le sigh.
I feel guilty. Each journal entry I make that mentions Melinda makes me feel guilty. Perhaps guilty isn’t the proper word. I’m not sure what is, though. I want to show her this journal… but I don’t want her to get freaked out about it. I don’t want it to seem like I’m obsessing… I’m not.
It’s just she’s very important to me, now. She’s the best (only…?) friend I’ve made since moving up here. I should tell her *that* at least. I also don’t want her to think I dislike Paul, or anything of the sort. I’ve never had any reason to feel that way, and I don’t.
And I like her. In more than a ‘just friends’ kind of way; but not to the exclusion of being friends. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with her, even when we’re at work, surrounded by asshole customers. “I do enjoy working with you; it makes the time go by faster,” she told me today. And I definitly agree. And it makes the rest of my shift when she’s gone home that much more boring.
I think I’m a storyteller. I’m not sure if she knows that or not, though. I think most people I know do realize it, if not conciously. I love to tell stories. Part of telling stories though – part of what makes a good story teller – is making stuff up. Not changing the story, of course. But adding details. Small little flamboyances that make the story feel that much more real. I want people to feel the way that I feel when I’m telling a story. Or perhaps thats not it exactly. Usually it is. But sometimes I just want people to feel a certain way. To make them laugh, or to make them shocked. The more detail there is to a story, the more it feels real. So when I tell her I woke up in my kitchen with a package of hot dogs, buns, and condiments sitting on the counter, I’m in Storytelling Mode. What really happened was I woke up holding the package of hot dogs. But that just doesn’t sound as right, to me. It’s a funny comment – but thats just it. It’s a funny comment… not a story. A funny story is waking up at 9 am. You know what its like when you first wake up? For the first few seconds you’re not entirely sure where you are. This particular morning was even more surreal than that. I woke up and realized I was in my kitchen, with a package of hot dogs, buns, and condiments on the counter. No shit.
That makes the point I was trying to get at. If I tell a person that, chances are they’ll likely feel something like the shock I felt when I woke up with hot dogs in my hand. And I really did wake up with hot dogs in my hand a few weeks ago. That’s the truth. But if you tell people that, they don’t believe it anyway. They think, yeah, whatever. People automatically throw away, ignore, or doubt so much of a story anyway, that in the end they’re convinced I’m full of it. But if you add to the story, then maybe they’ll actually think about it. Rather than throwing a simple rediculous sounding comment out, they actually parse the story, looking for what they’ll believe is the truth. It makes the person you’re talking to actually listen to the story. Actually listen to what you’re saying. Unconciously, I think we all doubt what we hear from other people. We all scan it for what we’re willing to believe, and what you’d like to dismiss. But if you craft a story in the right way, what you’re left with after this analyzation process is the truth they’re willing to accept. And maybe it’s the true truth. Thats what I think anyway. After putting entirely too much thought into the matter. I think I’ll write my essay for English100 on it.
But I’ve gotten way far afield. I’m not sure if Melinda will ever read these ramblings or not (I haven’t given her the URL explicitly, but it is in my aim profile…), but I would like to say a couple things for the record:
– You are the best Escondido friend I’ve made.
– You can make me smile on the shittiest days I’ve had.
– Don’t take my ramblings as anything but ramblings, remember, I just feel the need to tell a story, sometimes even if it involves seeming over-zealous about the subject.
And with that, I’m gonna call it a good night.