Sunday, December 28, 2008

Date Update

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had started up communication with a guy (T.) on the online dating site I joined that seemed promising. Well over the two weeks that followed, we kept exchanging emails through the site - very lengthy and in depth emails, and after the third or fourth exchange he asked me out. I said yes and we made plans to meet up for dinner at a restaurant in my town. Last night was the date and I'm still reviewing everything that happened in my mind and trying to read all the signs. Ah, dating... it's a constant game ;)

Anyway, the date got off to a little bit of a rough start because he was late. I got to the restaurant about 10 minutes early and sat in the car and waited for about 15 minutes there. I had a view of the front door and I was hoping he would make an appearance there and I would go out and meet him then. However, by 6:05, I couldn't see him, so I decided to get out and go wait by the door. Another 10 minutes or so passed and I was starting to worry that I was being stood up. I had given him my cell # ahead of time in case we couldn't find each other, but I didn't have his. Then I saw a car come into the parking lot in what looked like a hurry (having to stop rather abruptly to avoid hitting some pedestrians... lol) and then once he parked he sprinted up to the door, out of breath and apologizing like crazy. Apparently he got lost on the way. He even got out his phone and showed me that he had tried to call me several times, but apparently he had written down my number wrong. So, despite the fact that it was a little annoying waiting around, I found this whole display pretty endearing. Plus it broke the ice right away. Then as we walked into the restaurant, one of the hosts opened the door for both of us and he jokingly was like "oh, come on" because he wanted to hold the door for me. Very cute :)

Speaking of cute, so was he. and as we ate and talked we found out we have an incredible amount of things in common. He was so easy to talk to and I really felt like I was being myself the whole time. After dinner we decided to go to a movie and then after that, he proposed going to get coffee. Unfortunately the coffee place was only open until 11 so that's when we called it a night. Although, after that he did kind of seem like he wanted to find something else to do but there really just wasn't anywhere else that was open. During coffee, he really started to open up to me and told me some pretty deep stuff about himself. Some serious stuff about him too. I've got to think that he felt like he could trust me by that point to tell me this stuff.

He insisted on opening every door for me all night and he paid for everything, despite me trying to pay for my half at every opportunity. I'm totally not used to that.

There was no goodnight kiss or any physical contact at all during the date. Also, we didn't make any plans to meet up again before we parted (bad signs). However, after I got in my car and started on my way home, he called me on my cell phone and left a voicemail (it was in my purse on silent). In the message he said how he had a good time and he realized I didn't have his number so he was calling so I could have it (good sign).

So now today I haven't heard from him or seen him online, but I'm not giving up hope yet. I'll be honest, I like him a lot and could absolutely see this going somewhere. I hate this part now though, because I have to wait and I just might be the most impatient person alive. I'm considering emailing him tomorrow or the next day if I don't hear from him, just to say I had a great time and see if he wants to do something again sometime. I'm going to hold off as long as I can before I do that though, because obviously I want him to contact me first, plus I don't want to come off as too pushy. We'll see what happens.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

I HATE THE SNOW

So Friday the snow started at around 2 and luckily I was able to work from home that day. Once it started, it was extremely heavy and it didn't let up all night. We got around the foot or so they were predicting. Then on Saturday, I woke up and much to my horror, it was STILL SNOWING! Not heavily, but still. And on Saturday, it did not let up the entire day. Luckily that day it was pretty light the whole time. Which brings us to Sunday. ANOTHER huge storm just finished dumping another 10 inches on us and oh joy, it's supposed to drop down to 10 degrees overnight and everything is going to freeze over. I went outside to dig my car out twice today to try to prevent a bad morning tomorrow and the second time I went out there, I found that the plows had completely piled up the snow around my car. I made some progress digging out the sides and getting it off my car in general, but the snow was so heavy already and who knows how much more damage the plows are going to do overnight, not to mention what a layer of ice is going to do to "help" the situation. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's commute.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Online dating update

So things have been going well so far with the online dating thing. The way this site works is that they automatically match you up with people based on certain things and they send me about 7 new guys every day. One so far has caught my eye and it seems that I might have caught his as well. His pictures look cute, he's in the same field as myself and we have things in common. I sent him the first set of site-generated questions. He responded and then immediately sent an email with the subject "you sound awesome". We've been exchanging emails for a few days now so we'll see where it goes.

