Opening and closing the narrative of the summer...
Apparently the music that I'm listening to right now is loud. I really didn't realize this until, without me hearing it, the phone rang. And rang. And, apparently, rang a third time, at which time my brother picked it up, somewhat annoyed. Was this my phone, I would not be surprised; as you all know well at this point, me answering my phone is hit-or-miss, often because it's in my room, I have my headphones on, and I can't hear it. But this was new. According to my brother, it was my mom, telling us to get off our ass and do some work. Huh, maybe I didn't want that phone call, after all.
Who would've known that, a mere week after returning to civilization, I would already be overloaded, wishing that I could start all over again? The weekend was, largely, worthless. Friday night, I didn't get home from Ann Arbor until around 8:30 in the morning, and then slept at various points during Saturday, effectively killing the day. Sunday was vaguely more productive, but not much, as I mostly just felt like shit warmed over, for some reason. Today, I feel much better, thankfully, though not after wasting two days.
It's not even that loud of a song. I can't seem to face up to the facts, I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax...
But about Friday night. Friday night, I went to Ann Arbor to play cards. This is how most stories that end with "...then I got home at 8 in the morning." start. It was supposed to be me, Niki, Other-Aaron and Chris O'Keefe. The life and times of three of these people have been mentioned in these parts before; Chris not so much, but that's okay. I think he'd rather have it that way. Looking back on these pages, while I have mentioned this in passing, I haven't really chronicled it very well. So here goes. Niki and I dated, if you can even call it that, for around a month, from the beginning of April to the beginning of May. During this time, she was afraid of Other-Aaron (I call him this so as to avoid confusion with the Aaron that reads this) finding out and being jealous before she had a chance to tell him herself. Or so she said. Everything seemed fine, for, as I said, about a month, until I got a phone call, pretty much saying that she was dating him now. I was...surprised, to say the least. Four days later, I went to Baltimore. This is pretty much where I stopped saying anything in this medium about this situation.
After we broke up, we continued to play cards with each other, most every Tuesday night in Ann Arbor. This was how we met, it's one of the few things we actually have in common, and, even though all three of us were present, it was delightfully not awkward. In fact, if you were an outside observer, like, say, Chris O'Keefe, you wouldn't've known that anything was any different from 2 weeks ago, or 2 months ago. Everything was, to use the played-out Talking Heads line, same as it ever was. Now, if you asked me that horrible, prying, over-curious and speculative, yet strangely fascinating question, "How long will this last?", I would've said "very possibly, a very long time." Because unlike me, he is almost the exact same person as her, just...male. And, shit, it looked like there was something there for months before (see: anything related to a pendulum), so, why not now?
I guess one could say that it lasted "a very long time", if your definition of "a very long time" is "around a month". Because sometime in early June, it all fell apart over there. Or, at least, reliable sources told me it did. This was on a Saturday. The same source told me that Other-Aaron would likely not be at cards that Tuesday, as things "could never be the same". Of course, this same conversation contained such nuggets of wisdom as "You are the Todd Jones of cuddling. You are a human gas can." And if you don't know what that means...consider yourself lucky. Skip 3 days ahead, to that Tuesday. If things really had fallen apart, the curious person in me wanted to see for myself. I arrive at the Union, only to see Other-Aaron there, Niki there, and no fire or brimstone. For things never being able to be the same, this looked like the same as it ever was. And, indeed, it was. Because apparently, in the span of 3 days, they had broken up, and gotten back together. I didn't really know the second part at the time, I found that out later. It just looked the same as it had for the last indefinite amount of time.
Two weeks later, now nearing the end of June, it all ended semi-officially (and by this I mean "ended on Facebook."). Well, twice. Going by the unofficial record, they broke up 3 times in 3 weeks. Hey, to each their own. I found this out on a Monday, so, tomorrow was cards again. And again, I had to show up. This week, some other people were coming from out of town as well, so, I had multiple reasons to show up. Unlike last time, when by the time Tuesday came, they were back together, this time they were definitely not. But again, nothing seemed different! There seemed to be an uncanny ability here to, for a few hours, put everything aside, and make everything look normal. Or, at least, as normal as this ever was. They (or, for that matter, we) could do this so well, that when Friday night happened, Chris was completely oblivious that any of this was going on. I have to say, I have some amount of respect for that.
