I don't go to sleep to dream

Okay, I know, I know, I am a terrible blogger and have completely forgotten about updating. Hell, I haven't even signed into read other people's blogs, so I'm totally behind on everyone's lives. (Although I'm happy to see BlueMoon is doing very well with BF! You give me hope for online dating. ;) And I need to write a post because D broke up with Jailbait (!) so I'm a little conflicted.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing today is that I keep having these extremely strange experiences while trying to wake up from sleep, whether it be a nap or overnight. Here's what happens:

1. Alarm goes off. As per usual, I hit the snooze button.



2. Alarm goes off again. This time I'm half awake so I reach over and hit the snooze to shut it off.



3. I then get out of bed (or at least start the process of doing so), but I'm really not. Like my brain is seeing/experiencing waking up, but I'm not physically doing so. It's like I'm dreaming, but I'm not because it's like I'm hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness. For example, I'm experiencing getting out of bed, I walk to the bathroom, etc., but all the meanwhile physically I'm still under the covers. And some things will be off, like this morning as I was "in bed," I reached up to my neck and felt a necklace, but I wasn't actually wearing one.



4. Alarm goes off again. I know what's going on, but I feel like I'm stuck in glue – like my brain is saying, "Get up, move your legs, move your arms!" and the nerve impulses from my brain are telling them to do so, but it's only happening in my "dream." And meanwhile I'm cognizant of the fact that I'm still in my nice warm bed. This morning it was particularly crazy because I knew this weird half awake dreaming thing was going on, and I was thinking, "Just keep shaking your legs and arms and you'll wake up and can get out of bed." But I couldn't.

I finally snapped out of it (after like 5 alarm pushes) and was able to get up. But this happens a LOT to me. It seems to correlate with the ambient temperature in my room – I keep it pretty cold overnight (60) and have it set to 68 for when I wake up at 7... but it's a computerized system that makes the heat turn on around 6 (which is stupid because it doesn't take an hour for my 700 sq foot apartment to warm up ;). So when my alarm goes off, I'm actually quite hot under the covers... which in the past has triggered some crazy ass nightmares and stuff.

What the hell do I do about this? It's starting to become really scary, because I almost feel like if I were ever in a state of semi-consciousness (say, if I were in shock from a car accident) and needed to stay awake, I wouldn't be able to do so because my brain is tricking me into thinking I am when I'm really not. Any neurologists here that can provide some insight? :)

Post title song reference: "Sleep to Dream" - Fiona Apple

And I will consider you gone

So Aiden just defriended me on Facebook. I was wondering when that was going to happen, I suppose 2+ months after going AWOL is an appropriate amount of time. It's weird, last night I was browsing around on my phone and a bunch of tagged photos of him came up on my timeline. Stupid me, clicking on them: "Damn, he was cute. Is cute. Whatever." Then, this morning, he disappeared from my FB chat list (not like I ever used it to contact him, he just showed up at the top because of the alphabetical listing), and thus I found out I'd been cut off. See? THIS is why I didn't want to accept his friend request in the first place!!!

I keep wishing I had five seconds, face-to-face with him, just to spit out, "You're a coward, you know that?!" and then turn and walk away. That, or just make eye contact, give him a hurt/dirty look, and go about my business. Just to let him know that, NO, it's not okay to just stop talking to someone and pretend that substitutes for being mature and saying, "Hey, I don't think this is going to work out. Blah blah blah." There. Closure.

On the brighter side, I've been chatting with a guy on OKCupid and he seems nice. Another one just messaged me with an actual message (e.g., talking about something we have in common and sounding normal rather than "hey sexy"), so that's promising.

Plus, tomorrow I'm leaving this frozen pit of mud to a tropical destination for six days. In times past I haven't drank on these types of outings because of my stupid fear of empty calories (another one of my many insecurities), but maybe this time I'll swap the tortilla chips for alcohol.




Post title song reference: "Gone" - Ben Folds

My heart is sick of being in chains

First things first: F*** winter. I am so done with this shit. Not only is it snowing, but the temperature has been steadily 10 degrees below average and isn't forecasted to get much higher anytime soon.

Secondly: The dark monster known as depression has slithered out of its hidey-hole and sunk its claws into me. I was feeling somewhat good because I went back on OKCupid and a really cute, interesting-sounding guy came up in my search results. After a few days of me pondering the pros and cons of being forward, I gave in and sent him a quick note. Has he replied? Of course not. And depression LOVES a good rejection, so it happily munched on that and spit back some self-doubt in my face: "See? No one wants you. Aiden couldn't even tell you why he decided to go AWOL, there must be something seriously wrong with you."

It sounds dramatic and it's SO easy for my friends to say, "You can't think like that! You have to be positive and love will come to you!" I know they're trying to be helpful, but seriously, when they say that, I feel like I'm being kicked while I'm down because I *can't* turn it around. It's not that easy when you've got a dark creature inside trying to undermine your well-being. And then I feel guilty for thinking that, because it feels like I'm not trying hard enough: I'm not "prospecting" frequently enough, I get tunnel vision on one guy, I don't "love myself" enough, etc. etc.

And what really bothers me is that I feel like I've banked enough depression, rejection, and heartache that SOMETHING good needs to happen and balance it out in a karma-esque way. But it hasn't happened, and I'm starting to wonder if it ever will.