The weather has sucked a lot lately and we're expecting a foot of snow on Friday. Tonight when I got out of work I literally spent 15 minutes chiseling frozen solid ice off of every window on my car. Tons of fun. This stuff isn't supposed to happen until February!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

How can you sleep when Assisted Living Dracula is on?

I've just rediscovered an old tape from my extensive VHS collection that contains an Aqua Teen Hunger Force marathon from 2004. It was a Halloween type of event and they had some creepy old guy doing lead-ins before and after the commercial breaks. It's bringing back such great memories from that time. This was right around the time when I discovered ATHF for the first time and I would tape the episodes and watch them over and over. My favorite episode had to be "The Shaving" which was about an onion-looking monster that lived in the Aqua Teens' attic. There's something about Halloween episodes of funny shows that make them really excellent. My favorite episode of the Simpsons is also a Halloween episode and in the case of both shows, those episodes were the ones that got me hooked onto the shows in the first place.

On another topic, I've decided to try out online dating again. I did it for a brief time last year before I got involved in a relationship (with someone I knew offline) and it was a really fun, exciting adventure for me. One site emailed me a few weeks ago about an amazing deal they were having (3 months for $30 total) and the deal was simply too good to pass up. My matches had been accumulating since I signed up last week and I had about 50 to sift through when I sat down at the computer tonight. I sent my first round of questions to a whole bunch of guys and we'll see how things turn out.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Up and down then back again - Part 2

Friday at work was absolutely crazy, though it didn't start off that way. Up until lunch, there wasn't a single thing to do, which gave me plenty of time to think about the possibilities of what might be happening that night. I went home for lunch that day so I could clean up a little and relax. When i came back, I immediately had to go help someone with a project they were working on and then things started breaking left and right. It was one emergency after another all the way until 6. When I got home, J and I chatted about our plans for that night and decided to see Body of Lies at 7:45. All of our dates so far have been driven to in separate cars and that night was no different. I was worried about parking so I left a little earlier than I had to. We got in line together and started chatting about our days and when we got to the ticket counter, I reached for my purse and for the very first time... he offered to pay! All of our other dates have been split 50-50, so I took this as a good sign. We didn't really have much more time than that to talk since the movie started right up. It had to have been at least halfway to 3/4 through the movie before he started making a move. We've only been on one other movie date together and there were no moves during that movie either, so I was actually sort of surprised this time around that anything actually happened. He reached over and put his hand on my leg and then grabbed my hand, which was really sweet. That's all that happened there and then as he was walking to my car again, we made out a little in the parking lot again.

Saturday I spent the day at my parents house cooking and eating and just generally hanging out and Sunday was a low-key catchup kind of day. After 4 days in a row of social events, I was actually happy to have one of those. Unfortunately now, the cycle seems to have started over again and I'm feeling down once more. It probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't had much going on this week and that always gives me too much time to think about you know who.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about that friend who defriended me after the breakup and I've been wanting to write him a letter to try to make things better between us. Basically I want to explain my side of things and why certain things happened the way they did and just apologize for the wrongs done on my side. Now, he was just as responsible for all the bad stuff that went down between us, but I'm taking responsibility for my stuff. I started drafting the letter yesterday during my lunch break but I have a lot of revisions to make. I need to make sure this doesn't come across in any way that might make things worse. I don't honestly think he will want to come back and be friends with me again, but I'm hoping that by doing this, I'll get all these bad feelings off my chest and maybe he'll at least think less badly of me.

Oh, and P was not online tonight - I found out from his facebook status that he wouldn't be home tonight. So the conversation is postponed yet again. I'm actually sort of relieved.

