Is it May yet?
This is the first time I'm posting in forever. For a while I was debating on giving up LJ, I hardly ever had time to post anything, and with so many people on the 'friends list' there for whatever artwork was posted so long ago, it seemed weird posting anything that wasn't directly related to it. I'll probably just keep most of those posts on a filter from here on out.
SO. April.
I'm seriously beginning to dread the month. I don't know why, but crazy shit always always seems to go down during April. 2005 - it was my transmission going out before (like literally right before) I was due to move up here for the HH job, putting my start date back two weeks so I could get a new one. 2007- my mother moves up here and in with me three days before the office fire, both incidents doing their best to completely fuck over the rest of the year for me in several ways. 2008 - ugh. I'll get to that in a minute. 2006? As far as I remember, was the exception. Wait. no. Well, not exactly. That was when I accepted a freelancing thing with Chris Shy which proceeded to go straight to hell over that summer on account of him being a conceited jackass. I was still trying to rectify my part in that debacle the next year, yet another nail in the coffin of The Long Count. That's another story.
This year. I don't know. I really don't want to come off as bitching or whiny, but sometimes I really want to know what's so wrong with me. I mean, I have to be missing something... The month started out with me finally getting brave enough to ask the guy I'd spent the past year hanging out with alot whether or not he saw our relationship going farther than it was. He said he didn't. This was the guy where there was no such thing as a "quick trip" to the comic store if he was working because it would literally be hours before a break in the conversation would allow me to either head back to work or the place would close, whichever happened first. We got along incredibly well, to the point where I'd stop in and the other co-workers/whoever was there would immediately announce my arrival or say where he was. Meeting up with other people, it was almost always a given that we'd sit next to each other. He was always plugging the work I'd done and would talk about stuff he wanted me to draw for him. We'd constantly talk about whatever and all of a sudden it's 5 hours later, that kind of thing. I was completely comfortable around him.
And I finally got up enough courage after all this time, and he said he didn't see it going anywhere. It was obvious I was basically in love with the guy, and he knew it for a good while. I wasn't mad, I don't even know that I was hurt. I just didn't understand. Probably the only thing I wanted to ask was how much longer would he have allowed me to embarrass myself fawning over him, if I hadn't said anything. Why didn't he kill this early on? Was there some sort of hint I was supposed to take? I really don't know. I don't know that I've ever met anyone I've been more compatible with. The thing that I've been trying to drive from my little insecure mind is whether or not this would be the case if I were a size 4 and not what I am now. I really, really don't see him as being shallow, but I don't know. I think that's more me than anything else. I haven't been into the store since the 'revelation'. I haven't emailed him since then either. He hasn't emailed me. I'm not mad at him. I don't blame him for anything. I just don't know what it was. What was it about me that wasn't good enough?
The thing that makes this so much worse is how close it is to history repeating. North Carolina. That year. I end up getting "recruited" into moving to another state with a guy that I like, and being the first venture into moving far away, had to go through hell and high water to make it happen with my parents. I finally get the move finalized, and a little before it happens, the "I like you, I just don't see you that way" conversation takes place between the guy and I. We were good friends, and spent hours going to shows, conventions, talking about comics, talking about art, talking about whatever, hanging out a lot. And he gave off a really convincing impression that he liked me. So I ask him about it at one point and that's what he says to me. At least back then he had a habit of not being entirely aware of the impression he was giving people, at least women at any rate. That's another story. So I was like, well... fuck. What do I do? It was too late to back out of the move, I stupidly decide to go. Within two months of being down there, he starts dating this girl. The guy was something of a punk rock type, piercings, spiked hair that changed color on a weekly basis, all things Social Distortion, that kind of guy. The girl started out as an Abercrombie and Fitch type, who immediately morphed into a Hot Topic acolyte as soon as he started working where she did. Cut the long blonde hair into a short spiky thing, and started wearing whatever she could to get his attention. She was also completely superficial, vapid as hell, and relatively desperate for attention. But, hey, she looked good in a miniskirt. So he wasn't interested in someone on his intellectual level, who could spend hours with him talking about any kind of art style or artist, what was happening in the world, etc. He wanted the barbie doll who, right after meeting him, took him to get her nipples pierced. He claimed to have seen no alterior motive in that little excursion. Moving to North Carolina for that year rates as the worst mistake I've made. Granted the guy I'm talking about in the above paragraph, is ...as far as I know? not dating anyone. I'm just seeing two years of therapy go out the window if this happens all over again. I'm not thin. I'm more secure about myself than I ever have been, but still... how different would all this be if I looked different? Most of what confidence I have goes into the artwork, outside of that there's not much left. So. Yeah. There's that.