Post title song reference: "Crucify" - Tori Amos

Olympic fever

I love watching the Olympics. Hearing more and more about how corrupt the IOC is has tainted my love a little bit (not to mention my extreme dislike for Jailbait and her bullshit summer sport, which should have been cut years ago), but I still love seeing the shock and happiness on the athletes' faces who didn't expect to win, or the seeing the ones who were the first from their country to medal in a sport (U.S. luge!).

And I have to say, I love love love watching the Canadian fans. They are the most enthusiastic and patriotic people ever, and they're always jumping and cheering like crazy with their flags, even in non-hockey matches. :) (Plus their athletes tend to rock, so that helps.) Seriously, they're amazing. I love Canada, I'd live there if it weren't so damn cold. ;)  (Sorry Ash!)

When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep

I don't know if it's the craptastic weather we're having, the fact I'm depressed (partially due to said weather), or getting older, but I am TIRED. And my scumbag body declared this week to be Insomnia Week, so I also can't sleep. My feet are always cold, but then my body gets hot, and I end up tossing and turning to get to sleep and then waking up several times during the night -- too hot, too cold, stupid neighbors' cats upstairs making a racket, etc.

It doesn't help that I'm bored. Bored enough to wallow in some self-pity and feed the internal demon known as Doubt that I wasn't good enough for Aiden (shut UP, overthinking brain! You're not helping!), and yet still not motivated enough to log onto OKCupid and start being proactive about this online dating schtick.

Plus I'm really craving a doughnut right now, and having a Dunkin Donuts in my office lobby is not helping. The only thing that's keeping me from getting one is the fear of it going straight to my ass, plus knowing that Girl Scout cookies are set to arrive soon, and those will be taunting me every day for a month. Being a former fat kid really f***s with your psyche sometimes.




Post title song reference: "Fix You" - Coldplay

On a lighter note...

This kind of reminds me of the "How I Met Your Mother" episode with Marshall and the magazine...

In my office, the cleaning crew comes around during the workday since we have sensitive documents on the floor (that SHOULD be locked up at night but people are stupid). On top of that, each cleaning person has to have an escort follow them around because of said sensitive material – you know, to make sure they're not stealing government secrets. (I can't imagine a worse job – you're not actively doing anything other than watching someone clean.)

Anyway, the cleaning lady for my floor isn't the greatest. Most of the time I see her in the bathroom, talking on the phone about how "her keeeds" (kids) are driving her crazy. When she is working, it's fairly half-assed, and she's usually blasting her music so loud I can hear it through her headphones 25 feet away. But hey, I had a summer job as a cleaning person when I was 16, and it's a sucky deal, so I can't criticize too much...?

One of you guys (either obx or Ash) had a list of their "picky" behavior awhile back, and one of them I can totally identify with: not being able to go to the bathroom on the same floor you work on because of co-worker interaction. It is kind of weird, and even more awkward when there are strange noises emanating from one of the stalls and you have to decide: finish up, wash your hands super fast and get the hell out of there, or try not to make eye contact when Farty McGee emerges because you couldn't pull off option 1.

Or hear, in this case...

Most times I've been able to avoid it, because the fail-safe is to wait until the other person leaves if you want to avoid face time, but it sucks when the person stays in there. Like the cleaning lady.

Even when the cleaning lady isn't gabbing on her phone in the bathroom, I swear she knows when I'm there. We have two ladies' rooms on our floor, and it doesn't matter which one – she shows up right as I sit down for a long-term visit. Lately I've been playing it safe and using the floor below me to avoid her, but it's kind of a pain since I have to punch a code in twice just to travel between floors.

The other morning, I was putting my lunch in the office fridge when she started to wash the floor in the kitchen, so I thought "Perfect! This will take her at least 10 minutes to finish, so I can go to the bathroom in peace."

NOPE. Two minutes later, after I've sat down, she comes in the bathroom and starts cleaning the sinks! WTF. And it was really uncomfortable because my only option was to hurry it up so maybe she woldn't know I've been pooing, since that's apparently all I do since she's always here while I'm doing that!

I guess this means going back down to the fifth floor...

I guess something just got lost, and it deeply saddens me

I'm starting to think I will never, ever find a guy.

After a good month and a half of going out with Aiden, he started doing the fade out thing. This really sucked, because at this point I was feeling more comfortable with him and really starting to like him. It started around New Year's, when I texted him on NYE asking if he wanted to hang out the next day. I didn't hear back from him until the next afternoon, and he was apparently so hungover that he had just woken up. Fine, understandable. I suggested Thursday, and he told me the next afternoon that he was still feeling sick, might be coming down with something, etc.

OK, that's fine. I left Aiden alone for the next several days, then texted him the next week asking how he was feeling. He told me he was feeling better but still had had a rough week, so I commiserated and asked him if there was anything I could do. His response: "No worries, I'll get over it." Okayy... does this mean your mom died, you lost your job, you got a cancer diagnosis? I realize he's a guy and I don't want to press the issue, so I tell him I'm sorry and hope things will get better soon.

I don't hear from him for the next few days, which is definitely not like him considering we were texting nearly every day. I go out with friends that Saturday, and we ended up at a bar near his apartment, so I texted him and mentioned I was at a bar with my friends if he was bored. I heard back from him as I was heading home, saying he had met up with an old friend and was heading home as he had to get up early. We text back and forth a few times, joking like old times, then I go to bed.

The next day I get horrible news from my parents: one of our close family friends died very unexpectedly. I was shell shocked and stunned. Since Aiden knew of the friend (I had told him about him and what a great person he was), I texted him and said, "Hey, my turn for a shitty week! ___ died. Was in for surgery and died in the hospital."

