Does She or Doesn't She?

I always know when someone likes me, even as a person, when they read my blog. Actually, I've had people hate me as a person for this very blog, but at least I knew they were listening. They hated me, but I least I knew they cared enough to read.

And oh! This blog and I have been through so much. So many iterations, so many times when I've wanted to start writing and haven't had the courage to hit publish.

What can I say now? Work is great, my  love life is complex at best. I just made appointments to see my ObGyn and a Reproductive Endocrinologist as a completely single woman, but then I met someone. And oh how she made me smile. She made me feel like I had been waiting for her, but then there is all the fear and insecurity. All the people that tell me it's not what I think it is and "oh grasshopper, you should slow down".

So consider me officially slowed. I'm not even answering my phone right now. I'm so slow that a slug couldn't see me. I just had a great Easter dinner with my parents, Zac, and Clicker, and now we are all almost ready to go to bed. I'm so alone it hurts. As always. Just alone....and even when I thought I was through waiting for my white knight, I find myself wondering, "Just maybe...."

Bat Shit

In my coming out post, I joked that women are all bat shit crazy and they make me bat shit crazy just by being near them. What I should have said was something along the lines of a Chinese fortune cookie: "You will yearn for the women that you cannot have. Your lucky numbers are 5, 7, 17, and 23".

You see, when men don't like you romantically, you never hear from them again. That's a gross oversimplification of the behavior of an entire sex, but give me a little credit here. I unsuccessfully dated men in Texas for seven years. Seven looooonnng years of online dating, most of which I chronicled on my blog. I know how this rodeo works. After a first date, you'll only hear from a guy if he thinks the fledgling relationship is going to go somewhere on the second date. Preferably somewhere horizontal. There is no, "Let's just be friends and get to know each other".

Then there are women. Oh my Lord. I have never had so many "friends" as I do with female first dates. When women don't see the possibility of a romantic relationship, there is always the very real possibility that this woman will become your best friend forever and ever, Amen. This situation works out if both parties, mutually agree, that you are completely incompatible, yet share a deep, abiding love of say...rhesus monkeys and Kit-kat bars. Then you can be friends! Short of that situation, one person is doomed to be longing for the other because there is a reason you went on a date in the first place. At one point, in the not-so-distant past, you both found each other attractive enough to meet for tea/dinner/drinks. That attraction doesn't stop with the phrase, "I'd just like to be friends" even when it's joyfully texted at the end of the date with a smiley face (:-) to soften the blow.

So there is a doomed sense of longing. Within the lesbian community, this longing can go on for years and even decades. While trapped in this version of Dante's Inferno, the friend is  forced to listen to other person's stories about their third blind date with her mother's uncle's friend that's on a softball team with a girl she knew in the third grade or how they are still in love with their ex-girlfriend from two years ago although all they did was fight. All the while, you know (oh how you know!) that you would in fact make this person wildly happy if only you weren't banished to the Friend Zone.

And this is just one of the many reasons that women make bat shit crazy, even if they do text me with cute smiley faces.

Better (A Little)

Saying that I'm better is basically wishing that a giant asteroid would hit my head and destroy my house. I don't actually want that so I'll hedge my bets by saying that I'm a little better. The great sadness has mostly left me, although occasionally I don't want to leave the house, but I'm told that's normal. I'm going to so much therapy that it would pain me to actually talk about. Even better, the nicest improvement is that I can be at work without crying or constantly eyeing the exits, wishing that I had enough courage to run sprinting out the door instead of sitting miserably in my desk chair.

There have been a lot of trying times that I'm trying to put past me. There have been romantic, interpersonal, and professional struggles that are all still there to a degree, but ultimately, I am feel better.

Just felt like I should update and say that out loud (err..in my head, I mean).

I'm going on a date tonight with someone that makes me very happy to be around. It's like going on a little vacation because I forget all my troubles when I'm around them. I literally don't do any housework or spend anytime worrying about money (one of my least favorite past times that I seem to do quite a bit of. See: never leaving the house when upset).

I do want to tell you about this dog of mine, known as Samantha - or Sam for short. Sam is a holy terror. She sleeps in a crate and goes to the bathroom outside (at least 65% of the time, or so)

She looks all cute and cuddly in this picture, but that's before she's gained 15 pounds and decided that rules are for suckers. When I forget to put her in a crate before I take a nap, I wake up to a house that has been completely decimated. Everything in chewing reach has been chewed to oblivion and scattered through the living room, bedroom, and dining room. At last count, she has completely destroyed and/or eaten: half a bottle of Elmer's Glue, 32 crayons, a sponge, a shower scrub, every piece of newspaper or copy paper in the house, 4 stuffed animals not-so-lovingly donated by Zac, rope, curtain pulls, socks, wooden train tracks, and so many other items that I can't stop to think about right now because I might banish her outside.

This guy loves her, though:

He tells me at least once a night what a good dog Sam is. For me, I never knew that dog ownership could be quite so...destructive. Sam is fiercely loyal and protective of her family, almost to the point that I have to put her outside to answer the door when someone comes over because I'm afraid that she'll rip out their jugular before they have time to slip her a treat.

Let's not even talk about the dog's relationship to the cat. My cat, Piper, is queen of the household and knows it. She hisses and bats at Sam whenever the dumb dog tries to lick Piper on the head or play with her. Those two are going to run the shag carpets in this house with their tangle of claws. Piper usually looks to me for protection and has been known to leap long distances to avoid walking on the floor where the dreaded dog is. You've never seen a happy cat than the one that comes up on my bed at night and demands to be petted, once Sam is in her crate. Seriously.