Ended up having to take the car in for a major overhaul taking nearly a week. $2000 of repairs a couple of days after the revelation. Got stuck at home for two days because of it. Mom was out of town, and all the people I work with are on the other side of town, asking them to drive me back and forth would have put someone on the road for nearly two additional hours, I couldn't do that. Almost got in trouble because of being stuck at home as work has a tendency of enforcing policy where they see fit. Things worked themselves out.. Got the car back just to take it back to the shop three more times to finally fix the leaking that was still taking place, they never charged me for the additional repairs, which was incredibly cool. Got sick around the beginning of the month, some head cold thing that wasn't going away, so I got some antibiotics to knock it out. That worked until the antibiotics ran out, and the thing came back a few days later, and within a week turned into the worst case of bronchitis/pneumonia/I-don't-know-what that I've had in years. In the middle of this, I take on a relatively short term freelancing project that I really could use the cash for what with the $2000 repair bill I just paid out. The fun thing with the bronchitis/pneumonia/I-don't-know-what was how much you fucking cannot sleep as your coughing painfully with every breath you take. I clocked in somewhere around 5 days (right at the start of the project) without sleeping but an hour or so a couple of times a night. I was trying to work on the thing duiring all that and it just looked like absolute hell, didn't keep any of it. It was still a couple of days on the z-pack that things finally started to work and I could get stuff done, but man I can't tell you how much I didn't need to lose that time.
It was also during this time that I go in for my physical and the doctor, while feeling my abdominal area, finds an area that's considerably harder than the rest of me. I mention that I was aware of it, and just thought that, basically, it was part of the fact I'm not a size 4. She immediately sets up two appointments during that week to get a scan and meet up with a specialist. I'll spare everyone the female-related TMI, but I have to go in for an operation sometime mid-July and started treatments to try and make the thing an outpatient procedure and not a full on out-for-8-weeks-of-recovery thing. The side effects of the treatment kicked in hardcore last week. I start the project a coughing insomniac, and end it with migraines and feeling like someone was constantly punching me in the stomach. The project ended up being turned in two days past deadlines. It was due Friday, I turned it in on Monday. I didn't tell them why it was late, just apologized profusely and forfeited payment on the thing. It's just... fucking hell. Who does this happen to? Every time I take on a side project, everything just goes to hell. If I was late on the project because I was screwing around, playing games or something, that's one thing. But I was trying so hard to get this thing done in the face of everything going on and it still didn't happen when it needed to. So my reputation is probably shot with those guys and it's like, God dammit. This was not my fault. I guess I'll feel better if I knew other people had phenomenally crappy timing when it comes to stuff like that, too? I don't know. I just really needed that to go off without a hitch and naturally, Murphy's Law had to be front and center of the whole situation. So. No more side projects. I'm a little tired of being a further disappointment to people.
I know I'm a hermit. Outside of the artwork I don't generally like drawing attention to myself, which is why it's taken forever to write this. I don't know when I'll be around that guy again... after spending so long being so ridiculously pathetic, it's kind of hard to go back and be, like, 'hey', you know? It doesn't look like he's too bothered by my staying away, so I don't know. He's probably better off. I just wish I knew what it was.
At least the month is over.
SO. April.
I'm seriously beginning to dread the month. I don't know why, but crazy shit always always seems to go down during April. 2005 - it was my transmission going out before (like literally right before) I was due to move up here for the HH job, putting my start date back two weeks so I could get a new one. 2007- my mother moves up here and in with me three days before the office fire, both incidents doing their best to completely fuck over the rest of the year for me in several ways. 2008 - ugh. I'll get to that in a minute. 2006? As far as I remember, was the exception. Wait. no. Well, not exactly. That was when I accepted a freelancing thing with Chris Shy which proceeded to go straight to hell over that summer on account of him being a conceited jackass. I was still trying to rectify my part in that debacle the next year, yet another nail in the coffin of The Long Count. That's another story.
This year. I don't know. I really don't want to come off as bitching or whiny, but sometimes I really want to know what's so wrong with me. I mean, I have to be missing something... The month started out with me finally getting brave enough to ask the guy I'd spent the past year hanging out with alot whether or not he saw our relationship going farther than it was. He said he didn't. This was the guy where there was no such thing as a "quick trip" to the comic store if he was working because it would literally be hours before a break in the conversation would allow me to either head back to work or the place would close, whichever happened first. We got along incredibly well, to the point where I'd stop in and the other co-workers/whoever was there would immediately announce my arrival or say where he was. Meeting up with other people, it was almost always a given that we'd sit next to each other. He was always plugging the work I'd done and would talk about stuff he wanted me to draw for him. We'd constantly talk about whatever and all of a sudden it's 5 hours later, that kind of thing. I was completely comfortable around him.
And I finally got up enough courage after all this time, and he said he didn't see it going anywhere. It was obvious I was basically in love with the guy, and he knew it for a good while. I wasn't mad, I don't even know that I was hurt. I just didn't understand. Probably the only thing I wanted to ask was how much longer would he have allowed me to embarrass myself fawning over him, if I hadn't said anything. Why didn't he kill this early on? Was there some sort of hint I was supposed to take? I really don't know. I don't know that I've ever met anyone I've been more compatible with. The thing that I've been trying to drive from my little insecure mind is whether or not this would be the case if I were a size 4 and not what I am now. I really, really don't see him as being shallow, but I don't know. I think that's more me than anything else. I haven't been into the store since the 'revelation'. I haven't emailed him since then either. He hasn't emailed me. I'm not mad at him. I don't blame him for anything. I just don't know what it was. What was it about me that wasn't good enough?
