Every time she sneezes, I believe its love and oh, lord, I’m not ready for this sort of thing

Of course, I’ve saved the best story for last.

Back in February, just after I had broken up with the girl I had been seeing for 4 months, I met someone else that I wasn’t expecting at all. I was walking over to PetSmart, which is just up the street, to pick up cat food. She was out walking her dog; he saw someone new and wanted to play! So I stopped to play and we began chatting. I actually don’t remember the conversation, but it must have been interesting because she walked to the pet store with me and then back towards my apartment. It turns out that she lives in the same complex, but across the street. We were chatting non-stop, laughing and obviously flirting with one another. As we were awkwardly standing there, finishing our conversation, but not quite wanting to leave it, I decided to see if she wanted to go for a drink.

She said yes.

We decided to just go to the bar across the street, but not until she dropped off the dog and we both needed to get cleaned up a little as well.

I came by at 830 to pick her up and we walked across the street. We continued with great conversation over a few beers and around 1130, we decided to walk back home. As we got back to the gate outside her side of the complex, I mentioned what a great time I had, how nice it was to meet her and that I’m glad I didn’t have any plans that evening! She mentioned that originally, she was supposed to get dinner with some friends, but when I asked her out, she cancelled with them. When she mentioned dinner, it dawned on me that I never ate dinner. Then it dawned on me that if she cancelled, she probably hadn’t eaten either. So I asked if she was hungry and if she wanted to continue over some food.

She said yes.

We walked up the street to the late night diner and continued our conversation over dinner. I couldn’t have had a better date if I scripted it.

We continued to see each other numerous times over the next few weeks, but then something happened. I’m not sure exactly what, but I received an email letting me know that she didn’t think we should see each other anymore.

A few weeks later, I joined the dating sight and the story picks back up from there.

Then, about a month ago, I got an email from her saying she wished she had done things differently and hoped that in time, maybe we could be friends. I gave it some serious thought and emailed her back a few days later letting her know that would be ok, but for now, it would need to be on my terms.

So in between talking to and going on dates with San Diego girl, miss high maintenance, the out of town medical sales rep and the non bean counter, I’ve also been talking to the girl next door, so to speak, but we never went out anywhere, so to me, there were no serious intentions.

That was until last week.

She called me about two weeks ago to see if I would join her in going to an Astros game with some people from work. I’m always up for that, so we went to the game and had fun. It was as though we had never broken up; however, she did probably drink too much, which led to an interesting conversation on the way home. She claimed that I had said we were “just friends” a few times during the day and that seemed to upset her. So I asked if that was what she wanted? She said it was obviously what I wanted and that she would deal with that.

I chalked it up to her being slightly drunk and let it go.

She then called me last Thursday to see if I wanted to come to happy hour with the same people from her job that were at the game. I quickly accepted and met them there later in the day. After most people had left, we were talking and again, she was kind of tipsy (she doesn’t normally drink a lot, I swear!) and started in on that same conversation again.

I quickly got her to the point this time. She wanted another chance. She told me that no one ever treated her the way I had, that she made a mistake and asked if I could forgive her?

I said yes.

I put some rules on it however:

• We cannot see each other more than 3 times in one week;
• We will not stay over at the other persons place;
• We will not have sex; and
• We can still see other people.

All of these rules are in place for at least a month and at my discretion. If things work out the way they started, then I’ll relax the rules and we’ll see where it goes, but in the meantime, I want to have the option to keep any relationship between us growing at a slower pace than last time. I also want her to understand that I (potentially) have other options too…even though right now, I don’t, but that’s not the point.

I honestly want this to work out. She is easily, the best girl I’ve dated in the last 18 months and I truly enjoy spending time with her. I also start thinking about the future every time I’m with her, which has not happened in a long time.

