4 things that I wish Santa had brought me

Being that we're Chinese and non-religious, my family doesn't celebrate Christmas. Accordingly, there's no gift-exchange, which is just as well because I think I'm rather hard to shop for these days.

For the kind-hearted soul out there who wants to introduce me to the magic of Christmas, here are 4 things that I wish Santa had brought me:

1) Swarovski Philips Heart Beat Flash Drive - because I am a true geek girl. Broadway should take note that the key to my heart comes in 1GB increments.

2) Any number of these alarm clocks - because I need help. I was your annoying, snooze-happy college roommate, and I've gotten worse since school let out. Maybe if my bank account were in jeopardy, just maybe, I would finally get out of bed.

3) F-me-boots - because every girl needs the PERFECT pair. While at the mall the other day, I overheard a girl describe the perfect boots to her friend:

"I want a pointy toe that's not too pointy, and a high pointy heel, but not stiletto. That sounds simple, but I'm having such a hard time finding the right pair."

Amen sistah, I couldn't have put it better myself.
Signed, Bootless and Incomplete.

4) The answer to why my "Blog Archives" navigation is screwed up in IE (7.0). Being a Firefox-only user, I accidentally opened IE today and realized that all IE users see a mess of a navigation bar. After a couple of hours (!!) of CSS template changes, I have finally given up. My only hope now is Santa.

kids are funny like that

My race and ethnicity have never come up on this blog, and in general are not abnormally major factors (benefitting or detracting) in my everyday life. I am who I am, and my background is a part of that. I've never felt the need to highlight it, nor to hide it, and can honestly (and luckily) say that I only recall one time in which I felt my race was addressed inappropriately, but that's another story for another day.

I am Asian, specifically Chinese. Having grown up almost entirely in the US in non-Asian-centered communities, I'm very much middle-class American, much more so than I am Asian or Chinese. Once in a while, though, my ethnic background creeps into my life in unexpected ways .

Over the last couple of months, Broadway and I got into a few arguments because I have a tendency to poke fun at him when we are hanging out with other couples, in nonchalant and careless/carefree ways.

"Yeah, Broadway wouldn't let me go get a drink with my friends the other day", I would say with a flicker of mischief in my eyes.

Or, "Broadway got mad at me last week because I closed his computer browser", and I would give him a flirty pout.

He didn't take the comments as lightheartedly and goodnaturedly as I intended them, accusing me instead of wanting to take revenge out of spite in front of his (our) friends, perhaps because I was still secretly holding a grudge. I knew for sure I wasn't doing it to be spiteful nor malicious, but I also had no answers when he continued grilling me:

"Just WHY do you do this? Why do you make it so uncomfortable for me and for our friends? They don't know how to deal with this!"

I didn't know why I did it. I just thought they were fun couple-y comments. In a way, I saw them as evidence of our having fun little domestic disputes like any ol' couple. That concept was completely unfathomable to Broadway. What would ever possess me to think that disputes are cute and fun, he asked.

I had no answers to that. But now I think those comments came from my innate Chinese upbringing.

Being home, I see my parents interact, and they're constantly poking fun at each other in similar ways in the company of others. They bicker and banter in front of other couples lovingly and easily, as it is a way of communication for them. Chinese soap operas I watch narrate similar couple dynamics between the characters.

I must have picked up the behavior from my parents and my culture while growing up and translated it in my own mind as evidence of a healthy, normal relationship.

I never realized that this form of couple communication is considered unnatural in the mainstream American culture, or so Broadway tells me. Ethnicity and upbringing can be funny like that. They are so innate to me and make all the sense in the world to the point that their influence on my actions are completely imperceivable to me. I think that everyone would understand and interpret my actions the way I would.

Only an outsider like Broadway could point out the disconnect, along with completely misunderstanding it.

On the other hand, while I recognize that this type of couple banter is probably not the American norm, I think my particular interactions with Broadway are further ill-received because of his innate sensitivities and particular preconditioned inclination to reject this type of humor.

