Oh violence, bittersweet

I have much to share my friends and family members. And at the present time, my sense of the dramatic has overwhelmed my typing phalanges and thus this may be a most interesting post.

That may have been it as far as dramatic sentences go, it seems I've lost that particular motivation.

However, I do have much to relate.

I'll start with Wednesday, because I don't think much happened on Tuesday.

Wednesday we were supposed to have our last kickball game - a make up from the first game I attended at which the umpire failed to show up. Unfortunately we didn't get to play because this time it was the other team that failed to show up. We sat around for awhile and then the majority of us went to the 5-8 Club to eat burgers and drink beer (or water in my case). It was fun, pleasantly social, but alas it had to end. And thus I bid adieu and farewell to my summer kickball team!

I did sign up for (and pay for) fall kickball though, so I will be seeing some of them again!

On Thursday I did nothing, except mildly attempt to tidy up my room. It's been getting messier of late...

Friday, immediately after work, I "ran into" Tom. It was intentional in order to see if he was planning on going to the Cardinal on Saturday (this Saturday being another karaoke night). He assured me at the time that he had other plans and would not be attending. So I rode my bike home in a decently happy mood.

Friday night was quite exciting. I drove up to Amanda's house and then she, her boyfriend Jeremy, her friend Amy, and I all went to Crystal-frolics - some fair type thing in Crystal, MN. We drank a little, wandered a little, and played bingo a lot! Amanda, Jeremy, and I all ended up winning at different points in the night! I won a whopping $35, which was pretty awesome! In the middle of bingo there were some (I think awesome) fireworks. They were mostly awesome because they were literally RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. I actually took some video of it on my phone - if I can figure out how to I'll try to add it in here. Okay the video isn't working but here's a pic I took from my phone:

So that was Friday, it was actually more fun and exciting than it may sound. I got up early again on Saturday - 7:30 am, and drove back to Colvill Park in Red Wing to meet dad again for fishing. This time I was on time! Well just a couple minutes late... Went out, anchored, and started fishing. And almost immediately started catching! I actually lost track of how many fish we each caught, and we got up to around 7 different species of fish! We ended up keeping one nice sized walleye and had a pretty good day.

After I got home and napped and showered I received a text message from a friend informing me that Tom and Jen would in fact be going to the Cardinal. So I called Tom, intending to find out why and if it were true. Of course he didn't pick up so I proceeded to text him. And that's when the trouble started, little did I know at the time. Tom told me that he was coming out because the friend in question wanted to go out to a strip club afterwards. I thought that was a random thing to say, especially considering it made no sense at all, and so texted the friend to clarify. It was halfway confirmed and I attempted to let that part of it drop while expressing my unhappiness to Tom that he was coming, even after assuring me he wouldn't be. (I was just upset because I like going to the Cardinal, had no other potential plans for Saturday night, and still cannot handle seeing Tom and Jen together). I was then informed that they would be coming late (around midnight) if at all.

So I drove over to the VA, parked my car, and took the light rail up to the Cardinal where I watched the same 3 people sing over and over again. It was incredibly dead. Facing the possible arrival of the guy I was still in love with and his mommy-aged girlfriend, plus the fact that I intentionally took the light rail, I proceeded to get a wee bit (okay a bit more than wee bit) drunk. Because it was so dead, and in my intoxicated state I was feeling pretty good, I actually texted Tom and told him he should come out. But then later, when friend from before went to the bathroom, I did a bad thing. I looked at his phone, and the texts between him and Tom. And there I saw it. Tom telling him that he was making up some shit to tell me about a strip club, and to "just play along." Anger. Overwhelming, unbridled anger overcame me. Tom lied to me, intentionally, for no reason other than to manipulate me, and even got our friend to do the same. I don't think I've ever felt such betrayal, hurt, and uncontrollable rage before in my entire life. It wasn't even the subject of the lie, it was the fact that it was there, blatantly staring me in the face. And what had I done to deserve it? What else has he lied about? All the things rushing through my brain, one of the conclusions I reached was that he must have cheated on me before dumping me. Perhaps not the most rational of conclusions, but I was not thinking rationally at the time. I texted Tom immediately, calling him out on the lie and asking why. No response of course.

