OK Computer

My stupid computer's stupid hard drive died over the weekend. Cursed thing. For the most part, I didn't lose anything of value because I had most of my music stored on my iPod, but I lost some stuff I was writing for myself. It wasn't that great, but still. Now I have to completely redo it from scratch. Rawr.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

I gave my salsa instructor cookies for Christmas. He seemed pretty happy about that (as well he should because they were damn good cookies), but he was much more excited about a scheme he hatched to see his ex-girlfriend. I have to wonder if he isn't attracted to her primarily because she isn't interested in him. It makes sense, in a twisted way. He's used to romantic relationships coming easily to him (I assume), and she presents a challenge. So, obviously, if I want him to fall in love with me, I have to go out with him, dump him, and then refuse to get back together with him. Foolproof!

Come On, Bartender, Could You Be More Tender?

I think my salsa love interest may be a bit of a shithead. Along with a group of other students from my salsa class, I went to his recital last night. He acted like he couldn't have cared less that I was there, he didn't come over to say hello to the table of students (who were obviously there primarily to see him), and he declined to dance with the mutual friend who introduced us in the first place. I was obviously hoping for special attention from him, but I didn't even get what I would describe as common courtesy. I am heartbroken.

Burning Down the House

I hope they let me write from jail because I'm about to go on a murderous rampage or possibly an arson spree. My complaints against the world in general are so numerous as to require subheadings.

The Only Living Boy in New York

That motherfucker. I confirmed with a mutual friend that, as I suspected, he had indeed broken up with his girlfriend. I emailed him back last night in response to his friend request and said, "It's been about six months. To what do I owe this surprise?" He said that he had only recently noticed that I removed him as my friend and asked how I was doing. I said, "I'm great. Thanks for asking. I don't want to sound like an asshole or like I don't care about you, but there was a reason we stopped talking six months ago and that I de-friended you, and if that situation hasn't changed, I don't think our trying to be friends now would turn out any differently." His entire response was "Ok." I mean, seriously? I figured that if he was emailing me now, it must be because he and his girlfriend broke up (correct) and he was interested in giving a romantic relationship between the two of us some kind of chance (incorrect). I didn't even bother to respond to his two-letter email. I'm congratulating myself for being adult enough to nip that in the bud.

Work

Work was not super-busy this week, which was kind of nice but kind of boring. Then, all of sudden today, probably because it's Friday, the shit hit the fan. I ended up canceling lunch with a friend and my career counseling appointment (might have been nice to go to that since I have a fucking job interview on Monday). Then, the bitch who tattled on me and got me the bad review asked me to meet her at 4:15 to talk about stuff, and I ended up having to cancel my hair appointment to stay and figure out some bullshit. So, now I have a rat's nest atop my head right in time for a job interview for a job I desperately want. And then she wanted to know what I was doing this weekend (many things!) and basically rain on those various parades by asking me to do a shit-ton of menial, clerical bullshit for work. And, not that she knows this, but I'm doing all of this with even less job security than my compatriots. In this economy, it's tough for anyone to say he or she has job security, but I have been specifically told that I might be fired, so I think I have less. And I have to do all this shit for the very person who caused me to be in this situation to begin with. Fucking shit.

This Other Dickface

Then, I have this other "friend." We used to work together, and we were very close at that time. He moved to go to graduate school, and I moved to take another job. Over time, we've grown less close because we're not in constant contact like we used to be, but we still chat. The other day, I sent him an email and said that I had a dream about him in which he said he missed me, so I figured I would email him and see how he was doing. His response was to tell me that that was creepy and that his girlfriend wouldn't appreciate him getting messages like that. Dude...whatever. Look, I can see how that could be taken in a creepy way, but he knows me, and he knows that it wasn't meant in any kind of a creepy way. So, it was shitty of him to say that it was creepy. And I don't understand why he brought his girlfriend (a girlfriend I didn't know he had) into the situation at all. Like, are other people not allowed to dream about her boyfriend? I mean, it's not like I told him I had a sexual dream about him. We're friends. He said he missed me. What's the big fucking deal? I told him to stop being a jackass and that he knew I didn't mean it like that. Ugh.

I hate everything.

The Seventh Thing I Hate the Most About You: You Make Me Love You

The Only Living Boy in New York resurfaced. He invited me to be his friend on a popular social networking site. We used to be friends on this site, but I dropped him after this incident, and I hadn't heard a peep out of him until today. And now I don't know what to do.

If You Were a Castle, I'd Be Your Moat and If You Were an Ocean, I'd Learn to Float, All I Want Is You

So, my friend and I went to visit my salsa instructor/soul mate (who is in increasingly dire need of a blog name) on Monday at his bartending job, and he seemed sort of underwhelmed to see us. He wasn't rude or anything, but he didn't hang out and talk with us very much. We weren't sure if it was because he was at work or because he wished we would stop coming to see him.

