To Be Uncritically Admired

I don't know any other way to describe it except to say that I put people on pedestals.

I meet someone and I get to know them a little and I think they're awesome.

A lot of time I look up to them and wish I was more like them in one way or another. There's maybe even an aspect of me feeling like they're a "better" person than I am in some important way.

And then they do something that hurts me or disappoints me or confuses me or lets me down. And I get angry and hurt and I vow to never let myself close to anyone ever again; to never have a friend ever again.

But that feeling fades and is replaced by a wariness that's no more comforting or comfortable.

I've come to realize that this is my issue, not anyone else's. I can't expect people to be perfect. I need to stop thinking they are anything other than human.

It's not fair to them for me to see them as this perfect person and then be disappointed when they show themselves to be imperfect, flawed.

I'm just not sure how to go about undoing this so I'm just going to go about it slowly. It might be one of those "knowing is half the battle" things. It might be another matter of not seeing everything as so black and white.

It might be a matter of seeing myself as not less than anyone.

And maybe that's the scary thought.

S is for Something I Haven't Had in a While

You know. . . The "other" S word. (*whispers* s.....e.....x)

I discovered, while rooting around in my chest of drawers this weekend that the condoms I bought were set to expire this month.

Which means I bought them a long time ago and haven't used them.

I didn't know if this was funny or sad or a bit of both so I've decided they were cursed.

Like, having them was what was keeping me from being intimate or whatever because like the Universe was all "hmmm, she's overly confident that she's going to be needing these so I'm going to prove her wrong!"

I fully believe that both the man and the woman should be responsible for birth control and protecting themselves against STDs so I've always had a condom or two in my purse and drawer. Now I figure I've changed enough that I'm probably not going to need a condom in a rush. The way I feel about how I want to go into my next relationship, I think I'd have enough time between meeting the guy and getting to know him to head to a shop to buy some, so I'm not going to replenish my supply just in case I was weirdly karmically cursing myself out of a relationship.

But yeah, I haven't had (*whispers* s.....e.....x) in so long, my condoms expired.

If only I could find that as funny as it probably is.

Sorry

Hope I didn't get your hopes up as much as I got my hopes up, but I'm not going for dinner this weekend.

The gentleman in question was busy and already had plans this weekend, so it didn't happen.

And, to be honest, I was disappointed.

She actually let me know the day I posted about it (which was kind of ironic) that there wouldn't be a dinner and it made for a melancholy day.

I let her know I was bummed and she told me not to be because it was just a re-scheduling.

So, sorry I don't have any stories to tell you.

But at least it's still the weekend, right?

Hmmmmm

I don't remember what I was going to post about.

I had the idea, and then I went and found this photo to accompany the thought and by the time I'd uploaded it, the thought had gone.

I don't have the faintest idea what I was going to talk about.

Oh nuts, now I remember. But I don't want to erase all that up there that I typed because seriously, I'd completely forgotten for a while there and hey, that's the reality of my brain! So anyway...let's just put this in italics and we can pretend it's some other post from some other day ok?




(Ok, even odder. I just wrote out the whole post and set it to publish and then realized it didn't feel right to put it out there so I tried editing it and adjusting it and now I've gone and just deleted the whole thing. I don't want it out there. So really, now this whole post doesn't exist. So now I have to distract you with something so you don't notice that this is two non-posts in one.)


Hey, have you guys seen Downton Abbey? Does it make you wish you were English aristocracy in the 1900s or is that just me?

Maybe

My friend at work (who wants me to meet her husband's co-worker) has asked me if I'm free to come to their place for dinner this weekend.

She figured a dinner party would be too much pressure, but if it was just a family dinner it'd be fine.

I told her that would be great, but of course now I'm trying not to be nervous.

I mean, her husband hasn't asked the guy yet, so maybe he won't be interested, or maybe we just won't have a spark anyway, so there's really no reason to be nervous, but... well, you know me.

I'm nervous about the dinner even *without* there being a guy there to meet. New things and me? = Nervous.

But it's also giving me something to look forward to.

I can psych myself up for it while at the same time telling myself it's not a big deal and still maybe sneak in a reasonable amount of hopeful daydreaming about what-ifs.

