Brad invited me to go to a wedding with him on Friday. I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to go and the other part does't want things to get serious. He told me that he told his friends about me. Told them that "he met someone" and now they are all waiting to meet me. I don't know what this means. It's sweet, but still, I don't know what it means. Why does it feel like there's pressure on me now? We're just hanging out every once in a while. I just met him. I like him but I'm scared. I don't want to be in a relationship. I can't right now.

Sooooo, I was right about Matthew. He hasn't stopped texting me since last night. Not only that, but he dropped into the conversation that after his show last weekend some woman grabbed his crotch and asked what size he was. I laughed it off. That's ridiculous. But he kept bringing it back up. He brought it up enough times that I know he wants me to ask, so, how big are you? I refuse to do this.

Then, tonight he asked if he could call me to finish our conversation because his "fingers were too sore from playing all day to text anymore." Ok Matthew, ok. I'd like to give you bonus points for being such a dedicated musician that you have played until your fingers bled and you physically cannot use them to touch the small buttons on your phone, but a minute into the conversation you tell me that you were recording vocals today. Ah-ha. So you did just want to talk to me on the phone. Busted. 

I texted Matthew. I was good and waited three days and then texted him just to ask when he had another show in the area.
He responded, "don't know." Bit of a strange response for someone who followed me around a bar all night last weekend.
I say "this is xxxxxxxx, just wanted to say hi."
He says, "I know lol."
I don't answer. Fuck him, right?
About an hour later, he sends me another text: "You know I have a girlfriend, right?"
Now, I'm annoyed. He was the one who told me to call/text him and now he's acting as if I'm chasing after him.
I respond: "Yeah, I'm not looking for anything don't worry."
He says: "Well, I really want to be friends and don't want you to be mad at me but if I am single and you r too I'll def ask you out lol fo so."
I say: "Oh relax, I'm not looking for anything at all. Maybe a salsa partner, but that's totally innocent."
He says: "def"
I'm thinking, "asshole, your girlfriend is sitting right next to you." I won't be texting him anymore fo so.


A few hours later, he starts texting me, asking what I have been up to and how I have been and he says that it was so great to meet me and that he really wants us to hang out. Girlfriend obviously has gone home by this point. Not interested anymore. Get over yourself.

Dinner Date with Brad

Regrouped from me annoying discussion with Andy to have dinner with Brad last night. We went to a hole-in-the-wall sushi resturaunt. My choice. It was delicious. I actually had a great time with him. We sat there and talked until the place closed. We were getting dirty looks from the workers but for some reason I didn't really care. We talked about a lot of stuff. He's the oldest in his family. He went to as state school around here. He tried to major in Theater but his parents wouldn't let him. Also, he knew the name of the closest professional women's soccer team to our city. He know a lot about women's sports actually. He probably spent ten minutes on google before the date, but regardless, he earned some points. He's the kind of guy that pays attention. 

Only awkward moment of the night was when I told him I used to be shy. He doesn't believe this. I say, no, really, when I was in high school I couldn't even call up my brother on the phone to ask him if he'd be home for dinner. He still doesn't believe me. He says, that's not shy, that's just weird. I laugh. I'm fine with this. But then he asks why I was shy. I stutter a little, then say something about Psycho. Something about the fact that I had a psycho stalker and it was weird, so it makes sense why I was shy for a few years. I'm sick of doing the alternative, which is to laugh and say something stupid, like I don't know or something. This only makes me look like a dramatic teenager. Or a flake. Or a bitch. So today, I go with the truth. He asks a few questions and then artfully changes the subject without me feeling bad or like he didn't care. It was more of an, ok this is a little deep and I don't want to pry and it's only our first date so...how about your brother being in the peace corpse? Well played. 

I wish this part of my life never existed so I could just be normal. Oh well, I'm getting there. It's probably just leftover things that Andy said yesterday that are really the source of my awkwardness and discomfort. 

