About 2 weeks ago I decided “hey, I think I’ll turn forty.” The timing worked out really well, what with it being almost exactly forty years after the day I was born, and so I went with my instincts. My gut. And I did it. I turned 40. About ten years ago I tried out turning thirty and it worked out really, really well – one of my favorite birthdays ever - so this “forty” thing seemed like a no-brainer. And in the grand scheme of things turning 40 went just fine.
But just fine.
Ten years ago I had a similar urge and went off and turned 30. And my thirtieth birthday was AWESOME! I had streamers and hats and noisemakers. I brought out every ridiculous kid party thing I could think of, including gift baggies and cupcakes and piñatas for all ages. (I briefly considered filling the grown-up piñata with tiny liquor bottles and condoms, but I at the time I neither drank nor did the other thing, so that idea didn’t really work. Besides with, given how hard you gotta slam modern day piñatas the idea of slimy condoms smelling of tequila just didn’t seem to say “celebration!!” It more said spring break in Texas, or possibly Mario Lopez’s bachelor party, so… What was I talking about? Oh, right! Awesome party!) I enjoyed pretty much all of my thirties, and I honestly think part of that successful decade was due to starting it off RIGHT.
Jump ahead to this year. Things have changed some, not the least of which is the Tastic family tradition now of combining all the birthdays in a given month into one big Birthtastic Bash. This is both smart and also frankly necessary, given that the majority of baby-having women in our family seem to have their baby-making sexy-times in the same few months, thereby grouping most of our birthdays as well. Starting in March and running through July there’s a clump of birthdays each month and if we hadn’t corralled them together like so many unruly ponies we’d have had to dedicate every weekend to a birthday all spring and summer long! Whew! So clump them we do, and it works pretty well. Except for when one of the birthdayers has a milestone.
For my fortieth several things happened that kind of impacted the wonderous quality of my birthday. The first is probably the most embarrassing of all: I forgot it was coming.
Don’t misunderstand: I knew I’d be having a birthday. That’s been pretty dang consistent for the last forty or so years, so at this point I just assume that I’ll have one each spring at some point. But honestly I hadn’t really taken stock and noticed that the birthday coming up was a big one until I’d already been screwing up the year spot on checks for a few weeks or a month. (side rant: I hate it when the year changes by a whole decade! At least for the last 9 years I could get as far as “200” before I had to do the math in my head! I’ve been writing “200” and then scribbling out that second zero for months! Not cool, change! Not cool!)
By the time I had properly considered the impending fancy birthday I knew there wasn’t really time to do anything special. I didn’t want to complicate the April birthdays and have to shun my normal birthday partners. I’d not saved up any funds for a fancy-schmancy shindig. And now that I’m living really far away from everyone the planning involved was more complicated by a factor of frosting, mylar balloons and party tiaras, so meh. And that was kind of the feeling I realized I was having about the whole thing: meh. Meh to complex, long-distance planning. Meh to scheduling two parties in April. Meh to figuring out what was sufficiently fancy enough to announce “Femtastic didn’t die for a whole 52 weeks AGAIN!!!”
So I didn’t do nothing.
When I decided to bag the milestone thing I honestly felt fine about it. I was even proud of how not selfish I was being! “Look at me!” I would say when I observed my non-shallow, non-self involved behavior. “Look how grown-up I’m seeming! I could even go buy a house or learn how to use grout! I’m EVER so mature! Tra la la!” (this is, I’m sure, something only the most mature people can get away with saying. If you’re not mature try saying it. See? Doesn’t that just seem weird? Because you’re NOT mature. Riiiiiight…) I tra la la’d my way right up to my perfectly fine and dandy birthday party, which would have been excellent and all such things on any other year 8 years past or the next 9 to come.
But in my head I just kept thinking “this is your fortieth birthday party. And it’s not nearly shiny enough.”
The voices in my head are terrible, tacky, gray and itchy things that say the things I certainly know I shouldn’t ever say out loud. Things like “ok, but really that’s just a weird looking baby.” or “Patchouli is just nasty smelling and I don’t care how earthy you are, nobody should wear it!” or “yes, man-who-is-so-incredibly-overweight-that-he-drives-a-scooter-around-the-Safeway, I AM looking at the five boxes of Pudding Pops in your cart!” They have no sense of shame or decorum. They think that the rest of the world should have to pay attention to speed limits, but that I’m just that much better a driver, and that comb-overs on men and facial hair on women should just be universally mocked. Publically. I would never go anywhere with the voices in my head because they would embarrass me so badly I’d have to never return to that place. Ever. EVER. So I know better than to ever listen to them.
But this time they weren’t wrong.
And this was nobody’s fault but mine! I should have put in the time! The money! The energy! I should have taken the necessary steps to look back on my fortieth birthday party with as much enthusiasm as I do my thirtieth! I shouldn’t have “meh’d” out!
Let me be very clear here: my birthday party was lovely. I like sharing it with the folks in my family who have April birthdays. I got cool things. I got flowers from my wonderful English Sweety! I ate my body weight in amazing, gourmet cupcakes and cheese puffs and things and such! For my thirty ninth or forty first birthday this would have been a super-excellent birthday! But what I’m here to make sure the rest of you guys learn from my foolishness is this:
Milestone birthdays are important. They are those things that you can only ever do on certain times. They are special events that everybody gets but not everybody appreciates. Nobody would ever begrudge you making a big deal on a milestone birthday, and how often is complete and total selfishness SANCTIONED by our society? Answer: Oscar night, your wedding day and your milestone birthdays. So do NOT let them slip by. Celebrate them. Be sure you look back on all of your big days with a massive, poop-eating grin on your face. You won’t regret it if you do, but you will regret it if you don’t.
I await comments about your favorite birthday celebrations. Hit me, my peoples!
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Gods and Cakes and Things You Won't Believe I Did.
I bought a scale. Bought it and then, even more impossible, I got on it. I stepped on to the vile, evil thing and it had the nerve, the utter GALL, to tell me terrible things. Terrible things! Oh the things said to me by that damnable scale, it’s a wonder that I didn’t hurl it Frisbee-style out my window (though my bathroom has no windows, so that would mean going out all nudesque to the first door that opens and that would be cold and I don’t like to be cold so that could be a discourager…). And yet?
And yet, if it weren’t for the scale and the things that it said to me then my BFF wouldn’t have been able to tell me the lovely things that she told me, like that I’ve lost 25 pounds in the last bunch of months. Wow! That’s a double-digit number and double-digits are a good thing; a thing I don’t think I’ve seen in forever, actually.
Now the other thing that the scale did yesterday which I very much appreciated was it told me that the amount I weighed was the same amount it told me I weighed LAST Monday. That might seem like a bummer after working out 4 days in that week, but honestly I found it to be a mitzvah. Because although I worked out 4 times I also ate fourteen million cheesepuffs and my own bodyweight in cupcakes. The fact that I could do that and not GAIN double-digits of badness is kind of miraculous. I’m not kidding there. If some gun-toting nutbag put his toted gun to my brainpan and demanded that I cite three things that proved that his deity, or any deity, weren’t imaginary but instead actually existed I’d point to the tremendous tonnage of cheesepuffs and cupcakes eaten and yet not reflected on my evil, evil scale as item 1. (I’d point to the existence of the Snickerdoodle Cupcake as item 2, and the third one would have something to do with this thing that T.E. can do with… ok, never mind. But it’s the best of the three. No kidding.)
What was I talking about? Oh, right – the scale and the miracles it has helped to reveal. And gun-toting religious nutbags, although I think I’ve exhausted that third thing.
So I’m doing all these things. Because here’s the other shoe dropping after the good news from The Queen. 25 pounds is great, but I have to confess that I suspect all of those were lost by about November. And that since November I’ve lost hardly anything even though I keep working out and WORKING OUT and I believe it to be just plain rude of my body to not lose more weight even with the working out I’ve done. Rude and also unkind.
So now I’m punishing it.
I’ve changed some things specifically so that I’ll lose more weight, but I would be lying if I said I’m not enjoying the idea of taking things away from my body. Things that it loves, like many cans per day of Pepsi and pasta for dinner and Cap’n Crunch WITH Crunch Berries. (my mouth especially misses the Crunch Berries.) I’m drinking things like massive glasses of milk for dinner and I’ve cut out carbs after lunch and do you have any idea how hard it is to find dessert that isn’t carbs? Cookies! Brownies! CAP’N-FRICKIN’-CRUNCH!
I’m also changing up the workout to not be just my biking, but now including time on a thing that is officially called an elliptical, but which I think was originally called an “Wow, it’s really only been 7 minutes on this thing and yet already I want to never, ever do it again!!!” I also think that it was originally engineered as a method for milking water from human beings for that time when we’re going to run out of water on the planet. It’s gonna be kind of salty, my friends, but thanks to this “elliptical” torture device we’ll never want for some kind of watery beverage. After only 30 minutes on this thing I’m a festival of cold, terrible sweat drips.
So I should damn well hope that I lost weight and will lose weight and didn’t gain weight. (even after a diety-affirming personal body weight worth of cupcakes.)
And yet, if it weren’t for the scale and the things that it said to me then my BFF wouldn’t have been able to tell me the lovely things that she told me, like that I’ve lost 25 pounds in the last bunch of months. Wow! That’s a double-digit number and double-digits are a good thing; a thing I don’t think I’ve seen in forever, actually.
Now the other thing that the scale did yesterday which I very much appreciated was it told me that the amount I weighed was the same amount it told me I weighed LAST Monday. That might seem like a bummer after working out 4 days in that week, but honestly I found it to be a mitzvah. Because although I worked out 4 times I also ate fourteen million cheesepuffs and my own bodyweight in cupcakes. The fact that I could do that and not GAIN double-digits of badness is kind of miraculous. I’m not kidding there. If some gun-toting nutbag put his toted gun to my brainpan and demanded that I cite three things that proved that his deity, or any deity, weren’t imaginary but instead actually existed I’d point to the tremendous tonnage of cheesepuffs and cupcakes eaten and yet not reflected on my evil, evil scale as item 1. (I’d point to the existence of the Snickerdoodle Cupcake as item 2, and the third one would have something to do with this thing that T.E. can do with… ok, never mind. But it’s the best of the three. No kidding.)
What was I talking about? Oh, right – the scale and the miracles it has helped to reveal. And gun-toting religious nutbags, although I think I’ve exhausted that third thing.
So I’m doing all these things. Because here’s the other shoe dropping after the good news from The Queen. 25 pounds is great, but I have to confess that I suspect all of those were lost by about November. And that since November I’ve lost hardly anything even though I keep working out and WORKING OUT and I believe it to be just plain rude of my body to not lose more weight even with the working out I’ve done. Rude and also unkind.
So now I’m punishing it.
I’ve changed some things specifically so that I’ll lose more weight, but I would be lying if I said I’m not enjoying the idea of taking things away from my body. Things that it loves, like many cans per day of Pepsi and pasta for dinner and Cap’n Crunch WITH Crunch Berries. (my mouth especially misses the Crunch Berries.) I’m drinking things like massive glasses of milk for dinner and I’ve cut out carbs after lunch and do you have any idea how hard it is to find dessert that isn’t carbs? Cookies! Brownies! CAP’N-FRICKIN’-CRUNCH!
I’m also changing up the workout to not be just my biking, but now including time on a thing that is officially called an elliptical, but which I think was originally called an “Wow, it’s really only been 7 minutes on this thing and yet already I want to never, ever do it again!!!” I also think that it was originally engineered as a method for milking water from human beings for that time when we’re going to run out of water on the planet. It’s gonna be kind of salty, my friends, but thanks to this “elliptical” torture device we’ll never want for some kind of watery beverage. After only 30 minutes on this thing I’m a festival of cold, terrible sweat drips.
So I should damn well hope that I lost weight and will lose weight and didn’t gain weight. (even after a diety-affirming personal body weight worth of cupcakes.)
Monday, April 19, 2010
Time Management
Yeah, I suck. Sorry about it.
