Today's rambling: No middle ground
Written on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003 at 5:00 p.m.
while feeling a bit

Remember me getting all worked up over the fact that Geoff apparently only wanted to hang out with me on Monday afternoon, as opposed to the all-day thing I'd been envisioning? Well. As usual, I overreacted and forgot about one little thing.

When he'd asked me what day was good for me, I told him that any day was alright, because I could just make it my day off (such is the beauty of not officially being on the schedule). He suggested Monday, and I first looked to see if Mom was working...and saw she was on the schedule from 8-12. Things got misconstrued between here to there, so he thought that meant I was working too. Hence the reason why he asked if I wanted to go out in the afternoon, and why he said he'd be there at 12:05(:43, hehe). >_<

Right before I left today, I reaffirmed the date and all that...and then he said, "So you work 'til noon, right?"

"No, I'm not working at all," I replied. Blah blah, we finally decided that I'd come down to the store with Mom at 8, and he'd pick me up around 8:30. Assuming he actually wakes up at that time, this will be the earliest we've ever actually gone out before, hehe! Not that it means I'll get to spend all day with 'im, but I'm crossing my fingers! ;)

'Course, after we made these plans I found out from Mom that she plans to come in around 6 am. X_X Oh well, I guess I'll just bring along an apron and help her out for a couple of hours. Goodness knows I don't want to sit in the back room, 'cause I don't want to have to listen to everyone going, "Amber, what're YOU doing here?" Sometimes, the people at work just irritate me.

Such as today. For the majority of our shift, Mom and I had been boxing up Christmas stuff to either be shipped back or donated. There is an INSANE amount of stuff there. I mean, you can't even imagine all the stuff that EJ ordered (and over half of it didn't even sell). So we were pushing u-frames back and forth, loading and unloading stuff. It was insane, and I got into a really bad mood by the end of the day. So there I am bringing over some pasta pots to put up in a gap made by removed Christmas stuff, and Toni (who was helping for a little bit) asks, "So Amber, have you met any nice young gentlemen while up at college?"

Cue Berry as her teeth grind together. I am so sick of the people at work asking me if I've found any guys at college! What, is that all college is for? A dating service? I'm there for academics, not to scope out guys (99% of whom are younger than me anyway). And besides that, I'm just tired of how everyone seems to like nosing into my business. My reply to Toni's question was, "No, and I don't want to continue down that avenue of conversation."

Well, she feigns a reprimanding tone and walks over to me, and I felt like screaming, throwing one of the pasta pots at her, and stalking off. It's a shame, because she is one of the only genuine folks in there, but..GAH! I informed her that I was tired of everyone asking that question, and she replied that they asked because they wanted what's best for me, or something like that. I had to almost literally bite my tongue to keep from saying, "No, they ask because they're busybodies." Instead, I told her that a guy is not necessarily the best thing for me.

"You don't know that," she argued.

"And neither do you."

After that, she realized I was highly irritated and--maybe after some murmured words from Mom--left me alone. I'd already gotten irritated at her earlier in the day because she kept getting on my case about calling her a wench. XP She was saying it was mean, and finally I snapped, "It is not a bad word! It's become one in today's society, but it did NOT start off as being a bad word!" I was hoping maybe the whole intellectual side of that argument would shut her up, but it didn't. So I'd already been irritated with her and was finally over it when she brought up the whole "did you find any nice gentlemen" thing. I very nearly abandoned my work and stalked over to the next aisle, where Geoff was stocking stuff. But he would've just laughed at me, hehe... X_X

I never realized it until Janette brought it up, but things that irritate me really irritate me. Whereas most people can let those annoying things go, I always take them to heart. It's not that I always hold onto those things for extended periods of time...I just don't seem to have the "Okay, that's kinda irritating, but it's okay I can deal with it" sort of mindset. I guess it's just part of my passionate nature; I seem to be a person of extremes. I'm very rarely able to walk a middle ground...I'm either very happy or very sad or very angry. There don't seem to be any shades of gray with me! In fact, in those instances where I am actually feeling mellow, I'm never able to actually describe it because I'm not used to feeling that way! :P For the most part I'm glad to be like that...but I can't help wondering if it's a bad thing sometimes. And of course I know that Janette didn't mean anything negative by what she said, it's just that it got me to thinking...which is always a good thing, right? ;)

At the soonest possible moment after I get back to college (what a subject jump!), I'm going to seek out the one French professor who actually IS from France (complete with accent) and ask her for help. I'm going to tell her how I really really want to learn more of the language but feel I'm not going to get much out of having an American professor, blah blah...what I'd really like is if she could spare some time to help me, LOL! But I'll take whatever I can get. I'm kinda eager for that...though at the same time I'm nervous because I don't know what sort of a person she is. She seemed really nice and enthusiastic from the 2-minute meeting I had with her at orientation, but who knows how she'd react to me being like, "I need help and I know you don't know me but would you be willing to help me out a little bit?"

Heh...today at lunch, Leroy jumped off the bench and said something about going to the Eagles game. I've had it up to here with all the stupid hype, so I gave him a devilish sort of look and said, "They're gonna lose." Leroy's eyes went all big with shock, and he sat down again...then got up very close to my face and stared at me. "Yeah, that's right," I goaded, "The Falcons are gonna whup their asses!"

More staring, and then finally..."Are you crazy?"

I'd promised myself that I wouldn't jinx the team. *giggles* Their winning the SuperBowl means so much to so many of my work friends that I figured I wouldn't say anything negative (after telling Frank they'd lose this one game...and they did). But I didn't expect everyone and his mother to be prancing about singing the team fight song, and flying green banners and talking on the news about how their little Fluffy has seen every game...well okay, I made that last bit up. It's so irritating, though! Hehe..and there we go back to my paragraph about letting these things get to me. ;) So anyway, even though it WOULD be sorta neat, in a way, for our team to win...I'm not a sports person by any stretch of the imagination and could definitely stand for the Eagles to get kicked out right at the beginning. Then there'd be a few days of "Oh, they got SO close!" before it finally ended. Peace and equilibrium would be restored.

Aww, Aaron from my Message Design class would be so happy that I used his word. He had this almost obsessive need to use 'equilibrium' in all the writing stuff we had to do in class. I guess it was the only big word he knew, but unfortunately he didn't know HOW to use it! It became a running joke among the rest of us, hehe...we'd just slip 'equilibrium' into any random sentence.

Urgh. Adrienne's coming over, and I am most definitely NOT in a social mood. Well, I should say that I don't feel like talking to her. I never usually feel like talking to Mom's friends. They all tend to annoy me. So I've got an evening alone here in my room to look forward to, hehe...