wine, whine

8/21/99

I do an awful lot of whining about how much I whine. Click here if you think I whine too much.

This has been some kind of crappy day. I meant to do good things, like practice and work out and generally be productive. Hell.

For a while it was not so bad, John and I woke up late and hung around for a while. Then we went out to this wine shop where they have free wine tastings on Saturdays. John's been there before and thought it was great. Well, okay. First thing: there was no official tasting today, but the woman there knows John from before and she let us try some of the bottles she had sitting back behind the counter. Second thing: I think she had a thing for John, back when he didn't have a wedding ring. She just had that puzzled look, like, "Who is this woman, and why didn't I see that ring before?" Three: she didn't think much of me.

She was pretty opinionated on the subject of wine. That's pretty much okay, since wine people have to have strong feelings about wine in order to be able to sell wine. She wasn't any more opinionated than the wine guys we used to hang with in Ann Arbor. Probably less opinionated, really, but I'm not used to it anymore.

I tend to be pretty quiet when drinking wine with others. With John I'm not afraid to come out and say what I think, whether I taste a certain fruit or an unpleasant edge or something. When I'm in front of someone new, I don't say much, mainly because I just don't say much to new people at all. Most people assume that I quietly appreciate good wine, or at least that's what I hope they think.

That's not what this chick thought, apparently. When the conversation dwindled and John and I started looking around for a bottle or two to take home, she hovered like a crappy washing machine salesman. Then she suggested a bottle of chardonnay that I'd been looking at. Suppopsed to be a nice, oaky, mellow thing. She said these things and then added, "And I think she'd like it," tilting her head at me. She looked at me and said, "It's nice and soft. It's really easy to drink."

Excuse me, what? Chick wine? I've had guys recommend chick wine to me before, and I've always (quietly) headed for a juicy cab or a red zinfandel. But this is totally uncool. A chick thinks I like chick wine. At first I was in shock, and jus smiled and nodded until we paid for our red zin and a different chardonnay.

Then as we were driving home it hit me with full force. "Dude, that chick sucked! I should have said, 'No thanks, I really only drink white zinfandel. Don't you have any Beringer White Zin? Don't you have any Korbett Canyon? MMmmmm, that stuff is soooooo good!"

John, snorting: "Dude, stop."

me, louder and shriller: "Don't you have any wine coolers? DON'T YOU HAVE ANY BARTLES AND JAYMES???????"

John: "Dude! You're so bad!"

Betsy: "That's 'cause she wanted you. She doesn't like you anymore. No more free wine for you."

So, with our wine in the car, we decided to drive off to Macon for a swingin' good time. Then I thought gee, wouldn't it be great to take the convertible today? John says no, it's all messy. And I thought, gee, why the FUCK don't you clean it out? We'll go home, I'll do some work on the journal while you clean your damn car, and then we'll drive off to Macon. For a swingin' good time, of course.

We got in the house and John was like, oh here, dude, here, I was s'posed to give you this. He handed me a Xerox'ed sheet with the job posting for that brass band in Pittsburgh. Great, I'm saying, thanks, and I read it. One-page resume to be postmarked by August 20, 1999. Thanks, man. August 20. Today's the 21st.

That's about how long it took to sink in. I didn't mean to cry, I really didn't mean to make him feel bad, but the tears just started by themselves. I don't think I've ever made John feel worse about anything, ever, and this time I wasn't even trying. I thought he was going to cry.

So Macon was forgotten as I smacked out a copy of my resume and called the contact number, just to leave a message that my resume was on the way, express. John clanked around in the kitchen until I asked him to proofread me. Then it turned out I couldn't express on Saturday, after I called every mail place in middle Georgia. John took the phone book away from me when it seemed I was going to burst a blood vessel in my head.

We ended up playing Nintendo for most of the afternoon, then arguing about what to do for dinner and how much Warner Robins sucks. Warner Robins does suck, incidentally. I'm sick of Warner Robins and I want to go home. My parents call all normal and my brother's doing crazy things, as usual, and I'm down here with my air conditioning and my crappy job.

I haven't updated for a couple of days, mostly just posting a quick note to my mailing list before I collapse into broken slumber. My job is killing me. The job itself is not bad, not at all. The company seems corporately kind, the people in my office are sweet and they make me feel comfortable. The job itself is tedious, but I love sorting things, it's part of my compulsive nature. It's the sort of job I could love for a while.

But I don't want to. The hours are horrible. I'm so selfish...I sound so selfish. I work tuesday through Friday, 7 am to 5:30 pm. Plus a 30 minute drive on either side. When I get home, I only want to sit on the couch for a couple of hours, then go to bed. That's it. One time this week, I popped a chromium supplement for energy and I went to work out. But the rest of the time I've curled up with the remote. John squeezes into the place under my knees, and I waste my life away.

If I can't practice my euphonium, I will hate my life. I'm not fond of practicing, as anyone who reads this journal must already know. I'm in this for the performance, and the practice is a necessity that I accept grudgingly. I require massive amounts of will power to practice, and usually a bit of external motivation helps, too. I don't get that, now that I'm out of school. And the will power, well, it goes out the window when I'm on my fifth or sixth hour of filing. PB92301...PB92745...PB92084...PB92771....

Not that my cubicle has a window.

John yelled at me when I mentioned getting a job in a music store or a book store. "Retail," he droned. "Retail...." Retail was so awful, it almost forced me to do something different. I came home from Retail pissed off, ready to fight, or do anything just to get out of Retail. This job just makes me tired and apathetic. That's really what the problem is. I close off the part of me that matters when I'm in my cubicle. I feel nothing there. Nothing but quiet, Dilbert desperation.