Need a Hug, or Three.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
So, The Chief could really use a hug right about now.
It's supposed to be a time of holiday cheer, but right now that seems a long way off from happening. The stuff with Miss I is ongoing, and likely will be for quite a while. Army Boy broke it off with Conservative Girl, and to top it off, this morning I had to put one of the Slacker Mascots to sleep. Holiday what?
Sometimes I really hate being able to read people. I've always been able to figure people out. Definitely from meeting them, and often just from talking to them or hearing about thier actions. Usually it's a good thing, I can spot the bad apples and befriend the good ones. Sometimes though it really sucks to be right, especially when I'm really hoping I'm not.
Such is the case with both Spott and Army Boy.
When I remet Miss Intrigue at the wedding, I knew about Spott. As our relationship developed and Evolved I was under the impression Spott was accepting of it. MI herself was convinced Spott would be ok. When I visited them though I got a much different read on her. My feelings were that Spott was extremely competitive. Sharing, would be hard if not impossible. Though, the fact that weekend went quite well, and that Miss I reported that Spott trusted me made me hopeful I was wrong. After their visit here though that all came crashing down.
I'm quite sure that my own mistakes only added fuel to the fire, it seems those feelings I got the first time were rather right. It turns out in the wake of the weekend here, Spott made an ultimatum of sorts. "Him or Me" is likely an over simplification of what happened, but going on the sparse information I've gleaned, it's the best summary I can give. Obviously this whole thing came down hard on MI. I've talked with her a little more, but very little about what's happened. Miss I is the only real question mark left. It remains to be seen if i've gotten a good read on her or not. So far she hasn't really ceased to amaze me and I'm hoping that continues...
As for Army Boy: he almost had me convinced I was wrong as well. Sunday he left Conservative Girl heartbroken. As with most break-ups, the reason he left her with didn't make much sense. He wanted someone who was athletic and extremely competitive. She spoke too quietly. They didn't go to church together (even though he's the one who failed to show up to the one they were supposed to try out together). None of it really pointed to any problem, the only explanation is just that he wasn't interested in her.
She was convinced it was something special and had tried so hard with everything. She was always sending him stuff in Iraq, making sure she was always around when he could actually talk with her, doing everything he liked when he came back and more. He promised her a lot, but really just ended up leaving her with none of it. I wanted to be wrong since she was so happy.
Those two were enough to alreayd bring me down, but then this morning I got more bad news. Curly, the smaller of the two Slacker Mascots had to be put to sleep. He had a bad sroe spot on the back of his neck and I had been treating it with a sulfa block reccomended by the Reptile shop. It seemed to be working well and looked like it was healing, then overnight it looked much, much worse. The Vet guessed that the healing area got picked at by the other turtle. He ended up taking the skin and muscle this time too though. There wasn't really anythign they could do except be humane. I'm sure the cute little guy is slackin' away on a fun little rock in some pond out there somewhere. He will be missed.
The whole lot of this just ends up giving me one question. This one can go to Mother Nature and/or doctors. Why, oh why, does your nose have to run when people cry? It's not like having excess fluids running from your eyes is bad enough. Do they really have to run from your nose as well?
Anyway yeah, I'm certianly glad CG and I are still friends. We've gotten to trade shoulders to lean on the past few days. Beyond anything else, that's definitely one thing to be happy about this season.
Hugs all around.
Slack on!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 2:25 PM,
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The Not-So-Great Second Date
Thursday, December 13, 2007So this past weekend, Miss Intrigue and Spott came to the Twin Cities for a visit. I considered tossing an announcement up on the blog, but didn't want to jinx the weekend in hopes it would be as fun a time as my visit out there was!
Unfortunately this was not to be the case.
The ladies rolled into the Twin Cities on Saturday around 2. Due to the fact Miss I works nights and Spott was behind on homework and packing, neither had slept. Miss I was tired yet happy, though Spott had an intensely negative vibe going on.
I gave them a really brief tour of the Twin Cities on the way back to Slacker HQ. We saw the Mall of America, the University of MN campus and a few other things on the way back from the airport. When we arrived home the girls promptly settled in for a nap. I got a hint of my own negative vibe there simply because this girl I totally adore was napping on my futon and all I could do was play Warcraft. Boo to that! I got over it though. Ms. I was here!!
