The Roulette Wheel

Wow.  It's been a really long week and the last couple days have really done a number on me.  It turns out I have been so emotionally neutral and busy since the last post I haven't actually had anything interesting to say or talk about.  Until now.

I'm gonna run you guys through the last couple days just to tell someone and process how I'm feeling.  Ya know, the usual.

Wednesday night I was really looking forward to the date I had Thursday night.  I finally had a date with someone who loves The Queers and was my age.  That's beside the point for now.  Wednesday I had to stay late at work because my kids are dumb sometimes.  Some of the shit they are talking about just really pissed me off.  Nothing I could have really done to change that, I was just really tired of teaching them the same thing over and over again.  They stayed the latest I could possibly stay.  From there I had to book it to Denton.  The drive from Garland to Denton in the middle of rush hour is the opposite of fun, but that doesn't really even get us started.  This is just setting the scene.  At one point I get a text from Winter.

The text was all about a friend of ours I had just spent some time with the previous week.  She had a heart attack and was in a coma.  It was more than a little devastating and I kinda went on auto pilot.  I exited The Dallas North Tollway.  The DNT gets you to Denton it seems but in a really weird round-about way.  I was stressing out because of my friend and the fact that I was now rushing.  Stressed out.  Not a great way to enter a panel on rape.

I had been invited to a panel event on rape culture in America.  Normally the mere fact that the event was in Denton would be enough to just skip it.  I, however, had been invited by a former student.  Yeah.  In that situation I would still skip it.  I didn't because I was invited by one of my former students whose first call after her rape was to me.  She meant a lot to me and I wanted to support her. 

She didn't show.  That made some serious sense but I was still disappointed. 

I spent the next hour listening to the most uneducated panel I had ever sat in front of.  Turns out they were all college kids and had absolutely no credentials to be speaking on the subject as a person of authority.  They were pretty bad and teaching the room some shit that was just wrong.  The questions were even more baffling.  I wanted to scream at everyone in the room for an entire hour.  Eventually I left my notes on the event with the person running the event.  She happened to be another former student that was really important to me.  So that part was cool.

On my way home I get a call from one of my really good friends here in Dallas.  He needs to talk.  Well...you know how I am about friends in need.  I rushed straight over from Denton.  Long story short, his mom just got diagnosed with cancer.  Leukemia. He's freaking out and doesn't know how to deal with it.  I spend the next three hours giving him a crash course on stress management and generally just counseling him.  So I leave there around midnight with that on my shoulders right on top of my friend in a coma.

I get to sleep around 1 and wake up at 6 as usual.  The day starts again.

The day was a B day and I was exhausted.  B days are my more taxing days this year.  I get through to the end of course.  I have an office absolutely full of kids by the end of the day because it's the end of the grading period and everyone fucked up and they're having to make shit up for me.  In the middle of a huge clusterfuck of children I get tagged in a FB post from Michael Urie.  I though that was a little odd, but I did just spend a really awesome and refreshing evening with him last week so it wasn't something entirely unexpected.  I read it.  My friend Stacy, the one in the coma, died.  All I could think about was the fact that I saw her just last week and that I was supposed to see her this weekend for Winter's birthday.  All I could think about was her bitch smile and her two kids.  I had to get out of there before I started crying.  I went back to the bathroom and called a couple people to let them know and then just sat there and cried for 15 minutes or so.  After I washed my face and jumped back into the group of kids that needed me.  They were none the wiser.  I am still an amazing actor.

Now I had to bust home and get ready for my date or I would be late.  I stopped at the spray and pay near my house and cleaned up my car.  I then noticed that I had acquired a flat tire sometime during my day.  Awesome.  I went straight to the car place.  Long, boring story short.  I made it in plenty of time.  Had a great evening with someone I really felt like I could connect with.  We had already done a couple mini-dates during the festival so this wasn't really a surprise.  We even made out a little.  My dick even stirred in its sleep!  It was really cool to feel that again.  I was also glad to know that it would probably salute if called to action.  It's the little things.

The night ended really high and went a long way towards turning my super shitty couple days into something way more awesome.

This afternoon I sent a message that boiled down to "I had a really great time.  Thanks for turning my day around."  I had to word it really carefully because I had learned the night before that she was really averse to compliments.  It was a little odd but not that big of a deal.  The reply I got back three hours later was really odd.  I'll quote it for emphasis and for other opinions:

"Stop it! You were a wonderful human and lovely company.  Thank you for a nice Thursday." 

Man.  Seriously?  I hate texting.  My brain can only read that dismissively.  You guys?  Sound like the final dismissive text that's heard one too many compliments?  She walked me to my car for more make-outs for god's sake!  Anyway.  Since I'm like a water/flying Pokemon to electric attacks when it comes to disappointment in relationships, that was the last straw for me.  I was back to thinking of all the things from the day before, and the day before that. I moped through kung fu class (difficult to do when an old Asian dude is yelling at you) and then came back here.  Started thinking too hard about everything and got really weepy.  Needed to write.  Probably going to need to go read at the Fillmore too.  Just a total shit couple days.  I guess it's all relative, but in my world it's tough to put on a smile right now. 

Yeah.  Usually by now I'm starting to feel better.  Doesn't seem to be happening tonight.  I think I need to shower as fast a possible (showers are BAD when I'm depressed) poke my head into Daniel Villarreal's house warming party, get some food and them maybe hit the bar.  Bleargh. 

Hope everyone that reads this is doing well.  I love you guys.  Really.

Tommy "Faced with his own mortality..." Schubert