Tales of the Abyss
If there’s anyone around here who knows how to (unintentionally) start his own batch of drama, man that’d have to be this sorry, pathetic mother fucker right here. I swear to God, I just know how to stir it up. Anyway…
So, after the events of last time, things got really calmed down a few nights later. Shera and I had a really long talk on Monday night (about three and a half hours, to be precise) and settled a lot of the shit between us. Didn’t fix it, necessarily, but settled some things down. I’ll put it this way…..we’d fought for pretty much a week straight before that, but we haven’t fought at all since. Not even when we should’ve (but I’ll get to that). The contents of said conversation was pretty much me realizing that anything that pissed me off about Shera’s behavior at the party could’ve very, very easily been prevented by my just being more involved in her night, instead of just standing in the background like a disapproving parent. So, pretty much, I brought it on myself. It doesn’t excuse anything that happened from either direction, but it explained it. I also realized that I’d been treating her pretty poorly (and this is the stuff that no one close to my side of things will get because it’s stuff I may edit out because it makes me look bad…..as people are wont to do). I viewed everything she said with skepticism. I always looked for the ulterior motive in everything she was saying or doing, and it was driving me nuts. And I, in turn, was helping to drive her nuts. So, since then, I’ve done a much better job of turning that part of my brain off and just trying to be better to her. She doesn’t need bullshit from me. She gets enough of that from Augie. God, does she ever.
She may not want me to write about some of the following (yes, she knows where my lime green and black corner of the internets lives……my own fault for looking at it in front of her a few times, then inviting her to read my last entry for herself after she got really pissed off at things being said about her), but I’m gonna write it anyway. It’s an important piece of the puzzle right now.
Friday night, Augie had a party at his house. For some fucking retarded reason, he thought it would be a genius idea to invite not only me, but also Shera. Seriously now….what kind of idiot do you have to be to think this would be a good idea? She’s currently stuck between the two of us (as she has been all along). Granted, Augie had (well, still has) no idea what kind of relationship Shera and I have. She’s sheltered him from it to save herself tons upon tons of grief. So, to him, it wasn’t the horrendously bad idea everyone else knew it to be. Well, first he got pissed that she wasn’t going to go. Then he got pissed because neither she or I were going to go (though we had no plans together….because that’s irrelevant in his mind….always is). So I decided it would be best for her if I went and put in a token guest appearance. No problem, right? Oh, so very wrong. After about an hour, Augie takes me outside and launches into it. He wants to know how far the relationship between Shera and I has gone (I lie about it, of course). He wants to know if he should give up on her (I play it diplomatically, of course, and say "part of me says yes, but part of me says no"). He wants me to know he’ll never hate me, no matter what (I tell him he probably should….which he should….I know I would if the roles were reversed). Then he asked me, point blank, "Do you want to be with her?" To which, of course, I said, "Well, yeah." So he said he would just get out of the way and let it happen. Except there’s one problem. Shera’s still in love with Augie. She’s tried so hard to let him go, but she just hasn’t been able to yet. There’s a part of her that still wants to go back to Augie (of course, there’s also part of her that knows she never could go back, no matter how much she may love him). So she refused his offer to step aside. Well, that just set Augie off. At one point, he called me outside again to listen in on the conversation he was having with Shera. He was trying to get her to admit to him that she loved him, and felt nothing for me. She refused (thus making me smile, of course). She said she’d admit it to him one day when he and I weren’t in the same place (thus securing the status quo…..the girl ain’t stupid…..she figured she was on speakerphone, and she figured I was listening….as she told me later). So I go back in and they proceed to fight for a long while. Then she calls me with a stern tone in her voice, because she was convinced I’d given him every bit of information about Shera and I’s relationship…….which, of course, I hadn’t. I talked to her on my way home, and she was mad, but not nearly as much as she had been before. She mostly upset at what all Augie had been saying. He’d been calling her all kinds of names. Just pretty much trying as hard as he could to ruin her already beyond fragile self-esteem.
Fast forward to last night (that being Saturday). After Shera got off work, she called me and was already in tears. Big time. Sobbing the likes of which I hadn’t heard from her in a couple of months. She’d had another bout of fighting with Augie before she’d called me, and it had depressed her to the breaking point. The, "I just want to run my goddamn car off the mother fucking road," level. Needless to say, I spent a part of my night trying to convince her life was worth living, and that there was no easy solution. Eventually, though, she calmed herself down and fell asleep on the phone……..which was the weight of the world off my shoulders.
Today, we’ve spoken very briefly. I know she doesn’t much care to talk to anyone of the male species today, so I’ve let her be. She called me once on her way over to a friend’s house because they were going to a haunted house, and she sounded a little better. I was just glad she was going somewhere in an attempt to have a good time. It was all I could ask.
Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox: "Till You Feel Something" by Dropping Daylight, "Waking Up" by 10 Years, and "Quote" by Evans Blue
Wednesday evening after work, I went and picked up my (already paid for) copy of Tales of the Abyss, the latest in the fantasmagoric Namco RPG series. I’m roughly fourteen hours into it, and I must say, I’m very, very pleased so far (except for my lack of a strategy guide….but that can wait for the second go ’round….I just want it for all the subquests). The battle system is top-notch, sitting right along side Tales of Symphonia’s as the second best out there (behind Star Ocean 3). The story thus far is also quite good, if not a little on the predictable side. There have been the requisite twists and turns that make all the Tales</span> games worth playing through, and there are surely many more to come. The characters all have their own unique bits and pieces, too. So I really can’t say much of anything bad about it so far. Like I said….just a little predictable. Then again, I guess it’s like with movies……you play/see enough of ’em, you start knowing what’s coming. Or maybe it’s just that some of the hints have been very heavy handed. I dunno. Either way, though, this game is flying up the ranks as a top-tier RPG.
I’ve fallen into the habit lately of falling asleep on the couch for no apparant reason. Practically every night this week, and absolutely every single weekend night for a few weeks now. I don’t know what it is. I almost think it’s connected to Shera’s mood. Friday night, when I knew she was upset at me, for instance, I fell asleep on the couch in a very tight fetal position. Whatever the cause, I seem to inevitably wake myself up between 4-6 AM every time. This morning, it was about 6:30 AM when I woke up and crawled into real bed……only to sleep until half past noon. But, hey……the afternoon brought good news in the form of the Titans winning for the first time all season, 25-22 over Washington. Not only that, but Colorado beat Texas Tech for their first win of the season on Saturday. And, come to think of it, the Nashville Predators beat Phoenix for their first win of the year last night, too. Damn, what a weekend for me sports teams. At least someone came out on the best end of it.
As for me? I’m just in the support role for right now. Hey, maybe at least this way, I can refrain from pissing off what few friends I have left. Then again…….this is ME we’re talking about here. I can do anything so long as I set my mind to doing the opposite. It’s the Dave way.
Sayonara.