setasaway's Blog

This guy

Yesterday… was not exactly the greatest day I ever had. But that is obviously why I’m going to be writing it in here. This garbage dump of bad memories. This trash heap of shame.
It started off well enough I suppose, as well as a 9 and a half hour long work day can start. Which of course then quickly spiralled downhill. First off was finding out just how to get to work that day. Waking up at ten, I was thinking that I would get a ride, because obviously I would be working extremely late that day. But no, apparently my mother decides that her stupid gym was more important than me wasting so much of my time biking home at ten o clock at night. Naturally I couldn’t take the bus, because public transportation sucks. It is slow, expensive, especially when you have to go somewhere regularly and most of all inefficient. The only proper choice which I had no option but to accept would be to ride my bike there once again.
This decision ended up taking me an hour and a half to make, and of course I ended up getting there just on time. Indoor pool, close to the one I was working at last week no big deal. Whatever. Well while I was sitting there, I first realized that I hadn’t brought another book(just brought one which was half done); not that big of a problem cause I had brought my computer. While sitting there reading, another guard came over to see me, and we ended up talking for a while about school and things which was alright. However, it made me realize that the job I have is apparently a lot better than the one I would have had I ended up working for the city. He had said that they tried to scam him on the amount of money that he was getting paid, which quite frankly sounds ludicrous. After he had left, I kept reading and finished my book around 330. I called my parents and told my dad to bring the book I had on my bookshelf when he came to drop off dinner for me, and then started to try using my computer. Big surprise. There was no internet connection for some reason, despite me having one there only two weeks prior. This was vastly irritating, not only due to the fact that I didn’t really have anything to do., but that I wanted to talk to Karen when she actually got home.
Left with nothing to do by brood, I sat there thinking about a load of things, such as what I would do with my free day tomorrow, as well as other things. For some odd reason, I was wondering what the ribfest would be like, and despite this sounding completely false, if some guy was hitting on Karen. I didn’t think about that too much though, because I did not think that it would be a pressing concern; ‘how likely would that be to happen anyway? ‘ I told myself.
After dad had dropped off my lunch, I went back to work and started reading the new book which was pretty good, although quite different from what I’m used to reading, Not worse, just different. One of the more outstanding themes of the book that I have picked up through yesterday and today is the idea of cruelty, or “meanness”. Without going too in-depth to the plot, it is easy to ascertain what the writer is trying to convey to the reader with the theme. There are two characters, similar to each other who seem to glorify cruelty, yet do not openly praise it. In a sense, it is embedded into their sense of personality, a stain on their person that cannot be removed. An integral part of their being, it is central to their actions and mannerisms; the destruction of a person’s beloved possession or pet brought sadistic glee to them. I wholeheartedly agree that there are people like that in this world, and that many of them allow their passion for hurt to take control of how they act towards others. I think I am one of them. Maybe I don’t go around killing other peoples’ pets, but I am not so much of a saint to say that I do not sometimes enjoy hurting someone close to me, even though I know that it is an extremely bad thing today. Because I let my mean streak dictate my actions. For example, when my dad took my driving the day before my driving exam, we were just going around in the parking lot and I was getting increasingly frustrated with him and his criticisms. He had kept saying to do “what I was comfortable with” and to just work on that. However, this did not seem to be the case, as he was constantly telling me to do things a different way than what I would like to do. I eventually ended up yelling at him near the end, screaming at him because I was so displeased with his critiques. Despite him taking time out of his day, while he was sick to help me. How depraved do I have to be if I have to yell at my own father, who took his own personal time to help ME succeed in something? Maybe back then I would defend myself by saying that “well he was just complaining too much and I reached my breaking point”. Which is true. But does that warrant my outburst at him? Swearing at him? And the worst part is that I felt so good after I yelled at him. I felt as if I had validated myself, like I had done something right. But I didn’t. I did something wrong.
This of course happened again yesterday, but I will get back on that later. After I had been sitting there for a while and finally finished my shift, I left the pool. Getting home was not that big of a deal to be frank, despite it being much darker than I thought it would be. I took a number of sidestreets, occasionally riding on the road because the asphalt is much smoother to ride on than the concrete slabs for the sidewalk. Getting home my cousin and aunt were over, and they were both playing with my sister. I come online and Karen is asking me to appear offline to everyone but her, so I do so, not exactly knowing why she wants me to do that. She eventually responds but does not tell me what she was going t o say, because she had to go eat dinner. So after she leaves I go on facebook and end up seeing Valerie’s status update talking about some guy trying to ‘hit on’ Karen.
Now here is where that attitude starts to come back. To be honest, I have no clue what I would have done or how I would have acted had I not been tired and irritable and sweaty and sore from work. But again, I seemed to only want to know what was happening with regards to this little comment, and it seemed that I wanted to hurt myself with the information. I immediately messaged Valerie, asking her what her status thing was about, while inwardly seething at myself. I started blaming myself that it was my fault or something that this was happening (no I don’t know why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time). When she finally started telling me, I felt like I had no doubt in my mind that this kid was trying to start –something- . Was I right? Who is to say. All I knew that there was something not right, and immediately started to smoulder. I asked her tons of questions, down to his mannerisms and what he looked like. I guess an adequate feeling to describe what I had at that moment was fear. Also seen in the book in almost the exact way that I was expressing it at that moment. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing that of which I was accustomed to. Did I know anything about this guy? No. Did I think that he had a fair chance to take Karen away from me? No, which was why I picked Valerie’s brain for every single detail she was able to recall about him. This odd mixture of fear and anger sat inside me until Karen came back, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to act on it. Just like the characters in the book again, I was not afraid of acting upon my intent, yet I was afraid of being caught. The rest of the night with her fared no better; Karen told me all that she knew, which was basically the same stuff Valerie told me more or less, and yet I was still not satisfied. For some reason I wanted more. I don’t know what I wanted, or even expected to hear, but for some reason I felt that she didn’t give it to me. Maybe I wanted to hear how amazing this person was, so that I would not have to feel bad that I was losing out to some loser. I really don’t know. But what I do know was that I was in this terrible mood for the rest of the night, and I was angry and this guy and myself interchangeably. I wasn’t mad at Karen or Valerie; they told me what they knew and that was it. Karen even TOLD me that she was doing everything she could to deter this person, but for some reason I still didn’t think that I was good enough. And maybe I felt just a little bit smug that everything was going so wrong so quickly. And I don’t know why.