As kids, whether we realized it or not, we all picked up ideas and standards of conduct that would subconsciously govern our entire adult lives.

Here's to hoping that most of us picked up the good ones.

I'm really laid-back and easy-going

Being home is high time for filling my daily schedule with brunches and dinners and movies and drinks with people I never see or call except for when I come home during the holidays. The things is, I just haven't felt like it this year, so I've only gotten in touch with one person, well, he got in touch with me. He has some history associated with him, namely being my high school crush for all of 9th and 10th grade. Now he's dating some girl who lives in Taiwan. They met on the internet and call each other every day. But who am I to judge?

Back on point ... we made plans to see a movie together day after Christmas (yesterday). We somewhat settled on No Country for Old Men, but since it wasn't completely finalized, I told him to just pick something playing around 9pm, and that I'd be up for pretty much anything.

So he calls me mid-afternoon, while I'm rummaging through the sales racks at Express:

High School Crush: Hey, how about Aliens and Predator?
Me: wait, are you serious?
HSC: haha, I'm just kidding.
Me: oh okay, because I was gonna veto that one
HSC: haha, I was just kidding. How about National Treasuer?
Me: err ... (silence as I try to figure out a way to get out of this)
HSC: oh wait, did you see the first one?
Me: oh no, I didn't see the first one. yeah, that's probably not a good choice. (phew!)
HSC: What about American Gangster?
Me: hmm ... yeah, I'm not really into that
HSC: okay, I guess that leaves us with No Country for Old Men then.
Me: oh, yeah, that sounds great. wait, are you sure that movie's okay with you?
HSC: yeah, no problem. I'm easy.

See how easygoing and laid-back I am? I'm floored by my own easy-to-please, go-with-the-flow nature.

art appreciation :)

Despite being musically/culturally challenged, this is still pretty cool, and I know enough to appreciate not only the novelty of sleevefaces but also the few artists' names whom I actually recognized :)

Merry Christmas everybody!

not feeling any better

Last night's post was prompted by a fight Broadway and I had right before going to sleep. The gist of it was his saying we have all kinds of communications devices, there's no reason to prolong phone conversations, especially when we've been talking to each other throughout the day on gchat. My perspective was that talking on gchat doesn't do it for me, especially when he's multi-tasking, and I end up drumming my fingers waiting for the "typing..." indication and finally the actual message.

He asked since we have so much communication, why do we need to keep talking over the phone? To which I said I like the phone, and it gives me a sense of intimacy that's impossible over IM. To which he replied that the phone is no better than IM to him; they're all the same, and none of them can replace actual personal interactions.

Fine, I said, but we're not together right now (I'm home for the holidays, he's still up in Boston), so the phone is the best we can do, the closest we can get to personal interactions. He went back to the point that the phone's no better than IM, and we talk all the time over IM. Finally I said since he seems to have a personal limit to how much he can talk to me in one day and with so many IM conversations, he sees the phone as unnecessary, and since the phone and IM are the same to him, I'd prefer that we just talk on the phone.

He claimed that I was making a stressful long-distance situation even more stressful.

I'm not sure how we even got into such a big fight, over communications with each other no less. He thinks that I'm stressed out about being away, and I think that's the most laughable idea. HE's the one who's stressed out, and somehow that's manifesting itself in weird ways like not wanting to talk on the phone.

We finally hung up, but then proceeded to argue more over IM, which is good and bad: because of the lack of intonation, I can't tell when he's angry angry and will just keep on saying things. We left things with my questioning the relationship (because of the same thoughts written here), and him being extremely angry.

The really bad part is that when I woke up this morning, I didn't feel any differently, and usually a night's sleep helps to mellow me out and makes me see all the things that I did wrong. I don't deny that I probably did some wrong in our fight last night, but I also can't help still feeling like that I'm settling.

settling

Today, I felt like I was settling, unquestionably. My relationships have always teetered on that line between settling and loving him with all of his quirks and faults and things that I can't stand. I couldn't pinpoint the exact quirk that irked me today, but I just had a general feeling of dissatisfaction.