Nobody's perfect, and that's something that I'm sure she'll know

While I was actually going out on dates, I continued to talk on the phone to a girl who is a medical sales rep. We only spoke on the phone because she lives much further away than I really would prefer, but she also has a great personality and she comes to Houston every weekend – except for the last 3 weekends. Without getting into too much detail about our individual traveling plans, we figured out that we wouldn’t be able to see each other until at least the third weekend of June. Needless to say, we don’t speak anymore.

Then there is the Non-Bean Counter. I call her this because it’s her designation for herself. She is in the accounting department of a rather large company, but she doesn’t do taxes, so she says that she is not a bean counter. Whatever. Anyway, her profile was incredible. I felt an immediate connection to the words I was reading on the screen and I knew I had to email her. A week later, after actually giving up, I finally received an email asking if I wrote my profile after reading hers? I didn’t know whether to be offended or if she truly couldn’t believe how similar they were. I mentioned that my profile has been up for 2 weeks or and hadn’t changed in all that time, but why was she so concerned about it?

Her response was “It was that our profiles match so well.... couldn't that be a negative though? no yin to the yang?” I could see her point, but how would she ever know if she didn’t get to know me?

Again, an interesting response ensued, “what are your plans for next week? I was thinking we could meet up for (not drinks, not lunch...) maybe grocery shopping?” For some reason I thought this was a great idea. Here’s a tip, grocery shopping on the first date is NOT a good idea. Why? Because you’re concentrating on what you’d like to buy, versus looking like a pig, all while trying to impress this new girl by holding an intelligent, yet flirty conversation.

By the time we were ready to go, I thought that I’d like to see her again, but I’m just not sure, so I think I’ll just pass on asking for a second date. However, after we checked out, I walked her to her car and helped to load her groceries. In her trunk were golf clubs, so I asked how often she played and she responded that she doesn’t “play” much, but she tries to get to the range twice a week. We talked and joked about golf for a few minutes while loading my groceries and she then asked if I wanted to hit some balls at the range sometime. Well, since she asked…

So we met at the range the following week. I talked about how my week went and she told me about how she scraped her knee over the weekend (a drinking accident). Once we finally started hitting, we would chat, but trying to concentrate on what we were doing lent itself to a lot of silence. In between shots however, I would try to start conversations, but I kept running into a different obstacle – the guy next to us – who was eavesdropping/getting involved in our conversations. He was very nice, but buddy, I’m on a date here!

Anyway, I gave her some pointers, some of which helped her, some didn’t and she noticed how much I use my ass/hips when swinging through the ball. At the end of the bucket, we walked back to our cars and chatted some more. She was taking some classes to earn her CPA designation and had a test coming up that she had to study for, so we said goodnight and this time I hoped to see her again.

I emailed her later that night to let her know that I had a good time and that I’d take her out for some celebratory drinks after her exam. She responded the next day and she would give me a call that night after the exam.

We met for pizza and beer at a bar around the corner while watching the basketball game. It was a decent setting and for a while, it was quiet enough that we could have a normal conversation. I got to know more about her in an hour than I had in the previous two dates! As the night moved on though, it got louder and I had a hard time hearing her, plus we were starting to get a little tipsy, so we decided to head out.

When I walked her out to the car, I mentioned we should get together next weekend (she was going to be busy that coming weekend) and she said, “We’ll see.” That’s not a good sign.

On Monday of last week, I emailed her to see if she wanted to head to the driving range again. I didn’t receive any response so I figured she truly was not interested, so I chalked up her to another dating story…until Sunday night when I got an email from her. She apologized for not emailing sooner, claiming she was busy. She also goes on to say, “I think you are a really nice guy, I don't feel any chemistry, and we could hang out every once in a while, hit some balls, grab a beer, see a show... but that's about it....”

Oh well. Another one bites the dust. The only regret I had about the Non-Bean Counter was not telling her how great I thought she was…and sexy as hell. I don’t think it would’ve made a difference, but being able to relieve yourself of your inner thoughts (like through a blog!) is very therapeutic.

