Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Encounters

Leave it to me to start a new blog and then not post anything!

I've been busy... Last week was filled with doctor's appointments and visiting the nutritionist regarding my ongoing weight loss. It seems that I'm healthy and it all checks out and I've made great progress. I bumped into the sister of one of NDN's best friends in the waiting room for my doctor and we exchanged numbers. I have to give her a call one of these days...

On Wednesday I ended up on another inadvertent date with DC-- the same guy I stumbled into a date with a few weeks ago. We went out to the same diner after class and once again, I swooped in to pay for my half of the check. Yes--despite the fact that the last time I did that he called to "apologize" for it half an hour after we had parted ways! In any case, this "date" was pretty much the same as the last-- I felt awkward and a little guilty for misleading him and a little guilty for not being attracted to him. He looked like he was struggling to keep the flow of the evening going and to keep conversation up. I was glad when it was over.

True to form, about half an hour after I got home, he rang me up. I didn't answer this time.

"Um, Hyde... it's DC..." he said. "Just give me a call back when you can. I want to ask you something."

I didn't return his call that night.

The next morning, I woke up at around 10:30 AM and saw I had missed another call from him.

"Hyde, it's DC again. Just wanted to ask you a question if you could give me a call back."

I was scheduled to speak at a meeting that afternoon and didn't want to walk into that with this unresolved awkwardness hanging over my head, so I sucked it up and called him back.

"What's up?" I asked, as cheerfully as I could muster.

"Um... Well, I had a really nice time the other night... I mean, last night. And I was wondering if you wanted to go out to dinner with me-- not to a diner but to someplace nicer."

Now I felt really guilty.

"You mean... like a date?"

"Yes-- a date."

"Um... Well..."

Now it was my turn to act like an awkward fourth grader. I'm so, so, so, so bad at this-- I can never say "no" to anyone. But I'm not into this guy. I don't have to go out with someone I'm not attracted to, right?

"Well, I enjoy spending time with you," I began. "But... Um... I'm really not available for that right now. I mean-- I don't want to mislead you or anything."

(Why can't I just say "no" plain and simple?)

In any case, as much as it made me feel like an incompetent adolescent, I think it's good practice for me. I have to learn how to maneuver in the dating world at some time-- without the lubrication of alcohol and my fake "Mr. Hyde" persona, that is.

On Thursday, after speaking at that meeting and teaching my class, I headed over to Playwright's to meet some of my fellow historians for karaoke. Bezoukhoff and his new woman, Medici, were there. I had a really good time. And get this-- I met another tattooed timpani player! It's the same bar where I met the last one. Weird, right? I also bumped into some friends of Anxious, which was kind of random.

On Friday I finally got to see B! He's back from the Philippines after having been away for about three weeks. We met for lunch on the Upper East Side. Afterwards, I caught up with NDN back at my place, and then headed down to Narc's. We watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I have a lot of thoughts about all that, but don't feel like getting into all of it right now.

Saturday morning I was booked to speak at two meetings in a row-- the first at 9:00 AM. I was absolutely exhausted. For the third or fourth night in a row I had only slept about five hours. It was good to see my friends at that first meeting though-- StarGazer and Meema and Slope, who I haven't seen in months! At the second meeting, there was a really crazy woman who said that she was slapped across the face at my home group. I have trouble believing that.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," was all that I could say to her about that.

Later in the afternoon, I went back downtown to Narc's. He was just getting up. We had plans to go to a magic show at 5:00-- he got the tickets. Before we went there, we wandered around the West Village and did a little shopping. We passed a crystal shop and both wanted to look around but were out of time. So, we decided to go back after the show.

The magic show was more "mentalism" than magic. It was kind of fun. Narc got called up onto the stage as the very first "volunteer."

Afterwards, we went back to the crystal shop and both bought crystals-- I got an aqua aura pendant and he bought rose quartz, a piece of lapis and a lemurian seed crystal (which I'm not sure I entirely "believe" in.) After that, I had the sudden urge to get a tattoo, but we were both starving. We walked towards Union Square and stopped in the Petco there because they had kittens and I wanted to see them. The strangest thing happened-- I saw two girls (looking at snakes) with gratingly familiar voices. A few weeks ago when I went out to Brighton Beach to see Anxious, there was a really annoying group of loud-mouthed people next to me on the subway. One of them spilled water and some of it got on my dress. Well-- the two girls in Petco were the same girls from the subway.

