#244 - Summer Love

So once again, I find my plans for the year changing. Months ago, I was positive that I would be making the journey to Japan, and I was going to do whatever it took to get there no matter what the cost. A number of factors brought me back down to the planet though - for one, the trip's cost would end up having been a fortune. Two, I've made very little progress in my language studies, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Three is sort of the big factor that's been bugging me since the original quote: "I'd rather not bring too many people anyway; it's easier to make you do what I want to do that way." (Paraphrased, but basically exactly what was said.)

It sort of ties in to the first two reasons - for one, the current travel crew are all friends of Dave who tend to be drinkers and party people, which is fine on the homefront, but having read about Dave's trip to London, I certainly have reservations about going with him. Most of his time seems to have been spent ambling around various little hangouts and bars, and I can't see this necessarily changing any time soon, particularly with Jake and Eric. I like both of those guys, but I know what this is going to lead to, and that's not what I'd be spending a couple of grand on to go to Japan for. Truthfully, ever since Dave's life has more or less become encompassed by his bar touring, my desire, and subsequently a few other folks desire's to hang out with him have waned.

I went off on a tangent when I was typing this, but I deleted it. There's no point in complaining about it - whatever he does, he believes to be the way everyone should be, and the last thing I feel like doing is trying to justify my...or should I say "our" position? Beyond that, I really don't care about all of this anymore - I'm fairly positive I know what's going on already anyway - people are saying I've "changed" since I started dating Nicky.

Whatever. Back to the no Japan thing (this all ties together, sort of. Honest.)

Part two was my only escape - but since I won't have much mastery of the language by then, I'm sure, I'll have no way of separating and doing my own thing if I can't read and speak japanese relatively well. All of this combined basically means that I'd have no choice but to be lead around on a chain by everyone else if I can't speak the language, and I like I've mentioned - I just don't feel like this is the group I want to be with for this.

And of course, there's still part one. That's the amount of money I'd need for the trip, which I don't have much of.

Anyway, the tie in is that a recent revelation occured where Nicky's folks basically told her to invite me to Ocean City with them for a week, and even offered to get me a room. This changed even more recently when I found out that her mother's stance has loosened a bit, and that she doesn't mind that the two of us share the room together. I don't really speak much about this end of our relationship, and I really haven't met her mother face-to-face as of yet, but let's say that she's not very much into us spending nights together. It hasn't been bad or dramatic or anything; in fact, I expected that. The main thing is this sudden change in stance is quite a surprise, all things considered. Beyond that, as I told Vince tonight, I haven't been on a vacation in at least five years, probably more along the lines of say..seven or eight? The closest thing I've had to a trip without my family is anime conventions, but because I spend most of those running around, I never even consider those a vacation.

I could REALLY use a vacation, and I never seem to get to go with Roger and his crew when they go down. But the idea of basically being away from everything for a week and not really having to answer to anyone really appeals to me, and the only people in the area would be her family, which we probably wouldn't spend all that much time with anyway, but who knows?

Anyway, yeah. So now Otakon's on the bubble too, and how ironic that it would have something to do with my girlfriend? That should add flame to an already brewing fire about how I'm whipped or how I don't like to do anything now that I have a girlfriend...I know who's saying it, too. Or rather, it's very easy to assume with relatively high accuracy. But the truth is this - I still do the exact same things that I did before I dated her with the exact same frequency. Most Nicky time is on weekday nights, which avid "Knowers of Don" know are nights that I spent at home ninety-nine percent of the time unless Vince or someone was off and wanted to do something. I still hang out with my friends from work, and I get to hang with Vince occasionally - I'd like to spend more time with Joe, but it's another one of those deals where there's a lot of effort behind it because he lives somewhat out of the way, so I typically need to plan more than a few hours in advance for that.