F***ing FOUR HOURS LATER, he texts back: "Jesus, that's terrible."

Really?!? I consoled you for having an ambiguously crappy week (since you didn't tell me what the hell happened), and this is your response. How about, "I'm sorry, that's terrible, are you OK?"

What. The. F.

I was pissed and wanted to see if he'd show some sort of empathy: "I'm completely shocked, I can't believe this happened. He wasn't much younger than my parents." No response.

I spent the next few days burying myself in work and trying not to cry. Tuesday I get a text from him: "How are you holding up?" I waited two days and my response was short: "I'm okay, all things considered." All things considered, like a super close family friend just died and now the guy I'm dating is ignoring me.

I texted something arbitrary/funny to him on Saturday to see if he'd bite, and while I got a response, I didn't get anything else out of it. Finally I said, "Eff it. I have nothing left to lose at this point," and decided to mention the 800 lb gorilla – that I felt like my communication with him was becoming more and more futile. Not surprisingly, no response to that.

I know I didn't do anything glaringly wrong, like most of us girls are guilty of at one point or another. I didn't drunk text him stupid stuff, I didn't smother him, I didn't sleep with him, I showed enough interest but not TOO much, but obviously I stopped being good enough for him. And that hurts.

I hate not having closure, and this is such a cowardly way for a guy to bail out. He was really into me. I'm not just saying that, but the signs were there. And all of a sudden, they weren't. I know I said before that I was really freaking out over the attention, but by the third date I got accustomed to it and felt I was doing okay emotionally.

Now I'm just... sad. Sad because I should have been making an effort to date other guys at the same time to have something to fall back on. Sad because the one time I needed someone to lean on, he wasn't there. Sad because a friend who wasn't even a blood relative but did SO much for my family and was the nicest, most generous person I've met is suddenly gone.

2014 is off to a great start. :(



Post title song reference: "Argue" - Matchbox Twenty

So tell me why it doesn't feel the same

Why does love have to be so %*$#ed up?

Aiden just friend requested me on Facebook, and I immediately felt this pit of dread in my stomach. It's too soon! I've known you for less than a month! I can't accept it yet.

I felt such a spark before that first date with him... probably because I psyched myself up for it. Now that I know he likes me, I feel like it's having the opposite effect. I can't quite put my finger on it... I try to rationalize it by thinking, "if I like him back, I'm setting myself up for potential heartbreak, so my feelings are legit." But I don't even know if I really, truly like him in the same way he likes me.

(I suppose I could chalk some of this up to antidepressants... any psych people out there want to chime in? ;)

He's cute, funny, super smart, and overall a good guy. But there's something missing... [over]confidence? A tiny bit of cockiness? Thinking back on the guys I had crushes on (not necessarily dated, sadly), the ones that I was the most attracted to were charismatic and outgoing. I haven't seen that yet in Aiden. Put it this way -- I'm not jumping up and down with anticipation for him to meet my friends, because I think it'd be really awkward.

On the other hand, I think he's picked up on the fact that *I'm* a little broken, and this is hard for me. As you can tell, I'm not the most smooth person when it comes to dating... I'm super awkward and clueless, even at the age of 30. And yet he's not scared off by this total ineptitude I posess. That, or he just wants to get in my pants, ha.

I don't know what to do about the FB request. If I keep putting it off, he's going to ask why, and I'll have to tell him I don't want to share that with him yet... and possibly expose my lack of feelings for him.



Post title song reference: "Why Pt. 2" - Collective Soul

Mobile post

Downloaded a Blogger app for my phone, so trying to see if this works!

To make things interesting, I managed to torture myself by looking at D's Facebook profile and feeling some satisfaction that he no longer had Jailbait in his photo, plus the "In a relationship" line was gone.

Unfortunately, his Twitter feed is still full of stupid lovey-dovey PDA between the two. I'm 90% sure he's moved to be with her, which I shouldn't be surprised about considering I'm the one who encouraged him to do it, but it still sucks. It sucks because despite the fact that he essentially screwed me over and broke promises to be with a cheating 20 year old, I still miss him. I compare how attracted I am to D versus Aiden, and D wins. Am I biologically designed to be drawn to complete assholes or something? Because D is most definitely one. A sexy asshole, but an asshole nonetheless.

As far as I'm concerned, he and Jailbait deserve each other... but it doesn't make it any easier.

Figures that my courage would choose to sell out now

So yeah. I think I'm too fucked up date guys or be in a relationship.

It's stupid… it's not like I was in an unhealthy, abusive relationship à la 50 Shades of Grey (which I haven't read, but this review sums it up hilariously). I don't have any psychological reason for feeling the way I do, other than the fact I've spent nearly my entire adulthood being self-sufficient and independent. (I'm so stupidly/stubbornly independent that I once hand carried six 12 can fridge packs of Diet Coke and two shopping bags of groceries out to my car in one trip despite people offering to help... the next day I realized I had pulled muscles in both my arms.)

Last night I had my second date with Aiden. We had a great dinner at a French restaurant and lots of laughs. After that we walked over to a sculpture garden, despite it being roughly 25 degrees outside, then over to the Metro since it was getting absurdly cold. He put his arm around me at that point, and it just felt weird. I'm not a very touchy-feely person even with my family and close friends (save for hugs and stuff), so it threw me for a loop – like, "Good god, now I can't think of what I was going to say because I'm too focused on the fact that his arm is around me and how positively alien it feels." [Headdesk.]

