'Am I too blind to see what this has done to me...'

Well, I think things may have gone horribly wrong since my last entry. I haven't talked to Stefanie since that day, other than a few text messages trying to get a hold of her. I really have no clue what's going on, and I've been stressing out that what I feared the most is now coming true, which is basically that by telling her how I felt, it weirded her out, and now we may no longer be friends, let alone something more. She never showed up on Wednesday when we were going to hang out, even though when I called her, she said she'd be picking me up shortly. She never showed up, and when I called her later that night, there was no answer. The next day, no answer again, and finally when I text messaged her Thursday night, I got a reply saying she was at work, and couldn't talk.

Then on Saturday, after the birthday party for my friends kid, and after having a long talk with him about the whole situation, I went over to Stefanie's place to see if she was there, but no one answered the door when I knocked. I text messaged her a little later asking if we could possibly talk later on that night, but she replied with "I'm really drunk", which I took as a "No". She TM'ed me again to say that she would call me after work the next day (Sunday); but after hanging out with Mike until around 8pm on Sunday, I waited around for her to call, but none came. Monday morning she text messaged me yet again, to say how sorry she was for not caling, but that she had laid down when she finally got home, and fell asleep on accident, and that she'd call me later.

So now it's Wednesday, and still no phone call, and no text messages since then. DJ and a friend from work said she probably just needs some time to think about things, so I'm going to wait until next weekend before trying to contact her again. I really don't understand though, because when I originally talked to her about how I felt, she said she didn't think it was weird at all, and almost even seemed interested. So why is she acting so weird? Dennis and DJ said that's just how girls are, which, I suppose they may be right, but it just seems pointless to me. Not only that, but this is a girl that has continually criticized me for not talking more to girls, not to mention used to bitch about how another girl I liked treated me like shit because she would always blow me off, even though she must've known I liked her; and now that I've told Stefanie how I felt, she goes and does the exact same thing she was bitching about, which causes me to lose even more confidence about talking to girls. Life couldn't be better.... >=(

Aside from that, my sisters in the hospital again with shunt problems. She's supposed to have surgery today I think. Saturday I went and saw "Skeleton Key" with Stacy, and then we went to Macayo's for lunch. The movie wasn't too bad. Definately wasn't expecting the ending though, which was nice. Then went to Dennis' kids birthday. That sucked, as I just sat around sweating my ass off since his A/C didn't work, and he was busy entertaining his family, etc. Called my parents on Sunday and told them about the past week, and Stefanie, etc. Apparently my dad figured out I was interested in her a while ago, which was pretty weird =P. My guess is he figured it out when I talked to him about taking her out to dinner at the Space Needle in Seattle, which is like $50-60 a plate, and not a place you would casually take a friend to eat. Anyways, that's enough blog for today. Now to wait impatiently for the weekend... =(

Blog...

Well, I ended up buying a new bouquet of roses, because the other ones had some dried up petals on them. It was good they did anyways, cause the 2nd bouquet was much better looking than the last. They were white, but with pink tips on them. So I got a hold of Stefanie yesterday morning, and a bit too early, as she had been sleeping. I told her to call me back once she got back from school in a couple hours, and when she did, I went over to her place and gave her the flowers. She was pretty surprised, which was the point of course =P. She gave me a hug, and put them in a vase in the kitchen. When I told her that my feelings for her weren't a 'comfort' thing, she basically said "well, I'm not so sure about that". I told her I wasn't a person who dated people because it was somehow convenient for me, and she said that wasn't what she meant, but didn't say any more about it after that. She asked if I wanted to go to lunch and a movie with a couple friends, and although I still hadn't slept yet, I said yes anyways. We went to Albertsons first, cause they were having one of those 10 items for $10 sales. Then we went to Garcia's to eat lunch, but when we got there, Stefanie got a phone call from her work. She was supposed to be off, but I guess they scheduled her anyways, and unless she found someone to cover her shift, she had to go in and work. She couldn't get a hold of anyone, so the day was cut a bit short, but I ended up getting 3 hours of sleep for the day =P. Since we didn't get to keep our plans, we're going to hang out later today instead, though she has school until 5pm, so unfortunately we won't have a whole lot of time to hang out, but I'll take what I can get =).

This weekend I have a birthday party to go to for one of Dennis' kids. I think he's turning 5 this year. He just started kindergarten. Next weekend is DJ's birthday party, which should be pretty fun. A ton of people from work will probably be there, along with Dennis and his wife. I'm getting closer and closer to buying a car now to. I have about $3500 saved up, so only a couple more months to go.

'Clutching firm, betting he panics for sure...'

