volcanic's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- bah- Mercury is still bloody retrograde Oh crikey, I promised an update, but somehow it doesn’t feel that forthcoming now. My moods are a bit erratic right now. Possibly because I gave up smoking. I’m not proud to admit that I started smoking when I was fourteen, and by Christmas last year, circumstances had become sufficiently crap that I was smoking around 20-30 a day, which is not sexy, I know that. I’d been pondering giving up for a while, and last week it just felt like the right time. It hasn’t been easy, and there have been one or two lapses, but on the whole it’s been a lot more successful than I ever dared dream. Yesterday I went out to a birthday meal in the pub, and was surrounded by smokers, and managed not to succumb, so I feel quite proud of myself. I’m not wholly comfortable with the idea, and I do feel like I’ve lost some Rock’n’Roll points, but I’m also hoping that my glowing complexion and lack of wrinkles round my mouth in twenty years time will make it all feel a bit more worthwhile. In other news, I’ve been in touch with George again. He emailed me last weekend- usual George head-in-sand type stuff, completely ignoring his crap behaviour before Christmas- and ended it saying he’d call me in a couple of days. By Friday it hadn’t happened, and to add insult to injury, one of my former colleagues mailed me to say that she’d been chatting to George at work and that he’d told her he was going to call me as well. By Friday night I was feeling sufficiently twitchy about the whole shebang that I decided to call him, if only to put an end to the waiting game thing. It was OK. We chatted for a good hour or more, and it was pleasant and civil enough, but I had to intervene when he started trying to thank me for all my help with his coursework. It had all the sincerity of some hokey Oscar acceptance speech, and I asked him if he was taking the piss, which upset him. I then reminded him that I refused to pretend that the shit stuff didn’t happen. He remonstrated that he was still shocked that I’d hung up on him. Duhhh. I asked him if he had any concept of why I might have felt so hurt or angry or rejected, and he squirmed and stammered at me. I said to him, It’s Ok- don’t answer, I can hear you cringeing down the phone line. It all ended nicely enough- that’s the superficial kind of “nice”, rather than the happy, glowy and fulfilled kind of “nice”, I should point out- but I still cried for ages afterwards. He confuses me. Early on in the conversation, he volunteered the fact that he’d got hold of a particular “adult” movie that we’d both fancied. He said he was going to copy it and send it to me. I said, Cheers, George. I’m not 100% sure that sending porn to people who you’ve fucked off is particularly appropriate or self-aware behaviour, really. George obviously didn’t see it like that, I guess. I think I was meant to feel grateful or something. Freaky. I was talking to a friend about it tonight, whose initial feelings were that George was an inadequate tosser who I should leave well alone. Like me, she was really hoping that he was going to be The One who fulfilled all the early signs of promise that he showed. Tonight she said, Maybe he’ll come up and see you, and I said I hoped not, because I really want it, but it would do me no good at all. I mean, I’d give a limb to see him right now, and I told him that. He just went quiet. We’ve emailed briefly since. He sent me a copy of the goddamned essay, and I have to say I wish he’d let me proof it for him, because although the content’s sound, stylistically it could have done with a little tweaking here and there. Nothing major, just a couple of little things. I rand my mum and cried earlier. I feel bored and lonely right now, and I have massive issues about my age. I mean, to be honest, I feel pretty funky and clued-up for nearly-33, but next to all these young striplings up here I feel a bit old and boring, especially, I suppose, because I come with a small child pre-attached to my lifestyle. Usually this isn’t a massive problem, but right now I kind of like someone, and there are all kinds of other issues there (not least the gender thing, but more on that when I’ve got more of a grip on the situation myself), but the main problem in my head is that should I dare to be stupid/ brave/ foolhardy enough to make any kind of advance towards this person, I’d get laughed out of town on account of the fact that I’m at least ten years older than them and all their mates, and probably not really cool enough or trendy enough or just plain old good enough to be taken seriously. I didn’t tell my mum all this, for obvious reasons. Well, I told her about being lonely and good and reliable egg that she is, she suggested that I joined some clubs and societies and tried to meet more people. She even offered to have Fatboy at the weekends so I can go out, although I have to say I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea of him being sent away so his Mum can have a good time. Bah. It’s all a bit too raw and a bit too much right now. Stuff feels complicated, and I feel too irrational to weigh up the realistic options. Time for bed, I suppose. I’m a bit knackered because I swam 500m today, which isn’t a huge amount, but it’s a start. 10:49 p.m. - 20.01.03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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