Me, apparently.

Anyway, we get down to the subway if only to get out of the wind/cold and sit around and talk. He had his arm around me again, but when we were talking I couldn't look him in the eye because inwardly I was chastising myself for being such a weenie and at the same time wondering why I didn't feel anything inside other than discomfort. Whatever giddiness I felt when I first met him is now cold, hard, scared-shitless steel. I don't know if it's 10+ years of [relatively mild] antidepressants that have dulled my ability to have a positive response to someone's else attention, or just the general feeling of "Meh" I have to anything that I haven't revved myself up for, but it's an awful feeling to have... no feeling.

That fortress I've used so successfully in the past to prevent myself from getting hurt by shutting people out is now preventing me from moving forward. All I've ever wanted was a boyfriend. (I know, there are so so so many things wrong with that statement, but when you're a total dork in high school and college is full of simply NSA hookups, you tend to start feeling like there's something inherently wrong with you.) And now that I've been presented with the opportunity, my response is to stick my head in the sand.

We finally get on the train and he gets off at the next stop. Before he leaves I give him a hug and a peck on the lips, because at that point that was all I could do in the middle of a subway car without having a nervous breakdown. Then, once the train pulled away, I started to cry. I don't know why I did, it just happened. Later he texted me to make sure I had gotten home OK, and we shared a joke about the unreliability of our subway system, so at least he doesn't resent me... right? I can't really process much more right now.

Post title song reference: "Crucify" - Tori Amos

'Cause I'm being taking over by the fear

A couple days ago I had a decent structure to this post, but the words aren't coming to me. (I even had a great post title, and I can't remember it.) The past two weeks have been stressful at work, and I ran out of one of my antidepressants, which I thought wouldn't affect me (it's a VERY low dose primarily to target anxiety). Yeahhh... it wasn't until I started sobbing when a Journey song came on the car radio that I realized I probably need them more than I thought. Oops.

Okay, it's sorta coming back to me. I think the gist of my post was I'm freaking out a tiny bit over a guy. Okay, I'm freaking out a lot. I met a guy a couple weeks ago at a bar, and we really hit it off. (I guess I need to give him a fake name.... let's go with Aiden.) He walked me to the subway and we traded numbers, etc. etc.

Anyway, we went out on Wednesday. I was completely strung out, though - I had a ridiculous day and hadn't eaten much, so I was super nervous that we wouldn't have anything to talk about. Fortunately, after a couple drinks things had smoothed out, and it went really well.

Unfortunately, for the past several days prior, my face thought it'd be really funny to be a total jerk and not only generate flaky dry patches but some very inconvenient, very RED zits on my face, and I was super self-conscious about it. There's only so much makeup can do, and standing on the harsh fluorescent lights on the subway completely killed any self-confidence I had at the end of the night. Thanks skin!

So I guess it went well. He wants to see me again, so we're going to dinner Sunday night.

This sounds dumb, but I'm scared now. I really like him, but I don't want to screw this up because I overthink EVERYTHING. I'm so used to bottling up my emotions and closing myself down that to do otherwise is downright foreign. Because of that, I feel like I need exact instructions on how to do this successfully: If there's no logical, "right" procedure that I'm supposed to follow, I can't do it... I feel awkward if I don't.

Even worse, I've never had real romantic "first kiss" with a guy on a date. (Good lord, that is sad.) So I am completely freaked out about the idea of kissing Aiden on Sunday night. Like it's going to be weighing on me throughout the entire meal, because right now I don't feel any desire to... not that I don't find him attractive, I do. But it's almost like my emotions have been tampered down for so long that the idea of someone actually liking me back is a frightening, foreign notion. And thinking about sleeping with him puts me into a full blown panic attack.

Anyway. That's enough rambling for now. Cross your fingers for me that I don't blow it too badly. ;)



Post title song reference: "The Fear" - Lily Allen

Match.com apparently has me on their poop list

I know, I know, I'm terrible at updating. Hell, I don't think I've logged into to Blogger for at least a month, so I have no idea what anyone else has been up to, so now I feel extra guilty.

Not much has changed – had my eyelid surgery back in September, only to find that the original stitches didn't hold so she had to go back and fix it last Friday. ("One little stitch" turned into many more stitches, so my eye was hugely swollen and bloodshot for 3 days. Super sexy.)

I also bit the bullet and bought a three month match.com subscription, but right now I am UBER pissed at the website. I think I originally made the profile when I was like 25, but hid it for 5 years because I wasn't an active subscriber. After my umpteenth failure on OKCupid, I thought it wouldn't hurt to purchase a few months' worth to see if the theory that paying for a dating service would yield more quality guys.

I went on one date that was just okay – good, but I wasn't really feeling anything. He was perfectly nice and normal, and we had a good time, but I just didn't really feel any sort of connection.

It probably doesn't help that Match keeps fucking up my account. Right after my date, my account was suddenly locked – I couldn't log in at all. I sent an email to customer service, they restored access, and everything was fine for a week. The next weekend the exact same thing happened. And then a week later, it happened AGAIN! By the second time I requested that they credit me for the days I was locked out, and the third time I asked the CSR *why* I kept getting locked out... he claimed it was because emails that were sent to me were bounced, which is complete B.S. – I keep getting Stir event notifications in my inbox, so it's obviously working! The annoying part is that when they do restore my account access, they don't notify me by email, and they also switch my profile to "Hidden."