Raising a family of four, even when two of them are animals, can be tough. I feel like I'm in a never ending game of the "Farmer and Dell" and sometimes I wonder if I'm the cheese that the mouse takes at the end. If the boy takes the dog and the dog takes a cat, I'd like to think I'm Brie or Gouda - something fancy at least.

Just Me

I'm back in the dating world and feeling an attack of self-doubt. I'm torn between telling someone that I'm not what they are looking for and saying, "Just give me a chance. I won't let you down". Ugh, but who am I to rejct myself? Wouldn't someone tell me that they didn't want to be with me if they really didn't? I don't get it.

My sister likes to tell me that if she was single at my age, that she would just stay alone. The older I get, the harder dating becomes. Sigh.

2 Weeks

As Caroline so aptly noticed on Facebook, Clicker went with me to my graduate school graduation in New Orleans this weekend. I invited him and since his job hadn't officially started, he came. There were some tough times, however, mixed in with all the wonderful. I feel like I'm even being disloyal writing about him because he HATES when I write about him on the internet, even though he knows I have a blog. But he's also not here right now and he's weighing heavily on my heart. My online community has been around longer than him.

So, where to start? Well, we lived together for just five weeks before he moved out, at my discretion. He felt like I was taking advantage of him and "dumping" my kid on him while I was working late and I felt like he wasn't ready to be a Dad and was being incredibly selfish. We parted ways. But, it wasn't that easy. We stayed friends. Best friends actually. He got an apartment in the suburb that I live in. I helped him move and study for his Series 7 exam.

I decided that I needed to date right after he moved out. I was much more cautious this time and met only three men and two of the dates ended horribly. One ended so badly I wondered if I should press charges, but I ended up escaping safely. That morning, I called Clicker. He came over and held me and told me that men should not treat women like that and being in his arms felt so good and safe. Almost without telling him, I decided that I wanted to date him exclusively again. We fit. We know each other so well.

Just one problem with this scenario. While I was being self-centered and focused on dating other people, he had also joined an online dating site and was texting and talking to close to 5-8 women. At first, he didn't tell me about them. We just kept hanging out and acting like everything was normal. Then it started coming out. I realized that he met one of them for a date, while still technically dating me (although not exclusively). Don't worry, if this seems complicated, it's because it is.

He lied about seeing the girl. Now he's back in Huntsville and plans to see another one of his women. He's asked for two weeks to make a decision: either he will decide to date one or more of his women, or go back and date me exclusively. I told him that he was gambling that I would even be around in two weeks, but let's be honest here folks, for those of you that read me back in the notsopregnant days, have I ever held to any of my boundaries with men? Ever? Yeah, I can't think of any times either.

Here is where you come in with some advice. If you were me, would you wait the two weeks with the hopes that he will come back to me? After all, I went on several first dates. They just happened to be monumentally horrendous, but I did go out on them. Isn't it fair for him to date. He says he wants to see what is out there. Or, do I listen to that little voice in my head that's saying, "You are too great for anyone to let you go, especially if they are out trying to find someone better." Don't worry, that voice is easily squashed so don't let that influence your advice.

So come on, you gotta let me know now, Should I Stay or Should Go?

Curse this Blog

I have a bit of a blog curse with this blog. As soon as I write about how excited I am about someone or how much I like them, a gray cloud immediately hovers over the relationship. Sometimes I'm blinded by the lightening flashes, wondering "where in the hell did that come from" and other times its just a steady downpour of rain.

This weekend I was profoundly hurt by a series of bad decisions. It was one of those situations where I should have known far enough in advance that it was going to hurt, like when you avoid putting your hand directly over a hot stove because you know you are going to get burned. But I went and put my hand over it anyway because I thought that was what was expected of me. I try to be all bad ass on this blog and say, "fuck the expectations. I'm going to do it MY WAY" but really, I'm one giant pushover away from being a loud-mouth, passive aggressive woman that can't deal with other people's disappointment. So, I suppressed everything and tried to pretend that I wasn't really experiencing what I felt. At least I'm cognizant enough to know that never really works. Now, I'm left with a sea of questions and doubts.

I thought for sure that I had outsmarted the blog curse. I waited nine months to blog about someone that I was dating and he doesn't even read this blog! Surely, this was enough to allow me a little bit of space in my little sliver of the Internet. Guess I was wrong.

I consoled myself tonight with a blender. I actually bought one that wasn't the absolute cheapest on the market, which is a new experience for me. This baby has 450 watts of power and can crush ice in under three seconds. I've decided that I'll taper my meals down to the liquid diet, which starts on Friday. Instead of doing anything vaguely healthy with the blender, I decided to show Zac what a homemade milkshake tastes like.

Nothing like soothing myself with food. Just for the record, they were pretty damn good milkshakes. I have manged to learn everything and nothing, simultaneously.

EDITED: I was in the shower trying to wash the at-home hair dye out of my hair and realized that I had kind of threw Clicker under the bus. He's a generally good guy and I didn't acknowledge my responsibilities for some of the bad decisions that were made. So, to use a grossly drawn-out vague metaphor, I present (ta-da!) a trainwreck.

At any point, I could have stopped the train from colliding with another train, but I didn't. I could have stopped the engineer from getting into the engine and tooting the train's horn, but I didn't because I thought it would be fun to hear the engineer toot the train's whistle and I like the way the engineer wore his hat a little to the left at the thought of making a really loud noise. Then the train started rolling. I could have picked which track it went on, but I let someone else decide. Even when I saw the other train approaching, I could have said, "No! Wait! Put on the brakes. There is a train approaching!" but I didn't want to cause a false alarm on the slimmest of possibilities that we would avoid the collision. The engineer even turned to me and asked my opinion about the on-coming train and I shrugged my shoulders and thought it was going to be ok. Then, it was so not ok. It was a giant trainwreck in the middle of the damn tracks and now I wish I would have taken the bus instead. End of story.