Up and down then back again

Sorry it's been so long since my last update! Last week was quite busy, and I must say, exciting. Early in the week I had started to get down again, thinking about P and all the drama surrounding him and that whole time period. He and I had sworn to stay friends during the breakup and after our post-breakup email exchanges/fights we decided that after a month or so had gone by, we would try to start talking, casually and online. It's been about 6 weeks now so last week I decided to send him a quick and very casual IM. He never responded. A few hours later he sent an email saying he was sorry he missed my IM and we'd catch up some other time. Now, my reaction to this was that he just didn't want to talk to me so he pretended he wasn't on. His status shows him as online when I sent the IM and for a while after, at least until I signed off to go to bed. This happened last Monday, so it's been a week and a half and I've heard nothing from him. I'm contemplating trying again tonight, but I know there's a good chance I could regret that later, depending on how it goes. I would just let it go and wait, but I know that if we ever want to be friends, this is something we have to do eventually and I'm really really anxious to just break that ice so I can stop thinking about it. Basically, I want to get that first conversation over with.

Tuesday night my yoga class got canceled because of the election and I stayed up to watch the results come in. I was pretty excited by the outcome and the whole event was a great diversion for the night. Wednesday though, I was still in a funk so at around 4 while I was still at work, I sent a text to J asking if he felt like doing dinner that night. It was totally random and we hadn't talked for days so I didn't think he'd say yes, but he did! That's about when my mood started to turn around because I knew I had that to look forward to that night. In the back of my mind though, I was wondering if that would be the night we'd have "the talk" and end things (maybe I'm just paranoid, but I had (and still have) no idea where I stand with him). Luckily that didn't happen. Not only did it not happen but after we finished our dinner, he walked me to my car and asked me out again for that Friday and then he gave me a great big kiss right in the middle of the parking lot. Uh-huh, mood 100% turned around.

The next day I was all day-dreamy, thinking about J, and our kiss the night before and the possibilities of the date on Friday (he had asked me to a movie). Also that day, I had scheduled a dinner with an old old high school friend who I hadn't seen in almost 10 years. We were set to meet up in the city and I was a little nervous about getting there and back because, ok I'll admit it, I really suck at directions. I spent half of my downtime at work that day daydreaming and half studying maps. I did end up getting ridiculously lost on the way there (and back), but I think I did okay for myself lol. The dinner itself was awesome and it was great to reconnect.

I'll save the rest of the weekend for another post later tonight and maybe by then I will have attempted my next contact with P and will have stories about that - good or bad (I'm almost sure they won't be good - but it needs to be done!).

Sunday, November 2, 2008

quiety descending into winter

This has been the quietest weekend I've had in recent memory. But in some ways it was nice. On Friday night I got to really sleep, which again, I haven't done for EVER. I think i got around 12 hours in total and I was completely shocked when I woke up Saturday morning and saw that it was noon. Saturday, my only real activity was to go food shopping which was very productive. I spent $75 since I had a lot to stock up on, but $50 of it was essentially free because I used a gift check that I've been holding on to for months. Then as I was checking out, the cashier boy decided to flirt with me a little, which was funny because he couldn't have been older than 16 or 17, but also flattering because I can use all the positive reinformcement I can get these days.

Sunday I was anticipating to be another quiet day, but around 1, my mother called saying she and my dad were in the neighborhood and they wanted to know if I wanted a little company. So, they came by and we had a little bit of lunch together and my mother helped me do some deep-cleaning on the kitchen and bathroom while my father napped.

This week I'm hoping will be a little more eventful than the last. I've got an email in to my old old high school friend (and crush) - we've been trying to make plans for weeks and weeks now and I'm dying to hang out with him again. I'll probably send another email to that guy who got electrocuted the last time we tried to hang out to see if he wants to reschedule for this week too.

And it has been COLD here for the past few weeks. Like, winter cold. For instance, right now it's in the low 30s and at least 2 days last week I woke up to full-blown ice covering my windshields. Winter is not supposed to come this early... especially not when we know we have 6 more months until spring decides to emerge. We totally got gypped out of fall!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

New templates and new thoughts

As you've probably noticed (if you've ever visited before), I decided to change up the template. Of course, doing this the free way, my options are quite limited but I think I'm pretty happy with this new choice. The old one felt too squished and like there wasn't enough room for my actual posts.

This week has been pretty low-key on the social front. Or at least it's felt that way. Monday I saw J. again and Tuesday was my yoga class. But now there's a seemingly endless stretch of nothing and it's been kind of getting me down. J. and I are pretty much on the same page about what we're doing so I'm not upset at all about him (the only reason I would be anyway is because we haven't talked since Monday). It's more just the state of my life right now. My social circle has fallen apart, as I documented in a few of my earlier posts and my best girl friend has been MIA for the past year since she moved in with her boyfriend. She wasn't even there for me when everything was falling apart. Basically, I need to find some new friends and while I'm doing okay with getting out and catching up with people I haven't seen in a while, I'm still not in a comfortable place.

