Madder

So I can sleep now, though once in a while the anger and the heartache hit so hard I have to stop and catch my breath. There's nothing I can do except imagine myself in movie, with some Groove Armada or other chill out music playing in the back as I watch the sun set over the Pacific with a rapidly deteriorating faith that I'll meet that someone who'll tell me it's OK, who'll make me smile, and who'll fuck me silly.

I've been stopping myself from going into full new age cliche mode, but I have to wonder what the fuck the deal is. So Big Fucking Liar stokes a fire that wasn't there only because he wanted to go out with Accountant Chick, and which is further stoked by Golden Boy flirting with a Certain Someone constantly despite the fact he has a girlfriend. Oh yeah, and while I'm being Mr. Good Guy by keeping it secret, it's making me all broody and dark (the goatee is back) while he looks like, well, the Golden Boy. And before that, it was meeting the one cute blonde chick who was just as into music as I am, and more importantly, who dug me, when I was still up in Silicon Valley, only to have her shack up with some no doubt scumbag of a guy by the time I move down here. Lesson to be learned here? Honestly, I must have already atoned for whatever karmic fuck up I had in a past life.

And people wonder why my nickname in law school was "Angry."

I Had Enough Being Nice And Anxious

Updated the resume. Getting it sent out. I guess I just have to wait and be a better man in the meantime.

Would you give in just to spite them all?

And I thought it was over, but it's only worse.

Golden Boy used to work at SmallLaw as a file clerk and is back as a lawyer. At one point, he had (and he still does) have a crush on a Certain Someone. He asked her out way back when, and she said it probably wasn't a good idea. Another lawyer said that a Certain Someone revealed in a drunken moment a while back that she would've gone out with Golden Boy if he was a little bit older or she was a little bit younger. This is all old news to me. I can't say I'm not a little bit jealous, but it is what it is. I've told him I was sensitive about that, that I didn't appreciate it when he made jokes about him hittin' on that.

I thought Golden Boy was a nice enough guy. He has a girlfriend who loves him. He seemed to care genuinely what people thought about him.

I went with Golden Boy and his friends when he passed the bar. He told his girlfriend in San Diego not to come up that day to celebrate with him. Instead, he shacked up with his ex that night. How do I know? Everyone saw him leave with her. And his friends know now that he hits on a Certain Someone and that I'm interested in her too. And his friends say that's really fucked up, especially since he already has a girlfriend.

OK, so his girlfriend is dead to rights for being pissed at him if she found out. Why have I only had 10 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours? He's expecting me to keep his asshole behavior a secret, and in the meantime, he basically said he'll keep hitting on a Certain Someone even though he knows I'm sensitive about it. He doesn't see a thing wrong with what he did and how it screws me over. And I can't say anything about it or else I look like an utter scumbag as well. Sucks being the good guy.

I know that a Certain Someone and Golden Boy have been friends before, that she's ten years older than he is so it'll never happen between them. But that's not the point. I sit there and see him hitting on a Certain Someone. I see her laughing at his jokes. I see her at best ignore me, tolerate me. Here's a guy who's just been an utter scumbag who everyone else thinks the world of, who a Certain Someone is fond of. Here's me, sitting silent, brooding, can't say a thing. Secretary X asked me "What crawled up my ass and died" and said "Who do I need to punch out?" I couldn't say a thing.

So I'm taking the rest of the week off and try to get some clarity.

I know if I were rational, I'd be thinking why am I interested in a woman who thinks very little of me as a human being. That there are other women out there. That supposedly, one of these days, there will be a woman who sees me and just knows that I'm the one. But rationality not much comfort in the middle of the night, not much comfort when I come home to an apartment empty save for a cat and some beer.

Turn and Run

An excerpt from a novel that's only in my head:

"OK Josh, let me get this straight. The woman you had frightening chemistry with about a year ago and your original reason for moving to Lalaland but who ended up shacking up with some greasy music exec by the time you moved down here is giving you the 'I have mace and I know how to use it' stare by the cocktails. The woman you're currently in love is being a complete wallflower in the kitchen corner but you can't do anything about it because you're technically her boss and anyways she may or may not be in love with one of your best buds at work. The woman everyone thinks you should be in love with you find physically repulsive, which she knows because you said you'd rather gnaw your own arm off and then beat yourself with it without knowing that she was standing right behind you, is crying in the bedroom. And the woman you have the most in common with is your best friend from high school and is currently talking to the woman who everyone thinks you should be in love with. What the hell did you do? Punch a nun in the kidneys on your way here?"