Clicker!

Since I went on and on about Clicker in my last post, I thought I'd give you some more details about him. I should also probably mention that he doesn't read my blog, so I have free reign to write whatever I'd like about him. Sweet!

So, Clicker and I met off a website around April 2010 (we think - the exact date is a little fuzzy). I was attracted to his intelligence, confidence, and sweetness. He was a bit awkward in our initial phone calls, but he volunteered to drive down to meet me from Huntsville, TX. We got along great and started dating seriously after our second or third date. I had to get used to the fact that he was 2 1/2 years younger than me and he had to get used to the idea of dating a single Mom.

I think he met Zac fairly early on in our relationship. He was....how can I say this politely? A bit standoffish with Zac. He didn't want Zac getting too close to him and he didn't want to get too close to Zac. He thought the best way to avoid this was to not make any direct eye contact or indirect touching with Zac. Zac didn't care. Zac is a little like a cat. The more you try and avoid him the more he will put his butt in your face and swirl around your leg while you are trying to walk. If I don't tell you soon, remind me to tell you the story of Zac meeting the guy that helped me get my current job (and is now my parents' broker).

Anyways, back to Clicker. He knows more about cars, guns, computers, and video games than anyone I know. That doesn't sound like it would be attractive to me, but damn, being able to change my fuel pump over one hot, summer weekend is sexier than shit, even if he made me sit out there and randomly hand him tools. I'm fine with the guns as long as I don't see them and occasionally I like to quiz him during movies to tell me the manufacturer and caliber of the gun on the screen. I think he and I would make a kick ass team at Trivial Pursuit. Although he's a gun advocate, he's a liberal Democratic from a liberal family. He named himself Clicker from his time as a photojournalist with three newspapers. He takes amazing photos, which I'll post a couple of.

Basically, he's a great friend. We've been dating for about nine months and he's gotten much closer to Zac. He let Zac sit on his lap as he showed Zac how to play a car racing game on PS3. It was very sweet. Zac waits to pounce (I mean hug) him as he walks through the door and Clicker reads to him at night before I tuck Zac into bed.

Here's one of the first pictures he showed me on the website where we met:
(d'oh! No more pics of Clicker. Want to guess who asked me to take them down?)

And here are some that he took. These pictures are going to serve as my "before surgery" pictures. Clicker went with me on Zac's first day of school in August 2010 and photographed the whole drop-off:

Walking my buddy to the car. His backpack is almost as big as he is.

I'm pretty much in love with Zac's face in this picture.

That's my boy. God I love this kid and the man that took the picture.

Pre-Op Madness

I'm not sure if the word madness in the blog title refers to how disorganized the hospital was today or how I reacted to the constant waiting and general confusion. Turns out that after years of not being hormonal, I'm suddenly working like clockwork, once a month. It sucks, mostly because I can never remember how much time has elapsed between visits.

Well, it turns out that about four weeks have elapsed since my last hormonal roller coaster. I didn't realize that, of course, while I was waiting in three different waiting rooms at the fancy-schmancy hospital where I'm getting my surgery. Clicker, my boyfriend that I blogged about back in April, went with me, much to his dismay. The day started off with us arriving late to my first appointment to get an echo cardiogram and EKG. The primary reason I asked Clicker to go with me to my appointments was to help me get through the cardio tests. The last time I got an EKG, I started freaking out as soon as I laid on the hard table and the technician placed the sensors on my body. My heart rate was over 100 and I was told that I had tachycardia (Aunt Jen said that they were overreacting since a pulse rate of 100 is borderline). The technician told me to focus on calming down and left the room for a while. I meditated and got my pulse down to 80, right until the technician walked back in and my heart rate shot up to 100.

Today was a bit different, although even with Clicker there, my heart rate was still 94. We both got a great view of my heart during the echo, which was cool in its own right. Went then went one floor up, checked in with another receptionist and then waited for another 30 minutes. I was taken back alone to get an abdominal ultrasound (which involved a lot taking deep breaths and holding it, which gave me hiccups. After more undressing and putting on the world's smallest gowns, I waited in a private lounge for another 30 minutes and had a chest x-ray. Then I went back to the lounge, waited another 15 minutes, and got an upper GI exam complete with barium. The funniest part of that exam was drinking the barium, then being reclined completely on my back and being told to roll over in a complete circle. The doc said he wanted to coat my stomach. The only problem was that the examination machine was hanging just two feet from my body, so turning over and over was a bit difficult.

Almost an hour-and-a-half later, I reunite with Clicker and go up to the 22nd floor for "labs". At least that is what I was told I was getting. I was ushered into a hallway with chairs and told to wait there. I waited another 30 minutes and finally started complaining loud enough that called me back. Apparently, I was in the outpatient, walk-in clinic. Clicker and I went back to a room and waited. Then we waited some more. Finally, a nurse came in and told me that I was getting a pre-surgical evaluation by her. She got my vital signs (again) and told me to pee in a cup. While I was gone, one of her patients fell in the parking garage and had to be escorted to the ER. Clicker and I waited some more. She came back, I signed five consent forms and she said....wait for it....to wait some more. I had been fasting since midnight and had a headache. Apparently, I also had PMS. This is a combination leading to disaster. Add in over five pre-surgical procedures and five hours of wait time and I'm ready to kill someone.

Finally, I convince a woman to take my blood, although she doesn't know why she's doing it or how many vials of blood she needs to take. I get a call from the doctor's coordinator saying that I need to be medically cleared for surgery. I stared at the phone. What the hell had I been doing for the past six hours, if not getting medically cleared for surgery?

