Monday, Aug. 08, 2005 11:06 am

Friends be gone

I'm wondering how you get rid of friends? or "friends"? It's questions like these that make me reluctant to make new friends and help keep that wall up around myself. Right now there are two that I'd like to reduce my contact with. I guess I shouldn't fret over it, I have reduced contact a lot already.

One is DD's cousin. I admit I probably was nice to her in the first place and became her friend for ulterior motives... because she was DD's cousin and that put me slightly more in his inner circle (like I needed that). She has spent the night at the house a couple of times and that first time was enough to let me know we operated in two different worlds. That time, she went to breakfast with me and Kitty (already planned) and dominated the whole morning's conversation with stories about her three children, whom we had never met and couldn't have cared less about.

Since then I have seen her just briefly at DD gigs, but she just talks and talks. I wrote when she called to tell me all about hitting a bicyclist with her SUV... information that I thought was awfully weird to share with a casual long-distance friend.

Yesterday I saw her at this big concert we did. She and her husband have now almost officially separated so she had to tell me all about that and the new man in her life and her new lower back tattoo. This woman is pretty large and working to get thinner. She's doing a good job at it, too, but I think I would have waiting until my body caught up to my image before I got a tattoo. This one may droop before the year is up.

I guess I don't have "to get rid of" her since I see her so seldom to begin with. I'll see her again in a couple of weeks when he plays our show, so we'll see how that goes.

Speaking of DD, I think I'm getting over my crush on him. He just didn't do it for me yesterday and I don't quite know why. Maybe it just ran its course.

The other friend to reduce my contact with is a listener that I befriended because he is from my hometown. I've even had dinner with him and his wife "to be nice." I think I'm going to quit being nice. Of course, that is supposed to be part of my job. I guess dinner doesn't have to be. And I can't be responsible for their feelings (oh, yeah, isn't that what I'm in therapy for??). He has reduced some of his contact,so I may be in the clear, but he emailed today with pictures of windmills because he has this idea that my dad LOVES windmills. He doesn't. It's just something that came up in conversation with him once and he grabbed on to it. This guy also freaked out my sister a LOT when he was at a band competition thing down here because his son is a band director somewhere and he recognized my nephews from pictures he's seen and he went up to meet them. He is harmless. He is a nice person. But other than our hometown, we don't have much in common.

So ... otherwise .... how was my weekend? Incredibly busy and hot. Saturday I had two remotes and on the second one, the poor girl intern I was working with tore up the roof of the station van. She drove it under a church portico and it ripped the broadcast tower back and opened up the top of the van like a can opener. Poor child. She was so upset and shook over it (understandably!). But we couldn't send her home and we had a job to do, so she soldiered on. I assured her that she would not lose her job. Our good promo director even came out there to reassure her, which was very nice.

Yesterday we had the big benefit concert by the lake for the memorial fund of our friend that died in May. His wife is still facing tons of medical bills and funeral expenses and this will help her. Lots of good music and goodwill. I did the introductions. I left in the evening as it was winding down. It wasn't too hot out there, fortunately. The clouds kept it un-miserable (it was still quite warm), but it also never rained. I saw a million people I know. It becomes frightening how many people I know and how many know ME. I have to be so careful, too. I was standing in a corner away from the crowd when two couples came and stood in front of me. I was a little irritated and considered leaving that place. Then one of the women started talking to me and telling me how much she loves our music series and our station. I was glad I hadn't stomped off or been rude. See why I am in therapy? I DO have to care about people's feelings every minute of my day.

I did hear a funny story that made me smug on Saturday. My engineer for the remotes was a handsome Mexican with a beautiful accent. He was so nice and so smart. Really working below his level of education. He had said before he had come to the remote he had gone into our station's studio to introduce himself and say he was going to be doing this remote. Trouble was, the jock on the air was mr. Grumpy, our midday guy. He is the least friendly person EVER. The engineer comes in to introduce himself and Mr. G waves him away and says, I won't be here, don't even bother. My guy beat a path out of there and was laughing about with me. I told him to minimize all contact with that guy... that's the only way to do it.

My family reunion is this week and there is so much to be done before Saturday morning. I really want to go to a show Friday night, but I can already feel myself backing off from it. He is only in town once in a blue moon, but Mark can't go with me so I'd be alone. I probably will stay home and pack the car for reunion. I hate to miss it though! Decisions decisions.

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Book Club - Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014
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