No, I'm still doing the same things I like doing - RPGs, anime, and relaxing. I'm sure I've changed a little bit, but I think most would agree that it's not so much that they no longer like me. Truth is though, I don't need people that would drop me just because I have a girlfriend anyway.

Ugh. This whole post sucked.

Whatever. Tomorrow I'm apparently off, so I get to hang out with Nicky again - we'll be playing a lot of DDR this week because our arcade is losing the machine to Busch Gardens next week. The plan is to have a sort of DDR-a-thon on Saturday to end it on a good note. There are a lot of regulars already on that machine, and if even half of them showed up, I think we'd have a pretty good time, so we've already started spreading the word.

Guess I'll have to start playing in Frederick once every week or two to keep my skills up. Keeps me in shape, and it's damned fun once you learn it.

Good times.

~Don

#243

So I wrote this really long, and somewhat decent entry about my relationship with Nicky and other things that have been going on in general, and it got obliterated by Blogger. Justine tells me that this happened to her a few different times, but I do believe this is only the first, or possibly the second time it's occured. So for now I'll probably just keep typing into the Blogger client as per normal, but I may have to start considering using WordPad or whatever that thing is called to do it instead. It's one thing when that sort of thing happens on Livejournal where I don't really put that much effort into things, but when I sit down to type here, I'd rather not lose everything because of a net bubble or something.

I'm sort of at a loss about what to write about tonight - Sunday has become my stay-at-home-day, so very little actually occured today. Basically I've cleaned a bit, and I'm probably going to clean a bit more, and possibly hang my cel on the wall but I don't honestly see that happening tonight. Otherwise, it's been a .hack//Infection day, which I more or less finished just in time for this week's release of Xenosaga.

While I was playing, Nicky called. This is an unusual thing to happen to me that I'm still learning to become accustomed to - this whole "phone call without reason" deal. When I was younger, I talked to my friends on the phone all the time, but as I've gotten older and subsequently left the social hub known as "high school," I've basically taken to only talking on the phone when I'm trying to accomplish something, or when someone needs to talk to me. Nicky, on the other hand, will just call. Neither of us are particularly good phone people anymore it seems, and she talks very quietly into the receiver so it's hard to hear.

There's a strange amount of silence, but even stranger is that it's not all that awkward. Still, I find myself struggling to both hear her and to think of something worth talking about. She basically came home from work and then killed some time, and then simply...called. In her words: "I'm not even sure why I called you, I just did." This is probably her way of saying something, because she rarely just comes out and says how she feels about things.

Who knows. I can't help but love her though - her little idiosyncrasies are probably what make her so endearing, and the little things she says or does lately just seem to pull me closer to her. I can't help but feel like I don't do enough for her though; that's probably the only thing that gnaws at the back of my head about the whole relationship, but that might just be some silly RPG thing telling me that I have to buy items to keep her affection level up, or I'm going to lose points if I don't make the right decision.

That's not really how this works, though, and that's probably what my very loose grasp on reality is causing me to think. It's just a matter of being myself, and having open communication between us, and basically just being there for her when she needs me. I'm way past happy about everything regarding her at the moment, except for the fact that she's a little bullheaded, particularly when it comes to getting at least a bit of sleep each night or actually eating a meal.

Otherwise I can't really complain about much on her regard.

This entry has sucked in comparison to the other one I wrote.

Anyway, it's been a relatively decent past two weeks, despite all the snow. Katsucon went relatively well despite the way Vince and I, in particular, have been feeling about things lately. Later that same week, I discovered a dead cat in front of the mailbox on my way to work, which was one that my mother had been feeding and had taken a liking to. I felt pretty sick about that whole ordeal, but that's probably the only seriously bad thing that's happened.

The insurance matter is supposedly cleared up now, but I'll have to check back in a few weeks to make sure. I've also knocked off a few things that I've been meaning to do for a long time.

Slowly, progress is being made. At least I've been happy about it for a change!