Just now I uploaded a new photo, went back to my dashboard, and guess what? Yup, you guessed it – locked out. It literally was only about 30 seconds before I was kicked off. This is at least the fifth time it's happened. At this point I am so frustrated with the site, not only because I only get emails and winks from 45 year old guys living 50+ miles away, but I can't seem to use it for more than a few days before I get kicked off.

I don't want to give up on using the site, but it's not exactly useful when I'm constantly disappearing from it. I'm tempted to ask them to cancel that account and let me make a new profile (*and* give me subscription credit!) to see if that fixes the issue.

It'll also solve the problem of me using the "Daily Match" feature, which apparently emails the guys you've clicked "Yes" on to let them know you're interested! That was not my intention... I really just thought it Favorite'd them the way anonymously... nope. Way to tip my hand, Match.

This time, baby, I'll be bulletproof

Okay, now that I'm a little more composed and not ranting about the unfortunate screwup with my doctor's office, I can tell the story of Josh and the random dance party on Saturday.

Several friends and I went out to dinner at a French restaurant in the city this past Saturday. (The food was good, but my stomach is NOT used to French cooking... Cream and butter and cheese sound delicious together, but I couldn't even finish half of my plate because it was so heavy.) We stopped at another bar after dinner – it was kind of a, "This place looks chill, and it just started raining, so let's go here!" decision.

The gist of the story goes: there was a party in a large room upstairs next to the bathroom. I asked a girl in the bathroom what was going on, and she goes, "It's so-and-so's going away party! You should totally come! Bring your friends!" (You know, typical drunk bathroom conversation.) I told her we might check it out later (polite answer, considering there was NO ONE there and we'd stick out like sore thumbs. I told my friends about the party and random invitation, saying the DJ up there was amazing, but it was empty as hell.

In meantime we drank for another 90 minutes before deciding to move on. One of my friends urged me to go back upstairs to see if the party had gotten any better, so I bravely did another bathroom run.

The party was now ROCKIN'. Tons of people there, lots of dancing, etc. As I made my way through the room to head back downstairs, who do I see? Josh. Oh, SHIT.

He spots me and I chat with him for about a minute before being interrupted by some girls to grab him and his friends for a photo. Once they were done, one of the girls starts immediately talking to him, and I'm still standing there like a total idiot. After about 20 seconds of this, I realized he was clearly more engrossed in her than continuing to talk to me, so I tap him on the shoulder and tell him I'm going back downstairs to my friends.

Now, is it just me, or was that rude of him? I didn't know anyone there, we were having a conversation until it was interrupted by photo time, and he lets some girl cut in. Either they both were just too sloshed to realize I was standing there (hard to do since I was taller than everyone within a 5 foot radius), or he's a dick.

I told my friends about the now-bumpin' party and the awkward run-in with Josh. Since we were all very buzzed and dying to go dancing (especially my best friend), we decided to scope it out. Hey, we had an invite, why the hell not?

We head upstairs and my friends and I hit the dance floor. Holy shit, it was SO MUCH FUN. The DJ was great, the people around us were having a fantastic time, we were dancing like crazy... and turns out we weren't the only party crashers there, so it was all cool. (And Josh wasn't even near us, so I didn't feel awkward.) Seriously, we were having a complete blast.

And then, as I'm jumping up and down to Katy Perry, I look over to my right and see Josh making out with some chick.

Me:

The funny part was, I didn't really care. I mean, yeah, it blows because I thought Josh was cute, but to glance over and see him sucking some girl's face off at a GOING AWAY PARTY seems kinds tacky. First off, you're 30. This is not a Miami dance club or a fraternity house basement. The hostess is moving across the country, and you're grinding and making out with some chick? Gross.

I think if this happened 10 years ago when I was still in college, I'd be shell-shocked and it would have ruined the rest of my night. But instead, I just turned around and kept dancing and having the time of my life with my friends. I think it just goes to show that if you have the right people with you, it makes all the difference. Also, it made me realize that Josh is a player who only cares about getting ass.

My only regret is giving him the courtesy of saying goodbye when we left about 30 minutes later. I should have just walked out of there without saying anything, because he really didn't deserve another 5 seconds of my time.

All my friends were talking about the party for days afterwards because they had so much fun dancing. In the end, that's what matters!

Sometimes you just got to show how you feel

It's weird how a somewhat good day can turn right on its head into an ugly one with a phone call.

Long story short(ish), a few weeks ago I made a last minute decision to fly to Europe to see my grandmother, who I haven't seen since she left the U.S. about 6 years ago. She's getting up there in years, and my parents were already going, so this was an opportune time to go.

The only issue was that I had a major sports-related appointment in the middle of their trip. I couldn't move the appointment any earlier, but there was an opening the day after I came back. However, that was also the day I was scheduled for minor eye surgery (not Lasix :)), and to try and do the two on the same day was too much to handle, especially after flying back from Europe the night before. After much hemming and hawing, I decided to fly out right after my appointment on Friday, then come back the next Wednesday with my parents (which coincided well with my Thursday eye surgery, so they could pick me up after it was over).

Well, today I get a voicemail from my doctor's office, saying they hadn't received the new photos of my eye needed to get the pre-approval from my insurance company for the procedure. I was confused, because I had sent the photos almost two weeks ago. I called the office and told them that, and the receptionist told me the nurse I'd emailed them to never received them. As a result, I'd have to change my surgery date because they couldn't get the pre-approval in time for next Thursday's and wait another MONTH to have it done.

