And sometimes my past and my present try to blend together on one day. But it’s like oil and water, isn’t it? You can’t mix them; you have to choose one or the other.
Monthly Archive for November, 2008
My emotions have been intense lately. I wouldn’t describe what I’m going through as depression, and it hasn’t come with a lot of drama or yelling* or anger or anything. No, I guess I’d describe my feelings as emboldened, and starting with capital letters. I don’t just feel happy, I feel Happy! When I’m nervous, I’m Nervous! I’m not lonely, I’m Lonely. When I’m bored, I’ve Never Been So Bored In My Life, Goddammit!
With the feelings that are less easily defined, I really wish I had some of those fancy German compound words** to describe them. Why is there no English word for “Currently lonely, but happy to have social engagements planned for the near future”? What’s the word for “Bored, but with the knowledge that there are any number of interesting things that could be done”? What word can be used to describe an emotional bigness, the feeling that your heart might explode out of your chest, but you have no idea why?
Last week my friend Billy took me on an evening flight in a tiny, tiny airplane. Everything’s more intense in a tiny airplane; you can hear all the noises, you can see everything around you, and when you land you can watch it all happen through the front windshield.
We took off from Austin at sunset, flew to Llano, and then flew back to Austin as the full moon was rising. As we went over Lake Buchanan, Billy turned the radio down and we sat in silence, listening to the hum of the engine through our headphones as the moon reflected off the water.
What, then, is the word for the feeling that “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, except that can’t be right because I’ve seen lots of other beautiful things, and anyway, everything’s more intense in a tiny airplane”?
Why do I need words to describe everything? And whence all the Feelings lately? Given the choice, I suppose I wouldn’t trade them, as they make my life feel epic in a way that it really isn’t. But I do still wonder where they’re coming from.
*Who would I yell at? Everyone’s great!
**c.f. Schadenfreude, except I haven’t felt that one these days.
So, I don’t know if anyone remembers this, since it was almost a year ago, but I still go to Freebird’s once a week, and the red-goateed, arm-tattooed guy still works there. He doesn’t work with the customers, though: I usually see him in the back chopping a bunch of steak. Which has made me wonder: did he do something stupid that made the management decide, hey, this guy shouldn’t be interacting with people on the job, let’s make him chop up a bunch of steak? Or is he like me, sort of a misanthrope sometimes, and more content to chop steak while lost in thought and watching all the customers slog their way through the burrito line?
Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I’ve a) gotten over my burrito-boy crush, and b) become less interested in dating lately.
Yesterday I took a half-day off work in the morning because of election night partying, and at noon I stopped at Freebird’s on my way into the office. The line was pretty long, and burrito boy was indeed chopping steak in the back, but he glanced up long enough to catch me looking at him. “Eek!” I thought, and quickly looked away. A few minutes later, when I reached the front of the line and it was my turn to order, I looked up and saw him standing there.
“What can I get for you?” he said. I guess he hadn’t been banished from the customers after all. So I told him what I wanted - spinach tortilla, rice, cheese, black beans, pico, guacamole.
“How’s it going?” he said. What? I thought. He’s never asked me that before.
“Uh, good,” I said.
“I want to make a button that says, ‘Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote.’”
“What?”
“I don’t know, I thought it would be funny. Don’t blame me, you know.”
“Blame?” I said. “I’m happy with the outcome.”
“Me too!” said the Freebird’s employee standing next to burrito boy. “I got off work an hour early yesterday so I could go vote.” He pointed at the “I Voted” sticker on his hat. At this, burrito boy turned and walked away.
“I took a half-day today because I knew I’d be up late last night,” I said. “I drank champagne and woo-hooed!”
“So it was like your SuperBowl?” said the other Freebird’s guy.
“Ha! Yeah, I guess it was!”
So. Here’s what I wrote last year about burrito boy:
And that’s okay, because I’m already at the part where I make up horrible things about him so that I can be glad we’ll never date. His favorite band is Slipknot. He believes that all Chihuahuas should be put to sleep. He thinks Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth. He’s going to vote for Mitt Romney. When he gets home from work all he does is smoke weed and watch CSI. His back is hairy. He has no teeth. He drives a Ford Excursion with automatic windows, the better to throw his McDonald’s wrappers on the side of the road.
By the time I get to my car I’ve turned him into the worst person I’ve ever met, and when I get back to my office and sit down to my veggie Freebird on a mixed cheese, it’s like he never existed.
You know what? What I found out about burrito boy today is EVEN WORSE than all that. Not only is he unhappy with the outcome of the presidential election, he didn’t even VOTE! As of yesterday, he’s completely dead to me, crush-wise.
(Related question: was the other Freebird’s employee trying to mess up burrito boy’s game? Discuss.)