Earlier in the day, I thought about Broadway's rejection of everything mainstream, including silly little phrases like "sweet nothings." I thought about it and I accepted it as a part of him. I sighed, accepting that I will never share "sweet nothings" with Broadway because he would never call them that. I accepted it and moved on.

Then I thought about his love of all things electronic, how the only times that you can truly see genuine excitement is when he is talking about electronics. He will go on and on and on explaining them, to the point of excruiating details that no one cares to know, especially not at a cocktail party of 3-line conversations. I get embarassed by him, feeling the squirm of his non-interested audience in those situations who just want to find some way of getting out of listening to him talking. Then I get embarassed with myself that I would reject such a central part of his personality.

I always think that we will make it work, that it's just a quirk we each have: his over-the-top attention to detail in storytelling and my highlighted sensitivity to social norms and insistence on following them.

Today, I also thought about when he dropped me off at the airport Saturday afternoon, how when we said goodbye, I didn't feel the swell of tears in my eyes. I very calmly hugged him, kissed him, and said goodbye. I was sad, but I had to tell myself that I was sad. It wasn't until a little bit later that I felt the slight surge of emotions and some tears welling up that I quickly (and easily) suppressed.

Am I telling myself that I feel strongly about this relationship because I want to feel strongly about this relationship? Does he feel strongly about this relationship for the same reasons? Because he wants to hold on to something that he knows will provide comfort?

Is this feeling of undeniable settling transient? Will I feel the same way tomorrow?

how should i be reacting?

In my last confessions post, I linked to the Gentleman Gigolo blog, one that I had discovered recently and read religiously. Catching up on all my blogs today, I find out that Ethan, the Gentleman Gigolo, is dead. No joke. He ODed at a holiday party, so says a friend who posted on the blog soliciting help from readers in finding Ethan's family contact. (How did the friend have access to his blog?)

I didn't know Ethan, certainly, but the news hit me as if he were someone I knew for real. I certainly didn't regard it as matter-of-factly as I would a complete stranger in the obituaries, but then it feels so weird to react so familially to the death of an anonymous blogger I found on the internet. The situation is made even more awkward by the fact that I masturbated to his words just a couple of days ago. I am confused by the stark contrast of how I looked forward to new posts on his blog to serve as erotic turn-ons just this morning to the hard fact that the author of those words are now forever gone.

Life can be so strange sometimes.

Confession #3: Smut blogs

Is there a genre for them? Smut romances novels have their own genre, or even erotica. Is there a genre for smut in blog-form?

I regularly read these blogs for pleasure. Every once in a while, I go hunting for new blogs of this genre. They're not quite erotica because the stories are real (or my naivete has me believing they are real) experiences of real people who then anonymously blog about their sexpades. It turns me on and sometimes, I even imagine myself doing the same, not so much the blogging, but definitely the sexpades.

Two regular blogs I visit are Gentleman Gigolo and Confessions of a College Callgirl. Confessions has recently taken a different turn, and she doesn't write so much about her stories on the job anymore, but Gentleman is seldom disappointing. They've never shown up on my blogroll because I was always embarassed to admit that they're in my regular browsing list.

Being embarassed on an anonymous blog to people I have never met seems like such a strange concept. As much as I thought I would be unbridled when I started this blog, I guess in the end, unbridled is just not the kind of person I am. I can't even be someone else in anonymity. I guess that means I would make a pretty bad actor. As much as I tell myself to just let all inhibitions go and pour out my real thoughts on this blog, I still feel myself holding back.

So this is a first step toward no holds barred.

Reading these smut blogs gets tricky sometimes because more often than not, I'm reading these at work through my Google Reader window. It gets so frustrating because the words on the screen turn me on so much. I always end up wanting to touch myself so badly to release all of that sexual desire, yet I must control all of it and continue to sit quietly at my desk in an office full of people. It is pure torture, yet I keep inflicting it on myself.

i kinda want my stuff back

Doctor and I broke up in January, but we dragged the breakup much longer than that, and really only quit sleeping over with each other when I drunkenly (irresponsibly) hooked up with Broadway in March. One of the tricks I did to make sure I would keep seeing Doctor during all this pseudo-breakup period--yes, I know, such typical girl madness--was to hold on to some of his stuff. I reasoned that I could always use needing to return his stuff as an excuse to ask to see him (over).