I was pissed. I had specifically built my travel plans around this damn surgery, only to have the doctor's office screw up. One would think if they hadn't gotten the photos I'd promised to send when they reminded me on July 22nd, they would have called! But I did send them, on July 24th, and now I'm being told they were never received. (Maybe, just maybe, if your office had its own email address and you weren't relying on someone's personal account, we wouldn't have had this issue!)

I forwarded the original message back to her and told her to check the email again. I was so upset that I hung up the phone and started crying at my desk because a) all that stressing/planning was for absolutely nothing, and b) now I'm going to have stitches in my eyelid right in the middle of competition season, which fucking sucks. I'm still furious, because I have the original email that clearly has the two photos, and it was sent with plenty of time to process the pre-approval. It was THEIR mistake, not mine, although obviously I should have called and confirmed they'd received them, since they didn't let me know they hadn't. (Since I had sent/received email from them before, there's no reason why it would get "lost" or sent to the spam folder.)

Jeez. I'm sorry for the two negative posts in a row, but I hate, hate, hate it when crap like this happens. I specifically told work that I'd take a sick day for the surgery, but now that I'm going to be home, there's no sense in me not going into work, since I have the world's worst vacation accrual policy and the three days I'm taking in Sweden are 25% of my current vacation allotment. (Meanwhile, I get to listen to my cubiclemate prepare fun work international travel plans and get twice as much vacation because of the comp time she receives while on travel.) It's annoying because if my sick leave were just PTO, I'd have oodles of vacation time. (I swear, sick leave is discriminatory towards single, healthy people without kids.)

Stop being upset over nothing, self. You didn't cry when you saw Josh making out with some chick at a dance party this past Saturday (story for another time), why should something like this cue the waterworks?





Post title song reference: "You're So Real" - Matchbox 20

Maybe I just feel too much

Depression is such a selfish beast. It'll sit there dormant while everything in life seems to go right, and then when a few wrong things happen in a row, it lurches out of the darkness, grabs ahold of your soul, and sucks you back down with him. That's kind of how I feel like now... sliding down the tar pit of bummed-out-ness.

British guy from OKC never messaged me back. I completely went against my own rule and messaged him a second time (over two weeks after I sent the first, so it wasn't like I did it immediately), just to see he'd bite. I figured I had a 0% chance of response if I didn't ping him, and if I did send a message, the worst outcome would still be 0%. But I should have figured a guy with a "red" response rate isn't going to give anyone a chance. I know I shouldn't take these things so personally, but I'm sitting here tearing up because I don't feel good enough. Over one guy... stupid, right? :-/

Sometimes I wish I had gone to grad school years ago, because at the least I'd be back in an environment where you meet guys and establish a friendship before actually going out. I feel like my online personality is different from my real life persona, and I can't seem to get the two to match up. It was the same way when I did kickball – I felt much more comfortable meeting people there because the bar scene was so relaxed and casual. Unfortunately the league I played in self-destructed and it's full of 22 year olds now.

In other news, last week I logged into my credit card account to find some purchases I definitely didn't make. This is the third time in 5 years that my credit card number has been stolen! I think I'm extremely vigilant about using my card safely, yet for some reason my damn number has been up for grabs. It's getting tiresome... thankfully it hasn't affected my credit score or anything, but it's still a nuisance and a little (okay, a LOT) unsettling.

Annnnd now my manager is griping at me because one of our analytics applications is running slowly, probably because they've added like 150 websites and are tracking too many. So that's my fault that our server can't handle that kind of load, and I'm getting flack for it. "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job..."
Friday, you can't come soon enough!




Post title song reference: Foo Fighters - End Over End

Fighting the battle of who could care less

Also known as, "Adventures in OKCupid messages."

10 days into logging back into OKCupid, and not much on the horizon. I've gotten plenty of visitors and a handful of messages, but unfortunately quality != quantity.

For example, one message I got last Saturday consisted of: "Princess, I'm taking you out for dinner and dancing. On me, of course. Call 555-555-5555 blah blah blah."

Princess? Only my mom calls me that, and even then I don't like it.

And then we have the overachievers... there's the guy that sent me two messages in the span of 6 hours (and keeps visiting my profile), and another that sent me a message that said, "Hi, I'm ___. Pleased to meet your acquaintance." I deleted it, because he sounded like a scammer, and the next day I received ANOTHER message from him: "Did you get my last message?" SRSLY?!

And the best one so far -- I couldn't delete this one fast enough -- "You look like a dominant submissive. Am I right?" (WTF? Isn't that kind of an oxymoron...?)

[Headdesk.]

I have responded to a couple of messages (I have a little trivia question on my profile, and lots of them try to answer it. Unfortunately, it's kind of nerdy, so it attracts nerds). Some seem to have potential, but overall I still seem to be attracting duds. And, go figure, the couple of guys I've initiated contact with don't reply. Go figure. I really wish cute-possibly-British-guy would respond, but I also didn't give him much to go on... plus I did it before I updated my information and photos, so he probably saw my not-so-great old phot (provided he checked my profile!). I dunno, sucks that the few guys I'm immediately turned off by are either 1) cowards afraid of women taking initiative, or 2) I suck.
 