The post nap plan was to find food, and then head out to see a friend of mine, Pandora's, cabaret and burlesque troupe perform. Unfortunately she wouldn't be performing, but we thought it would be fun anyway. MI and I grabbed some quick grub while Spott declined even though she hadn't eaten for most of the day. We watched a good chunk of Superbad then loaded up for the bar the show would be at! We got there early on advice from Pandora, got a nice table and relaxed.
Unfortunately the show didn't get going on time and eventually was about 40 minutes late. This turned out to be a good and a bad thing since Conservative girl and her boyfriend Army Boy were joining us and would be late. On the downside the girls were still tired and sitting around with nothing going on didn't help.
Miss Intrigue and I had some good convo, but most conversation with Spott was met with fairly chilly short responses. When CG and the man arrived the conversation livened up some more, though still mostly with Ms. I and myself. Spott was clearly agitate most of the night and only got talking with AB asked her some direct question that were hard to answer yes or no. Luckily the show was pretty entertaining to keep us all going!
When intermission came however the energy left with the performers. Army Boy had been playing soccer all day and was dead tired, as were the girls so we all headed out. Some of Spott's mood may have been due to the fact her stomach finally wanted attention so we stopped off so she could get a cheese pizza on the way home. The negativity in the air was getting to me so while they were grabbing pizza, I stopped in next door at Stub and Herb's for a quick Whiskey Diet.
When we got home I retreated to the office for a bit to clear my head while while Spott ate pizza and Miss I hung out. At one point MI came in to check on me and was quickly followed by Spott wanting to know where she had gone and why she left the living room. This did not help the negativity. I was determined not to let it get to me though so we all went out and watched the end of Superbad. Miss I said she enjoyed it, Spott thought it lived up to it's name. After that sleep was in order.
I unfortunately slept incredibly poorly and was up by about 6am. Once everyone got up we decided the goals for the day would be to stop by the Spoon Bridge with Cherry at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and also visit the Mall of America.
We stopped by the Spoon and Cherry so Miss Intrigue could get a picture. Spott didn't get the concept of taking a picture of something you've seen tons of pictures fo, but it was fun anyway albeit very cold.
Next was the MoA, which upon entering we found out we could be part of "The World's Largest Christmas Carol" by joining in a promotion for the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. We wandered the Mall and eventually met up for the event. We joined in a huge group of people in singing the Chipmunks Carol and supposedly broke the world record for largest carol. So, Miss I, Spott and yours truly are supposedly now in the record books! The only downside to this may have been that it delayed lunch, and other plans for the day and may have inadvertently added to lingering negativity. We hit up the Rainforest Cafe and then did some shopping to round out the MoA trip.
The ride home was very quiet. The lingering negativity and probably some of the tired in the car seemed to keep everyone's mouths glued shut. Since the girls were tired it was decided to be nap time again so they crashed on the futon. My own negativity had started to get the better of me at that point too due to the weekend seemingly having a cloud over it the whole time, so I went and played some WoW to distract myself. By the time it was time to wake up my head had cleared a good bit.
Miss I had asked me to wake her up at 7:30 so I did. Since I know I had some negative vibes here and there I wanted to chat with her and apologize and hopefully get the weekend finished on a good note. Unfortunately, this is where Date Dos imploded.
Miss Intrigue and I went into my room and shut the door. We sat down on the bed and started talking. By talking I mean just that, good conversation, not this "talking" some of you silly kids call your shenanigans. A couple minutes later MI gets a text message from Spott, wanting to know why we shut the door. MI replied so we could talk. Spott didn't get why we had to shut the door. MI asked if Spott didn't trust her and the reply was that she didn't trust me. The messages spiraled downward from there to the point where Spott said she was leaving, grabbed her coat and headed out my back door. The next couple hours would definitely not hit the highlight reel.