"Were you guys on the Q train a few weeks back going to the beach?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you remember you got water on a girl reading her book? Well, that was me."

"Oh my god!" they exclaimed, as if we knew each other. "How ARE you? Did you have fun that day, sweetheart?"

"Yeah, it was fine."

I went back to find Narc who was contemplating buying a Beta fish. (He didn't).

We ate dinner that night at Angelo & Maxi's and ordered too much food and saw Michael Phelp's racing on the screen above the bar, even though I wanted to wait until we got home to watch the games recorded. I still wanted to get that tattoo.

I had promised BigSis' friend AGrub that the next time I went for a tattoo I would call him (as he is strangely fascinated but to chicken to get one himself), and so I sent him at text. Narc and I walked over to St. Mark's and AGrub met us there at around 11:00 PM. He was just leaving work! I swear, those corporate lawyers have it rough...

I picked out my tattoo and gritted my teeth and squeezed Narc's hand. It hurt like hell, as it's on the tendon on the back of my left ankle. Afterwards, we went to Ben & Jerry's. But as I'm off sugar, I had to have some mediocre tasting ice cream made with splenda and felt sick after eating it.

Back at his place, we watched some more Olympics and I tried not to feel too sick and then we finally went to bed.

On Sunday I woke up before him, as I'm just used to getting up early these days. I went to Duane Reade to get the right kind of moisturizer for my tattoo. Then I got some coffee and sat down at his computer to do a little work. When he woke up, he asked if I wanted to go for brunch with his friend Steve and his boyfriend. We met them at Perilla in the West Village. It was a nice brunch. I really like Steve. I got to talk to him a lot when Narc first went back into the hospital last month. It did feel strange though, to feel like a "couple" with him. Being out with people I don't know that well, in that context, it felt different from how it feels when it's just me and him. Ugh. It fucks with my head.

In any case, after brunch, we resumed shopping. He wanted to go to the MoMa design shop. It was raining out. I bought a new journal at Kate's Paperie. We ended up back at his place at around 5:30 PM. I tried to get a little work done while he made us dinner. Then we ate and watched more Olympics.

On Monday I left there early so that I could get some more work done before therapy. That evening I met with my sponsee (who is struggling to get through her 4th step) and then went to yoga with my friend Drew. I bumped into another girl that I know in the yoga class. We agreed that we should get coffee sometime and try to coordinate doing more yoga together.

Yesterday I had to go out to Brooklyn to fill out some paperwork for my fall teaching assignment. It took a lot longer than I expected. Plus, I hadn't eaten breakfast, so by the time i left there (at around 2:30 PM), I was ready to pass out. I got home just in time to eat something, finish up my lesson plan (on Postmodernism and Post-structuralism and Deconstruction-- God knows how I managed to teach a class on all that!) and headed off to teach.

After class last night, I had dinner with Jake. He just broke up with his girlfriend of five years and moved into his own place about 20 blocks north of where I live. We had delicious kimchi tofu soup at Cho Dang Gol on 35th street. It was soooo good! He walked me home afterwards, I watched the women's gymnastics, and finally collapsed to sleep at around 2:30 AM.

Today I'm stuck at home waiting for the cable technician. Narc wants to go see Tropic Thunder later. I'm trying to clean out my hall closet.

I have a lot more that I've been thinking about... about life, about relationships, etc. But I just don't have it in me to jump into all of that. So, I guess this kind of "events" update will have to do for now.

Ok... now off to read what everyone else is up to out there in the blog-o-sphere!

love,
h

3 comments:

HistoryGeek said...

Hey, there. Good to hear that things are going pretty well for you.

On the ice cream thing...it's been hot enough here for ice cream, but with whatever's going on with my stomach the regular stuff just makes me nauseous. So I've been eating Soy Delicious. Sadly, there is nothing like the real thing...so I feel your pain.

Charby said...

whats the tat of?

Billy said...

Yes, I am officially jealous that kimchi tofu soup was eaten without me.