Here’s the thing: I either don’t have anything to write about or I don’t have time to write. I mean when I have the time I have nothing meaningful to say. Do you want to read about how I cleaned off the balcony of my apartment so I could sit there on the nice days? Or the fact that today was a nice day and I sat out there? Or the fact that I need to get a little table so I can sit out there more because even though they call it a laptop if you keep it on your lap for something along the lines of four hours it will melt your leg skin into a single sheet of leg? (God, I really hope you don’t want to read about that stuff, because honestly I’d really rather not write it. I am so not kidding.)
Why don’t I have other stuff to write about? Because my life has, of late, become a fairly two-dimensional existence. There’s work, which takes about 10 or 11 hours of the day (if you count the hour in the morning where I’m getting up and showered and dressed and stuff. And I do. Because god knows if I didn’t have to be someplace at 7am to do the work I’d definitely NOT be up at 6am to get ready.) There’s sleeping, which should take 6 hours but sometimes only takes 5 and a half hours, (which then leads to my needing to find an additional 45 min. for my best friends to all give me grief on how I don’t get enough sleep, which frankly eats into the sleep time because what other flexible time do I have to give up, people?) and there’s working out which is taking about an hour a day or so. Doing the math (and by the way, I have a standing rule where I don’t DO math on the weekends, people, so I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making right here!) That leaves around 6 hours of time. And in that time we must carve out about 4 hours. For T.E.
That sounds bad. Like he demands four hours, or like I’m doing it out of obligation or doing it for his enjoyment only. It’s 4 hours (sometimes more!!) of time for he and I to talk and laugh and he sometimes sings to me (no, he’s not a great singer, but he sings to me anyway and I think it’s just so cool that he does, so you can just shut it, Mr. Fourth Tenor!) and we watch stuff together through the wonder of the interwebs and we have those gooey moments where one of us just spontaneously tells the other that we think they’re pretty close to perfect and we kind of can’t believe that we got lucky enough to connect and stuff… These things are all wonderful and lovely and excellent. And they all take time. Time I’m happy and eager and lucky to spend, but time none the less.
But then, at the end of the day, that’s all there is. Sneak in dinner and the odd load of laundry or changing the litter pan and I’m done! I don’t have time for other cool things, much as I’d like to. I’m living a bit of a hermitted experience despite both T.E. and I having said on a few occasions that we really don’t want either of us to become socially stunted. (look at my fancy head-shrinky terms -- heard about them on Oprah.) It doesn’t help that these four hour windows are between the hours of 4:30 and 8:30pm, so it’s a nice little chunk of the day earmarked for being at home and comfy. It’s hard to be motivated to go out and do other things, especially given that the end of our conversations are pretty much just me listening to him sleep and trying not to do the same thing. (you think it’s hard not to yawn when hear someone yawning? Try not sleeping when sitting next to someone who is cuddled and breathing that long, slow rhythm of the totally asleep…)
So when I squirrel away some time with my laptop and my thoughts and my quick little tippy-tappy fingers and want to write to you guys I’m honestly stuck more often than not for what the hell to say.
So today? I cleaned off my balcony in my fancy big-city apartment and made a place to sit and watched the sun set while I talked to T.E., my laptop slowly burning a rectangular patch on my lap. If I’m lucky I’ll get to do it again tomorrow. If you’re unlucky, it’s what I’ll write about. Bear with me for just a little while…
Here’s the thing: I either don’t have anything to write about or I don’t have time to write. I mean when I have the time I have nothing meaningful to say. Do you want to read about how I cleaned off the balcony of my apartment so I could sit there on the nice days? Or the fact that today was a nice day and I sat out there? Or the fact that I need to get a little table so I can sit out there more because even though they call it a laptop if you keep it on your lap for something along the lines of four hours it will melt your leg skin into a single sheet of leg? (God, I really hope you don’t want to read about that stuff, because honestly I’d really rather not write it. I am so not kidding.)
Why don’t I have other stuff to write about? Because my life has, of late, become a fairly two-dimensional existence. There’s work, which takes about 10 or 11 hours of the day (if you count the hour in the morning where I’m getting up and showered and dressed and stuff. And I do. Because god knows if I didn’t have to be someplace at 7am to do the work I’d definitely NOT be up at 6am to get ready.) There’s sleeping, which should take 6 hours but sometimes only takes 5 and a half hours, (which then leads to my needing to find an additional 45 min. for my best friends to all give me grief on how I don’t get enough sleep, which frankly eats into the sleep time because what other flexible time do I have to give up, people?) and there’s working out which is taking about an hour a day or so. Doing the math (and by the way, I have a standing rule where I don’t DO math on the weekends, people, so I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making right here!) That leaves around 6 hours of time. And in that time we must carve out about 4 hours. For T.E.
That sounds bad. Like he demands four hours, or like I’m doing it out of obligation or doing it for his enjoyment only. It’s 4 hours (sometimes more!!) of time for he and I to talk and laugh and he sometimes sings to me (no, he’s not a great singer, but he sings to me anyway and I think it’s just so cool that he does, so you can just shut it, Mr. Fourth Tenor!) and we watch stuff together through the wonder of the interwebs and we have those gooey moments where one of us just spontaneously tells the other that we think they’re pretty close to perfect and we kind of can’t believe that we got lucky enough to connect and stuff… These things are all wonderful and lovely and excellent. And they all take time. Time I’m happy and eager and lucky to spend, but time none the less.
But then, at the end of the day, that’s all there is. Sneak in dinner and the odd load of laundry or changing the litter pan and I’m done! I don’t have time for other cool things, much as I’d like to. I’m living a bit of a hermitted experience despite both T.E. and I having said on a few occasions that we really don’t want either of us to become socially stunted. (look at my fancy head-shrinky terms -- heard about them on Oprah.) It doesn’t help that these four hour windows are between the hours of 4:30 and 8:30pm, so it’s a nice little chunk of the day earmarked for being at home and comfy. It’s hard to be motivated to go out and do other things, especially given that the end of our conversations are pretty much just me listening to him sleep and trying not to do the same thing. (you think it’s hard not to yawn when hear someone yawning? Try not sleeping when sitting next to someone who is cuddled and breathing that long, slow rhythm of the totally asleep…)
So when I squirrel away some time with my laptop and my thoughts and my quick little tippy-tappy fingers and want to write to you guys I’m honestly stuck more often than not for what the hell to say.
So today? I cleaned off my balcony in my fancy big-city apartment and made a place to sit and watched the sun set while I talked to T.E., my laptop slowly burning a rectangular patch on my lap. If I’m lucky I’ll get to do it again tomorrow. If you’re unlucky, it’s what I’ll write about. Bear with me for just a little while…
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Full Disclosure
I have to buy a new pair of ice cube trays. I had two, but now I only have one. One works just fine but the other had to be thrown away. I threw it away because a significant requirement for an ice cube tray is that they be water-tight, and one of my two trays lost the ability to be water-tight due to the holes that suddenly appeared all over it. Suddenly appeared immediately after I smashed the sucker against the floor of the freezer 2-3 times in a FIT of rage after the ice cube tray had the audacity to dump all of its perfectly-made cubes on the floor.
I do not respond well to fits of rage.
I tell you this story in much the same way I need to be sure to tell it to T.E. Not because he’s a big ice cube sympathizer nor do I think he’ll notice the change of ice cube trays and be alarmed – he’s generally pretty easy-going in the area of ice cubes and the trays in which they come. But I need to tell T.E. in the interest of full disclosure because I do not respond well to fits of rage. I break things. Or sometimes throw things. Or throw things which breaks them. Or break things by throwing other things into them. All of these things have happened at one time or another after I’ve done the “rage fit” thing.
And the other thing is that it doesn’t take nearly as much as you’d like to think it would to rage-fit me. You’d like to think that something which would cause an ordinarily rational and calm person to start hurling office chairs would have to be a big deal. Like putting out my own eye. Or being mugged at gunpoint. Or taxes. For me a lot of the time it starts with me hitting my head.
I really. REALLY. Don’t respond well to hitting my head.
Honestly, I’m hard-wired on this one. Like there’s a special nerve in my head that is directly connected to my “rage” nerve. Or rage lobe, or whatever it is that leads to the rage-fits. I’m not so clear on the biology of it, but what I do know is that my world is pock-marked by silly amounts of damage I’ve done to things in the less-than-split-second immediately following my hitting my head. Freezer doors, remote controls, phones – all innocent victims of those things that I simply have to do when one immovable object (my head) meets another blunt construct (anything else in the world ever, ever, ever).
Another one is toe stubbing. I stubbed my toe getting out of the shower the other day and I remain quietly proud that all the breakable things in my bathroom are still in the same number of pieces they were in prior to the toe stubbing. Or at least I was quietly proud, but that was before I wrote of it and posted it on the whole big internet. But before that I was quietly proud. Yay me.
So anyway, these are the things that don’t come up between he and I, since I haven’t hit my head or stubbed my toe around him yet (knock on wood) or had any other thing to make me rage-fit-girl, but that he really needs to know about because when I eventually DO hit my head or stub my toe or have to talk to the cable company or drive behind a bus or any number of other things with him around he needs to know what’s coming. Understand how very much it has nothing to do with him. And know how to load the tranquilizer gun.
I do not respond well to fits of rage.
I tell you this story in much the same way I need to be sure to tell it to T.E. Not because he’s a big ice cube sympathizer nor do I think he’ll notice the change of ice cube trays and be alarmed – he’s generally pretty easy-going in the area of ice cubes and the trays in which they come. But I need to tell T.E. in the interest of full disclosure because I do not respond well to fits of rage. I break things. Or sometimes throw things. Or throw things which breaks them. Or break things by throwing other things into them. All of these things have happened at one time or another after I’ve done the “rage fit” thing.
And the other thing is that it doesn’t take nearly as much as you’d like to think it would to rage-fit me. You’d like to think that something which would cause an ordinarily rational and calm person to start hurling office chairs would have to be a big deal. Like putting out my own eye. Or being mugged at gunpoint. Or taxes. For me a lot of the time it starts with me hitting my head.
I really. REALLY. Don’t respond well to hitting my head.
Honestly, I’m hard-wired on this one. Like there’s a special nerve in my head that is directly connected to my “rage” nerve. Or rage lobe, or whatever it is that leads to the rage-fits. I’m not so clear on the biology of it, but what I do know is that my world is pock-marked by silly amounts of damage I’ve done to things in the less-than-split-second immediately following my hitting my head. Freezer doors, remote controls, phones – all innocent victims of those things that I simply have to do when one immovable object (my head) meets another blunt construct (anything else in the world ever, ever, ever).
Another one is toe stubbing. I stubbed my toe getting out of the shower the other day and I remain quietly proud that all the breakable things in my bathroom are still in the same number of pieces they were in prior to the toe stubbing. Or at least I was quietly proud, but that was before I wrote of it and posted it on the whole big internet. But before that I was quietly proud. Yay me.
So anyway, these are the things that don’t come up between he and I, since I haven’t hit my head or stubbed my toe around him yet (knock on wood) or had any other thing to make me rage-fit-girl, but that he really needs to know about because when I eventually DO hit my head or stub my toe or have to talk to the cable company or drive behind a bus or any number of other things with him around he needs to know what’s coming. Understand how very much it has nothing to do with him. And know how to load the tranquilizer gun.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Here's the Thing...
So there’s a thing. About the relationship I am currently enjoying (which is a tremendous understatement – I’m not just enjoying this relationship. I’m loving it. I’m rapturizing in it. I’m rolling around in the wonderfulness of this relationship like it’s dark chocolate pudding with lovely, frothy whipped cream!) with T.E. there’s a thing. There’s an age difference. T.E. is younger than me.
By a bunch.
He’s enough younger than me that when I tell people his age (and they already know mine) there’s always – ALWAYS – about a 7-8 second paaaauuuuse. As if they’re running through all the knee-jerk reactions that first occurs, trying to decide “do I say any of the things in my head right now? Or bite my tongue? And also when did Femtastic lose her mind?”