When friend came out of the bathroom, he saw my angry face and asked what was wrong. I confessed immediately, apologizing for invading his privacy so badly but then still fuming in anger at Tom. At which point friend leaned over to me and said "Tom and Jen are here."

I couldn't believe it.

I stood up in a blind rage, walked around Jen and looked at Tom. Things happened in slow motion. What struck me for a split second was that he was wearing the silly black hat that he wore the first time I saw him outside of work, on Halloween night at McMahon's. He was wearing a white, similar-looking shirt as well (possibly the same). That was all in the back of my mind though, to be processed later. So I walked around Jen, and Tom held his arms out smiling, not sure what he was trying to communicate, but I walked up to him and slapped his face with all my strength.

Yep.

I slapped the fucker (pardon my French).

I remember seeing his face turn to the side post-slap and then me using my momentum to carry me on to the women's restroom. Where I proceeded to find a stall and cry my eyes out for the next 15 minutes.

I came out eventually and ran into friend. I informed him that I slapped Tom, to which he replied "I know, I saw." Which pretty much told me that probably everyone saw.

I was so incredibly embarrassed. I grabbed my coat and walked out to the train station. Where I discovered that I had just missed a train and would have to wait another 45 minutes for the next one.

So I hung around outside for awhile, still in shock, but eventually went back in and told friend the deal and he offered me a ride home after he was done running karaoke.

I sat there, shaking and crying, and then saw Jen walk back in. I thought she and Tom had left but nope. This meant at least that Tom was outside without Jen, so my drunken self took that opportunity to go apologize to Tom. Which was horrible because he was sitting out there with one of his military friends who refused to leave when I said I needed a private word with Tom. She was so mean, I don't care if she saw what I did I was obviously crying and obviously needed to talk to him about it and not in front of an audience. But she didn't leave and even later after I was shaking and balling in front of them she offered to leave and Tom told her to stay.

He has no respect for me. I don't understand what I've done to deserve this sort of treatment from him. Even after I apologized for slapping him he still never stopped smiling or showed any sort of remorse for lying to me.

It was pretty much horrible.

But I got a ride home eventually.

Sunday I slept in a bit. Unfortunately I had a lunch date at Noodles and so I had to get up at around noon. Went and had some decent mac and cheese, and then came back and slept some more. Spent the rest of the day watching Gilmore Girls (which I've been doing a lot of lately) and being generally lazy (which, let's face it, I always do a lot of).

Monday - slow lazy day at work. Monday night - watched Stardust (excellent as always) with a friend.

Today (Tuesday) - another slow lazy day at work. Tonight - went out and saw Despicable Me with another friend. It was alright - enjoyable but not the amazing movie I was expecting.

I really want to see Inception but am finding it difficult to find someone who wants to see it and hasn't already.

My rat babies are doing well, they're as cute and curious as ever. Evaine gets bolder everytime I let her out and Luna is still pretty mild, generally staying on my shoulder.

Listening to Muse a lot - I seriously can't get sick of listening to them. It's really making me want to go to a concert, and they're actually coming to Minneapolis at the beginning of October. Now I just need to find someone to go with...

I've also made some more semi-definite plans about Colorado with Hannah. We're going to Denver, Glenwood Springs, Estes Park, and Fort Collins for sure with a zoo trip and a white water rafting/cave tour as well. There will be some exploring of Rocky Mountain National Park and we're also planning on driving back through South Dakota (along with a million bikers - it's Sturgis week!).

Now I really need to get to bed. I wasn't sure if I should actually admit to what I did on Saturday night, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

On one hand, he deserved it, he's deserved it from me for awhile now, for a variety of reasons. But on the other hand, I never really like to think of myself as a violent person, the ex who slaps. Not to mention it wasn't the time or the place or even the right motivation for it.

But the incident has decreased my emotional attachment to Tom. Not erased, just decreased, but hey it's a start.