I didn't think I was still so unsettled by all of that drama, but last night I ended up staying up past 2:30 thinking about it. Luckily I had my netflixed Desperate Housewives disc to watch, which helped distract me, but I think I really have a lot of unresolved feelings about everything. Like for instance, all the mean, infuriating and unfair things P said to me during our breakup (and the fights that preceded it), or how my friend N. said equally unfair and hurtful things to me when he defriended me. OR how that girl friend, K., has been completely unhelpful and cold. Basically all of people (excluding my family) that were important to me during the past year are no longer there. It's been a hard few months, so I guess I can't be surprised when every now and then it catches up with me and I have a bad night.

Anyway, now that I've got that out of my system and on paper, maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight. Luckily I've got both Saturday and Sunday to catch up on that this weekend. It's time to re-focus on the good.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Recap

So last night was the big date with J. and I have to say, it went pretty well. We met up at a Mexican place nearby and had some good dinner and conversation. By the time we were ready to pay the bill, he asked me if I wanted to go get some coffee. From there we went to Barnes and Noble (in our separate cars) and we sat there and talked for another hour or so. The conversation could have been a little better - there were definitely a decent amount of awkward pauses and every time, he would kind of stare at me, studying me, which was kind of weird. A couple of times I swear I caught him checking out my cleavage, though the top I was wearing definitely didn't show much. Overall though, he was super nice and I liked the way things were going. When we finished up our coffee, he proposed seeing a movie and I agreed. This time we took one car (his) because the movie theater was pretty close by. We had no idea what we were going to see, so we just saw the one movie that was available at the time we arrived which turned out to be The Secret Life of Bees. I was sure he was going to make a move on me while we were sitting there in the dark, but nope. Nothing. By the time the movie got out, it was late and quite cold outside.

And this is when things got interesting. Right after I got in the car and shut the door, he leaned in and we kissed. He put his hand on my leg right away and I put my hand over his to make sure it didn't go anywhere it was supposed to ;) It was very nice. During the first bit of kissing he stopped for a second to ask if I had had a good time and then we went right back. We kissed and separated about 3 times and for most of it, he had his eyes open, which I'm not used to. Anyway, this was probably about 5 - 10 minutes at most and then he drove me back to my car and asked me if I wanted to get together to watch a movie at his place the next day (that would be today). I agreed. Then we kissed a little more and I got out and thus, the night ended.

I was up until about 2am kind of reliving the whole night and thinking about things, which was unfortunate because I had to wake up at 7:30 this morning to take my car in to the shop. I was so exhausted that I had to cancel on J for today, which is good and bad. Bad, obviously because I REALLY wanted to have a little more fun with him, but good because I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. Who knows what might happen when we're alone together at one of our apartments. But, regardless, I'm really hoping we'll reschedule soon :)

Monday, October 20, 2008

The next round of dating

I woke up this morning feeling a little "off" but nothing I didn't attribute to it being Monday morning and not having gotten enough sleep. But as the day wore on, I started to feel worse and worse. My nose wouldn't stop running and my throat started to hurt. Then I realized that it was the week before Halloween and resigned myself to the fact that yes, I was getting sick. It seems that every year, for at least the past 4 years or so, I've gotten a cold right at this exact time of year and it looks like 2008 will be no exception.

One reason this kind of sucks is because I have a date on Friday. A REAL date, unlike that fake lunch date thing I went on with J a few weeks ago. This date will be with J also, but I have the feeling it's going to be much different. This will technically be our third date, but that's only if you want to get very technical. Our first date was over a year ago, our second was the ever-so-brief lunch encounter I just mentioned. J and I ended up IM'ing a little bit last night (he initiated contact) and he officially did the asking out. We're going to dinner after work on Friday, so it's a night date which is a plus, and also our relationship and situations are a little bit more established than they were before.

