Here we are again: First Date Jitters II

Several things:

1) I had a lovely time with my mother.  We drank pink champagne on Friday night and ate pizza, then went to market on Saturday morning and got a roast for the evening.  She had said she was hoping to buy me some stuff for the apartment, so I got a nice footstool and wee reading lamp, both for my little reading corner. We also found a lovely piece of fabric at Value Village and, in a drunken state, hung it over the living room window.   We also watched Cold Comfort Farm and Arrested Development.  Lots of chatting, including a lot of stuff about our respective therapists.  Also, she cleaned my kitchen like only a mother can.

I kinda like it.

2) I've taken today off, simply because I had the time to take.  I almost feel guilty about it, although I really shouldn't, as I've already put in today's time.  I'm using the time to go and have a good visit with my sister-in-law.  I really like hanging out with her (she's the sister I never had), but sometimes it's hard because my niece and nephew tend to demand attention from both of us while I'm there.  Both of the kids will be gone in the morning, so I've bought some fabric scraps in the hopes that we can make little flower barrettes for ourselves.  If they turn out, I'll post pictures later.

3)  I have a date this evening.  It is with the gentleman I had posted about earlier, wherein I hadn't heard from him for several days, so I made the bold move of giving him my number.  Well, he did get in touch with me, many times.  I think he's quite cute and he seems to be just exciting and exotic enough to keep me interested.  Also, he has a very cool job as an aircraft mechanic (seriously, how cool is that?  This is right up there with the pride I feel about some of my brother's jobs*).  He's been playing his cards a little close to his chest, but on Thursday he made it clear that he was interested and we should meet.  Soon.

At any rate, we've been chatting for a couple of weeks now, and I'm quite nervous about finally meeting him.   The plan is to go for coffee and if coffee works out, we'll head out for dinner.  I think one of us will have to screw up badly for us not to go for dinner**.  No idea what I'm going to wear.

Wish me luck?

*He makes trailers for horses! He makes choo-choo trains! He makes military stuff, and he can't take pictures at work! Oooh!  Also, he used to work in a movie theatre! Fancy!

**Like that guy who made 3 separate rape jokes when I was first chatting with him. Fantastic.

My mother is coming this weekend.

My mother.  This weekend.  She announced her intentions via text yesterday, in the middle of my workday. Oh, you're coming to visit, that's nice.  I'll go down to *insert-brother's-name-here* place and see you.

But that was not what she meant.  She meant to come and see me.  And stay over.

"My dentist* thinks it will be good for me.  He also thinks it will be good for you."
"Tell your dentist I don't pay him."  If I did, it would be for his silence.

It will be good for me.  I genuinely need to relax more.  Cleaning my apartment in a panic on a Thursday night is just what the doctor ordered.  I love my mother, she's sweet.  She may also be the crux of the clusterfuck I call my brain.  If I were a drug-addicted celebrity, I'd probably mention her name while refusing to admit my own culpability**.

It will be good for my mother and I to have some girly time.  So often, we see her with this big barnacle attached (her husband), and we all end up feeling strangely... awkward?  I've known him for a long time now, I'm just tired of his stories.  He has a tendency to bring up news pieces and then talk about money***. My mother is planning on bringing pizza from home (the city she's in makes really good pizza), and then... watch a movie?  Maybe go to the market on Saturday morning.  Whatever, it'll be fine.  I just hope we don't end up watching a tearjerker together, those aren't good.  OOH!  I'll make her watch some Arrested Development!  Awesome.

My social life is exploding at the moment.  People are planning things with me about 3 months in advance, forcing me to admit two truths:

1) I am a grownup now.
2) Fuck your grownup-edness, I want to write and drink and just sit over here quietly for awhile, can I please sit over here quietly for awhile.  The shorter way of typing point 2 is to simply say "I don't want to grow up."




