Catch Colds, Not Feels

(Or be like me and catch both. Your call really.)

I’ve been sick for a little over 2 weeks and it doesn’t seem to be going away. Speaking of things that aren’t going away, I’ve run into a slight predicament in the realm of romance. (And not VD you pervs… geez.) Rather that something that was never supposed to be anything other than friends hanging out has recently become slightly more than that, at least on my end.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If the person I’m talking about (and you know who you are) is currently reading this right now (although that’s doubtful, and I’m not sure if you do actually read this), please click away. I promise I won’t say anything bad or personal but I also don’t want you to be aware of the aforementioned feels I currently possess. Also, you don’t need to know the extent of my crazy (even though you probably already think you do) and I don’t want any of my nonsense and most-likely-fleeting feelings to affect our friendship. Thank you for respecting my privacy, now please go away. :)

Alright, now that we’re alone I can get back to the business of explaining my current problem. I truly believe that old age is turning me soft because I rarely get sick and I rarely have genuine human feelings of this nature.

So basically I have a friend who I’ve known for almost a decade and now that I’m back home we’ve been hanging out. It’s been really chill and fun (as hanging with your friends often is), and up until recently it’s been totally casual. (Side Note: I never know how to spell the truncated version of “casual”. Is it “cash” or “caszhe” or “caz”?? Someone please let me know in the comments.) Then a couple weeks ago, we were sitting at the bar completely “caszche” and I suddenly got an overwhelming urge to kiss him.

…Uhhh, what now?

First of all, WHAT THE HELL, ALANNA?!?! Second of all, Like come on girl, it’s HIM. Your FRIEND. The guy you once saw get so angry about losing in Pokemon Brawl that he got up and left your other friend’s house. Plus, I’m not looking for a boyfriend or anything even resembling a serious relationship. I just broke up with my boyfriend of four years and not only would that be disrespectful to him but also to the new guy. Not to mention it would be irresponsible for my own sanity and general well-being.

But the thing about feels is that they don’t care about logic or rationality. Your amygdala is just like, “Soo… I’m gonna take a nap. Sorry about your lack of good judgement, peace out fam.” Then your hypothalamus, along with its little buddy the nucleus accumbens, is all like, “Alright alright alright,” (a la Matthew McConaughey) and before you know it you’re attached to your phone in case he texts you and wondering what he looks like naked.

(Also, please don’t bust my balls if that’s not entirely correct. I’m not a neurologist and it’s been a while since I took that class.)

So all of this basically is fine, just me freaking out about having feels to begin with. Especially for someone I’ve been friends with for so long and want to remain friends if things go back to normal. The weird thing is that even though we’ve been friends for a billion years, I realized that I actually know very little about him. I mean, I know things like what sports teams he’s into and his opinions on the election and why his brand of beer is superior to mine. I know that he constantly travels on the basketball court like we don’t live in a society with rules and I know what memes will make him laugh.

But the other day, we were just talking (like humans do, ya know?) and he starts talking about his family and their quirks and stories about his parents and nephews and all that. Suddenly, I notice that I know NOTHING about his family or even his life outside of the superficiality of drunken conversations and trash-talk while playing video games. I thought back for a second and realized in the almost ten years of knowing him, he’s never once mentioned anything about his family and now he’s sitting here talking about growing up with his siblings and how their relationship has changed over the years.

“Hey, nice to finally meet you, my name’s Alanna. What’s yours again? Oh, that’s right, your name isn’t even your real name, it’s your middle name but I didn’t even know that until like 7 years down the line. Nbd, fam.”

I feel like I’m in one of those movies where after years and years the people find out their friend/spouse/family member is actually a spy or a member of the royal family (except on a waayy less significant level). Normally, I’d question my own listening skills and scold myself for being too self-involved, but this time I wasn’t just being a self-centered bitch. I talked to my one friend the other night about this whole thing and she was basically like, “Wait.. he has a family?” and I was like, “I KNOW RIGHT?!” so there ya go.

She also joked about how her and some of the guys were assessing this situation and how the guys were like, “Yeah they’re ‘chilling’ but they’re not ‘chilling’. I give it like 2 weeks at the most,” and my friend was all, “Yeah, yeah, whatever… I think this is actually happening.” (I’m directly involved and I still question whether or not I’m in a coma or perhaps have slipped into another dimension where nothing makes any sense.) My friend made a very legit observation that none of us have ever seen the guy bring any girls around.

Literally. None.

That tripped me out pretty heavily because he obviously dated and did other human things but none of us actually witnessed it. And we’ve all brought around our various dudes and hos, even if it was just some bullshit thing. Not him though. I remember seeing one girl drive up while we were playing football like 6 years ago but she didn’t even get onto the front yard. He just walked all the way over to the road and talked to her while she stood next to her car, and from 100 feet away we were all creeping like, “Ooohh shiittt, waddupp,” (and damn, even from that distance it was obvious she was hot af) but when he came back up to the field he didn’t say a single word about her, the conversation, or the situation at all. He just left us in the lurch leaving us to make up our own conclusions as well as some pretty funny jokes.

The moral of this story is that I like a guy who may or may not be the Batman.

I’m not even worried about analysis or labels or anything, it’s all in good fun and my life is going pretty great in general at the moment so in a totally uncharacteristically-“me”-type-way, I’m just enjoying having fun and chilling with a friend. (But not “chilling”, of course.)