And just in case anybody is worrying about these things, let me say NO, I am not breaking the law, people! Nobody is doing anything wrong! We’re just doing things most folks probably don’t. And even that’s not it because what we’re doing is what most people DO want to do, and in fact are dying to do or if they’re not they are sad, sad people who do not seek enough “awesome” in their life. But we’re doing it in a unique way. In a way that gives people pause. Really, really long pause.
In all honesty I got a little pause the first time I found out T.E.’s age myself, so I’m not judging the people who do the pausing. I feel their pain, because I’ve had friends or family do things that I questioned and you have that struggle between wanting to be supportive or feeling like you are honor-bound to speak up and express the concern. What I would like, really, is the reaction that my oldest friend in all the world gave to me. She was HONEST with me, while supporting and listening both. She told me that she worried about this younger guy’s maturity and would he be mature enough for me? But she also told me that in the end she trusted my judgment and wanted me to be happy. And when I explained what makes this man extraordinary and tremendous and a huge exception to the rule she listened to me. This reaction gave me both respect but also honesty, which I know was hard for her, but so good for me.
Either that, or I want the reaction that another of my old friends gave me: she met T.E., loved him and is dying to see him again. Just like me! (OK, nothing near as much as me, but the enthusiasm is wonderful none the less.)
By a bunch.
He’s enough younger than me that when I tell people his age (and they already know mine) there’s always – ALWAYS – about a 7-8 second paaaauuuuse. As if they’re running through all the knee-jerk reactions that first occurs, trying to decide “do I say any of the things in my head right now? Or bite my tongue? And also when did Femtastic lose her mind?”
And just in case anybody is worrying about these things, let me say NO, I am not breaking the law, people! Nobody is doing anything wrong! We’re just doing things most folks probably don’t. And even that’s not it because what we’re doing is what most people DO want to do, and in fact are dying to do or if they’re not they are sad, sad people who do not seek enough “awesome” in their life. But we’re doing it in a unique way. In a way that gives people pause. Really, really long pause.
In all honesty I got a little pause the first time I found out T.E.’s age myself, so I’m not judging the people who do the pausing. I feel their pain, because I’ve had friends or family do things that I questioned and you have that struggle between wanting to be supportive or feeling like you are honor-bound to speak up and express the concern. What I would like, really, is the reaction that my oldest friend in all the world gave to me. She was HONEST with me, while supporting and listening both. She told me that she worried about this younger guy’s maturity and would he be mature enough for me? But she also told me that in the end she trusted my judgment and wanted me to be happy. And when I explained what makes this man extraordinary and tremendous and a huge exception to the rule she listened to me. This reaction gave me both respect but also honesty, which I know was hard for her, but so good for me.
Either that, or I want the reaction that another of my old friends gave me: she met T.E., loved him and is dying to see him again. Just like me! (OK, nothing near as much as me, but the enthusiasm is wonderful none the less.)
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
The Next Big Step
T.E. is coming back in the summer – I told you guys that, right? Right. Anyway – coming back in the summer and we just purchased the tickets and he’s going to be here for (get this. Seriously, this is extremely worth getting) SEVEN WEEKS. Not two, and not four (which would be a month, by the way, and this is MORE than four months which means MORE than a month, by the way) and not even six (which is kind of like a month and a half, so this is kind of like more than a month and a half. BY THE WAY!!!!)
So, so awesome.
Now I have had more than a few people react to this with “woah!” and “wow!” and those types of thing-deals. However when you slow down these reactions and play them backwards they, like the Beatles song Number 9, say something totally different. They say “are you sure you can spend that long together?” and “Dang, this will be a real test of your relationship!” and “Yeah, this will be it. This will be the end of this crazy boondoggle.” (oh, and also it says “Paul is dead” but I think that’s a fluke…)
I understand where this comes from – honestly I think even T.E. is feeling a little of the pressure. His exact quote was that he is “cautiously optimistic.” It’s not wrong that this will not just be more time than ever before, but it will be more than twice the time previously enjoyed. It will be over a month and a half! At a certain point I know it will stop feeling like a vacation and an indulgence and 36% magic with sprinkles of “fabulous”. Despite all the time we spend together now, this will be ALL THE TIME FOR A MONTH AND A HALF.
So how come I’m not nervous?
Honestly, I just see this as good. As a thing I want so, so badly. When he’s not here I just wish he was, so seven weeks of not wishing for something I can’t have feels like time where I can finally breathe. Where I will finally be living that moment instead of passing through it headed to the moment I really want. I worry sometimes that my life is screaming by these days because I’m living for these moments. The evenings and the weekend and the summer and the holidays and all those times that being with him makes me feel just a tiny bit more whole.
The time that we will get to spend this summer will be seven weeks – 49 days – 1,176 hours – where I will just be living each hour as just an hour. Each day as “right now” instead of “just waiting.” The things I long for I’ll be getting. And in the face of that I don’t know how I could possibly worry about it. The idea seems almost ungrateful! I’m not saying I expect it to be perfect – this will, in fact, BE a bigger test or challenge or ‘running of the gauntlet’ for us and this relationship and I honestly do know it. But I still don’t see anything to worry about.
So you tell me – am I crazy? Or just in love?
So, so awesome.
Now I have had more than a few people react to this with “woah!” and “wow!” and those types of thing-deals. However when you slow down these reactions and play them backwards they, like the Beatles song Number 9, say something totally different. They say “are you sure you can spend that long together?” and “Dang, this will be a real test of your relationship!” and “Yeah, this will be it. This will be the end of this crazy boondoggle.” (oh, and also it says “Paul is dead” but I think that’s a fluke…)
I understand where this comes from – honestly I think even T.E. is feeling a little of the pressure. His exact quote was that he is “cautiously optimistic.” It’s not wrong that this will not just be more time than ever before, but it will be more than twice the time previously enjoyed. It will be over a month and a half! At a certain point I know it will stop feeling like a vacation and an indulgence and 36% magic with sprinkles of “fabulous”. Despite all the time we spend together now, this will be ALL THE TIME FOR A MONTH AND A HALF.
So how come I’m not nervous?
Honestly, I just see this as good. As a thing I want so, so badly. When he’s not here I just wish he was, so seven weeks of not wishing for something I can’t have feels like time where I can finally breathe. Where I will finally be living that moment instead of passing through it headed to the moment I really want. I worry sometimes that my life is screaming by these days because I’m living for these moments. The evenings and the weekend and the summer and the holidays and all those times that being with him makes me feel just a tiny bit more whole.
The time that we will get to spend this summer will be seven weeks – 49 days – 1,176 hours – where I will just be living each hour as just an hour. Each day as “right now” instead of “just waiting.” The things I long for I’ll be getting. And in the face of that I don’t know how I could possibly worry about it. The idea seems almost ungrateful! I’m not saying I expect it to be perfect – this will, in fact, BE a bigger test or challenge or ‘running of the gauntlet’ for us and this relationship and I honestly do know it. But I still don’t see anything to worry about.
So you tell me – am I crazy? Or just in love?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wanted: Partner With No Past
I’ve been assured that one of the things that makes me both rare and possibly valuable in the “relationship market” is the fact that I’ve had so few relationships before. Supposedly people really like their partners to have very little or no baggage, and no ex-partners to have to contend with. For me I’m normally really aware of the lack of experience I have at the more complicated partner things, thereby making me feel all sorts of lost and confused a bunch of the time. But according to those who know better than I it’s rarely the problem I think it is. And for no ex's to worry about? Apparently awesome...
T.E., being a pretty amazing person, has ex-girlfriends. Well of course he does. One could ask “if he didn’t then wouldn’t you wonder what’s wrong with him?” (and then I go “but I don’t have hardly any. Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?” and then they go “no, but that’s because you’re really unique in that way.” and then I go “so then him not having girlfriends wouldn’t be a bad thing either if he were really unique.” and then they would get uncomfortable with this awkward conversation and pretend their phone rang and go somewhere else. Far away else.) Technically I have absolutely no problems with the fact that others have loved him before I got my chance. Technically I also don’t think of myself as a jealous person.
And yet there is this one “Ex” of T.E.’s that seems to magically create buttons I never had before and then dance on them in swanky, foreign stiletto heels. We will call her “Aussie Girl”. (because she comes from there. I don’t have to be creative when I’m naming Ex’s)
When T.E. and I first connected he was also connected to her. In fact they were pretty tight, and he was really invested. She was exotic and exciting and dramatic – things to which I definitely could not lay claim. T.E. was totally upfront with me about the fact that there were other people with whom he was also connected at the time and since it was just flirting and fooling around between us I never questioned that. As we got more serious, he and I, things between the two of them seemed to hit potholes, but I had decided that I had no business having opinions about his other interactions and I stuck to it. I ignored those things that weren’t he and I, and I got pretty danged good at it.
Finally he and I spent our first weekend together. It was astoundingly good, and much more than just fooling around. I knew then that my level of investment was higher than I ever expected it to be, and I kept my walls in place, but became much more aware of them. So it was with a certain amount of (totally inappropriate and kind of bitchy) glee that I learned from him that things with Aussie Girl had crapped out. In a word: she’d disappeared. She’d forfeited the game, thereby giving me the “win” and I wasn’t at all sorry to hear it. I tried to keep my catty remarks in check, but inside I did the happy “I win!” dance full stop.
But then she came back. (and how dumb was I to not have considered this possibility when I’d had the win in the first place? If you win because they go away, you run the risk of losing if they come back. It’s simple math, people…)
She didn’t stay for long. (She’s exotic and exciting and dramatic, sure, but she’s also flaky and scattered and maybe a wee pinch crazy-ass-nut-bags, so…) I got my “win” back when she vanished again, but this time I knew how weak a win it was and it took me a while to get over the sense of impending “she could come back at any time” doom.
Still, a big bunch of time passed and she stayed good and gone. I got more confident with what he and I shared. He got more invested in me. One morning he said three words to me that I’d never heard from a partner before, (I'm really hoping you know which words I'm talking about, but I'll also expect snarky cracks in the comments) and in that split second the last of my self-doubt went up in a puff of smug, triumphant (pink and sparkly, smelling of jasmine and hot dogs) smoke. This was a “win” I felt like I’d earned all on my own and wore it like a goddamn badge of “ain’t I somethin’!” honor. Heck, while he was here during the holidays his phone began singing (iPhones – they sing. Have I posted about my total and complete love for my iPhone? I haven’t? Good god, what is this other crap I’ve been wasting words on! Soon, my pets. I will gush about my iPhone soon…) and when I grabbed it to bring it to him I only slightly flinched at seeing it was another ex. Because CONFIDENT! STABLE! NOOOO JEALOUSY! He’s MINE and I’m HIS and everything else is just noise.
Last night we were Skyping, as we are wont to do on… well on pretty much all nights actually… and he said suddenly and from nowhere “Oh look. Aussie Girl just popped up.” After a little more chatting they settled that they’d both like to at least try the “being friends” thing – an idea that I’ve always supported. In the abstract. With people who are not "MINE." Now what I should have thought and felt and all was “oh really? Tra la la, who cares? Because ever so confident and stable am I, and did I also mention that I am impervious to the feelings of “jealous” and such?” I even thought that was how I was thinking and feeling at the time. I was proud of my reaction! ‘Just look at you,’ I thought to myself ‘bein’ all fine and not caring.’ I may even have mentally punched myself in the mental shoulder, all ‘nice job!’ like.
So it was a pretty crappy kick to the shins when all my dreams that night seemed to be various versions of “and here’s how you lose the whole shebang…” Dreams where his attention wandered or his interest waned. Where I found myself helpless and lost and sometimes even sad. I seriously resent being sad in my sleep! This is a total miss-use of sleep and I won’t stand (-er, lie) for it!
