Update on the Pimp

Oh my god! Will it never end?

Yousef just came up to my desk. He just wanted to tell me he had been laid off, and would no longer be working for the company. So he came up to say goodbye, and let me know that I could give him a call now, without placing my job in jeopardy.

I just stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights and said "That's nice. Maybe i'll see you around sometime." Thankfully the phone rang just then.

I'm kicking myself now because i forgot to ask him if he sent the flowers. Oh well.

Office Pimp

So I think I finally know who my secret admirer is....

I'm at work yesterday, still filling in for the sick receptionist, sitting up front, answering the phones. I hear one of the lobby doors open and turn around to see that cross-eyed creepy-looking Arab guy that works in one of the labs walking towards me. In the back of my head, this little voice is screaming "No Please No." I just know what's coming.

Sure enough, he walks up to me and says "Your name is Melissa right?"

"Close, it's Marissa. With an 'R'."

"Oh yes. I remember your name. Do you know my name?"

I know there is a look of pure anguish on my face at this moment. "Um, no. I can't remember. I'm sorry."

"It's Yousef."

"Sorry. Hi Yousef."

"If I give you my cell phone number, will you promise to call me?" He pulls out his business card, and written in bright blue ink at the top is his personal cell number. I think I cringed.

"I don't think I can do that. I don't think it's allowed. My job, you know. I'm sorry."

He just says okay and walks out the opposite door.

This has me pretty sure he is the one that sent the flowers. Even though he said my name wrong, and whoever sent the flowers knew exactly how to spell my name. But I think it highly unlikely that there is more than one person at my work demented enough to find me attractive in my work uniform. Not many men go for that look.

You know, it's funny. When I first found out about the flowers, and Mandi and Jax asked me who I thought it could be, my mind immediately thought of Yousef. It thought "God, please don't let it be him!" I think I jinxed myself on that one.

It's Done

Thanks to the power of insomnia, I have finished uploading the chronicles of mine and Kelsey's Europe travels. Check it out at http://buttersandwiches.blogspot.com/ Okay....going to bed now...gotta get up to get ready for work in about 5 hours.

Heavy thoughts...

(Two posts in a day... normally i'd spread it out but today is just full of craziness.)

So I've been working hard to get this Europe blog all put together lately. And I wanted it to be really cool, not just writing, but pictures from the trip as well to illustrate the events. Since I did not have too many usable pictures of my own, and my parents took tons with their digital on that trip, i thought i'd raid their stash. Today after work, i went over to use their computer and go through their picture files looking for anything interesting. I'm really not loving what I found....

Okay, let me preface by saying that i've undergone some changes with my physical appearance lately. Meaning i've lost some weight. I'm quite proud of it, and I'm trying to lose some more. But looking at those Europe pictures, makes me realize i've lost quite a bit more than i thought i had. Quite a bit.

To put it bluntly, I don't think I can use any of the pictures my parents have of me because they are truly hellaciously embarrassing. You could post them at SeaWorld under the heading "Miracle: Shamu Walks On Dry Land".

So now I'm wondering, where were my friends through all of this? Why didn't someone step in and have an intervention? Seriously, someone should have stepped up, snatched the cupcake out of my hand and said "Marissa, you're starting to look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, maybe it's time to relinquish the Hostess and hit a treadmill."

Ha Ha....oh god....I'm gonna print out a copy of some of the nastier pictures and tape them to my fridge...that way I never get tempted into letting myself go like that ever again.

Goodbye Land of Make-Believe

Woo-hoo!!! No more Mr. Rogers!!!

For those of you that are not aware, Mr. Rogers is one of my coworkers. That is not his real name, but a nickname i refer to him by. I call him that because when he finally shows up for his shifts, instead of coming in to relieve me like he's supposed to, he makes me watch as he stands outside his car and slowly changes his shoes and sweater. (Just like Mr. Rogers in the beginning of every show. That man would change his clothes multiple times an episode, and yet rarely ever feeds those fish. What kind of priorities are those?)

