&perfect`gracefulness

5.31.2005

"Sometimes it helps to have faith in someone you love when you have no faith in yourself." -Me [unless some other moron came up with it first]

t u n e s : moby "hotel" CD haha
r e a d i n g : nothing special at the moment
m o o d : drowsy - the second cup of coffee isn't working

Gray Tuesday mornings/afternoons suck.

I went to work yesterday, with, of course, our main subject for the past two or three months. He had allergies really bad, and he looked so worse for wear. I was filling a coffee thing for the ECU, and I feel someone squeeze my arm. I look over my shoulder and he's there, pointing at the floor. I look and down there's a spider. A huge ass spider. First reaction is to lift my foot and stomp the shit out of it BUT...for some reason I felt that wouldn't bode well with Rob. The other part of me wanted to save it.

"What do you want me to do?" I ask and he just shrugs this tired shrug of his. He usually uses body language in the morning since he's too tired to talk. I sigh, trying not to smile too much and set down the coffee thing I was filling up, reach for a styrofoam cup and lid and bent down near the eight legged little bugger. It almost instantly crawled inside the cup and as Rob watched me with tired fascination, I closed the lid on it and headed outside, set the guy free and went back in, tossing the cup. I caught his eye and he smiled. "What?" I ask and he gives me this daunting look, hard to read but it was like he was appreciating me in a different light. Hard to translate.

We talk about what happened Saturday night, how he got really depressed over it. He told me he never actually told anyone just exactly how much that bothered him, his loss at the battle. I was so happy he was actually speaking with me about it. I made it seem like it was absolutely no big deal, that he shouldn't sweat over it, that he knew he did great even though he thought he sucked. But then, came the big discussion that would just about change everything.

I'm organizing the silverware and he's at the dishwasher, and he asks me, "Do you still not have a boyfriend, Miriam?"

My hands paused in their tracks from reaching for a fork, a butterknife, a spoon. Who knows anymore. I glance at him and resume my work. "Oh, yes Rob, I picked someone up at Wax," I said sarcastically, shaking my head.

"So I take that as a no?"

"Yes, it's a no." My heart was pounding; why was he asking me this again?

"Well..." He takes a deep breath, not looking at me but the dishes. "I think I might know who likes you."

I swear I felt a crack run through my heart. "Oh JOY." Was my wonderful reaction.

"Don't sound so cynical," he chuckles. "You don't have to be so pessimistic."

"Well, you can't always expect the greatest in things," I say. "Do I know this guy?"

"Yeah. Actually, I think Torin likes you."

What.

"Oh." Lack of response, lack of response.

So he's standing there in front of the dishwasher telling me all this. Oh my shit.

Basically I had to pry my mouth to operate. I was so dumbfounded like I had just been smacked with a bus. "Th-Then how come he didn't come up and say hi?" At Wax. I do remember now that he was there. Kind of. Or maybe my mind's improvising.

"Because he's SO shy, he's shy when it comes to girls."

"Oh. Well." Still getting aftershocks. I sigh a little and I feel him glance at me in curiosity. "I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone."

He stops at whatever he's doing. "Why do you say that??" I can hear in his tone this disguised suspicion.

I don't look at him but at the silver under my fingers and shrug. "Because it's true..." I take a little longer to continue.

"And?" Because I like you, you ass. Ouch, is this shit really necessary?

Hurts more than a physical wound, but bleeds a little less.

"Well, he didn't actually come right out and SAY he likes you," Rob goes on. "I do know that he likes the way you look."

I scoff a little. "He doesn't even know me." Hypocritical little me. "I don't want someone to like me just because they like the way I look. I want them to like me because they think I'm smart, clever and all that good shit." I was starting to get a little frustrated and I think it showed through.

"I know, I hate having stupid conversations," Rob agrees. Well, he probably didn't realize this was a stupid conversation to be having. Stupid, maybe not, but pointless. Utterly and completely pointless. I guess that sums up to be stupid. "But if you think about it, the first thing you see is the way someone looks, and even though it's sad, it's true. The way someone looks is the first impression on the other person." I hated the fact that he was so right.

I somehow change the subject. Fast forward to lunch break.

We went into the breakroom and check my messages on my cellphone. Then he tells me he wants to call someone, and I ask who, and he smiles mysteriously and says, "You'll see." Oh JOY, I know exactly who he wants to call.

"Wait a sec," I say, and I scroll down my list of contacts until it reaches Torin's number, which Anna gave to me. "Is this who you're going to call?" I hand him the phone and he looks at it. The surprised look on his face was classic.

"Oh...yeah," He mumbles and calls Torin up. Talks to him, tells him he's calling from my phone and whatnot. And after hanging up [I was talking to Zebeda, one of the caregivers], he asks me if I wanted to hang out with him and Torin.

"When?" I ask, and he shrugs, not looking at me, like there was something else on his mind. "When?" I ask again, but he gives a short grunt and pillows his head in his arms. I sit there, a questioning expression darkening my face. THEN he looks through my list of text messages, the ones a friend keep sending to me who's a guy, and he wouldn't give the phone back, teasing me and telling Zebeda some guy from the other side of the states and that's 10 years older than me is in love with me and keeps stalking me. He wouldn't let up for the longest time, and I kicked him under the table but nothing worked - he wouldn't give my phone back. I just sigh and eat my rice crispies [yeah I decided to be cheap that day and grabbed something from the kitchen]. This guy sends the most mixed signals than all the mixed signals I've ever had from anyone put together.

