The Storm | Sa 11/5

I'm ashamed to admit that I dreamed about being with Samantha again and getting more time with her. It was cold both in reality in my room and in the dream so we held each other a lot. Even though I knew about the situation this past week, I still held her and it still felt good. I don't know why, but I did it. Call it instinct to stay warm. Call it inner desires. Whatever it is I missed the feeling when waking up, which I wasn't proud to realize.

I've been doing a few to-do's for things like work and home, but Albert messaged me to invite me to volleyball tonight. He said it's with Sherry and Emily and that they'll play in Rockwall, but also that I can carpool with them from my nearest Costco which is cool but sort of random. I planned on working out tonight but if course I said I'll play.

While doing those tasks I put on that EDM playlist and got sent back into the hole. I don't understand how a song can say the exact words I feel inside ("Dial Your Number" before and "Rush Over Me" now). It's like when a TV host calls out the name and shirt color of someone watching and blows their mind. Many people won't get it, but the one person who lines up based on chance has their world rocked. I guess what I've been through isn't unique, but it still shocks me when I feel empathized with over song. This whole thing also made me realize how much EDM is tied to my heartbreaks since the music takes me back to sad times nowadays.

I tried to schedule the wellness screening, which essentially gives me money that I would otherwise have to spend from my paycheck for health insurance, but I couldn't sign into the insurance page without a card number. I also messed around with the macbook for a bit, downloading applications and learning shortcuts, and I think I'm nearly comfortable enough with it to use it instead of the XPS 13. Gigi also told me that I should let Sammy know that I can't let her stay for Slander or LAN, so I should do it sooner rather than later.

Eventually it was time for me to leave for volleyball. It turns out Albert lives very close to that Costco and he was willing to drive us all to Rockwall to play. The car ride was fun; I haven't gotten much time with any of them in a small group setting other than Albert, but I was mostly talking about volleyball with him.

Playing was fun. The building was shady like Texas Assault, but it also had space for indoor soccer pitches and a weight lifting area. On the drive over Sherry said that the people can be intimidating, but I didn't see that much. Some of the people playing on the other court were toxic, which Albert attested to after subbing in for one of their players at the end of the night, but I didn't think anyone was scary good. We saw Axel show up with a group of friends, which was a crazy coincidence.

My play tonight was okay, other than trying to receive some nasty short serves to start, but got progressively worse. I got some service aces (just smacking the ball as hard as I can works surprisingly well), but by the end I got blocked by a 5'8" girl and suffered from the "passes either go too tight or perfectly vertical" curse. We kept losing track of score and probably played 3 or 4 games worth of points against them even though it was only technically 2 throughout the night. Eventually we also mixed players, which was a lot of fun. The whole vibe was very friendly and I'd love to play against them again.

After playing we went to BBQ Chicken and had a great time chatting. We talked about being the "responsible adult", the difference between being honest and being mean, how their group was lacking an extrovert, Emily offered to play matchmaker for all the rest of us (which got some nervous laughter out of me), and they invited me to play again tomorrow in Plano. I also got to see Albert's trunk of golf balls and hear about the story of his new car, which was all fun to experience.