But wait, that’s not all…

If you could just stop looking for someone special, you might save yourself some pain

As I mentioned the other day, I've wanted to post about dating, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends. This past month has been very strange, with some developments in the relationship department.

First off, I joined a dating site - a very popular one - as I've done in the past. It has worked fairly well as far as finding dates and interesting people to meet, a couple of whom have turned into good friends. I met the girl I moved to Houston for on there and my most recent girlfriend was met through the site as well. I like being able to weed out the people I think I'm not going to be a good fit with before I go and spend time and money on something that has no possibility. I'm also "over" trying to pick someone up in a bar - as if that has any real potential anyway.

In any event, the first few days of being on the site are fraught with reading dozens of women's profiles, viewing their pictures, deciding whether to email them. Then, if I do, what do I say to (a) break the ice and (b) grab their attention? After the initial fun of it and waiting for responses, it actually gets annoying trying to find "new" women to message because the women who show up in your (sometimes too specific) searches are always the same ones you've already sent an email to. On the rare occasion that you do find someone new and they meet your criteria, you send them an email and again, hope for the best.

Usually, within a day or two, I'll begin getting responses. From there, sometimes things they say, questions they ask or responses to questions I've asked, will either keep me intrigued or tell me that this isn't someone I prefer to meet.

Conversely, after a few days of having my profile out there, I also begin to receive initial emails from women who are definitely not my type (how they ever thought that I am their type remains a mystery) or only saw a picture of me and decided to email me. I can usually pick those women out easily because they ask me a question that, had they read my profile, would've been answered already. My favorite example of this is the woman who sent me an email telling me she "must be dreaming" and that I'm "her perfect match". Really? After checking her profile, I determined we were never meant to be just by reading the first line in her "About" section. It read, "First and foremost, Jesus is a part of my everyday life...would prefer someone with the same values." Check please! If you know me at all, you'll know that I do not partake in a religion of any kind and it is clearly stated in my profile that while I don’t have a problem with you exercising your right, please don’t think that I’ll be joining you. This was an easy decision to give her a polite, "No thanks". There's much more, funny stuff to that story, but I don't care to talk about it, so I digress...

Now, of course after reading and re-reading women’s’ profiles and a few communications with them, either through email or over the phone, some of them are ready to go out. This is where it gets interesting.

First, there was the San Diego girl who moved here last year for work. We started communicating on a Saturday morning and by that evening were meeting for drinks. Our personalities meshed incredibly well and we had a good, flowing conversation the whole time we spent together. We left the bar around 130 am and decided to get together the next day as well for lunch and a movie. Well, with the crappy weather that day, she offered to order take out and rent a movie at her place. That was fine by me. We spent the majority of the day together, but by the end, even though we interacted well with one another, she irked me. There was no sense pursuing something with her if I could hardly stand her after just one day.

Next, there was the high maintenance girl. She emailed me first, with a simple, but effective, “What’s up?” She was very attractive, which of course grabbed my attention, but after reading her profile, I was much more interested. I emailed back to tell her she was intriguing, funny and had remarkable eyes. We communicated one more time before she told me to call her to get together. She preferred that rather than emailing or spending time on the phone. So we met a couple weeks ago for lunch on a Saturday at a place near her house. After about 45 minutes, I knew this wouldn’t work because of numerous reasons, but mostly because I could already tell, she was high maintenance. I say that as though it’s a bad thing, it’s not. I have plenty of friends who are that way, but they’re not people I could date. Anyway, we ate and talked and I think we both knew this would be it, but we were polite and when we finished, we decided to leave it at that. As we were saying how nice it was to meet each other and eventually goodbye, she did give me a nice hug however, which was a little surprising, though it’s always nice to get a hug from an attractive woman in a public place :)

To be continued...and then some…

Last night I had the strangest dream...Part II

I woke up Wednesday morning feeling slightly ill that I had had that dream. Why? In an extremely unbelievable occurrence, BOTH of my parents were having surgery on Wednesday. My dad’s surgery was originally scheduled for Friday, but a cancellation moved him up and my mom wasn’t supposed to go for about three more weeks, but she decided to get it done sooner, rather than later. It turned out, everything just happened on the same day.

