proximity. august 2nd.

there were some things i didn't write about yesterday.


i talked to kit about some at the bar tonight.

mostly, it was every reason why i know that i would never stick with chalk.

or, every thing that didn't work about this weekend. for me, personally. things that i realize i don't want in the guy i stick with.


but more than that, there were some things i missed from this weekend. that i'm missing now. already.


close proximity. it was quite nice to have someone there, all the time. well, for a limited number of days, though.

like today. it would have been nice to come home to someone who made me forget about how awful my day was.


and, slack arms. the way that you fall asleep being held my someone. and then their breathing slows, slowly. and then their arms go slack. they're still with you. still holding you, even. but only loosely.

it's been a while since i was held by someone i wanted to be held by, so i had forgotten about it. that, and trying to get up without disturbing a light sleeper. ever slept like the dead, so i never had to worry about it.

but sleepless next to chalk was a bit nerve-wracking, because i didn't want to wake him up. and i'm a light sleeper who has a hard time falling back asleep.

i woke him up a few times, going to the bathroom, getting a snack, stuff like that, before he woke up enough to carry on a conversation.


and i realize how comfortable i feel the majority of the time, just having someone there. well, having someone there when i want them there.

because when i dropped him off, i felt like it was time for him to go. and when i came back alone, i was at peace with myself, and with being alone again.

and while it would probably have been nice to have someone to kiss and curl up with, i didn't have any problem falling asleep last night once i was sleepy. but it took forever to fall asleep from the time i got into bed.

that's how i know that i am changing. that's how i know that i am on a new path, a different path, a better path.

it took a while to get here. i never thought i would.

and the other thing i realize is that i started to catch myself, for a minute, thinking that love should feel like that. it was in the hottest possible moment of the whole entire weekend. it was so fleeting. almost the second i thought it, it evaporated. because it was a thought. not a feeling.


today was a wretched day. it started off so wonderfully. still kindof afloat from the weekend. but also starting to come down off of the high. trying not to be a dead giveaway. pam said we need to work on my pokerface.

i also spent part of the day being a paranoid freak about stupid little fb comments. because i'm so hyper sensitive to being busted. because a couple comments were made in a certain tone, the way i know they were intended.

i hope everyone who knows ever has me hidden in their feed. i hope no one saw what i saw. mostly, my mom and the people he knows. i was mad at chalk at around 2 am when he commented that i did, and that he too had a great weekend.

i don't know. i feel guilty. which makes me look guilty. and maybe if no one is looking or thinking something along these lines, they would never in a million years guess it.

but to me, it's a beacon. beaming my sex life to the world. and i freaked out a lot, before i decided that, fuck it. it will get easier earlier if i just act like myself. and stop hiding shit from people who are in ever's circle.

i like to have fun. i am fun. and i should worry less. it only helped after a few hours of thinking it.


but i spent the morning giggly, regardless.


and then, at noon, everything changed.

i almost cried. it was that awful.

i was so infuriated that i nearly had a sobfest at work.


the work saga has changed drastically in the last week. i went from having a replacement for myself, to her turning in her notice. within one week.

and after that, i got the news from the landlord. and finally was so happy to close this location for once and for all. i started clearing things out on friday, because i was that excited.

and then, at noon, i listened to a message from friday from kenna.

and i was really really glad that i didn't get it on friday. because it would have fucked up my weekend.


she said that the landlord called her backpedaling. that someone in the upper echelon in admin had complained about us losing our location. and that we were back on board.

it took one day of talking to customers. not even. it took a couple hours.

and it was being undone.

otherwise, it took two phone calls from me, one thursday and one friday, before it was undone.


and i am so livid. i know they are fucking with us. i know they are just saying this to keep us open another month. to shut the squeaky wheel up for a month. until the renovations are done and then everyone sees that, in fact, there is no space for us, because there never was.

it's all politics. and i firmly believe that this is, too.


it's just not worth it. kenna is optimistic about reopening. but i am not. since we closed, more people were laid off. and the renovations aren't happening to the room we're in. it's just the ceiling. so it's not like it's going to be a whole new store to draw people in.

and her biggest fear, the fear of the new habit, the new routine, has already been established. and i highly doubt that the same group of people will just fall right back into their old routine after having three months of a new one.


it all sucks.

today, for a while, i wanted to quit my job.

yes, it was because of the feeling i still have, coming off of a vacation, and wanting to go right back onto one.

it was because i'm tired of fighting a fight that i don't believe in for a store that became the bane of my existence about two years ago.

it's because i'm tired of kenna making the same emotional decision about this store, like the one she makes about the bookkeeper. it makes no sense, business wise. i'm putting my job stability on the line. the company will do better without the store than with it. i'm more confident having two stores to deal with, than the ability to claim three stores, with this one included.

it's a no brainer. and yet, the wrong decision is being made.

i just can't handle it.

i get being in love with a store. i was enamored with this store for about a year and a half. but fell out of love with it very quickly. i made that store what it was. and without me, it went back to what it always was: a mediocre store in a shitty suburb with scary clientele at times. yeah, it has its good days. and yeah, i don't want to give up a grand a month in profit. but that's only thirty dollars a day. and that's not a lot.

not worth the trouble. not worth the heartbreak.

we should have cut and run when i called it, two years ago. because it would have been cutting and running, but also calling their bluff. they think that they can get someone else to come in and do it better. but no one in their right mind would touch it with a ten foot pole if they saw the numbers.


all that bullshit about work.

but the worst part of it is the way that it effects my staffing. here i had started the process of closing this location, of transferring the one employee to my store, and not hiring anyone, because i didn't need to.

and just like that, i'm fucked. because now i don't have a transfer, don't have time to hire and train someone, and can't transfer anything out.

