The usual
serotonin rollercoaster of a day.
Mel had to work early, and set the alarm earlier still, presumably to give herself waking-up-and-lying-in-bed time. I used to do that when I had morning deadlines. It makes you feel like you're being lazy and procrastinating even though you still end up vertical long before you should be conscious, let alone non-horizontal. (What is it about putting overly detailed maths shit into a sentence that appeals to me so much? It's just an ego thing. To quote Ben Stiller from Reality Bites, sometimes I try far too hard to inhabit clever-clever-land.) I half woke up along with Mel, and cuddled into her warmth without speaking; before long, the whole scene shimmered and mixed back into my dozing dreams, so that when she started lightly caressing my bare back it was gorgeous. She does that a lot in the mornings when I'm half-sleeping, and the sensations are always so heightened... imagine what something more ambitious might feel like. (Baby, I know you're probably reading this, and no, that is not a hint. Although, if you can't think of anything to get me for Christmas...)
Woke up again around eleven. Went to work. For "work", read "E2". (Not really--logged a hardware call with Compaq, set up a w2k (ewww) PC on my desk, did my times... see, nothing that happens there is ever worth writing about, at least not the actual work.) Dave told me the Christmas party is Saturday week. Ben can't come, at least not to most of it. Hope Russell can come, but he probably won't given past years' performance. Looking forward to seeing pmg and his boyfriend again. (None of this means anything to anyone but me. Are daylogs really a valid form of Everything content, or are they just grudgingly allowed as a sanctioned form of GTKYN?)
The boss is going to talk to fozzy and I about our late arrival times next week. I don't know what to do about that. The obvious thing is to turn up early for a while, which will make him look a bit silly on the day of our "meeting" because his complaints will have already been somewhat anulled. Another alternative is to be a Rebel Without A Cause and start turning up later still--I won't let the Man boss me around, man--but then again, Rebel Without A Job doesn't sound quite so glamorous. (As if he'd fire me though. There's a kilo of paperwork you have to do before you can even think about firing someone in a big corporation. The only thing stopping me behaving even worse is fear of social isolation in the office, not fear of dismissal.)
As soon as I thought it was safe (it was close enough to eight hours since I'd arrived at work that anyone who cared wouldn't notice the earlymark), I scootered home. Wanted to write a node or two, but it was in danger of getting dark and potholes are deadly when you can't see them. I'm getting good on the scooter, at least until I skin another knee. Finally got around to petting the lazy friendly dog I see every day on the way home, somewhere around Tighes Hill. He took it well, lifted his head, made eye contact, the usual nonviolent canine stuff. Couldn't be bothered standing or wagging his tail, though; I don't blame him.
Got home, drank two beers, played with the rabbit, played darts, pissed my girlfriend off. Like I said to fozzy the other day (I think), we're like two random number generators; as long as at least one is high, things are OK, but if we both plunge beneath zero (the real number line represents our moods, see?) at roughly the same time, a clash is bound to occur. I'd left my antidepressant a bit late in the day, I think my serotonin was probably dropping by now.
I realised later that I probably was being a shit for no good reason; but in the car on the way to buy dinner at The Junction I took everything to heart, and sulked, which of course angered Mel more, which angered me more... it's like the squealing feedback loop you get when a speaker is too close to the microphone providing its signal.
As soon as we parked I said, "I'll see you tomorrow", and stormed off into the dark with no firm plan beyond that initial abandonment. Of course she let me go--we both know she'd never stop me in any such situation, because that's what half of me wants--so I kept walking like an idiot, all the while planning on heavy drinking, or sleeping in public, or dying, or sleeping in Shaun's stairwell... I wondered whether I could go home at midnight, thus saving face by technically fulfilling my "See you tomorrow" promise, but as soon as I thought about tomorrow--the inevitable embarrassment and awkwardness and stubborn refusal to be the first to make amends--I realised what a dick I was being and how badly I just wanted to apologise and hug her, so I turned and sprinted back to where I'd come from. On some meta-level, as I ran and strained and puffed towards my girl, my brain informed me These are the moments of your life that you remember. Fuck you, you cold, analytic experience-gatherer, I'd still rather this wasn't happening.
She wasn't there. She was gone. In that moment, I felt as alone in the universe as I ever have. I sat on a bench and did nothing for probably twenty minutes, it didn't feel much longer than a year. Every car, every person that passed was scanned for signs of her. I wanted to cry, die. In those minutes I got a taste of what being alone in the world again would feel like, and it tastes like shit. It tastes like nothing, there is nothing but emptiness. Future self: remember this moment. Don't ever think you're not lucky.
Eventually I went to the supermarket, walking slower than I think I ever have, on the verge of dissolving with every step. She rang just as I walked into the shop. I could barely talk. She called me "cranky-bum". We agreed that she should come and pick me up. I held back tears not because of the public setting, but because it would feel far better to cry into her neck when she got there. I bought her flowers and me cheap pasta and left. A sexy girl was standing in the street when I got outside, and I stared a little too long; only when I got to the car did I realise it had been Melanie. (Of course, the fact that I'd looked at a "stranger" in that way angered her later; but I think she should be happy that the subconscious, primal part of my brain likes her just as much as the rest of me does.) We made up; hugs, sorries, tears, iloveyou's. Then, an uneventful but snuggly night: TV, Quake3, E2... and now, bed.
Good night.