At the beginning of July, I left for a week and a half. Left all of this behind. Expected to come back and find it all the same as when I left. Last Tuesday, I was not disappointed, as I went back, and even though there were only 6 people, two of them new (the other 4 being the same 4 of us that met Friday), everything seemed the same. This has become quite a theme. It all changed Friday night.
I got there around 8:30. Niki was already there (as I would hope, since we were playing at her apartment), as was Other-Aaron. We set everything up, waited for Chris to arrive, which he did, around 9. For the first half hour, everything seemed fine. I won 2 out of my first 3 games. Then, in the middle of the fourth game, something happened. Something non-verbal, even. I certainly didn't hear it. He said something which should've been fairly innocuous. She said something, which also should've been innocuous. He then gets up from the table, slams his chair down, apologizes to me and Chris, and leaves. Apparently things are not the same as they ever were. So, it's 9:30, and I drove out to Ann Arbor to be there for more than an hour, so this development is somewhat troubling to me, as now it means that we need to find another person. It is also a little discomforting to Chris and I that Niki just threw a doorstop at a wall. We find this other person, though it takes a while, during which time Niki and Chris go out and buy booze, because in her words, this has just become a night where getting really drunk sounds like a good idea ("my advice to you is to start drinking heavily"?). Of course, I had to drive, so it did not sound like such a good idea to me. Needless to say, I am not so stupid as to drink and drive. I may do some stupid things, but...not like that. For the next 6 or so hours, we play euchre, while Niki and Abe (the other guy that we found) drift slowly out of sobriety. Chris then had to leave, so we play Guitar Hero for another few hours, and I find out that she couldn't've been that drunk, as she still had the motor skills to beat me at Guitar Hero. No, more like blow me out of the water. Still no contest. I left around 7:30 in the morning, got home around 8:30, without getting killed on the road (or, for that matter, by my mom when I got back, both welcome developments).
This chapter is till ongoing, I have to think. The book on this is by no means closed. Which is not to say that I expect me and her to get back together, I most certainly do not. I don't want that. I think I put it best to Aaron when I said "Nothing physical was wrong. Nothing really emotional was wrong. But she's right, I was running out of things to talk about. Same thing happened with Rika. Eventually, if you're not interested in, oh, I don't know, anything happening in the world around you, I'm going to run out of shit to talk about.". Tomorrow is Tuesday. I may or may not be in Ann Arbor. But if I am, you can be assured that I will have something to say about it. Just another day in the ongoing narrative of the summer.
Who would've known that, a mere week after returning to civilization, I would already be overloaded, wishing that I could start all over again? The weekend was, largely, worthless. Friday night, I didn't get home from Ann Arbor until around 8:30 in the morning, and then slept at various points during Saturday, effectively killing the day. Sunday was vaguely more productive, but not much, as I mostly just felt like shit warmed over, for some reason. Today, I feel much better, thankfully, though not after wasting two days.
It's not even that loud of a song. I can't seem to face up to the facts, I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax...
But about Friday night. Friday night, I went to Ann Arbor to play cards. This is how most stories that end with "...then I got home at 8 in the morning." start. It was supposed to be me, Niki, Other-Aaron and Chris O'Keefe. The life and times of three of these people have been mentioned in these parts before; Chris not so much, but that's okay. I think he'd rather have it that way. Looking back on these pages, while I have mentioned this in passing, I haven't really chronicled it very well. So here goes. Niki and I dated, if you can even call it that, for around a month, from the beginning of April to the beginning of May. During this time, she was afraid of Other-Aaron (I call him this so as to avoid confusion with the Aaron that reads this) finding out and being jealous before she had a chance to tell him herself. Or so she said. Everything seemed fine, for, as I said, about a month, until I got a phone call, pretty much saying that she was dating him now. I was...surprised, to say the least. Four days later, I went to Baltimore. This is pretty much where I stopped saying anything in this medium about this situation.
After we broke up, we continued to play cards with each other, most every Tuesday night in Ann Arbor. This was how we met, it's one of the few things we actually have in common, and, even though all three of us were present, it was delightfully not awkward. In fact, if you were an outside observer, like, say, Chris O'Keefe, you wouldn't've known that anything was any different from 2 weeks ago, or 2 months ago. Everything was, to use the played-out Talking Heads line, same as it ever was. Now, if you asked me that horrible, prying, over-curious and speculative, yet strangely fascinating question, "How long will this last?", I would've said "very possibly, a very long time." Because unlike me, he is almost the exact same person as her, just...male. And, shit, it looked like there was something there for months before (see: anything related to a pendulum), so, why not now?
