Remembering Jamba Boy

I had gone to Jamba Juice for a quick pick-me-up breakfast on my way to clean the showroom yesterday morning, and there is always someone I know working there.  The boy who rung me up was very nice, but most of all FAMILIAR.  I really couldn't put my finger on it, and he flirted while I waited for my smoothie. (A most delicious Pomegranate Paradise, I might add.)  When he stopped the blender and started pouring into a cup I started to get up, but then he stopped.

"Hang on a sec, I gotta remake this.  It isn't blended all the way."
"Oh, okay," I said, and sat back down.
"We have zero tolerance for unblended smoothies, so..." he added as he poured the slightly lumpy mixture back into the blender.  A short spin later, my smoothie was poured smoothly into the foam cup, and I headed towards the counter.
"Looks good," I said to which he added another cute remark. 
"Did you go to Shadow?" He asked. 
"Yeah, I did.  I graduated last year."
"Oh, really?  Do you by chance remember a Robbie Callahan?" (name changed =P hehe)
Tilting my head in thought, I said, "Hmm... it sounds familiar..."
I swear to you, for a moment, his brown eyes were smiling so hopeful... but to this he gave me no answer and handed me my smoothie, "Well, there is your Pomegranate Paradise to the best of my ability."
"Thanks," smiling, I bid him a good day then walked brisquely out to the parking lot. 

I felt kind of bad, figuring that he is probably the Robbie Callahan, and I didn't remember exactly then who he was.  But I knew I recognized him, and the little ordeal was on my mind most of the morning until.... I REMEMBERED!  I was in the middle of dusting at the showroom when it finally hit me: he was in my seminary class!  I didn't have any classes at school with him, and he came here so near the end of the year I can't believe I remember at all!  (That and the fact I wasn't attending Seminary hardly at all, I might have seen him 3 or 4 times.)  I even remember him being vegetarian or something like that... o_0   Anyways, I'm very proud I remembered, and I feel really bad that it was a cold shoot down that I didn't remember.  The plan is to return next Friday morning (because I'm sure he should be working then) and say HI, I REMEMBER NOW! hahaha It will probably throw him for a loop, and I think it would be very nice to know someone actually remembered you.  Anyways, I just had to share that before I forgot.  Goonight, for reals...

You Were The King, Now You're Unconscious

                              
It almost seems customary that when new music is purchased, there is a listen-through.  It is put in the Bose system, and played all the way through with my brother and whoever else pitched on the couch with intent on hearing every note.  Tonight was a night like that.  The newest Atreyu CD has been bought by a friend, so we sat and listened.  It was nice, the time flew by very quickly.  As soon as the one song starts, I want to say it will probably be his favorite, but after a minute he says it himself.  The album is pretty optimistic in comparison to Lead Sails Paper Anchor, and I imagine as I try to make out all the lyrics that he and my brother are probably soaking in all of the drumming.  Comments are exchanged that I don't comprehend completely, because I simply don't drum.  There is an odd gap that I don't know how to explain: how I am sitting right next to them and listening to the same music, but hearing something completely different.  It's a very removed feeling, and I think it's the whole purpose of music.  No two people will get exactly the same thing out of it, and as far as my interests and knowledge goes, I am not hearing what they are.

The house is dark.  We have turned off all the lights in their need for less distraction from listening.  The blue ring of light from the television becomes the brightest thing in the house, glowing and revealing blue details that our eyes have adjusted to seeing.  His hand comes up occasionally, doing something with his fingers that I don't understand, and can't figure if it goes with the music.  When this first happened, I reached up to touch his fingers in question and he jerked away.  Somehow this made me feel like a little kid, too curious and being told not to mess with something.  I busy myself trying to understand the drums in the music, flexing my feet in the air against imaginary bass pedals as I follow the beat I know I am mixing up.  I try to hear the bass, single it out from the rides, toms and snare drum, but it blurs into a general rhythmic sound that confuses my pulsing feet. 

