"What am I supposed to do with THIS?"

2:15 AM 7/12/10

Saturday didn’t go very well. I was feeling sick that day. I think I had the Arts Festival Virus, something I got because lots of people were visiting town, the same way I always get sick during football games. I wasn’t able to eat much, and I was hungry and irritable when I started working at Weis that afternoon. Not only that, but I – yes, I’m tired of saying this over and over again, but – I had something on my clothing that I was reacting to, in addition to being sick. It’s a long story, don’t worry about it, I’ll fix it, blah blah. It won’t be there when I come back to work this week.

Curtis came up to the register and bought some tea (I’m not even going to say what the typo was that I fixed in that sentence). He handed me a dollar. We had been talking a little bit while he was standing there, and I just stared down at the dollar bill, in a daze, because I was sick and tired and not feeling well, and also, I didn’t want him to leave, and if I took the dollar, he would have the tea and he would walk away. So I could sit there staring at the dollar bill forever and he wouldn’t be able to leave. That was kind of what I was thinking.

But then some social anxiety was going on at the same time, and I blurted out something obnoxious which was probably fake. It was NOT sincere, I know that much. I said, ‘What am I supposed to do with THIS?’ in a voice, a bad voice, I can’t describe it, but it was fake. Like I couldn’t take the dollar. He was shocked and he had the ‘stricken’ look – that was the word the voices used to describe it, and that seems like an accurate word. He said he wanted me to ring him up for the tea. I took the dollar. I asked him what time he was leaving and he said 3:30. Then he left, and thanked me (if I recall) and called me his pet name, in front of the new guy from produce.

The rest of the afternoon he wouldn’t look at me. I was sick and miserable and I kept trying to look at him, but he wouldn’t look back. I started to get very, very anxious and terrified, and I felt like I had to say something to him and fix it, because I had done something wrong again like the time I laughed when he called me his pet names while I was getting soup for my lunch.

I don’t want him to stop looking at me. I want him to look at me. Looking at him is the reason why I like working with him. There’s nothing else worth looking at.

I tried to go over to him, but then I saw that the new guy was with him and I hadn’t seen him because he was behind something from where I was looking. So then I went to the bathroom and used it as an excuse to go through the back room, and I saw him. I tried to apologize then, and I said I didn’t mean to be rude and obnoxious, but he was looking at his hand because he cut it and it was bleeding. When he gets a cut it is a big deal because he has some kind of bleeding disorder or something and his cuts tend to keep bleeding and reopen again later, even if they’re small, and I don’t know what bleeding disorder he has. This is another reason to worry about him getting in a car accident. He already survived one accident which hurt his neck and his back.

‘Rude and obnoxious?’ he said while still looking at his cut. At least he heard me. So then I tried to ask him how he cut himself, and he said he didn’t know, but I was standing by the door and I saw the manager walking towards us, so I left, and couldn’t talk anymore. But that was all that I was able to do to apologize.

I hate being fake, and I hate acting superior and snobby and talking down to people. I like Curtis because he and I always trusted each other, although lately I haven’t been as comfortable or trusting as I would like to be because I haven’t been able to communicate with him and get an answer. I like to say what I mean instead of making jokes or being sarcastic. And if he shows his feelings, if he shows a negative feeling or hurt feeling, I don’t want to do whatever I did.

I bought more minutes for my ‘textphone,’ the other tracfone I have that can send text messages – I have an old phone which I like a lot more because of the style of it, but it can’t text because it has a virus or something, some technical problem. So I texted him today, because I wasn’t able to see him at work – he left before I got in – and I did, at least, get an answer to my texts. (One of the texts did NOT have his signature on it. That was odd. He has a new signature on his text messages which says *FUCK IT* and I got a message that said ‘Oic’ which didn’t have the signature, but all the other messages did. The only thing I can think of is that maybe there is a ‘frequently used generic message’ or something – I have those on my phone, where you fill in the blank, like ‘Meet me at ____’, etc.)

Supposedly the ‘buying things at the register’ is supposed to have a hidden meaning, like paying for a prostitute, or something like that. But that is not how I see it – I see it as an excuse or opportunity to talk to him, and that’s all.

I’m worried that he won’t be able to get to work when he loses his license. That’s happening on the 23rd, I think he said. He said he’ll walk to work, but I don’t think he sleeps at home, so he might not be close enough to walk. Not only that, but even if he was walking from home, that’s still a long way. If someone drives him, they’ll have to be able to get there at that time of day, or he’ll have to change his schedule. He could ride a bus, but he’d have to get his schedule to work with the bus schedule. I don’t want him to lose his job because of lateness or not showing up. People who walk to work sometimes do no-call no-shows if something happens, if there’s bad weather or if they’re sick or something else that makes it difficult to walk to work. I’m hoping someone will drive him.

Anyway that explains what happened. I will say this again, I hate acting fake and insincere, and I hate pretending in a ‘joking’ way to be superior or whatever I did. It’s not me. And that’s not the kind of relationship I have with him.