He is often late, and when he does show up in the nick of time, he still leaves me stuck inside past the end of shift, witnessing his nightly fashion show. His inability to stay on his schedule is the reason i've had to change to working Friday-Saturday shifts instead of Saturday-Sunday shifts. My constant overtime on Sunday nights would leave me too tired for my 7 am class Monday mornings.

On the rare occasions that he shows up early, he usually won't scan the badge to let me leave the building, but holds me hostage while he regales me with ridiculous whiny tales of how difficult his life is. Like how his parents are willing to pay all his rent and bills whenever he decides to move out, on the condition that he start going to school full time....the horror! And how hard it is squeezing in the all-important underage drinking between the grueling schedule of 6 JC units he takes a semester.

At first, I kind of understood some of the complaints about the job. He does work the graveyard shift, which can be pretty grueling. And he's only 19 and it's the first job he's ever had...but he goes too far. He demanded more hours, then complains that he is overworked. He specifically asked for the grave shifts, and then insists he got shafted with the worst schedule. And he has put in notice numerous times, only to call at the last minute and "take it back". Not to mention that all this complaining began barely 3 weeks into the job.

Well, my boss just got fed up. This last Friday, the guy informed, (not asked but informed), my boss that starting next week, he was no longer working Saturday and Sunday grave shifts, but would be scaling back his hours to just Mondays and Tuesdays.

My boss had enough. So the boss tells me this morning that he is sending notice to our parent company that Mr. Rogers is no longer wanted at the contract location, and that they should send over his replacement as soon as possible. The best part? He hasn't told the guy yet.... it's really a beautiful moment of pure evil i'm enjoying right now.

Running Away

I feel like I need a change of scenery. Not just temporary, like a vacation. But a complete change. A whole life/environment/existence universal overhaul. I want to get out of San Jose, out of California, the country. I can't wait to be done with school and graduate. The wait is interminable. More and more, I keep thinking that i've gotta take that time off after school, before i move forward with other plans. I think maybe going to Switzerland for a year or so would work well to clear my head.

There is so much i'm not ready to leave behind, so much more that I just don't want to leave behind. But that's what has me thinking that it's time to move on. I just feel so shackled, so trapped. Everything is closing in on me and i feel so claustrophobic. I can't help thinking of what I will become if I stay here, and it scares me.

I've changed so much about myself, most especially recently. Inside and outside, i'm just not the same person anymore. I like who i've become...and i'm afraid of falling back into what I was. I see this potential in me to keep moving forward, to keep getting better, keep working to be what everyone always said I was capable of. But this little voice inside me is telling me it won't happen here. That if I stay here, i'll end up destroying everything i've been working so hard for, and falling right back in to the way things used to be.

I just don't know what to do. I'm at an impasse. I know in my heart what I need to do, and that its the right thing, but why does it feel so bad? If it is really the right thing, should it hurt to realize it? I just hate how I am sometimes. The one thing that would be the best thing for me, and yet I think of it as betraying the people I love. Why does my mind equate moving on with running away?

New Blog In Process

The other night, I was with my friend Kelsey, and we had this chance to reminisce about old times. Specifically our trip to Europe together back in the summer of 2003.

I was looking through some of the old pictures, and i remembered that i had written a journal for the vacation. And Kelsey was always telling me i should make a copy of the journal for her. Although I'm still waiting to watch the video she made, even if it is of nothing but the damn railroad tracks.

So this got me to thinking.... what if i created another, additional blog that was made up of the cool pictures and journal entries from the trip? I figure that no one but Kelsey and I will find it even remotely interesting, but what the hell? I'm gonna do it anyway.

That means keep on the lookout for the Europe blog. I'll be getting started on it some time today. (Stuck at work with nothing to do, why not type up my old journal? This may take a bit too because if i recall correctly, there is a lot of stuff that might have to be censored. ha ha.) I'll update at some point and include a link.