"This guy is so corny! I mean, I can understand liking someone, but damn!" And so on and so forth. He finally gave me my phone back later on, and we moved on to other conversations. I would be talking to Zebeda or Angela and Adelina, and I could feel his eyes on me as I'm laughing my ass off about whatever we were talking about, and when I would look at him, he'd look quickly away, this faraway look in his eyes.

We were taking the garbage out and he was telling me about he girl that Torin used to be with, a Filipino girl. He tells me how Torin showed him pictures of her. He was telling me what he thought, awkwardly as we headed out to the dumpster. "I mean, you are so much hotter than her." For some reason that made me think about how hot he thought Anna was, and didn't make me as flattered as I thought I would be. And I'm thinking that he hasn't even met nor seen this girl in real life, who was he to say that I was supposedly hotter than her? Good gravy. If Torin likes her than she must be quite a piece, lol. Ah well.

We headed back inside, and he goes, "Yeah, so I really do think Torin likes you."

I sigh, just about defeated. I was so tired of being tired, of being passed down like a hand-me-down. "That's too bad," I say.

"That's too bad??" He reiterates. "What do you mean?"

I just smile a tired smile, and head back into the kitchen. End of discussion. For now. It's weird, it's not like I would say anything about it, because he tells me not to talk about it to Torin because it's like a sore spot to talk about or something like that. Well duh, I would think so too. Geez, I'm not THAT dim but I am quite dim.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It was Memorial Day so the managers weren't in at work that day. We hung around each other every chance we got. Just fucked around, like he would grab my shirt collar and pretend to punch me, and I'd actually punch him in the gut and he would be bent double laughing. Or I would set up salads for the room trays and he would take them out of my hands and wrap them in saran wrap for me, then give me the list of juices for the residents and have me help him take them out with him in the dining room. After lunch I came back from room trays, help him buss tables, then all of a sudden I feel a smile creep up onto my face. A moment too late and I try to hide it but he sees and asks me what I'm smiling about.

I bite my lip and frown, saying, "Nothing," but keep smiling anyways. I smiled because I was with him. Simple as that.

"Why are you so secretive?" He asks.

"I'm not," I mumble, smiling still.

He shakes his head. "You are so weird." I go to a table where Fern, one of the kooky old lady residents is sitting, as he's still poking at me at what I'm smiling at, and Fern asks, "Is he annoying you?"

I go, "YES, yes, he's annoying me! He's VERY weird," I grin widely and Rob behind her shakes his head at my idiocy.

"Then I think you should pop him one," Fern says. Rob goes over by me and offers his arm for me to pop.

"Go ahead. Right there. Pop me one." And so I do, lightly, grinning.

"I don't think that helped though, did it?" Fern asks and I laugh out loud.

"No, Fern, I don't think it did." I say.

"She is SO weird," Rob tells her.

Later on...

"I have a game," Rob tells me as he's pureeing a milkshake for us to share. "I'm going to teach you how to rhyme words yet, Miriam."

We head out into the dining room and set up silverware, and I take a sip of his milkshake. "I can't! I can't rhyme words just like that, it's hard."

"Yes you can," He says. "I'll give you a word and you have to try and come up with three words to rhyme with it." and he thinks for a moment. "Transcript."

Oh good gravy. "Um, manuscript?" I laugh and say, "No no, that one sucks. I can't do this."

"Well, it does work anyway, transcript and manuscript," He says. "But manuscript has moe syllables in it. Okay, until you get good, you can come up with one word for me and I'll think up one for you, and you have to come up with one word to rhyme with it." And so it went like that for a while, following each other around in the dining room and rhyming.

"Okay, rhyme exclamation point," I say.

"That's two words."

"So? It's basically one thing." So he does - something about smoking a joint at the end. Haha. Then he gives me 'switchblade' to rhyme. "Um...French maid?"

He chuckles and says, "That's tight. Anything unexpected is tight," as in what the hell does a French maid have to do with a switchblade? Hehe. Then on the second floor balcony, piano music streams down and some black guy's singing beautifully, and Rob tells me he really digs violin and piano music. I tell him so do I - some people think I'm weird because I like hard core music AND soft music as well. Then we end up just sitting there in the dining room, listening to the guy sing some love song. How ironic.

Before we're heading our separate ways, he again asks if I think Torin is cute. "I mean, do you like the way he looks?" He asks.

"Mm...He's not ugly," I say. "I'm not going to be mean." He thought I was trying to lighten up the fact that Torin was ugly. Which he isn't. And I say "see you later" and head toward my car, and it looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he said, 'yeah, see you later.'

I'm at a stoplight and to my left is him going toward Portland, while I'm going the opposite way. He gets a green light and he drives by me, giving me the universal sign for 'call me.' But I don't. I about had enough of him that day, trying to play matchmaker with a guy who already likes someone else and a girl that already likes someone else. Ha, weird.

Talk about fucking DUMB. What to do, what to do. So he tells me he likes this other chick, and he tells me his best friend thinks I'm pretty. He flirts with me constantly - what the hell is that all supposed to mean? But even though he would never like me like that, I just want him to be happy. Seriously. I've never felt like that for anyone before. Kinda creepy. Just being around him makes me happy, and sad when I'm not. Sometimes I think about putting his happiness first before mine. Sad, no?

*sigh* This may not go anywhere, but for now...well, everybody has to get their heart broken sometime or another.

;it's something sophiscated.
~~1:31 PM~~