because kenna believes them.

after all of this? she trusts them.


i'm such a punk. i'm such a rebel. it makes me want to find another job. just to show her in a dramatic way how much i disagree with the decisions that she's making me make with this location.

i didn't want to move it in the first place, because i knew what would happen. she didn't listen. then i had one day's notice to move it. and i made it happen by pulling strings. then it sucked. then she wouldn't let me close it. then it sucked more, and she still wouldn't let me close it. then they put in a coffee machine and still can't close it. and then they give up our permanent spot.

you guessed it: i still can't close it.


i hate it. and maybe in a month we'll make a killing and i'll eat my words. but today? i just spent the day incredibly angry. and really wishing i didn't have to be there.

and to top it off, as bitchy as this will sound, i have an employee whose uncle died this weekend, so he is taking the whole week off to go be with his family.

i understand. my uncle died suddenly a few years back. and i didn't realize until i was home how it affected me. but, selfishly, the timing of this sucks. and now we're all working doubles.

and if i had closed the store down on friday, like i wanted to, there wouldn't be a problem, because i'd have my transfer working his shifts and not even worrying about it. in fact, it would have helped, because everyone would have worked all the hours they wanted.


yeah.

so.

i'm a bitch. but i am sick of this frustration. and it isn't my money, so i don't have a say. i'm the boss, but i have a boss. and just like my kids don't want to do the things i tell them to sometimes, i don't want to do what i'm ordered to do.

and that is fine.

for now.


and it makes me feel a little bit like ever. because it makes me want to say, 'some day i'll have my own business, and i can call the shots and do what i want with it.'

but today, i don't have that luxury. and unlike ever, i don't make a moral decision that effects my livelihood.


but i did ask alice to get info from her roommate so that i can try to get a foot in the door. yeah. her roommate is in cancun right now. need i say more? i want her job.


other than that disaster, and the morning after giddiness, tonight, i'm quiet again.

i was thinking a lot today about the way that i felt this weekend. why it was safe for me.

there was enough that i wasn't into, as far as he was concerned, personally, that i wasn't at risk for falling. and yesterday's post was all roses and butterflies. but the reality of the situation is that i noticed things that i didn't care for.

one was that he is into games. as in person to person type games that suck people's lives from them. and he isn't into it now, because he had to quit. but he limits himself to a game on fb. and he let himself get sucked into it for maybe 20 minutes the other morning. and i thought that was pretty stupid.

if it had been ever, i would have said something. or given him shit about it. but it wasn't. so i didn't.

i was content to lay there and read my astronomy book.

another thing is his thing for pet names. what's hilarious is that it was the one thing that kit couldn't get past.

just like how coffee was calling his girl darlin', chalk called every server darlin'. and he thinks it's sweet probably. and we talked too much about how much he respects women, but it just is annoying. the first time, it's strange. and after that, annoying.

but he made the grave mistake of calling kit darlin'.

he called me baby a few times a day. which i hate. i'm not your baby. i'm not anyone's baby, except my mama's. and i think that is such a dumb pet name. he also said things like 'my sweet' and by the end of the weekend i started to realize that i was thinking, 'hey, lover'. but refrained from ever saying it. because my asshole ex-roommate used to overuse that, so i hate it still.


and then i remember the thing that i started to write out last night, and forgot. when i was writing about him taking care of me, the whole main point of that was to write about when we fell off the bed.

it's a great story.

so, whatever, we were in the middle of going at it. and, like the rest of the times, he went to flip me over effortlessly, only somehow he didn't realize that we were on the edge of the bed. so when he flipped us over, we were literally in the air.

and in the time it took to hit the floor, the WOOD floor i might add, he grabbed onto me with both arms and held me, landing directly on his knees and elbows, and protecting me from his weight. that's the kind of care and consideration i was referring to. only it got lost.

and besides, i felt really bad about his knees. we had to take a recovery break because of it. and it was awful.



but the last thing i want to talk about and say is this.

i think chalk came here, thinking he was going to break me. as in, my heart, my spirit. he did a lot of thinking before deciding i would be fine.

and i went into it thinking, i hope he doesn't like me too much, but knowing via nina that he does have a crush on me.


and i think that what i'm left with today is this feeling like, oops. i think maybe he's a little too into it.

i think of him as a professional lover, even though that makes him sound like a manwhore and i don't think that of him at all. but i think of him as knowing exactly what he's getting into, and being good at what he does without getting too attached.

but based on his reaction to leaving, and based on the text last night and the text tonight and the scrabble conversation, i think that maybe this one might have snuck up on him. and i think that maybe he accidentally is smitten with me.

which is what my biggest fear for myself was, being smitten with him. and it's the opposite.


i am not in anything to break hearts. i'm not one of those girls with a vendetta to get back at every guy who got to her.

i really thought this one would be okay, and already, day after number one, i think that maybe it might not be.

and the worst part is? i'm thinking like a guy. because i'm like, 'if i play dumb, i can have really incredible sex at least for one more weekend, sometime in the future.'


and that sucks.

i'm glad he doesn't live here. because i wouldn't be motivated to tell him to go home. and he wouldn't be motivated to leave. and that is precisely the place where i get into all of my trouble.


i don't want to hurt him more than i don't want to get hurt. it's more important that he, whoever he is, walks away unscathed. i don't really care about myself, because i'm accustomed to my own stupid mistakes when it comes to heartbreak.


and how appropriate. as i typed out the word unscathed, i remembered that intern got clipped by a car yesterday. and walked away unscathed.

i thought, as of this morning, that i'd invite him out this weekend. but i think that might be the worst idea i've had in a while.


commence search for boy toy number two, without ever having had boy toy number one.