I don't understand. I'm confused and frustrated. This hospital is supposed to have a world-renowned bariatric center. All I got today was shuffled around and told they didn't have my orders for the test.

This sucks. It is most definitely, NOT the easy way out.

Not Fun

I decided last night that I'm not fun enough for Carlo. We broke up on the phone during a break from his EMT class. I felt bad that it had to happen then, especially when he was tired from trying to put out a burning building then sitting in class for several hours, but it had been building for a little while.

Here's evidence of why I'm not fun:

1) I'm a single Mom. Raising Zac is one of my first priorities. If you want to get to know me, you are going to have to get to know him. I don't want someone to be a Daddy, or even play Daddy, but they are going to have to spend time with Zac when he's around and awake. He is my the biggest part of my life.

2) I'm getting my MBA. I often have to do homework instead of cuddling on the couch watching a football game that I don't care about. If I am doing that, I'm usually trying to figure out how I can fall asleep and still seem interested.

3) I'm often tired. See reasons 1-2.

4) I'm a baby when I'm sick. I'll still come over and I'll even offer to go out after I've thrown up. I don't want someone to look disappointed - like I haven't given enough. In fact, when I'm sick, I like it when people take care of me and bring me saltines and Sprite and rub my back. I'm the least fun person ever when I'm sick. I admit this.

5) One word: FOB. I'm thinking about filing a law suit against the FOB and wondering where I'm going to get the money for the lawyer's fees and getting the information together for the lawyer.

6) I like being in a relationship. Dating multiple people doesn't really interest me. I'm in fact, a horrible dater because I just want to get to know someone and find out if we are compatible. If I'm dating someone for more than a month or so, I don't want to worry if I use a term of endearment or call them my boyfriend. This also includes saying not hiding my relationship from anyone, on or off the Internet.

I just couldn't be the happy-go-lucky, fun woman that Carlo wanted. I have too much on my mind to try and pretend that I don't and that what's going on in my life affects me. My fun nights are on Saturdays when Zac is at my parents and I'm finished with school for the week. Most weeknights I'll be in bed by 10pm reading a novel and listening to the sound of the rain on CD.

I am kind, caring, supportive, hard-working, and determined, but very decidedly, not fun.

Recap

I'm still here. Sorry that I've been away so long from blogging. I have a couple of interesting stories that I want to share. As always, most of them revolve around me either being or making a complete ass out of myself. Such is the joy of being in my world.

My first story directly relates to my last post. Not many people noticed before I changed it, but the last post I wrote originally included the question: "Is it that the guy is just more honest than most or his he just a shallow knucklehead?" Now there are a couple of problems with a question like that: 1) It's rude, 2) If the person reads it, he will automatically assume that I'm calling him that, and 3)I probably shouldn't write about people that I'm actively interested in dating, particularly in a less than glowing way. Carlo and I began chatting on yahoo a couple of weeks ago. E-mails progressed to phone call and during one two-hour phone session, I decide to friend him on Facebook. That's all well and good, except my blog is linked to my profile of fb. Right under my personal e-mail address and where I went to high school. Carlo decided to click on the link and ran smack into an entry involving him.

He e-mailed me back answers to all of my questions, including Question #2, in which he said that he would take the high road about the shallow knucklehead comment. He told me what he really looks for in a woman: "I'm looking for a sweet, smart, pretty and fun girl. She needs to be a positive person who doesn't feel the need to put down others in order to build up her perceived value." I assume the last part was directly related to what I said about him. It's an issue that I've struggled with before on my blog. I write to vent and to entertain. Sometimes I worry that I go to far.

Almost unbelievably, Carlo decided to give me a second chance. It's pretty rare that life ever offers you one, so I wanted to make the most out of it. I took off the offensive comment from my blog and apologized profusely to him. We decided to meet up for dinner and drinks last Saturday night and I had a great time. We've been seeing each other every couple of days since then (much to the dismay of my school work). I'm really enjoying spending time with him and learning more about it. We joke about the shallow knucklehead comment, but I think he's forgiven me. I hope so, at least.

Things with my body have taken a decidedly negative turn, however. I got an oral fungal infection from the antibiotics I was taking. What's amazing is how long I let it go before I went to the doctor. I just thought that I had a funny feeling in my mouth. It felt dry and scratchy all the time, regardless of how much water or Diet Coke I would drink. After about a month, it continued to get worse. I finally saw a doctor for it and found out that I had over a 100 degree temperature and a mouth covered in white. I was prescribed an oral anti-fungal treatment, which involves me holding medication in mouth as long as possible then finally swallowing it. After one week of treatment, I'm only marginally better. It's now official that my medical interventions (originally the antibiotics) is now leading to other interventions (anti-fungal).

I took yesterday off work to rest my back. The problem is that I'm now experiencing pain in more than just my back. I know have pain in the backs of my arms, my forearms, and my calves. The pain used to go away as long as I took a break from work or walked around. Now even on my days off, it's almost constant. I went back to see the same family practitioner that I saw a week ago for my mouth. I got an initial good feeling from him. He seems thorough and was willing to listen to my vague complaints like, "radiating pain" and "chronic fatigue". He sent me for a pregnancy test (not pregnant), x-rays of my spine and shoulder, and a series of blood work to check for everything from autoimmune diseases to anemia and thyroid problems. I should have the results back from the blood work later this week.

I'm back at work today, still very tender and uncomfortable sitting for long periods of time. my biggest hurdle is how overwhelmed and hopeless I feel when dealing with the pain. The doc I saw yesterday said that he couldn't help me with that because I'm already on medication for depression. He didn't give me a lot of options, other than to talk to my shrink, which I'll do. Until then, for those of you that know yoga, I've been spending a lot of time in the child's pose, hoping that my body can somehow heal itself.