On a side note relating to OKCupid, here's something crazy: last night when I was on my bike ride, I passed a guy walking out of his apartment building over to his motorcycle. I smiled at him, he smiled back, and as I pedaled away, I thought, "He's cute! Wow, he looks a LOT like one of the guys I have on my Favorites list." This morning, I went and checked, and I'm about 70% sure it's the same guy. He rides motorcycles and lists renovating his apartment in (that area of town where I was riding) as his interests, and I know for a fact that that apartment building is owner-only. Or I could be completely wrong and just ended up smiling at a random guy. ;)



Post title song reference: "Battle of Who Could Care Less" - Ben Folds Five

Got my mind set on you

I made the mistake of buying a cupcake for dessert, eating 75% of it, and then finishing the rest a few hours later. I'm literally vibrating from the sugar overdose. I can't stop shaking my leg and I was starting to get a headache.

But man, it was SO GOOD. Chocolate and vanilla cream cheese marble cake with cream cheese frosting. DELISH. A reminder of why I only allow myself to have cake once in awhile, because I have no self control over sweets.

Anyway, Bluemoon's post about climbing out of the online dating pool in September reminds me that I need to get more involved in it. This past weekend, I went on OKCupid and updated some of my profile (considering I logged in maybe once a month, that's pretty big. And it apparently bumps your profile back up, because I started getting all these messages and visitors). I went to my favorites list, and (sad to say?) a lot of my favorites were still active. I don't know, maybe it's a good thing, considering I had only messaged one of them in the past six months. (He didn't respond.)

As I was "window shopping," I looked at this guy's profile that sounded amazing. I don't want to go into too much detail, but the more I read, the more excited I got: "Dude, he's SO FREAKING CUTE on paper! And in photos! And it sounds like he has an accent! AND HE HAS GLASSES!" (I've had a glasses fetish since I was like, 7. It's kind of sad/weird.)

And, go figure, I sent him a little message (nothing too serious), and he hasn't responded. Or checked out my profile.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Is this karma for me not replying to messages I've received? Granted, I haven't read most of them (I feel skeezy doing it at work, and my hard drive died on my laptop, so I've had to resort to my phone), but still. The ultimate men-and-women dating issue: why is he not interested when I express interest in him, and vice versa?

What I need to do is reply to messages that interest me, send a few messages to ones on my favorite list, and forget about the adorable guy and move along. Right? I'm going out for drinks with Noah tonight, the guy who used to work in my office... I like him but he's just really, really smart and I don't really feel much connection with him. We'll see.

He's good at being what he's not, gives nothing away

And now for something completely superficial!

I've been so amazingly good at NOT checking D's Twitter feed or Facebook in the past couple of months. And I didn't wish him a happy birthday (easy to do since the asshat didn't send me one), so I was doing really well.

However, the other day I was playing around with my Twitter account and clicked on his name from a direct message sent about 2 years ago. I figured I had been good for so long that I could cheat one day... wrong.

One of his tweets from early in June said, "Our first ultrasound!" with a link to a photo of him and Jailbait next to a monitor. Fortunately, I had already seen the newer tweets that said, "It was a joke!", so I didn't immediately pass out. (She's an "athlete" for a living – I use that term loosely since her sport is pretty stupid and her parents pay for everything while she doesn't work or go to college – and presumably was getting an ultrasound for an injury or something.)

Seriously. What a sick fucking joke. She's fucking 21, for chrissakes. Could you imagine if her parents saw that tweet? I think mine would have killed me. (Hell, they'd have knocked some sense into me for dating a guy 13 years older than me when I was that age.)

Worse yet, people were saying, "Congrats!" to D, as if it were some giant blessing that he knocked up some chick who doesn't even have a college education or future beyond her "professional athlete" schtick. (Can you tell I'm still pissed at him for, well, everything? Not just the breaking my heart part, but letting some cheating skank charm him into giving up everything and drop the ball on the project I worked my ass off to help him with.) As I've probably said before, I'm equally as angry with myself for falling for his bullshit and false promises.

Anyway, on a more happy note... I am obsessed with this video. My grandmother used to have a Siamese when I was a little kid, who was one of the best, most tolerant cats ever... so I have a soft spot for the little blue-eyed cuties. Enjoy. :)

Post title song reference: Nikka Costa - "Push & Pull"

Hatred passed on, passed on and passed on

This is going to be a little different (and late, considering the SCOTUS rulings were last week), but does anyone else get really disheartened when you see nasty, politically themed bumper stickers or plates? Specifically, I'm talking about these types:

Helloooo, crazy.

The other day I saw a guy with stickers on his car: "My dog bites Democrats," and "My cat is smarter than the President." Come on, dude, don't drag your poor animals into this!

And then, of course, there's this license plate, which really bothers me, because I'm relatively sure Ben Franklin did NOT envision the rattlesnake to be a symbol of ass-backwards-ness:

To be perfectly honest, the Tea Party frightens me. Even though Wikipedia defines them as a group that "advocates protection of the work of the founding fathers of the United States, reducing U.S. government spending and taxes, and reducing the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit," I feel they certainly don't portray that message. All I hear is the garbage and hatred spewed by the likes of Michelle Bachman and Rush Limbaugh and the "they're gonna terk our guns!" crazies. I feel like since the radical anti-government, bigoted nutjobs have a socially acceptable, common ground with the TP (small government and conservative social values), they feel it's OK for them to express their prejudice publicly in the name of a political party:

"Tea Party members are not necessarily any more racist than typical white Americans, but that the movement's supporters are more likely to be, leading the researchers to conclude that, 'what the Tea Party means to its members and what it represents to the large public may, in fact, not be the same thing.' The study of survey data compiled in 2010 found that people who viewed the Tea Party favorably more often agreed with negative sentiments about African-Americans, than did the general population."