So I might be going for dinner at my co-worker's this weekend, but only maybe.

The end.

Turn Down Your Speaker Volume

This has had me in tears of laughter and I think after a heavy post like yesterday, laughter is a good thing.

This involves swears and screaming, so it's probably not safe for work or children or headphones.

But I can't stop laughing at it.

And the guy is totally right.


Screaming Marine - That was not a countdown!


THAT WAS NOT A COUNTDOWN!

I Hate Everything About This

I've been thinking a lot lately about my weight and what my body looks like and what I eat.

I've spent a lot of energy beating myself up over what I eat and how I eat it and how that's affecting my weight in a way that does nothing but upset me and how I still don't do anything about it knowing all this.

I've been trying to analyze it all. Figure out if this is some kind of self-destructive thing or something. But then I really slowed down and thought about it.

I've been dealing with stomach issues for years now. Even on this blog, I first mention it around five years ago, and it must have been going on for a while before that for me to talk about it here.

So let's be conservative and say that for five years, half a decade, food has hurt me. I've associated my stomach with pain for a lot of years now when you look at it that way.

And then there was being told I had Celiac disease, and then that no, I didn't, but that there was something wrong and we just didn't know what.

But I spent a year or two eating gluten free and it was miserable. Miserable partly because it didn't immediately stop the pain and because it was difficult and whatever enjoyment I had in food was taken away. And on top of that, gluten-free foods are not calorie sensitive. The concern is not the carb/calorie/fat intake, it's the lack of gluten.

And add on to that a car accident that took away my ability to work out regularly and I suppose it's unfair to beat myself up for putting on weight.

It's been nearly three years since the accident and I'm still struggling with exercise and pain. So that doesn't help my weight situation.

And food is still touchy.

I try to eat well and my stomach rebels at the change.

I try to be healthier but things don't all sit well.

I think when I'm honest with myself, the battle I play the most with myself is that of re-learning to enjoy food and eating.

Which is difficult. I have certain things I know are ok/neutral and I have certain things that I know will probably set off pain.

And the things that I know are ok are not the healthiest/best for me.

But I'm doing what I can there too.

I think what it comes down to a lot of time is "treats".

Wanting candy/chocolate/salty treats because of one reason or another. And I know I should reduce my sugars, I know know know this but when there are so few things I can enjoy eating, maybe I shouldn't beat myself up for relying on the few treats I do have.

I guess I'm trying to get myself to a place where I'm not hating myself for what I eat and how I eat it because that hasn't worked and isn't working.

I don't know when the weight went on. I stopped watching my weight when I was diagnosed with Celiac. I felt I had bigger fish to fry.

But now that the weight is on, I'm not comfortable. People keep telling me they don't notice, but I do. I don't fit into my bras anymore. I've had to buy bigger ones. My pants are tight and cut into my waist. I don't enjoy looking at myself in the mirror and I used to at least be proud to see the muscles in my arms and some definition.

I don't want the weight anymore. I'm no longer wishing to be back down to the weight I was at sixteen, but I don't want to be here either.

But as much as I know this, and as much as it makes me feel dizzy to look at the numbers on the scale right now I don't seem to care enough to do anything about it because I'm still eating the way I do.

And, no, I'm not willing to do a food diary again, food is already an enemy, a struggle, a battle.

But I don't know what to do.

I can't magically exercise it away. Exercise is a whole other battle that I'm doing my best to fight.

And I don't have the willpower to watch what I eat and I don't know why.

I don't know why.

But I'm trying to piece it together and what I do know is that 1. food is a risk - I never know when it will hurt 2. I don't like a lot of things so those I do like I keep close 3. the foods I know won't upset me and cause me pain aren't healthy ones. 4. I feel like I deserve to eat things that taste good and while I've already denied myself a lot, there are some I don't. 5. people keep giving me advice and even I know what I should do but I don't seem to care enough to do it.

I've never lived with anyone who's an addict, so I don't know how an addict gets to a place of wanting to give up their abusive relationship with a substance. And not that I'm saying I have an addiction to food, but sometimes it feels like it, and, if it isn't already obvious, I can't give up food. There's no way to go cold turkey on this one.

