2003-12-22 - 2:19 a.m.
#132: No Need for a Visit from a Childhood Friend
Note to self: I've mixed my commercial sampler cut and pieced together from the studio recording I mentioned in the previous entry. You can download it over here. I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out, considering how terribly I'd originally felt of the source material I started with; but reactions from my fellow amateur online voice actors to the final product have been, well, mixed. They mention just about everything I felt was wrong with my performance, which confirms my worst fears that it was all actually noticeable to other people and not just illusions of my own neuroses. In any case, download and have a listen to the fruits of my labours. I'll try to do next time, honest!
Well, my childhood friend mentioned in the title above (and the entry before) has left Adelaide a week ago now and she's somewhere in the depths of the consumer whore centre that is Singapore on a University study exchange program. So I guess I should dedicate the bulk of this entry to her since she basically dominated my every waking moment for the ten days she was here. I've been considering how to type this entry out for a while. On the one hand, I want to be honest since this IS my diary and I should write whatever I like in this danged thing; the fact that it's also a diary that's publically available online for millions to see notwithstanding. I have a certain amount of cover here, afterall. Considering the other fact that there's about a couple of million other webjournals out there, the anonymity of being just one face in the crowd is on my side. On the otherhand.... Well, she hasn't found out about this diary, but if she did I think she would be mortified by whatever I type about her here. I could always hope that she never finds it and that I don't tell her about its existence in the first place.... Which is exactly what I'm going to rely on because I'm going to type this entry out anyway despite my best common sense telling me to do otherwise. I need to get this stuff off my chest, out of my brain, whatever metaphor you want to use. Or is it simile? Anyway, this has been chewing me up inside since the week she left and I want to pinpoint exactly why.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I know why. I've fallen for her. Head over heels, down the hill and broke my crown, fallen for her. I won't say fallen in "love", that seems to imply that I.... Well, "love" her. You know. Romantic-like. "I wanna jump your bones and make wild whoppee"-like. It's not like that at all, no! It's just that.... She's likeable. She's really, really, really likeable. She's an outgoing, intelligent, beautiful young woman and I was utterly charmed off my feet. Of course, she was always a very outgoing, intelligent beautiful young woman.... I've known her since she was six when she was still so, minus the breasts and the couple of inches in height she gained in 12 years. It's a rather amusing fact that she's not very tall, something that I make sure to tease her over at every opportunity. She's so cute when she's indignant.... And immediately shoots back a resounding comeback that leaves you devasted and broken. Erm. Yeah, that's kinda cute too, in its own way. But anyway, I've known Tammi (because that's her name) for 12 years of her life now, admittedly with 6 of those years seperated by a body of water and a profound lack of communication despite our status as "childhood friends". Well, "sidekick of childhood friend", anyway, which is about the same thing. I was friends with her brother first and foremost and she happily tagged along and was included in our aimless excursions. Excursions and playtimes were always aimless back then. No rush, no hurry, and most certainly completely bereft of apparent intellectual value. Lego castles, Transformer battles and lots and lots of random doodles on pieces of paper where our imaginations of wild adventure tales came to life. In a way, I don't I've outgrown those sorts of things. Kinda sad.
Anyway. More memories. I met her once three years ago when I went back, sorry, CAME back to Adelaide on a three week trip. She was about 15 then, though I remember she was organising some kind of birthday party for herself at her dads restaurant. I remember she was charming and cute back then, as well. I also distinctly remember her breasts and the fact she had them. I was really surprised by them. I mean, we'd been together for so long before I left that the sudden addition of breasts to her character just completely threw me off. I mean, she went ahead and got BREASTS and everything and she didn't even think to consult me about them! How completely unfair, was that? Not that I'm complaining about that now in the long run or anything.... Yes, indeed. Now what was I going on about here? Oh yes, we'd been friends for a long time. A very long time. Long enough to remember all those embarassing stories of her behaviour back when she was small and not as mentally (and physically) developed. You know, those stories people tell you when you're older to remind just exactly how embarassing you were back then? And that no matter how far you may go in life they will always be there to haunt the corners of your mind and cause your facial features to contort when you meet someone else who can recite those stories verbatim? Yeah, those kinds of stories. Admittedly, I don't remember as many stories as my mother can, so I defer to her experienced storytelling skillz. Unfortunately, those sorts of stories tend to rope me into the picture as well, and that's really not part of the package I want. So! I'm lost. I've completely forgotten what point I was trying to make here. That I've known Tammi for a long time was probably part of it. The fact that she's now 12 years older and quite an attractive young thing is another. This is definitely entering mighty iffy territory, that it is.