~Don

#242 - Filler

Mostly because I'm exhausted, not in the mood to type, and in need of killing a few more minutes so I can listen to my new DDR CD, I'm throwing up a couple of words that will likely not qualify as a normal entry. And honestly? I really am exhausted, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are typos and grammatical errors and such all over the place.

I don't really care.

Katsucon went okay - everything that I didn't like about Otakon ended up sort of fixing itself here for the most part - there were very few times where I wandered the convention by myself, which was nice. Nicky is a busy one at these sort of things, so I actually found myself trailing along to a few places I normally wouldn't spend much time in. Between the two of us, and Will, Vince, and Joe - there was a great deal of fun. The others were around, but seemed to spend most of their time at the bar or out eating and such. That's what they're into, so that's what they did. We didn't really see them all that much, but that's probably a good thing -- the last thing I want to do at an anime convention is sit around the bar and drink for hours. I don't enjoy it anywhere else, so I certainly wouldn't want to do it at a con.

There wasn't quite enough to do at Katsucon though - overall I was a little bit disappointed. There were some staff members who were overbearingly rude and irritating, and there were all sorts of flaws everywhere - the video room screens were so low that we couldn't see the subtitles on some of the stuff we were watching, and for some reason they wouldn't wait at all between shows to let the crowd change over, which I thought was horrible. We went to watch .hack//SIGN, for example, and as soon as the previous show ended, some people left and we filed in, but they didn't turn on the lights. By the time we found seats (which was difficult, but we managed to do so in under thirty seconds even though it was dark), the DVD menu for .hack//SIGN was already on the screen.

Kind of silly. People were having trouble seeing where they were going, and were having trouble seeing the subtitles, and it was hotter than hell in there, among other things that I know occured but I simply cannot recall at this moment.

Nicky and I had an awesome time at the Duel Jewel concert - I was particularly happy when they covered a Siam Shade song during their encore. I also had a good time at the dance, and apparently I turn into a raver when I get glowsticks. Nicky, who always jokes that I look stupid when I'm pretending to dance and thought I'd be kind of out of place at a rave was somewhat shocked at what was to happen -- Joe brought down an extra set of glowsticks from the room, so I just started screwing around with them. Five or so minutes later, Nicky came up to me and said something to the effect of "You're much better at this then you think you are, Don," which left me kind of confused. This is her thing, and I figured there was more to it then what I was doing.

Whatever though. Even if I sucked at it, I was happy just to be having a good time.

It's a little weird being at one iwith her, but ultimately she probably saved the weekend for me on several occasions, most of which likely went unseen. Her, and the other three who I spent the most time with, made it a decent weekend.

That entry sucked, but it'll have to do.

~Don

#241 - Petrified

So it's been a few days since my last entry, and the days have been no less busy then before. I had anticipated having Thursday night to myself with Nicky going to class only to have the night vanish by a strange happenstance - she asked me to stay. Well, let's be honest, she didn't really ask so much as she blatantly hinted at wanting to see me after she got after school, and I've learned that when she says things like that, it isn't so much a hint as perhaps...more of a plea? I'm not sure what word I'm looking for, but I didn't mind - it was especially cool because I'm not used to that from her.

Also, she gave me a painting that she did, which was a pleasant surprise. It's watercolor and it looks like she had some trouble transporting it or something, but it's a great painting nonetheless and I was most surprised and happy at it. It's been a long time since someone simply just...gave me a gift out of the blue like that. Maybe it was even the first time. I don't think it's something she made with me in mind so much as it was something she put a lot of work into and wanted me to have. Either way, I was happy.

As far as the parent meeting was supposed to go, it really didn't. Basically, the day that I was going to stop by was a horrible mess - I was unable to sleep more than a couple of hours the night before and was basically moping through the day on what you could call my "emergency reserve tank." I took my break and found Nicky waiting as usual, and I collapsed into a heap on her lap. Throughout the day, I found trouble formulating simple sentences and I was even more clumsy than usual, and I probably yawned several times an hour.