Something To Cry About

OK, so there are worse things than catching up on some leisure reading on a Saturday night with a glass of Oban scotch next to you and Jeff Buckley's album Grace playing in the background. But these brief periods of respite (yeah, I know the rest of the world calls it weekends, Mr. Fancy Pants) just remind me that I really don't like my life.

I was trying to think of some profound imagery. At first I was thinking nautical -- that my work week is a grey monotonous ocean, and spending the weekend with my friends are the sparse green isles few and far between. But I'm not a sailor and my family is prone to motion sickness. And although the ocean imagery is apt in the "look all around you and all you see is the same - but instead of water it's work" sense, it doesn't convey the sense of claustrophobia that I feel. At least you can move around on the ocean.

Maybe a trapped in the closet image is more accurate, but it's also more pedestrian and fuck that noise about being all cliche. Anyway, adding to that claustrophobia is that 1) I'm still deeply, truly, madly in like with a certain someone, and 2) that certain someone has been in the same SmallLaw office for over 15 years. That latter part bugs me because I can't see myself being a lawyer for the next year much less for the next 15 years. I don't want to have fallen for a woman who mistakes complacency for stability. And yet, yet my stupid brain won't let her go. Having a weirdo double date not really a double date thing about two weeks ago doesn't help either.

Anyway, I was truly relaxed today. Part of it was the eighty-plus temperature here in Lalaland, which made it feel like July. But like some cheapo (but less verbose) version of Proust, weather sent me in a tizzy of memories. As the sun set and the air cooled, I thought of summer nights back in Ellicott City, Maryland after a long day of riding bikes and coming home to air-conditioned goodness. I'd read a book, maybe bug my sister or watch TV in the upstairs guestroom. I thought of humid spring nights in Durham, North Carolina, having some beer on the quad while finals approached. I thought of August nights on my patio on Silicon Valley just a year ago, trying to finish up my five pages per day while finishing off my third diet coke, the can slick with condensation. All this felt more real than my current job. And I thought if I left SmallLaw, left a Certain Someone, it would be as if I was never there, and I could be back writing full time again.

Special Powers

Sometimes, I wish my life was like a sitcom so much it hurts. The gruff but good-hearted boss. The co-worker who is secretly in love with me but is dating someone else and everyone but me and her know we were meant to be with each other. The latest in hip music perfectly cued to my scenes. Snarky banter leading to something profound. Sometimes.

Falling Down

I had a very disturbing dream last night, disturbing enough that I'm only now able to remember pieces of it. I dreamt that I witnessed a woman jumping off the top floor of a high rise. I knew she jumped off because she was mentally ill. Then I found myself entering the high rise. The top floors were owned by BigLaw. BigLaw had its library on the top floor. Although it was BigLaw, the desks in the library were all surplus metal desks from the '50s. All around were stressed out lawyers with frightening intelligence pouring over 18th century texts. Most of the books were behind locked grating. I was waiting for a guard to kick me out. I went onto the balcony and looked down.

Crash

I had my first vivid dream, well, dreams in a while last night. Restless suckers they were, where you wake up absolutely exhausted. The first dream was more like a clip. I was driving down the 101, thinking nothing of it because I had driven down it so many times -- stretches of gray asphalt with slow curves. Winds were whipping across the road and then suddenly I came by a section of the highway that bordered a gray ocean where there was no ocean before. The incoming storm was so violent that the ocean had pushed up to part of the highway. The ocean was so close I could see the white caps of waves lapping up against the rails. Suddenly, I was losing control of the car and panicking that I was going to crash into the ocean.

I briefly awoke and promptly fell back asleep again.

I was in an airport waiting for a flight. Sodium lights illuminated the interior of the airport in a sunset orange while it was pitch black outside. When they were announcing departing flights, I walked over to the gate thinking I had plenty of time. Then I realized my baggage was still in the checking area. I rushed to claim my baggage and my boarding pass. I made it onto the plane, but the only seat left was one that did not have a seat in front of it. Luckily, no one had but any of their carry on luggage underneath my seat. The plane was so huge that the passenger section was double-tiered. I was on the second level, where there was a floor to ceiling window. It was if the waiting area was put onto a plane. As the plane was rising, I realized that I only had enough money to pay for a taxi when I reached Tokyo, but not enough to pay for a place to stay.

Events Occur In Real Time

"And so when he started talking to me about making partner, I felt physically ill."