Well, the hard parts over with (I hope). Last night I finally told Stefanie how I felt about her. Things went better than I expected, even if they're not quite what I hoped for at this point. I was extremely scared that she might think it was way too weird, but apparently she'd already figured it out when we went to TGI Friday's last weekend (See last entry) when I'd made a sarcastic comment about not being attracted to her to one of her friends. I'm still not quite sure how she feels about me, but it didn't seem like she was against the idea of dating me. Apparently one of her friends had even suggested it to her. She said my work schedule was quite a big issue though, as I work the graveyard shift. She also said she was worried that it was just a 'comfort' thing, which basically means I only want to date her because I'm more comfortable around her than other girls. I really don't think this is the case though. She's certainly closer to me than any other girl I've ever known in my life, but I'm not the kind of person to just go out with someone because it's 'convenient' for me. There's also the issue of her ex-boyfriend, who lives in the same apartment complex as we do. They broke up around two years ago, but were doing the sort of "friends-with-benefits" thing for a little while; and although she doesn't want to be with him anymore, she's still kind of attached to him emotionally, and having him in the same apartment complex certainly doesn't help things out, as mixed feelings (mostly anger) are brought up whenever she happens to see him.

After we talked about things for a bit, she debated about whether or not she should go to bed (as it was around 3 am) or if she wanted to stay up the whole night, as she had to be up by 8 to get ready for school. She decided to stay up, and we decided to go to Denny's because she wanted some kind of vanilla cappuccino they have. We were there for at least an hour or more, talking about various things. Then we went back to her apartment and attempted to watch TV, but there wasn't really anything on. Around 5:30am she decided she was going to get a couple hours of sleep before she had to be up to get ready. I went home and went to sleep myself, but set my alarm for 8am, and called her to make sure she woke up on time when it went off.

When I woke up today I called Dennis and told him about everything. He suggested I buy flowers and bring them to her and let her know that it wasn't just a 'comfort" thing, and to make sure she knew that I would like to date her if she had similar feelings toward me. So I went and got some white roses at Albertsons down the street. When I got back and called her to see if she was home though, there was no answer, and no return call, so I'm going to have to wait. Dennis was disappointed that I didn't kiss her, but it was hard enough for me just to talk to her about it. I told him that to me, just "grabbing someone and kissing them" seems like soft-core rape or something. Obviously if I knew she felt the same about me, things might be different, but if she doesn't, why make her feel even more uncomfortable by forcing something she doesn't want to do?

Anyways, enough about all that for now. The rest of the weekend kind of sucked. Saturday I did absolutely nothing until late that night, when I went to Dennis' to hang out and watch a movie. Sunday was slightly better. Went hiking with Mike early in the morning, and had breakfast afterwards. Took a short nap after he brought me back home, and then hung around the house until he called me again around 5pm and wanted to know if I wanted to have dinner over at his place with him and Tiffany. So I went over there and had steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. Food was really good. We also watched Good Will Hunting, which is an awesome movie that I'll never get tired of seeing. After that I went home and called Stefanie, but no answer. Didn't think she was going to call back until I was almost asleep around 12:30am, which is when she invited me over, and the above events took place.

'I wanna always feel like part of this was mine...'

This weekend wasn't too bad. Saturday I ended up spending the entire day with Stefanie. We had lunch at Sizzler, which was the first time I'd ever been there. It wasn't too bad, but there's definitely better food for your money. Then while she had her tires checked we went over to the mall for an hour or so, and just walked around, and she bought some shoes and bathroom stuff. Then we went and watched "Dukes of Hazard", which had some funny parts, but was a mediocre move overall. Neither of us had to pay to see it though, as I had some free movie passes my work had given to me for voluntarily working so much overtime a week or two ago. After that we went home for a bit, and then had some dinner at Applebees before heading off to a sort of going-away house party for one of her friends from her old job. I didn't have much fun there as I didn't know anybody other than Stefanie, and I'm not much of a social person. Stefanie kept trying to get me to be more social, but I honestly don't get what I was supposed to talk about. She later admitted that she understood, and that she'd probably be the same way around a ton of people she didn't know. I guess she only knew about 10 people there to begin with.

Anyways, we were only there for about an hour or so, and it wasn't very fun for either of us, so we decided to go to TGI Fridays' for drinks and appetizers instead, along with two of her friends (Renzo and John). Although (again) the service and food weren't really up to par, we had a much better time there, in part by making fun of the service and food =P. Stefanie went on another rant about how men are assholes, and that the only good men were either gay, or people like me. She wondered if anyone even found her attractive anymore. This would've been a great time for me to let her know how I felt about her, but again, I don't want to ruin the chance of her coming to Washington with me in November; although earlier today I started considering whether or not I should just come out with it and get it over with.

