Now That the Scales Have Fallen From My Eyes, I Don't Have to Hide Them Behind These Rose-Colored Glasses Anymore (1/09/09 Friday)

Conscience delayed my sleep last night and shortened it this morning. I don't even know what colors Julie wore yesterday, never spoke to her, even when she spoke to me (but I had a spoon in my mouth). Stood within a foot of her facing me to shelve a hold and didn't look at her. She relieved on the desk again and I turned my back to her again. I am already trapped in this inane challenge. Why is my conscience bothering me? How do I get out of this trap? It's like a bad habit easily fallen into, almost an addiction. I can't see a possible gain from getting out of it, but a nagging is pulling me out of its complacence. Where is it pulling me to? Or is it just trying to pull me out? "What is the danger of remaining?" might be a better question than "What do I have to gain?" What am I sinking into? Though I'm not convinced Julie's untouched by my behavior, I'm becoming more aware that I'm doing damage to myself. My attitude and actions are unhealthy and immature. I thought I'd grown over the past year, but it takes less time to cut a tree down than to grow one. Careful consideration is no match for rash thoughtessness. Shouldn't I have learned that lesson from Chris?

Lunch with Chris happened, but not the discussion. I chose Chen's because it was close, so we wouldn't waste much time in transit. The place was empty, it being well past lunch and still a couple hours before dinner. The waiters were asleep, one curled on a booth bench, the other his head lying on his right arm stretched across a table. Great environment for a delicate conversation--until Judy and her husband came in and were seated across the aisle. "I gues we'll have to put off our talk," Chris said. I grinned. "Looks that way," I said, then laughed and added, "It's me, Chris. This is just how things work in my life." We had a good conversation, nonetheless; minus a lot of masking humor, which Chris acknowledged both as a tendency of his and inappropriate to the occasion. When he, unprompted, admitted some jealousy over Stacey's boyfriend Eric, I told him of my theory about his motivation for exposing the blog being rooted in that jealousy. "Have you thought about that?" I asked him. "You know, there's probably something to that. You're a pretty insightful person." The second line smelled like flattery, and the first one didn't answer the question. I didn't press him; he was probably uncomfortable with Judy so near. To his credit, Chris was the first to suggest that things were hardly patched up between us. They might never be, but at least I can like him again.

Sunday night I sent Jan a simple email:

Jan,

Just checking to make sure you found your way yesterday. Dark fell pretty quickly last night after we parted, but I doubt you had any trouble finding your way back. I enjoyed our chat. I'd like to have that cup of coffee some time.

Dion

She replied Monday that she was heading back to Winchester and planned to be back by the end of the week, then wrote again Tuesday, saying she didn't find the apartments Saturday and that she'd be back if she got called for an interview. I had hoped to hear from her today and have coffee with her, but neither happened. I suppose she didn't get the interview.

Stacey wants to make something of my meeting Jan, but I'm staying level about it. I'm making no more of it than a potential friendship. I'm not particularly attracted to Jan, except as a very interesting person. That, of course is how the most lasting relationships, of any kind, last, and that makes our meeting all the more important in potential. We met each other at our most casual, dressed for living, not work or show. Stacey said, "Are you going to get a haircut?" "Hell, no." I'm doing nothing for show. I'm having no pretensions. I want this to go where it will go. You think I'm eager to get my hopes up for romance? Anyway, romance isn't in the equation. What happens happens, and I'm not going to persuade it to happen or hasten its happening. I'm heartened to have met someone more real than Julie ever dared to be around me, but that's not reason upon which to build hopes of romance. I do have hopes of friendship, but they are realistic, given our first-meeting rapport, but if it comes to naught I'll have no difficulty accepting it. After all, what would have been the investment? and, anyway, I'd at least have a good time to remember. There couldn't possibly be any rancor or embarrassment involved in our not becoming friends. It would be just one of those things. I have to admit, though, that I really wanted to get together with Jan today to at least have something to talk about tomorrow when Bethany asks me how I spent my day. I won't lie and say I wouldn't have cared if Julie was around when I said I was with a woman most of the day, though how Julie could possibly care only my pride knows for sure.

I won't bring music to work tomorrow. It's the easiest thing I can do to reconnect with the workplace. I will hope, though, that Julie's not back there when I'm doing holds. It doesn't just bother me to hear her voice; it annoys me. Even her opinions grate. I mean, "I absolutely love
Shrek!" kicks my opinion of her right off the mountain. Honestly, I've ignored a lot of things like that from her over the past year, and the holding cell for my contrary opinions has reached capacity. Perhaps, now that the veil of my delusion has lifted, I'm lashing out at the embarrassment of having pretended not to mind the things about her that would have made me shudder had anyone else voiced them--things that would have made her less interesting, less of what I wanted her to be. I won't castigate myself over that; it's probably a natural reaction and eventually settles down into indifference. That eventuality, I fear, though, is not in the very near future, at least not nearer than a transfer to Tuckahoe.