Last night, I had salsa class with him. I said that my friend said we couldn't go back to see him anymore. He wanted to know why, and I said that it was because we were worried that we were bothering him. He said he thought we saw him doing stuff (i.e., he wasn't ignoring us, just doing his work). I said that I told my friend that she could go back but that he just didn't want to see me. Then he pressed up against me and gave me some look that involved sex lasers shooting out of his eyes, and he said something (I think something to the tune of, "I'm always happy to see you") but I have no idea what it was because my heart was pounding in my ears and I went temporarily deaf.

C is For Cookie, That's Good Enough for Me

I have been up to my eyeballs in work this weekend, which sucks for many reasons, not least of which is that I was dying to write in about the updates with my salsa instructor.

So, after Tuesday's very weird day with him, I decided that I would respond to his suggestion/demand that someone bring in a snack for the class by making him cookies. I, in fact, made him my brother's favorite cookies.

When I brought in the cookies, we had a very cute interaction that went thusly (imagine his voice being cute and flirtatious, not standoffish as it may seem he was in the transcript):

Me: I brought you something.

Him: Cookies?!?

Me: Yeah, well, last class, you demanded someone bring a snack.

Him: I did not demand.

Me: You insisted.  You said you would make us do spin drills the whole time if no one brought you a snack.

Him: I just said it would be nice if someone brought in food.

Me: I think you were faint from hunger, and your memory is wrong.  You said you would make us do spin drills until we threw up.

Him: Maybe we should ask the others.

Me: They won't remember.

Him: Are these for me, or for the class?

Me: For you, but you can share them with whoever you want.  They're your cookies.

Him: For the class.

So, then, during class, I could feel him watching me more than usual. It's expected that he would watch me some of the time since he is a teacher, and he is supposed to be correcting my abysmal footwork, but I think he watches me more than he has to. It's strange because I'm very aware of him and when he's watching me, and that has never been the case with any other guy I've been interested in. Maybe he just has a particularly penetrating gaze.

On our break, he busted out the cookies for the class. I had worried that he might not eat them because I think he tries to keep things pretty healthy, but he threw his face right in the cookies, and he said how good he thought they were. I don't think he was just being polite because: (1) the Known Associate can bake the heck out of some cookies and (2) the rest of the class fell upon the cookies like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat, and they would have no reason to eat them out of politeness. (One girl nearly got her eyes clawed out for asking if the cookies were from a mix. She only avoided that fate because I gave her the benefit of the doubt for not knowing how I roll and because I didn't want the object of my affections to see what a temper I really have.)

After class, I was getting ready to leave to walk to the train, and he called me back over to him. We were talking facing in opposite directions with my entire side pressed around his entire side and my hand on his ribcage. I have noticed that when he has his druthers, we talk completely pressed up against each other, which suits me fine as well but seems like maybe not something a guy who just wants to be friends would do. So, then I told him he had to take the rest of the cookies home because they were his cookies, and he said, "Oh, I'm taking them home." (Never have I wished so fervently to be cookies.) He went to walk out into the waiting area where the cookies were, and I followed behind him, and rather sluttily held on to the waistband of his jeans while we were walking. In other words, I totally had my hand in the back of his pants like a big old skank (and it was awesome). Then, I proceeded whorishly to run my finger down the crease of his shirt and ask him if it was new, leading to a discussion of how it wasn't but it just had creases from being folded up in his closet. For the grand finale, he grabbed me and pulled me over to him to kiss me on the cheek.

Melt.

Put On Your Red Shoes and Dance the Blues

Okay. It's time to start drinking again. Possibly in some kind of bender situation.

This afternoon, I gathered my courage and went over to the restaurant where my salsa teacher bartends at lunch. At first, he didn't seem that excited to see me, and I felt awkward, but he warmed up quickly before I had a chance to escape without asking him to my friend's party. We chatted about a wide range of subjects: my recent trip, work, how he always wanted to be a lawyer, money and why it should be saved, and some other stuff. Finally, I just said, "If you don't have any plans on Saturday, my friend is having a party, and you should come." And his response was, "I do have plans." He's going with his co-instructor for salsa to something, which he proceeded to tell me about in great detail and basically reveal he was a little leery of going. However, at no point did he suggest that even though he was unavailable to hang out with me at my suggested time, we could hang out another time. I completely believe that he has these other plans, especially since it would be pretty retarded of him to invent fake plans with someone I also know that I could easily verify if I were so inclined. But I felt like he was horrified that I asked, and then I felt overwhelmed with awkwardness. Like, he's always so nice to me and acts excited and happy to see me, so why is he acting so appalled that I would invite him to a party? I mean, it's not like I asked him if he wanted to elope.

