Old School Gamers

How much pain am I to endure? Today one of my old 'friends' contacted me. She wanted to borrow a memory stick that I had said she could use before. She is going to her daughter's wedding this weekend. Fine, I had offered before, no big deal. She asked me if I knew why I was not invited to the wedding. Oh joy, just what I want to do right now, bring up why I am no longer wanted around her anymore.

'Well it is because I have gone threw this change.'
'No it has nothing to do with that. '
'OK, it is because the girl that I work with doesn't want me around anymore because of what I have been going threw.'
'Yes, that is the only reason other words you would be at the top of my list.'

Isn't that what I just said the first time? Is this supposed to make me feel better? I would be welcomed if that girl would allow it?

I lent her the memory stick, because that is just the type of guy I am. You can kick me in the balls, but if I had told you I would help you, I am a man of my word.

As I was getting ready to leave, she repeated that is the only reason I am not going. That is it, I can't put up with this anymore.

I told her that it does hurt not going, but that doesn't hurt nearly as much as everything else, the little things. You used to email me jokes all the time. You used to invite me out to eat just because. You used to talk to me. Now it is just her walking right past me and straight to the corner where that girl is. When you do talk to me you are telling me about how you have been showing everyone this and telling everyone that, and then being surprised when I have no clue what she is talking about. You forget you never talk to me; I am no longer part of 'everyone'. I know you don't invite me to things when that girl that hates me is invited and I understand that, but we used to do many things that she never got invited to or was able to come to. That is what hurts. That is what is painful, it is knowing and remembering those times that are no more. Do you remember the last time I had diner or anything with you after work? It was when we gave you that camera almost 7 months ago! Then the only time I hear from you is to see if I can take you to Costco to get your camera's photos printed. The only time, never just because. The last time we really talked you told me that I am too painful to be around. What am I supposed to make of any of that? What am I to think when I am completely ignored when that girl is around?

She said that all that will change when she gets back. She misses our times out to lunch just because, and happy hour. She was glad I told her all that. She said that that girl doesn't control her, she is her own person. It just goes to show how busy and crazy things get around here at work.

What am I to make of this now? I guilted her into hanging out with me? She is never too busy or hectic to hang out with everyone else or talk to everyone else. I see it all the time, and the few times that we do talked when we were at Costco she just went on and on about how much fun she had the other night with everyone and what not. She can't invite me to hang with her even thought I am 'number one on her list' because she is hanging out with that girl. So the girl that doesn't control what she does, controls her from being around her 'number one' person? For someone that doesn't have any control over her, she sure does have a lot of pull.

I think she miss understood, I am not telling her this to get back together. I have already let go, I am just lending her the memory stick because I had offered her it a long time ago. I was just letting her know that I don't care at this point about the god damb wedding. It was how she has treated me for the last 7 months that has caused me to give up. Why would I want her as a friend? How much more does she want to screw with me? How much more pain does she want me to go threw? Does she want to see me beg? Does she want me to plead with her some more to let me hang out with her? I am sorry but I am done with that. Good bye.

I will still be polite. I will still be nice. That is who I am. But I can't consider her a friend anymore. It is just too painful. It is too painful knowing that at any moment she will do it all over again to me, and not care.

Well I got my car back Saturday! I am so relived to get rid of that little rental car. It got great gas mileage, but its control and size were sorely lacking. AAA contacted Enterprise and informed them of how unhappy I was with their service. I hate being lied to, and having my time waited. When I turned in the rental, I didn't even have to say anything, they started offering some reductions to my bill and working with me to compensate for their mistakes. That was great; I really appreciated them doing that.

One of my former 'friends' saw me the other day and was telling me about how worried she is about her dog. I know that dog means the world to her. He hurt his knee some how, and the vet said he needs surgery and to stay still for 8 weeks. That is not possible for this dog. He is such a goof; it is imposable for him to sit still. She has no idea what she is going to do. All I could tell her is to have someone there with her and talk to the vet again, and that I will keep her in my prayers. Maybe the other person will think of other things and alternatives to ask the vet. She is also going crazy because of her daughter’s wedding that is coming up. I feel bad for her, but what can I do? She only wants me around when she feels like it, and I don't want to be treated like that and be completely ignored when she is out and about. That is not how a friend should treat friends, and I am not going to put up with it any more. I will be nice, I will still care, but I will not go out of my way, and will stop offering help at the drop of a hat.

I am doing ok, I am just trying to take it one day at a time, and stop worrying about things.

I’m just tired. Tired of fighting for what I am due. Tired of being invisible. Tired not being taken seriously because I look young. Tired of being screwed over because I am a nice guy.

Saturday I took my car in to the body shop. AAA had set everything up for me to get my car fixed. They sent over all the paperwork, and made the appointment for me, and even said that a rental car would be available for me. I drop my car off at the body shop, sign a few forms, and they called the rental car place for me. Ten maybe fifteen minutes and I am done. I thought it was going to be like pulling teeth and I would be there for hours. The car rental should be a breeze; I can get home soon and actually get some stuff done before lunch! No such luck. Enterprise had all the paper work from AAA for me and they asked me to have a seat, they will bring something around for me. Over an hour and a half later I still do not have a car. They lied to me, forgot about me, and tried to blame the insurance company. Bottom line, I have a vehicle that I am not at all happy with, and don’t want to keep fighting it.

