January 30, 2006 - I Told Tess

Tess has been trying to set a computer program up in her laptop for some time now. I provided her with an installation disk and a personally written tutorial explaining how to set up said program. She worked on it for a few days but was getting nowhere fast. I told her that I needed run a female problem by her, so if she wished I could come up to her house and personally get the laptop working and she accepted and we set ourselves for Friday (1/27) after work.

Last Thursday I tried to confirm the plans but Tess told me that she was going to be having some people over and that Saturday was going to be a 'girls night out' and rescheduled for Sunday (1/29) at 7pm.

Tess and her sister Lynn* live at Lynn's boyfriend's house along with Lynn's one and half year old son. This is the same place I brought the General Lee to last September for a party (blog on 9/8/05). It is a quaint raised ranch (the kind where when you walk through the front door you are on a staircase landing with the living room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms upstairs and Tess' room, a bar room and a full basement downstairs) with large yard and nice porch off of the kitchen.

From what she told me, I guess Tess had partially lost her voice due to her exploits on Saturday, and was drinking lightly along with Lynn when I arrived. The place was never really quite enough, or Tess and I alone enough to tell her my feelings and for quite a while I didn't think I would have the opportunity.

Eventually, Lynn and her boyfriend did in fact go off to bed and I saw a chance. Basically I told Tess the truth. I told her I was interested in a girl whom I believed to be single, but was debating as to whether or not tell her as I was not at all sure if she would reflect my emotions. Was it the 'easy way'? I suppose if I ended it there, than yes I may have well been.

She said that she wasn't the right person to ask about matters of love, but that she personally wouldn't do so unless was pretty sure the other person was interested. She told me a few weeks ago in a bar in Portland (about an hour south of us) she met some guy and said how it just seemed to click and that there was no wondering as they just knew it was working. She said that she was not really interested in her former boyfriend during the last months of their relationship and all of the people she had tried something with after that had lacked the spark she felt with this guy in Portland. She neglected to say if they were boyfriend/girlfriend, but she never mentioned anything in the time since about being with someone so I am inclined to think she and this guy might be taking things VERY slow and not declaring a damn thing.

This, as it may not surprise, threw me for a loop. Not only did she not agree with the concept of telling this person, but may have told me that she had a potential boyfriend. I spent about ten minutes trying to decide if I should put things on the line and tell her, or if I should allow things to continue along as they were.

Tess confessed that she really was very tired and said she really needed to sleep. She had been yawning on and off since before Lynn went to bed and I did get that program working, so I decided that my time, and chances, were up.

As we got the stair landing by the door (me to leave and Tess to go to her bedroom) I fought with myself and just as Tess's head disappeared in her room, I called out to her.

I suppose what happened next has been boiling up inside of me for a longtime. My entire life I have avoided telling women that I was interested in the truth; for some reason that didn't work for me this time. For some reason, this time I decided I couldn't just walk away again and have to wonder what could have happened. I think my courage picked the wrong time to work.

Her head popped out and even though I could have said something lame like 'good night' or 'sleep well', I simply said "you're her."

Tess's eyes seemed to widen for a moment. The look was not a lot, but enough to tell me that she understood what I had meant. My mission done and feeling faintly horrid, I simply turned back to the door, said either 'good night' or 'see you tomorrow' (to be honest I was so sick feeling I can't recall).

A large part of me feels guilty for placing that at her feet, another part of me feels like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I've done something that I have never really had the... guts... to do before.

Did I cheat? Was I a coward for not waiting for a response, or just telling her in plain speak so a judgment could be issued? Perhaps, but I don't think so. If I were being told by a person whom I considered a friend that they were interested in me, I think not having to answer immediately would help. I might help able to actually think about them and perhaps try to see them from a different perspective. Or, if a let down is going to occur, allow me time to script something that can possibly save their feelings and our friendship.

No matter how noble I can make it sound now, it WAS cowardice that made me run. The knowledge that I will not have to deal with her rejection for that much longer, but knowing she knows the truth.

Will it screw the friendship? I don't know, but very possible. I can put on a good facade when prompted, but if I had to watch her and some guy acting like a boyfriend and a girlfriend at a gathering, I do not know how long I could pretend not to be hurt.

No matter. To quote Caesar as he crossed the Rubicon "Iacta alea est".

January 22, 2006 - 26 Years Old

I, as planned, went to my co-workers gathering. I'm sure it would have been far more exciting if I could drink or indulge in... other... mind altering substances, but since I don't my night was more or less relegated to sitting (or more often standing) while others carried on. I did have a few meaningful conversations with a few people but by and large I stayed quite and out of sight.

Tess was there, but I never really had what I would deem a good opportunity to talk with her about the more serious things in life. She was, to be honest, twisted up pretty heavily and from what I was told had been for a little while before I showed up. I did manage to find out that she is in fact still single but she had a guy friend that came later on in the night. Tess had said if he and she were unattached by the age of 33 she would probably marry him. I wanted to try to use that as an opening, but as I studied her I had a bit of an epiphany. Tess and I come from completely different worlds. Geographically we may be close, but in almost every other way there seems to be a chasm that divides us.

She likes parties, I like quiet. She likes to drink, I do not. She can be the life of a party, I can be the wallpaper.

I don't know. A part of me says to disregard her as anything other than a friend, another part says to try damn near anything to break through that wall of friendship that surrounds us. She is beautiful, but I know other physically beautiful women and they do not have this affect on me.

Maybe I should write down the web address to this blog and inform her she is in fact Tess. But if I did that she would have insight to a part of me I would prefer expose to her in person.