My parents are divorced, in case I’ve never mentioned that before. They live 500 miles apart and reside in two different states. They are on speaking terms, especially since my sister has given them a grandchild and they generally get along very well, so it’s not a point of stress in our lives. They’re also very young. Let’s just say they’re in their early 50’s and I’m 33, do the math and you’ll probably understand why they’re divorced.

Anyway, because they are so young, I think my sister and I have hard time dealing with their aches and pains and in this case, surgery. My anxieties came shining through in this dream.

The representations of different things in this dream were incredible. My grandparents’ house being a place where I felt safe; the family being together and being “normal”, in my view and the mowing of the lawn as being something familiar to me, a routine; but then the sudden moving out and subsequent immediate moving in of a new family, well, this has me slightly puzzled. I’m not sure what my subconscious was trying to tell me here, but I do have a theory. I think it was because the parents were my age, it was a different issue I’m having coming to light: that I’d like to find someone to settle down with and start a family.

In any event, the dream really shook me and I was very worried for the majority of the day until I heard everything was fine on both ends. I even spoke to my dad on IM that night. My mom was very groggy, so my sister called to let me know to call her Thursday. Dad is now back at work, Mom is resting somewhat comfortably on the couch for the next week or so and I am still looking to settle down and start a family. I think the last one might take a little bit more time.

A year has passed since I wrote my note

Now that my birthday is officially over and I’ve spent the day reflecting, I’m ready to share my year in review, as somber as it may be.

Lows -

Dating: On my birthday last year, the girl I was dating and I broke up. I followed this same girl to Houston just over a year earlier because I was in love with her. She broke it off, but I am the one who was stupid.

A few months and dates later, I started dating someone new and over the course of a few dates, I knew I wanted to spend as much time as I could with this girl. 4 months later, I had to break it off because I didn’t have enough time to spend with her. This was not an easy decision, but I had to be fair to be both of us. The reason I didn’t have enough time was…

School: I was having a very difficult time with the particular class I was taking at the time. I spent an entire weekend sitting in front of the computer doing research. Fortunately, she was working that weekend, however, it made me realize that if she hadn’t, she would’ve wanted time with me and one of two things would’ve happened: 1) I would’ve let my schoolwork suffer; or 2) I wouldn’t see her and the relationship would’ve suffered. I felt it was fair decision for both of us. I couldn’t give her all of myself at the time and she deserved better than that. I knew that my classes were only going to get tougher, so if this was an indication of things to come, I felt that the sooner I broke it off, the less painful it would be for both of, but particularly for her.

Work: It sucked. I didn’t get a raise after my first year and I started looking for new jobs. I actually had a few interviews, a couple of the positions I was very interested in, but was passed up for each of them.

Money: I went into some serious debt this past year and struggled at many times to pay my bills and eat. I’m not sure how I managed to make it without missing payments and killing my credit.

Social life: For months after the first breakup, my social life was non-existent. I would spend almost every weekend inside my apartment, either doing schoolwork or just trying to catch up on, well, everything! It sucked, period. Think about this - it was now summertime and I was inside...all the time.

Pets: My new cat, Cowboy, was a little hellion for about 4 months. I actually almost took him back to the SPCA. He was just too wild and terrorized my older cat, Squeaky.

Highs -

Dating: I dated someone that I really enjoyed spending time with and had a great 4-month ride with her. I wish I didn’t have to end it, but it was the right decision, I’m sure of that.

School: I graduated with my 2-year degree (finally!) in November and I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was (can you say, “weight off my shoulders?”). Now I’m onto the 4-year degree and it’s kickin’ my ass!

