Tuesday Afternoon

Last Friday I talked about my one step above complete failure encounter with some new people I met at the sweet corn festival. In particular I became better acquainted with a girl I see all the time at various Church activities but had never actually had an occasion to talk to. The next day I ran into her again. This time it was at the freshmen retreat. Remember I volunteered to both drive them to and from the retreat. It turns out, she did to. I noticed that she said 'Hi' first, although we saw each other at the same time so it wasn't like she went out of her way or anything, but by acting like a highschooler I can read into these things all I want. We didn't talk though. On the spot like that with nerves running high I couldn't come up with anything to talk about so instead I ended up talking to another friend of mine, Sandy (in case Sarge is reading, she is still around doing an internship).

In addition to the freshmen retreat, I also had signed up to give a talk for a highschool freshmen retreat here in town. Five of us were asked to e-mail the Priest who is putting it on if we felt like participating. When I got an e-mail of confirmation from him, I saw that she was also in the e-mail list. Wow. Maybe the planets are aligning here. The next day, I went to Mass and again I saw her there. Although, I sort of planned that one knowing she was going to be there, but the benefit was that this time I had something to talk to her about. I wanted to ask her about the retreat, because I hadn't done it before and was curious if she had and what it was like. So we talked for a few minutes after Mass and that was nice. Then on Tuesday we had our first meeting for the retreat. The five of us who volunteered were to meet the Priest at Panera Bread to have our initial get-to-know-you meeting and figure out who was going to be doing what. We met up at the campus Church and then walked over from there. On the way I got to talk with her quite a bit. Again, this was great. Amazing, no major fiascos yet. Clearly someone up above is looking out for me.

At Panera Bread, we started by going through the formalities. The Priest told us that "the retreat is going to be held on Thursday, Sept 17th from 8 - 2." "Wait, what was that date?" "Sept. 17th." "No one told me that." "What, you weren't told at the announcement? I specifically gave that information." "No, this is all news to me, and I'm going to be out of town." Oh yes, someone up above certainly has a sense of humor. I can't do the retreat with the girl. The Priest was understanding and said I was more than welcome to help out with the Sophomore - Senior retreats being held the rest of the year, and I said I would. I stayed for the rest of the meeting, and walked back with them. And that was that. Drat.

Now you may be thinking, oh that's alright, I still have plenty of other opportunities to hang out with her and it's true that I do. However, on the way to Panera Bread she told me she is leaving at the end of the semester to go to Northwestern to finish her masters in Orthodics. Double Drat.

Still I don't perturb easily. Hopefully this story is not over yet.

Now in other news, I have decided to cancel my internet subscription, and most likely the online dating subscription. I'm canceling the internet subscription for a number of reasons. First off I hardly use it and when I do, probably 1% of the time is for something actually productive. The rest of the time I use it for getting video game news, typing these blogs, and shopping. I also didn't like being constantly tempted to misuse it all the time. Finally canceling it will help get me out of my apartment and bring me to other places that do have it such as the library. So I'm going to try out not having it for a month and see how it goes. The reason I'm canceling my online dating subscription is because I tried it for about 6 months to no avail, and it wasn't like I didn't try. Anyway, this post is being done at the library and already I've got a story. Sitting at the computer right in front of me is a bald, middle-aged man wearing a lady's pink dress and 5 year old girl pink sunglasses.