|
|
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2003 - 8:18 p.m. ZERO TO NINETY Normally I get home about this time, but today the project is starting to hit its winding-down stage. My co-worker calls it the “ninety to zero” part because when it happens, you are working so feverishly, all of a sudden, everything is done and you have nothing left to do. You are then left in complete shock because the last few months have been stolen from your life and then you find yourself having a life again. You actually get to leave work at the same time normal people do. Now I am left in a quandary. I have to figure out how to get back to where I was before the “coup d’etat” started. Over the past three months, so many normal everyday things have been neglected in my life, I will probably have to spend a few days catching up. That is exactly what I plan to do. I am pretty much being forced to take off the week of Thanksgiving because there will be no more work to be done and everyone takes off around the holidays anyway. I have a whole laundry list of things on my plate to do, but I will not bother listing them here. I suppose I shall update you on what little activity has occurred in my life outside of work since my life was kidnapped from me. To begin, I doubt Speed will ever be contacting me again, not that I really would have cared anyway. When she had left her cell phone number, I tried calling her a few times but all I would get was her voicemail. She returned my calls once or twice at 3 in the afternoon when she was aware that I would be at work and would not answer, and left messages on my answering machine. When I returned her calls, again all I would get is her voicemail, and she would never return them right away. At this point I realized she was probably intentionally not answering her phone, after all, cell phones have caller-ID, and I concluded she really did not want to talk to me. On one message she left for me on my machine, she said it was her birthday and that she was going out to celebrate. Later that night, when I got home from work, I called and left a message on her voicemail wishing her happy birthday. Then, about a week later she sent me an e-mail thanking me for wishing her the happy birthday. At this point, I was kind of pissed, so I just wrote back saying that if she did not want to talk to me all she had to do was explain why and leave me alone. She wrote me back immediately (she had been using this excuse that she was getting a new internet connection as the reason she never returned my e-mails right away), saying that I was the same old “cynical” person she used to know. I wrote back in a truly cynical tone and she has not wrote back since. Nick was right. She is a flake. Perhaps I was unwise to sever that connection, but I will not tolerate being played for a fool. If you do not wish to be my friend, just leave me alone. On a brighter note, Edward did send an e-mail apologizing for not contacting me when he was in New Orleans. I am encouraged by what he did, not because he apologized, but because he seems to want redevelop our friendship again. I initially just wanted a Baton Rouge contact through his brother, never expecting Edward to have an interest in hooking back up with me. In the background, though, it seems as though Edward is making an effort to rebind his ties with me, using my contact with his brother as a sort of “lead-in.” The fact that he is now living in New York though, does not help my immediate social situation. In a previous entry, I had indicated plans to go to the LSU-Louisiana Tech football game with my old Houston roommate. As it turned out, I never went to that game because my roommate had to work that weekend and gave up our tickets. Because I have been so busy, I have not talked to him since, but he will probably play a larger role in my life in the upcoming months. He is now a contact I have within driving distance that I know I can spend time with. Whether he can be an effective wingman, however, remains to be seen. I may not have mentioned this, but he is a diagnosed obsessive-compulsive and tends to be very shy. He is, however, fully treated, as I am, and is one of the nicest people I know. As a side note, I am planning a road trip up the East Coast with one or two of my brothers to visit a cousin in D.C. in mid-December. In the meanwhile, I am formulating a plan in my head on what I need to accomplish in the upcoming months. First, I plan to join a health club, for real reasons this time, not for just meeting women, and plan to get in the best physical condition of my life. I also plan on taking on distance-running, the sport I did in high school, to build my endurance and to trim off some of the baby fat I have been gaining in the office all this time. I have come to realize that before I know it, I will be thirty, and my lightning fast metabolism will probably shut off much like it did for my older brother. Besides, fitness is a worthwhile hobby and can be a means of meeting people. Second, I need to focus on building ties with other guys. I am beginning to take my “wingman” theory to heart and believe that I need to hang out with the right guys if I plan to meet the right women. Going at it alone just does not cut it. On top of this, I want to revamp my wardrobe and hairstyle, to go along with my planned “buff “ body and emergent outgoing personality. Lastly, I want to get that tutoring service idea off the ground. The only main concern I have at this point is that new position I have at the office. Relatively speaking, they will be paying me a lot of money and will expect a lot in return. I am sure the stresses of my new position will be yet another topic explored in my entries to come. As for right now, I will still be trying to absorb the shock of going from full throttle to engine-off, from ninety to zero, when it comes to how my job will be impacting the life I have regained. Or better yet, I will now have to be concerned with going from zero to ninety when it come to changing from the person I have always been, to the person I will strive to become. |