*Therapist.  Like mother, like daughter.
**As is my god-given right as a celebrity. And as a drug addict, judging from some people I know.  Shells of people. She sells sea shells of people, by the sea shore.  That's even harder to type than it is to say.
***"Can you believe they spent 50 million dollars on that?" he would say.  "Yes.  They are the government, and they're building a bridge.  This isn't someone's income, it's a bridge," I would reply.

Well, I've cocked that up nicely. But that's okay.

As you may have read in this morning's entry, I left my phone number with a gentleman I had been in touch with through a dating site.  He did text me this afternoon, and we - eventually, after being interrupted by my male friend from work (and admitting it! D'oh!), and him on the phone with his parents (so he said), and all the other distractions went away - have a nice little texting chat.  Around 9, even though we'd started chatting at 4ish.  I'm not sure I'll hear from him again, but it was a nice chat, nonetheless.

Earlier this week, I came to the conclusion that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to dating.  Five minutes after I realized that, a second truth hit me.  No one has any idea what they're doing when it comes to dating. This was comforting.  For about, oh, 20 seconds.  The fact that there are no actual rules (other than a douchebag book that everyone makes fun of) allows me to justify absolutely any craziness I want.

I've never been a stalker, by any means.  Quite the opposite.  One of my most serious relationships ended with him breaking up with me over the phone (the phone! After a year and a half!).  I admit I took a bit of times afterwards trying to convince him to get back together (week 1), then trying to understand why (week 2*), and then finally the don't-touch-me-I'm-just-here-for-my-espresso-machine (week 3.  Or maybe four.  I was really sad when I realized I'd left the espresso machine at his place**.)  Now, despite the fact that the dumping occurred over the phone, this guy was a great guy.  He was friends with his exes.

Homey don't play dat.

I cannot be friends with my exes.  Even when I'm the one who initiated the breakup (which, embarrassingly is usually the case), it just hurts too much to be like "ah, one of us would rather be alone than naked together anymore.  Yes, we should totally get a pizza/coffee/thumbscrews."

As for justifying the craziness, I sent that guy my phone number, and he did text me.  But that's my last move, until he makes a couple.  I needed to just make it abundantly clear that I was interested, otherwise, I couldn't have just left it alone wondering if he's shy*** or some other bullshit.  Now that I've made my move, I can leave it alone.



*Week 2 was also characterized by statements like "Over the phone?  Really, asshole?!"
**Part of what we'd originally bonded over was our love of a good strong cup of coffee.  In the later months of our relationship, he'd given up coffee altogether to become this healthy machine.   Quite frankly, he looked awesome physically, but there became very few things we did together.  This, coupled with a major downswing in my mood and looming college graduation (I would have wanted the opportunity to move anywhere in Ontario.  I ended up staying in the same city, but that's just luck of the draw), made the death of the relationship inevitable.
***All the dating advice says that if he's interested, he'll let you know without a doubt.  My brother and father have told me this is not true; men can be just plain shy.  These are two men whose opinions I trust.

Yeah

Well, desperation be damned.  I sent him my cell phone number. If nothing happens, nothing happens.  But... if something happens, it could be great.

Anxiety

I'm experiencing high amounts of anxiety at the moment.  For example, I'm actually dreading going to work today.  I'm really losing grip on a lot of things at work, and I'm expecting I'll be the center of a difficult conversation today.  The truth is, I'm being crushed under the weight of all the work, and it's causing me to make mistakes.  Last week, I worked enough overtime for two full lieu days.  We are bringing someone else in to help, which I'm grateful for, but that means that in a month or two, I'll be even further off track, training someone.  At the moment, I've got someone who asks to sit with me for a few hours every week, so they can job shadow me.  She's sat with me a lot, and I'm getting annoyed.  It doesn't feel like she wants to learn the job; she's interested in the job one step above me, and our boss told her she should be taking a look at my position.

My position doesn't get the respect it deserves.  Even people currently in my job are simply looking at it to launch themselves into a job higher up.  As a result, I'm the only constant in the position, and it needs attention to truly become what we need it to be.

I'm dreading going to work today.