Q & A

I've had a lot of questions lately, very few of which have had many answers. That's where you all come in. If I can't blog about questions that I have a pressing need to answer, where else will I turn (and no, google does not have all the answers for me)? Not to beg here, but please, pretty please can I exploit your knowledge to improve the quality of my life (or at least clean my apartment)?

Here is what I've been wondering:

1) How the hell do you get poop out of carpet? I've scrubbed and scrubbed, and this shit, literally, isn't budging. I've tried carpet cleaner and a sponge so far. What am I missing? Other pertinent details about the poop include: human origin, not from me, possibly from a little boy that ran naked from one bathroom at one end of the apartment to the other. The existence of the poop was confirmed when I accidentally stepped on it while trying to turn out the living room light. Subsequent poop prints were left while trying to hop to the bathroom to wash off my foot.

2) Who says: "I usually like pretty women with good figures" when asked: "Do you have a type of woman you usually like?" Don't most people answer with the standard "intelligence, humor, kindness...." line of b.s.? Is it that the guy is just more honest than most?

3) How much does a good multi-media personality matter? If someone has a particularly embarrassing facebook page or a bad text messaging style (ex: "I still b workin at 5. hit me up lata 2nit"), should that concern me? Do I need someone that is a proficient communicator in all forms?

4) Besides medication, which I haven't changed recently, what could possibly be causing my incredibly dry mouth? Drinking water and Diet Coke doesn't help. It seems like it just makes it worse. Sometimes I try and suck on hard candy, but nothing seems to really make it go away. Am I dying? Is this really a precursor for old age? Without sounding neurotic, I feel like I need to make it very clear just exactly how much this is annoying me. I have a weird, funny thing going on in my mouth.

Somebody please help me!

Flying Solo

So the good news is that I'm feeling better. Much better actually. The bad news is that I still had to use a little Icy-Hot this morning on my ribs, which means that it will burn a little in the bathtub tonight. I'm ok with that, though. At least I'm not feeling the urge to moan pathetically and write an entire blog post about how much pain I'm in. We can all be thankful for that.

As for the dating update, I don't have much to offer. Dr. Man ignored my text on Friday asking if we were still on for Saturday. I haven't heard from him, especially since I turned him down when he asked for some scantily clad photos. I just wanted to say to him: "Look. There are many nice women out there who would probably be more than happy to take pictures of themselves in their bra and underwear. I'm just not one of those women. You should find one of them." Apparently, he did, or at least he stopped talking to me. Either one, maybe both. I don't consider it a particularly large loss, even if it was fun getting text messages from him throughout the day.

I went on a date with an acquaintance of a friend (actually, it was Jory for any of you who remember the catchy nicknames I give people on my blogs) on Saturday. It really wasn't the best idea, considering that I had to make most of the conversation and I've been sucking at small talk lately. He was able to very perceptively figure out when a dark thought crossed my mind about the futitility of dating. He asked what was wrong, which I thought was very sweet, even if we had nothing else in common outside of that moment.

It all got me to thinking about being single. As P. often notes, I don't praise the virtues of life alone often enough (if ever). As I was pulling on a pair of fleece socks last night, to complement my cotton nightgown, I was feeling triumphantly single. I tend to think that people look rather silly in socks while naked. Even if I don't plan on getting naked, I will hardly ever go to bed with someone in socks. That all changes when I'm alone. When I'm all by myself, I'm all-socks, all-the- time. I never have to worry about feeling sexy or sultry in fleece socks, particularly since fleece socks are appropriate for New Hampshire and are fairly riduculous in Texas. I can't explain why my toes don't seem to recognize seasons or humidity, it's just something that I've come to accept. I love that when I'm single I don't have to convince anyone about why this phenomenon occurs. It just does.

While driving to work today I brainstormed some other benefits to not being in a relationship. Here's a working list of what I came up with:

1. Never having to listen to someone else fart unless they let one rip in public and I happen to be standing near by. I also don't have to worry about holding one in - ever.
2. Only choosing to listen to friends tell me about their day, usually only when one of us calls the other.
3. Rarely shaving my legs.
4. Eating food directly from a box, bag, or carton. Sometimes I go for weeks without cooking.
5. Getting my bed all to myself between the hours of 9pm - 4am. After 4am sometime, Zac comes into my room and promptly falls asleep on my head. Before that, I get to do whatever I want in whatever direction I want to do it in.
6. Going on unique and always entertaining blind dates. How many people in relationships can honestly say that they've ever had an entire conversation with a stranger about how to make Star Wars bodyarmor out of molded plastic? Really.
7. Never feeling bad for accidentally missing a day of birth control and never having to buy pregnancy tests.
8. The multi-faceted joy of celibacy.
9. Only cleaning when I have to, which occasionally means leaving my laundry lying out in the middle of my bedroom for a couple of weeks at a time.
10. Having the time to focus on friends and maintaining my friendships.
11. Reading for hours at at time at night after Zac has gone to bed.

That's what I've come up with so far. Like I said, it's a working list. I'll be sure to update it as something else comes to me.

Candy Hearts and Rainbows

I've been thinking a lot about love lately and none of it has been in a particularly positive way. Remember how I said that I may or may not have given up on love? I think it's official: love and I have parted ways.