I'm not asking for advice here. I'm just trying to sort it all out for myself in my head and sometimes when I write something here it gives me an amazing amount of clarity the next day.

I often find myself wishing that I'd be told I had some other life-changing, horrible illness that would force me to cut out sugars. Diabetes has come to mind. As horrible as it sounds, as sick as it makes me feel to say it, I find myself thinking that if they'd just tell me I had diabetes, I'd stop eating sugars and would lose all this weight and be healthy again.

I don't know why I just can't make this decision myself. But I think it has something to do with what I've gone through in the past two to five years. I don't know if I can handle another struggle with food, and watching what I eat would be one.

I don't want to struggle with calorie counting and food diaries when things will still hurt and I'll still feel ill. Really, some days it's just too much of a struggle to get through the pain or nausea or whatever, I get to the end of those days and I just want to taste something I'll enjoy. I just want a treat.

But I hate how I feel in my clothes. I don't want to say "oh, that's just how I look now." I don't want to be here five years from now with another ten, twenty pounds added on.

I don't know how to fix this.

Snow Days

Snow around here is an interesting phenomenon.

When it comes, it tends to either tease and sprinkle icing-sugar-like over things and not really stick, or it dumps, ten, fifteen centimeters in a couple of hours, and that can effectively shut the city down.

I didn't grow up here, and it's hard to know how accurate childhood memories are. Maybe the further away you get from them, the more changeable they become, or maybe things really were the way you remember them, or maybe they just seem different because you were looking at them through the eyes of a child rather than those of an adult, but I remember snow being different where I grew up.

I remember it being around for longer. It seems like we would play in it for days. There'd be a fort built in the backyard and snowmen in the front yard and because we could walk to school, I don't know that we ever had "snow days." Snow gear kept you warm but not necessarily dry and man oh man was it annoying to get all your gear on and then realize that you had to pee.

When it snows here, I have to get to work. And that ads a layer of worry/stress/anxiety that I never ever associated with snow as a kid or teenager. If it snowed when I was in high school, either my Dad would drive me, or maybe a friend, or I'd take the bus. No problemo. Even when I was older and driving and it snowed, I'd just drive carefully, never had a problem.

Here (and it's not just me that says it) the snow is different somehow. It slips and slides on the roads. It's never sticky and firm on the roads, it goes slippery. And drivers aren't cautious here. Many of them still tailgate and speed and don't have a lot of experience with the "tricks" of what to do when you're sliding or slipping or stuck.

So when it snows here, there are a few days of worry over getting to and from work. I'm often lucky and share the drive with co-workers who live nearby, but there's still something about it that has me gritting my teeth the entire trip.

But when it snows here it's funny, because while the city can't handle it, it does its best and we all struggle along for a few days and then, just as suddenly? It's gone.

Snow doesn't hang around here. Maybe (not being a meteorologist) it's our Island status, but once the temperature changes, it rains and melts and it's hard to remember that everything was white and covered just yesterday. You only believe it because of the giant melting piles left in the car parks and the slanting remains of snowmen on lawns.

And the occasional lost glove that reappears on the sidewalk, soaked through with melt and rain.

Snow days here are intense, and few and far between.

Two, three days of scraping, shovelling, pulling out those snow boots you never thought you'd use again, gritting your teeth while driving, stepping carefully on the un-salted sidewalks, and mushing through the salted ones, marvelling at how clean everything looks white-roofed and blanketed and then it's gone.

Makes you wonder what the fuss was all about and how anyone could have been dealing with something that now looks like it was never there.

Oh

Last night, a few beverages in, someone told me I was a large personality.

I consider this person to be a very large personality but have never thought of myself the same way.

I'm not offended, I don't think she meant it in a negative way, I'm just curious if this is something about myself I don't know or don't see.

Or if maybe I just need to stop drinking whenever I hang out with this girl.

Sometimes It Doesn't Take Much To Break Your Heart

When I was living with my parents we had a lot of good talks. I mean, we've always had good talks, there were just more opportunities for them when I was back sharing the same roof.

And I think it was probably the first time I lived with them as an adult. (The time I moved back home after a relationship ended, I didn't feel like an adult, even though my driver's license said I was one.) And I have a few more things figured out, and the things I don't have figured out, I have an idea about.

