scared. may 19th.

yeah. that was saturday.

sunday through today is a blur of emotion.


something is happening.

and i'm very afraid of it.

it would be easy, were i not a headcase, to put on the brakes. and force myself to stop worrying/being afraid/thinking/getting excited.

but i am.

so i'm scared.


the overwhelming feeling i am having right now is, 'oh SHIT.'

because without having met this boy yet, we've spent hours and hours corresponding to each other over email. and so far, i can't stop thinking that i have not met someone who is this much the boy version of me since COFFEE.

and we all know about coffee. he fucked my shit up for thirteen years.

this boy is different, in that he is interested, and acting like it, and saying it. we take turns thanking each other and saying how exciting this whole thing is. i mean, back in the day, coffee said enough to me to get his claws in me. but once i was on the hook, it stopped.


i think another thing that scares me is that i am mostly certain that i am not ready.

yeah, i waited a YEAR. yeah, i say i don't want a 'boyfriend' for another year. or at least until the fall. but i'm fresh off the heels of several mistakes right now. misjudging boys, fucking around, getting my feelings hurt anyway. realizing that i am perfectly capable of fucking boys that i don't care about. but that it didn't get me any further than i was before i started doing that. it was fun, yeah. but it was also fizzle crash and burn before it even took off.

so i'm afraid of making more mistakes. and while i'm grateful that the timing didn't work out until this coming saturday, i worry that it's still not the right time.


because i'm too excited. and i'm already thinking excited thoughts. because he is, too. he said yesterday, in an email, that he is glad i decided not to move home, because now we get to hang out and have fun together.

i haven't even MET him yet.


so i guess how this happened, is that the timing wasn't right. because it wasn't, i sent a note. because i sent a note, he sent one back and asked a question. and when i sent one back, a good bit longer than the first, i asked a question or two. and apologized for the length of the message.

and he said he was into it. and answered and asked a couple.

so in the last five days, we're up to about 15 emails, i would guess. and they all consist of these 'oh, me, too!' things. little tiny associations. mentioning random connections, and having most of everything in common.

and what's more? i can't find anything wrong with him. i mean, i knew on day one with matthew and joey exactly what was wrong with them, which put them in a category in my brain that kept me from getting too caught up.


i don't know. he's great. there is NO DRAMA. we're making back up plans for our plans in case it rains. and he's already telling me things he wants to show me/do with me, based on what i tell him i've missed out on to this point in my life.

and i'm forcing myself to not ask him over on friday night. and to not ask him over on saturday night. meeting up at noon on saturday (last i checked) leaves an entire day open to whatever. i have no plans on sunday. and i'm honestly super hoping that he stays over on saturday, and that sunday is either brunch or cooking breakfast for him.

with the getting carried away...

it's just going to be interesting to be sitting across from him. to hear his voice. to see his eyes. i don't know. i've never gotten to know someone like this before. i mean, i had a four hour texting conversation with matthew. but this has become something that we do for hours a day.

yesterday he said that i'm amazing. and thanked me for making him feel better. and among other things, says he can't wait to read what i write next.


is he too good to be true? how is he single? how is he not married with a trophy wife and 2 kids, a dog, and a picket fence?

i've never been with someone who owned their house before. it's just crazy how together he is. and that's all part of it, too. like this guy won't need me to do anything for him, and i won't need him to do anything for me. and we can just be, and travel around and do shit together that we've both been putting off until now. now, when we have an excuse to do it.


the only thing that puts my brain at ease is that he lives near suck store and works on the other side of the river. so it's not like he lives in south phila a few blocks away. knowing that he'll be elsewhere most of the time means that i don't have to worry about the not-coming-up-for-air angle that these things can tend to have. with me, in particular.


i don't know. i still have that feeling, i don't want to be anyone's girlfriend. and i don't want to fall in love. i don't want to be so super smitten. i don't want anyone to change my mind about anything i've been convinced of this last year.

and it is fucking me up that this guy could be the guy who changes any one of those things. the one who breaks my already broken heart. the one that i make exceptions for. the one i want to be with all the time.

i fear that i can't handle it. and i think it's justified, because it's all i can think about, talk about, write about, breathe. and really, honestly? because last week, it was something completely different. how can things be so intense? how can i bounce again.

i'm really glad that i'm good alone. and that i proved that to myself. because that is one thing i have got under control. but all this emotional shit? all the thinking? all the worrying and stressing? i have NO control over any of it.

i'm grateful to have a shrink appointment on monday. i feel like i need a double session. part for what i've been going through, and part for what greg represents to me at a completely premature point in time. at least, i'll have one date under my belt at that point.


