affectation.log

So apparently most everyone from the SFS is still angry with me about Gaming Weekend.  Some have downshifted to apathy.  I think some are planning an intervention.  Maybe not.

Sunday morning, I couldn't stop shaking.  While at lunch with Jon, I couldn't hold my food still.  I was moving the entire table.  Jon noted, "You know what you need: a stiff drink."  Later, I had one; the shakes stopped.  Withdrawal's a bitch.  Monday morning, I promised myself I wouldn't drink until Friday night at the earliest.  By five that very afternoon, that vow had gone out the window.

Tuesday night, Ellis Paul came back to WPI for the thirteenth year in a row.  And he was awesome.  I bought his book, Notes From The Road, and had him sign it.  Solid.

At Coffeehouse, I was talking with some LnL people.  My journal came up on separate occasions.  TJ said I was "the most upbeat depressed person".  Schenck, commenting on his lack of anything to say in his online log, remarked that I had no qualms about sharing the most personal encounters about other people.  He also noted that even when said people read these entries about them, I don't feel embarrassed, nor do I stop writing about them.  He said I should hold on to that lack of compunction.  Oh, I plan to.

Between the Frisbee on Tuesday nights and the occasional running with Chuck, I think I'm getting into shape.  I even imagined I felt some growth in my bicep.  It's kind of scary.

There's a 200ml flask of Parrot Bay sitting in front of me on my desk.  I really, really want to take a hit.  But I've got to finish my Advanced Calc. work, and Pat told me not three hours ago not to drink and derive.  Horrible pun.  However, he didn't say anything about drinking and integrating...  No.  Not yet.  It'll be my reward when I'm done.  Yeah.  That's the ticket.

This is bad.  I'm crushing hard on an impossibility.  Yes, more than the normal crushing.  And okay, impossibility's a strong word, but she's an improbability at best.  Even if she reciprocates, the logistics are staggeringly not in our favor.  I don't know what to do.

My last term of college is just riding the wave.  Everything's going pretty smoothly.  The IQP's run into a few snags, but I'm not worried.  I've definitely got the bends.

I went to a party last Saturday night.  No, I didn't get laid.  No, I didn't get into a fight.  I didn't even drink too much.  Three beers, a shot of extremely poor-quality vodka, and a screwdriver [made with better vodka].  So I don't think I was drunk.  But the next day the smirks on people's faces when they said it looked like I was having a good time made me second guess.  What are you talking about, I asked.  Apparently I was quite the flirt.

I remember playing team Double Dash with this girl who I thought was cute, but I don't think I was flirting.  Hm.  Well, whatever.  I don't plan to start anything with Double Dash girl.  First off, there's no spark.  Second, I'm leaving soon and there's no point.  Third... I don't need a third.  I don't even need a second, for that matter.

I don't know if I've ever really felt the spark.  But the closest is improbability girl.

Sigh.  Here I am, breaking my own rules about being open, being vague and confusing with these stupid nicknames.  I'm using them because I'm afraid of what might happen with real names.  I've just got to bite it.  What happens happens.  Double Dash girl's name is Brittany.  Improbability girl is, surprise surprise... Carrie.

I've never been this hesitant to hit Post.  But here goes.

Fuckin' Saturday night.  I thought I was done with this sort of thing.  The sort of thing where I'm drinking alone in my apartment.  The sort of thing when I can't go to sleep because I'll just lie there as the buzz wears off.  When I want to go somewhere, anywhere, and be with people, not necessarily socialize, but just be around them.  So I can feel as if I have some connection to the world.  But I don't know where to go or who I can call.  The loneliness.  The depression.

I thought I was done with this.

On eye contact: I don't generally do it.  When I'm talking to someone, I'll look away, or at the floor, or through them.  When I walk, I try keep my head down to minimize chance contact.  The only time I can get a clear image of what someone looks like is when they're focusing elsewhere.  Why?  It makes me nervous.  I don't need any more of a reason.  I just keep my hat low and my eyes averted.

My mood's been up and down this week.  From Saturday it descended until Monday night, when Selena called.  I hadn't talked to her in almost six months.  She'd just gone through some hard times.  Break up, friends screwing her over, job loss.  But I managed to make her laugh.  And making her feel better made me feel better.

So there was a turnaround.  Tuesday I drank with some LnL guys after Coffeehouse.  Wednesday I secured a position [assistant crew chief] for the Presidents of the United States of America concert on Saturday.

Last night was the first night of the intramural ultimate tourney.  I'd entered with the people with whom I play frisbee some Tuesday nights.  And we won, ten to seven.  It was pretty sweet.

Today was going all right, despite Fehribach calling everyone in the math department to tell them that I might possibly fail Advanced Calculus.  So I got a call from the math department secretary on my way to the Adv. Calc. quiz this morning.  She was making sure I was awake.  And I find an email from Christopher telling me that Fehribach told him the score and that I shouldn't drop the ball the last term of my senior year.

Uh, thanks...

The day took a dive when Brittany stole my hat.  Hence the opening paragraph.  I needed the cover.  Well, I wouldn't if I wasn't sober.  Either way, anxiety flooded in.  And anger.  But it's all right now.  Eventually got the hat back and I'm pre-gaming as I type, which is kind of a gamble.  I need it to deal with large groups of people, but if don't go anywhere, I'll feel that much worse.

A crapshoot.

Well, long story short, the week's been full of ups and downs.  At the moment my mood's holding relatively steady, though at a low altitude.