Work: It’s much better now. I have received a significant upgrade in my responsibilities and I understand what my duties entail much more clearly. I am up for another review next month and I swear if I don’t get a raise, I might have to go postal (just kidding, I’m against guns!). A significant raise should be imminent, so I’m not worried.

Money: Somehow, through all of last year’s struggles, I made it and now I am paying off some of the debt I racked up last year. I’m actually paying it off at an alarmingly fast rate. I was able to scrape up enough money to buy myself a little vacation in NYC in November to see my friends and now I’m paying things off so quickly that I have money to do the things that I want to do this year as well – such as go on vacation with my friends in Cape Cod this summer.

Social life: It’s actually not much better, but I’m working on it.

Pets: It killed me to think what would happen to Cowboy if I took him back and someone else didn’t adopt him, so here he is now. He is still a little hellion sometimes, he doesn’t know his name, or the sound associated with his name, he bites, he scratches and he still attacks Squeak, but he is terribly cute and a little lover at night when I go to bed. He likes to snuggle and smush his nose into my chest while he purrs – how could I send that back? Squeak is still my little girl though and she knows it. She runs up into my lap when she is being chased because she knows I’m like home base. Once in a while, there is peace throughout the apartment, but not often.

Through all of the highs and lows of the past year, my emotional state has varied constantly as well. I think of myself as a very emotionally stable person, but this past year as been very trying on me. I won’t even begin to try to recap the whole year; I’ll just let you know where I’m at right now. Tired, frustrated, agitated, sad, lonely and stressed. However, after what I went through the past year, I know that I am on the upswing of these emotions and while I have a long way to go, I don’t feel as lost as I did just a few months ago.

Well, you don't know what we can find. Why don't you come with me little girl, on a magic carpet ride.

I cannot believe it’s already the last full week of October! Where has the time gone? I swear, if I don’t catch up on sleep soon, I’m just going to have to take a week vacation for that purpose alone! Anyway, come along for the ride and see what’s going on with me:

A) I have 2 weeks left of school and then I’m off until January. Yay! Except that the last 2-3 weeks is always the hardest part. I have 7 Supreme Court cases to brief in one class and a 3000 word paper to write in the other class on a subject that I don’t completely understand. I know, I know, this all sounds like fun to you – well it isn’t! In addition to all of this…

B) I am in a wedding this upcoming weekend, which means from Thursday to Saturday, I am booked solid with events to get drunk at (hence, not much schoolwork is getting finished).

C) Hockey season started both for me personally and in the NHL. Since my beloved Buffalo Sabres are red hot right now (8-0 to start the season), I am trying to listen to the games via the internet while doing homework. For my personal hockey seasons, Sunday’s and Wednesday’s are now lost for 3-4 hours while I go work out some stress. This is great, but again, not much homework is being done.

D) After last hockey season ended for me around the end of August, I took about 3 weeks off to let my body heal. Now that I am back playing, my body is even sorer and I am contemplating actually going to the doctor to see how bad it is. My body is pretty beat up and I’ve only played in five games since the end of September. My right knee has a shooting pain the day after a game and both shoulders/rotator cuffs hurt for about 2 days after. This is worrisome because I had RC problems in my right shoulder when I was 16 and I am hoping I don’t have to go through that again! My back is usually stiff now, the joints in my hips always hold some level of pain and my right elbow has a constant twinge in it as well. I am worried that he is going to tell me to take time off from hockey and there is just no way I could survive without it. If anyone has a health tip to get me through this, feel free to let me know!