And then things got even weirder. After he finished telling me all about the plans he has that preclude him from being my date for the evening, he said, "There's something different about your eyebrows." Just take a minute to soak in that statement. There's something different about my eyebrows? Then he was like, "They look thinner." As my face increasingly displaced a "What the fuck?" expression, he added, as an after thought, "They look good though." What the fuck? Obviously, that means he thinks they looked weird. If he thought they looked good, he would have led off with, "Your eyebrows look nice," or some such thing. I wanted to kill myself. Especially since I haven't done anything to my eyebrows beyond routine maintenance, and I'm now wondering if Teh Doggeh is messing with them while I sleep.

So, I totally did not want to go to salsa class tonight or, indeed, ever, ever again, but everyone I told this to acted like: (1) he was giving me a compliment with the eyebrow remark, unusual as that compliment may have been, (2) he probably just didn't think to suggest alternate plans for Saturday, and (3) not going to class would make me a giant baby. I debated with myself until the last minute what to do but ultimately chose to go.

Class was not overtly awkward, but I felt weird anyway. I didn't say hi to him when I came in. Instead, I glued myself to my Blackberry and refused to look at him until he chased me out of the waiting room and into the studio a full ten minutes before class began like an imperious jackass. He flirted with me a little in class, but he mostly flirted with his co-instructor. I am trying not to hate her because she is actually very cool and nice, but between the fact that she already nabbed him for plans on Saturday and the fact that they have such a playful relationship and the fact that I am immature, I am really having trouble maintaining warm, friendly thoughts toward her.

I don't even know what to do with myself at this point. I have gotten much more invested in this man that I ever intended to, and now I feel like he's blown me off and criticized my appearance, and I feel like I'm too ugly to live and too lame for him to hang out with. I pretty much want to throw up, then cry.

And You Thought He Was Cute Before, Look at This Peacoat, Tell Me He's Broke

Oh, Cedric Diggory playing Edward Cullen. I basically hate Edward Cullen in the books, but Cedric Diggory is so freaking cute that he kind of wins me over in the movie. I needed to put this up here to cheer myself up.

When You Call, I'm Pressing Seven, Don't Want to Hear Your Messages, I'm Trying to Erase You From My Mind

I am in a self-esteem free-fall. I have been thinking of asking my salsa crush to my friend's annual holiday party this weekend. Half the world is invited to this party. People fly in from around the country to attend. I figured it would be a low-pressure, low-cost way for us to spend time together and get to know each other outside the scope of his employment. It's all well and good to dance with him and visit him at his bartending job, but, at some point, if the relationship is to progress even to a real friendship, we need to hang out when he's not being paid to be with me. Otherwise, he's, like, my gigolo or something, and that is unsavory.

Anyway, I have worked myself into a complete tizzy over whether I should even invite him to the party and, if so, how I should go about doing it. A crush is supposed to be fun. A friendship is supposed to be fun. Putting a heap of pressure on myself is not fun.

On top of that, I am about ready to murder Catalano. Catalano, for those who haven't known me long, is a guy I went on a couple of dates with in my old city. Basically, he would call me to hang out when he was on the outs with his girlfriend. She was (and, I think, still is) very into the make-up-break-up routine, and I guess he is too since he continues to participate in whatever games she wants to play. He eventually reconciled with her for a sizeable chunk of time, and I called him out on sending mixed signals. He apologized, and we resolved to be friends. That went fine as long as he was still with her, but they broke up again recently and, true to form, he started calling me a lot more often. He even said on several occasions that he planned to come visit me between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I emailed him to suggest two possible weekends (this weekend and the following weekend), and he didn't say anything to me about that, even though he responded to other aspects of the email.

At this point, I feel like he treats me like the runner-up for his affections and calls me only because he can't stand to be alone for five seconds. It's not flattering to feel like a guy is only calling because he can't be with the person he really likes or that I would be dropped like a hot potato as soon as his ex-girlfriend decided she wanted him back (which I am convinced she will because in the two years I have known him, they have broken up and gotten back together about four times). I am fine with our being friends, but I do have feelings for him. Those feelings don't get in our way as long as he's being clear with the message that all he wants is friendship, but everything is in a tumult as soon as he starts hinting that he might be interested in more. Then, of course, I get my feelings hurt when he doesn't follow through with those hints. I wish that I could just stop having those feelings for him so I wouldn't get my hopes up when he starts hinting, but as much as I've tried, that hasn't happened. I care about him, but I'm wondering if the only solution is for us to go our separate ways and stop trying to be friends.