It is hard still. I am doing better, but it is still hard. I have been carpooling with my boss for a while now, and it is a lot of fun. Today was a bit harder; she spent the entire ride to work talking dirty to one of her guy friends. Now let me be clear, I took no offence, and even found it a bit humorous. The thing I have issues with is I don’t know and feel awkward. I feel like I should leave and give them privacy. But how do I step out and do that when going 80 on the freeway?

Later that day she came to me and said that she will get a ride back with someone else, she had something come up and she left with a bunch of girls from the office. My programming friend said that he got an invite to go out for drinks with them. It hurt; it hurt because I used to get invited too. I am happy that my friend is being invited back with everyone; it has been a long time. My boss used to not have to tell me that she has other transportation arranged; she used to ask me who should be the designated driver. Oh well, that is the past, and it doesn’t look like it will ever be part of the future ever again. At least my boss thought of me to inform me not to wait/worry about her.

This week is our unusual open house hoopla. I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know if I should skip it, or what. It is not that I am having trouble with crowds; it is I know that other people that make up The Group will be there and they will all sit with our department. They will talk about the wedding that is coming up (that I am banned from), how much fun/drunk someone got at their last get tougher (which I am no longer welcome), or how cute/perfect/wonderful the girl in my office that despises me is. I don’t want to suffer threw that. I think what I will do is just sit at a table with someone else that I know, instead of sitting with my department. That way everyone will have fun.

This Halloween I already have my costume. It is a great one too, and cheap, and easy. I am the invisible man. I can just walk around like any other day, and no one will notice me. This is kind of a special time. It was around Halloween last year that she started to despise and hate me. Five years of knowing someone means shit. One year is an awful long time to be pissed off at someone and hold a grudge. Oh well, good riddance.

TGIF!!!!

Yesterday was a good day. My sister is back from UCSD. We have addressed the issues with registration (fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that too). For the first time in a very long time, my boss invited me to get a cup of tea and I didn't fear that she wanted to talk to me about something that I messed up. Later that day she asked me to lunch and we just had a good time. It is about damb time! It feels like forever since I have been able to do any of that.

I am feeling more comfortable in the office, I know how I am expected to behave in the office, I am better separating the coworker/boss/friend aspects, and I am feeling less paranoid over how people feel about me. Actually this 'catastrophe' I think actually helped me personally. I felt like I was contributing, I didn't find myself second guessing myself nearly as much, and I figured out the problem working with everyone in the department. My boss and coworkers showed confidence in me, and that was a huge boost. They let me work, came to me with data or info that they found and wanted my input and opinion, and didn't really stress out over it much. The lack of stressing, asking, and pressing made me feel that they trusted me, and my abilities. So why should I question myself. In fact this problem stumped everyone, so I didn't feel that stupid when I couldn't get a solution right away. I think it also reminded people of the fact that I really do take my job seriously and will do whatever it takes for the department; and it showed (me included) that I can take charge, take responsibility, and even handle pressure once again. Some good came out of it, and my boss is ok with how things went.

I am even worrying about my old 'friendships' less. I am letting go. I can’t really see any hope or clue that it can/should be repaired, or get back to the way things were. I have seen how they don't want me around when I am down. I don't need fair weather friends. A friend to me is someone that can be counted on in the bad times and the good. I am not mad with them, I can't really blame them. I am just disappointed. I have even seen some of them in a new light. I am no longer blinded and coming up with every excuse I can try to fool myself with, to try and think they are something they are not...

It has been a long hard road, but it is getting better day by day. I have had a lot of help, encouragement, family, doggies, and a small number of real friends to help me this far. I have no doubt now I can make it all the way.

OMG, what a week. I am so existed. Good news is my sister comes home from UCSD Thursday night. That is tomorrow,right? All the days are starting to blur together....

Saturday I got rear ended by some poor girl. I felt really bad for her. She tried her best to stop, she just needed one maybe two more feet. She was very cooperative, and pleasant. Even her family that contacted me were pleasant and helpful. I felt bad having to report it to the insurance, but my family was in the car, and I couldn't take any chances. Beside, I cannot deal with this right now, and I am too nice. I will just let my insurance deal with everything... I pay them enough each year.