Last year when we went out, we had a pretty great time. It was during my match.com dating phase so it was our first time meeting face to face. We arranged to meet at barnes and noble for coffee and we stayed there for a few hours chatting. Then he asked if I wanted to get dinner and proposed going into Boston to find a nice place to eat. So we did and we had a LONG drive both to and from the restaurant due to the always enjoyable Boston traffic but it gave us time to talk. On the way home he started making some moves on me. Actually it started as soon as we left the restaurant as we held hands all the way back to the car. During the drive, he had his hand on my knee. When we finally arrive back at the Barnes and Noble parking lot so I could get my car, he parked and we began to say goodnight. And then he kissed me, and it was not just a quick goodnight kiss - we made out for a good minute there in his car. When I finally pulled away, he asked me if I wanted to go anywhere (presumably back to one of our apartments to "continue"), but I told him I had to get back.

I would have gone out with him again back then, but shortly thereafter, P came into my life and well, what a long story that one is. I'll save it for a future post. But based on that date with J, I know that he's not shy about the physical stuff and this could be both good and bad. Good because I would not be opposed to a little making out on Friday. Maybe even more than a little. But I don't want to do any more than that. Overall I'm just really excited about going on the date and seeing what happens :)

BUT... this cold better not stand in the way of my potential making out on Friday, that's all I have to say.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

The best laid plans

Tonight I was supposed to be meeting up with an old friend for dinner. This friend is quite an old friend, as we went to elementary school together. I haven't seen him since the summer after my freshman year of college when the two of us briefly worked together. A few weeks back I sent him a random facebook message saying something along the lines of "hey, it's been forever! let's get together to catch up". So we made plans.

Last night I sent a quick email to him to make sure we were still on for tonight and I started to get a little worried when he didn't write back. So I found his cell number through his facebook page and sent him a text message before I was about to head out to the restaurant tonight. Apparently, he wouldn't be able to make it because he was IN THE HOSPITAL. He got ELECTROCUTED at work today and they were afraid his heart was going to stop. We texted back and forth a few times and last I heard, he was still waiting to find out how it was all going to turn out. I hope he's okay!

Aside from that almost-adventure, a few days ago I decided to take the plunge and email J to see what was up with him. In case you've forgotten about him, this was the guy I had gone on one date with last year who I contacted after my breakup - we met for lunch one afternoon 2 weeks ago and I hadn't heard from him since. My email was quite casual, just asking him about his weekend, etc. He wrote back two days later apologizing for the lack of communication and I finally got the story. He had just broken up with someone right before he and I got together a few weeks ago and he was hesitant to jump right back in with someone. At the end of his email he brought up getting together again. So now we're making some plans and I'm excited. I would be more concerned about the fact that he hadn't mentioned that and the lack of communication, but I'm sort of going into this as casual as possible. I'm not looking necessarily for anything serious.

I'm meeting up with another friend for dinner tomorrow - this one an old (female) coworker. Hopefully that will turn out better than tonight!

Monday, October 13, 2008

One week later...

Remember my last entry, where I mentioned how things were starting to turn around and I was feeling good? Not more than a few hours later and that notion was promptly blown to bits when a mutual friend of P and myself signed online and unceremoniously told me he no longer wanted to be my friend. And oh, he did not hold back on all the bad feelings he had pent up toward me. Needless to say, this set me back a little and the downward spiral resumed.

Luckily I had a lot of fun distractions this weekend. On Friday, my friend had her 25th birthday party which, though small, was really what I needed. It was good to get out and have some fun conversations with people. We were going to go to a bar after dinner, but the party was split on what to do and we just ended up calling it a night. This past week was also my father's birthday and Saturday we had our family party for him. Due to the recent traumas in my life, I decided to make it a whole weekend at home and stayed over that night. I hadn't told my mother about the defriending but by the time I got home from their house last night, she had emailed me asking if anything was wrong. Very perceptive, my mother is. At that point I decided to tell her and I'm glad I did because she made me feel a lot better about it. In her first email back to me, she went off on my ex, calling him a "wimp", among other things. Strangely, I think that was exactly what I needed to hear.

And so, life moves forward.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Things are turning around...

