All right, first of all, let me say that there's nothing much more pathetic than exiting a building to find it raining, only not to notice because you're already just *that* sweaty.
Today was rather interesting. I can't say it was pleasant, but it certainly brought up many things for me to discuss. First off, I woke up at a fairly decent hour, and I hope to do the same tomorrow, as well as the following days.
I went for a walk, because I have grown fond of the activity, and I ran into my mother and the couple who lives next door walking in the opposite direction. It seems there is a system governing which days of the week they walk clockwise or counterclockwise or whatever, however relevant that is to this. I later came across the neighbors minus my mother, and I asked where she had gone. "Off to take her neighbors' clothes", was the response. It seems the Zelaznys had a large amount of surplus used clothes that they were giving to my sisters. I helped Mom take them to our house, and while we were picking up a load Zelda and her mother left for Vacation Bible School, which they're teaching. I smiled. I sort of waved, but as I had a bag of clothes under my arm, I'm not sure it was noticeable. The effect I was going for was semi-comical.
Later I went over to the Zelasnys' house, partly to ask about Saturday night, partly to find out when I might be able to do something with Mr. Zelazny, and partly - well, mainly, I suppose - to talk with Zelda, and just get to know her a little better. I was there for about an hour before I had to get home, change, and head to work. Again, it was good talking with her. It didn't strike me as quite as meaningful (if that word can even be used to describe the level of our conversations thus far) as our previous (and first) one, but it was still good to be around her, interacting. Also she smiled at me. And she made an explicit verbal indication that though Saturday may not/probably will not work out, she is definitely interested in doing something, sometime. And she seemed awfully sorry Saturday's improbability, too. Particularly when she found that I had actually purchased tickets. I told her that I'd had them before I asked her, but either she didn't catch it, it didn't sink in, or she was just still feeling sorry for me. Oh-I found one downside to her personality, if it should be included in the concept of a personality-she likes country music. I suppose "downside" is a bit strong. If I'd known about that before I'd known anything else (that is, if my only data were "pretty girl" and "listens to country music"), I probably wouldn't have asked. But, as it is, my however meager understanding of her is already at least deep enough to overlook the evils of country music. Hehe. And she doesn't watch soap operas, like her elder sister.
Tomorrow she is off to Lincoln, to look for an apartment with friends. This means that I most likely won't be talking to her tomorrow, and that's a little disappointing. Now that I've been over to their house specifically to visit with her, it won't feel strange doing it again. And I am sort of looking forward to that. I certainly enjoyed it today. Perhaps a little too much, actually. I wasn't late to work, but if traffic had been less kind I could have been. Not that I suppose my supervisor would have been too put out; I'm a temp worker, so it's not as though daily schedules hinge upon me, and I'm a pretty good temp worker at that, so my productivity would still probably be higher than usually expected, even with a half hour or so knocked off.
However, the wonderfully enjoyable day pretty much ended there. I got to work, and there was little people had for me to do. The job I was on on Monday was mainly due to a regular employee's absence, and he was back today. The other section I've been working with was already caught up, and I had nothing to do there. It was looking like I was just going to go back home, and I was all ready to do it - what a great day for it, too! I could go back home and talk to Zelda, perhaps even doing something excursion-ish! Pretty good timing, too, since tomorrow wouldn't work for that.
But as I was going to drop off my things and leave, I was stopped by one of my coworkers, who had found a little 1-hour-or-so job I could do. That was fine with me, particularly since I knew Zelda had plans for lunch anyway (even though it is ~1/2 hour drive to work), and since a few extra bucks is always welcome. But when I was done with that my supervisor had found something for me to do for the rest of the day. One thing. For the remaining seven hours of the work day.
