Blindsided

Maybe it was:

the obscene amount of caffeine and sugar I consumed this week
the hours in a library carrel
the Fray's new album I downloaded as a finals gift to myself
the Skype date with X that started the closure

but one day this week I met the eye of a classmate and something was in that look.  I have not been looking, quite frankly given I'm going to be out of school in a year the last thing I want to do is schlep my heart through a relationship that will inevitably end. But back to the blindside.  It actually I must confess started with a hug that he rightfully needed.  Last Thursday as most of us were preparing to hunker down and frantically pull through the next 8 days, he was reeling from a pretty scary break in a day prior at his home - his laptop gone, home vandalized and that sense of peace, that all of us value more than our stuff completely gone.  I offered, like other classmates to do whatever he needed - a place to stay, a family to eat dinner with, whatever he and his roommates needed to email me.  I hugged one of my good friends, M good-bye for the Easter weekend, turning to him to pat him on the arm or some distanced gesture - I'm a hugger but I don't normally hug men unless I know it won't be misconstrued. He had his arms open.  Of course he got the hug.   Maybe that was the thing that broke the ice, I don't know.  But this week, Wednesday, I ended up sitting in a three hour lecture with him, arm against arm.  There is something oddly charged about that kind of contact.  Not intentional and not intentionally intimate either, just the kind of contact that makes you realize how little you actually touch someone when you're single. Maybe it was that moment, or the moment he offered his coffee,  after he finished it though... I had made a comment about him being done.  It was every moment after that, there something in his eyes, a little longer glance... a little more of an attempt to be closer.

So last night, when we were given kitchen duty - the two of us in our friends tiny apartment kitchen as the rest of the group went on a grocery run, we talked and I found someone deeper and even more interesting.

BUT there are two catches to the story - isn't there always?

1. I am trying to figure out if flirting is a universal language - because if it is, there are a lot of signals going around and nothing happening or maybe just a lot from my side hitting too hard or off target altogether.

and

2. He's not Canadian - he's Belgian actually and that's the biggest catch, because he might not be back in September and he's flying out in 7 days.  So that's were this story sort of stops - sure I hugged him last night as we left for our buses in opposite directions.

So long story short - I may see him Tuesday night, he might be back and I'm stuck here wondering what the hell just hit me.

Little Update

One week left in the semester and at least 4 weeks of work I need to accomplish.  I'm taking a break from my attempt to plow down my writer's block with this song (oh the things you can find on YouTube when you're trying to find motivation).  So while I'm not interested in a Sugar Daddy or any long term relationship - life is too damn complicated, I can say that I do still want to maintain that dating/feisty spirit in the hopes that the day I do need to get back on that horse, it won't be a million miles off in some pasture never to return.

Trying to Get Back In the Game

A friend of Ms. J's who I've known for a while asked me out informally today - as in a let's go for drinks this week ask out.  I opted not to primarily because I don't know if I have the brain space to carry on a polite conversation as said gentleman, while sweet he is oil to my water or more so gas to my flame.  We argue - he might find it fun, but I find it a challenge to play nice.  While he teases me for being a pessimist, I don't take pride in crushing people's arguments etc.  Anyways I said yes for once school is done.  WHY??!!! Asked my roommate, well because he's the least threatening option.  I'm everything he doesn't want, and sure why the hell not take a round at this dating thing when nothing is at stake. At some point I need to find a way to consistently tell my heart the lie that it doesn't love X, and one day it will actually believe that.

Oh in case you're wondering I opted for no visit from X - I love him but I cannot see him.

He's Moving On?

X may be coming up to visit me in about a month or so for my birthday.  It's a big one *gag.*  It made me realize how much I miss him and conversely how much I don't think I can stand to see him.  Go figure.  He's being stoic or cold or another option - saying that it doesn't bother him, he's okay with everything and me?  I've gone to complete and utter mush - weeping, sobbing mush.  He is currently the one I would move, do whatever for.  I phrase it like that because I know that while he is and will likely in some way always be that person - life doesn't always work out that way.  I want him to be that person.  I want it to work, and yet I wonder, in these talks we have, few and far between with school if he's being able to heal his heart where I haven't.

It's like the repetition of the pain in September, even worse, I feel like cursing that woman out most days for letting him go.  It is my own damn fault, and yes while Ms. J and others say I made the right "grown-up" decision given all our circumstances, it is days like today I don't feel like I want to be a grown up.

Memories

I deleted my Myspace account last week.  I cannot explain why but I felt like the time had come for me to separate myself from it - from it and all the memories it brought for me.  It is weird, it is not like I wanted to relive those years - the skinnier years, the more dysfunctional years really any of it.  I had left it thinking that at some point I would want to go back and look at it and I realized as hard as moving forward is and as painful as it can be, the more I can cut the ties with the past the freer I can be in moving forward.

So that's about all that's been going on with me - I've been sick for the past week and now I'm trying to write a paper on sexuality - so it's fun times around these parts.  Oh and I applied for a TAship and I'm trying apply for financial aid.  However, being sick pretty much wiped me out, so now it's Sunday night and I'm trying to do a week's worth of stuff... I'm sure Monday will be fabulous.