i'd never wish it on myself, but part of me wishes that saturday happens, and everything falls flat. just to show me what getting ahead of myself mentally can do. like thinking he'd make a horrible boyfriend. or thinking that it's no wonder he's single and excited to talk to me.

but i just cannot fathom that being the case.


and i've talked to both nina and lauren about this. and aubree, too, i guess.

i have punished myself long enough. i have had all this guilt over feeling selfish about leaving ever. and forced myself to miss out on a lot of fun and good times, because i thought i deserved it.

and now? as soon as i think i'm ready to take a stab at meeting people and being open to possibilities (barely open, but still...), i make four mistakes out of the gate, and then meet this guy??

am i destined to fuck it up? will i pull a coffee maneuver, and get all smitten only to watch him run from me screaming?


if only i could shut it off. stop thinking. stop writing about it.


but then my inbox has a new message.

and now i have one more thing to be excited about.

his name is greg. he's one of alice's best friends.

and i have two days until he is standing in front of me. it's making my stomach totally sick. in a nervous and super excited kindof a way.

i am scared.

alotta ketchup from saturday. may 17th.

it's brownies' birthday today.

i have been m.i.a.

i apologize, if anyone has been checking. somehow, i feel like my readership has dwindled anyway. or that i have lost things to say that are either important to anyone but me, or relevant to anyone but me.

but mostly, i think i'm avoiding problems and afraid to say what's on my mind.


i miss writing here. i have been intending to write here for over a week. and i have been too wrapped up in too many other things. like paper journal. but also, just LIFE. and being busy.


matthew just flaked on me for the third time. and i was actually fighting tears when i processed his text. and i have no idea why. i think it was an underlying sadness, and i think it's probably weather related. but maybe it's because i felt like i had him under control. and apparently i don't.

because i really wanted to make out last night. it's been missing lately. and because this is the third time he's flaked on our plans in the last week. he set this up. and bailed on me. for sushi. really? the only thing i won't eat. dickhead.

i could see, if i had asked him three times in a row, and he flaked everytime. because that's just his roundabout way of letting me know he's not interested anymore.

but he made these plans. after flaking on me twice, last sunday and monday. whatever.

i don't need it. i was more angry that i didn't make plans with other people instead. not that i was specifically not hanging out with him. i mean, i'm on the dot, so whatever. it's not like i was going to laid.


so i'm putting him in the drop pile. he and joey can fight for the spot of lamest dude ever.


and being banished to suck store? well... it sucks. i miss the girls. and have too much time alone to think about how i feel about the little reject pile of boys, i guess. not another word from joey. it was not a mistake. but it is still a bummer. i wanted to be something just on THIS side of a conquest. has it been a month? nearly, if not. and not a peep.


i guess the biggest thing i have to write about is greg. try to keep up...i know the list of boy names is dizzying. but this one shouldn't be limited to one post (equivalent to one night stand). in fact, i wonder if maybe i should have given him a fake name right off the bat.


this one scares me. because i haven't even met him yet and i'm already swirly. which is nothing new. but this? this time it's DIFFERENT. and i probably write that every time. but this time i really really mean it. f'reals.


aubree has had a wonderful first week. i mean, the job itself is pretty boring and kindof sucks, i think, but she's happy to be up here and finishing off school.

and i did manage to pull plans together to have a little party for her at the house. it was awesome. kim and her boy, lauren, kit and a friend, pam, and kim all made it. and we had a lot of fun together. this after an epic first half of my day...


alice, greg, and i had plans to hang out on saturday, before aubree's party. in my brain, i had it all figured out.

we were meeting at the bar at 1. and then going to this game room. like a big kids arcade i guess. and then they were going to come over to the party. and then i was going to make out with greg all night and cuddle. neither alice nor greg were aware of anything after the arcade bit.

and when it was raining, and greg had family dinner, and then there were two big events in the city that day, alice told greg we'd do it another time.

i'm not gonna lie... i was mega bummed. i had been waiting something like eight months to meet this guy. and it was FINALLY happening. i was getting ready. and alice said, 'he's not coming'.

i was bummed. like, 'what the shit?!?!' bummed.


but biked to alice at the bar. i got halfway there, maybe six blocks from the house. and i'm cruising along at a good clip on my bike, through a sweet pocket of bars and restaurants and shops. and i happen to look to my right.

and who's standing on the street? ever.

i couldn't believe it. why is he in my hood? where our friends could be? he was with a girl. she was short like me, skinny like me, with brown hair in a ponytail like me. but i only saw her from the back.

and i am so fucking glad that my reaction was to smile. i don't know how that was my reaction. because i was so mad that he was so close to me, geographically. and i don't know how i didn't frown from seeing him, because that is why i need botox.