We were constantly together for those 10 days. CONSTANTLY. Apart from a brief break a couple of days in when she had to help pick up her relatives from the airport, it was as if we were never apart for more than a few minutes, if that. And after her relatives came, her Adelaide living Aunt (Siang, who is also a family friend from yonks old and runs a Chinese restaurant called West Lakes Palace with Francis, an old schoolmate friend of my dads. Yeah, our "Friends Tree" gets pretty complex and extended in Adelaide) decided to bundle all of us on various trips around South Australia to see the sights and experience the (highly limited) wonders that is the "Festival State" of Australia. I am trying very hard to control a developing twitch in my upper lip. So we went on various trips up and down the country for most of the week, taking a day break in between each trip to let everyone take a breather and let the tourists do some serious holiday shopping. And our time together became even more inseperable after the first of these trips: when Tammi asked if she could swing by the apartment to use my dial up connection to check her university results, and my mother suggested that she stay over for the night since it would be too late and troublesome to go back to where she was staying with Siang after. I wouldn't have suggested it (it seemed kind of creepy in hindsight) but I certainly wasn't against it, either. I was lonesome for company due to my lack of effort in making real friends here in Adelaide. I still am, actually. Lonesome and lacking friends, that is.
Obviously she agreed to staying over, and from then on it kinda became something perfectly natural. After each day, instead of going back to her aunts place, she simply stayed and slept on the spare queen-sized bed in the loft of the apartment (which my mother and father would normally use, but since my father wasn't there then, my mother slept on a much smaller bed on the ground floor). We stayed up a lot together on those nights that she stayed over here, even if it meant being all droopy eyed and tired the next day. And when it became clear that we were disturbing my mother by being up so late and making so much noise in the living room, we moved to my bedroom to continue our time together. And then finally we moved to my bed, where she took up residence and we indulged in each others company. Everything I've just said in the last couple of sentences is true. From a certain point of view. And that point of view is: We talked. Just talked. That's ALL. Besides, her younger cousin Pamela was staying over as well, so she was acting as our chaperon. So in a weird sense, I managed to get TWO lovely young ladies in my bed. And that's probably the closest thing to action I'm ever going to get in my entire life: my childhood friend, and her jailbait cousin. Hmmmm.... If I didn't know better, I'd say that was some kind of ending for a hentai dating game of some kind....
We talked about a lot of things. The kind of things you talk about with someone when it's 2AM in the morning, you're tired and you feel completely comfortable with the person you're talking with. Lines of thought that criss and cross from one point to the other in random parallels and irrelevant connections. Those kinds of conversation our always fun to have with someone close. Admittedly however, a lot of what we talked about was me and my direction in life or lack thereof. That topic of conversation seems to come up a lot when I'm dealing with either her or her brother. Most of what we discussed had to do with self-improvement, obviously mine. A lot of it was meant partially as a joke, such as "How to be a perfect boyfriend" and her rattling all the points which would make any man the perfect catch for even the most critical of men-seeking ladies. Oh yeah, baby. Ahm gonnah be one heck'a lady killah! Admittedly however, I AM keeping track of these little tips despite their obviously humourous tone and largely common sense. A lot of the tips were surprisingly.... practical. Huh. And I thought only guys thought of stuff like that. And on that note, I'm dropping this line of thought. Other things which I treated as both humourous and frivolous but went along with anyway, was a complete overhaul of my haircut and my wardrobe. The first time I met her with my shock of blond hair with black bleeding in from the roots, she took one look, shook her head disapprovingly, and immediately led me to the nearest hairdresser and demanded I get a haircut and dye job. Thoroughly bemused that someone would take such an interest in my hair, I acquiesed to her demands. I even acquiesed to her telling the hairdresser to sculpt a new hair style and redyeing it black again. I was soooooo henpecked it wasn't funny.
By the time I stopped acquiesing and started wondering if I should ask how much all this was going to cost me, the dye had set, the styling mousse had been applied, and I looked like I had a hedgehog strapped to my head. After a few adjustments however, I looked much more normal and even, dare I say it, "cool". I quite liked it. Then again, I liked the blond cut I had too, so my opinion in fashion statements rarely counts for anything. Other people I've met thus far seem to like it too so I guess the haircut was pretty much a success for Tammis planned makeover. That was simply stage one of the makeover. Stage two: Get me out of those all black duds I like to where and into some fashionable jeans, with untucked short sleeved shirts to match. I've never really liked wearing jeans, but the ones we bought WERE comfortable (well, she and her cousin picked and I bought. My money larder's gettin' low now) and the shirts just made me look good. In fact, I think I look better than I have never been before. I kinda like this new look I'm sporting, which goes hand in hand with her telling me if I wanted to have a change in myself, perhaps the best way to start is with a change in my outward appearance. I'm not sure if it's quite that simple (and it sounds rather shallow when put that way) but it gives me something new to look at in the mirror (as in, not black in and black out all the day. not whatever you may have been thinking of. sickos) and people seem, I dunno, more relaxed around me? I guess in a way it does make sense: if I want to fit in and make myself more accessible to people, I'm going to have to change some things about myself, so this was probably a place to start. Or I could be just making excuses for my thoroughly unassertive behaviour. But she was just so.... charming!