I guess one could say that it lasted "a very long time", if your definition of "a very long time" is "around a month". Because sometime in early June, it all fell apart over there. Or, at least, reliable sources told me it did. This was on a Saturday. The same source told me that Other-Aaron would likely not be at cards that Tuesday, as things "could never be the same". Of course, this same conversation contained such nuggets of wisdom as "You are the Todd Jones of cuddling. You are a human gas can." And if you don't know what that means...consider yourself lucky. Skip 3 days ahead, to that Tuesday. If things really had fallen apart, the curious person in me wanted to see for myself. I arrive at the Union, only to see Other-Aaron there, Niki there, and no fire or brimstone. For things never being able to be the same, this looked like the same as it ever was. And, indeed, it was. Because apparently, in the span of 3 days, they had broken up, and gotten back together. I didn't really know the second part at the time, I found that out later. It just looked the same as it had for the last indefinite amount of time.
Two weeks later, now nearing the end of June, it all ended semi-officially (and by this I mean "ended on Facebook."). Well, twice. Going by the unofficial record, they broke up 3 times in 3 weeks. Hey, to each their own. I found this out on a Monday, so, tomorrow was cards again. And again, I had to show up. This week, some other people were coming from out of town as well, so, I had multiple reasons to show up. Unlike last time, when by the time Tuesday came, they were back together, this time they were definitely not. But again, nothing seemed different! There seemed to be an uncanny ability here to, for a few hours, put everything aside, and make everything look normal. Or, at least, as normal as this ever was. They (or, for that matter, we) could do this so well, that when Friday night happened, Chris was completely oblivious that any of this was going on. I have to say, I have some amount of respect for that.
At the beginning of July, I left for a week and a half. Left all of this behind. Expected to come back and find it all the same as when I left. Last Tuesday, I was not disappointed, as I went back, and even though there were only 6 people, two of them new (the other 4 being the same 4 of us that met Friday), everything seemed the same. This has become quite a theme. It all changed Friday night.
I got there around 8:30. Niki was already there (as I would hope, since we were playing at her apartment), as was Other-Aaron. We set everything up, waited for Chris to arrive, which he did, around 9. For the first half hour, everything seemed fine. I won 2 out of my first 3 games. Then, in the middle of the fourth game, something happened. Something non-verbal, even. I certainly didn't hear it. He said something which should've been fairly innocuous. She said something, which also should've been innocuous. He then gets up from the table, slams his chair down, apologizes to me and Chris, and leaves. Apparently things are not the same as they ever were. So, it's 9:30, and I drove out to Ann Arbor to be there for more than an hour, so this development is somewhat troubling to me, as now it means that we need to find another person. It is also a little discomforting to Chris and I that Niki just threw a doorstop at a wall. We find this other person, though it takes a while, during which time Niki and Chris go out and buy booze, because in her words, this has just become a night where getting really drunk sounds like a good idea ("my advice to you is to start drinking heavily"?). Of course, I had to drive, so it did not sound like such a good idea to me. Needless to say, I am not so stupid as to drink and drive. I may do some stupid things, but...not like that. For the next 6 or so hours, we play euchre, while Niki and Abe (the other guy that we found) drift slowly out of sobriety. Chris then had to leave, so we play Guitar Hero for another few hours, and I find out that she couldn't've been that drunk, as she still had the motor skills to beat me at Guitar Hero. No, more like blow me out of the water. Still no contest. I left around 7:30 in the morning, got home around 8:30, without getting killed on the road (or, for that matter, by my mom when I got back, both welcome developments).
This chapter is till ongoing, I have to think. The book on this is by no means closed. Which is not to say that I expect me and her to get back together, I most certainly do not. I don't want that. I think I put it best to Aaron when I said "Nothing physical was wrong. Nothing really emotional was wrong. But she's right, I was running out of things to talk about. Same thing happened with Rika. Eventually, if you're not interested in, oh, I don't know, anything happening in the world around you, I'm going to run out of shit to talk about.". Tomorrow is Tuesday. I may or may not be in Ann Arbor. But if I am, you can be assured that I will have something to say about it. Just another day in the ongoing narrative of the summer.