It was worse than the day I was bending bumpers all day long. And it was only seven hours, not eight! Probably the reasons it was worse were a) it didn't involve welding and b) the repeated sequence was much shorter. With the bumpers, I had a two part process. 17 of one, then 17 of the other. And in the first process there was at least a little opportunity for stimulation when I slid the reinforcement piece in - sometimes it would slide too far, sometimes not far enough; anyway, it was different each time. Today, no such luck. One piece of steel needed six bends put in it. That was it. And it wasn't completely brainless, it was one of those things that take just enough neural activity to keep you from thinking too deeply about anything else. So bah. Actually it only started out with my needing to make 458 of them, which would take only about six hours (eesh).
Also, it was very hot. And humid. Miserable. Particularly after having that "Hey, old Sport, it looks like you're going to end up having the day off today; let's go back and do something with Zelda" option coming so close, making those supports was practically torture.
I did find a few things to help pass the time, though. First I sang songs to myself, but that got boring (and besides, who wants pop culture drilled into your head all day long?), and I switched to thinking happy thoughts. I thought of how Zelda looked when she smiled at me while we were talking that morning, and it really lifted my spirits. I quickly decided against doing that, though, because it is dangerously close to obsessive behavior. If this doesn't work out or even just doesn't develop into a deep relationship, I don't want to have any sort of addiction to thinking of her - and that's exactly what will happen if I use her image for a quick endorphin rush. Despite that danger, though, I did picture her smiling at me a few other times when I was on a downswing, and it never failed to pick me up. Its effect never even diminished.
I told myself a story. It was about Billy (or Jimmy; I think it switched back and forth, but at the end I was using Jimmy more), who liked to walk in the woods. One day he was headed to the woods but was stopped by a voice, forbidding him to enter. "Who is this?" asked Jimmy.
"I am the master of the forest," replied the voice.
"The master of the forest? What makes you the master of the forest?"
"I own it."
"Nobody owns the forest!"
"I do."
And Jimmy did not know what to say. He tried to enter the forest, but could not. He eventually decided to walk elsewhere. He did not see many things. He walked on the hills, and he saw grass, and flowers, and butterflies frolicking in the flowers, but they were all things he'd seen before. He missed the forest, with its big trees and small mosses, and its giant bears and tiny mice. He missed the colors of the forest, and its smell. The hills were simply not good enough. And so he went back to the forest, to confront the disembodied voice, the self-proclaimed owner of the forest. He was going to trick it. However, the storyteller could not think of anything witty for Billy to do, and Billy decided that he would just do something clever without the storyteller. But, of course, he could do nothing. So he just sat in front of the forest, doing nothing. After a while the voice said, "What are you doing?"
Jimmy replied, "Nothing."
This did not seem to satisfy the voice. "You are not doing nothing. You are sitting. And you are sitting outside my forest." It sounded displeased.
"I cannot help but sit here. The storyteller has not sent me anywhere else." Jimmy explained.
"And you can do nothing without the storyteller?" asked the voice.
"No one can do anything without the storyteller," said Jimmy.
"Ha!" said the voice. "I can do things without the storyteller. I am the owner of the forest."
And with that the self-proclaimed owner of the forest proceeded to do nothing. After a great deal of silence, Jimmy asked, "Are you there?" but there was no reply.
A good deal more time went by before Jimmy said anything more. "Who is the owner of the forest?" he asked no one in particular. There was no answer. So he entered the forest.
Inside, he sat down and looked around at all the things living and growing in the forest. Before long, a bird flew down and sat on his head.
"Hello, bird!" he said.
The bird did not respond.
"What are you doing, bird?" he asked.
The bird did not respond.
Jimmy was beginning to wonder about the bird, when suddenly it turned into a muskrat, fell off of his head, and rolled into the grass. "Where did you come from?" Jimmy asked.
"I turned into a muskrat," the muskrat said. "I used to be the animal that was on top of your head."
"You mean the bird?"
"Sssshhhh!" the muskrat hissed. "You mustn't say that word!"
"What word?" asked Jimmy.
"The animal that I used to be!" said the muskrat.
"Oh, you mean the bird?"
"Sssshhhh!"
"All right, then. But why mustn't I say b- that animal that was on my head?"
"You just mustn't, that's all. By the way, why do you keep moving your foot like that?"
