screening (yes, multiple meanings implied)

even though i don’t really want to drive the belair now, it was raining thursday morning and the belair was in the driveway closest to the street, so i took it to work. it is continuing to make some odd sounds, but it hasn’t fallen apart. after work i went by petco (the one where i totaled my vtx motorcycle), then i headed over to whole foods. as i was walking into the store, i saw what appeared to be julia (the hrc) walking out with some guy i’d never seen before. i didn’t see her dead on, just a profile, so i wasn’t sure — so i turned around and walked back to my car. if it wasn’t her, which it might not have been, this girl was a shocking replica. she looked like her (hair, face, body), she walked like her, she even had a big red leather purse, although not the same one julia used to carry. they got in a car he was driving, which was parked going in the opposite direction of where my car was. i started walking back to the store, but the guy ended up looping around the lot so he drove right beside me. and then stopped for another car. so at that point i walked right by her. she had looked straight forward the whole time, until i was walking right beside her. when she finally turned and looked at me, she registered no response. (as in, usually you can tell recognition in someone’s face — postive, negative, whatever.) i’m still not sure it was her. the whole thing ended up feeling sort of like that odd/awkward scene early in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind where patrick (elijah wood) walks up to joel (jim carrey) and taps the window on his car. joel rolls the window down and:
joel: yes?
patrick: can I help you?
joel: what do you mean?
patrick: can I help you with something?
joel: no.
patrick: what are you doing here?
joel: i’m not really sure what you’re asking.
patrick: oh, thanks…
(if you’ve seen the movie, you can probably see the similarities of awkwardness. although i didn’t actually talk to this person. and i’m not really comfortable with me being identified as patrick, since he was sort of slimy. although perhaps in this situation it’s more appropriate than i’d care for it to be.)
whether it was really the hrc or not, what i can say from the experience is that i’m obviously still not done with my emotions over her — which isn’t surprising given my tendency to forge strong bonds with romantic interests and have them not go away very easily or quickly at all. my adrenalin was pumping, my heart was racing, my hands were starting to shake some. it’s really kind of stupid of me. perhaps it’d be nice to be able to slash through emotional bonds like lots of other people seem to be able to do.
i went home, then drove to jack’s to try and knock out the back of the techbytes 15th anniversary party t-shirts. unfortunately, jack was waiting in line for an iphone 4. so i went and ate, then came back to his house. he still wasn’t back, so i went ahead and started getting stuff ready. it took awhile to get everything set up, and doing the back was slower and more complex than the front was. so i gave up around 4am, having completed about half of the shirts.
friday morning i managed to wake up a little after 9am and go into work (neither of which i was confident was going to happen after my late night). friday evening i went back over to the potts’ and continued working on the techbytes 15th anniversary party shirts. this time i managed to get them knocked out before i left (around 3am). jack moved some speakers into the garage where the screening machine is, so i was able to hook up my iphone and listen to music while i worked. that helped make the process more enjoyable, since without that all you hear is a large shop fan.