You’ll be pleased, my people, to know that I did raise the subject with T.E. I set boundaries for what I could and couldn’t handle, and to his never ending credit he assured me repeatedly and emphatically that she was a pool of crazy he had no interest in diving back into, that he wasn't even sure the friend-thing would work and that he loved me. I don’t doubt his veracity at all – he’s honest with me; he’s someone I know I can trust. However I also know that relationships of ANY kind tend to evolve, and I’ll never totally understand what the appeal was the first time around, so how can I know what sort of appeal might come through again. I’m nervous. He’s told me he’ll sever ties if I want it, and though I love him for offering I feel like that would be a fail on my part. I don’t want to be that chick. I just don’t like being nervous either. Wish me luck with my own bag of crazy, people.
(I mean come on. How could someone with a super-cool IPHONE be nervous? It just makes no sense…)
T.E., being a pretty amazing person, has ex-girlfriends. Well of course he does. One could ask “if he didn’t then wouldn’t you wonder what’s wrong with him?” (and then I go “but I don’t have hardly any. Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?” and then they go “no, but that’s because you’re really unique in that way.” and then I go “so then him not having girlfriends wouldn’t be a bad thing either if he were really unique.” and then they would get uncomfortable with this awkward conversation and pretend their phone rang and go somewhere else. Far away else.) Technically I have absolutely no problems with the fact that others have loved him before I got my chance. Technically I also don’t think of myself as a jealous person.
(Tangent: I know I’m not normally a jealous person, and here’s how I know: the
crappy dude I relationshipped with before was known for wandering and lived far
enough away that I couldn’t possibly keep track of his activities and people
even told me point-blank that he cheated on me and to this day I STILL don’t
suspect anything nor did I ever have a single jealous twinge. So there.)
And yet there is this one “Ex” of T.E.’s that seems to magically create buttons I never had before and then dance on them in swanky, foreign stiletto heels. We will call her “Aussie Girl”. (because she comes from there. I don’t have to be creative when I’m naming Ex’s)
When T.E. and I first connected he was also connected to her. In fact they were pretty tight, and he was really invested. She was exotic and exciting and dramatic – things to which I definitely could not lay claim. T.E. was totally upfront with me about the fact that there were other people with whom he was also connected at the time and since it was just flirting and fooling around between us I never questioned that. As we got more serious, he and I, things between the two of them seemed to hit potholes, but I had decided that I had no business having opinions about his other interactions and I stuck to it. I ignored those things that weren’t he and I, and I got pretty danged good at it.
Finally he and I spent our first weekend together. It was astoundingly good, and much more than just fooling around. I knew then that my level of investment was higher than I ever expected it to be, and I kept my walls in place, but became much more aware of them. So it was with a certain amount of (totally inappropriate and kind of bitchy) glee that I learned from him that things with Aussie Girl had crapped out. In a word: she’d disappeared. She’d forfeited the game, thereby giving me the “win” and I wasn’t at all sorry to hear it. I tried to keep my catty remarks in check, but inside I did the happy “I win!” dance full stop.
But then she came back. (and how dumb was I to not have considered this possibility when I’d had the win in the first place? If you win because they go away, you run the risk of losing if they come back. It’s simple math, people…)
She didn’t stay for long. (She’s exotic and exciting and dramatic, sure, but she’s also flaky and scattered and maybe a wee pinch crazy-ass-nut-bags, so…) I got my “win” back when she vanished again, but this time I knew how weak a win it was and it took me a while to get over the sense of impending “she could come back at any time” doom.
Still, a big bunch of time passed and she stayed good and gone. I got more confident with what he and I shared. He got more invested in me. One morning he said three words to me that I’d never heard from a partner before, (I'm really hoping you know which words I'm talking about, but I'll also expect snarky cracks in the comments) and in that split second the last of my self-doubt went up in a puff of smug, triumphant (pink and sparkly, smelling of jasmine and hot dogs) smoke. This was a “win” I felt like I’d earned all on my own and wore it like a goddamn badge of “ain’t I somethin’!” honor. Heck, while he was here during the holidays his phone began singing (iPhones – they sing. Have I posted about my total and complete love for my iPhone? I haven’t? Good god, what is this other crap I’ve been wasting words on! Soon, my pets. I will gush about my iPhone soon…) and when I grabbed it to bring it to him I only slightly flinched at seeing it was another ex. Because CONFIDENT! STABLE! NOOOO JEALOUSY! He’s MINE and I’m HIS and everything else is just noise.
Last night we were Skyping, as we are wont to do on… well on pretty much all nights actually… and he said suddenly and from nowhere “Oh look. Aussie Girl just popped up.” After a little more chatting they settled that they’d both like to at least try the “being friends” thing – an idea that I’ve always supported. In the abstract. With people who are not "MINE." Now what I should have thought and felt and all was “oh really? Tra la la, who cares? Because ever so confident and stable am I, and did I also mention that I am impervious to the feelings of “jealous” and such?” I even thought that was how I was thinking and feeling at the time. I was proud of my reaction! ‘Just look at you,’ I thought to myself ‘bein’ all fine and not caring.’ I may even have mentally punched myself in the mental shoulder, all ‘nice job!’ like.
So it was a pretty crappy kick to the shins when all my dreams that night seemed to be various versions of “and here’s how you lose the whole shebang…” Dreams where his attention wandered or his interest waned. Where I found myself helpless and lost and sometimes even sad. I seriously resent being sad in my sleep! This is a total miss-use of sleep and I won’t stand (-er, lie) for it!
You’ll be pleased, my people, to know that I did raise the subject with T.E. I set boundaries for what I could and couldn’t handle, and to his never ending credit he assured me repeatedly and emphatically that she was a pool of crazy he had no interest in diving back into, that he wasn't even sure the friend-thing would work and that he loved me. I don’t doubt his veracity at all – he’s honest with me; he’s someone I know I can trust. However I also know that relationships of ANY kind tend to evolve, and I’ll never totally understand what the appeal was the first time around, so how can I know what sort of appeal might come through again. I’m nervous. He’s told me he’ll sever ties if I want it, and though I love him for offering I feel like that would be a fail on my part. I don’t want to be that chick. I just don’t like being nervous either. Wish me luck with my own bag of crazy, people.
(I mean come on. How could someone with a super-cool IPHONE be nervous? It just makes no sense…)
Monday, February 22, 2010
Getting on Top of the Pile
I’ve mentioned a couple of times now that I changed jobs during my time not posting. Without going into too much detail about my old job, leave it to say that the job challenged me in all the ways I didn’t want, but didn’t challenge me in ways I craved. I felt stuck and stranded and when someone offered me a change I jumped at it.
I’ve been at the new job for about 6 months and while it did fulfill all the promises made at the outset I think it may be OVER delivering. Because even though I work too many hours and scramble through my work day like I’m racing someone and have lists 2 pages long of “to do” items every danged day I still end most days feeling like I’ve failed. Or like I can’t do anything but.
Part of the frustration for me is this feeling that the target moves on me constantly. Whether it be priorities or goals or even expectations I just can’t seem to get my sights set correctly. This leads to a few things, not the least of which is a general sense of panic every day. A few months ago I took part in an executive coaching thing. Now normally I go into such things with a very LARGE grain of salt, and this was no exception. But as opposed to so many that are ‘here are 20 questions – answer them and they will tell me everything there is to know about you.’ this was just me and a guy chatting for an hour, followed a week later by me and this guy chatting for another hour. The first hour our chatting was all about him asking me questions. The second hour was all about him cracking open my head and reading me the contents in a most freakishly psychic fashion. He NAILED it.
The big “aha!” moment of that for me was the a revelation about how important it is for me to have clarity. I need to clearly know what is expected of me; what is happening around me; what my targets are. When I have this clarity I go forth and make it happen; I engage people and they will follow me, oh yes they will! Without that clarity I flail around trying to make anything and everything happen; my energy gets manic and frankly I drive people away. I have felt the panic from the lack of clarity but never understood it for what it was. Unfortunately now I should be able to see it when it happens and all too often I know I’m feeling something bad, but I don’t know what.
I think I can do this job. The part that everyone else seems to boggle at – namely the people management – is the part I KNOW I can do. But where I’ve begun to worry that I’m failing, or doomed to fail, is the other stuff. The scope of the job is more than I can do – this much I know for a fact. Since the start of the new year I’ve been on a never-ending quest to get the picture clearly defined so I can even understand what the whole scope is, but even that seems beyond me. For the first time in a very long time I’m worried that I’m about to get officially dumped, and no amount of hours or scrambling seems to be able to make the difference. What’s more, as the days and weeks go on I find myself resenting the job more and more because it’s not achievable yet achieve it I must.
But in the end the realization I’ve been making is that at some point I’m going to need to stand my ground with those above me and draw a line. Say to them “I cannot work more than I am, nor can I do more than I have been. If this is not enough then you either have to hire me an assistant or leave me the fuck alone. Or fire me, but I don’t think you’ll find anyone else to do it any better.” Wish me luck when the time finally comes! (and if you have an awesome job that requires less than 10 hours of work a day let me know, ‘kay? I might be in the market soon…)
I’ve been at the new job for about 6 months and while it did fulfill all the promises made at the outset I think it may be OVER delivering. Because even though I work too many hours and scramble through my work day like I’m racing someone and have lists 2 pages long of “to do” items every danged day I still end most days feeling like I’ve failed. Or like I can’t do anything but.
Part of the frustration for me is this feeling that the target moves on me constantly. Whether it be priorities or goals or even expectations I just can’t seem to get my sights set correctly. This leads to a few things, not the least of which is a general sense of panic every day. A few months ago I took part in an executive coaching thing. Now normally I go into such things with a very LARGE grain of salt, and this was no exception. But as opposed to so many that are ‘here are 20 questions – answer them and they will tell me everything there is to know about you.’ this was just me and a guy chatting for an hour, followed a week later by me and this guy chatting for another hour. The first hour our chatting was all about him asking me questions. The second hour was all about him cracking open my head and reading me the contents in a most freakishly psychic fashion. He NAILED it.
The big “aha!” moment of that for me was the a revelation about how important it is for me to have clarity. I need to clearly know what is expected of me; what is happening around me; what my targets are. When I have this clarity I go forth and make it happen; I engage people and they will follow me, oh yes they will! Without that clarity I flail around trying to make anything and everything happen; my energy gets manic and frankly I drive people away. I have felt the panic from the lack of clarity but never understood it for what it was. Unfortunately now I should be able to see it when it happens and all too often I know I’m feeling something bad, but I don’t know what.
I think I can do this job. The part that everyone else seems to boggle at – namely the people management – is the part I KNOW I can do. But where I’ve begun to worry that I’m failing, or doomed to fail, is the other stuff. The scope of the job is more than I can do – this much I know for a fact. Since the start of the new year I’ve been on a never-ending quest to get the picture clearly defined so I can even understand what the whole scope is, but even that seems beyond me. For the first time in a very long time I’m worried that I’m about to get officially dumped, and no amount of hours or scrambling seems to be able to make the difference. What’s more, as the days and weeks go on I find myself resenting the job more and more because it’s not achievable yet achieve it I must.
But in the end the realization I’ve been making is that at some point I’m going to need to stand my ground with those above me and draw a line. Say to them “I cannot work more than I am, nor can I do more than I have been. If this is not enough then you either have to hire me an assistant or leave me the fuck alone. Or fire me, but I don’t think you’ll find anyone else to do it any better.” Wish me luck when the time finally comes! (and if you have an awesome job that requires less than 10 hours of work a day let me know, ‘kay? I might be in the market soon…)
Friday, February 12, 2010
Cracked Mirror
The last time I had a serious relationship (or actually any relationship at all really) one of the big, BIG mistakes that I made was not being me with him all the time. I became more and more bogged down in being what I thought HE wanted me to be, or wanted from a partner. While it sure seemed like a good idea at the time, especially because my self esteem was a little lacking at the time so being me seemed like a really BAD idea, in the end it was pure catastrophe. Because eventually “me” kept bleeding through, and every time it did it pissed HIM off. Hard to blame him, really, because it was me that kept changing the rules there. When all the chips had fallen, along with a great deal more tears than I’d have preferred, I promised myself that if I ever had another chance at trying love I would be very sure not to make that mistake again.