Monday I got a speeding ticket on my way to work. I was carpooling with my boss to make it worse... How embarrassing. There is this one stretch of road out in Santa Clarita that has a nice bike path down one side of the road, a road that has a very low speedlimit. The cops love it, because no one follows the speed limit, and they just have to go down the bike path and jump on the road behind the last car in the group. They double or some days triple team that street... Well dumb me, I am just cursing down the street with everyone else, I see the cop drive down the bike path, and think 'oh, they are doing their speed trap gig...' and next thing I realize is opps, I am the last car in the group. Sure enough he grabbed me. Doh. "Sir do you realize why I pulled you over?" "I am guessing it is the same reason that mustang over there is pulled over?" What the hell am I supposed to say, I could hope they are doing their charity show ticket event... I was just hoping that this would not take long. It didn't even take five minutes. Swiped my drivers license on his PDA, his motorbike spits out a ticket on that dumb heat paper, and I sign the PDA. "Oh yah, can I see your registration? Um, do you know it has just exspired?" "Opps I guess I that is what the DMV sent me last night." "Well get it fixed, have a good day." Off he went down the bike path to get another car. Wow, I lucked out with just a 15mph over speed ticket. I could have gotten an expired registration, and if he looked close enough, he would have seen I had also forgotten to put my new proof of insurance card in that car wallet... I even got to work early. Welcome to Santa Clarita, Ticket town with a traffic cammera at every light.

Speaking of work, what a crazy time these last few days have been! We got slammed twice these last few days. First a index glitch caused 2000+ students to all have the same six hour appointment block. Our system just got hammered, and a Java problem that I had just thought was a minor issue turned into a major nightmare. Then when we think everything is fixed, we stress test it as best we can. A few days later, we had open registration and got wailed on again. This time a hardware limit screwed us over. Very stressful, I didn't even remember to get lunch. My boss was very nice and ordered in for everyone so that she could get me to eat. Did I ever mention that I appreciate my boss? This has been a very chalenging week. Good thing is that I learned a lot. Bad thing is that it was a pain for me, students, and our department. It turned out it was not just one problem, but many little problems. Hardware, software, indexes, and bugs.

It is funny, I am watching 'Rock Star Supernova' and the guy is singing 'creep.' I may have to find this song... My programming friend asked me why when I call the office, I call the one girl's line. I don't know, it was the one that had been programmed in the cell when I was given it. So I changed it to some other ext. The thing that bugs me is that my friend doesn't usually pick up on things like this all the time. She must have relay been bitching about it. I don't even remember who else was in the office. I never thought anything about it, she is to pick up the phones no mater who's line it is, so I am just used to her answering. I hope she is not poisoning anyone's opinion of me. I think she has already affected the hourly's opinion.

I am getting used to not one of my old 'friends' talking to or wanting to see me. Oh well, who needs them anyway? I don't want friends like them anyways.

Finish the tired old fucking statements that you hear day in and day out. I get so tired of these saying, I just had to write down the way I think they should be finished.

“You will never know unless you try”-are you sure you want to know?

“You will never know unless you try”-but you will usually be disappointed.

“You can’t learn to fly without falling” - and the fall don’t kill/permanently injure you.

“Mistakes are the best trainer” – the graduation is a killer process.

“There is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM’” – and nether is ‘U’ that is why ‘U’ didn’t get any credit.

“If at first you don’t succeeded…” – have your failure rubbed in you face with some stupid saying.

“God won’t give you anything that you can’t handle” – that is why Satin sent me to belittle you.

“Your true friends will stick with you threw the good times and the bad” – it just happens that they are out of town during the bad times.

“Try, try, try again” – because everyone needs an idiot to laugh at.

“When God shuts a door, he usually opens a window” – it just may not be on the ground floor.

“Follow your heart” – stumbling around blind is fun.

“The road to life has many twist and turns” – slippery when wet.

“Every journey starts with a single step” – Warning, bridge out.

“If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can movie mountains” – results may vary.

I would have thought that at least one of two lunch plans may work. I didn’t double book, just have two possibilities, and not one of them worked out.

Last week I made planes with one person out of the group I used to hang with. It would be the first time I had done anything with that person sense about February. The person works just one building away, and we used to do all sorts of things after work as a group... Go out for drinks, happy hour, movies, Mexico... Needless to say I was looking forward to doing at least lunch with this person. Well I waited for a call like we arranged noon and nothing... 2pm roles around and nothing... Oh well, I guess I am easy to forget.

The other lunch possibility was for an hourly that was working in our office that is leaving. I mentioned to my boss that it would be nice if the department took her to lunch before she leaves. She liked the idea and said we would do it Monday. Well today the girl showed up, my boss told her we are taking her to lunch. Cool. Next thing I know my boss, the girl, and one other girl in the office are walking out the door and holler back that they are going to lunch. It left the rest of the office going WTF? I guess we are a different department...

Oh well. I grabbed my programming friend and we got lunch and talked about video games. Now the person that stood me up has sent a ‘program bug’ up and wants me to look into it. Nice to be needed..........................

I am still here.

No, you don't have to groan... I an't going to bitch right now. I just been really swamped. I guess it is a good thing, it keeps me out of some trouble.

My sister comes home in about 2ish weeks. I am going to see my Grandfather this weekend and check his network out. Make sure he is not having any problems. I have a lunch appointment with probably the only person I still respect from my old church. She never minced words, and never cared much about pretending to be someone she an't.

OK, one complaint.... Why is this day lasting forever when I am at work? Am I in a time bubble?