I had forgotten about most of his stuff until I did some major reshuffling to pack away my summer stuff and bring out all of my winter clothes. I discovered quite a few things of his: gloves, scarf, sweat pants, LEATHER JACKET, and some other random things. They're not things that you would just leave at an ex's and chalk it up as the casualties of an ex-relationship. Digging up his stuff also also reminded me that some favorite tshirts of mine are still at his place.

So I've been mulling since mid-November about reaching out to him, calling him, emailing him, something-ing him to offer a 9-months-later stuff swap. It's only logical, right? Except, I can't seem to do it. I just don't want to talk to him, and I want to see him even less.

The mere thought of him makes me gag. Ever since June, I have loathed him. Especially now that things are going quite well (well, stably) with Broadway, the tiniest memory of Doctor completely disgusts me.

But I love those tshirts of mine, and his thick leather jacket is taking up some seriously valuable real estate in my closet. The swap meeting doesn't have to take long ... a two-hand exchange, right? Two seconds, right? I just need to dial his number, right?

Except, I just can't do it.

how to change the world

Recently, I read A Fine Balance, which also happens to be an Oprah's Book Club book (apparently way back in 2001). I'd never been all that interested in India; I'd never even had Indian food until I came to Boston. If not for my book club, I don't think I would have ever picked this book up, especially in its 600+ page monstrous form.

This book put India on the radar for me, but not in a good way. During Thanksgiving dinner, I had a conversation with Broadway's cousin about India because he had recently spent a few days there for business. We both remarked that India was one of those neutral travel destinations for us: it would certainly be interesting to see, but neither one of us have a real driving desire to go out of our ways to visit.

Comparing the paths that India and China have both taken in the latter half of the 20th century, it is very obvious to see the distinct political paths these two third world countries have taken, and equally blaring are the different economic developments these countries have experienced. To think that India was so revered as the success story of a third world country that managed to establish a democratic government, yet it was just as crippled by corruption as any other third world country "trying to make it" out there.

China, not without its own problems, nevertheless drove itself through significant modernization. The current quality of living in cities is not much below that of the west, if at all inferior, and all this was accomplished with an "authoritarian" Communist government. I even heard someone today say that sometimes democracy is seen as the government of the priviledged, that inherantly, it takes a certain level of prosperity in order for democracy to work effectively. That doesn't sound very democratic.

Regardless of the validity of this democratic criticism, I think India is an example of how democracy did not work. More recently, the democratic elections in Iraq are probably further evidence that democracy and individual rights are not the answer to all governmental problems. This makes me sad, for two reasons:

1) I realize that I have become so completely jaded. I cannot ideally regard any situation, have unwavering hope and faith in the good of the world. Democracy is the individualists' ideal, yet it is impossible in its most ideal form, even in a developed world like the US. The realist that I am cannot allow me to even acknowledge the virtues of democracy.

2) I roll at eyes at the ignorance of everyone who proclaims democracy to be the answer in Iraq. I admit that in being disappointed by these people, I do stand on my own educated pedestal and judge all the masses who are singing about the saving graces of democracy and uninformedly claiming that it will cure Iraq.

In the end, what we need is not democracy. We need geunine leaders. Our children need education. I haven't lost hope in the human power to inspire. I haven't lost hope that there are good, corruption-free people who would come to power in India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, any number of African nations and lead these nations out of their current unstable states.

To that end, though, I am saddened by my own lack of initiative, my own excuses for why I cannot help first hand. It's too hard. It will take too long. There is a process for everything, and we must work through the red tape to get anything done, and that's just impossible when everyone is so corrupt.

Pointing to another recent read, Three Cups of Tea, one person CAN make a difference. So why am I still insisting on simply sitting on my couch?