I know I'm supposed to be tolerant, that expressing dislike doesn't make me any better than them. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and political views. But when these opinions and views are narrow-minded, homophobic, and fucking downright racist, it makes me furious. I get it: there are Tea Party members who aren't racist assholes. Yet not enough TP members are stepping up to refute the overt bigotry and prejudice, and it certainly doesn't help that those same people are against gay rights and think it's OK to make ridiculous laws to control women's bodies, so you know they're not very tolerant to begin with. ;)

I think what's triggering this semi-rant is 1) DOMA and Prop 8 being struck down (thank you, lawd!), 2) the Voting Rights being repealed (boo), and 3) when I was out biking on Saturday, I got angry honked at by a guy with a "Don't Tread on Me" sticker. For what reason, I don't know – it was a rural country road with low traffic, I was so far over to the right side of the road that I was practically in the gravel, and I had my blinky light on, so it's not like I riding at night and invisible. Maybe he was pissed because I was a woman and exercising instead of cooking dinner and doing laundry at home, where I obviously belonged! Ha.

Anyway. I suck at writing political opinion stuff, so sorry if it's hard to read. :)





Post title song reference: Rage Against the Machine - Settle for Nothing

Call me, definitely

[Warning: Long winded.]

Okay, as promised... my exciting Saturday from last weekend. I planned to go for a bike ride out in a rural area of the state, maybe about 35 miles from where I live. The slight problem with this area is that there are a lot of gravel/dirt roads, and I have a road bike, so I parked my car at the end of one of these dirt roads where it intersects with the paved road. Picture a "T" – the right branch of the T is the dirt road where I was parked, and the other two branches are the same paved road – so it basically does a 90 degree left turn.

As I was getting my bike ready, I saw this car come screaming toward the left turn and slam on the brakes as she reached the center of the T. I thought he (turns out it was a she, I later found out) had meant to turn right onto the gravel road, but instead she backed up and continued to the left. About 20-30 seconds later I heard a loud "bang," as if the car had bottomed out or something. I honestly thought nothing of it – "Hmm, maybe the car crashed!" flashed through my mind, but only for a millisecond, then I dismissed the idea.

Anyway, a minute or so later I'm pedaling down the road where the white car had gone, and I saw it up ahead pulled over to the right side, in front of a tree. This sounds stupid, but as I neared it, I thought, "Well, he probably had to go pee, saw me and didn't want to go  in the field while I was standing there, so looks like he found a place!" Seriously, that's what ran through my head. I have no idea why, considering the field on the left had a barbed wire fence, but that's the logical conclusion I had.

As I passed the car, going maybe 10 mph, I looked to see if the person was still inside (you know, to validate my pee theory) and didn't see anyone. Then I did a double take: the airbags had gone off. As I hit the brakes I saw someone in the driver's seat slumped over to the passenger side. Fuuuuccckkk.

I scrambled over to the side of the road, grabbed my phone, and called 911. Voice shaking, I told the operator that I was on my bike and "found" a car accident, and I was fine but the person in the car was not. As I walked back to the car I got a better look at the scene and saw the hood was crumpled and the windshield was cracked – she had obviously hit the tree. As I waited for the operator to transfer me to the sheriff's office, I walked closer to the driver's side and was relieved to see that the woman driving was alive – out for the count, but alive – and no blood.

While I was on the phone, a couple in their car was driving past, and I flagged them down. As I hung up, I immediately told them, "I'm fine, she didn't hit me!" (Something I had to repeat ad nauseam for the next 90 minutes). They turned out to not be of much help – I was really hoping for a medical professional ;) – so I went over and started talking to the driver. She was kind of in and out of consciousness and then started to panic a bit, so I told her the only thing I knew: "Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth." Then I asked her if she had any kids, and what their names were, etc... basically kept her talking and focused on something other than the fact she was in a car crash.

As I talked to her, I noticed her pupils were tiny pinpricks. The last time I fainted, the nurses told me they knew I was about to go because my pupils had blown out (sign of shock/dropped blood pressure), so I thought that was strange. Combined with the fact I had just seen her driving erratically less than five minutes before, I suspected she was on something.

About 2 minutes later, another person pulls up and gets out, fortunately wearing a volunteer EMT shirt – he lived nearby and heard the call on the scanner. I happily stepped away to let him do his job and waited for the paramedics to arrive. (And two fire trucks, and after what seemed like half an hour, the police.)

Once they had everything under control (she was actually standing up when they finally got her out of the car, so no broken bones or immediate damage), I was approached by a few LE people and asked to describe what happened. Meanwhile, a backup of about seven cars/gawkers had formed – why they just didn't turn around and use an alternative route is beyond me, because this road was a very small secondary road that you can access on another end – and once again, I had to explain that I actually came across the scene, was not involved in the crash, and she did not hit the tree to avoid me.

Finally, about an hour and half later, they carted her off, I wrote down a final statement for the cops, and was allowed to leave/continue on my bike ride, since I had only gone 2/10ths of a mile.

So that's my 911 story. It's funny, I've never had to call 911 before, and prior to that day I always thought it would be one of those things where I questioned my judgment later, such as, "Gee, that guy looks like an axe murderer, but he might not be... should I call?"  Definitely, definitely not the case... this was "Holy shit, I need to call 911 right NOW."

Oh, and I later found out from the deputy that it was a DUI/drug related accident. Out of curiosity, I searched the sheriff's website and the local papers to see if it had been recorded publicly, but nothing's come up. I'm guessing this is a good thing?