I went out with a great guy, Pepe, that I had been chatting last week. He's handsome, smart, funny, and interested in politics. It was the first date that I had been on in a while that actually seemed like it had potential to be more than one awkward date. I wanted to see him again! I said stupid things like, "I want to see you again," to his face, to which he replied, "Awww...that's so nice." Yeah, basically I was a complete idiot. Two days after meeting me Pepe IMs me to tell me that he ran into his ex-girlfriend the night before at a club. I ask him how it went and what he thought, never realizing that the phrase, "I ran into my ex-girlfriend" meant "I am getting together with my ex-girlfriend because I'm still in love with her and want to have her babies". Like the idiot that I am, I wait a couple of days and ask if he'd like to get together again. He IMs back that he can't because he's giving his new/old relationship 110% (no joke, that is seriously what he said), but that he had a great time talking to me. I haven't talked to him since.

I'm supposed to go out this weekend with a Ph.D student in Experimental Psychology. I'm pretty sure his degrees means he knows how to mess with people and will take notes and prepare a scatter diagram while doing it. He would say that he wants to better the treatment and outcomes geriatric care. I still feel like there is something diabolical about his chosen career path. Then again, it's very possible that I'm just making stuff up at this point because I don't want to be rejected again. I'm afraid that Dr. Man will take one look at me and decide to not go out to dinner and a blues bar. Dr. Man works out at least once a day and has the body to prove it (at least from pictures. What do I REALLY know, right?). He doesn't have any kids and has a neck slightly larger than my right thigh, which is saying something because I redefine the word "pear shape". My lumpy Mom-body reveals the sagging and stretching of a woman that gained way too much weight during pregnancy. I really don't think someone like me dates someone like Dr. Man. I've contemplated telling him that I can't go, but I'd like to think that I have a little more balls than that. Just a little. Not much.

I know that I used to have better feelings about the possibility of finding and keeping love, although if you've read any of the past blogs you're probably wondering if I'm just making this up. I would swear that something has changed lately. I feel so much more cynical about people. A friend of a friend told me that the key to love is finding the one that is looking for me. I immediately thought, "Who the hell is looking for me?" because no one goes looking for a neurotic single Mom. Even if I can pretend that I have my life together for a couple of hours, it's pretty obvious that I don't, funky smell and rotting dishes in my apartment aside.

All the romantics out there are probably thinking, "But you don't need to have your life together to be in love! Maybe someone doesn't need that! They will love you anyways, despite your flaws!", but let's look at the honest truth: I haven't managed to maintain a relationship for more than six months in the past four years (three of which I was actively dating). I've had two relationships end by the other person simply not returning phone calls or e-mails. I get dumped so often that I've taken to using myself as an example to cheer up friends that are having relationship problems. I'm more bitter than any 28 year-old woman has a right to be, but I can't seem to muster up enough energy to work on changing that emotion.

At least bad dates give me something to blog about. There is always that silver lining.

Who Me?

I just beat Dew/E.J. in a silent blog-a-day competition. After five years I still have enough blogging mojo to beat a newbie blogger. Clearly, my ace in hole are stories about my son. It's pretty difficult for non-mommies to compete with that. I stopped posting after my victory, though, which pretty much makes me look like a total ass. Sorry about that.

Not a whole lot is going on over here. I had class this weekend and ended up going to bed frightfully early. When I went over to my parents' house on Sunday, I found a notice to withhold FOB's earnings in the mail. It looks like the AG's office was able to confirm where the FOB works in New Hampshire. That was a nice surprise. Since the amount that he owes has continued to go up, the amount he pays on arrears has also increased. Also nice. It's just doubtful that with him working in the restaurant industry as a server that I'll ever see even a portion of what the AG has determined he owes.

Manfriend came over last night. I was lying on my couch feeling like a horrible hostess, watching he and Zac played with the marble set that he gave Zac for his birthday. The two of them had a really good time together. Well, at least Zac had a good time and Manfriend pretended not to notice that Zac was messing up his well-engineered marble-rolling contraption.

I may or may not have said something along the lines of: "I've given up on dating. I still go out on dates, but really, I've given up." This may or may not be true, I'm not sure. I know that when I get upset about things with the FOB, I feel incredibly alone - so alone that I'm not sure how anyone will be able to bridge the gap between me and someone else. Then I'll start talking with someone new and dating will seem like a less fatalistic activity. I have a lunch date tomorrow with a guy that I'm looking forward to meeting. It sounds like a total contradiction to my statement last night, but it's what I'm feeling.

Good thing I never claim to be anything other than a walking hyperbole.

A Lighter Touch

For P, a story:

Over the course of three years, I've gone out on some fairly unbelievable dates. These dates were so bad that I could get a world record for bad dating in the track and field events, if dating was say, a decatholon. To continue the metaphor, my date on Monday could be equated to a javelin event, but instead of throwing a spear into the field, we just threw comments at each other.

I'll call the guy Moose. I had been talking to Moose over IM for about a month. Moose does private contracting as a mechanic on large military vehicles, primarily in war zones, which is where most military vehicles end up at some point. He's been back from Iraq for a couple of months and got online to meet new people. What's most interesting about Moose is that he doesn't work and doesn't plan to work anytime soon. He's looking at year's of free time. When I asked him what he does during the day, his reply was, "Play with my dog, golf, or shoot". "Shoot what?" I asked, genuinely curious as to what someone would shoot at all day. He replied, "I go to a range and either shoot skeet or targets." I think my reply was something as non-committal as, "Hmm...interesting." He asked if I wanted to go shooting with him. I ended up saying no because of my firm belief that dating should not live ammunition - really at any point, but especially in the beginning.

I'm glad that I went with my gut on this decision because at dinner with Moose we got into a "discussion" about the significance of the Confederate Flag. He believes that it is a symbol of Southern pride as a battle flag. I'm like, "Sure. I agree with you. It was a battle over the right to have slaves. What exactly is there to be proud about?" He said that it for him it's not a symbol of racism and slavery. I argued that the meaning of symbols is decided collectively, from the aggregate, not the individual...and on and on we went. I consider myself lucky that no one had a gun. It might have gotten ugly.