I don't understand

After the stolen gloves incident, I went around to several outdoors shops around town to buy replacement ones. I wanted black gloves in a wind-blocking fleece material, basically exactly like my last pair. Most stores had the exact gloves that I wanted, for *gulp* ~$20. Okay, whatever, I'll shell out serious cash for serious gloves, especially when there's snow falling out of the sky at today's alarming rates.

The problem was that no store had glvoes in my size. Even as I was prepared to pay for serious gloves, there were no serious gloves to be had. They simply don't ever come in women's size small, seemingly.

Searching through the entire shelf of gloves at all 5 of the stores I went to, there would be plenty of L, XL, quite a few mediums, but never any smalls. Why is that? Are most people buying smalls? Or are smalls so rare that they don't usually stock many? Just how many people need XL gloves?

I just don't get it. None of this helps the whole frustrating experience of getting my gloves stolen in Whole Foods. WTF?

wishing for a "calling"

As cliched as it is to have a "calling", I don't have one, but want one. Spawned partially by the two recent books I read, I want to have something to puruse that I really care about and that doesn't feel pretentiously empty. I am currently working in science, and from childhood I have always thought of science as being noble. Without debating the merits of actually still possessing such a naive outlook, science is just not my calling.

I came up north for a five-year stint, liking the comfort of knowing exactly what I would do for a stable long time (the merits of this decision-making reasoning is also debatable). Now that I am way past the half-way point, I am anxious to set up the next step of my life. The stress comes not from the excitement of option exploration nor from not knowing what to do, but rather that most every career choice I encounter feels empty.

I view most career choices with utter disgust as I imagine the many days of this job I would have to live through before I turn 65 and retire. I don't want a Dilbert cubicle life. I don't really want the high-life of banks and consulting firms, as much as those are tempting. I don't want the life of a minnion lost in the large corporation culture of company mottos and "personnel development", nor that of the government advisor soullessly lobbying for society-damaging entities like Big Oil.

It depresses me that I have no answers to the question of "With everything set aside, with no worries in this world, what can you see yourself doing?" I just know that I feel empty about what I am doing now. I just know that I have a feeling of wanting more, that there has to be something out there to better fill this void ... but what is it?

What is my calling?

things that annoyed me today

1) Someone at Whole Foods stole my gloves. Who the f- does that?? At Whole Foods no less?? Aren't these all supposed to be middle-aged, upper-middle-class-income wives? I left my gloves in my cart, parked in an aisle as I ran around to other aisles to gather things I needed. When I came back to my cart, my gloves were gone. The gloves weren't expensive, but they fit me well. It's just so frustrating that I have to deal with this right now, and that someone would actually steal MY GLOVES.

2) Piercing techno music at a wannabe trendy lounge that just gave me a headache instead. A former colleague was in town tonight and wanted to get together with a couple of us for drinks. My voice was hoarse from trying to hold a conversation over the high-decibel music, and multiple people at multiple times held their hands to their ears with WTF looks on their face directed in the general direction of the DJ. He was bobbing his head, completely oblivious. When did techno come back in style anyway that a mainstream trendy lounge would play it exclusively on a Thursday night?

3) My new, exciting flats pinch my toes, and I can just feel the blisters welling up on my heel, not to mention that they arethe tiniest bit too small. I bought these a couple of nights ago as the perfect flats that I've been searching for. They're cute. They don't have bows on them. They're white (a rather bold color for me). Best of all, they're dressy enough for going out, but plain enough to still wear to work without seeming over the top. I knew something was wrong within 5 minutes of walking in them, but I still kept them on for half a day, in pure denial that my *perfect* flats are in fact, unwearable.

On a happier note, I am pretty set on the decision to take some time off next summer and maybe part of fall. I've been brewing over a possibility that throws all my previous hesitations out the window because I am so excited about it. It would mean a farther distance, and potentially a longer time, away from Broadway, but it's all workable and within reason.

christmas is for everyone

We had our first snowstorm this past weekend, and there is still plenty of ice and cold-weather hazards on the ground. I have long stopped biking around, preferring to just drive everywhere. Driving down a road last night, I noticed a biker up ahead (thank goodness he had lights). He seemed much taller than a normal biker, and his general shape was off.