After the big blowup with P from last week, I decided to write him off, didn't reply to his email and attempted to stop caring. Then finally, Saturday morning when I checked my email, I had a very long email from him waiting there for me. He told me what his impression of my last email had been to him, and told me he wanted me to respond this time because he was really hoping that he had misinterpreted something. Well, apparently what had happened was that I had mentioned that I was feeling "better" in my last email to him and he took that to mean that I had moved on and that our relationship didn't mean as much to me as it did to him, and not only that, but I was rubbing it in his face. That was TOTALLY not what I meant - what I did mean was that I wasn't in the horrible state of saddness and depression that I had been when the breakup and my grandmother's passing happened at the same time. I wrote back to him and explained that and long story short, we're back on good terms. In fact, we might be on the best terms we've been in since the breakup. We talked about the plan as to how we're going to get to the point where we can be friends and we decided that we're going to give it another few weeks, and then start with a few IM conversations.

In other news, I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed about my new position at work. It's a highly technical position that comes with the label of "engineer", and while I feel confident in some areas, there's A LOT to learn. I imagine I've got some weekends of studying ahead of me.

On Saturday I went out with my parents and finally finally got myself a new laptop. I had my old laptop for almost 6 years and as the past year went on, it became riddled with issues. The plug wouldn't stay in, which meant it wouldn't charge properly. The only way I got around this was to position the laptop ON the cord, in a very specific position and then not move it while I was using it. Fun! Also, the CD burner stopped working completely. So, I've now got a new Toshiba Satellite (the same brand as my old one - I figure if this one waits another 6 years to crap out, I'm golden).

So, overall I'm feeling good. I've got my new job, my new computer, I did a ton of cleaning and chores this weekend and I'm trying to stay true to the goals I wrote down in my last post.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Resolutions

I was just reading an old archived post on one of my new favorite blogs and it was about new years resolutions. Something about it inspired me to make some resolutions of my own - but screw new years, I'm making them now. I've been feeling so down in the dumps for the past month about my ex and my grandmother and it's really made me do some hard thinking about what it means to be "happy". It's not an easy thing to define. But what I'm hoping is that my Right Now Resolutions will help me take some steps toward a happier place. Here's my list so far:

  • Reconnect with old friends and try to make some new ones

  • Strengthen the relationships I have with my family

  • Write more - writing out my thoughts has always helped me sort through issues

  • Declutter my apartment - I started on this one a few months ago but everything came to a grinding halt this past month. Time to pick it up again!

  • (Possibly) Rearrange my living room - My apartment is very limited on wall space, which is nice in that the living room/kitchen/dining room area is very open, but that makes it hard to rearrange furniture in a pleasing way. If I can come up with a new floor plan, this is on the list.

  • See the bright side in each situation I find myself in and don't get mired down by the few things that may not agree with me

  • Actively look for topics of conversation to bring up/things to talk about when hanging out with other people - this one might seem a bit strange to you, but it's one of my weaknesses. By nature, I'm a pretty shy person. Always have been. I've gotten much better as the years have gone by, but when I'm in a group situation or when spending time with someone I don't know that well, I find myself clamming up and feeling uncomfortable. I figure some preparation prior to finding myself in these situations may help me be more outspoken.

  • Don't rush! This past year I was seemingly going at warp speed at all times, trying to find the most efficient way to do everything. This was partially brought on by work because that's the way we're expected to be there, but it spilled into my life outside of work as well. Living like that, aside from being efficient, did nothing but stress me out.

  • Stop caring as much what other people think of me

    That's all for now but I may add more later.
  • Thursday, October 2, 2008

    Boys suck, yet again

    Since I last wrote a few days ago, tons more drama has happened with P. The general gist of what happened is this: I broke down and sent him an email on Sunday - it was short and sweet and basically just said, Hey, let's chat as friends when you're ready. He wrote back 2 days later, with a really long, very nice email about how while he's not ready yet, he will be at some point and he's looking forward to that, but that he's still hurting, badly. That same day I also got a condolence card in the mail from him so I responded to his email, thanking him and saying that I understood and was looking forward to it too. Well, something in my email must have rubbed him the wrong way (though exactly what is a complete mystery to me) and he completely tore into me about how I keep adding "gasoline to the fire" and if this keeps up, we won't be friends. I was BLOWN AWAY. I have no idea what I did - was it that I responded at all? Was it that I initiated contact? Maybe something I said came off the wrong way? No idea. But in his email he forbid me from responding so I'm not going to. Which is probably for the best because all I want to write to him now is "Fuck you". I'm at the point where I don't even want his friendship now, not if he's going to treat me this way. After that, I deleted him from my friends list on AIM and made him "never visible" on gchat. I contemplated blocking him completely on these apps but I didn't want to do something I'd regret later. So it'll help me not to see him on but if he ever gets his act together and wants to contact me, he can. Now, whether or not I'll respond is still to be determined.