E) Work has been keeping me quite busy. I have found some intermittent time to do my regular blog surfing/reading, but none to do any of my own posts. I’ve been arriving at work relatively close to on time, which is a significant step up from last year at this time when I couldn’t get to work before 10am! I have been shoveling food down my face during my ½ hour lunch breaks and getting right back to work. Then most nights, I am leaving well after my scheduled time – and once again, the homework problem! My paychecks have been nice, with all the OT I’m accumulating and it’s a good thing I have more money now because…

F) I have a girlfriend! I just adore her and I enjoy taking her places, getting dinner with her, lying on the couch with her and just staring at her because she is just so damned cute! She looks a lot like Amy Smart, but with shorter hair. Her personality suits mine perfectly and we have had a lot of fun in the past 2 months. So much so that I invited her to come to NYC with me in - see the “Trip to NYC” Clock, in my sidebar, below the Quote of the Day. Anyway, the extra money I’ve gained working OT and that my brother is now here splitting the bills with me, has all gone to the "girlfriend fund". It’s all good though, she makes me very happy, so it’s worth it! However, that’s right, you know it’s coming…the homework is not being done promptly and I tend to stay up really late now...for some reason (hint, hint).

Now, is anyone still wondering why I haven’t posted in a while? Yea, I didn’t think so.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Anyone who comes here knows that I don’t update on a regular basis. Last month, I only posted twice and one of those was only a link to something else. The reason for this lack of production is that I’ve actually had to be productive at work, but more on that later. Aside from work, while school has been going really well and my grades are good, however, it has been taking a lot of time to finish assignments. Nevertheless, I am now in my last 2 classes before I finish my Associates degree and then I’m taking 2 months off until January before I start on my Bachelor’s. I suppose that’s good news!

Now as for work, two weeks ago, two of our attorneys left to start their own firm and then last week another attorney left to start a new job at another firm. Needless to say, this has caused a serious amount of overload for everyone else, including me. My job is to make sure all of the files are transferred to other attorneys so none of them fall between the cracks. So far, so good, but getting the principal partner to reassign everything in between all of his regularly scheduled work has been a daunting task.

In addition to this, I am working with someone we hired to market the firm better. We are changing the face of the firm, changing the “brand”, hopefully for the better. I was assigned the task of designing a cover sheet to go on presentations for when we meet with potential clients. I have no background in graphic design or in marketing. I do know how to put a good PowerPoint presentation together, something I’ve learned from my classes, but I’m not sure how that really translates to this situation. On Friday, I presented 3 different designs, two of which I was not very pleased with and the other one was good, but I knew it needed something. After discussing and tweaking it with this marketing person, we presented it and it was very well received. I have to admit, I was pleased with the results myself and it was also extremely nice to have some of my work recognized while not worrying about taking the brunt of the dissent, since I was not the principal on this project. For a few minutes, I actually enjoyed my job and if you’ve read previous posts about the dislike I have for my job you’ll understand why this next issue is huge…

I’m putting looking for a job on the back burner for now. The job I wrote about two posts ago that I really wanted never called and I know the position has been filled, so my thinking is that I finish the Associates degree, and then try to find a job after the New Year’s. Plus, if I stay till next year, I’ll see a bonus check, which I could certainly use!

Ok, and the last thing that has changed or will change my life drastically is that in 2 weeks, my brother, who turns 19 next week, will be moving down here to live with me. I’ll have to be the big brother that I haven’t had to be so far and I’ll have to live with someone for the first time since being married over 6 years ago. The biggest positive for me will be the financial situation. After consistently racking up debt month after month, I’ll finally be able to start paying down debt…do I have to tell you how excited I am about that? I didn’t think so.

Lastly, I went on fantastic date Saturday night and I really like this girl, so maybe all that extra money will be spent elsewhere…but at least I wouldn’t mind spending it on someone other than me :)

Oh yea two more things…(1) On Friday I celebrted on year of keeping this blog, 104 posts in 365 days, eh, not great, but I'm going to try to to do better. (2) The NHL hockey season starts one month from today. Game. On.

As I lay me down tonight, I close my eyes and what a beautiful sight

I awoke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water. Once I finished that, I came back to bed and I was just staring at S as she slept peacefully. She was not moving, but for her chest moving air in and out quietly.

Then she snorted and the moment was gone.