and his face was PRICELESS. he kinda turned his head to the side, like the retarded dog on hyperbole. and his eyebrows were drawn in, and his forehead was all scrunched up. like he was completely confused by seeing me fly past him on the bicycle he bought for me.

and i laughed while i rode the next three blocks to the bar.

but when i got off my bike? i started to shake. the craziness of happening to look up and happening to see him when i happened to ride the specific way i did (i never go that way) at the exact moment when he happened to be standing on the sidewalk looking at me was just too much for my feeble brain to process.


and i walked into the bar, not smiling. and i was happy to see alice, but i was not feeling well. it was like the normal just-stopped-riding-fast heart rate, and the sweating-while-it's-cool out gross feeling. and the buzz of seeing him.

it was the sick realization that he isn't confined to his apartment. and he isn't afraid to be in my neighborhood. where the people he stole from hang out. and isn't afraid to do it with a girl, either.

and i sat down, and started smoking (because this bar is cool like that), and they bought me a shot. of patron. that came served up in a rocks glass. that was nearly full. the sight of it made my stomach turn. it was easily a long double or short triple shot of tequila.

it was one. on saturday. to that point, i'd had two iced coffees. and nothing to eat, because i wasn't hungry yet.

alice was already drunk. so was everyone else who had gotten there sometime between 730 am when they open and 1030 when most people show up. by one, i was the only sober person in the place. and in under half an hour, i was excluded. no one was sober. not a single soul.


and it became clear, rather quickly, that both alice and i needed to get the hell out of the bar. only bad things were going to happen there. so we walked to her place with our bikes in the pouring rain. stumbling, tippy bikes.

it was quite a sight, made more interesting by one of the festivals that had kept greg from joining us. it was insanity in her neighborhood.

so we got to her place. and smoked, and drank water. eventually i made some pesto pasta for us.

because greg hadn't made it, and because alice was silly, she said that we should watch his favorite movie. that he had given her his copy. and that i would love it and that we should watch it.

so we did. and then she was feeling better, and i knew i was primed for biking. she'd put my soaking wet shirt in the dryer (wearing a camisole tank that day was the best idea i've ever had!) so i wouldn't have to be in a soaking wet shirt all day.


and i don't know what got into me. but i got on facebook. and messaged greg, despite not having ever talked to him before, and not being his friend or anything.


and i said that i'd gotten alice home safely. and that i thought he would want to know that she made me watch true romance.

and i don't know what i expected out of him. i don't know that i expected anything. hoped, yes. expected? nope.


my shirt was still damp, but didn't bother me so much, when i biked home.

i was biking home, a little tipsy, but mostly super hungry and dehydrated, and fearful of having the sobriety/stamina/energy for setting up the party i'd announced, but not really planned at all.

and it was about 5, i guess. so i sucked it up. and went home wiped out and feeling utterly defeated. i hadn't invited matthew, because he'd implied that he was busy, and because i'd really hoped greg would be over instead.


but he wasn't. but you know what? within an hour and a half, by the time i came home from alice's, i had a note back. and the last line said that it was only fair, now that i knew his favorite movie, that he knows mine.


and as per the usual with matthew, i was glad later that i didn't invite him. because everyone else had been there on my birthday, so everyone else knew each other. and aubree had the perfect number of guests. we drank the perfect number of drinks. no one got sick. yay. and had the perfect amount of fun.


i think it had been three weeks since i had seen kit. almost to the day. i could be wrong. but i was on the phone with nina, mid-story, when she walked in. so i wrapped up the call, and went up to my room to clean up, in case anyone showed up who felt the need to look in there. and kit came into the doorway. and we hugged it out.

and when i went to break the hug after a long minute, she said she wasn't done yet. so we hugged it out some more.

i'm really glad that things are patched up. and that we're going to see a show together on friday.

and that the STAR PARTY is in eight fucking days. i'm coming out of my skin with excitement for that!!


we played apples to apples, which is my absolute favorite.

and when everyone started playing poker, i only watched. and then lauren caught my eye and asked to catch up.

and we sat outside, in the sprinkling rain, talking for well over half an hour. i knew that we'd be missed, but we had a lot to talk about from each of our lives since we'd seen each other last. all of it heavy, and perfectly appropriate for being rained on. and for sitting on wet benches and getting wet jeans.

and then it started to really rain, so we went back in to join the party.


and not too much later, kit had to leave, because she was exhausted from a very physical day. and lauren fell asleep sometime after 1, and i think the house was empty by 145. it was quite the party, saying as it had started before 7, when kit and her friend from back home brought aubree back from the regatta.


and that was saturday. because it's time to leave suck store for the day, i'm splitting this post in half.