Party over where?

I'm trying not to let a pity invitation crawl under my skin and vibrate through my bloodstream but it's forcing my stomach into a mild nausea and feeding energy into my fingers as they fly through my hair and around my nails.  

You are an afterthought.

It's one of the lowest and darkest things you can be. Especially when you first think an invitation is sincere, that people really do want to spend some of their precious free time with you. You're light in your steps and the friendless, loveless world you've created for yourself doesn't seem so prickly-grey anymore. But hold up. You find out your friend spoke with the person who invited you and she probably used the words should and why not.

I started watching The Rich Kids of Beverly Hills and like most reality TV shows stuffed with over the top and out of this world characters you're prepared to hate and mock and pity, after the third episode (if you make it that far and I almost always do) they end up being not so terrible, kind of funny, and a hell of a lot smarter than you originally gave them credit for. In one episode the billionaire's daughter throws a pool party and she and her friends spend a fair chunk of time ruminating on whom they should invite. Only close friends. People they trust. People they can laugh easily around. They have names for those on the outskirts who show up to events by way of third-string invitation: Groupers. Bottom feeders. Take your pick with the phrase but either way it's ugly.

This show is ridiculous and meaningless but I'll be damned if I didn't identify with that sloppy grouper the pretty ones snark at. And anyway who are those people who are always invited to things?? Regardless of the friends I have, the people I date, the folks I spend time with and share the same air with, I rarely receive these thing invitations. It usually doesn't bother me to tag along as the "Oh we haven't met, I came with so-and-so, you've got a great place by the way" party goer but today my feelings are an exposed, raw nerve and even the lightest touch is blinding.

I accepted that pity invite and I'm leaving in an hour and I look pretty damn good and after a drink or two (or three or whatever) hopefully I'll forget that I allowed myself to indulge these thoughts.

I dreamed a dream

I had a dream last night that stuck with me. A dream where I was getting to know someone in a way that if I had slept a little longer, if my brain synapses had fired off the right connections, would have surely evolved into something romantic. It left a quiet, soft warmth in the pit of my belly.

There's a guy (in real life) whom I see at the Downtown Crossing T stop fairly regularly at the same spot (the platform near the end of the train going toward Forest Hills) and around the same time (5 p.m). I find him achingly cute and have for the longest time--maybe since October? There's something...endearingly dainty about him. He's not so tall, very slender, always well put together, always wearing the most beautiful glasses. I imagine he's the proprietor of some "Aristanal [insert any noun] Shoppe." We stand next to one another on that platform enough so that I never worry it'll be the last time I see him; and I stand alone enough so it's always a shock to my system, a flip of my stomach when he walks up next to me. One time I swore he craned his neck to watch me get up from my seat and walk out of the train. I think he is the first person I allowed myself to be attracted to, to have a little meaningless, shallow crush on, after my ex and I broke up.

So anyway this dream was about him.

I sat next to him on the T, struck up a conversation and enjoyed easy, natural talk. He was going to a bar I was all too familiar with and would I like to join him? A yes couldn't have poured out of my mouth any quicker. Then, as dreams are wont to do, all of the sudden we were somewhere else. We were already friends, loose-lipped and giddy. Wherever it was we were alone and I desperately wanted him to kiss me, or fuck me, or give me any easy excuse to press our flesh together. It didn't happen, but I wasn't disappointed because the company of this new-found friend was enough for now.

And that was it. This dream makes me feel comfortable and content, perhaps only because my subconscious acted as it should have: playing out a sweet short story in the grey slimy mess of my brain what I hopelessly cannot play out in life. I'm pleasantly surprised there's not even a tinge of lonely and pathetic lurking behind those feelings; their swallowing blueness will take hold of me some other day I suppose.

Maybe this dream is a prophecy and I'll talk to him one day. Maybe I'll find out he's terrible, married, gay, or all three. Maybe I'll just nurse this grade-school crush and do nothing except steal glances at him on the train and remember how I feel right this very moment.

Wahhhhhh

One of my friends at work recently told me that I give up too quickly. And she is (unfortunately) 100 percent correct. Excuses are so easy to pick up and regardless of how big or small they are, or how many I find along my way (so many!) they fit perfectly in my pocket. But I should really empty out my pockets! I keep saying I want to write and yet.....I'm not writing. I started this blog bored at work thinking it would become some sort of saving grace and yet........less than a week after I started I more or less stopped. I know I could easily find freelance work or even write little things for a journal I once interned for and yet.........I sit on my ass and do nothing. Ugh! I'm the worst!

I decided last week that if I'm still at my job in June I'm going to quit regardless of whether or not I have a new one.This job is killing me, making me miserable, etc etc. If I absolutely have to find something, I will. If I'm comfortable enough I know I'll never be as fully motivated as is necessary. And surprisingly, day after agonizing day, I am comfortable enough. So I guess I need to lose my source of income for that motivation. Yeesh.

I have loads of free time--a nice by-product of having only 2 friends and no hobbies and no boyfriend/hookup/what have you--and instead of shamefully browsing Buzzfeed and crafting some fairly shitty tweets, I could be writing for money! Or at this point writing for free let's be real :-(

The sun's out, it's kinda sorta warm, and I've got my whole life ahead of me.