Life in Ink and Footsteps

Some days are just boring and regular. It is so easy to feel bad about our lives, especially nowadays, with the never-ending stream of perfection on social media. It was much easier a few years ago when this whole social media bubble was just starting. I am not going to be a Debbie Downer here about the negativity of the internet—definitely not, while writing a blog and sharing it online. How much of a hypocrite would I be? No, I just wanted to mention it because I am guilty of this as well. All I have been writing about are important and exciting things. Big drama, dates, breakups, holidays, and experiences. But there were so many little moments that mattered and that barely got any shout-out in the diary entries. They were still pretty big, otherwise, they wouldn’t be there at all, unfortunately, but not compared to the last few posts. So today I want to talk about the normal moments.

For example, my university classes. Okay, ‘classes’ might be a slight overexaggeration, but as an au-pair with a J1 visa, I had to complete 6 credits at any university. I chose two weekend seminars at LIU. One was a TOEFL preparation, and the other had something to do with marketing. Unfortunately, I was not really interested in either one of them and pretty much just suffered through it, annoyed that I was missing on my time off. What was that? I could have used this time to talk to some people, make friends, enjoy the new information, etc. Yeah…

I’ve also mentioned here a couple of times that we went to the gym regularly—ish. Mostly I dragged my ass after Danish hottie S. because my weight was around 202 pounds, and I was absolutely disgusted by myself. Our French sunshine C. only came sporadically; she started dating a boy and spent a lot of time with him. To join the membership we first had to get a bank account. Which was weird. You don’t need that in either of our countries. You just walk in, pay in cash for a month, and enjoy yourself, or don’t. And once your month is done, you just pay for another one. If you ever go back there. But at least I got a credit card, and I felt very important. Until I forgot about it, didn’t refill it with money, so that it went into the minus while paying for the membership. And then I got a message saying I didn’t pay my debt, and now I have a $200 fee for a late payment. So I went to the bank and explained to the nice man that I had no idea a card could do that. My Czech card cannot go into the negative numbers; if it’s empty, the transaction gets declined and that’s it. He looked at me like I was an idiot – can’t even blame him, I felt like one. But he seemed to be sympathetic because he did some kind of magic, and I only had to pay 50 bucks. Still, what a waste of money. I might be telling the details wrong, I didn’t fully understand what was happening back then and I don’t know it now. The point is, my first experience with American banking was an interesting one.  But aside from the financial aspect, we enjoyed Planet Fitness. Mostly. They were everywhere and cheap, which was all we needed. And our chosen one had a Smoothie King right around the corner. Call that a win. In the gym worked a CutiePie J., who had a massive crush on my bestie S. She wasn’t really all that into him but tried to be kind, and I might have pushed her into not being a snob and giving him a chance. Unfortunately, their date was weird and awkward, and he got really persistent after that. Sending messages saying good morning and good evening, asking how she was, even tho he never got any replies. She even flat-out told him she was not interested. Still not getting it.

The cherry on top was when he tricked us into inviting him out with us. How? Just keep reading. S. and I planned an evening of pool in a little bar in Queens and were talking about it while entering the gym. This cutie pie saw us and rushed to talk to S. I admit I was being a sneaky bitch and left her to suffer alone while giggling to myself all the way to changing rooms. She joined me at a machine after a while, and we did our normal workout. When I was leaving, this boy caught me and casually asked where we were all meeting tonight. I was surprised; I didn’t know S. wanted him to join us, but he obviously knew about it, so I told him where and when. We chatted a bit more while I waited for S. to be done with changing. She came, gave the boy an awkward smile, and was ready to leave. He waved us goodbye and called, “See you tonight, girls!” She looked dumbfounded, and once outside, she turned to me, saying, “What did he mean, ‘see you tonight?’ Did you tell him to join us? Why on Earth would you do that??” I was perplexed by her reaction, so I explained that since he knew we were going out, I thought she had already invited him, and I only provided him with the details. She was equally confused about that because she didn’t mention it to him at all. For a moment, we just stood there trying to figure out what the hell was happening until we realized the only possibility was that he heard us talking about it when we were entering the gym. After that, he used me for the information, pretending that he knew about it from S. Weird, am I right?

So we went to play pool. We spent quite a few evenings in this spot, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes I went with Sir MagicalCarpet, or we all met up there. But this time, we had this cutie pie J. with us, and it was really awkward. Our Nordic beauty was annoyed by him and didn’t really pay him any attention. Most of the time, she played pool against Sir MagicalCarpet, who joined us that night. They were both good and highly competitive. It was entertaining just to watch them. I suck at pool, so usually, I was just cheering and commenting from the side, content with not being the center of attention. But our cutie was not having it. He tried to wedge himself everywhere, boasting about his skills until Sir MagicalCarpet kicked his booty. Then he was just sitting next to me, moody and bitchy. Kind of like a petulant child. Oh, and he was violently swiping right on Tinder. Like only to the right—he didn’t check the photos or profiles, just swiping, swiping, and swiping. When he saw my facial expression, he just said that someone has to catch on this way. I guess he wanted to provoke my friend, but it was only sad and slightly pathetic. I know I sound mean, but this had been dragging on for several weeks, he was not getting the hint, and then he snuck his way into our night out? We were no longer feeling bad for him. You would think that this would have been the last straw for him, but it wasn’t. He was still persistent. Solution: we switched the gym.

But it wasn’t so dramatic, in all honesty, during the rest of the spring and especially in summer, we didn’t have much time for gym anyway. So no big loss. But I have to say, it seems funny to me now how ridiculous I thought he was being for not understanding that the person he chose doesn’t want him. While being in a very similar situation on my own. Oh well, reflection is a bitch. Even if she arrives 8 years too late.

Here you have it, some very basic, very normal weekdays and weekends.

The choice of song seems quite obvious with this one, don’t you think?
Blue Swede – Hooked on a Feeling