omg. i think i have a date. march 11.

elevens are lucky. today i got a message from one of the four boys i messaged last night. well, i winked at three, and messaged this one. he's 'alot' from here on out. and yes, thanks to hyperbole and a half, i'll never mistake him for a lot.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

i'm pretty excited. and suddenly nervous, all at the same time.


this followed a day of feeling so sorry for myself.

i slept well in the house, which i'd been anxious about. i woke up at 8 i guess, an hour before i had to be up. or so i'd sleepy-math figured i needed to be.

i was worried about the boys needing bathroom time, so i was laying in bed until 9, when i knew they'd both be gone for work. to avoid any bathroom double booking.

by the time i got to work, i guess it was 945. i had my gyn appointment at 1045, so i wasn't stressed on it. only i got there, and realized i had serious money issues. i'd put the deposits for suck store in my bag, all mixed up, and had to straighten it out. kenna called in the middle of that, stressing and asking me questions, so i couldn't get anything figured out.

but i got off the phone, and sorted the money, and had half an hour to get to suck store hospital, where my doctor is.

and for the second time in a week, i got stuck on a bridge. it's the worst. traffic was dead stopped. and i don't have a fear of driving on bridges, but both nate and kit do. and today's was worse than the other one this week. maybe ten minutes on the slope up. so bad. i started to get panicky, which was already happening, because i was running late. and i hate being late and rushing around.


i hoped that she would still see me. and that i'd make it somehow on time. i ended up being five minutes late.

i had also been anxious about the new doctor.

but linda was awesome. middle fifties, maybe? a black woman. and i started joking around with her right away, so i'd be more comfortable. i had totally convinced myself, waiting there, that i knew this linda, and make her a drink everyday. i was horrified about that possibility. the last thing i want is for her to be poking around down there.

so it was awesome when that wasn't the woman who walked in.

she asked a few questions, and i told her that i wanted to be screened for std's. i'm sure that i am fine, but before i go out into the world and do the girl equivalent of spreading my seed, i want to know that i'm not putting anyone in harm's way. she asked if ever had been running around, and i told her that i didn't think. but that i was just overly cautious. same with birth control. i told her that, in light of what i'm looking for with boys right now, that i'd be super careful and not have unprotected sex, but that i'd like a birth control prescription for back up. just in case.

she commended my precautions, and made me feel better about it.

scrape, scrape, scrape (thanks for this line, nina). it was over before i realized it was over, which made me feel so much better about her as a doctor. and i was on my way after a lot of joking about having sex soon. i told her how i'd asked patti for help with my lack of drive when i was with ever, and how as soon as he was out of the picture, i kinda came unglued, sexually. like, wanting it all day every day.

it was nice to not worry about talking to a perfect stranger about the most intimate of topics. thankfully, i've become more liberated about talking about sex this past year, because a year ago, i could not. i couldn't even say 'tampons' without feeling awkward. but now? no problem. she joked about the expiration date being 2013 on the ring sample she gave me, and said something about 'let's hope you can use it by then!' it was funny. she assured me i'd be having safe sex in no time.

so i left there and went to delaware. the drive was sunny and warmer - it was 50 today! so i was in a good mood.


i bought beer, and got taco bell again. i ordered two things, instead of three and a soda, which is always too much. and i always eat it all. so that was an improvement.

but it was funny, because i got to the office, and went into the break room, and everyone got up and left. it was due to my timing, i was there 30 minutes after they break for lunch. but it was just a strange thing, to sit down and four people got up and five left the room.

so i ate and played scrabble and went to work. i only wanted to be there for an hour, but ended up there a bit longer. what was good was that i called the exterminator (for the mice in the house that are out of control), verizon (to cancel apartment internet), and the gas company (to shut off apartment gas). i felt really accomplished.

i did my change of address on the way home from work yesterday, and no mail showed up for me today, so i think it's done. pretty good.

the only utility left is the electric, but until i clean there and collect the deposit, i'll leave it on.


so i knew that when i left the office, i had to get gas and lottery tickets (yes, HAD to), and when i was done, i called nina and she talked to me for a long time, while i drove to north phila to get the printing clean up chemicals that will hopefully fix the mess ever made of the third floor.

and after about 30 minutes of driving, i hit a traffic jam on 95. i never take 95 past the airport, and i hate it. because there's always traffic. and today? for the second time in five hours, stuck on a bridge.

