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Wednesday, Feb. 06, 2002 - 8:56 p.m.

The catharsis of writing

I just walked into a bathroom here at work, and two guys were in there talking. They paused in their conversation to look at me, then one guy finished his sentence, and they walked out. I don't understand why you'd remain in the bathroom to chat; particularly this one, which didn't smell all flowery at the time, if you catch my drift.

I'm going to take a cathartic approach to writing now, since I'm not in the best of moods -- sorry if I keep doing that, keep bitching and complaining, but it's been happening lately. So rather than a terse entry in which I say I'm too pissed to write, I'll try writing without being bitter, and see if it helps.

I got the word that my trip to Florida for spring training has been approved. Woo. I was hoping that, since everything's paid for -- airfare, hotel, rental car -- that we'd be able to find a cheap flight for the weekend that falls during my six-night stay and Casey could come down. Since all my expenses are taken care of, and I could easily turn in the receipts for our meals out and have no questions asked, I thought we'd split the cost of a flight, which would be the only thing we'd have to pay for. But it won't work out because we'll be in New Orleans only three weeks before, and her dad's just arranged for Casey and Tessa to go to Florida in May to see their grandparents. And now I'm not so excited to go to Florida for seven days. When she goes, she'll have fun; when I go, I'll have to fight off boredom. Hopefully Brian can meet up with me at some point like last year, only I won't get drunk and stay up all night the night before I fly home.

And now I've got three things to go to South Bend for: A newspaper alumni reunion in April; a close friend's wedding to another friend's brother in May, the weekend before Casey goes to Florida; and the wedding of one of those newspaper alumni friends in July. It was in a dream just last night, I think, that I dreamt Casey and I were in South Bend for the newspaper reunion, and Heather was there, and she and Casey finally got to meet one another. But who knows if that will be possible? All this will have to be considered against the BlueClaws schedule (assuming I'm still here in this job, still covering the team), and we'll also have to consider Casey's 10 vacation days and all the expenses and which events she can (or wants) to accompany me to. So I've got to remain diligent and determined to have a new job by the end of February, because that will take care of a lot of these petty problems of mine. I won't get to go to Florida, but that's a fair trade. I don't much care for the state anyway.

Super Bowl Sunday went by OK -- it was not quite Hell working here, more like, I don't know, Dallas. You know, you don't want to be there, but since you're stuck there, at least there's good food. We had an entire cafeteria table covered with food -- everything from vegetables, stuffed shells, nachos and chips to soda, cupcakes, peanut-butter-marshmallow-butterscotch-peanut squares and cookies. At first the table was set up in a more open area away from our desks and the TV, but we moved it right into the middle of the rectangle our work stations form, so that all I had to do to get something else to munch on was turn around in my swivel chair on wheels. I got plenty of exercise, though, trekking to the bathroom to dispose of some of the soda.

That afternoon, Casey and I met up with my family -- plus Uncle Paul and dad's cousin Jim -- at the Meadowlands for the Notre Dame-Seton Hall game. The pretzel she and I shared obviously wasn't good enough to warrant a mention in her weekend food recap. For the record, it fell before the chocolate cake thingies. Of course, it's not about the pretzel, but about the fact that it was our first sporting event together -- an insignificant outing in the grand scheme of things, but a minor milestone nonetheless, considering my appreciation for all kinds of sport and my frequent get-togethers with friends from all over that revolve around athletics in some way. An arrangement to meet friends at a bar to watch a game is as much fun as heading out for a night of dancing. An afternoon at a ballgame is the same as a day in the park, an outing to a museum -- it's time well-spent with friends. That, and this was Notre Dame, but I can't really expect everyone to understand what that means.

It's probably bad for me to let work and all its bullshit affect me. I'm probably shortening my lifespan because of it. It's probably why I'm losing hair. It's probably why my skin's so dry. It's probably why I eat so poorly, unable to have healthy dinners. It's probably why my dentist made my gums bleed so much last week it looked like he'd punched me in the mouth. It's certainly why I'm unhappy with my financial situation, having to drive 60 miles one-way to work, and either ordering in at the office or eating peanut-butter sandwiches for dinner. Wednesdays are generally crappy for me -- I often get depressed returning to work after two days off, usually having spent both nights with Casey; one night at my place, one at hers. I'm here with five days of work ahead of me, which will go through the weekend, and I usually get some sort of bad news or another returning to the office. Today it's that I won't be able to take Good Friday off -- that's the night we run our high school sports spring previews. All these annoying little glance boxes and a few features, things that should be done by Wednesday or Thursday but don't get read and paginated until the night before. I can understand the pagination (we don't know what each page will look like until the advertising department is finished with them Friday afternoon), but the fact that none of it gets read until that night? C'mon; ridiculous. I'm going to fight for this one, because it's the best night and day for me to spend with Casey and her mom -- and to get her mom and my parents to meet. If not then, who knows when? And Allison sits next to me now talking to her boyfriend about their Saturday plans, because somehow, when the work schedules were reconsidered after the NFL and college football seasons ended, Fred got Sundays off and she got Saturdays, and I've been here longer than she has. So has Fred, for that matter, and HE wanted Saturdays too. Who wouldn't? And it's great for her, and I'm sure she's psyched while at the same time feeling a little guilty, but I hate her for it, just a little. I don't want to hear her talking about weekend plans.

I've let it get to me to the point where I now get my hopes up at little things, then get overly disappointed when they don't come to fruition. Take the Florida trip -- I'd just figured that things would work out and Casey would be there with me. I get so few weekend days off, I didn't want to spend one without here, even if I was in Florida. It was a stretch to begin with, so I never should've thought about it. And here's Allison, still talking about her trip to Boston Saturday; and here's me, aching to go to Boston, longing to hang out with Bryan and have fun, maybe get drunk. To see Leanne again, and be with Casey and Leanne together. Or just to have a Friday or Saturday off to go to a concert. I've unfortunately let it get to the point where I was actually happy that the John Mayer concert at Irving Plaza was sold out, because I was jealous that Casey would get to go and I wouldn't. That's just horrible of me. I probably wouldn't even know about the guy if it weren't for her, and here I am happy at her disappointment, only because I couldn't share in it with her? I hope that when we each see him perform for the first time it will be together, but I can't stand myself for thinking that way. I feel sick just for writing it, but I'll leave it, perhaps against my better judgement.

So this experiment in writing through my frustration has worked out rather well. The internet's back up at work (I've composed this piece on Word, then pasted it to D-land), Notre Dame's leading Rutgers at halftime, and I managed to lighten the load on my head and my heart. Ending with the disappointment at getting Good Friday off has brought me back down a notch, but it's not as low as I was earlier. And it's not terribly bad. Wednesdays start out great for me, waking up with Casey, and remain good through the early afternoon. They start to slide downward when I get ready for work and spend an hour on the road with my thoughts. They hit bottom when I get here, and I feel worse chatting with Casey because she's at the end of her workday and I'm just beginning mine. Then I bitch in my head throughout my shift and get the hell out of here as soon as I can. I drive home alone on the lonely Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike, passing Newark Aiport where, if I'm lucky, I see one flight land, or maybe one take off, my only reminder that there are others who work weird schedules. I take lonely sidestreets from the Turnpike to Edgewater and pull into the parking lot and cross empty River Road -- which is usually dangerously busy during the day -- and creep into my building and my apartment, trying not to wake up Lori or Betty. And then I get to the second-best part of my Wednesday, second only to waking up with Casey, and that's watching Ed and sometimes The West Wing before going to sleep.

At least it sets me up for a good Thursday.

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