Nasty, not in me!Wed, 8 Feb 2006 (18.23pm).6.45 Woke up. I didn't exercise today (1. Still feeling tender and 2. You need to let the body build. I intend exercising tomorrow). I left house at 8.30ish. I cycled fairly hard until halfway and then cruised with music. I got in for 8.50 and they let me park my bike in the building. Apparently people armed with bolt cutters had stolen bikes chained to the fence in the past. So tomorrow I may well take my speed bike in.
Lisa arrived around 9.10am. I said Hi, went back to listening to my music, but then she said something. So I took my headphones off and listened.
She had been walking enjoying the scenery when suddenly she heard a "whooooooaaaa" from behind her. Apparently a cyclist whose attention had wandered had turned back just in time to avoid piling into Lisa. He came very close to hitting her from behind.
She said, "I thought it’s YOU."
I replied, "Don’t mess with my gods girl. They are might powerful!" She chuckled.
In terms of omens this makes 2 (the first being her listening to a tune that described our situation - at a random moment of her choosing).She sat next to me intending to work on PowerPoint. I carried on listening to my music (black eye peas - elephunk). She said something, I took off my headphones. She said, "This is just a manual, no exercises?"
I said, "Oh, I’ll see what I can do."
She said, "Don’t worry."
But for all my resolve to be nasty, or at least set up some distance between us, I could not! I talked her through looking in the help file for "Tour" and "Tutorial". We found nothing. So eventually I had to locate an exercise and associated files. I gave these to her to get on with. Then we worked on without much interaction. Towards break-time I got bored and had some water and took the opportunity to show the other girl in the class me doing the splits.
10.30am: I headed to the canteen alone. She came soon after and sat on my side (the op seat being taken by a male teammate). I asked Lisa how the PowerPoint was going and she replied OK. Luckily our male teammate was able to bring up topics which we could all participate in. He asked what I was playing. I told him Black Eyed Peas -Elephunk.
10.45 The male supervisor came over and wanted a pamphlet typed in. I didn’t want to do it. The supervisor said well someone else could do it.
I turned to Lisa and said, "Wanna do something different?"
The supervisor talked a little about what he wanted. Lisa volunteered.
I leaned over and said, "sucker", with a smile. She smiled.
I offered her advice (i.e. type in all the text and worry about formatting after it is done). The advice went unheeded :). She did ask me how to generate weird fonts. I heard a song on the radio, a classic dance track and mentioned to her.
She said, "You dance?"
I told her, "I’m a dance master"
I did let on I’d not been dancing since I got back to this town.
She said, "where were you?" I thought I’d told her before. I told her anyway.
She said, "how long you been back." I told her 2 years.
She seem shocked," You haven’t been out for 2 years!"
I nodded.
She then said, "I would never come back to live in this town, maybe visit".
As classic tracks came on my mp3player I shared them with Lisa.
In fact when it came to lunchtime I had to wait for her to take off the headphones.
As usual I went to the canteen. She never came in. I finished my lunch in 15minutes -
Man did I miss her during the entire lunchbreak. I was envious of whoever had her attention. I then decided to take a walk into town. It was windy, the sun shone, drops of light rain occasionally fell, though no clouds were visible directly overhead. I got back around 1.30pm. Lisa came soon after. I mentioned how windy, sunny and rainy it was outside.
And then followed a poignant moment as we both said "and there were no clouds" :). I class this as the 3rd Omen of Hope :) . I hope the FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE.
She carried on with the pamphlet and towards the break was getting tired of it. I worked on my project without music.
2.30pm: Breaktime. We talked and had a friendly argument - I really love those arguments :). She brought in some sweets and shared (it was a big bag and extra sweet).
After break I offered to finish the pamphlet and she, looking very tired, decided to do an online job application.
At one point I turned around (cos MSWORD crashed as I tried to turn text upside-down) to see the word "CONFIDENTIAL" on the form she was working on. I sensed her sudden concern of me seeing something she did not want me to see. It saddened me. I turned back round to face my PC. You feel one minute as if you are moving closer only to find it was an illusion and you are still far apart.
She received a phone call on her mobile. Soon after she rushed out (maybe to the loo, but more likely to give something to someone outside, or maybe to return the call in private). My jealous mind thought many such scenarios.
4pm. I left, collected my bike from the room, and at the fence I had a quick look for Lisa. Having failed I started to pump my bike (it currently has a slow puncture). Just as I finished Lisa came out. We had a pleasant chat by the fence. She hung around so I thought she was going to be picked up. I asked her what she was up to tonight. She was going to meet her goddaughter and mother. She briefly delved into her mobile phone "looking for something she said" - that mobile occupies so much of her life.
I then apologised to her for having been "nasty" the last couple of days.
I said, "I know I can’t make you have feelings for me, but, I can’t make my feelings for you go away. I was trying to place some distance between us. But I can’t be nasty, it’s not me."
She said, "If I wanted distance, she would understand and that she thought she had done something to annoy me and she’d found it irritating".
I said, "No and that as a matter of fact she had done something to annoy me" with a smile.
She smiled at that.
As we were heading in the same direction we walked together. For the first time I felt she was being herself with me. More accurately I had gone past her first shell. She admitted she did not know what she wanted to do with her life. She did not intend heading back to Portugal until she was real old.
We parted near a bridge. Though in hindsight I could have walked further with her and she actually wanted me to - I kinda sensed. (but I always see the possibilities after the event).
So finally I feel less guilty, still sad, perhaps more resolved with the situation. She also said there was a picture of her boyfriend with her goddaughter on her webphotos. I still can’t fix on one photo and be certain "This is the boyfriend".
(Recording ends 20:24)
Cancer Tuesday 
