wussie mcpussenstein

so i noticed maybe a couple of months ago that this guy (named aaron) who used to work for me as a columnist at the swt newspaper is working at central market (the one by my place). i keep on wanting to go in his aisle on purpose, but then wuss out at the last minute.

why?

because my last year at swt was the worst. i spent the fall semester as the managing editor of the paper, which made people hate me more. and by people, i mean the people that had already hated me hated me more because i was second in charge of the paper. and people didn't like that i didn't allow deadline extensions. or that i docked pay. or that i enforced the three-strikes-and-your-gone rule. sure, it was just the school paper, but seeing as how college papers are supposed to be "training grounds" for the real world, i treated it as such, especially since i already had real-world experience and knew half the shit reporters (and editors) tried to get away with would get them fired at a real newspaper.

and this all made me miserable. also add to the fact that several of the editors i had been friends with also started to hate me.

on the other hand, my columnists were loyal as fuck. when i announced i was stepping down as managing editor at the end of the semester and just remain on the paper in a couple of different positions, a good chunk of the columnists wanted to quit because they thought i was being forced out of my position (which i kind of was) and they didn't want to work for anyone else. i, of course, told them to wise the fuck up and keep stay on as columnists and assured them i wasn't being forced out of my position (which i technically was) and that it was all for "personal" reason (meaning that half the editorial board hated me, all the professors in the department hated me, 95 percent of the copy editors hated me, and i hated myself).

the spring semester was no better. i stayed on as a copy editor, page designer, and reporter (and ended up making more money that way than i had as a section editor), and people hated me more. i had few allies at the papaer, but the ones that i did have (like the editor in chief) trusted me and told me to not pay attention to what everyone else was saying. but when everyone else is saying i shouldn't be there, kinda hard not to hear it.

i essentially left the paper and swt as a pariah.

so that's kinda why i've hesitated going up to aaron at central market. maybe he doesn't remember me. maybe he got turned against me. maybe he doesn't want to remember me (i haven't spoken to the guy since december '03). maybe he remembers that i had a not-so-secret crush on him and how i used to drool over his tattoos and how i'd make up excuses (oh, in your column you have "hte", did you mean to type "the"?) to call him and abuse my authority as his boss by doing so.

if you've read this blog long enough, you know that i'm deathly afraid of rejection and would rather avoid a situation completely that could lead to rejection rather than go through with it. so i guess aaron falls under that. sure, there's the possibility that he would remember me and even want to hang out or something, but that requires a certain ballsiness that, well, i do not have in me.

meh.