Expectations...

So therealjae is going to be here in about three hours. She's coming to spend the weekend. After all our hours-long IM conversations, at last she will be perched in my living room drinking my whisky. And the living room is even clean, thanks in large part to curiousangel. Tomorrow, Misha's taking off to Camden, New Jersey with Bill and maybe Ben - they're going to tour the battleship New Jersey, indulging that military-geek thing they all have, and not so incidentally giving me and Jennie a day alone together. And for Sunday we have free passes to the National Aquarium, followed by sushi. (I love the aquarium, but it always makes me yearn for raw fish.)

So, everything's wonderful. Right? Wrong.

I still have my cold. I'm still sniffly and low-energy and dull, and my nose glows incandescently red from being blown every five minutes. I'm hoarse and coughing and sniffling and in other words desperately unattractive, and I... just don't feel like I have any sparkle. I'm not feeling very interesting or fun. Just germy.

Jennie will like me anyway. She's promised me that I can't mess this up by any sort of ordinary means. But I've been so looking forward to this visit, and wanting it to be perfect, and wanting her to really really like me, and in short wanting to make the absolute most of an occasion that's not going to happen very often. My killer high expectations strike again.

I'm sure I'll get by. Misha had a cold on our honeymoon, and still seemed to enjoy himself - and me - properly. It's just... feeling sick and dull is triggering my social anxiety, I guess. It just doesn't make me feel very likeable.