Connecting

Not sure how to express what I'm thinking. This conveys it far more eloquently than I could ever manage:

"Sometimes I feel as though there's this hidden country inside me, a landscape that's going to remain forever unexplored because I can't make a normal connection with another human being, with someone who might map it out for me. It's my land, it belongs to me, but I'm denied access to it. The only way I could ever see it is through the eyes of someone outside this body of mine, through the eyes of someone who loves me.

I think we all have these secret landscapes inside us, but I don't think that anybody else ever thinks about them. All I know is that no one ever visits mine, and when i'm with other people, I don't know how to visit theirs."

-Charles de Lint, from The Wishing Well

Is there really no such thing....

...as friendship with the opposite sex?

A guy friend of mine just sent me an email telling me that he has feelings for me that he has to confess. He does this now after almost 2 years of friendship. Not just feelings but love, that he's in love with me.

He tells me he hopes this hasn't screwed everything up. And i feel so pressured. I don't return the feelings, i can't return the feelings. But i feel like a bastard now because of that. I feel like the bad guy because i don't return the sentiment. Its like a huge guilt trip laid on me.

I got his email, and it kind of pressured me to respond right away. But i did not know what to say. So I could not respond. It had barely been a day, and i received another email from him. He wanted to know what was taking me so long to respond, and pressuring me further into giving him an answer right away.

This made me so angry. I've had so much going on, with midterms and papers, and everything else. And to have him pressure me about something i never encouraged or wanted just pushed me to the edge. So I may have responded back a little more harshly than i intended. His response to that just made me feel justified for the anger.

From his words and tone, it's almost like he wants nothing now, not even friendship, (even though he says he does). Like if he can't have it the way he wants it, why bother? He says he'll always have feelings for me. It seems like he'd still only be my friend now in the hopes that eventually he can convince me to change my mind.

I can't trust him now. He gained my trust and friendship, but it feels like it was all just a ruse. That it was all just planned out in the hopes of getting more. Never friends for the sake of friendship. And how can I be friends with him now, knowing he was always hiding things from me?

(And on a tangent, I don't think he knows what the hell love means. It's something that's created in the existence of mutual affection and respect, and takes time and experience before it can be created. Obsessing and crushing on someone without ever telling them of those feelings is not love. It's crap, is what it is.)

Is this what friendship with men will always be? I've heard so many people say that it's inevitable. That one person always wants more than the other. I hate that. I don't want that to be true. It's already so hard to trust the men i date, can i now not trust the men i have as friends?

I don't know.... i'm just so frustrated.

Ready To Try

I've been thinking a lot about my internship lately. I was talking to someone the other day about it, and they asked me "Do you really think you can make a difference?" All I could respond was "I can try."
So I'm sitting at work tonight, reading True Notebooks, as part of an assignment for my corrections class. The book is a true account of a man who teaches a writing class for violent offenders at a juvenile detention center. The very last page of the book was a poem written to the author by one of the inmates. It left me a little emotional....

DEAR FRIEND

Hello there old friend

At the moment I'm kind of down

It seems as though this is the end

I haven't had the chance to see you around.

I've been sitting here bereft,

Alone, locked down

But now I have a window

And see you every night.

Times are hard, but i'll be alright.

Gun towers, barbed wire is all I see

No matter how far I travel

I glance up, and there you'll be.

Its good to have a friend like you

At times you help me shine through.

I still have a long journey to go

But I'll be free again

I'll use this time to grow

In not just one way, but all

There's a lot for me to learn

So I'm gonna start like a baby, with a crawl.

Though the road may seem

Long and far

Eventually I'll make it

Dear old friend, North Star

Salzman, M. (2003) True notebooks. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

So I don't know the likelihood that I could have this kind of affect on my mentee. But I do want to try. I guess reading this book makes me understand what I'm feeling. I've felt so lost sometimes. Knowing that I have this chance and I'm going to be part of this program makes me feel like I'm finally doing something I can really be proud of. I've finally found a real challenge, not something I can fake my through and still succeed. Maybe that is why it's so crucial to me to do this well.... I want to know that I am capable of something real....

Qoute of the Moment

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
Tom Robbins

There you have it...justification for my existence.