One of the things we talked about was the past; where we used to live, being a child, how I felt when I was growing up.

Something I tried to articulate was how I never valued the things I was good at when I was growing up. And how this wasn't through poor parenting, or any fault of theirs, just the circumstances.

I was visiting with my parents the other day and we got to talking about my dance, and some of the accomplishments I had with that and how I still struggle a little to feel proud of those accomplishments when I compare them to my brother and all the things he excelled at.

There was a pause in the conversation and my Mom looked up at me and said "you know, if you go back to do your PhD, you should do it in Fine Arts."

And my heart broke. Because I wish we'd been able to have that conversation twenty years ago.

I wish I'd believed that the arts were valuable.

And I wish I'd believed in myself.

And I wish I'd gone down that path and chased that dream.

But perhaps I wasn't ready.

I certainly didn't have the inner strength or conviction for the criticism that comes along with being a creative person.

I'm closer to having that now.

Now I just have to sit with that thought for a while.

A while back, I went for drinks with a friend and her boyfriend.

At a certain point in the night, a buddy of my friend's boyfriend joined us and the two of us flirted a bit.

I thought he was cute, but it turned out he had a girlfriend, and I am not one to flirt with a guy who's already taken, so I seem to remember avoiding him for the rest of th evening.

This weekend, my friend randomly mentioned that this guy was single again. That he had his girlfriend had broken up.

While a few years ago my thought might have been "Oooh! We flirted, he liked me, we should get together," my thought now is "I wouldn't want to date a guy who was happy to flirt with another girl when he was in a relationship."

I'm sure there will be some who tell me this is an over-reaction, but I want to trust the next guy I'm with, and having already seen this guy "in action" so to speak, I wouldn't have a great deal of trust in him from the start.

And that's no way to start anything.

Inertia

I was talking with a girlfriend of mine the other day and asking her if she was following up on her music. This friend is the most amazing singer and musician and loves to sing and play, but to quote her, "It's hard to get past the inertia of where I am right now."

I remember learning about Newton's First Law in physics and understanding, logically, how that applied to objects.

Have you ever seen a video of someone pulling something incredibly heavy (like an airplane or bus) with their teeth or hair or something equally unsuited to the task? It's always getting the thing moving that's the hardest part. They pull and pull and pull and then suddenly (seemingly so) the gigantic object starts to move and we all stand amazed by the feat.

It's the inertia. That's what those people are struggling against, because once the thing starts rolling, you're good to go.

I'm starting to think that mental inertia is the hardest thing to move.

Lacking the motivation of tv cameras or Guiness book records, it's difficult to pull and pull and pull against the inertia of a habit or a comfort zone.

Or the couch, streaming television and a blanket.

Because it can be comfortable, that inertia.

And it's only by wanting something more than wanting the comfort that you strap the twine around yourself and start tugging, veins bulging, to move yourself.

I'm at least looking at the pile of rope lying there next to my own personal bus.

I'm at least aware of where I'm inert.

Scratch My Head

I don't mean to sound preachy here, I'm just rambling about a difference of opinion I seem to have with some people.

If I know I'm going to have a drink, I plan not to drive.

(I don't like having even a drink with dinner and then driving, but I know I'm being extra sensitive in this case.)

I'm very lucky in that I live near enough downtown that I can walk places, but in the times I'm going somewhere where I can't walk home? I either don't drink or I don't drive.

I don't understand the acquaintances I have who have a few drinks and then offer to drive me home.

I mean, I understand the offer to drive me home, it's very kind, but I don't understand why you're driving.

I guess people think they know their limits, but that's the problem with drinking. You *think* you know things, when really, you're impaired.

You think you need to speak loudly, you think everything you have to say is funny/important/interesting. And when it comes time to leave, you think you're ok to drive.

And I'm not talking "I had a glass of wine with dinner three hours ago", I'm talking, we've had two or three drinks over the last few hours and I feel fine. Plus, my car's just parked across the street so why would I take a cab?

I know a girl who knows a girl who was the designated driver at a Christmas staff party.

She was pulled over, with a car load of her co-workers and found to be over the legal limit.

This is not a designated driver!

