I'm not supposed to know these things

I had it in with the boss today, because I wasn't able to get any work done due to the fact that I had personal phone calls all day. I had people from the Board of Transportation trying to keep me from suing the state over the damage to my car. I had lawyers from my insurance company telling me not to talk to anyone from the State about this. They're on top of it, they tell me. I tried everything I could to multi-task, but there was nothing I could do to keep them from calling me. If I ignored them on my cell, they called my office. By about three o'clock, I had to tell the insurance lawyers to just take care of it, and when something gets done, preferably in the form of a big fat check, just let me know where I need to sign.

To try to smooth things over with the boss, I offered to take him out for a few drinks after work to blow off some steam. He's been under a lot of pressure lately and it did him some good to get out of the office for a change. Since I was buying, my boss took full advantage of the situation. I swear, that man has a liver of pure titanium. After about an hour, he got into his "let mees tellz yhoo shome tinn" drunken advise stage. Through all the slurred speech, I thought he said something about wanting to give me a raise, but I'm not sure. I've always been one to think that a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on this one.

I started to get tired, and thankfully my boss called his wife to come pick him up. I stuck around long enough to see him off. On my way out to the rental car, I got a call from Nicky. He told me that he talked to Grace this morning, and said that she was absolutely giddy. Over me? I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. What the hell did I do, other than atone for everything I fucked up? Jesus, did Jeff really screw up so badly that simple accountablity is enough to sweep her off her feet?

Nicky explained that she has had a really rough time since the divorce, and she's been thinking a lot about the past, and how different things would've been if she had chosen door number two. That got me to thinking about everything that has happened. There was never an option available for me that wouldn't have just made things worse. If I hadn't ran away, maybe I could've prevented Grace from ending up with Jeff, but only by virtue of the fact that she would've seen that neither of us was worthy of her time.

I'm freaking out over this just a little. Once I got home, I talked to Sid about it all. His response? "Hey, how's the mouth looking on that gift horse?"

Maybe he's right. This is, more or less what I wanted all along. I just need to keep from screwing all this up by being my usual self. In addition, whatever I'm doing right, I need to keep doing.