i am forcing myself to write this despite the-- how do you describe the feeling of shame? the one that rolls around in your chest and makes your cheeks burn and your stomach flip even days after the shameful event has occurred? anyway-- i am forcing myself to write this despite all of the physical manifestations of embarrassment that i am currently experiencing, though i'm not really sure why i am forcing myself to express it here.

i may have tipped my hand to the bartender, on my fourth shift, after working 14 hours, about ten of them alone together with me going mad and being fairly rude in german to the 200+ people wanting beer from me and only me with nobody else to serve them! that part went alright, actually. it was later, later when we had cleaned up and kicked out and gone upstairs for a spliff* with another employee who lives in the building. we were having a totally normal conversation, and then i asked a question about him, and then i answered it myself. as in, he had told me something that let me guess the answer the last time we worked together, and my memory of that allowed me to guess the right answer.

oh! i am cringing now just writing this! oh! i have never ever ever been able to play it cool. i have never succeeded at being truly cool because to be truly cool you don't try to be cool, and i consistently, without exception, have never tried anything so hard as to just be. cool.

there was a pause after, during which my rumbling chest and burning cheeks distracted me, when i assume that the others were looking at each other thinking, "oh geez, this one's head over heels for you, c." which i'm not i'm really not, so i tried to be a frosty ice-queen while saying goodbye to h. and then to pretend nothing had happened as we went back through the bar and said goodnight again. oh! oh! stomach flip cheek flush chest heave. i wish i could take it back.

*spliff is a ridiculous word to actually write down