MI got Spott to come back inside after some conversing. I let them talk and stayed out of the way in my room. It turns out the trust Spott had in me after The First Date had completely disappeared. Her reasoning is because of two pretty nasty screw ups on my part: Telling MI's Ma about and incident her MI and S had, leading to a week of garbage, and the Thursday night of the Packers-Cowboys game where I apparently had a drink or three to many and was, in short, a jackass and acted exceptionally uncharacteristically. There was also talk of hating bars and thinking anyone who went to them was a waste of time, and how she was upset MI didn't hold her hand whenever Spott offered it the previous night. There was much other talk, not a lot of it all that great.
Once things calmed down. Miss I put on a movie for Spott and her and I headed to the office to partake in illicit, err umm totally legal in every way, file transferring. These files may or may not have been of a musical nature. It was good to get a little alone time even if it was platonic. We did talk a bit and I was able to say some of the things I had hoped to say before the blow-up, but not nearly enough. After MI got all the mu, err, legal files, she wanted. We talked a bit and then she convinced me to come out and join in the movie watching. We tossed in The Avengers which MI managed to see about a total of 40 minutes of when she wasn't visiting sleepville.
The next morning came far to fast and I had to take them to the airport far to early. The flights were decent and they made it home safe.
Definitely not a superb weekend. I was most definitely happy to see Miss I, but the weekend went far far far from planned. Our feelings and chemistry definitely were there, but it seemed like a cloud was just determined to rain on the entire weekend.
The rain didn't stop there either. The next day I checked my email. It contained a message from Spott. She stated if I went out to NY again I should plan on a hotel because I was no longer welcome in her home, and that I should never talk to her again. Obviously this concerned and saddened me.
One, I've always done my best to go out of my way to be kind and inclusive of Spott. I've gone to the extent of totally reigning in my typical self around her to be sure not to offend. I know I made mistakes with MI, but made sure not to do anything offensive directly to Spott. Even to the fact that I let it go after she completely blew away any respect for my privacy in my own home.
I know the whole situation has upset Miss Intrigue as well. We've only talked in short spurts since they got back. We seem to be able to touch each other's feelings and what was stress, is now just stuck in numb. This pains me because it's someone i deeply care about, but I can't do much to help. My normal reaction would be to push and try my best to cheer her up but I'm not sure that can work in this situation. Another typical reaction would be to email Spott back and try to iron things out, but I'm afraid of that backfiring and not helping the situation either. I think all I can do is give some space and hope things work out. We all know my brain is not a happy camper doing that. I'm a fixer, and I hope this whole thing can be fixed, but i guess only time will tell.
So yeah, the second date was definitely not great. Though, I guess at the least, it was one for the record books.
posted by Chief Slacker @ 1:50 PM,
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Yeah, it Sucked...
Thursday, December 06, 2007So yeah, that drive home was all sorts of horrible. Here's a shot of outside just before I left:
What you can't see very clearly is the snow falling sideways. And not small flakes either.
So, I hopped in the car, fired up my fun little GPS thing and kindly asked the nice Australian women inside it to find me a route home that avoids traffic. He kind, lightly accented voice replied back: "Eh, you're screwed." And then showed me this picture:
If you hadn't guessed, red is bad. The pink line is the route Nuvi plotted for me. It ended up completely avoiding highways all together. Every time I crossed one I was quite glad for this because the traffic wasn't moving... at. all.
In all, it took me about two and a half hours to make it the 26 miles home from work. Not a fun drive in any way shape or form other than I actually MADE it home. I sent a text message to a friends when I got home as well: "Thank every god that will listen and maybe even Tom Cruise, I'm home."
The great part is we're expected to get another 3 inches of snow this after noon. I'm so packing a meal for this one...
**EDIT - So, just in case my tale doesn't give you a big enough picture as to how insane that ratffic and snow fall made people, how about an Attempted Plowjacking. heh.**
posted by Chief Slacker @ 9:49 AM,
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This is Gonna Suck...
Tuesday, December 04, 2007So, you know your drive home is going to be incredibly bad when you look outside and see heavy snow coming down basically sideways.
Then, logically you check the weather online to find out how long it's going to last and see this:
Oh look! The pretty darker blue stuff is still heading toward us! Pretty Dark blue is good right? What? Oh crap. Wait. That's bad. *cry*
If you don't hear from me again soon, send out search parties to the snow filled ditches around the cities.
posted by Chief Slacker @ 3:15 PM,
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