Sunday started out pretty boring. I called Mike when I first woke up. Apparently he'd been at Disneyland since Wednesday, and just got back the night before. He said he didn't really have any plans to do anything but if he did he'd give me a call. So for the next five hours or so I sat around my apartment listening to music, browsing the internet; just wasting time. Of course by that point I pretty much figured Mike wasn't going to call back, which was fine with me, as Dennis said he'd give me a call late in the afternoon if I wasn't going to be hanging out with him (Mike). So I gave Dennis a call, but apparently his air conditioner was broke, so he was going to stay at his parents house, but was going to the 99 Cent Only store before heading over there, and asked if I wanted to come. So we went there, and to Burger King to eat. After he dropped me off I called Stefanie to see what she was up to. She was just coming home from the gym, and was going to clean her house for a bit, and then go to Wal-Mart if I wanted to go with her.

On our way to Wal-Mart, her car hit the bottom half of a shopping kart which someone had conveniently left in the road, and that someone had only moments earlier, hit themselves with their car, which was parked on the side of the road. Stefanie was sort of in shock at first. She got the car only a couple months ago, and has had all sorts of crap happen to it already. The cops showed up minutes later, which means that the other car likely hit the shopping cart long enough before we did that they could've moved the damn thing out of the road before someone else hit it, before calling the cops, but of course, they didn't. The cop told us to pull the car onto a side street so nobody would get hit. After we did that we thought we saw something leaking out of the car, and it was wet about half way from the intersection, leading up to the car. Stefanie really got upset then, and could barely talk to her mom on the phone through the tears. I got some on my hand and smelled it, and it didn't smell like anything, nor was it colored or oily looking, so it wasn't anything from the actual car. The cop thought maybe it was water coming off the wheel well (which is where it was dripping from. Apparently there was water running down the side of the street we had been driving on, and Stefanie had rolled through it when turning onto the side street. As much as we tried to tell her that it wasn't anything from the car, and it was just water, she was still freaked out that her car might be seriously damaged. She finally calmed down though, and we eventually went to Wal-Mart anyways, and the car didn't seem to have any problems with the brakes, or steering or anything, which I think helped her calm down a bit more, as she seemed to return to semi-normal in Wal-Mart.

Today was extraordinarily boring. It's a Monday, which means everybody's at work but me. Sometimes Stefanie has Monday's off, but she had to work in the morning today. Dennis called, and we talked for a bit. Other than that I've just been browsing the forums, catching up on PSP homebrew news, checked out Logitech's new G15 Keyboard and G7 Cordless Laser Mouse, which I'm absolutely going to put on my shopping list once I have the money.

'Under the bridge downtown, I gave my life away...'

Well, I'm back from vacation. Other than having to go for a funeral, I had a great time visiting friends and family, and getting out of the heat. The weather in Washington couldn't have been better. It was sunny and mostly cloudless almost the entire time I was there; usually temps of low to mid-80's. Only started to cloud up on the day that I left. While on vacation, on Saturday night, I went to a party at a house that apparently nobody knew who lived there. Not much happened there, so we left after about an hour or so. Then on Monday my brother, myself, and a friend, drove up into the Cascade Mountains to shoot my brothers new .40 cal pistol (Walther P99), as well as his .308 rifle and our friends SKS. Unfortunately due to the heat, the bugs were out in full force, and it took a while to find a spot where we could at least tolerate them. I got my mom to play a bit of Gran Turismo 4. It's quite entertaining to watch old people try to play video games. I had to buy her a 24hp car just so she could stay on the track for more than 5 seconds =P.

Made a few more plans for when I come up in November. My brother said he can get rooms at the hotel he works for at around 1/4 of the price, so about $50-60 a night, for what normally is a $220/night room. He figured it'd probably be best to get Stefanie a hotel room while we're in Seattle so she doesn't have to sleep on his couch =P. It'll probably only be for one night anyways. I'll probably rent a car the week she's there as well. All this will severely cut into my car fund, but it'll be worth it. I was able to sell my System of a Down ticket on eBay. I actually made an extra $10 on it as well, which was nice. Dennis and DJ said the concert turned out really good. They weren't too impressed with Marz Volta though. I've only heard one song by them, and wasn't really impressed either, and Dennis said that was their best song. I'm not quite sure why they were touring with SOAD.

Now that I'm back in Phoenix, it's back to work. I guess they stopped mandatory overtime starting today, which, although is bad for my paycheck, I'm kind of relieved, cause I'm extremely tired. I feel like I need a vacation =P. Unfortunately sleep will have to wait though, as Dennis wants us to hang out with him this morning after work. It's nice that I only have three days of work until the weekend.

I have a few pictures to post up, but they're at on my camera at home. I'll post them up once I get home from Dennis'