Andy's Sorry

the way I handle his words today is to flick my car keys with my thumbnail and listen to the commentary running through my head about the way my body feels like it's burning into the seat. I remember now. Oh yes, that head voice says, oh yes, welcome back to seventeen. to eighteen. to the half of nineteen before you just turned numb. just think about... the parking lot at your school, what a car that was that drove up and the radio is still on a little bit do you know the song the boy was singing i swear he was looking straight at you, and if only mom would stop calling so much maybe you wouldn't keep having nightmares about her cheating on your dad.

his tone of voice. it's soft and quivering just a little bit and if I listen, then the sympathy will come.  He's sorry because he didn't mean to do anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong, and his life has been miserable since he lost me. he's been trying so hard. It's isn't his fault, he says, it's the way he was raised. It's our society. It's everything around him. But. I can't feel bad for him. Not today. Not again. I can't listen to how hard it's been for him to deal with what he's done to me. I don't want to be a victim. but i won't let him be one for me. I won't let him take that too.  

Unacceptable

I don't always know how to deal with the ignorance of people on the subject of sexual assault. I shut down today. In the middle of a conversation with Andy. He told me, that's just what he thought girls wanted (sex). He thought they just said no, but they didn't mean it. He thought, that people just have sex. Right away. And that's what they do. 

How do we accept a society like this? How do we live in a world like this? A world that somehow portrays this idea so strongly that my well-educated, super-liberal, environment-loving, animal-activist male friend, that spends his time volunteering, and cried after reading about what global warming is going to do to our planet, thinks that it's ok to have sex with a girl after she says no because it's what she really wanted. 

My heart hurts today. I don't know how to help change our society, but I will keep trying to find a way. I'll keep trying to be apart of the change. I can't accept a world where this is accepted.

Andy's Sister is on to Me!

Went to a casting with Andy today. I was in the middle of texting James when we started talking about Andy's birthday night. Andy said that I won't believe it, and he doesn't want to freak me out or anything, but his sister thinks that maybe James has a crush on me. Apparently, she thought we were disappearing together the night of his party.

I had to try (really hard) to control my reaction. I don't want to hurt anyone. I hate the strange combination or guilt and excitement. When I have a crush on someone, I want to talk about them all the time and I want other people to talk about them and I want people to tell me that the other person likes me too. Naturally, his comments made me happy. And then, naturally, this is followed with extreme guilt. I don't want to be any part of breaking up a relationship. It doesn't seem like there is, or was, technically a relationship, but I know that I would hurt people if I ever did anything with James.

I lied and told Any that it was ridiculous that his sister thought that. He believed me. Maybe? I think I'll wait a little while before hanging out with James. I can talk myself into believing that it is completely innocent to meet him for coffee of lunch or ice cream, but maybe we shouldn't even go down that road right now.

The Chaos Continues

I stayed awake at the shoot yesterday. Even more amazing: I was bubbly and energetic and the pictures actually looked freaking amazing. (except for the size of my thighs. I hate myself for caring about this, but I do.) I love makeup artists and photoshop. It's Andy's birthday today, so he had a big party last night at his parents apartment last night. I wasn't sure how I was going to stay awake, but I agreed to stop by and say hi. I didn't have a card or a present. I meant to, but I didn't have time to stop and get anything. I showed up, again, with a half rubbed off face of heavy makeup and exhausted hair. 

**Example of how Andy drives me crazy: I show up after a full day of shooting and my hair and makeup is done and I say that I feel embarrassed meeting people because I look a little bit crazy. I go to the bathroom and rub off most of the makeup, then come out and ask Andy if I look ok. He hesitates, looks at me and makes a face, and then says I look ok. Immediately, I feel bad about the way I look, say a silent fuck you and decide that there's no sense worrying about it, I look fine. Later, I mention to James that I look crazy tonight because I came right from work, and he tells me that I am crazy for thinking I look crazy. He tells me I look beautiful.**

I wasn't planning on staying over, mostly because that meant that I would have to sleep on the same bed as Andy and I avoid that with every ounce of my being. I also wasn't planning on drinking. Or over eating. Or talking to other guys. Apparently, I suck at making plans. 

One glass of wine and I was tipsy. One glass of wine later, I was friends with everyone. One more to top it off and I was best friends with all of Andy's guy friends from high school, convinced that I was going to help them all find girls to go home with at the end of the night. This led to me naming one of his friends JTT and telling everyone that we passed, bumped into, or looked in our direction, that he was the child star from Home Improvement and could recite lines from his role as Simba in the Lion King. It also led to me meeting a group of about fifteen girls at a bachlorette party, and cheersing to remaining single. 

