Thursday, December 15 2005

"I'm off to DreamHost!" I`m off to DreamHost! First and foremost I would like to offer my condolences to the family and friends of Tom Acton.  Tom passed away last week suddenly, I am told.  I hope that's not a grievous error on my part, as I got the bad news second hand.  Actually, I do hope that's a grievous error, but unfortunately it's probably not. 

It's been awhile.  This will be a part of my year in review.

Some stuff has happened, some stuff hasn't.

I was surprised by some of the things, but some I was not surprised by.

The above bad news surprised me, as did some bad news that hit me even closer to home, I'll get to that later.

I began the year on injured reserve because of my shin splints.  I spent the better part of 4 months (dec 04 to march 05) unable to play basketball and barely able to walk after working all day because of it.  Let me tell you folks, shin splints blow.

After getting physical therapy and rest for most of that time, the pain subsided slowly and I've had no full blown reoccurrence since.  I had a twinge when I tried to resume back to back days hooping but managed to get through the game and subsequent week with a whole lot of stretching.

I did somehow come out of the whole thing with a greatly improved outside game, but my inside game has struggled to return.  Dunno why, and it bugs me, but the only way to fix it is to play through it.  That would of course be possible if I could get to the court regularly.  Between being sick and work I've missed almost a month as of this writing.

Obviously being the fat white guy that I am, it will be a nightmare when I return to the hardwood.

I began the year speaking to a couple of people whom I hadn't spoken to for a while.  I somehow caught and conversed with the very much maternal Erin Mullins.  I also carried over my (at the time) burgeoning friendship with megan seiple.  Of course since then I've lost touch with both of them, for different reasons.  Erin and I have unfortunately just spoken less and less as time goes on, as often happens. 

Meg, I don't get.  I spoke to her regularly until she disappeared in march or so (which coincided with a new boyfriend I later learned), and then when I managed to catch back up to her in may or so things seemed fine again.  She ran in the Chicago Marathon this year, and finished respectably. 

She came to this burgh in july if I remember correctly and supplied me with the most awkward moment of my life following a respite in the local Barnes and Noble on the Harry Potter book's release night.  No, I don't know why I was there, she seems to have a thing for book stores, and she's fun to hang out with, so I went with her when she invited.  She actually went among other things to see an old friend of hers who was actually also an old friend of mine whom I didn't recognize at first. 

Shout out to Sarah Lowman, who may be engaged by this point based on where she said she was in life at the time. 

Anyway, to this scary awkward moment.  As we were departing (we'd both driven over from Steak'n Shake where we began the evening), we were parked next to one another and the time came to make an end of night gesture, apparently.  I say apparently as I still don't know why a see you later wouldn't have sufficed, especially since we were supposed to hang out the next night as well.  Okay, so I toss my phone into the car and turn to say goodbye and set up the next evening.  We set up the next evening and she went into the "decision mode."  She looked like she was walking though the options in her mind.  It looked like she kinda gestured out the range from hug to handshake to leaning in and then backed up a bit and stuck out her fist. 

Wait, what?  You mean...?

Yeah, she stuck out her first for a "fist pound."  The look on my face had to be a classic, as I believe I cocked my head as I went with it.  Yeah, I pounded the fist, and no, it doesn't make any sense why I would do that, let alone why it was presented.  She proceeded to blow me off the rest of the weekend as well as for the lunch we were gonna go to on the monday.  (that was on a friday, if memory serves)  Oh, and I do mean she blew me off- I think one of the excuses before we were gonna catch a movie was that she had decided to start watching a movie with her parents about half an hour before we were to meet up for the movie and wanted to stay home because she had a headache. 

I couldn't make that up if I tried.  Never mind that it's completely contradictory.

That was the second to last time I spoke to her.

The last time was when her childhood friend Rachel (whom I'm good friends with) was in Chicago and I tried to get them to contact one another.  That sounds weird- allow me to explain.