Here I have to break off the story and say that perhaps another time I will set it down elsewhere. As it is, this journal entry is getting very long. Jimmy was moving his foot because Jimmy was really me, who was not only the storyteller but also working a very tedious job that involved pressing a foot pedal. The muskrat was intensely curious as to why Jimmy was moving his foot around, and the two became involved in a very simplistic (but rather complex and, I'm afraid, terribly confusing to the muskrat) discussion of man's economics.
After I had finished the requisite 458 pieces, I asked Ben what I could do next. I was incredibly relieved that I would no longer have to do the same boring thing. Unfortunately, I was instructed to simply make more of them over the next hour. All in all that day I made 564 pieces.
I no longer felt like listening to Jimmy and the muskrat discuss moneys and fish and water-cleaning and such simplifications as Jimmy could make for the muskrat, but my mind had to wander somewhere.
Somewhere along the line I came up with the sentence, "The only thing that prevented more brain cells from dying was the imagination expended visualizing brain cells dying," which I thought was a nice little circle, if not entirely true. It pretty much would have been, though, if I hadn't been telling that story.
I thought about the misery of my situation, mainly. Three things coincided to make that day terrible. First and probably foremost, the heat was nearly unbearable, though I'm told it was cooler at my side of the plant than where my former coworkers were. In addition my feet were, as usual, sore from standing in steel-toed boots on concrete all day long. Added to this was the fact that I had an incredibly boring, mind-numbing job, though this, terrible though it be, was actually probably what contributed least to my discomfort. But psychologically speaking it was very disheartening to have the possibility of a free day (on particularly the day I might have enjoyed such time spent with Zelda) dangling in front of me, then suddenly replaced with the prospect of seven hours of a boring, repetitious task in a hot, humid environment. I mean, who wouldn't be a trifle disappointed by that?
Thoughts of Zelda helped me a good deal through that last hour. And not "thoughts of Zelda" the way the phrase conjures up the image of a mooning lover. Just thinking about my situation with her in general, and about how odd it was that I was in such a situation in the first place.
Often I've mused on how strange it is that I should have become involved, to whatever degree applies, with her. I saw her - not really met her, mind you, only saw - last Christmas. I'd heard a few things about her through my mother's general this-is-what-the-neighbors-are-up-to talk, and that's about it. I decided to ask her out after seeing a commercial and thinking "That would be a fun thing to see with a girl." And so I made plans to ask a girl, practically a stranger to me, to go out with me. I mean, how lonely am I, anyway? It seems an awfully desperate act to me, in retrospect. Perhaps I am only being hard on myself, but it really does strike me as a rather weird thing to do. Editor's note: I guess this is why my friend thought my plan to be so amusing.
And, of course, I'm obsessing over her right now. Alas, I'm not really obsessing so much over her as I am over the whole idea of a "new phase" in my social life. Assuming things go well, she will be my first girlfriend. Even as it is, she's the first girl I've made semi-romantic approaches to that has responded in anything that might be considered cooperation. Editor's note: I should clarify that the only other girl I've ever asked out, to my school's Classic, didn't flatly reject me; but nonetheless the interaction failed to produce the fruits I'd hoped for. And certainly she will be my first date (I am optimistic about finding a way to do *something* with her this summer, though Beauty and the Beast be unworkable). So I find myself, understandably, being rather fixated on this new venture of mine. I feel terribly badly about referring to a person as a "venture", but really, internally, that's what she is, at this point. I suppose it must be that way for most people, at least for their first romantic efforts. Though I shouldn't talk about other people; I don't really know. Unless, of course, I am merely in less denial than others.
Poor Zelda. If you ever read this, know that I do not think of you as an object or event; it is merely the events surrounding you that I am referring to. You are not an insignificant or incidental detail. You are another person that I am sorry to find myself thinking about, sideways, as something causing them. But I am not pondering how odd you are, or how strange you have been. If anything, I am pondering the strangeness of my own actions pertaining to you. And strange they are, so far. But you I like, however oddly I have come to know you to the extent that I do.