One more glass of wine, and I found myself in a corner of the bar, listening to James (Andy's sister's kind-of boyfriend) tell me that he has a crush on me. I might have a crush on him too? We kept sneaking away together, just so that we could talk without other people around. He held my hand for a few minutes and he told me he wanted to kiss me, but as badly as I wanted to kiss him too, I couldn't cross this line. Andy's sister is dating another guy, besides James, and she told me all about this during another random moment of the night, but the drunker she got, the more came out about how she knew James didn't like her anymore and they hardly ever hung out. It's wrong to feel strangely excited at the news of this...right?  

I tried to make Andy feel special on his birthday. I knew there was going to be a dramatic spilling of his feelings for me at some point in the night, so I avoided him enough to keep it light and I paid enough attention to him to make him feel important and I fell asleep before he could pour his heart out. 

He did, however, try. On the cab ride home, all he wanted to do was kiss me. This is an awkward position to be in. I hate hurting people but I am so sick of doing what other people want instead of what I want to do. All I have done, for so many years, is to do everything in my power to keep other people happy, and all that I am left with is resentment and shame when I remain silent. I feel like I owe people things. If someone falls in love with me, I feel like it's my fault and that I have to be everything that they want me to be. For the first time in my life I am starting to realize that I have choices over things. I get to decide who I want to be with and what I want to do. This has been hard for me to learn, but it is the most important lesson in my life right now and I am pushing to follow through to become someone who does what she wants to do and puts herself first. 

This morning, I woke up feeling sufficated as Andy was wrapped around me. Besides a few closed mouth kisses, nothing happened and I am thankful for that. We got into a discussion today, because apparently Andy tried to talk to me last night when we got back from the bar, and I fell asleep mid pouring of his heart. (Not my fault, I warned him ahead of time.) He wants to be together. He knows that he fucked up before and he has been trying really hard to make things better and to be a better person. I know he's been trying and I genuinily feel bad for him. Maybe just because he is crying, and I hate to see people cry. I can't help but think that it's not really fair to have a conversation like this when it's his birthday. How can I be honest knowing that if I am it will be a shitty day for him. A shitty day on a birthday just multiplies the misery and I don't have the heart for the right now. 

I was able to be honest and tell him that I do care about him, but that I can't go back there now. I just want to be friends and that's all. I told him that I like hanging out with him, but that I can't be anything more than that and I'm sorry. I guess I did all that I could in this situation today. 

I met up with my family for breakfast, giddy and delerious after the weekend that I have had, and still wearing the same outfit I have been all weekend. I need to shower. I need to sleep. I can't stop thinking about Brad. It feels like forever since I kissed him. He sent me a facebook message saying that he had to see me again. He makes me smile. James has been texting me all day. So has Jeff.  So has Curt. I wish Curt lived closer. I don't know how I'm going to explain to Jeff where I have been for the past few days and why I haven't answered him. I wanted to text Matthew last night, but even in my tipsy state of mind, I resisted. This is all crazy. I'm not used to any of this and I don't really know how to handle it all. But I'm trying to let myself have fun.

Complicated Mess of an All Nighter

     There are a million places I could start this post, and seeing as it is taking up way too much time to keep messing around with them, trying to find the perfect opener, I'm going to be corny and eliminate them altogether for the sake of cutting to the chase.  I am completely sleep deprived, still a little buzzed, and I apologize in advance for this post. You are better off skipping this paragraph.  It was for me, so that I would just start writing.

     I met Matthew tonight. He's a musician. Opened the show for my brother's band. When he started singing/playing, I turned to my mom and made a face, acknowleding that he was pretty damn good. Not a bad looking guy either. He had the eye-fucking thing down to a science. I played along, and spent most of the time staring at him. At first, I thought that he was looking at everyone like he was looking at me, but then my dad, who was sitting in front of me, moved seats and sat on the other side of my mom because "he was getting creeped out because the singer kept looking at him."

     Brad came to the show tonight too which was great news because I had been secretly hoping that he would since last weekend. I saw him the second he walked in, but ignored him of course. He sat in the row behind my parents, Steve and I. I was brave and faked like I was turning around to look at my brother (sitting in the back waiting to play), then acted surprised to see him and waved him down to come sit with me. It's the second time I have seen him out and he was wearing jeans with a button down vest and a tie both times. Somehow, this works for him. I haven't really figured out how he pulls it off yet, but he does so nicely, without looking preppy or nerdy or like a fag. He also has a beard, which I never liked on guys, but for some reason he's really attractive. 