Again, I'm lucky that I can walk home from downtown. But it's also true that in this town a taxi never really costs more than $15 or $20 and most of them will take debit if you don't have any cash on you.

I guess I think these decisions should be made *before* the alcohol is consumed and I guess I think it's better to be on the overly-cautious side when it comes down to it.

We all think we're ok to drive after a few drinks, but driving is such an overwhelmingly large amount of processing and decision making and relying on split second timing and that's when things are going well.

I don't think drinking mixes with driving, and it always baffles me somewhat when I find I'm in the minority.

A Really Great Weekend

In no particular order, this weekend was great because of

-sunshine
-snow
-very delicious Cosmos
-laughter, the keeling over wheezing kind
-spending almost all day in pyjamas recovering from very delicious Cosmos
-feeling like there was somehow an extra day thrown in there
-relaxing
-encouraging my neighbour through being 8.95 months pregnant and wanting to have this baby today even though the baby seems quite content to hang out for a few more days
-C-Dawg
-a surprisingly good live band that kept covering great songs
-walking home in the wet snow late-ish, knowing I could sleep in the next day
-sleeping in just enough to feel decadent

And in a "you can't enjoy the sunshine without the rain" kind of way, I suppose it's fair that I have to go back to work today so I can look forward to another weekend in five more days.

Plus, there's more snow in the forecast for this week, so that's always pretty. (And awesome!)

Ahhhhhh

I just bought some Cadbury's (easter) Creme eggs.

All is right with the world.

The Tears. Oh, The Tears

Dooce.com had a link to a website that collected photos from weddings. Photos that really captured a moment. And being one who loves photos and holds closely the idea that I might one day be in a wedding of my own, I flicked through the photos somewhat damp-eyed.

And then I came across this photo of a Dad tearing up seeing his daughter wearing her mother's wedding dress.

And I started crying.

My Mom didn't keep her wedding dress, so I will never have that option.

I won't even have the option of holding a swatch of that dress or making that dress into a part of my day.

My Mom didn't think to keep it. It wasn't a "wedding" dress per se, she says. More of a dress that she bought to wear at her wedding.

Which was a very simple affair, as many were in Scotland at that time.

And it's not so much that I want to have a lavish affair (although I do reserve the right to make that choice if I want come the day) it's that I love the idea of wearing your mother's wedding dress for your own wedding.

Like christening robes that are passed down from generation to generation, or rings that pass from grandmother to son to love of his life, I like the idea of things crossing time and taking on more meaning.

My Mom wore a simple blue dress. Not sure the thing would even fit me. Not sure I'd even want to wear blue on my wedding day, but it still makes me feel sad that it's not an option.

Sad that I won't have that extra special moment where my Dad sees his little girl all grown up and starting her own life in the very dress he married her Mom in.

And then I started thinking about whether or not my Dad will even still be here when and if I get married.

Will I ever even get married? And will he still be alive to give me away?

I might not. And he might not.

I'm lucky, so very very lucky that my Dad's still alive. But he won't live forever.

And if I do get married, have a wedding day?

There's no guarantee I'll have both, or either of my parents there to witness it.

My heart cracks open with the pain of it and I have to remind myself there are too many "what if's", too many too many and what will be will be, and I just have to remember that I'm here, my Dad's here, my Mom's here and that has to be enough for today and for now.

Sometimes it breaks my heart to be a daughter.

Better Now

I was thinking the other day (while on the treadmill, which is, next to the shower, a place where a lot of good, unthinking thinking happens if you know what I mean) about the kind of men I've been attracted to.

In high school, I was attracted to the stoner/skater type (for lack of a better term.) Them, and the gorgeous, older guys; the grade 12 jocks, rock and rollers, completely unavailable ones. Both types were boys I couldn't get. Or didn't think I could get anyway, and I think in high school that matters more than you know at the time.

But those "stoner" boys, they were also just a little on the edge. They didn't care about how they were supposed to look or what they were supposed to be doing, they just did their own thing and I think that's what got me. That they were so carefree in my eyes. That they grew their hair long and didn't wear whatever it was the cool kids were supposed to wear.