I don't feel so well lying on my stomach, but I'm having too much fun focusing on my pretend drumming feet.  That and the fact of cramps, but they aren't too bad- just slight enough to make me feel like I'm sick.  When I turn my head to the front door and swear I see the quick passing of someone's shadow across the wall, he won't stop analyzing the situation. 

"It could be someone in the back yard.  Think about it, with the light." 

Thinking too much on it is creeping me out and I fight the urge to sit up and gather my feet and legs closer to me, away from the dark mysterious corner of the room.  The weight on my eyes wavers as the songs play by.  At some point, my awareness lifts.  Still, I hate that I fight going to sleep.  Why do I feel like I will be missing out if I let my eyes close?  There is so much to be done at night, so much to explore while the world around you is asleep.  There hasn't been much writing that I've ever done during the day.  Even a lot of what I write outside of my blog is done later in the day, or at night, when I go on walks to get out of the house.  Home almost seems the source for emotion, and I let a lot of it build up... sometimes it just needs to be written out.

I don't get a hug goodbye.  I don't ask for one.  I don't care what he thinks or says, it's weird to have to ask for a hug all the time.  I rarely do it, and when I do, there is always a slightly odd reaction from him.  Whatever.  I let him put on the big helmet and try to ignore the hug all together.  The door is locked behind him, and I turn off the entry-way light so my brother can stop sheilding his eyes.  Even the blue ring from the television has now been covered by a DVD case so the light won't bother him.  That doesn't stop me from turning on the lamp in the other room so my eyes aren't burned out by the computer screen.  It's so evasive to his darkness that he takes his music and retreats to his bedroom where I think he ought to have been anyways.  Want to sleep, go upstairs.  It is night, I am tired, I had a long day, but there is so much room for work now without everyone bustling around. 

There are bits and pieces of my day that I wish I had the patience to write.  Dad's showroom needed desperate cleaning, and I had the job all to myself.  The dust was pretty bad, but even moreso was the sawdust coating a whole corner of the place since my dad had to recut several countertops to fit new sinks for display.  I kept vacuuming my one good dusting rag in effort to try and keep from putting more dust on everything.  Don't use windex or solutions, they could ruin the finish.  Don't want to use water- spots are annoying and more work to avoid.  That leaves me a dry microfiber rag that eventually makes you see that you're pretty much pushing dust around instead of wiping it up.  Vacuuming tile of the floor displays, the maze of carpet that I follow around the sinks, toilets and tubs across the showroom.  Sucking up the dry skeletal remnants of spiders, cockroaches and- most of all- crickets at corners and in sinks.  There is the occasional webbed death trap full of little white insect carcasses, sucked dry by hidden spiders.  By the time I am all done, there are no ugly bug graveyards, no scuffed tiles, no dusty faucets or countertops.  I rinse out the mop with fresh water even though it will be used in the warehouse before I get to it again, so there is really no point.  Bert (the yellow mop cart) and Ernie (the orange mop) are stored in the dirty warehouse corner, my feet complain as I take careful, tired steps to the showroom half of the building and start gathering all my things: the CDs, the rags, the vacuum, my bag...

What I wouldn't give to have a foot massage right now.  Just thinking about the hours and hours I spent on my feet going up and down a small step stool to reach the high faucets, the pacing forward and back with the vacuum cleaner, makes them ache again.  But he's gone for tonight.  I locked the door behind him after not recieving a hug I didn't bother to awkwardly ask for, and now I am trying to make the most of what night consciousness I have.  It has been a good day, a long day, a tiring day, a clean day.  My legs are smoothe; I shaved in the hot shower that my feet were too tired to enjoy standing in.  I drove on the busy freeway all by myself and did fine... Progress?  Maybe I will feel better when my dad sends in the notice for me to be paid for the cleaning the showroom.  Maybe I will feel better when my eyes are closed for at least 8 hours.  Maybe next time I should ask for a hug because I want one.  Maybe lots of things, but we just have to deal with each second, each minute, hour, day, week.... at a time.  Goodnight, Starshines.

Oversensitive in Insecurity

            
I always become significantly upset when someone laughs at me. 