    Well, in other news, I haven't heard a single thing from J after Sunday. When we chatted after our lunch that night I told him I'd be up for hanging out again sometime and he said "maybe Friday". I didn't really get a vibe from him that it was something he really wanted to do so I didn't push it and I haven't initiated any contact since then. Plans for the weekend mostly involve spending more time with my family and attempting another outing to get myself a new computer.

    Sunday, September 28, 2008

    Moving on... ?

    On Wednesday, something miraculous happened - I started to feel better. After weeks of living in survival mode and being miserable 24/7, something kicked in and I got happy. Secretly, I think it had more to do with the cloud of all the chemicals in the pill being lifted, since I went off it as soon as the ex and I broke up. But also, I began to have hope. That morning I woke up in the same bad, hopeless mood I had been in on Tuesday, the same day I last posted, but I went to lunch with one of my co-worker friends and exchanged a few emails with the guy I mentioned earlier that I had gone out on a date with a year ago (we'll call him J) and things started looking up. I could listen to music again. I didn't feel like bursting into tears at my desk. It was good.

    The high from Wednesday has worn off little by little as the days have gone by, but I'm still feeling significantly better than I have since everything happened. Yesterday I spent the day with my parents and did some computer shopping, which is a story in itself that might have to wait for another post. Spending so much time with them lately has been nicer than I thought it would be. They seem really happy to have me "back". Then today, J and I met up for lunch. All week I had high hopes for this lunch but I'm not quite sure how to evaluate how it went. I don't know if it was a date, and frankly I don't know if I wanted it to be one or not. We met early, had lunch with lots of conversation and then went our separate ways. The whole thing was less than an hour. Now, on the one hand, there's no way I'm ready for a relationship again right now. Not at all. On the other hand, it was kind of tempting to think about a guy in a somewhat romantic way again. I'm conflicted, but in a way, relieved that I wasn't forced to make any decisions about the situation today.

    The ex (who will now be known as "P") and I haven't talked since our big blowup after the breakup. I'm hoping we can maybe have a quick chat this week, just so we can start establishing our friendship. I've moved on to the point where I'm not holding out hope of getting back together and I just want to break the ice on the friendship thing so I don't have to freak out about it anymore.

    So the moral of the story is, I've finally begun the process of moving on. Where I'm moving to, however, is still to be determined.

    Tuesday, September 23, 2008

    Last Day Off

    Today I'm off from work as the last day of my bereavement time off and all the time to myself is predictably starting to get to me. I've been trying my hardest to resist sending my ex an email since I woke up this morning. It's been about a week since we last talked, and that conversation was horrible. I just want to talk to him, as a friend. We had agreed when we first broke up that we would try to be friends and this was very important to both of us. However, last week when we fought again, post-breakup, he told me he needed a few weeks of no contact. So, I have to stick to that. I know that logically, but emotionally it's incredibly difficult. So much has happened in my life since the breakup and I just want to tell him about it all. But I have to keep reminding myself that I can't and that he needs time away.

    On the plus side, I officially got promoted at work as of yesterday. Yes, it's true I wasn't in the office, but in an effort to stay busy I checked my work email and found the offer letter waiting for me. My new position starts on October 1st and they offer they gave me was better than I was expecting. I'm looking forward to getting all of that moving when I get back to the office tomorrow and honestly it'll be pretty nice to have something to keep me busy for 9 hours a day again.

    Monday, September 22, 2008

    Back

    I'm back from the funeral and working on getting things back on track in my life. Despite the fact that we were all gathered together for a tragic reason, it was quite interesting to spend such an extended amount of time with my extended family. For example, one long lost relative insisted that I don't look a day over 13 (I'm 25).