The date ended and I fled into the car, leaving Moose standing on the sidewalk. I was pretty sure that I was never going to hear from him again, but he surprised me by contacting me again to ask if I wanted to watch the next UFC fight with him. If I had to rank all the things that I find interesting in the world, UFC fighting is near the bottom, probably ranking close to golf and elk hunting. Although, I probably shouldn't speak definitively because I've never done either of those two activities. Let's just call it an educated guess.

I'm So Cool

I know that I'm a blast to hang out with. Really, I'm so cool that I wonder why more people don't want to hang out in my apartment with my toddler while I read a text book or write a paper. The sheer force of my charisma would be enough; I wouldn't need to talk. My friends could watch television or read and I'd offer them something to drink. I might even talk Zac out of climbing all over them...maybe. It might be kind of funny and I could use a good laugh.

This weekend I went out on a date where I was told that I'm too serious. I'm pretty sure that's because I was working hard at the conversation, thinking about what to say and what question I should ask next. I didn't have anything witty to say and found light banter to be tiresome. I was home in bed, by 8:30pm. I didn't wake up until 9:30am the next morning, which left me wondering if my brain needs to go on some sort of hiatus for a while until my body catches up with whatever it needs. Seriously, when did it become so hard for me to figure out what I need. I have enormous bruises on my calves and the back of my arms and I can't figure out where they came from. It was suggested to me that I might need more vitamin K, or possibly a way to avoid knocking into large, stationary objects with my body.

I don't remember holding a conversation being a difficult exercise when I was in college. I have many memories of talking long into the night. What gives now? Why is it that any attempt at communication seems to fall flat? I wish that I had answers to those questions. All I'm left with now is the feeling that I should avoid trying to meet new people, even though 30 new people recently entered my life through grad school. Even with them, school feels like a solitary exercise. I completed a take-home test for Microeconomics and I'm working on my final paper for Leadership. We have the text books for Business Law and Statistics, which are quite possibly some of the most boring reading material that I've encountered in a long time. That's saying something considering I read a large number of studies and statistics for work.

Does anyone want to hang out with me while I read and try not to fall asleep? I promise that I'm really cool...

Just Kidding

Come on readers...I know that some of you have been around since the NSPIT days. Not one of you warned me that writing about potential love interests equals the kiss of death to the relationship? Not one of you! I'm ashamed. Really. My readers have let me down.

See? This is why I don't even like to admit that I'm doing better than fine. When I put down that I felt good about the relationship, I might as well admitted that my foot was on fire and that I didn't smell smoke. In this case, I overlooked MG's very recent physical separation from his wife. They are still legally married, but separated. It wasn't until recently that they moved beyond the roommate status to "we are officially living in two separate residences" status.

And I have rules about this sort of thing! After dating Mr. Tugboat through his divorce, I promised myself that I would only date people that were legally divorced because no matter how much they think that they are over it, they aren't. Divorce is traumatic. Lawyers usually get involved and kids have to adjust. People have to adjust to their spouses dating other people and potentially bringing other people into parent their children. There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Even though I've never been married, I've seen enough destruction from divorce to know better than to put myself in the middle of it voluntarily. I used to think that I could help the person going through it, but I can't. Not while dating them at least. I know that much and yet, for some reason, I thought this time would be different. Almost as different ramming your head against a wall multiple times and expecting that it won't hurt. That kind of different.

So, MG and I were supposed to spend Memorial Day weekend together. Then Friday came and I got a text from him saying that his ex (what I liked to call his ex at least) decided to work overtime and wasn't going to pick the kids up until 10pm. He said he couldn't come over and I decided to hang out with R. and watch a movie. We were supposed to go out shopping before I worked at Pier 1 and he canceled that as well, saying that he wasn't sure what his ex was going to do. On Saturday, I got several texts from him saying how excited he was to hang out with me and finally get some alone time. The last one was around 3pm, while I was at work. About an hour later I get another text, this time about four hours before we had planned that he was going to pick me up from work and go out to a movie together. I'm not going to quote the text verbatim on here, but said something along the lines of, "I'm just not ready to be in a relationship and feel like I can't give you what you need...you are a special person....I need to be with my children and help them through this difficult transition...I just don't have the emotional capacity to be in a relationship right now".

Yes, I got dumped via text message.

I'm not trying to say that he didn't have very valid, well-thought out reasons for ending the relationship, it was the fact that I was texted these very valid, well-thought out reasons at work and dumped four hours before a date that really pisses me off. I texted him back and told him what he did was cowardly and that he at least should have talked to me. R. said that I was lucky he even told me at all, since most people just disappear. I have to argue, for the sake of humanity, that we hold people to higher standards than that. Certainly, I hope, that people have more decency than R. gives them credit for.

My parents had agreed to watch Zac on Friday and Saturday night so I could go out with MG. Instead of going out with him, I called R. again and he came and picked me up.

After my first beer at the restaurant, I started crying. By my third beer, I was glad that he was driving to the movie instead of me. I just felt so rejected, even if the reason that he ended the relationship wasn't about me, specifically. I can see that. I can also see that I got blind-sided and that I probably should have known better.

Bug and Sister

As soon as I mentioned that I was the last single parent that I knew, of course another single parent would come into my life. It's like mentioning that it hasn't rained recently, only to have it start instantly storming.

I mentioned MG in my last post, but didn't elaborate on him, mostly because it was so new and I wasn't sure if we were actually dating or not. Over the weekend, he made one of his first trips out of the house as a completely single parent and I had the luxury of meeting his two girls, bug and sister. Bug and sister, MG's nicknames for his girls, are 4 and 2. Zac was at his Nana and Papa's house when the three of us went out shopping on Sunday, which was good for a first meeting. He met the girls the next day when I went over to MG's house for the first time.