The thing that makes this so much worse is how close it is to history repeating. North Carolina. That year. I end up getting "recruited" into moving to another state with a guy that I like, and being the first venture into moving far away, had to go through hell and high water to make it happen with my parents. I finally get the move finalized, and a little before it happens, the "I like you, I just don't see you that way" conversation takes place between the guy and I. We were good friends, and spent hours going to shows, conventions, talking about comics, talking about art, talking about whatever, hanging out a lot. And he gave off a really convincing impression that he liked me. So I ask him about it at one point and that's what he says to me. At least back then he had a habit of not being entirely aware of the impression he was giving people, at least women at any rate. That's another story. So I was like, well... fuck. What do I do? It was too late to back out of the move, I stupidly decide to go. Within two months of being down there, he starts dating this girl. The guy was something of a punk rock type, piercings, spiked hair that changed color on a weekly basis, all things Social Distortion, that kind of guy. The girl started out as an Abercrombie and Fitch type, who immediately morphed into a Hot Topic acolyte as soon as he started working where she did. Cut the long blonde hair into a short spiky thing, and started wearing whatever she could to get his attention. She was also completely superficial, vapid as hell, and relatively desperate for attention. But, hey, she looked good in a miniskirt. So he wasn't interested in someone on his intellectual level, who could spend hours with him talking about any kind of art style or artist, what was happening in the world, etc. He wanted the barbie doll who, right after meeting him, took him to get her nipples pierced. He claimed to have seen no alterior motive in that little excursion. Moving to North Carolina for that year rates as the worst mistake I've made. Granted the guy I'm talking about in the above paragraph, is ...as far as I know? not dating anyone. I'm just seeing two years of therapy go out the window if this happens all over again. I'm not thin. I'm more secure about myself than I ever have been, but still... how different would all this be if I looked different? Most of what confidence I have goes into the artwork, outside of that there's not much left. So. Yeah. There's that.
Ended up having to take the car in for a major overhaul taking nearly a week. $2000 of repairs a couple of days after the revelation. Got stuck at home for two days because of it. Mom was out of town, and all the people I work with are on the other side of town, asking them to drive me back and forth would have put someone on the road for nearly two additional hours, I couldn't do that. Almost got in trouble because of being stuck at home as work has a tendency of enforcing policy where they see fit. Things worked themselves out.. Got the car back just to take it back to the shop three more times to finally fix the leaking that was still taking place, they never charged me for the additional repairs, which was incredibly cool. Got sick around the beginning of the month, some head cold thing that wasn't going away, so I got some antibiotics to knock it out. That worked until the antibiotics ran out, and the thing came back a few days later, and within a week turned into the worst case of bronchitis/pneumonia/I-don't-know-what that I've had in years. In the middle of this, I take on a relatively short term freelancing project that I really could use the cash for what with the $2000 repair bill I just paid out. The fun thing with the bronchitis/pneumonia/I-don't-know-what was how much you fucking cannot sleep as your coughing painfully with every breath you take. I clocked in somewhere around 5 days (right at the start of the project) without sleeping but an hour or so a couple of times a night. I was trying to work on the thing duiring all that and it just looked like absolute hell, didn't keep any of it. It was still a couple of days on the z-pack that things finally started to work and I could get stuff done, but man I can't tell you how much I didn't need to lose that time.
It was also during this time that I go in for my physical and the doctor, while feeling my abdominal area, finds an area that's considerably harder than the rest of me. I mention that I was aware of it, and just thought that, basically, it was part of the fact I'm not a size 4. She immediately sets up two appointments during that week to get a scan and meet up with a specialist. I'll spare everyone the female-related TMI, but I have to go in for an operation sometime mid-July and started treatments to try and make the thing an outpatient procedure and not a full on out-for-8-weeks-of-recovery thing. The side effects of the treatment kicked in hardcore last week. I start the project a coughing insomniac, and end it with migraines and feeling like someone was constantly punching me in the stomach. The project ended up being turned in two days past deadlines. It was due Friday, I turned it in on Monday. I didn't tell them why it was late, just apologized profusely and forfeited payment on the thing. It's just... fucking hell. Who does this happen to? Every time I take on a side project, everything just goes to hell. If I was late on the project because I was screwing around, playing games or something, that's one thing. But I was trying so hard to get this thing done in the face of everything going on and it still didn't happen when it needed to. So my reputation is probably shot with those guys and it's like, God dammit. This was not my fault. I guess I'll feel better if I knew other people had phenomenally crappy timing when it comes to stuff like that, too? I don't know. I just really needed that to go off without a hitch and naturally, Murphy's Law had to be front and center of the whole situation. So. No more side projects. I'm a little tired of being a further disappointment to people.
I know I'm a hermit. Outside of the artwork I don't generally like drawing attention to myself, which is why it's taken forever to write this. I don't know when I'll be around that guy again... after spending so long being so ridiculously pathetic, it's kind of hard to go back and be, like, 'hey', you know? It doesn't look like he's too bothered by my staying away, so I don't know. He's probably better off. I just wish I knew what it was.
At least the month is over.