So there is this guy that I met at a party a few months back.  We hit it off, he asked from my number, but then I didn’t hear from him.  Since at the time I was just starting to get involved with someone else, I didn’t really think anything of it.  Just as that short-lived thing that was starting back then was imploding, I ran into this guy again at a bar.  He came up and seemed super excited to see me, said we should hang out soon, and then I never heard anything.  So I ran into him a couple of nights ago and he came up to me again and said hi, and mentioned that he had texted me asking if I was there.  At which point a realization dawned on me, and I asked, “What number do you have for me?”  My number was one digit off in his phone, and he had apparently been texting me and not getting any responses, and was still miraculously super nice and friendly and not awkward every time we ran into each other.

The point of this story is that he just asked me to get a drink with him tonight, and while I would actually kind like to spend more time with him and see if there is any long-term chemistry there, the thought of a one-on-one first date scenario kind of breaks me out in hives/makes me feel like vomiting and I don’t want to do it.  Also I’m not sure that I want to date at all right now, for various reasons, including the fact that I am an introvert and I have so much going on already at the moment and I don’t know that I’m up for that kind of emotional exertion?  Like the last time I did it was because I didn’t feel horrible at the thought of it, but that happens like once in a million years and starting out with new people is fucking HARD.  

If I had some friends that were “coincidentally” already hanging out tonight and could invite him along in a low-pressure situation, that would be ideal.

I just went back to my book after far longer than I’d like to admit.

Dusk was falling. A hut on chicken legs finally struggled to a stop on the castle lawn.

“We’re late,” grumbled Tisiphone.

“I just hope we haven’t missed all the fun,” said Alecto, and she grinned. If the Golden King had seen that grin, there is a chance he would have surrendered on the spot.

Not a large chance. He had, after all, done much to get what he wanted. People often feel, foolishly, that they are trapped on their course once they have gone so far.

But perhaps the king did not feel at all. It is easier that way, more satisfying to picture Alecto slicing him open with her long, curved knife if he is remorseless, soulless.

Yes, let us say that he did not feel at all, and never had; he has never loved, never lost, never longed for anything that he did not receive. There. When he dies, we can rejoice without guilt.

But where were we? Oh, yes. The Furies were rushing into the castle, planning the king’s demise. Let us leave them there, shall we? There are more important events to tend to. Just now, Cara is facing the king.

And now I’m rediscovering how fun it is and I am super excited to start writing on a regular basis again.  I’m going to go in early to take advantage of the deck at work, I think, and start scribbling some new material.

It’s really, really hard sometimes to resist the urge to act like the fun, cool, easy-going one in order to smooth things over.

It’s something I did in high school and my freshman year of college a lot — I pretended to not be bothered by things and threw myself under the bus in order to not make other people uncomfortable.

And here’s the thing: I am a pretty open, easy-going person, and if you’re open with me and you talk to me there are very few things that will flip my switch from okay to not-okay.  But I am no longer the kind of person that can — or, more importantly, wants to — act like something is okay when it isn’t.  It’s difficult, and it means that sometimes I have to make myself and others uncomfortable, but it also conjures up the age-old band-aid metaphor in the sense that it is going to be really, horribly unpleasant at first, but then…it’s over.  No matter which way the conversation goes, it’s done, and you can start moving off from that point.

Which is to say that the past week or so has sucked pretty hard, but soon hopefully I will be able to move off from that point, one way or another.  

We are having a few pretty big events at the store this weekend.  Tonight Terry Tempest Williams will be here, and we have sold almost all of the 200 tickets we made available, and as soon as I get back from my break I will join the flurry of preparations.  Tomorrow is both Mohsin Hamid (who will be in America for like EIGHT DAYS ONLY and is miraculously coming here and I just finished reading How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and it was SO GOOD GUYS) and Denise Kiernan for The Girls of Atomic City (she’s the one who wrote the Signing Their Lives Away/Rights Away books and Stuff Every American Should Know, etc).  And like, all of this is really, really exciting and I’m thrilled to be involved in it, but tonight I kind of just wish I could go on an adventure or hang out with friends I haven’t seen in a while.  I know this is because a few people I know are currently off on their way back home to visit family and old friends, and right now I feel like I need that connection.  I need to go somewhere that isn’t here, but to also see familiar faces and reconnect with old friends and, I don’t know.  I’ve made a home in Asheville but my parents moved away right after I did from my old home and it makes me feel kind of disconnected, sometimes, to not have anywhere to go back to.

I feel emotionally rubbed raw today.  I don’t know if it’s just because I’m tired, or because I’m tired and Shark Week is possibly approaching, or because I heard my grandfather’s favourite song at work today, or something else.

I just know that I feel frayed and sharp and caustic.

Tonight I’m restless and filled with longing, but in a good way.

Life has been so unexpectedly wonderful lately.  I’m starting to feel like it’s okay to want things again — like I don’t have to be afraid every moment to let myself honest-to-god care about things.

I feel like life can be lovely and sweet and warm, and it’s been so so long since I felt that way. 

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