Happy Valetines Day!

I may not have a specific special Valentine, BUT I feel it's really important to let you know wherever you are, however you're feeling - YOU ARE LOVED and YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE.  Seriously, for reals, I am not joking.  If you're not hitched to someone today it doesn't mean that you cannot give yourself a good dose of compassion, kindness and healthy self care.   And if that doesn't help just remember you're better off than I am - typing this from the graduate school library with a 12 hour  day of classes ahead of me.

On two different note - I did a posting on running and dating and some words of wisdom that I listened to on my commute in this morning.

Non-Date Date?

I had a run scheduled with BWSMU today at 3pm, no big deal right?  Well my stomach sure thought it was a big deal - I have not had butterflies like that in a while. My head and heart just felt conflicted and maybe even convicted.  I've found myself smiling at his texts, and yes sure he's cute but he's well, he's not X.  Fair enough, he doesn't need to be and nor do I want him to be. 

The issue I had was if this is a date, then it's a date and I need to be okay with that and prepared to deal with that, and if it's not which I believe it wasn't then what the hell is my stomach doing?  Am I missing something?  In the end it was as non-date as possible - BWSMU and I didn't hug, we don't even though he does with other female students.  I almost feel like we passed the point a few months ago where we could have instated the hugging and or not.  Now that we've passed that point, it kind of means something now.  Not to mention we were both wet and sweaty - not really the time to hug someone.   So there you have it a pseudo pseudo date and I don't know why I'm confused but I am. 

I found me in shoe form

Seriously you do not understand how much I want these shoes - the only thing that dissuaded me was knowing that in wearing them I would have to explain why I spent two weeks grocery money on shoes.  That decision would make sense to me but I don't know if it would make sense to anyone else... BUT I LOVE THEM!!

Reading Break!

BWSMU it is!  And he's gone MIA again... I really have to say that mixed signals are my biggest frustration, especially with the younger boys...

Two pieces of business - I'm researching PhD programs and it looks like the UK is where it is at for me, primarily because it means that I do not have to take the GRE and/or spend my winters and summers in sub-human temperatures.  The prospect of that kind of move scares me but I know it's good - fear can be a healthy thing, and it also puts the entire Atlantic between me and CEF which is amazing.

Also I love this song - it reminds me of X every time I hear it even those it doesn't at all resemble our relationship - I don't think we ever danced together either - well maybe in another life time.

Drunk-ish Blogging is...

Way safer than drunk-ish snogging - though arguably less enjoyable. Way less enjoyable...

Though that being said - I had an amazing dinner with Just Sayin' who if you haven't figured out yet is one hell of a woman and friend.

But back to the snogging since well I am sure you're wondering why on Earth I'm blogging instead of making poor judgements right now. Well I could be making poor judgements right about now - see there is this party happening right now, this very moment - on the other side of town - hosted by a few graduate school friends, one of whom I am positive likes me. I've never been sure - to be honest I think I also don't want to be sure - I'm happy living in naive land with him. But if I add up all the little parts him and I are most definitely dancing around the issue either of our own invention or via perceptions. As Ms Raitt suggests you give them something to talk about - I think this boy and I have done that unbeknownst to us - so much so that I was given a little indirect talk by one of his female roommates (he lives in a co-ed community house) - the "you know he's a really great guy talk." And I am damn well old enough to know why that talk gets pulled out. So here I am with a man on the other side of the country I love to bits who well I am trying to get my brain around the fact that he will likely never pop the question, and this boy who well I feel in some respects is still a boy... So why not? Why no poor judgement? Well there are about 50 people in my program, and this guy in question is in almost all my classes and one of my tutorials... so I would have to face him a lot.

Do I give him the incentive he needs to ask me out or do I try and quell it all now, or leave it. I know it's the wine talking but well I still am considering in appropriate things so much so that it is a blessing it is a 45 minute bus ride to his place from mine.

Night y'all - hopefully someone else is misbehaving for me.

Oooo I just about forgot he needs a name - so you can vote

Boy Who Stood Me Up - yes he is the same one

OR

Graduate School Classmate

Thinking too Much

I am just getting up to speed on my 1500 page a week average an now it seems to be slowly being derailed. I feel torn - I want to do a PhD in English Literature, but I'm realizing that maybe that's just not where I really need to be... it's a really long story but well I'm just muling things over so there isn't a lot I can say at the moment about that or anything else. So I offer this quote from the assistant conductor of our local Chamber Choir - he gave a guest lecture in my culture class on music today.

"Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side." Dostoevsky

Well That Is a New Way to Ensure I'll Never Date You

I had a run scheduled with two guys from one of my classes - both are marathoners - both are also children (even worse one is married and a child).  Only one of them had my number and I had neither of their numbers.  So of course I went on time and got to our assigned meeting place in the pouring January rain aka freezing rain... no boys.

