The World of Stuff .com

Things revisited

To the untrained eye, things may seem to have quieted down between me and the girl with whom I’ve been kind of been infatuated sort of since the beginning of 9th grade. I last mentioned Her ten days ago, and my friends have suggested that I take action instead of let Her reject me. So I put my thoughts together the only way I knew how: with words and music.

A week ago I wrote a long letter explaining what I’ve always thought about Her — that She’s a really nice person, someone I’d like to get to know better. Included with the letter was a CD. The first track was a February 2004 recording of a song I had recently wrote for Her. The second track was an August 2005 recording of the same song from my band’s last gig. (I invited Her to go, but She didn’t show up.)

I immediately regretted it. It seemed like such a stupid, foolish, inane, asinine, dumb, and quite lame idea. I regretted it when I wrote it out on three sheets of paper, careful not to make a mistake. I regretted it when I burned the CD. I regretted it when I tied the letter to the jewel case with a rubber band. I regretted it when I saw the curious, quizzical look on Her face when I handed it to Her passing by on Tuesday.

I’m afraid I don’t like Her as much as I thought. She’s nice (there’s no doubt about that) and She’s good looking (also undeniable), but I don’t feel the same way around Her. Maybe it’s that I now actually talk to Her with the intention of getting together — what I’ve pretty much always wanted. I don’t know if that makes sense, but maybe right now I’m afraid of Her, or rather, what She’ll say. I really do want to love Her. I can’t see me loving nobody but Her for all my life. So, as you can imagine, this is bothering me. Has anyone else ever felt this way? If so, what happened?

Yesterday I talked to Aaron, my friend Michelle’s boyfriend. I mentioned the letter and that I hadn’t received a reply. He told me to be direct about it. So today I asked Her, “What did you think of the letter?” She told me that She was going to write me back. (She didn’t have time to say much else; the only time we really get to speak to each other is when we’re passing by in a crowded hallway.)

So it’s all down to Her reply, whenever it comes. It seems most likely that She’ll reject me, and that I won’t feel as bad as I might have if I were more smitten at the moment. There’s always a chance that She’ll somehow give in to my pleading, and I guess that would make me happy. I’m sort of in the middle right now, and I guess that’s a good thing. But if She’s going to take me up on my offer, I want to be sure that I like Her as much as I once did. I hope that if I do get a chance with Her, it’ll make me tremendously happy and I’ll fall in love with Her all over again.

I think it will. I remember that other time I almost had a date. While I still thought it was going to happen, I felt indescribably happy. And in this case, I’d have to be at least as happy.

Some months ago I wrote about Skype, the free Internet telephony service. (I love that word. Telephony.) Now Skype 2.0 has been released, and it supports video. As it happens, I have an old webcam that I’ve never really gotten to use to its full potential. Well, now I can use it. Awesome, man. Awesome. Did I mention that Skype is available for Windows 2000/XP, Pocket PC, Mac OS X, and Linux; that PC-to-PC calls are free; that the sound quality is crystal-clear; and that up to five people can talk in a conference at once?

Although Skype is awesome, it’s useless if you have no one to talk to, and, well, I have no one to talk to. For a while I left my status on “Skype Me” and got a lot of weird calls, mainly from people who didn’t speak English very well. My friend Gilbert downloaded Skype one time, and we were carrying on a pretty good conversation (although his connection appeared to be slowing things down). Do any of you readers have Skype? I’ve added a link to the sidebar for you to call me. For the record, my Skype name is fanofthefabfour.

And of course, if you don’t have Skype, download it now at Skype.com.

Leave it to Wikipedia to have an article on home cheesemaking. Directions included!

Here are some Monopoly home rules that really seem to spice the game up. I’ll have to try them out with Kevin and my sister. We’ve been playing Monopoly quite a bit lately.

One year ago: “She apologized, I guess, and, with her oxygen tanks and team of Sherpas, proceeded to hike toward the running board of her tank, which had actually started to pull small dogs into its orbit.”
Two years ago: “Tonight I’m going to see the much-hyped film The Passion of the Christ.”