First things first.  Happy twenty-second birthday, Carrie.

Okay.  Last night almost sucked, but it turned itself around.  I kept drinking in the apartment, waiting for people who were supposed to come by, but never did.  When I felt I was drunk enough I went to gaming night and played some absurdist Apples to Apples, which Craig is good at, not surprisingly.

Two of the adjectives I judged were "Irritating" and "Annoying", in that order.  Kevin played "My Personality" on the former.  "My" refers to the judge, not the person who played it.  I had to give it to him.  When I flipped "Annoying", I announced that "My Personality" would not win it again.  Nathan played it anyway.  But the other cards were so mediocre that I ended up choosing it again.

Eventually Pat called, quickly followed by Kyle.  Both told me to get my ass to this party.  So I did.  Kept drinking, did some equal opportunity groping.  Good times.

I should get to Presidents set-up.  But first, a shower.

Happy birthday, Katie.  The big two-one.  I guess that'd mean something, if you weren't already drinking like, seven years ago...

Don't know why I bother; it's not like you'll ever read this.

So I got drunk last Saturday night and ended up on the floor in someone else's bathroom.  I suppose I should feel bad about it.  But I don't.  Why?  Because there's no part about drinking—not even then, lying there as my stomach turned itself inside out—that makes me feel worse than interacting with people does.

I feel like a stray dog, if that makes sense.  The one everyone recognizes me because it's been kicking around long enough.  Sometimes you humor it a little, play with it, feed it.  I don't know... it's just... cold shit.  There's no better way to say it.

Only a month and a couple weeks until I'll be out of here for good.  But I'm not hopeful that it'll be any better elsewhere.  I'm thinking the brief but glorious arc of a career alcoholic in Vegas is the way to go.

That whole anxiety thing I've got about dealing with people... yeah... it's getting pretty bad.  Tuesday was Project Presentation day.  And we all know how much I love presentations.  So we're on the first slide.  I'm supposed to talk.  And I just... freeze.  I can't look at the audience, even.  Eventually Alison takes over and just starts.  Me, I stand there the entire time, just staring at floor and gripping the podium.  As soon as it's over I run through the door to the right and break down in the hallway.

I'm getting better.  I managed to hold back the tears until after I was away from everyone.  Five feet away, but at least I was through the door.

Magnificent.

I seem to have struck a deal with Pat.  My end of it is to get professional help with the anxiety and to cut back on the drinking.  Apparently there's been concerns among people I suppose I'd consider acquaintances.  Yes, even talk of an intervention.  If people care as much as they claim, they certainly don't show it.  Talking behind someone's back is, in my book, the opposite of caring about them.  Yeah, I'm not sure about the whole deal thing.

It's a pretty crappy Friday night, much like the Saturday night of malaise a couple weeks ago.  I'm sitting at home, doing nothing.  Extremely bored, not tired enough to sleep, nothing to do, nowhere to go.  I'm sober this time, though I'm thinking I'll have a little to put me to sleep.  'Cause I don't really see a reason to keep at this.

Boy, I tell you: There's nothing quite like making a girl cry to making you feel like an asshole.

So I'm at this gathering.  And this girl I know—I'm not saying her name; I do have some fucking tact, believe it or not—she's getting kind of drunk.  Me, I'm not feeling like getting drunk so much [the night's total: two beers and a sip of someone else's rum and Coke].  Eventually, she's kind of getting felt up by some guy and she keeps kind of hinting to me that this guy doing this is a bad thing.  I ask her if she wants him to stop.  She tells me no, she's enjoying it too much.  But she keeps saying that it might be bad.  So I start saying to her, maybe you should go home and go to sleep.

Now, this happened not a half-hour ago.  At seven in the morning.  We all should have gone home by then.

So I say this a couple of times.  "Maybe you should go home and go to sleep."  She asks why.  And I say, well, I'm getting a bad feeling about you staying here.  And she asks if it's because I'm jealous [which, admittedly, I am] or because what she does might cause an argument between friends or because she might regret it in the morning.  I say all of the above.

She says, "Damn your logic, EGo."  She says it playfully, so I think that she really agrees with me and that she's just being ornery.

She says that she just wants to make out with some guy to forget about her ex, and I think I manage to keep from cringing.  Then she says she wishes she could be callous and just break people's hearts without regard to the consequences.  So I tell her, well, that's a pretty shitty characteristic for a person to have, and I'm actually glad she doesn't possess it.  After asking me how I could care about her when I don't care about myself at all, she starts crying.  Others [including the guy feeling her up] engulf her.  I kind of back off and everyone's just like, "What the fuck did you say?"  I just mumble something about logic and sit there in shock.

Between sobs and people trying to cheer her up, she manages to give me the finger and say, "Fuck you, EGo."

So I left.

No, I can't know how horrible her life's been, and I haven't had the bad experiences she's had, but I still feel that going home and sleeping would be far better for her than making out with some guy to escape.  But this doesn't make me not feel like shit right now.  And I'm sitting here, keeping my eye on her screenname on AIM, hoping she gets home, even though I know even if she does go home she's not going to go for her computer and I won't know anyway.  So I still feel crappy, and I'm still very worried.

So I apologized to her and that made me feel slightly better, but one phrase from Sunday morning keeps coming back to bother me.  After starting to cry, but before I left, she asked me, "Why do you always have to ruin everything?"

Sigh.