this was even worse than this morning. maybe 15 or 20 minutes, dead stopped. what was worse is that this bridge is a double decker. the last time i got stuck under it was right after the minneapolis bridge collapse, and i freaked out. and today was after the earthquake news (brought to my attention by facebook, naturally). i cannot put words on how unnerving it is to sit perfectly still on a bridge for an extended length of time, and to feel the bridge shaking nonstop. big trucks alongside, worse, big trucks flying by above.

if i hadn't been talking to nina, i think i would have peed my pants and had a full blown anxiety attack. i got off the phone with her as we were starting to move out from underneath the top level. and drove to the printing supply place.

and i sat through this one stoplight for two cycles, because the turn signal wasn't coming on, and traffic was a nightmare. as i was running the light that had turned yellow, i realized there were cameras on the intersection. so this little trip probably just cost $100 more for running a red light. i was upset.

of course, they didn't have the small bottle. so i had to pay $27 for the gallon. fucking ever. goddammit. $127 if i get the ticket. unreal.

and i hated going there when i was with him. he'd always send me, because he'd be 'busy' or i'd have the car. as if it was on the way home from work, which it was not. no part of north phila is on the way home from anywhere, frankly. it's rough.

the people who own it are most certainly white supremacist assholes. the owner is maybe 50, big dude who looks a bit like hulk hogan, with a white and blonde handlebar mustache. he's just never nice. and i feel like at one point he was comfortable enough with ever to throw around the n-word.

hate hate hate. and to find only the giant jug of chemical pissed me the hell off. and of course, as i was driving there, i thought 'there's probably another supply place - i should have looked first'. because i HATE giving these people my money. i always have. and before, there were no options. but as printing has increased in popularity, surely there is an alternative.

if this does work, the wood floors will be savaged. and as i was pulling away, i realized that this is a different chemical than the one i'll need to get the emulsion off the tile and floors.

my whole day was like that. just making stupid mistakes. all day long. forgetting something that required twice as much time as it should have. and i tried to roll with it, chalking it up to a disrupted routine.

the kicker was, when i finally left printing supply, i got stuck in traffic. it had taken over an hour to get there from delaware. so i was already wickedly burnt on spending an entire day stuck in traffic. and i then sat in more traffic. a long line, that was letting five cars through a light before changing. for like a mile. and people kept getting in front of cars ahead of me, making it so i wasn't moving.

all this to turn onto the street my apartment is on. and i cannot believe that it took something very close to an accident (maybe a foot from getting hit by a woman who was on her phone running stop signs at every chance) and eighteen blocks, before i realized that i didn't live at the apartment anymore.

it's a funny learning curve. i'm usually so crazy about it, that i don't make the mistake. i will literally tell myself aloud that i'm not going to the old place. and i don't remember ever actually making the mistake of doing it.

and today i did it.

so i made the best of it, and took the rest of my stuff out of the apartment. it was all my super fragile stuff that family made for me (plates and mugs), my tv, my art stuff. things i didn't want getting messed up in the move.

so i think i made four trips to the car, carefully, and then came to the house.

and when i got here, somehow i made myself unload it all. which is a hard thing for me to do. so i'm proud that i did it.


and i got leftovers from dinner with realtor last night. and a beer, because as i previously said, i was feeling sorry for myself and needed to feel better momentarily.

and sat down to check my email.

and imagine my surprise when i had a message from one of the boys from last night. one of my four star boys. alot.

it feels so great to have someone see what i have written out on my profile, and say 'yes i'm up to meet you out. just give me a week.'

i guess he's in school, and has finals this week? it's a little early, i can't remember what he said he was studying. but i think he's 29. and it just made my day. well, night, because the entire day was a total loss. so i wrote him back and said that i look forward to meeting up once he has crossed the finish line. maybe he meant midterms. it's entirely too soon to start overthinking it. and i'm not afraid to follow up with him if i don't hear from him.


i had talked to nina about dating site a lot on the way home from work. because i had checked today and had no messages back, so i was sad about it. and i told her that i'd message four more tonight, in an effort to cast a bigger net. i figure i'll message twenty boys, and be lucky to get one response.

what was more surprising was that the 'sure thing', the guy i was afraid was too much like chalk, didn't message me back. as soon as i logged onto his profile, a box popped up saying he was logging onto mine. so i thought for sure that i'd get something quickly. and i didn't.

and still haven't.

i only decided that i needed another practice date, since meow guy fell off the face of the planet after asking for time to get back to me. so i decided to give chalk v2.0 a chance. and then he dissed me.