And then there was that one time when we talked seriously. For a moment. A very brief moment when I stopped being a silly fool, took a risk, and talked like a normal person. It wasn't actually a conversation we had in our midnight bedtop discussions, but something that happened as we took a stroll by the river beside West Lakes Palace in the early evening. How we got there was.... Well, let's start with that, shall we? It was after another days trip (the last, I believe) and we were having dinner at West Lakes Palace at Auntie Siangs insistence (and she insists we eat there a lot. I guess we shouldn't refuse her generousity, but I feel kinda bad at how often we do it and for FREE). The general conversation at our table somehow fell to my university days, both previous and (hopefully) future. It was sufficiently depressing enough that I got up and left for a walk away from all the depreciating talk about me. I really didn't need to hear other people tell me what my problems were when I could do a pretty fine job myself. So I went for a walk by the river banks, alone. Then I went back to the restaurant. Then I left again. Then I came back, and was about to leave again for the third time when Tammi decided that she would take a walk with me. Well, it took three tries, but at least the narrative convention was fulfilled in the end. Admittedly, there was a brief problem with her cousin Pamela wanting to come along as well, but that was soon rectified by her little brother Nigel wanting to come along too, which knocked them both out since Pamela decided to stay behind at the restaurant to look after him. Which left me and Tammi all alone to ourselves. While walking along a beautiful riverside in the early evening, beneath the light of the pale, ghostly moon. It was almost.... romantic. And in that mood, we talked about what was bothering me.
At first I was being all coy and humorous, but she gradually managed to steer me into something less.... myself most of the time. We talked about what was bothering me: my inability to garner any kind of respect from people, the fact that I drove myself there in first place because of how I perceived myself and my role in life, the want for something different from that.... Just some little things that bother me once in a while, but usually pass after a mild stroke of bad temper. She suggested I try getting rid of my glasses, as in going in for surgery to implant proper lenses into my eyes instead of wearing these huge goldfish eyes all my life. Again, sounds shallow, but it really did make sense listening to her talk about it. People have a kind of perception about people who wear glasses, especially those as thick as mine. If I simply took them away, that perception might change. And it doesn't necessarily have to be other people who change, it might very well just be me. I don't have to wear glasses any more. I don't have to look at my face in the mirror everytime with that strange, distorted look. I can look just as normal as the next guy and change myself based on that. I don't know if it'd be as simple as all that, but.... It could be a start. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it; but the more I do, the more I want to get rid of these things that have been a part of me since I was born. Maybe it won't solve everything, but.... Circular logic detected, aborting thread. We talked about other things as well. Such as just because one admits to a personal problem, it doesn't mean that it's solved. In fact, the admission might even be used as a kind of excuse to indulge in those personal problems even more. That brought to mind all the problems I'd thought I'd conquered but in hindsight, probably partake in even more today than I did before I'd made my admission. Well, that was an ugly revelation.
We talked some more. And as we talked, I couldn't help but notice just how very beautiful she was. How her hair waved in the gentle breeze, the shadow cast by her profile in the soft moonlight, the lilt of her voice that breaks easily into a song (did I mention she has a slight English accent which makes her all the more appealing).... It was just so.... perfect. It was such a perfect moment I wanted to encapsulate it and hide it away; to be used whenever I was feeling sad and lonely, and I would feel my spirits immediately lift, my heart racing simply to be in the presence of such a fragile looking yet strong willed beauty-- And then her mobile rang and she received a call from her boyfriend in Singapore. His name is Edmund, and they had been going out for eleven months that day now. Yeah, that kinda shattered everything. Not that I didn't know that she was going out with him before, I knew that well in advance of her arriving in Adelaide. But for a moment there, beneath the light of the silvery moon: It was only just the two of us in the entire world. And the empty bottle of coke that just floated pass on the river. My ability to write in a romantic fashion is constantly being challenged by my interjecting sense of humour. Rats. But needless to say, with the amount of time we spent together and all the talking that we did I think we became a lot closer in those ten days than we had been in the six years since our seperation when I left Adelaide. It felt.... nice. Really, really nice. I wish it could have gone on forever, but she needed to leave for a flight to Singapore to study her double degree there and also see her boyfriend, and I need to get a life and improve myself over here. Improve myself for my own sake, or for hers? Doubtlessly, I'm doing it for a bit of both. I want to think that, given this direction and with such fervent passion, I can take the steps to make something of it. I want to be a better person. I wanted to be a better person before, but now.... Now, I guess I have someone I can prove myself to.
....