When I got closer, I realized that he was not only biking on icy roads in sub-freezing temperatures, but that he had a Christmas tree strapped to him. He biked with his right hand on the right handlebar grip, and his left hand raised over his shoulder gripping the trunk of the tree. The tree hung upside down from his left hand, along his back.

I should have stopped and offered him a ride. I hesitated because I was already well past him when I realized he was transporting a tree. I hesitated because I didn't have room in my car for a bike and a tree. I hesitated because I just didn't have the guts to stop, yet I wasn't entirely sure what I was afraid of. In a way, I didn't want to be THAT person who is trying too hard to be the good samaritan. In all this hesitation, I just kept driving.

I think I will remember, and regret, not stopping to offer him a ride for a long time to come.

Burg, Part 2

I am finally finishing this Burg saga. See here for Part 1.

I wrote Burg, Part 1 when I clandestinely discovered that Burg and his Slut Asian girlfriend of about a year had just recently broken up. At that point, I thought that I had actually come to a closure regarding Burg. When I started dating Broadway back in March, who ironically is fairly food friends with Burg, I started going to things with Broadway at which Burg and Slult Asian also would be.

I actually talked to Slut Asian a few times and decided that whatever, I was over the whole thing. Thinking nonchalantly is so differently from actually being nonchalant about the whole thing. When I found out about the break up, I was shocked. All sorts of possibilities ran through my head, as if I had been pining Burg still after all that time had passed.

I even rehearsed crazy silly soap opera scenarios in my head about dumping Broadway and going after Burg, and how after both of our independent attempts at romance with other people, we would still find true ultimate love in each other. What a great love story to tell our kids if they ever ask how their mom and dad met, I thought.

I know, I was way gone on that thought.

The news of their breakup also came at a time of lows for Broadway and me, which certainly didn't help my sense of stability in my current relationship. I remember shooting off an email to Best Friend asking her what she thought as soon as I found out about the breakup. (She was there with me through all of the Burg garbage two years ago).

As usual, she reality-checked me and said that I needed to make a decision about Broadway once and for all and not because of Burg's freshly acquired bachelor status. As for Burg, I needed to just chill the F* out and stop playing out these silly fairy castle scenarios. Yeah ... Best Friend's always got a better head on her shoulders than I do. I took her advice and just let it go.

The funny thing from all of this is that I feel sorry for the Slut Asian girl. She's probably not really a slut, just one of those outspoken girls who has no problems being crass and hanging with the boys. Objectively speaking, Burg was a terrible boyfriend to her, not because he was trying to be a jerk, but just because Burg is who he is. He's such a typical guy sometimes.

The other funny thing is that Slut Asian and I mutually stalked each other for a while right after she started dating Burg. I read her blog religiously, equating her crassy words as slutty. In return, I kept seeing hits from her internship company on my public blog. I guess she was just as curious about me as I was about her.

I wonder what she thought of me? Was she pity me as the poor girl whose love she stole?

no summer frisbee?

I met with my boss this afternoon to discuss 1) my current (lack of) progress, and 2) where I'm headed, project-wise and person-wise. My contract is due to expire sometime in 2009 (right now it's for June, but it can probably be extended a few months easily if I wanted), so I have to start thinking about just what it is that I want to do with myself post-cushy-job-contract.

Haphazardly, I decided a few months ago that I would like to look into a more policy-driven position, perhaps even government policy down in DC. So today's meeting with my boss was when I planned to drop the bomb that I may 1) cut my contract short before 2009, or more probable, 2) take a few months' (most likely summer + part of fall) leave of absence to try a policy stint in DC.