I’m proud to say I’ve stayed true to that promise so far (knock on wood). In fact, T.E. and I kind of fell into a rule early on that we are always honest with each other. Always. Even when the truth is harsh or sad or what have you, and it has been all of those things at one time or another.
But what I struggle with this time around is when I’m being me, but I don’t particularly like who “me” is in that moment. I have the harder time with our honesty rule, not because I don’t want to be honest but because there are times when the truth of the matter is one I’d rather not admit about myself. Case in point was tonight.
Managing our communication when we have an 8-hour time difference is not an easy task. More often than not it’s T.E. that ends up having to keep late hours to make it possible, and I appreciate his sacrifice always. For a while we honestly indulged too much, resulting in not a few days or even weeks where he was going to bed only a few hours before I was! While that was fun it was really hard on his life and finally saner heads prevailed. We set rules and boundaries on our time, saying that we’d only be able to connect for a couple of hours each weekday night. But we also made ourselves a bargain that the weekends we could go crazy. Stay up as late as we wanted. Who cares if we slept all funny? Who cares if the rest of the weekend we played catch-up? It was worth it to be able to put in some quality time together when we could.
One of the things that I’ve come to understand about myself is that I don’t respond well to surprises. I’m not a spontaneous gal. I like to know what’s coming, and especially true if what’s coming is disappointment. So tonight when he climbed into bed at our weeknight curfew of 2:30am (his time) I was a blue roo because I didn’t know it was coming. I felt like I’d been doused with ice water, and felt those stupid chin tremors starting to come up. And with them those feelings of “ok, now you’re just being stupid…”
T.E., as I’ve said before, gets me. He knows when my sentences have become clipped, or when I’m letting the silences last a little longer than normal. After a while he sensed something was up, and he checked on me. He asked how I was, and I said those 2 words that I always say when the real answer is “I’m shitty” but I don’t want that known: “I’m fine.” But I also know him, and I know that he’s on to me and my standard answer, so I quickly covered and changed it to “good. I’m good.” And then I wondered if I was breaking our honesty rule.
I wasn’t fine – I was blue, and kind of irked that I’d expected the reward after a long week and diligence on our curfew to be a nice, long evening together. But I didn’t like how I was reacting, and so didn’t want to share it. I didn’t want him to feel responsible for the pouting that I was just barely keeping at bay. It was my damage and I wanted to be damaged by myself, so to him I was “good”. Even when I wasn’t.
So now I’m trying to figure out if I broke our rule. If the rule is “honesty all the time” but the honesty feels like something private is it still wrong to keep it back? Sigh. This relationship stuff is hard. I think it would be much easier if I were only a little bit perfect. Maybe I’ll work on that next instead.
I’m proud to say I’ve stayed true to that promise so far (knock on wood). In fact, T.E. and I kind of fell into a rule early on that we are always honest with each other. Always. Even when the truth is harsh or sad or what have you, and it has been all of those things at one time or another.
But what I struggle with this time around is when I’m being me, but I don’t particularly like who “me” is in that moment. I have the harder time with our honesty rule, not because I don’t want to be honest but because there are times when the truth of the matter is one I’d rather not admit about myself. Case in point was tonight.
Managing our communication when we have an 8-hour time difference is not an easy task. More often than not it’s T.E. that ends up having to keep late hours to make it possible, and I appreciate his sacrifice always. For a while we honestly indulged too much, resulting in not a few days or even weeks where he was going to bed only a few hours before I was! While that was fun it was really hard on his life and finally saner heads prevailed. We set rules and boundaries on our time, saying that we’d only be able to connect for a couple of hours each weekday night. But we also made ourselves a bargain that the weekends we could go crazy. Stay up as late as we wanted. Who cares if we slept all funny? Who cares if the rest of the weekend we played catch-up? It was worth it to be able to put in some quality time together when we could.
One of the things that I’ve come to understand about myself is that I don’t respond well to surprises. I’m not a spontaneous gal. I like to know what’s coming, and especially true if what’s coming is disappointment. So tonight when he climbed into bed at our weeknight curfew of 2:30am (his time) I was a blue roo because I didn’t know it was coming. I felt like I’d been doused with ice water, and felt those stupid chin tremors starting to come up. And with them those feelings of “ok, now you’re just being stupid…”
T.E., as I’ve said before, gets me. He knows when my sentences have become clipped, or when I’m letting the silences last a little longer than normal. After a while he sensed something was up, and he checked on me. He asked how I was, and I said those 2 words that I always say when the real answer is “I’m shitty” but I don’t want that known: “I’m fine.” But I also know him, and I know that he’s on to me and my standard answer, so I quickly covered and changed it to “good. I’m good.” And then I wondered if I was breaking our honesty rule.
I wasn’t fine – I was blue, and kind of irked that I’d expected the reward after a long week and diligence on our curfew to be a nice, long evening together. But I didn’t like how I was reacting, and so didn’t want to share it. I didn’t want him to feel responsible for the pouting that I was just barely keeping at bay. It was my damage and I wanted to be damaged by myself, so to him I was “good”. Even when I wasn’t.
So now I’m trying to figure out if I broke our rule. If the rule is “honesty all the time” but the honesty feels like something private is it still wrong to keep it back? Sigh. This relationship stuff is hard. I think it would be much easier if I were only a little bit perfect. Maybe I’ll work on that next instead.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Battle of the Bulge -- Now With Dinner Theater
So here at my shiny, new apartment complex there’s also a shiny, new workout room. It’s… petite, but it suits my needs. Now instead of my bike rides 3 times a week I can take bike rides 5-7 times a week. Rain, snow, sleet or falling frogs, I can still take my bike ride. Which is very, very shiny. (Well, as shiny as anything that sweaty can honestly be.) Plus also there’s this added advantage of being able to read a book while I bike. This, I can assure you, is much more difficult on moving bikes, as there’s that whole thing about needing to watch where you’re going and balance and stuff. So in the “reading while I bike” department the stationary bike in the workout room is a VAST improvement!
Most of the time there’s just me in there. I tend to head down there fairly late, so as to not have to share my panting and wheezing with others, but most of the time there’s someone else trotting on the treadmill or… something with jaunty elliteration on the elliptical machine. I just sit on my bike, pedaling away. But the other night was odd. I’d been zooming along for ten or fifteen minutes when the first guy walked in. He is most often the one who shares my sweat-space, so we did that silent nod-greeting thing and he jumped on a treadmill and took off away from me. (Except of course that on the treadmill you don’t go anywhere. And besides if you DID I’d totally have caught up on him on my non-moving bike, so…)
But after a couple of minutes another guy walked in. And in fact this guy was two guys. And these two guys jumped on the other two cardio-machines, one treadmill and one elliptical, and away they went. From my spot on the bike I had, in those moments when I looked up from the book, this funny little view of a trio of strange hineys bouncing down the road away from me. An amusing enough site that I admit I looked up more than once. A couple three or four times actually. And on the third or fourth time my middle hiney guy started to flap.
Yes, flap.
He was running along, treadmill flying under his feet, and his arms started to flap. Arms straight out to the side, hands palm-down, away he flapped. So enthusiastically I had to look down to his feet to make sure they weren’t coming off the ground. My funny, runny stranger flapped and flapped as he ran and I felt the first giggle coming up kind of like a tequila burp. But be proud of me, my people, for I stifled.
Then the fourth guy showed up.
First of all, there’s never been three, so you KNOW there’s never been four. So that was surprising enough. And yet I was fully committed to ignoring and getting back to my book and disregarding the unprecedentedness of a fourth guy. Still, out of the corner of my eye I noticed that he was headed to the weight machines. I also noticed that he was a little guy. Not short, but more slight. Spindly even. So it definitely caught my attention when he decided to lift so much weight. Because it really was a lot of weight. Frankly, it was pretty much ALL the weight. I’ve never even looked at the number on that bottom weight because I knew I’d never see that come off the ground ever, but I know that some of the numbers above it include combinations of 8’s and 0’s. Mr. Spindly pushed up this big HEAP of weight. Probably a whole 4 or even 5 times.
He then moved to another weight machine and once more lifted all the weight. Numbers of 8’s and 9’s going up into the air another 5 or 4 times too. And then he rearranged the weight to pull from here rather than there and pulled yet again all the weight! With the spindly arms!
After the fourth pile of “all the weight”, though, Mr. Spindly looked dejected and grumpy and wandered back out again. At this point I realized he’d been killing time waiting for someone to step off of a cardio machine, but flapper and his two buddies never even looked back. And so off Spindly left.
And right after that my flapper stepped down. He was done treadmilling, and therefore done flapping. The guy on the elliptical also stepped down, and stepped out, and I knew the show was coming to a close. I felt kind of bad, because it had been a big night in the workout room. And then, as if he heard my mental cries of “Encore! Encore!”, flappy gave it up for one more big performance. He began high-stepping his way across the floor. Not nazi-style, mind you, but more along the lines of “can I knock my own teeth out with my knees? Can I?”-style. Step, step, step he went, first east to west and then back the other way, back and forth across the room twice. I watched, holding my breath and the guffaws contained within that breath, as his knees came higher and higher.
And then he was gone. And it was all I could do to not applaud.
Most of the time there’s just me in there. I tend to head down there fairly late, so as to not have to share my panting and wheezing with others, but most of the time there’s someone else trotting on the treadmill or… something with jaunty elliteration on the elliptical machine. I just sit on my bike, pedaling away. But the other night was odd. I’d been zooming along for ten or fifteen minutes when the first guy walked in. He is most often the one who shares my sweat-space, so we did that silent nod-greeting thing and he jumped on a treadmill and took off away from me. (Except of course that on the treadmill you don’t go anywhere. And besides if you DID I’d totally have caught up on him on my non-moving bike, so…)
But after a couple of minutes another guy walked in. And in fact this guy was two guys. And these two guys jumped on the other two cardio-machines, one treadmill and one elliptical, and away they went. From my spot on the bike I had, in those moments when I looked up from the book, this funny little view of a trio of strange hineys bouncing down the road away from me. An amusing enough site that I admit I looked up more than once. A couple three or four times actually. And on the third or fourth time my middle hiney guy started to flap.
Yes, flap.
He was running along, treadmill flying under his feet, and his arms started to flap. Arms straight out to the side, hands palm-down, away he flapped. So enthusiastically I had to look down to his feet to make sure they weren’t coming off the ground. My funny, runny stranger flapped and flapped as he ran and I felt the first giggle coming up kind of like a tequila burp. But be proud of me, my people, for I stifled.
Then the fourth guy showed up.
First of all, there’s never been three, so you KNOW there’s never been four. So that was surprising enough. And yet I was fully committed to ignoring and getting back to my book and disregarding the unprecedentedness of a fourth guy. Still, out of the corner of my eye I noticed that he was headed to the weight machines. I also noticed that he was a little guy. Not short, but more slight. Spindly even. So it definitely caught my attention when he decided to lift so much weight. Because it really was a lot of weight. Frankly, it was pretty much ALL the weight. I’ve never even looked at the number on that bottom weight because I knew I’d never see that come off the ground ever, but I know that some of the numbers above it include combinations of 8’s and 0’s. Mr. Spindly pushed up this big HEAP of weight. Probably a whole 4 or even 5 times.
He then moved to another weight machine and once more lifted all the weight. Numbers of 8’s and 9’s going up into the air another 5 or 4 times too. And then he rearranged the weight to pull from here rather than there and pulled yet again all the weight! With the spindly arms!
After the fourth pile of “all the weight”, though, Mr. Spindly looked dejected and grumpy and wandered back out again. At this point I realized he’d been killing time waiting for someone to step off of a cardio machine, but flapper and his two buddies never even looked back. And so off Spindly left.
