There is No Narrative Flow to This Entry

Just an update to let you know that I was absolutely right about my idiot manager at work. Remember how he only scheduled me four times during the two weeks I was here over winter break not doing anything at all whatsoever, with tons of time to kill, time in which I would have liked making money? Remember how I said something about how knowing his idiocy he'd start scheduling me for five shifts a week once school started and I was really busy? Yeah. That is EXACTLY what happened. The past two weeks I had five shifts each week. This week I had four. I realize they're short staffed right now, but I'm really starting to get pissed off. I'm actually managing my time alright right now, and I have to admit that the money I'm making is making me very happy. He has also been scheduling me for all day shifts, which is a good thing. Still, I'm annoyed that I was right about him.
I still kick around the idea of quitting, but I am finally at a point where I like my coworkers and kind of look forward to seeing them at work (some of them, anyway). And did I mention I like the money? It's nothing but extra money in my pocket, money that doesn't have to go towards bills or food, money that I can fritter away on alcohol and dinner out and concert and airplane tickets and all that fun stuff, although I try to be smart and save at least part of it. Plus I doubt I'd use the hours I'm currently working productively anyway if I wasn't working. I'd probably just sleep and read more blogs, to be honest. So I won't actually quit, at least not right now. But I might threaten to quit if I don't start getting a more reasonable 2-3 shifts a week schedule. I think I am a good enough employee that if I threatened to quit at this point they'd do what they need to do to keep me. It's hard to find people who actually prefer to work day shifts in the restaurant business.

Speaking of my tip money, I used some of it to go out in Austin last night and had one of the best nights I've had in a while. Debbie's boyfriend is in town, and since none of us have ever met him before she decided we all needed to go out together, so EVERYONE went to Austin for dinner. It was a really mixed group: a bunch of my usual gang of grad student buddies-Debbie (of course), Richie, Amanda, and John-and then Amanda's roommate Claire, Claire's boyfriend Jacob, Jeff (an actor in the play Richie and I are working on), and then three people I'd never met before-Chris (Debbie's boyfriend) and two of Debbie's friends from her hometown, Laura and Jake. There were enough of us that they gave us a private room at the Indian restaurant we went to for dinner, which we were thankful for because theatre people are loud. I don't think it can be helped, we just are. And it doesn't seem to matter whether or not you're an actor, because actually most of my friends here are either historians or directors, and we're still always the loudest table in any given bar/restaurant. We acknowledge this, and we try to keep it down, and we don't do ridiculous things on purpose for attention (which, stereotypical but true, is a young actor thing to do) but we're just loud. So having a private room was nice. After dinner we went to the pub across the street and I had a cider beer and just enjoyed the company. It was one of those nights where I looked around a warmly-lit room at a bunch of laughing people and thought, "I adore being with these people, and if this is as good as my life is ever going to get, then I have done pretty darn well for myself."

Which is a good feeling, considering I somehow managed to lose a friend this week. Everything had been going well between me and Mike since the new year began. I made a resolution that this is the year I stop caring about him in any sort of romantic way, and it seemed to be working. I wrote here after Rachel's wedding that I suddenly knew I really was done with him romantically, and that honestly seems to be true. It's liberating, I feel good, and I was happy with our friendship. And then suddenly as of last Monday, we're no longer speaking. And it's the damndest thing, because I don't even remember what exactly we were talking about when he said, "Fuck you, leave me alone." We were having a kind of serious conversation about some of our typical hot button issues, the things that we've argued about on and off for the past five years (things on this list include: me moving to Fort Worth for college and supposedly choosing my career over our relationship, me leaving him for my college ex, me maintaining that he was the one to suggest an open relationship in the first place all those years ago [which is TRUE!], him leaving me for Jenny last year, him choosing sex with random girls over our relationship, him holding onto unnecessary jealousy and anger and blaming me for things he won't let me fix, me worrying that he doesn't know what he really wants, me claiming that I can't trust anyone who says they love me now that he said he saw himself marrying me but then changed his mind, him claiming I screwed him up for life as far as relationships go and all his meaningless sex is my fault [perhaps that Numerology report wasn't so off the mark after all?] etc., etc.). But I didn't think we were talking about anything that major, and we certainly weren't talking about anything we haven't already talked about before. I didn't say a single thing about him or me that he didn't already know, and yet now after that conversation he's no longer speaking to me. I spent a few days text messaging him a lot and calling him a few times a day only to have him reject my call every time, and finally yesterday I was like, "Why am I doing this?" He had a severe overreaction to the whole conversation, which leads me to believe that there is something bad going on his life right now that has absolutely nothing to do with me. So I'm not going to blame myself, and I'm not going to keep pushing him to tell me why he wants to stop speaking to me. When you really think about it, who cares why? No matter what he tells me I'm sure I won't think it's a good, valid reason. So what's the point in knowing? The fact of the matter is, for reasons only he knows, he needs to not be speaking to me right now.
So in a very major step for me, I've decided not to try to force a reconciliation. I'm still going to text him when I feel like it and IM him once in a while, and maybe someday he'll feel like answering again. Because as much as he can be a brat sometimes (that's what this really is more than anything, just pure brattiness on his part), I don't like burning bridges and now that I've come to terms with my complicated emotions about him, I'd like to have him in my life in some aspect. And I find it hard to believe that he'll ignore my friendly, innocuous comments forever. At some point he'll start feeling okay again and start responding to me again, I hope. His anger and depression has nothing to do with me, despite what he thinks. If it did, he'd be willing to just be with me, which would I imagine fix all his problems, were the problems in fact my fault. But they're not my fault, and I can't fix them, and I'm not going to try. I'm just going to be waiting around and reaching out so he knows I'm there, and when he feels like being friends again we will be. And if he never feels like being friends again, at least I am content in the knowledge that this break was not my fault and that I tried my best to maintain the friendship.

Well, that certainly got long-winded! Enough of this, I have stuff to do. I have a workout to do, an episode of Grey's to watch, and I'm supposed to be meeting Richie, Debbie, and Chris for drinks later tonight. I also have ten thesis pages to write, but that's what tomorrow is for. Apparently I will be procrastinating on my pages every single week! What wonderful study habits I have!