I was still somewhat determined to go through with it, but at the same time I was fully aware that I was going to end up giving a bad impression of myself. I was a total wreck. And even as Nicky told me it was no big deal and that I should just not go, I couldn't help but feel both obligated to be there and that I was going to be a total failure to her if I couldn't come through on it. Basically, I got caught in one of those rare-but-occasional-emotion loops that was only magnified moreso by my fatigue, and I bounced around between common sense (go some other time), obligation (I promised Nicky that I'd go), the urge to finally get everything out of the way, and my usual reaction in new social situations: total fear.

And so I became quite the quivering mess, but all in all it was probably better that I didn't. Nicky said her family wasn't mad and understood, though I really didn't press to find out what she explained to him, but even now I still feel horrible about the whole deal because it's a stress that she certainly doesn't need.

I told you all it wasn't much of a story.

Valentine's Day is this week, and I've been fairly careful on my spending up to this point - what I really wanted to find was a stuffed penguin with the theme, but I've yet to locate one and I'm running out of time. I bought a DVD that I'm not going to elaborate on just in case, but it's something I know she'll appreciate, and I'm still going to buy her some form of candy, possibly a mix of stuff from the dollar store (I watch her get candy there all the time, so I've learned which ones she's into and which ones she isn't into, for the most part, and I think she might be more into regular candy then the usual chocolate. Might still throw chocolate in there anyway.) All in all, I haven't spent much yet, so I'm going to keep an eye out. I could always just take her out to dinner during Katsucon; I'm sure there's plenty of stuff in the area.

I'm both worried and not all that much so. We're both not into the Valentine's Day thing all that much so I don't anticipate anything crazy from her. And we're both relatively poor and going to the convention this weekend, so I'm certain it's not a big deal if I don't go overboard. It's not about gifts, anyway.

Things have been going relatively well for the most part, though I dare say I've lost a bit of my enthusiasm. Not because I'm bored or sick of her or something, but moreso because I can't seem to find interesting things to do, and even when we think of them I'm still hindered by money and time. Beyond that, I want to ensure that she spends time on her schoolwork and I'd like to have at least one night where I don't have to stay at the mall for something, be it for her or for others. You know, just one night where no one follows me home or I have to eat out or something. Maybe two. This is pretty much why we don't get together much on the weekend, I think -- the weekend ends up being a more suitable break for us. She's got to stay in town for school during the week, and I'm there for work, so hanging out after and between and such works out well for us.

Ah well. Like I said, it's not like I'm growing to hate her, I just have to keep trying to find the right balance between her, my other friends, and my own free time. I'm still totally into her, and I'm still very lucky to feel the way I do. No complaints besides the lack of free time, and even then I get to be with her, so it's going towards something good.

~Don

#240 - Pink Dinosaur

I really don't have all that much to type about tonight. It's been a relatively typical week as usual. Diana just got back from vacation today, which meant that the past two Monday's were mine to deal with as far as Arcade Collection goes. This is a process that I had insisted fall in my hands while she was gone; there's no one else in the entire store that has nearly as much experience with the process that I have, so it made logical sense (to me, at least) that I be left responsible for everything. I had told Diana that I'd be willing to work Sunday so that I could prevent the need to get up way early to do all of this, and that I'd need Brent's help. It would have been easy, because typically Brent arrives to work before everyone else on Monday morning, so he could have let himself in and Crystal whenever she bothered to show up.

Diana insisted that Crystal was necessary in the process, and because of the Super Bowl that only she of the three of us wanted to watch, the Sunday plan was more or less nixed the first week in favor of her and Brent coming in early on Monday morning.

Except something, as usual, came up and she had to make Matt come in to do it, and Matt knows nothing about working in the arcade, let alone how to do Collection. Crystal knows about as much as Brent does, maybe a bit more, but basically with me not coming in until nine in the morning, Brent and Matt more or less wasted two hours trying to get money out of games and such, leaving them totally behind.