     Anyway, to further set up the story in the disorganized fashion I have started, I had a photo shoot all day today. I was shooting downtown from 9am-7pm. Exhausting day because I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night. I wasn't sure I would make it to my brother's show, but I knew that Brad might show up so I sucked it up and found my second wind. On the way to the show, I stopped at Jason's Deli for dinner because I was starving. I love Jason's Deli because they have free ice cream. I know, I shouldn't be eating ice cream right now. The clothes at the shoot were too tight on me. But I went way too long without eating and they took too long to make the sandwich so I lost the fight against my willpower and filled up an entire to-go soup container with fro-yo and took it with me for the ride to the bar. 

     To make a long story short (there's more entertaining parts of the night to get to) the ice cream melted and there was a spill involved and I dumped the majority of it in my lap while I was driving. Luckily, I was wearing black jeans sooooo I was able to clean most of it up without looking as ridiculous as I should have looked, but this is the reason I was sticky for the rest of the night. Not a pivital part of the story, but something to keep in mind. 

     So, I showed up to the bar with my hair teased and product-ed to death and with whatever makeup still on that didn't come off when I rubbed my face in the car. In my mind, I looked ridiculous. Tired, half-done up and sticky with the remains of soft ice cream on my legs and stomach, butby the middle of the night I found myself sitting in between two boys, Matthew and Brad, laughing as I was having two completely seperate conversations, both of which I could not keep up with. 

     It was my mother (thanks) who invited Matthew to come sit with us. Brad was already buying me drinks. Steve was wasted so it gave us all something to laugh about. (My goal was to get Steve to dance in the front of the room while my bro was playing. I got pretty close to accomplishing this.)

     When my bro was done, we all went to the other side of the bar where they were playing latin music. Matthew asked me to dance. I kept bouncing back and forth between him and Brad. From there, we went to a bar a block away. Found myself in between the two of them again. Brad made me come to the bar with him to get a drink. He had a straw in his pocket from last weekend. (I'll explain later but this was a cute move. Very cute. Earned him about 36 bonus points.) Steve was singing karaoke. Badly. My parents were watching me from a table close by. Awkward. But not as awkward as you would think because they were enjoying every second of it. 

     Matthew asked me to go for a walk with him. I said ok and we left the bar and walked around the block. He's one of those people who says that he is modest, but by saying he is modest, and describing all of the things he is modest about, he's really just sneakingly braggy. I was afraid he might kiss me, but he didn't. He mentioned that he has a girlfriend, during the show, but he realllly didn't seem like it. I'll keep this in mind for later. 

     I cut the walk short by saying that we had to get back to the bar to see Steve sing Cindee Lauper (I picked him a good song) Matthew left soon after, but not before he gave me his phone number. He told me he could only give it out to people that promised they weren't crazy and wouldn't call him a lot. I told him that was fine, I probably wouldn't call him at all. He smiled. I had him enter his info into my phone because I kept wanting to call him Mike but I knew this wasn't his name. I need to get better at this.

     Brad and I then had an autograph practicing session at the bar by signing napkins.  I saved his napkin. Mom and Dad left. Everett and Tula, and Brad and me, and two other random people that my bro's friends with but who's names I also kept forgetting, decided to go find some breakfast after the bar closed. I drove with E and we caravaned to the random people's house. I have to be up for another full day of shooting tomorrow, so E asked if I wanted him to drop me at home but I said no. 

     We made a bonfire at the random people house. Played with sparklers. I had the brilliant idea to go run around the yard with the sparklers and to only invite Brad. My plan worked and we ended up kissing for a while. He's a good kisser. It was super awkward when we had to walk back to the group like fifteen minutes later and pretend like no one noticed that we were gone way longer than the time it takes for a single sparkler to burn out. Oh well. 

     It's almost 6am and I just got home. I want to go back and kiss Brad again. I can't stop thinking about him. I should be waking up right now to go get ready for the shoot. I'm going to just go late. It's a test shoot and I said I might have something in the morning. Sorry if this post makes no sense and is all over the place. It reflects my current state of mind. I need to go to sleep for at least a little. I'm setting my timer for one hour. Then I'm going to get up and run, then shower, and then barrel through the day until I can come home and crash. 

     I love nights that surprise you. Tonight was definitely one of them. As much as tomorrow (ah, I mean today) is going to suck.....it was totally worth it. Totally, totally worth it.