s in a fraternity, we’ll call it XYZ), and last night he asked me,  “Will you be my date to [XYZ’s themed week-long party]?”  Of course I said yes!  It’s a huge deal that he actually used the word “date”, by the way.

Well, I better get to bed so that I don’t hate myself any more than necessary in the morning!