Plus, this automatically put the whole deal in my hands when I got there.

The next Collection was to have Crystal and Brent work two hours after the store closed on Sunday so they wouldn't have to come in early - I had thought about coming in to help until I saw that I already worked five days this week already, and I didn't feel the need to take on any more - particularly not a tiny little two or three hour shift. Yet again, however, Crystal had some kind of emergency (this time with her son), and she had no choice but to leave early on Sunday, once again calling in Matt to save her. She never came back, and Matt didn't really help Brent out with the Collection because he was both pissed off and waiting to see if she'd call or show up again.

So of course, Monday morning?

Don again. This time I didn't even get Brent, but I did fine. I guess the summary that I'll talk about with Diana tomorrow is that it's extremely fortunate that I did so many Collections with her, because she'd have been in real trouble if I hadn't been there.

It was a bit stressful having to do all of that, but I'm proud that I finished it accurately and pretty much as fast as it takes her...and honestly? Makes a guy feel valuable when something like that comes up and there's no one that you can rely on.

Anyway, tomorrow I may be meeting the girlfriend's parents under a relatively stressful situation. Without getting into it too much, there's apparently a lot of drama going on between her and her family and they now insist on meeting me before they leave for their trip, which is...Thursday, I think. I get the impression that they think I'm going to be in their house while they're gone, but I had already told Nicky...insisted, in fact, that we not go to her house at all while they were gone. It would be both irresponsible and rude for me to not come over except for when they go away, and that's not what I want to do.

I'd really prefer to not do this tomorrow though - I'll have to go after I get off of work, which means I'll be tired and probably a little irritable, and I don't imagine I'll smell particularly nice either. I'm bringing a change of clothes just to be safe -- my workpants are on the verge of destruction already and definitely not presentable.

Funny how I can wear them to work but feel there's a problem outside of it.

Anyway, I think I'm going to have Nicky call home and ask if her parents just want to meet us somewhere for dinner. I'd really prefer a neutral setting for all of this, since it's so rushed and there's a lot of drama going on. I'm tempted to even offer to pay for the whole dinner if the place isn't entirely too expensive.

That's a nice gesture, I think - and even though it's a first meeting I want to make sure they understand that I'm serious about all that's going on. The girl assures me that I have very little to worry about, but I cannot help but be anxious nonetheless.

I always did well with everyone else's parents in my neighborhood though, so I'll just have to draw on that. I just need to relax, but I need to also be a bit more conscious of my behavior, at least right now.

The dating thing is nice, but I'm finding that it's somewhat stressful though. I did Valentine's Day shopping today, and I'm horrible at that.

~Don

#239 - Non-Musings

Aptly titled because of my lack of posting, I suppose. Honestly, I don't even feel the urge to write, but I know that if I don't, it'll be that much more difficult to learn to do so more often than I am now.

Can you expect much from a guy who gets home in time to go to bed several nights a week? I guess not. In any case, I've been trying not to give too much thought to the things that bothered me in the previous blog. That was one of those things that happens to everyone, I imagine, every once in awhile. You get something stuck in your head that you're probably better off not even thinking about, and you can't shake it for some reason.

Lately it's been the same old stuff outside of that. This week was somewhat stressful with Nicky -- not in the sense that I'm angry with her or we're going to break up, but there were several occasions where tension was a little bit higher than normal because of simple miscommunications and such. I figure this is a fairly typical thing at this point in a relationship, though -- some of the excitement has worn off and now we're starting to see things neither of us necessarily noticed before.

Based off of last night's talk, however, I don't foresee anything to worry about just yet. There hasn't been anything major, and we're trying to keep the lines of communication open and such.

Katsucon is coming up, but that's about it.

I'm also quite sick of being cold and I certainly need to decide what to buy Nicky for Valentine's Day.

~Don