And right after that my flapper stepped down. He was done treadmilling, and therefore done flapping. The guy on the elliptical also stepped down, and stepped out, and I knew the show was coming to a close. I felt kind of bad, because it had been a big night in the workout room. And then, as if he heard my mental cries of “Encore! Encore!”, flappy gave it up for one more big performance. He began high-stepping his way across the floor. Not nazi-style, mind you, but more along the lines of “can I knock my own teeth out with my knees? Can I?”-style. Step, step, step he went, first east to west and then back the other way, back and forth across the room twice. I watched, holding my breath and the guffaws contained within that breath, as his knees came higher and higher.
And then he was gone. And it was all I could do to not applaud.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Meeting Our People
When my sweety (wait, what are we calling him again? Right, The Englishman. T.E.) was here around the holidays we went back home to Hippyville and he had the joy panic-driven fear-fest experience of meeting my people. Practically ALL of my people. Family, the Royals, and even the ‘rents. I give him BIG credit for throwing himself to the wolves like that, and he passed with FLYING colors. Witty, friendly, classy and the snazzy English accent can’t HELP but impress.
The big worry was really meeting the parents. Because let’s face it – parents are scary. Even uber-cool parents like mine are scary because HELLO! They’re the PARENTS! And the funny thing was that my Dad, who has always been the very picture of “not your average guy”, went very much into average guy mode when he got the details of my relationship with T.E. He did ‘posturing’ and ‘glowering’ and even a little ‘he’d BETTER be worried about me!’ I honestly waited for him to grab his dick and spit, so dude-like was my Dad all of the sudden. So I was mostly worried that this new-found dudeness was going to spill out when he and T.E. met and I was going to have to splash them with perfume and a hose to break things up.
But to my “yay!!” everyone was on their best behavior at the first, and that segued nicely into just being the cool guys that they actually are after a day or so. No competitive hand-shaking or ceremonial dick-measuring necessary after all. I was very proud of both of them.
Since I don’t go to London (there’s reasons for that. It’s not like I don’t WANT to go to London. It’s LONDON! There’s rain and pubs and a place where words like “bangers” and “mash” describe FOOD! Logistically it’s just complicated is all. But I digress.) there isn’t the same opportunity or requirement for me to meet his people. So I’ve been sucking up long-distance. I sent his parents a Christmas gift – one that actually reflected what I’ve been able to glean about them from my sweety. This seemed like truly high-quality suck-upping! And it seems like it payed off, as I’ve been promised a “thank you” email in response. (yes, I am this excited at getting an email. Shut up.)
And then tonight T.E. introduced me, via crazy swinging Skype party, to his very best mate. After the ‘rents T.E.’s best buddy (who we will call The Romantic, or T.R.) is really the most important person in his world, so this was a big deal to me. It came w/out planning or warning, so I had all of about 30 seconds to consider the idea, prepare my most fabulous anecdotes, do the virtual breath check, etc. In the end it was pretty much an accent-fest, with these two FABULOUS-sounding voices bouncing back and forth like a sexy tennis match! A good time was had by all and according to T.E. I passed muster with the buddy too. If we like each other and our people like each other what else is there, right?
The big worry was really meeting the parents. Because let’s face it – parents are scary. Even uber-cool parents like mine are scary because HELLO! They’re the PARENTS! And the funny thing was that my Dad, who has always been the very picture of “not your average guy”, went very much into average guy mode when he got the details of my relationship with T.E. He did ‘posturing’ and ‘glowering’ and even a little ‘he’d BETTER be worried about me!’ I honestly waited for him to grab his dick and spit, so dude-like was my Dad all of the sudden. So I was mostly worried that this new-found dudeness was going to spill out when he and T.E. met and I was going to have to splash them with perfume and a hose to break things up.
But to my “yay!!” everyone was on their best behavior at the first, and that segued nicely into just being the cool guys that they actually are after a day or so. No competitive hand-shaking or ceremonial dick-measuring necessary after all. I was very proud of both of them.
Since I don’t go to London (there’s reasons for that. It’s not like I don’t WANT to go to London. It’s LONDON! There’s rain and pubs and a place where words like “bangers” and “mash” describe FOOD! Logistically it’s just complicated is all. But I digress.) there isn’t the same opportunity or requirement for me to meet his people. So I’ve been sucking up long-distance. I sent his parents a Christmas gift – one that actually reflected what I’ve been able to glean about them from my sweety. This seemed like truly high-quality suck-upping! And it seems like it payed off, as I’ve been promised a “thank you” email in response. (yes, I am this excited at getting an email. Shut up.)
And then tonight T.E. introduced me, via crazy swinging Skype party, to his very best mate. After the ‘rents T.E.’s best buddy (who we will call The Romantic, or T.R.) is really the most important person in his world, so this was a big deal to me. It came w/out planning or warning, so I had all of about 30 seconds to consider the idea, prepare my most fabulous anecdotes, do the virtual breath check, etc. In the end it was pretty much an accent-fest, with these two FABULOUS-sounding voices bouncing back and forth like a sexy tennis match! A good time was had by all and according to T.E. I passed muster with the buddy too. If we like each other and our people like each other what else is there, right?
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Love Sick...
So as I already mentioned one of the best things ever was the three weeks that I got to spend with my sweety around the holidays. It was truly awesome and totally yay.
I got sick.
(wait, you got sick and yet it was awesome? I’m confused.)
Dear Confused:
Yes, the time together was awesome and yes, I got sick. Now big chunks of the time I was NOT sick and those times were very awesome. There were movies seen and games played and family and friends introduced to and all these were good things. Awesome things. And if this was the whole visit I’d stand by my “was awesome” stance with confidence. But it was even better than that, BECAUSE I got sick.
More than that, I got sick AND I did NOT kill him! Not at all! I killed no part of him, nor was I even tempted to do any him-killing!
Oh, but wait, it gets even better: he took CARE of me. While I was sick. And I didn’t kill him even more AND (this is the big part): I LET HIM TAKE CARE OF ME.
(even bigger part): I LIKED HIM TAKING CARE OF ME.
For any of you who have been reading for a long time you’ll remember that a couple of years ago I went on record on this site saying that I never be able to have someone in the house when I was sick, but instead would require anyone in the house to be… not in the house. Also known as ANYWHERE ELSE. This is something that I was truly sure was gospel, based on many things not the least of which was the fact that when I’ve been sick in the past I didn’t even want my MOM, the person who birthed me and who was my chief “Meh. I’m sick. Take care of me.” person growing up, to come look after me these days. So if you don’t want your Mom to take care of you how could it be that anyone else would do? Answer: it couldn’t. Hence ANYWHERE ELSE.
And yet there I was, lying beside my sweety in bed, feeling like if he really loved me he’d go ahead and kill me out of my own best interest, and yet loving that he was there for me to roll over and snuggle up next to. Loving those moments when he touched my head to see if I was hot or encouraged me to sleep some more or just generally looked over at me with the expression that could only say “Awww… how are you feeling, baby?” He took care of me and I absolutely loved it.
This morning I woke up with one of those headaches that reminds you how much easier life might be if you scooped your brains out with a melonballer. (of course I’m not much of a cook, and don’t like melon. So no melonballer in the house. Dang.) Lying on the couch, feeling pukey (both literally and figuratively), I found myself wishing so much that my guy were here to take care of me again. How crazy is that? Must be that “love” thing. I’m really going to need to get used to that.
I got sick.
(wait, you got sick and yet it was awesome? I’m confused.)
Dear Confused:
Yes, the time together was awesome and yes, I got sick. Now big chunks of the time I was NOT sick and those times were very awesome. There were movies seen and games played and family and friends introduced to and all these were good things. Awesome things. And if this was the whole visit I’d stand by my “was awesome” stance with confidence. But it was even better than that, BECAUSE I got sick.
More than that, I got sick AND I did NOT kill him! Not at all! I killed no part of him, nor was I even tempted to do any him-killing!
Oh, but wait, it gets even better: he took CARE of me. While I was sick. And I didn’t kill him even more AND (this is the big part): I LET HIM TAKE CARE OF ME.
(even bigger part): I LIKED HIM TAKING CARE OF ME.
For any of you who have been reading for a long time you’ll remember that a couple of years ago I went on record on this site saying that I never be able to have someone in the house when I was sick, but instead would require anyone in the house to be… not in the house. Also known as ANYWHERE ELSE. This is something that I was truly sure was gospel, based on many things not the least of which was the fact that when I’ve been sick in the past I didn’t even want my MOM, the person who birthed me and who was my chief “Meh. I’m sick. Take care of me.” person growing up, to come look after me these days. So if you don’t want your Mom to take care of you how could it be that anyone else would do? Answer: it couldn’t. Hence ANYWHERE ELSE.
And yet there I was, lying beside my sweety in bed, feeling like if he really loved me he’d go ahead and kill me out of my own best interest, and yet loving that he was there for me to roll over and snuggle up next to. Loving those moments when he touched my head to see if I was hot or encouraged me to sleep some more or just generally looked over at me with the expression that could only say “Awww… how are you feeling, baby?” He took care of me and I absolutely loved it.
This morning I woke up with one of those headaches that reminds you how much easier life might be if you scooped your brains out with a melonballer. (of course I’m not much of a cook, and don’t like melon. So no melonballer in the house. Dang.) Lying on the couch, feeling pukey (both literally and figuratively), I found myself wishing so much that my guy were here to take care of me again. How crazy is that? Must be that “love” thing. I’m really going to need to get used to that.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Start of a New Year
Sorry about falling off again. For the most part it was focusing on my sweety while he was here for a whole THREE WEEKS. (Woo hoo!) since then there’s been a lot of time with work and life and stuff, but I’ve been totally thinking of you guys. I swear!
So I don’t do the “new years resolutions” thing because in my experience that’s just an extremely efficient way to make yourself feel wonderfully awful later. And really, aren’t there more than enough ways to do that in this world already? And yet still as the Christmas stuff gets boxed up and I sweep the latest little batch of pine needles up in the kitchen and I FINALLY get used to writing “2010” on stuff you really can’t resist thinking about what the next 12 months hold for you, right? Yeah. Right.
So here, for your eyes only, is what I’m going to try to do with 2010:
So I don’t do the “new years resolutions” thing because in my experience that’s just an extremely efficient way to make yourself feel wonderfully awful later. And really, aren’t there more than enough ways to do that in this world already? And yet still as the Christmas stuff gets boxed up and I sweep the latest little batch of pine needles up in the kitchen and I FINALLY get used to writing “2010” on stuff you really can’t resist thinking about what the next 12 months hold for you, right? Yeah. Right.
So here, for your eyes only, is what I’m going to try to do with 2010:
- Size 8 by my 40th. It’s possible, and not even impossible ever. It’s currently 3am and I just finished another hour on the bike here in my apartment’s workout room. See how dedicated I am? How serious? How possibly insane and/or nutsy? All these things are important for a true weight loss goal. (also The Queen told me about this cool weight loss app for the iPhone and we all know that anything is possible once there’s an iPhone App.)
- 200 sit-ups and 100 push-ups. There’s this whole work-out challenge thing online where they promise that you can, in six weeks, be able to do 100 push-ups and 200 sit-ups in a run w/out stopping or, SUPPOSEDLY, falling over totally dead. I’ve tried this. Actually I’ve tried it twice. Both times I get to the 5th week and do what we like to call “epic fail”. But dammit, I’m not giving up yet! (Later on. Later on I’ll probably give up. Like 2011 or something)
- Debt Free, Baby! OK, this is a little bit of a boondoggle because I can’t actually get completely debt free. I took almost 2 years of classes through the community college in my home town and owe monies from that, which I can’t take care if on a short 12 months. HOWEVER just about every other debt I have out there I aims to kill all dead and killed-like by the time I start over-spending for Christmas 2010.
- Keep up the blogging. No, seriously. What? Why are you laughing? Aw, c’mon guys! I’m not kidding!