Rachel spent the better part of the year asking me each time I spoke to her about Meg, and Meg always asked me about Rachel.  Suffice it to say, I was tired of the go between thing, so I told Rachel to call Meg.  Rachel didn't want to be the one to call, so she told me to tell Meg she was in town and give her Rachel's number.  I should've given up there.  I called Meg and told her what was up.  Meg sounded really really weird on the phone, and was obviously not alone.  In fact, whomever was with her was talking to her, and Meg was all weird and giggly.  Meg said she didn't want to be the one to call and to give Rachel her number.  Yeah, I know, I should've seen it coming.  Meg then proceeded to try to start a conversation with me, while talking to the people in the background, when I didn't actually have time to talk at the time (I was just trying to do my due diligence and get the fuck out of the role of intermediary).  I told her I couldn't talk at the moment, which she didn't hear, as she was talking to the background fucks (one of whom tried to yell something at the phone.  Who fucking does that when they don't know the person on the other end, what a fucking douchebag).  When she returned and said "what?" I explained I couldn't talk and she laughed really oddly, like she was high as a kite.  I asked her if she was high and she acted offended and made it a point to say to the background people that she was not high, why would I ask that.  I said, "okay, you just sound really weird I'm sorry."  I proceeded to tell her I'd give her a call when I had a second after work later.  She said okay and that was the last I'd spoken to her.

I tried at first a couple of times a week for a couple of weeks to get ahold of her after I hadn't heard from her in a couple of weeks after leaving her a voicemail that night.  I'll be honest, at first I was worried, as she'd never gone that long without returning a phone call, and I didn't think there was any reason she wouldn't call me back.  That was in July  I fanned out my attempts to contact her to one a week, and then once every two weeks and then once a month for a couple of months (last time was in Sept me thinks). 

Nothing. 

I saw her online on AIM a couple of times, but she never responded when I said hi via IM.  I hadn't seen her online or tried calling her in quite some time until I was up in Chicago staying at Jereme and Josh's place one night (late november).  I didn't want to sign out Jereme's IMer, but I wanted to see if she would respond, so I signed on under my own AIM account (jereme uses deadAIM which lets ?!you clone AIM).  Voila, not online to my account, but to Jereme's plain as day. 

That means I'm blocked. 

Blocked? 

Why the fuck am I blocked!? 

I am rarely online, and have still done not a single damn thing wrong.  I was of course quite pissed, and discussed this whole sordid tale with jereme when i walked into the living room, who went into his bedroom and sent her an IM to which she responded instantly.  The whole time, not showing on my list. 

I'll once again be very honest- this bugs me quite a bit, to put it very mildly.  Meg- if you read this, that's complete bullshit.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why you wigged out, and frankly I'm not sure I care.  Not only were you my "in" to hot chick circles, you were (are?) a lot of fun getting to know better and to hang out with, so I guess I'm a little bit sad to have lost a good friend.  Sad and disappointed. 

I know Meg doesn't read this, as she changed her email address and never gave me her new one.  She is one of the people who always encouraged me to update the site, too. 

What a fucking waste. 

I really thought something, anything was going to come of that relationship. 

I don't mean getting involved with Meg, I just mean something- even just a long term good friend.  I have had bad luck keeping people that I value around

Don't get me wrong, Meg is fine as hell and will make somebody a very lucky man someday.  I should be so lucky to find somebody half as hot and fun.  That sounds bad, I didn't mean fun in a lascivious manner- I just mean that Meg has a lot of great qualities that a lot of people don't even realize they're looking for until they don't have them in a relationship.  There. 

Did that finally come off as flattering without being weird?

Actually, I wouldn't call it luck, it's all skill baby.  HA!  DELAYED- HAHA!

Fuck, she even sent me a Christmas card last year- I've never even gotten a Christmas card before.  (as an adult)

Oh, and just in case you think I am being a fucking psycho and this is all a one sided thing- I didn't start this.  She called me, a lot.  I've got detailed billing on my celly, so I've got the records to prove it.  This was a friendship with a hot chick that I didn't manifest myself, nor did I really even have to try to.  Perhaps that's a lot of why this annoys me/hurts me so much- I thought I had a shot at keeping her around because she wasn't just humoring me, she actually wanted something to do with me. 

fucking bullshit- I really should try to get ahold of her.  But to what end?  I will take a poll, email me if you think I should send her a Christmas card.

for that matter, email me if you think I should let sleeping dogs lie.

you've got 6 days to sway me either way.

If I don't get any, I'm sending a card.

p.s. this really does validate the quote right after the blue "me."