Additionally, I had been chatting with a nice fellow through a dating site.  My last message to him was on Saturday morning, and I haven't heard back.  We've gone a couple of days between messages, but it's officially three now.  Also, he has time off right now and he might have gone home to see his parents.  I don't know.  I don't think I had a whole lot emotionally invested in him, but he seemed to be the only thing going right, and now he's AWOL.  I'm considering a last ditch effort of sending my phone number and telling him he can text if he likes.  I was all ready to send out that message yesterday afternoon, and then I just... didn't. Would it look desperate?  Part of me thinks it would just make me look interested, which for some reason in my mind is a horrid sin.

As you can read from the above, I've also concluded that I'll never really be ready to date, so I may as well just jump in.  Also, I'm tired.  Alright, 6am. Time to make coffee.

Saturday's adventure

This past Saturday, I went on a karaoke adventure with a friend.  I had two beers (she had several), followed by three large glasses of water. At around 12:30 we left, the plan being to drive her home, and then head home myself.  And that's when it happened.

I was pulled over by a police officer.  Who was clearly waiting for people who were leaving the bar.  He could probably smell beer when he was chatting with me, and I admitted to having some earlier, so he asked me to step out of the car and follow him back to his.  Follow him back to his car so I could do a breathalyzer test. 

I was fine.  I knew I was fine.  But I also knew that they had recently tightened up the laws, and was scared shitless.  He opened up the backseat of the cop car and invited me to take a seat because it was "so cold tonight."  I sat with my feet sticking out, and the door still open, insisting that no, this was fine, I didn't want to get right in where it was warmer.

He explained to me that one of three things was going to happen.  I was either going to blow under, blow super close to the limit and get a warning, or blow over and get a 3 day suspension.  Yikes.  He did the test first, both to show me how it was done and to show me that we were pals ("see?  It's easy!").  And then he had me do it. 

My blood alcohol level was .027.  I was fine.  He had me keep the breathalyzer straw ("as a souvenier!" he said), and thanked me for being the designated driver.

But, my god, did that ever scare the shit out of me. 

Additionally, this is all rather funny when I realize that I was trying to do this thing where I don't drink in February ("it's the shortest month! It'll be a breeze!"), more out of respect for calories and finances than anything (not "on the wagon" by any means).  I knew, however, that if I went out with this friend, and it ended up just being me and her, that I couldn't avoid having one in order to make her comfortable enough to indulge. 

Well, it was a fun night.  I'll write a little more on karaoke later.

Hell is someone else's playlist

Or is it?  This morning I found a site that makes me want to call in sick and play all day.  

"Where has she been?" some of you may say, "that site has been around for a long time.  I knew about it before its creators did."  Actually, I'm pretty sure none of you are saying that.  Could one of you please remind me to hire a douchebag hipster to comment on my blog every day?*.

The site is 8 Tracks ( http://8tracks.com/ ).  I found it through a friend's pinterest who had pinned someone's playlist for studying on it. <--- horrid sentence, sorry.

Basically, you can go on there, and created a playlist that other people can listen to.  You can friend other people on there if you bump into other playlists you like, make comments on other playlists, etc.  It has its own library that you can pull songs from, or you can upload from your own files. Right now, I'm listening to Vista18's "Keep it Sassy" playlist, which so far consists of two slightly mediocre Beyonce tracks**.

The nice thing about sites like this are that they often have a great deal of indie music, because sites like this are how a lot of the smaller bands gain exposure, so they're happy to be included, regardless of any payment (you hear that, Lars Ulrich? Aww, I love you, you clueless jerk. It's okay, go hit things with sticks again).

At any rate, I'll probably be on there sometime this evening, making a playlist with all my favourite happy go lucky stuff***. 

This is me on the site:  http://8tracks.com/kidamy


*Activity that includes "hire a douchebag hipster to comment on my blog" may be one of the reasons that I find myself in the financial state that I'm in.
**Which are still superior to Rhianna's best tracks. Yeah, I said it.
***Prediction: it will consist of 1 complete Nada Surf album.