nina said that, like me, they'll probably take a little while to get back to me. like i did to meow guy. and i already knew that, because kit had said the exact same thing.

so i have been trying not to take it personally, but added onto the pile of feeling sorry for myself all day, it was intolerable.

so that made it all the sweeter to get a message. i'm motivated to do that more now. maybe i shouldn't push my luck. but i fear putting eggs in one pretend basket anyways. i mean, he could flake. he could suck. he could hit it off with someone else in the next week.

i fear that aspect of this. the idea here is to create a roster of respectable decent guys, with whom to have sex. not one guy. a few. for a few reasons.

first, i think it will keep me from waiting for one boy or hoping for one boy. i don't want to get hurt, especially when my only intention for them is to have some fun and not be serious in any way.

second, it's probably better to be busy with other people some of the time. to seem like i'm in high demand. is that weird? i don't want to be too available.

third, it might take a month to nail a dude down for a drink. and i can't wait a month to have all hopes of having sex dashed if a date goes poorly.

fourth, i think it's ultimately going to be a confidence builder, once i get over the initial hurdle of getting silently rejected. it will take a while before there is no sting. but i know that, outside of the realm of real life/a bar, i can approach boys. i would never do it otherwise. this will make it so that i'm more comfortable in real life approaching boys. which is a skill that i am absolutely going to have to hone if i want to survive singledom.


so, now that i've convinced myself, i will continue casting the net. and seeing what fish i end up with.


i'm so glad my day ended better than it started.

last night was crazy. i left suck store and went to the apartment to pick up some stuff. i came to the house, and hung out for a while after making my bed and arranging the room a little. i picked up realtor, and pizza, and we came here to eat and then work.

she is a machine. i was so grateful to have her help. she's like me, she actually enjoys cleaning things so that you feel better about using them. and she put things away for me. she was here for four hours, the first part spent talking over dinner. and by ten, when we were both yawning incessantly, making each other yawn (did you yawn reading that? i did!), i told her i was taking her home. she would have been content to stay and help more, and i would have, too. but then we would have very quickly reached the point of no return, where we were both miserable and then had a rough night's sleep from being overly exhausted.

so it was the perfect time to end night one of unpacking. i took her home in the pouring rain. it had been raining for what felt like days, pouring, and generally ruining everyone's mood and making everything so much more difficult than it had to be. and we talked some more in the car, and then i came back and got into bed. i talked nina up while i goofed off on dating site. it was pretty awesome, and then i forced myself to stop, because it was meaning that 100% of the time i spent talking to her in 48 hours had been about dating site boys.

then i said goodnight, put on the universe again, and passed out around one.


today at the office, i discussed taxes with the accountant. and i was a little shellshocked when she advised me to file for an extension and file with ever.

she said that she knows that i don't want to talk to him, but that the standard deductions are going to kill me. and that, because he doesn't make any income, the house deductions will be wasted on him.

even after i explained to her that he is a mess, that he hasn't put money aside to pay his taxes, and that i always pay his taxes for him out of my withholding, not to mention, i don't want my name associated with his shady business dealings anymore, she still recommended it.

i don't know what i'm going to do. i suppose i will think about it and email him about it.

it's worth it to me to pay that money and be completely separated from him, as far as the irs is concerned. but i didn't know that this was going to happen, and i didn't put aside money to pay mine. i don't know if he's going to claim rent, so i don't know how to handle the house either. i'd rather figure out a way to pay my taxes and be separated, but i think what would help the most is to know what he plans on filing.

he probably took a loss on paper again, so combining with him might actually help me. because instead of both of us owing, his loss might counteract my gain.

with a month to figure it out, i'm already nervous about it. i'll give it a week, and talk it over with my family.


i have so much to do. something about getting my bedroom done in one three hour window makes me unmotivated to deal with the kitchen and third floor organizing/unpacking.

or maybe it's just because it's friday night. and because for an easy week where i was worried about working more than nine hours, i worked every day, and really only took off a total of maybe six hours this week. when i wanted to take off a few days for moving and unpacking. to relax a little.

and i've been laying in bed since i unloaded the car. writing, waiting for kit to get home and get ready.

i'm taking her to a bar that is about three blocks away from the house, and i am hoping that it's a good decision. i can't honestly say that i've ever even heard of it. and she's starving. i really hope this place is still standing/has awesome food/has awesome beer. it's a brewery. my fingers are crossed...

No comments:

Post a Comment