May 3, 2002
Friday

Behold the awesome power of my flakiness! Feel my flakiness coursing through your veins. Surrender to my indecisiveness as it surrounds you. Gaze into my cyber-eyes and vacillate with me. Back and forth. Back and forth. You know you want to. Don't you?

This weekend I was going to Atlanta -- the Midtown Music festival -- to see the beautiful goddess known as Doria Roberts. It was to be a road trip, fairly impromptu and a chance to do something a little different. A chance for adventure to win out over the banal.

Unconscious Personality Flaw_1:   "HA! HA! HA! You can not defeat me! I am... FLAKONYMOUS!"

More or Less Me:   "That sounds like dandruff."

Unconscious Personality Flaw_1:   "HA! HA! HA! I don't have DANDRUFF!"

More or Less Me:   "This is a little weird, as far as daily log entries go."

Unconscious Personality Flaw_2:   "HA! HA! HA! Try to focus. TRY!"

Anyway, Dawn did actually call me back about the concert today. We had everything planned over the phone, and at the end I mentioned not having my ticket yet. It turns out that this festival tends to sell out, so she recommended I order my ticket online before we go. They were also going to pick theirs up at Will Call.

As it turns out though, since I waited so long, tickets weren't available online anymore. I could buy them at local Ticket Master outlets; but they only sale tickets for events in their own state. (Me = Florida & Festival = Georgia) So I called the festival box office, pressed 3 and listened hopefully for some automated wisdom. "Tickets can be purchased at authorized ticket resellers.".

"I'm screwed." That's what I said when I called her back and canceled. Secretly though, I probably wanted something to come up. I wanted to have this weekend to myself, to catch up on life; catch up on some work; some chores; cleaning; reading; the journal. Secretly also, I'm just flaky as hell.

This is all very complex. I need to dwell here a bit. It occurs to me that flakiness has been with me for a while. It also occurs to me that my triple-Scorpio best friend was the fire that drove me into many adventures of old. Don't get me wrong -- I'm usually good at the life-altering decisions. And I have little tolerance or patience for people who talk about achieving goals without doing anything about them. But if you want to go dancing with me, you might need to have a bitch-slap ready.

There is more. Lately, I've become extremely irresponsible. The long distance service on my home line got shut off again -- not because I can't pay it, but because I didn't get around to it. As I write this, my answering machine sits at home, flashing with some eager message. It's been flashing all day in fact -- maybe even since yesterday, but I just don't feel like going through the trouble to listen.

Just... it all seems like such a bother. All the paper work. All the processes. The days come and go without providing the chance to ever be completely caught up. In the mornings, my stomach begins its contortion into a ball of stress. There is so much to do, it points out. And in response, I would rather do nothing -- thinking that will make the stress go away. But it makes it worse.

Self-helps books tell me to meditate twice a day. Do yoga. But as technical as I am, I don't want to plan my emotions. I don't want to experience reality like I experience a trip to the zoo. I'm fine and good with responsibility. Really, I am. But I'm drowning. And my peaceful, yet stressful, retaliation isn't helping.

The way this all relates to the Music Festival isn't necessarily clear to me, other than it being chronic. (And getting worse.) I answer my email late. I don't return phone calls promptly. I check my the mail once every couple weeks. My bills aren't getting paid on time...

There is also the guilt. I can't forget that; it definately plays into this. I've set a lot of goals for myself. At work, my job requires me to be good at everything. That's superbly interesting, but also time consuming. Then there is this whole piano thing -- time consuming. The writing thing, which is subdivided into this journal site, trying to write some fiction and learning poetry -- time consuming. And what about reading? You can't write without reading. Besides, there are so many good books! I love reading them, feeling them, looking at them, smelling them -- all that stuff people have already talked about.

Ha! So looking at that paragraph -- it's like a mountain! So here's my magic twist: I can be sitting at home, staring at the ceiling, watching television or even napping when a friend calls wanting to go hear some music or see a movie. And even though I was doing absolutely nothing at all, I'll balk because I know that I SHOULD be doing something -- and an evening out will just take too much time.

Guilt. Futility. Irresponsibility. Flakiness. <insert revelation here>

Speaking of inaction and waiting to the last minute, I registered for summer piano today. Campus was barren and it occurred to me that I may have again waited too long to register. The goddess of responsibility was smiling on me, though, and now I'm singed up. Paid too.

While I was waiting for the signature required for to register for studio piano, a particular music teacher sat down next to me. It was almost as if he was signing up for classes too, save that I know he teaches. I've seen him around. The important detail to note in this paragraph is that he's cute. And perhaps, too, that we've exchanged a smile in the past, if only in the most abstract way.

As usual, I was reading (about how to read) but I wanted him to say something. I looked up, then casually observed something in the room, and used that motion to suddenly notice him. It was all very smooth. For me that's like a surprise A+. Or at least, it would have been until my awkward half-smile and the shaky "hello." Oh well -- you can't squeeze water from a rock, and I can't flirt for shit.

It's an interesting vantage point that I have now -- at thirty. The teachers all mostly my age. Luis is about 9 days younger, in fact. (Most of his family is Capricorn. We love to go on and on about our wonderfulness and other, famous Capricorns.) But as for dating... Well, I won't go on about the chronic lack of availability.

On the way home, I had to stop for food. I was so terribly hungry. Originally I was going to just grab lunch. But the revelation that today was Friday and that I had to register at school put an end to that plan.

So I stopped at the Pizza Slut drive though, being short on time. "Can I have a pizza with onions and green peppers?" Nope. It will take us 15 minutes to make that. They did have several pizzas with meat, however.

Next I started to pull into Taco Hell, but remembered that I'm supposed to be boycotting them for their purchase of tomatoes from terribly exploited migrant workers in Florida. Sigh.

Next -- Subway for an excursion into the land of the ordinary and bland. But as I walked up to the door, I noticed (again) a little Middle Eastern shop a couple doors down. I'd never gone in before. It was one of those places that has so much paper on the window and door that you can't see inside. And it was small. And sometimes I wonder if I'm even welcome in specialty stores.

What the hell...

I walk in, and a guy is standing there. He's the shop owner, of course. I ask, "Do you have vegetarian sandwiches?"

Ha! I eventually tried, for free, everything in the store. Everything. Not that I wanted to, mind you. I would have been happy to pick up some hummus and pita and hurry back to work where I was feeling that an extended absence was strangely unwelcome today.

But the questions came in a steady stream. (Well, maybe more like whitewater if you work some broken English into the visual.) "Are you vegetarian?" "Do you eat dairy?" "Do you like hummus? Well, you've never had hummus before!" "Do you like goat cheese? You've never had goat cheese like this!" "Do you like mango? Try this drink. Here; don't worry about it. I just want to capture you and then you will come back." "Do you like olives?" "Do you like eggplant? Here; don't worry about it." "Do you like tabuli? Here; don't worry about it. I just want to capture you and then you will come back."

Liquid Heaven

When I left, I wasn't hungry anymore. I did end up spending fifty dollars there -- but on a ton of food. Probably, it will last me the week.

It really was all quite good. I even liked the grape leaves, which in the past I haven't enjoyed. I just can't believe I've not gone there before. The guy was so nice! He told me how to cook several things; the food was awesome; and by shopping there, I'm supporting a local family instead of a corporation. Between that and the health food store, I'm a happy, happy earth-crunchy, vaguely international, and just a little bit flaky, geek girl.

(Also: Congratulations to Matthew who popped in while I was writing this and told me he got his RN certification today. Whoot! He was decked out in a complete nurse's uniform -- little hat and all. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this journal, but congratulations anyway!!)