I realized that it's almost impossible for me to be around children and not want to parent them. It's become part of who I am, being a Mom, and I can't change it. I can't even control it. If I'm walking across the street with anyone under the age of 7, I have to actively stop myself from putting out my hand out to hold their hand. It's even worse with younger kids. With infants and toddlers, my body instinctively responds to their needs. I'm lucky if I can get away from the encounter without lactating, let alone wiping their mouths or checking to see if they need a clean diaper.

Imagine how hard it was for me then, to be around MG's youngest, who started calling me Mama. My body would respond to her even before my mind comprehended that I wasn't actually that child's Mama. The tone she used triggered some automatic response in me. I wanted to tend to her needs, even if it was to just look at her from the front seat of the car or offer her another piece of cookie.

Zac was over the moon when he got to meet them, in particular bug, MG's oldest. The two of them played like they were long-lost friends. It was heart-warming to see. This is the first time that Zac has ever met the kids of anyone I've been dating. I'm in unknown territory with this one. I probably should feel slightly alarmed, but I don't. Something feels right. It's a little scary, of course, but I have a good feeling. It's really nice to be around another single parent, especially one with kids as cute as MG's. It's also a nice bonus that I don't actually have to change any diapers.

Weddings

Pretty much everyone that knows me knows that I have a love/hate relationship with weddings. To me, there is nothing more beautiful than watching two people confess their undying love for each other in front of a crowd of friends and family. Even if the marriage only lasts eighteen months, the wedding itself, that singular moment right before two people lean in to seal their vows to each other with a kiss, is awe-inspiring.

I hate weddings because watching two people have that moment while sitting in a pew or garden chair alone can be heart wrenching. I'm always the single person at the wedding, either sitting by myself or trying to wrangle Zac into the seat next to me.

At my sister's wedding, I cried like an idiot for the entire time. A steady film stream of clips from our childhood flashed through my mind. I couldn't grasp that the woman she was standing up there was the same girl that used to steal all the bubbles from our bubble baths. I didn't learn until I was about six or so that the person sitting closest to the faucet gets a higher density of bubbles. The day I learned that was the day that I learned anything was possible. On the day that my sister got married, I was 19 years-old and in college. So much had changed between the two of us, yet I was crying over what used to be, even though our relationship now, as adults, is more complex and fulfilling than I could have seen at the time.

For as much as people talk about weddings as a new beginning, they are also a form of closure. While they open up a new life for the people involved, they almost necessarily close a chapter of a person's single life. As much as the two people try and deny it, you think twice before calling a married friend at 2am because you just got your heart broken, again. "They don't really understand anymore," you rationalize and brace for the words that you know are coming, "It will be ok," they mumble in sleep-induced haze, "You'll find someone else" they tell you.

And you know all these feelings and emotions are going through your head while you are sitting in the ceremony, crying for what was and what will be. I cry because I have no significant other, not even one that I can invite to Tulane's "Significant Other" weekend. I'm not sure it would be socially acceptable to show up with my cat. MG offered to go with me, but he said it with such hesitance in his voice that I could tell that he didn't really want to go. I told him that he didn't have to and dropped the subject.

I'm in that phase of life where everyone I seem to know is getting married. In a little over a month I'm going to AEP's wedding. She and I have known each other over ten years. Prior to her visit to Houston for a conference in October, it had been four years since we had seen each other. She hadn't met my son yet. It seems like lately I see my friends primarily at weddings, either their own or the weddings of mutual friends and now AEP is getting married.

So I'm going to this wedding as the last completely single parent that I know personally. When I moved to Texas, I met three other completely single Moms and one single Dad with young children. Over the span of three years, all of them have gotten married or engaged. I just went to Tracy's wedding reception a month or so ago. Our sons are three weeks apart in age and celebrated their second birthday together. She was so radiant at the reception and I was so happy for her that it worked out, but that didn't make being one of the only single Moms there any easier.

No matter what emotions wedding evoke in me, it is almost a guarantee that I'll be the one quietly crying in the corner while the two participants exchange vows. I even cried at a stranger's wedding in Seattle and will frequently bawl at the end of wedding shows on the Discovery Channel. I just want to lean over to someone during the ceremony and have them tell me, with such warmth and confidence, that it's all going to turn out just fine and exactly as it was supposed to, regardless of the state of matrimony I'm in.

I Don't Want Anymore

Although I'm not dating right now, I've been online dating for three years. Occasionally I feel like I should get some kind of award for that. Something along the lines of, "Most Pathetic Individual" award because, really, who dates online for that long? Shouldn't I have met someone at the grocery store or in a coffee shop by now? I'm not new to the area. I have a couple of friends here, even if friends that I make here usually move away from the Houston area. That really shouldn't be allowed, at least not in my book.


One of the most annoying things about meeting people online is tendency of people (because I've heard that women do this as well), to send gratuitous nudity shots to strangers. Here's a newsflash, I'm not going to think you are sexy if you show me a picture of your rippled abs. I'll think, "Jeez, he probably works out a lot more than I do." God help me, if you show me a picture of your genitals, I'll think, "God God Almighty! Why? WHYYYYYYY do you think that I need to see this????"


It's like a male peacock strutting his feathers around the female peacocks. Does he really think that the female peacocks will form opinions about him based on the color and size of his feathers? Does his showy display make him a better peacock or father to the bebe peacocks?

Please, please for the love of all that is holy, don't send me any pictures of your body. I really don't want anymore. I'm still scarred from looking at the pictures the last guy thought were appropriate to send me. Honestly, I'm good. Thanks. No more.