If you read through this entire post, congratulations. You get a prize. (The satisfaction of reading 1200 words of nonsense.) I hope you’re all having a wonderful December. Merry Fuckery and Happy Lols to you all. <3 <3 <3 <3

Nightmare On North Pine Street

(Or maybe it’s “Inception”.  Either way, somebody is screwing up my dreams and I don’t know what to do about it.)

So Alessandro and I have officially decided that we’re gonna get engaged once he gets a proper engineering job and saves up enough money for a ring (please hold your excitement and congratulations for the post where we actually get engaged and I have a giant-ass diamond on my finger).  What’s bothering me though is that someone I haven’t seen or thought about in YEARS keeps showing up in my dreams like Freddy-stupid-Krueger.  Like I don’t know this person anymore, I have no idea what they’re doing with their life, I don’t even know what they look like now.

(In fact, he could actually look like Freddy Krueger.  Maybe he was in some type of fire incident that involved him killing little kids and the townspeople taking their revenge?  Or he could look perfect and handsome, exactly as I remember him but now grown up so perhaps better.  The point is I have no idea and shouldn’t even care because I am happy with the person I’m about to spend my life with SO WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME???????)

The story of this person infecting my life begins with myself at the tender age of 12, attending my first track practice of the year in early March. I actually took a year off from my little private school to see what public school was like and was only on my old school’s track team because the public school didn’t have a track team for 6th graders. I had also finally gotten out of my awkward stage, grown 5 inches, and (if I do say so myself) achieved quite the little body in six-grader standards. Plus, my bangs had finally grown out from the year before which taught me a great life lesson about never ever getting bangs ever again.

The first day of practice was freezing cold and even my heavy sweatshirt and thick sweatpants couldn’t keep out the piercing wind. I met one of my friends on the hill overlooking the track to chatter about nonsense and current 6th grade gossip when I made the unfortunate mistake of looking down onto the football field. 200 yards away (maybe, I have no ability to judge distance) I locked eyes with the single most perfect human being I had ever seen (he even put 2005-era Chad Michael Murray and Ashton Kutcher to shame). While my friend rambled on about whatever it was (I wasn’t listening), me and this demigod continued look deeply (and from far away) into each other’s eyes and I couldn’t feel the bitter cold anymore. I interrupted my friend asking, “Who is THAT?!?!” She looked down at the young man also standing with a friend and said, “That guy? Oh that’s [yeah-right-I’m-not-saying-his-name-I-know-who-reads-this-now-and-you’re-probably-all-laughing-at-me-cause-you-know-exactly-who-it-is]. He’s friends with my brother.” My very first words regarding this person was my reply: “I’m going to have his babies.”

(Sixth-grade-Alanna was quite the little minx and very brazen. She also had recently learned what sex was due to her newly-found public school education and something called “health class”, otherwise unheard of in Catholic school.)

My friend got all excited because this type of news was her oxygen and she continued to support me through the years of ups and downs from my perilous unrequited love.

Flash forward to 9th grade (since then, I’m still crushing hard and have reentered Catholic school), the first day of high school, first period Latin class: I’m wearing my “cool” new uniform and am feeling all grown up, ready to take on the world and let the real learning begin because nothing could distract me from my pursuit of higher education. I was pretty nervous so I wasn’t actually looking at anybody as the rest of the class filed in. When it came time for our teacher to assign seats, she said, “Okay, [I’m-still-not-saying-his-name]? Switch seats with Alanna, that’ll be your desk.” I didn’t think anything of the name since it’s pretty common and got up to let this person take my seat. The kid behind me gets up and our bodies touch as he passes by me in the narrow aisle and I almost faint because the boy I’ve been obsessed with for 2 years was totally within kissing distance not 5 seconds ago. My brain stopped working for what seemed like a short time but was apparently a while, and I wasn’t roused from my standing-coma until the second, “Alanna? Your seat is behind [this-is-getting-embarrassing-but-as-you-all-know-I’m-too-candid-for-my-own-good]. Isn’t that funny? You two were sitting in each other’s assigned seats totally by coincidence!” He turned around and smiled at me (fully aware of the crush I’d been harboring for him all this time) and for the rest of class, I didn’t hear a word anyone said except his, all of which made me blush to the point where my face was the same color as my hair.

This is our only picture together.  What a cute couple lolamirite?

I continued to be in love with him until November of my 11th grade year when I made the conscious decision to fall out of love with him. I changed up all the ways I walked in the halls so as not to see him between classes, I stopped going to lunch and study hall (he was in all of mine because the universe has a sick sense of humor), and I avoided all school events he was likely to attend as well as stopping going to church because our families always went to the same mass. Eventually, I stopped thinking about him and met my very first boyfriend. That year, my crush graduated and other than a couple times watching Penn State football games and a few Christmas masses, I haven’t seen him again.

Until about a month ago, that is. And not in real life either. Just whenever I go to sleep.

I’ve actually tried staying up days at a time, but when I finally fall asleep, the dreams are longer and more vivid than ever. I have no idea what’s happening but it needs to stop. It’s actually come to the point where I wake up and am surprised by Alessandro being next to me instead of him. Maybe I should re-watch the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies and see how those kids handled it. (Although I’m pretty sure they all either killed themselves or got locked up in insane asylums. If I stop blogging, you guys know where I am.)

So why is this happening?  Can somebody dig up Freud to help me?  At this point, I’d kill for a night of tossing and turning over ghosts or killers.  High school is truly to be feared…