January 19, 2006 - Turning 26

In two days, (1/21) I will be 26. It's kind of scary to think I have lived longer than a quarter of a century, and even scarier to think I can remember all but a year or so of it. My birthday falls on the same day as a fellow co-workers, so I will most likely be going over to her and her fiances' place for a party. I used to not look at my birthday with a great deal of morose, but that has been changing in the last few years. People that I used to go to high school with are moving ever forward while I seem to languish behind. Perhaps when I post for turning 27 I can look back at this and say 'wow, so much has changed.'

Not much been going on in my neck on the woods. The weather has been phenomenal lately. Mid to upper 40's, the snow is almost completely gone and the ice is melting off.

My New Year's resolution is still in full swing. I lost 12 pounds as of Sunday (1/15) and this past Wednesday I started going to a gym to work out, so now the affects should really start being noticeable. I is hard to pass up on the things I really want, but I hope that by this spring or summer I can look back and feel it was worth it.

I have been trying, with some degree of success, to assimilate Tess as a closer friend. She and another couple of co-workers work out at the same gym I am, so there could feasibly be more opportunity to talk or more personal topics, but I don't know. A part of me is tempted to tell her of my romantic inclinations at the part this Saturday, when she might not be completely sober; but knowing me, I will hide as I have for the last few years.

Here's hoping for a better post next time!

January 6, 2006 - The post I Knew Was Coming

Today I got clear and concise confirmation from Dee's mouth (as she was talking to friends) that she is indeed dating a guy seriously and in fact has been for a number of weeks, if not months.

It sounds as if this new guy is everything that her old boyfriend was not (a positive thing, mind you) and in many respects better than I. He is kind, caring, makes a lot of money and lives on his own. Dee is head over heels, and while I was not at all happy about this for about an hour or two, I have since come to my senses. Living with my mother and brother is not conducive to any sort of romance and is a fact that tears at me quite a bit. I love them, my brother especially, but I hate not being able to live like a normal adult guy. I hate not being to invite people (ie girls) to where I live, for fear my mom or Jim would be here. Hell, in my last relationship, I had to go over to her house to spend the night.

It does not help that I hate the actual venue called 'home' as well. It is an embarrassing mockery to everything I would strive to become. I work 8.5 hours a day, doing a job I would prefer not do and have to come home to a place that reflects all that I work so hard to leave in my past.

Jim and I have talked extensively about getting another place, void of our mother, and that would help; however, I have never lived on my own. I have never had the freedom to just buy the food I want, never had the freedom to play the music I want (for fear of others disapproval).

I will grant that someday I wish to have a wife and kids. Any person who claims that men do not have a version of the biological clock is deluded and does not know men as well as they would like to think. It is human nature to want to propagate the species (over 6 billion people reflect that), and it is also human nature to not want to be alone. Some find fulfillment is never having the nuclear family, I am not one of them.

Jim has confessed that he and I will not always live together, but I do not think he understands just how much I hunger for that. I do not, at this point, make enough money to be fully self-sufficient (a nice reflection of our fucked (sorry) up economy). But with any luck (and ass breaking work), I can hopefully achieve that in the next year or so.

Aside from that, and going back to this whole Dee matter, the hardest part of that was when I heard her talking to Tess about her upcoming date with her boyfriend. Tess had commented that she was jealous that Dee had found such a nice guy. A significant part of me wanted to stand up and tell her that there are guys out there, in her circle that would probably fit the bill. I didn't not follow through on that, and I suspect I will one day write a similar post about Tess having a boyfriend while cursing myself for not speaking up.

The only thing that I am struggling with now is that even though Dee has a new love in her life, a large part of me wants to confess my feelings, or at least let it be known that I had intended to approach her with romantic inclinations. Would it be a lie of omission if I do not?

I will post more if something... interesting... develops.

January 3, 2006 - A New Year

I sincerely hope that everybody had a happy holiday season this year. Mine was for the most part nice and quiet. On Christmas Eve Jim and I hit the road in my Buick to go down to Connecticut to see my dad and his wife, Joyce. Jim and I got him a computer printer and a DVD player.

My dad tends to be very anti-technology and he requested the printer because his boss had forced him to get one and in his stubbornness he refused, but asked me to get him one for his gift. I agreed even though we had gotten him the DVD. My lord was he unhappy when he unwrapped it (the DVD player). I had anticipated this beforehand, so I declared the gift to him AND Joyce, so when he tried to make me take it back Joyce put her foot down and basically told my dad to back off and that they were keeping it. Dad's suspicion of the player seemed to vanish pretty quickly when Jim and I hooked it up and showed him how to use it.

We may have stayed another day or so but I had to go back to work between the 27th and the 30th, so we came back on Jim's birthday. Before leaving the city we had grown up in, we drove around for about a 1/2 hour. It is on days like that when I can really believe I moved from there 10 years ago. I almost got lost a few times in areas I used to know very well. Jim would mention street names, and they would hold just no meaning to me, just a familiar name. Some streets were perfectly known, other completely forgotten until we were on them for a few minutes.

Back in Maine on New Year's Eve, Jim and I watched the ball drop in Times Square on TV and heard the heart-breaking voice of what sounded like a half paralyzed Dick Clark on ABC. Every year I watched his 'New Years Rockin Eve' and while I thought last year was strange without him, this one was shocking. I had imagined Dick Clark always being around for some reason, but New Years Eve kind of slapped me in the face.

Also that night I had a carbohydrate blow-out in preparation of the diet I started 1/1/06. Of all the numerous diets out in the world today, I choose the Atkins. It seems like a good concept and I have a supervisor at work who has been on it for 5 years and he swears by it, so here goes.

There is not a great deal happening other than that. I'm still at a bit of an impasse with Dee and Tess, however I did overhear Dee talking about some guy and making a reference to be dating him, but that is just hearsay at this point.