- Build even more on this amazing “love” thing. I never saw this coming last year and I have a total of F*ck All bonafide experience in relationships. But I’m not going to let that stop me. This is the best thing to happen to me in… (doing the math)… (fingers don’t fail me now)… forever. Just plain forever. So the one thing this year I’m going to do, SO HELP ME DEITY OF YOUR CHOICE, is not mess this up. And if I’m smart I’ll even enjoy it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
It's beginning to look a lot like Sunday...
Hey, is it just me or is it almost Christmas?
Presents – they are purchased. And also they are wrapped.
Stuffers for stockings are found and sorted and ready to stuff
Food is figured out and ready to be cooked and such. By me! I’ll cook food!
House is clean, tree is trimmed, stockings are hung by no chimney with care, and yet I will confess (with much chagrin for being so sappy) that all I’m really caring about is Sunday. Because on Sunday returns the Englishman.
(oh, by the way? That’s his nickname. The Englishman. T.E. for short, but you guys don’t know him well enough for that yet, so we’re sticking with The Englishman.)
I’ve told him before, and its ever so true, that he’s ruined Christmas for me. Because normally all I’d be able to THINK about right now is the impending arrival of a fat guy in a red suit with bags of cool stuff. But even though I’m still super-happy about Christmasness right around the corner I’m down right GIDDY about the impending arrival of a gorgeous guy in whatever the hell he wants to wear with bags of his stuff, the better to stay and spend weeks with me.
Oh, and Christmas is cool too.
Of course once I’m sitting amidst my family and food and presents and Nat King Cole on the stereo I’ll be all focused on the holiday. Well, mostly all. But it really does amaze me how much his arrival has trumped everything else, becoming the pinnacle thing to anticipate. What are we doing while he’s here? Nothing much, really. Just hanging out. Just spending time; enjoying each other. But that is the very best thing I can think of to do, and everything else is “nice too.”
So everyone please have a very nice Christmas. But have an AWESOME Sunday!
Presents – they are purchased. And also they are wrapped.
Stuffers for stockings are found and sorted and ready to stuff
Food is figured out and ready to be cooked and such. By me! I’ll cook food!
House is clean, tree is trimmed, stockings are hung by no chimney with care, and yet I will confess (with much chagrin for being so sappy) that all I’m really caring about is Sunday. Because on Sunday returns the Englishman.
(oh, by the way? That’s his nickname. The Englishman. T.E. for short, but you guys don’t know him well enough for that yet, so we’re sticking with The Englishman.)
I’ve told him before, and its ever so true, that he’s ruined Christmas for me. Because normally all I’d be able to THINK about right now is the impending arrival of a fat guy in a red suit with bags of cool stuff. But even though I’m still super-happy about Christmasness right around the corner I’m down right GIDDY about the impending arrival of a gorgeous guy in whatever the hell he wants to wear with bags of his stuff, the better to stay and spend weeks with me.
Oh, and Christmas is cool too.
Of course once I’m sitting amidst my family and food and presents and Nat King Cole on the stereo I’ll be all focused on the holiday. Well, mostly all. But it really does amaze me how much his arrival has trumped everything else, becoming the pinnacle thing to anticipate. What are we doing while he’s here? Nothing much, really. Just hanging out. Just spending time; enjoying each other. But that is the very best thing I can think of to do, and everything else is “nice too.”
So everyone please have a very nice Christmas. But have an AWESOME Sunday!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Returns from the (not) Dead
OK, so first thing’s first: I am NOT dead. Repeat: NOT DEAD.
However I do very much suck, the chief evidence of which is my whole having abandoned my blog for the last 6 months. For the one or two people who still read (and what the heck are you thinking???) I owe you such the explanation.
Let me start by cataloging everything that has changed in the last 6 months:
If you were reading before (or have the ability to scroll down) you’ll remember my last post was all about how I’d found this English dude to chat with online. Nothing serious or long-term or anything. Just good fun. And CERTAINLY nothing that ever could or would become love. Remember that? Remember how I was so very sure I could never love Mr. English flirty guy? Yeah, well…
Last Monday was the 6 month anniversary of our connecting.
Oh my good and true internets, I cannot believe that I can say this, but the total truth of the matter is this: I am in love.
Now this isn’t even the most amazing part of it to me. This is actually the first time in my entire life that I’ve ever actually BEEN in love. There was this other guy over a dozen years ago that I kind of thought might be serious emotions, but now that I have this to compare it to it’s more than obvious that the douchebag from Jersey was crap and more crap. This. This is TRUE love.
Lest you think that this is the end of the big love hunt I should clarify all the many and asundry challenges in this relationship. We start with the distance – a continent and an ocean. Accompanying that is the 8-hour time difference. Next there is a pretty damned substantial age difference. There are other things that could also be pointed out, although those mentioned are really the biggies and are CERTAINLY big enough! And yet amazingly we just keep going and going.
About 2-3 months after he and I met (ooh, he needs a nickname, doesn’t he? I’ll think of it…) I got offered an incredibly good job opportunity in another city. In another state. This was kind of the answer to all sorts of “first star I see tonight” wishes that I could change my job situation, as the job I had in Hippyville was completely making me nuts. In the bad way. This new opportunity is in a leadership position for a start-up company. As opposed to my previous job I finally have a little control of my destiny at work, as well as really being challenged and pushed. I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish it could calm down JUST A LITTLE, but between being bored out of my skull or being really challenged I’d take challenged any time.
And as my sweety would say, I kick ass at this job.
The change of job and change of city in which I’m living have coincided with a paycheck that I could actually enjoy. And that paycheck lead to me being able to subsidize English Guy and I actually meeting for the Labor Day weekend! We’d been spending hours talking online (I love Skype with every fiber of my being and should totally buy stock in it!!!) every single day and yet we worried that we’d have no face-to-face chemistry when in the same space. This turned out to be a ridiculous fear and the four days spent together were the most passionate and exciting of my life. Believe it or not, the great stone heart actually shed tears when I had to put him back on a plane.
Therefore it’s great thrills and chills that I face his return a week from Sunday.
I could go on and on and I will over the coming weeks and months I hope, but I’ll wrap this up with the following incredibly unlike me gushing:
He’s amazing. He’s brilliant and so damned mature (especially for his age but even without that caveat) and he gets me like nobody ever does. He makes me laugh, and even more important he lets me make HIM laugh! We have a ton in common – so much so that it shifted somewhere along the line from quaint and cute to almost creepy – and his voice can melt me like butter on popcorn every. Single. Time…
Just wait. There WILL be more.
However I do very much suck, the chief evidence of which is my whole having abandoned my blog for the last 6 months. For the one or two people who still read (and what the heck are you thinking???) I owe you such the explanation.
Let me start by cataloging everything that has changed in the last 6 months:
- I moved to another state
- I got a super-cool new job
- I lost a bunch of weight and got myself into really good shape again
- I took a martial arts class for a month (the start of many such things I hope?)
- I’m making real money for the first time in my life!
If you were reading before (or have the ability to scroll down) you’ll remember my last post was all about how I’d found this English dude to chat with online. Nothing serious or long-term or anything. Just good fun. And CERTAINLY nothing that ever could or would become love. Remember that? Remember how I was so very sure I could never love Mr. English flirty guy? Yeah, well…
Last Monday was the 6 month anniversary of our connecting.
Oh my good and true internets, I cannot believe that I can say this, but the total truth of the matter is this: I am in love.
Now this isn’t even the most amazing part of it to me. This is actually the first time in my entire life that I’ve ever actually BEEN in love. There was this other guy over a dozen years ago that I kind of thought might be serious emotions, but now that I have this to compare it to it’s more than obvious that the douchebag from Jersey was crap and more crap. This. This is TRUE love.
Lest you think that this is the end of the big love hunt I should clarify all the many and asundry challenges in this relationship. We start with the distance – a continent and an ocean. Accompanying that is the 8-hour time difference. Next there is a pretty damned substantial age difference. There are other things that could also be pointed out, although those mentioned are really the biggies and are CERTAINLY big enough! And yet amazingly we just keep going and going.
About 2-3 months after he and I met (ooh, he needs a nickname, doesn’t he? I’ll think of it…) I got offered an incredibly good job opportunity in another city. In another state. This was kind of the answer to all sorts of “first star I see tonight” wishes that I could change my job situation, as the job I had in Hippyville was completely making me nuts. In the bad way. This new opportunity is in a leadership position for a start-up company. As opposed to my previous job I finally have a little control of my destiny at work, as well as really being challenged and pushed. I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish it could calm down JUST A LITTLE, but between being bored out of my skull or being really challenged I’d take challenged any time.
And as my sweety would say, I kick ass at this job.
The change of job and change of city in which I’m living have coincided with a paycheck that I could actually enjoy. And that paycheck lead to me being able to subsidize English Guy and I actually meeting for the Labor Day weekend! We’d been spending hours talking online (I love Skype with every fiber of my being and should totally buy stock in it!!!) every single day and yet we worried that we’d have no face-to-face chemistry when in the same space. This turned out to be a ridiculous fear and the four days spent together were the most passionate and exciting of my life. Believe it or not, the great stone heart actually shed tears when I had to put him back on a plane.
Therefore it’s great thrills and chills that I face his return a week from Sunday.
I could go on and on and I will over the coming weeks and months I hope, but I’ll wrap this up with the following incredibly unlike me gushing:
He’s amazing. He’s brilliant and so damned mature (especially for his age but even without that caveat) and he gets me like nobody ever does. He makes me laugh, and even more important he lets me make HIM laugh! We have a ton in common – so much so that it shifted somewhere along the line from quaint and cute to almost creepy – and his voice can melt me like butter on popcorn every. Single. Time…
Just wait. There WILL be more.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Irony, thy name is the Internet
Remember a few months ago when I said that I was dropping the online matchmaking thing because there was no way I was going to meet someone online worth a damn? And that I was just wasting time and money and who cares anyway, nobody loves me, blah, blah, blah…
Am I right, then to find it pretty danged ironic that I’m currently flirting with some dude online?
Now before any of you who might be prone to getting excited about something get excited about this I will tell you that it’s nothing big, I know practically nothing about this guy, he lives on a whole other continent and I’m sure it’s not going to lead anywhere except more entertaining emails and chatting. So chill.
Chiiiiiiiil.
(You there – you’re not chilling. I can see you’re already doodling “Femtastic + Online Dude = Love 4Ever!” on your awesome 80’s peachy folder. Drop the glitter pen and step away from the peachy.)
However, it has been a lot of fun (and a boost to my ego and my morale) to have interesting interactions with someone of the not-girl persuasion. Mostly we’ve been debating (but with a healthy dose of other assorted chit-chat) about stories we’re reading on a random website. I know only the following: he’s extremely intelligent, well-read, funny and lives in England. (Yes, England the country. As in “Mind The Gap”, Doctor Who, home of the Beatles and Fish and Chips w/ the head still on it. Shudder…) Oh, and he stays up even later than I do – recently we were chatting online and I suddenly realized it was almost 3am his time! (I would have made the realization earlier, but you know me and math, and how we super-duper hate each other.)
Now, you know me. And you know how I’m always thinking. Especially when the last thing I should be doing is thinking. So I’ve determined all of the ways I could totally ruin this:
It’s because I don't want to over-think this that I’m only just now even sharing it with you guys, my anonymous fan club. This isn’t love about to bud or anything, but it IS fun and flattering and that’s more than enough for me. (It’s a LOT of fun, by the way – smart guys are awesome.) It also provides the important "flirting practice time" which I need as well. Soon I will be the best flirterer ever!
Am I right, then to find it pretty danged ironic that I’m currently flirting with some dude online?
Now before any of you who might be prone to getting excited about something get excited about this I will tell you that it’s nothing big, I know practically nothing about this guy, he lives on a whole other continent and I’m sure it’s not going to lead anywhere except more entertaining emails and chatting. So chill.
Chiiiiiiiil.
(You there – you’re not chilling. I can see you’re already doodling “Femtastic + Online Dude = Love 4Ever!” on your awesome 80’s peachy folder. Drop the glitter pen and step away from the peachy.)