My thumb nail had made an unpleasant scratching noise as it grazed the side of my brother's pocket knife clumsily.  My fingers overcompensated for a moment to quickly grasp the knife safely and still in my hands before I messed something else up.  However, this sound had caused him too look up from his drawing next to me, and he smiled a small cute smile to himself.  My eyes must have been a little strained and I held still as if trying to erase my little mishap.  I wonder if I was blushing, but not even that.  My first reaction is to be plain flustered.  I rolled my eyes at him, feeling oddly judged, and put the knife down on the table at the end of my muttering, "WHAT? Why... just... laugh at me."

Before his jaw dropped a little, I already knew I overreacted.  My insides recoiled, and my eyebrows pitched up together as I tried to shy away from my self-inflicted embarrassment.

His little millisecond silence was the cherry on top of my humilation sundae.  "Insecure much?"  He sqeaked in a teasing high voice, looking at me from the corner of his eye since he tilted back toward his drawing.

I could swear my head actually dropped to my chest, and I stared down at the knife a moment before picking it back up to figure out just how I tucked the carabeener back into the side of it.  It is embarrassing that I get so embarrassed.  I can't stand being laughed at; not because I don't like to be considered funny or cute-or cute because I'm funny- but because I hate seeming idiotic or incompitent or like I simply don't know what I'm doing... I don't know why.  I'm so unsure of myself, that I TRY to surround myself with things I know... When I can't do something right the first time, or even the second, I get very angry with myself, very self conscious, very defensive.  I hate the idea of being laughed at because I didn't know how to do something right.  I try to think about why I am this way and don't know how to explain it... is it just... being shy?  Why do I feel like a retard all the time?  Why can't I have confidence enough to do something right, or (especially) even do something wrong? 

Bottom line... I care so much about what someone thinks of me all the time that I don't let myself try anything new.  I don't want to appear stupid, wrong... whatever.  I care so much it's unhealthy, and it has been for me for a very long time.

I Can't Joy and Tell.

I like to find a picture to go with each post, and I absolutely love this one... the only problem is, it goes with an emotion I can't show eveyrone on here.  I have posted it already with an entry, but you can't see it.  I can't let you.  I wish I could, so you could understand... but this picture can only depict one feeling of elation that goes with such hidden information.  At least I can show you the picture... it makes me smile.

I have to leave for "work."  I should write back later.

Isn't it Rich?

            
I should go to bed right about now, but I feel so lost amidst my nonexistent thoughts.  Do you think there is some point at which your "thoughts" are not really thoughts but feelings?  It makes it hard to tell people how you are doing or feeling... I think I'm just making my monthly round, getting ready for the big party by riling up my emotions uncontrollably.  The rollercoaster has begun, and I can see it; I'm watching it race without the power to do anything about it.  Today was an okay day before I crashed. 

Isn't it rich? 
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career.
Send in the clowns...

The evening settled in, tired people came home.  I nearly settled down for a nap, letting my eyes close to the waking world and open to my dim depressing sloth, but my sister needed a ride home from school.  After that, it felt like I was too awake with nothing to do.  It was a downward spiral, and the darker it got outside the darker my mood became.  I was suddenly in a very depressed mood in a very short time, feeling cooped up in the house texting anyone to talk to or go and meet. 

Melancholy songs are stuck in my head with their melancholy phrases getting in the way of my thoughts.  I think about having to go to bed at a certain time so I will have energy tomorrow to watch the boys.  Doing it is okay when it comes down to it... thinking about it isn't okay.  When I think, I hate whatever obligation it is...  Just go and do at the last minute, surprising myself, so that I go through with it.  Maybe I'm just tired, and have been tired, and didn't sleep; therefore I am moody.  Like a little kid deprived of a full nap, and is up too late. 

I have to admit, I was a little better at the fact he dropped by.  It helps lead me to my conclusion that I was just simply tired.  So, I'm going to cut this short and try to make myself go to bed... on time... sort of.  But before I do, let me hit the good points of the first half of the day: wore new shoes, felt VERY clean, went to jamba juice with Huckabee, got to drive, listened to fabulous music almost all day.  Goodnight.