Then came Step 2: getting the boxes up to her 3rd floor walk-up. We managed to get everything up to the second floor when a lady yelled across the ally to hold on, she was sending her husband over to help. He and his brother showed up and thanked us for providing entertainment for the evening, especially since they could tell one of us was wearing inappropriate shoes for the task. (I was still wearing heels from work.) After watching us struggle up the first flight of stairs, they felt guilty, like they were in that episode of Seinfeld where they watched the guy get robbed and just laughed instead of helping. They easily carried the rest of the stuff upstairs, much to our relief.
At this point, Whitney felt like she owed me. Pete had texted earlier and invited me to a party, and so, (I think out of obligation), Whitney agreed to come with. The party was an... interesting scene, and we didn't stay long. We were just going to go home, but Pete and his friend Chris convinced us to go with them to the bars at Clark and Division. Which was funny, because that is so not my or Whitney's scene. Even funnier was that I couldn't really drink since I had to drive home, so Whitney was doing some of my shots for me, so I got to see not-entirely-sober Whitney, who is hilarious and awesome.
Anyway, while we're at the first bar, Pete keeps hugging me and telling me how I'm one of his best friends and that he loves me, and I tell him I feel the same way. After a little while, he wanted to go see Nicole, his girlfriend who works at another nearby bar. He wanted me to meet her. So I did, and she seemed nice, and I told her how many great things I'd heard about her and all those other things you'd say, but I was genuine. I've been happy lately to see Pete happy in a relationship. They even have a vacation planned for December. I think that's great since he hardly ever does long term relationships.
As I said, this was not our scene. So I texted Ryan to see what he was up to, and we ended up heading to Wrigleyville to meet him. Whitney and Ryan just crack me up when they're together. It's like a comedy routine. After a few drinks and a soulful sing along to "End of the Road," the bar was closing. Whitney went home, and Ryan and his friend Angie and I headed to an after hours place. But that didn't last long. Angie was trying to start a fight with these two Hispanic girls, and then, when we decided to leave, walked out into traffic without looking both ways. Clearly, she needed help getting home, evne though it was only a few blocks away. I offered to go with and then give Ryan a ride home, but he insisted he was fine taking the L and I should just go without him. This is where the night took another interesting turn. If I'd taken Ryan home, I'd probably have gone up for a drink, we would've wrestled, and I would've crashed on his couch. But instead, Pete called and invited me over. And since I wasn't ready to go home yet, I took him up on his offer.
This is where things get sketchy, and I'm not going to publish all the details in a public forum. (Although it's really not as bad as you might assume it was.) The problem was that he asked me why I'm not his girlfriend. I just wanted to laugh in his face. I said, "That's what you need to be answering, not me." He was like, "Well, we have a blast together, you're one of my best friends, and there's great chemistry between us. So why not?" Well, of course my response was to point out that he already has a girlfriend, one whom he claims to be quite happy with. And also, that this was not a conversation to be having in the middle of the night. Once again, he did not react well to my perceived rejection. (It's funny, because if he would bring this up at an appropriate time, I probably would react favorably to dating him. I'd at least give it a chance.) He said some really mean things. To the point where I had to make a hasty exit so he wouldn't see me cry. I thought about it (still trying not to cry) all day yesterday. By today, I had processed enough to figure out what I wanted. I gave him a chance to talk about it, he didn't take it, so I sent him a long, somewhat mean, extremely honest email. I needed to put it all out there and let him know that it's all on him now. I won't be initiating any more contact with him. If he wants there to be any kind of friendship it's up to him to make that happen. I refuse to spend my time with someone who makes me feel about two inches tall.
Last night I took out my aggression shooting zombies. Sarah and I went to this painball place in Joliet where they literally have you running through a zombie-infested forest, and then you board a bus with no walls for "evac," and you put on your mask and grab your gun and they blare heavy metal music and you shoot zombies as you drive by them. Kinda like the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney World. It was so much fun! My only complaint was that it was too short. But I particularly enjoyed aiming for the zombies' crotches. There was something so satisfying about seeing my paintballs explode all over that region.
So, the weekend was completely random and unexpected, and I'm blaming it all on the Subaru. If it weren't for that car, we wouldn't have been able to pick up the boxes and probably would have just done dinner and the movie (we were supposed to see Footloose) because Whitney wouldn't have felt like she owed me. Oh Subaru, what other adventures do you have in store for me?
Comments