However, it has been a lot of fun (and a boost to my ego and my morale) to have interesting interactions with someone of the not-girl persuasion. Mostly we’ve been debating (but with a healthy dose of other assorted chit-chat) about stories we’re reading on a random website. I know only the following: he’s extremely intelligent, well-read, funny and lives in England. (Yes, England the country. As in “Mind The Gap”, Doctor Who, home of the Beatles and Fish and Chips w/ the head still on it. Shudder…) Oh, and he stays up even later than I do – recently we were chatting online and I suddenly realized it was almost 3am his time! (I would have made the realization earlier, but you know me and math, and how we super-duper hate each other.)
Now, you know me. And you know how I’m always thinking. Especially when the last thing I should be doing is thinking. So I’ve determined all of the ways I could totally ruin this:
- Make it more than it is.
- Think too much about the things I don’t know (age, job, looks)
- Over-think it
- Invest too much time or energy into it
It’s because I don't want to over-think this that I’m only just now even sharing it with you guys, my anonymous fan club. This isn’t love about to bud or anything, but it IS fun and flattering and that’s more than enough for me. (It’s a LOT of fun, by the way – smart guys are awesome.) It also provides the important "flirting practice time" which I need as well. Soon I will be the best flirterer ever!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Battle of the Bulge - Get on my Bike and Ride!
Just in case anyone is unsure, I’m not yet a size 2. I know. I KNOW! I don’t get it either, but there you have it. Not a 2. (not even a 4! Unbelievable!!!) So it seems like I need to continue to wage the battle of the danged bulge.
Then again, a lucky thing seems to have happened. All the rain and damp and general lack of sun and warmth and loveliness seems to have gone away. Plus also YAY! Apparently there’s this thing every year, lasts a few months, generally brings sun and nice-type weather and they call it “Some Ur” I’m intrigued. But with all this extra sun each day I’ve got the time to add something to my days.
So I added 15 extra miles of biking.
There’s this bike path that starts pretty dang close to my house and runs out west of town. No, further than that. Further. Past there and keep going… and going… (no, don’t stop at the Target. I know, I love Target too. LOVE Target. But you don’t stop there.) When you reach the end of the path you’re overlooking some lovely wetlands with all sorts of birds and other wildlife. Also you’re 7+ miles away from my house, and generally about 30 minutes too.
And even though it’s a lovely ride ending in a lovely view of great and abundant loveliness you still gotta ride 7+ miles BACK into town to get back. Into town. (But still a lovely ride. But like the lovely ride in reverse.) And both ways there are tons of excellent things of which to take a picture. In fact, the hard part is to set picture-taking standards. If I stop and take snaps of every single thing that seems picturesque these trips will take 2-3 hours each day. Which is too many hours. So I only take the awesome pictures. The "holy crap!" pictures. Of which I've taken... well, none. But I'm ready for it!
At this point, with the biking, I’m doing pretty well. Last week I made my 15-mile trek 4 times. 60 miles total, roughly. As fast as I could without ruining the lovely view at the lovely overlook with my lovely lunch sprayed technicolorly thither and yon.
So far, with the 60 miles and the 4 hours and the sweating, sweating, SO MUCH SWEATING, I’ve lost a total of I haven’t lost anything. Sigh. But supposedly these things take time. Which I’m opposed to, but the loop hole around this rule is eluding me. While I keep looking for this loop hole I’m also gonna keep riding. This week won’t work so well because there’s stuff, stuff and even more stuff to be doing for the end of the school year. But come the weekend I’m RIGHT BACK in the saddle, baby!
Next: I must to upwardly sit, and also upwardly push. Even though I hate the ups, both sitting and pushing. Wish me luck-ups.
Then again, a lucky thing seems to have happened. All the rain and damp and general lack of sun and warmth and loveliness seems to have gone away. Plus also YAY! Apparently there’s this thing every year, lasts a few months, generally brings sun and nice-type weather and they call it “Some Ur” I’m intrigued. But with all this extra sun each day I’ve got the time to add something to my days.
So I added 15 extra miles of biking.
There’s this bike path that starts pretty dang close to my house and runs out west of town. No, further than that. Further. Past there and keep going… and going… (no, don’t stop at the Target. I know, I love Target too. LOVE Target. But you don’t stop there.) When you reach the end of the path you’re overlooking some lovely wetlands with all sorts of birds and other wildlife. Also you’re 7+ miles away from my house, and generally about 30 minutes too.
And even though it’s a lovely ride ending in a lovely view of great and abundant loveliness you still gotta ride 7+ miles BACK into town to get back. Into town. (But still a lovely ride. But like the lovely ride in reverse.) And both ways there are tons of excellent things of which to take a picture. In fact, the hard part is to set picture-taking standards. If I stop and take snaps of every single thing that seems picturesque these trips will take 2-3 hours each day. Which is too many hours. So I only take the awesome pictures. The "holy crap!" pictures. Of which I've taken... well, none. But I'm ready for it!
At this point, with the biking, I’m doing pretty well. Last week I made my 15-mile trek 4 times. 60 miles total, roughly. As fast as I could without ruining the lovely view at the lovely overlook with my lovely lunch sprayed technicolorly thither and yon.
So far, with the 60 miles and the 4 hours and the sweating, sweating, SO MUCH SWEATING, I’ve lost a total of I haven’t lost anything. Sigh. But supposedly these things take time. Which I’m opposed to, but the loop hole around this rule is eluding me. While I keep looking for this loop hole I’m also gonna keep riding. This week won’t work so well because there’s stuff, stuff and even more stuff to be doing for the end of the school year. But come the weekend I’m RIGHT BACK in the saddle, baby!
Next: I must to upwardly sit, and also upwardly push. Even though I hate the ups, both sitting and pushing. Wish me luck-ups.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Basket Full of Uber-Cuddly Kittens Would Do It Too...
OK, so I’ve got a piece of information that will probably cause some “Awwwww”s. If you’re someone who does that, and you know who you are. (Then again, maybe you don’t? Maybe you just don’t pay that much attention to your reaction to things cute? OK, quick check: picture a puppy licking a bunny. THERE! RIGHT THERE! That noise that you made? That was an “Awwwwww.” You’re definitely one of those people. And you’re welcome…) ANYway, get ready because here comes the info. The 411. Those guys that used to hang with Huey Lewis. Here it comes:
I think the boy in my tap class has a wee crush on me.
AND there it is… Yup, yup – get it over with… Yup… Get it out of your system… Puppy licking a bunny… Oh, the giggle was a nice addition… Ok, but no baby talk. We don’t do that stuff here. Stop it. Use your R’s. Seriously, stop it. It’s “little”, not “widdle”.
You finished?
Yeah, I finally decided that the boy in my tap class was crushing on me last night. And sure, it’s nice to have someone crush on me. I’m not someone upon whom people get crushes, mostly because one rarely crushes on someone generally scary. But important detail here folks: he’s the BOY in my tap class.
(No, the “BOY” part isn’t significant because I don’t like boys. I likeboys guys just fine.) I’m talking honest to goodness boy, with such attributes as “can’t drive yet” and “his voice may still get deeper” and “probably not much hair in THOSE places”. So obviously this is only noteworthy because “oh gosh and golly, someone finds me crush-worthy.”
Either that, or he might be gay. (It’s actually tough to tell those two things apart. I’ve run into this before.)
6/10/09, roughly 3:20pm
Edited to add:
I think the boy in my tap class has a wee crush on me.
AND there it is… Yup, yup – get it over with… Yup… Get it out of your system… Puppy licking a bunny… Oh, the giggle was a nice addition… Ok, but no baby talk. We don’t do that stuff here. Stop it. Use your R’s. Seriously, stop it. It’s “little”, not “widdle”.
You finished?
Yeah, I finally decided that the boy in my tap class was crushing on me last night. And sure, it’s nice to have someone crush on me. I’m not someone upon whom people get crushes, mostly because one rarely crushes on someone generally scary. But important detail here folks: he’s the BOY in my tap class.
(No, the “BOY” part isn’t significant because I don’t like boys. I like
Either that, or he might be gay. (It’s actually tough to tell those two things apart. I’ve run into this before.)
6/10/09, roughly 3:20pm
Edited to add:
...go ahead and TRY not to Awwwww...
Friday, June 05, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
The heart wants things that go boom please
It’s a funny thing about life – no matter how long you’re doing it you just keep learning things. For instance, I am definitely not a teenage girl. I’m not actually sure I ever was one.
I was the last person on the entire planet to read the Harry Potter books. No particular reason, and once I finally read them I liked them, but it just took me forever. Similarly I’m the only person on the planet with a Y chromosome who has not yet read the Twilight books. But I’m on it! Thanks to my lady mentors, The Queen and Risky, I’ve got the first book and I’m making my way through it. But honestly I’m finding it a lot of work.
The reading’s not difficult – it’s simple and quick, as most books for this age group tend to be. It’s just that I have to stop every few pages and groan, or clutch my head in my hand, or look to the sky in dismay. These things take time. Slow the reading WAY down. Also it makes me tired so I have to read in short bursts. Short, aggravated bursts.
I’m sorry, but I just have no threshold at all for the agonized pining for the beautiful boy. The “Oh, will ne notice me? Will he? WILL HE?” or the “He’s ever so dreamy, I hope he looks this way or I might DIEEEEEEEE!” And I wish I could say I only feel this way since becoming an old, jaded spinster lady. But honestly this crap made me want to chew glass even when I was, myself, a foolish high school girl. (It’s also possible that I was an old, jaded spinster lady by the age of 16. Frankly my high school social life would actually make way more sense if that were true…)
I just can’t stomach the “my heart stopped as I looked into his eyes, I felt him look straight through me, our hearts beat as one” CRAAAAAAAAAAP. Love is great and all, but it’s not a good enough excuse to be a moron. And still this book seems to be scattered throughout with these moments where our hero does dumb stuff because the boy hero is pretty, pretty, oh so pretty. (or maybe because he sees into her soul. Same thing really.)
So I’m gonna keep trying to work my way through this very popular, very saccarine, very frustrating book. But when I’m done I’m probably going to have to read something with a lot of shooting. Shooting and maybe some explosions. Big, macho explosions.
I was the last person on the entire planet to read the Harry Potter books. No particular reason, and once I finally read them I liked them, but it just took me forever. Similarly I’m the only person on the planet with a Y chromosome who has not yet read the Twilight books. But I’m on it! Thanks to my lady mentors, The Queen and Risky, I’ve got the first book and I’m making my way through it. But honestly I’m finding it a lot of work.
The reading’s not difficult – it’s simple and quick, as most books for this age group tend to be. It’s just that I have to stop every few pages and groan, or clutch my head in my hand, or look to the sky in dismay. These things take time. Slow the reading WAY down. Also it makes me tired so I have to read in short bursts. Short, aggravated bursts.
I’m sorry, but I just have no threshold at all for the agonized pining for the beautiful boy. The “Oh, will ne notice me? Will he? WILL HE?” or the “He’s ever so dreamy, I hope he looks this way or I might DIEEEEEEEE!” And I wish I could say I only feel this way since becoming an old, jaded spinster lady. But honestly this crap made me want to chew glass even when I was, myself, a foolish high school girl. (It’s also possible that I was an old, jaded spinster lady by the age of 16. Frankly my high school social life would actually make way more sense if that were true…)
I just can’t stomach the “my heart stopped as I looked into his eyes, I felt him look straight through me, our hearts beat as one” CRAAAAAAAAAAP. Love is great and all, but it’s not a good enough excuse to be a moron. And still this book seems to be scattered throughout with these moments where our hero does dumb stuff because the boy hero is pretty, pretty, oh so pretty. (or maybe because he sees into her soul. Same thing really.)
So I’m gonna keep trying to work my way through this very popular, very saccarine, very frustrating book. But when I’m done I’m probably going to have to read something with a lot of shooting. Shooting and maybe some explosions. Big, macho explosions.
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