    Now I'm back at my apartment and watching back to back DVD episodes of Sex and the City. My breakup routine generally consists of marathoning some of my favorite tv shows, preferably the ones that include relationship drama. First I went through all of my episodes of Gilmore Girls (seasons 5 through 7 - I have 1 - 3 on order and am watching 4 on Netflix, one disc at a time). Now I'm back to SATC and yes, I have the whole series so this should last me a while.

    One terrible, terrible thing about the internet is that you can very closely keep up with the social activities of your ex. Nothing bad has been revealed about the ex (yet), but it's clear from his facebook that he's keeping himself busy and trying to move on. It's kind of torturous to have access to this kind of information because on the one hand, I want to know everything, but on the other hand, everything I find out makes me miserable. But I have decided that it's time for me to start getting back into the social scene and attempt to move on as well. I contacted a guy I went on one date with last year - this was immediately before I started dating the ex - and we're going to do some catching up. Not necessarily anything romantic. I'm also trying to set up some lunches and dinners with friends I've fallen out of touch with. Right now the main goal is to keep busy. After that, I'm really going to focus on figuring myself out.

    Thursday, September 18, 2008

    Sad news

    After a long battle with heart disease and cancer, my grandmother passed away this afternoon. We had known it was coming for about the past week but it was still somewhat shocking to hear it actually happened today. My mother sent an email to me and my brother around 5 today to break the news - I was still at the office at the time. I'm still waiting to hear news about when the wake and funeral will be. She was my last living grandparent.

    This is one of two BIG reasons why the past two weeks have been extremely difficult. The other is that my boyfriend of almost a year and I broke up. I wrote him a very quick note today to let him know that it had happened (he had told me during our breakup that he would want to know) and he wrote me back a very nice but very formal response.

    It seems that Really Bad things always happen at the same time so I'm trying to put everything in perspective and figure out where to go from here. One of the reasons I started this blog was to help me figure that out. We'll see how it goes.

    Wednesday, September 17, 2008

    Internet adventures

    I think the internet has been rebelling against me lately. A few weeks ago, I got an email from a co-worker, one who is about to become my new manager, which asked me for my screenname as we needed to discuss an important project and IM is the medium of choice at my company. So, I entered his screenname into my contacts on Trillian and waited a few minutes. He wasn't on - or so I thought. Then I received a second email from him and apparently the issue was urgent and he wasn't seeing me online either. Weird. So I restarted Trillian. HUGE MISTAKE. It refused to connect and just sat there and did nothing. I tried restarting the program another 5 times or so and then tried restarting my whole computer. Still nothing. At that point I emailed him back and told him trillian was being a jerk and luckily we were able to work the issue out over email. Of course, about 15 minutes later, I tried another seemingly hopeless attempt to restart and reconnect and voila - it worked.

    Last night after returning home from work, I needed desperately to sign on to AIM and it happened AGAIN. Now, it's important to note that this program has worked every other time I've used it in the past month except for the 2 times I needed it most.

    Then today, google turned against me. I had been contemplating setting up this blog for a while and decided today was the day to go for it. First step - create a new email address for the site. So, using my last few free minutes at the office, I signed on to gmail and began the signup process, fill out the form, hit submit and... the page refreshes and doesn't accept my info. WITH NO INDICATION AS TO WHY. I try again - same result. So, I gave up on that pursuit for the moment and came to blogger to try signing up for the blog itself. SAME RESULT OMG!!

    After I came home from work and tried again and for some reason it worked that time. My running theory is that the page assumed I hadn't read the terms and conditions because I didn't scroll down in the box the first million times I tried. But man, internet - cut me a break here!

    Jumping on the train

    After many many years of reading blogs like it's going out of style, I've finally decided to start one of my own. Now, some might say this is not my first attempt at blogging, and technically, they'd be right. Five or 6 years ago I started up a livejournal which I updated sporadically and eventually gave in to my paranoia and made it all "friends only". This is a fresh start, and a new forum and recent events in my life have sent me scrambling for a new outlet (I'm sure I will elaborate on these events in future posts).

    Now, I must return to a Netflix-inspired Gilmore Girls marathon viewing session. However, since this blog thing is still all new and exciting, I will probably post again before bed.