In University, I was (perhaps once again) attracted to the bad boys. Well, in first year anyway. (Not sure what I was attracted to after that, as that relationship dragged along with me through my entire first degree.) Not the stoner/skaters this time, but the boys who were still on the fringe. The boys who hung at the edges of a party and smoked. (Smoking was outrageously bad in my eyes. Still is. I strongly strongly dislike smokers. Can't be around cigarettes.) These were the boys who skipped classes and were first to arrive at the pub and last to leave. These were boys who would casually throw their arm over your shoulder in a way that was both possessive and non-committal.

I nearly slept with a bad boy that I hated passionately. I disliked everything about him and that powder keg got ignited one night and everyone just left the room and we tore each other's clothes off.

It was his best friend I wanted though and his best friend I dated for the rest of the year. His best friend who ruined the best years of my youth. Nay, the best friend I couldn't let go of, thereby wasting so much of the best years of my youth on him, his issues, and our tattered, unhealthy relationship.

Now?

Well, if DD and Bird are anything to go by, I still have something of a draw to the bad boys. To the ones who hang at the fringe and live just a little outside of what's expected.

But Smith wasn't. And Chad wasn't. And my other lovely boyfriends weren't. The one I nearly married wasn't.

So what *am* I attracted to now, was what I found myself thinking the other day.

And all I could put it down to was "a certain twinkle in the eye."

It's something like a mischievous smile. A smile that goes all the way to the eyes and crinkles just the corner of them. And if they were a caricature, there'd be a twinkle in the corner, and they might just wink at you.

It's a something that says I am good. I am happy. I will make you laugh. And smile. And I will make your insides churn and flutter.

A certain twinkle in the eye.

That's what I go for now.

ARGH!

Why do I have such a hard time stopping doing things that annoy me?

Or stopping doing things that I KNOW aren't good for me?

It took me forever to stop reading a terrible, horrible, nasty, celebrity gossip blog that I did not enjoy reading. I felt angry at the mean things that were said and yet I kept going back.

It took me a stupidly long time to forbid myself from going back and man am I glad I stopped.

The frustration being, why didn't I stop the moment it felt wrong?

I don't enjoy reading things that make me feel that way, yet I'm doing it again. I forbade myself from going to a site that does nothing but anger, frustrate and irritate me and yet, there I was again last night, checking the site and coming away angry, frustrated, irritated and annoyed.

So why don't I just stop?

And why do I continue to dump a handful of Skittles into my hand when I know my tastebuds would be happy enough with two or three?

Why do I look at the extra fat on my body and vow to start eating within my daily caloric intake and yet when it comes down to it, I shrug, throw whatever it is into my mouth and chomp away.

Why don't I just stop?

I know I'm stubborn.

I've seen myself stubbornly and determinedly push myself through things.

I've run 10Ks for crying out loud.

And I've lost all the weight I've been putting back on for the past three years by being stubborn.

I've taken a photo a day for 365 days. I CAN BE STUBBORN.

So why am I not?

Why do I keep doing this thing that frustrates me so?

Why do I keep eating like I'm not carrying twenty extra pounds?

Why am I unable to overcome my stubbornness with my stubbornness?

It's frustrating.

Really really frustrating.

After Silence, That Which Comes Nearest to Expressing the Inexpressible is Music.*

Sometimes I forget how much I love music.

And then I throw my earphones on and I head to the gym and I spend an hour or two sweating and working and all my favourite songs pour into my head and fill in the space between my ears with nothing but how amazing music is.

And I wonder all over again how I could ever forget how much I love music.



*Aldous Huxley

There's Hope For Me Yet

There's a lady I work with I really like. She's mellow, she's a good spy, she's happy and friendly and she always listens when I need to talk.

She's somehow very comforting and although she only works two days a week, I always look forward to those two days if only to see her and say hi.

This lady becomes relevant to this blog because I've sat with her a few times over the last couple of years and talked about wanting to be in a relationship, or wondering if I'll ever be in a relationship again, or worrying about some aspect of being my age and single.

A week or so before Christmas, she pulled me into her space.

"Victoria?" she said, "My hubby has found a guy he thinks you might get along with."

Turns out that when I'd half-jokingly told her to get her husband to find me a man through his work, she'd told him to do just that.

"They've been working together since September, so he knows this fellow well enough now to approve of him. And I'm going to meet him at hubby's staff party this Friday, so I'll put a seal of approval on him if he's good enough to get to meet you."