I have no chance, no chance, NO CHANCE. She's gorgeous, she's charming, she's physically attractive, she's 18, she's already GOT a boyfriend and she's got a shopping streak which I have no ability to support on my current income (= big fat zero). Me? I'm just a funny guy who's physically pudgytastic and turned 24 this year. I am a nobody, I am a nothing on her boyfriend radar. I should be happy just being her friend, I should be happy that I can even call her friend without her turning up her nose at me. Why am I not happy with the way things are? Gagh. I have no chance, anyway. What do I really know about her and her life. I probably told her my entire life story while she was here. We didn't talk too much about her, at all. I know she's doing well in University, I know she can make friends easily, I know about her going to Singapore to study and I know she likes cows (cow plushie/print/jewellery fetish. don't ask) but I don't know anything about HER. The only thing that came close was when we were talking about our respective personalities and she mentioned she was envious of my quiet nature and that she was too outspoken. Envious? Of me? If anything, I should be the one who was envious, of her outgoing and funloving nature of her ability to strike up conversations with complete strangers.... She then said that because I was quiet, people took note of what I said when I did speak. Erm. Well, that's never happened before, but it's a nice thought to have about ones self, isn't it? I'm not sure if she was saying what she did as a genuine want, or as a ways of complimenting me in return for all my compliments to her. I swear, I have never complimented someone as much as I did her in that one and a half weeks. A lot of it was backhanded stuff with some kind of sly remark at the end, such as "Don't let your head grow TOO big" et al, but they were all genuine and honest. I was such a bleeding try-hard. I'm pretty sure she noticed, but was too polite to tell me that I had no chance whatsoever in a million years. At least, not the way I am now. I guess I'll have to consult my notes on her "How to be a perfect boyfriend" lectures....
You know, I'm noticing a lot of strange parallels in stuff I'm reading/watching/hearing as compared to my real life situation as of the present moment. This is not the first time this has happened, neither. I mean, first of all, I have this song by Vertical Horizon stuck in my head. The one with the chorus that goes: "He's everything you want, he's everything you need, he's everything inside of you that you wish you could be. He says all the right things, at exactly the right time, but he means nothing to you and you don't know why...." which is the one of the most ego-driven, misogynistic and yet horrifically catchy songs I've ever heard. I heard this while on one of the bus trips around South Australia we were subjected to (and "subjected to" is the right way to describe that particular day I heard that song.... We were out and about the sights in 40 DEGREE CELSIUS WEATHER. Walking in the sun was like walking around in a pre-heated oven. But we did go on a horse drawn tram which moved along a bridge so low that it looked like the tram was floating on water, much like a particular scene from Spirited Away. I'm getting sidetracked here.). And then a couple of days after Tammi left for Singapore, I read a movie review that made my eyebrows quirk a little at the similarity of my current situation. But what really took the cake was a strip from Something Positive that I read today, where one of the characters says exactly what I think I would say if I feel what I think I feel for Tammi and think that it would be best if I didn't feel that way, instead. I think. And no, it's not the guy with the male stripper wrapped around his waist, goddamnit!
.... Well, I'm feeling better after typing all that out. Helps me to write and read it instead of having it constantly stuck in my mind, burning like liquid fire. Now it can burn like liquid fire on the internet for all to see instead. I wonder if I'm not doing something terrible here. I doubt I'll ever bring this subject up again now that I've flushed it out. It's like a one of episode in a long running series that's of vague importance, but nobody remembers the events by the next one. I'm good at forgetting stronge-willed desires like this.
Oh, one final thing: Happy birthday to me. Technically yesterday, but since I'm awake, I'm going to bend the rules a little. Everything that I want to say about my birthday this year has already been said about for last year. About the best thing that happened today was that I slept half of it away. I decided to go out for a walk as well, which was a bad mistake in the middle of the CBD shopping centre, even in a city as quiet as Adelaide. Too many people doing Christmas shopping. Too much Christmas. I despise Christmas. It's one of those holidays, along with Valentines Day, that's been implicitly designed to make lonely people feel even lonelier. Bah. Tammi remembered my birthday though. That was a real surprise. She even sent me a card that arrived on the day before. She even actually wrote a long message/short letter inside the card as well, instead of just putting "to, [Friends Name]. from, [Your Name]". That was nice, I thought. On second thought, that's probably the best thing that happened on my birthday. Well, it didn't happen ON my birthday, since my birthday was on a Sunday and the post doesn't get delivered on Sundays, but it was MEANT for my birthday so.... Yeah. I guess that was it. I don't why I bother to get depressed when nothing good happens on my birthday.... I mean, I'm kinda expected it to happen nowadays, but I get depressed anyway. Bah. Anyway, 2AM in the morning here after spending about a couple of hours hammering away at this entry. See you all later, hopefully after all this Christmas hullaboo is over.