It turns out that the one who had my number called - yes he did but he did while I was on the other line with my dad, after I was on the bus down-town - and he didn't leave a message or text me. I'm sorry but if you're going to cancel 15 minutes before the assigned time - you DAMN WELL better leave a NLLL message! So in the end my Dad and I met, ran and all this cancelling business I just found out now.  The boy who had my number is sweet but DUDE you in that one moment just got your ass seriously crossed off the list, like Sharpie over it and then cut it out of the list got taken off.  You do not, I repeat you do not EVER do that.

On the theme of rain -

Living on the Other Side of the Line

For all intensive purposes I am currently living below the poverty line.  I knew I would be when I started graduate school.  I knew that things would be tight, at times very tight.  I did not expect that they would be this tight.  I had to contact my church this week to ask for help - after almost two months of wrestling with the idea, knowing that despite how ridiculously tight things are right now, that there are always those who need more than I do.  I have a home right?  I have heat (well sort of - my landlord is stingy in that regard), I have some resemblance of health and more importantly I'm the only mouth to feed. Well in asking for help I'm realizing how socially shameful it is to be on this side of the line - regardless of how you get here. There are strings, lots of strings, and questions and judgements.  All I conceptually understand are well meaning, but they hurt.  They hurt a lot. They imply - they imply that I should have known better.

I guess this is also me venting at God too - I know I try to keep my faith out of this blog - but I guess in all this hurt, is the question of where is the provision? And if this is the provision why does it hurt, why does it come with shame and guilt attached to it?  Isn't that counter to everything that is who you are?  Funny somewhere in this I know there is an answer - just feels beyond reach at the moment.

This is not a hand out moment but may be a moment to remember that when you judge a person on the other side of that poverty line - the world on this side is full of enough hardship without that and for better or worse I now know that first hand.

Wear and Tear

My room-mate and I were having a discussion about younger men this past weekend.  I have been trying to get my head around the idea of dating someone younger for two reasons.  One because I think someone completely sweet is interested in me.  I think he's nice and I because I think he's nice I might on the off chance that there could be something more consider a date.  If he asked - at this rate he is definitely moving at a snails pace.  And who knows maybe the idea of dating someone 4 years older is a little bit of an issue for him - aside from him being smaller than me in every way.  That issue aside - in a general sense I know there are some really good catches at school they're just all in the 4-8 years younger range.  If you're wondering why the gap - there are a lot of new straight from their undergraduate people and then there are the rest of us near or over thirty who have worked or done other degrees - I having done both.   At the end of the conversation, my room-mate and I agreed that the age isn't so much of an issue and the life experience.  I want a man with a little wear and tear in his life, especially on his heart and soul.  I think your twenties are the time you bash yourself around a little bit, you figure out first hand why you believe something, why you love and even more generally what you love.  And while I don't think there is anything wrong with young people getting married - they normally do the experiencing together or they're completely oblivious to it.  But as someone well beyond that, I am very aware of what my decade-ish difference in experience has provided me with.

So bottom line - as cute as that 22 year old is, as charming as he might be - I cannot in good conscience even consider it knowing in the back of my brain, I'll be thinking of how many miles I've put into life, when he's still in many ways still just figuring out the basics of momentum.

How Desperate Are You?

I am beginning to think the relationship game is really fuelled by desperation. More specifically our male peers have settled on the belief that the woman they need to settle with is a woman they can live with and she cannot live without them.  That is not relationship - that's a recipe for infidelity, jealously and bitterness. 

Who are we kidding?  Why do we let ourselves get into this game?  We all know in the end he never stays with us and always goes back or on to that kind of woman.  I want a man who thinks I'm beyond him.  Not in the sense that he thinks I am too good for him - but I think our partners in life, should have the same qualities as our best friendships.  Note I did not say they should be our best friend - I think that is a bizarre idea - marrying your bff.  If that was the goal - Ms. J and I would have shacked up a long time ago - but we haven't because love is not like that - it's not the stuff of bf friendships - though yes it has some of the qualities.  One such quality is admiration/awe/challenge for example Ms. J and well JS and N too - are kick ass, take no prisoners women in their own rights.  I love that in a man - a sense of I know who I am, I know what is awesome and I am going to pursue that - because more often than not - it is completely unlike what I want or feel comfortable with.

Take X for example - he sings and plays music, he speaks other languages - he has this something, I don't know what it is, that despite his worries and insecurities he keeps going and he pushes those around him on to that in his own way.   I think one of the best qualities of a man is having a no-one left behind philosophy about something/someone(s).  A man who can actively in one way or another uplift the people around him - that is a man who has my attention - that is unique - that is a diamond.

I have spent some time in this last little while especially after the quick bitter sampling of DirectoryBoy to know that my next year and a half of graduate school is not about dating - but rather it is about something more.  Oddly it's about seeing what I do want and what I don't want - and that is best done by watching.  And while I'm keeping my eye on the goings on - I'm going to be researching PhD programs - which it seems is going to be ridiculously hard given the area of interest I have - my masters thesis is going to have to be kick ass for me to find the right someone. But I'm ready. The only thing I'm desperate for is a future I feel compelled to be in.