I was flattered, and amused. And pleased.

And, sure enough, she came back the next week with positive news. The fellow had passed her inspection.

"He's nice. And attractive. I like him. He's a good guy."

She told me a bit about his family background and his upbringing, including the three languages he speaks (cool!) and asked what I thought.

I told her he sounded like someone I'd like to meet and that, of course, I trusted her judgment.

It's funny, because in the time I've been online, I've never been quite as hopeful about a guy's potential as I am with this one.

Even without knowing if he is, indeed, single, or wanting to date, the fact that someone who knows me (I've met her husband, so he knows me a bit too) and knows this guy thinks we might get along gives me hope.

There's so much to be said for this kind of "matchmaking."

Another of my favourite people at work met her current husband because mutual friends thought the two of them would get along and set up a barbeque so they could meet.

And one of my dearest friend's parents met at a dinner party that was put on for the sole purpose of their friends introducing the two of them. (And, I like to add, this was in the 60s, and both of them were in their mid-30s. Very "late" to be unmarried at that time. And they're still happily married now. With a lovely collection of grandchildren.)

Of course I'm trying to remain neutral. Calm. We may not ever meet. Or we might meet and just not feel anything worth pursuing. It's just nice to know there are still people out there looking out for me. It's just nice to know I might still meet someone. The natural way.

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

Very very tired.
Brain all go sleepy.
Fingers can't type on own, need brain.

K? Bye bye.

Fan -F*&ing - Tastic

Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk off the Earth (Gotye - Cover)

Relatively Speaking

Man that title's cheesy, but, hey, when the brain's not working, the brain's not working, so let's just be happy there's anything up there at all.

I was watching The Wire this weekend (it's one of a few shows that people kept insisting I try and even though I'd tried it already and not liked it, I tried again) and in the second season there's this whole side to the story that involves a guy and his cousin and how close they are.

They're like brothers, really.

But I wouldn't know.

I didn't grow up with cousins around. Or Aunts or Uncles or Grandparents for that matter, so I don't know what it's like to have cousins.

Most people seem to like it, and some people, like in the show, love their cousins and are very close with them.

I've met my cousins (or most of them at least) but I don't know them and didn't grow up with them. So, since tv's the only thing I have to go on right now, I'm asking you instead.

What's it like growing up with cousins? And all that kind of extended family? What did I miss out on?

The Online Thing

I think, really, I'm only going to keep a profile on an online dating site for my own amusement.

Well, "amusement" is not really the right word. More for the novelty and "I'm bored, I should go check out some profiles"-ness of it than anything else.

I do not enjoy the process of cold meeting someone, and the times I've done it, other than Chad, it hasn't ever gone anywhere. And even that didn't go anywhere.

I suppose, in real life, dating's like that anyway, you throw more back than you catch, but I've never been the dating type.

I meet a guy (party, social event, friend's place, etc.) and we connect and we go out and we're together.

Sure, still sometimes I meet a guy (party, social event, friend's place, etc.) and we connect and go out and it doesn't work out but more often than not it has. For me.

I could get all mathematical and do charts and analyze all the factors/whatevers, but really I think I can say that online dating does not work for me. I don't meet the right guys and even when I do meet guys, my game's thrown off and I'm not myself because it's such an artificial way to do it.

The unfortunate thing about this decision, is that I still don't meet guys in my day to day life.

Spy caves are, oddly enough, inhabited by very very few single men. And there are none in my spy cave. And I don't go anywhere else on a regular enough basis and my friends have run out of single guys to introduce me to.

So I guess I'm just going to have to keep hoping for the best real life can throw at me and I'll just go for there.

I'm not going to be one of those "we met on line!" success stories even though everyone knows someone who is.

It's not going to be me and I'm ok with that.

Oh, Yeah, Right

Um, I'm feeling a little "durr" at the moment.

As in... oh.. a blog? That I'm supposed to write in?

Right.

OK.

Um.

Durr. . .

So, uh, Happy New Year! And, it seems my brain is still on holiday mode, which does not bode well for work today, so, I'll try to pull my brain cells together now and yeah, write some more of this here blog stuff soon.

Durr.