The Boss was supportive, as I expected (bless me for at least having decent supervisors to work for), which just means that I now can't use "tough boss" as an excuse for not getting off my butt and finding a stint, which means I probably do have to think this through rather thoroughly:

1) This would mean some months of separation from Broadway and a short-term long-distance relationship. The couple of times I've bounced the idea off of him, he'd expressed general unhappiness about my needing to be absent from Big City.

2) Summer time is prime FUN frisbee season, as opposed to the competitive fall and spring seasons. I can't believe this is even a factor, but I have a serious mental block for leaving Big City during the summer because I want to play frisbee here. I love my summer team, and given my contract ending in 2009, this may even be my last summer in Big City and thus last chance to play with this team.

So the question really is whether I value my long-term career ahead of frisbee (oh, and Broadway)?

anonymous blogging

There are a few blogs that I read regularly. They are all anonymous blogs, though to differing degrees of anonymity. As much as I love blogs (reading and writing), I crave the personal connectivity to someone. I went to San Francisco about six months ago, and if it had been completely up to me, I would have written the SF anonymous blogger and asked to meet for coffee. In a way, I feel like these people are all my friends, and I want them to be my friends in real life. Because of the connection I feel to them through their most private thoughts, I find it hard to restrain myself from tapping that connection further and bursting their anonymity bubble, even knowing full well that the bubble is a safety barrier for me, too.

I have been reading one particular anonymous blog for a little over a year now, and I just have so much respect for the author that I've always wondered her true identity. Despite almost always vague about things including the city she lives in, her posts seem to mention things that resemble people and places around me that it always made me wonder just how closely linked we actually are.

Recently, she mentioned something rather specific that seemed possible for me to google and to deduce her true identity. Seizing on this opportunity last week, I went searching in local papers for news that may match the cameo mention from her blog. As luck would have it, even though some of my assumptions were wrong, I came upon a news article that led very quickly through a couple of additional searches to her real identity.

My curiosity has definitely been satisfied, and I'm super excited to now concurrently read her public blog along with the anonymous one, but I can't help feeling slightly uneasy. I wasn't exactly privy to the knowledge of her identity, nor her public blog. In an ironic way, I feel like I am trespassing on her life and her thoughts by now reading her non-anonymous blog and by knowing who she is.

I then think back to my own blogs: my public one that had gathered an audience, a semi-anonymous one that didn't really work, and now this one. I finally killed my public one after three years of writing in it after realizing that I was no longer writing for myself but rather for my readers. The things I wanted to write for myself couldn't be written without sacrificing my much-wanted personal privacy. The semi-anonymous blog didn't work out as I didn't know how to say no to friends (acquaintances) asking for the url, and it degenerated into a semi-public blog.

As for this one, the verdict remains to be seen. I sometimes wonder if I'm being too restrictive and evasive about generalizing things here, so much so that it hinders my writing because I spend more time figuring out how to disguise elements of a story to de-couple it from my real life than just writing what's on my mind.

For the time-being, I am still writing here for me, which fills the right void for me.

death

The bond I feel to my parents is inexplicable, akin to nationalism where you can't quite explain why you feel so strongly about your own country. I feel tied to them, and I love them, and I would only wish the best for them, and it is so incredibly crippling to me to imagine them ever being gone.

One of my strongest memories from childhood is of laying in bed one night balling my eyes out because it occurred to me that one day my father would die. I went to bed fine, happy, but as I layed there, one thought led to another and before I knew it, the tears just wouldn't stop. I pulled the covers over my head so as to muffle the sounds as much as possible. I was just 7 or 8. I wasn't afraid of my own death, but I was deathly afraid of the one day in the future when my father would die.

As I have gotten older, I no longer irrationally cry about my parents dying. I internalize it more and more as I see them getting older and more frail. A couple of tears would flow out of the corner of my eye, but I keep back the rest in an attempt to not cry about the inevitabilities of life. It doesn't necessarily dull the pain to think about other things, but it does help to take my mind off of those thoughts.

When I think about my own death, I don't think of it as something that I fear. I regard death with a light of curiosity. When the day comes, I think I would welcome it because my curiosity would finally be satisfied as I find out just what happens to us after we die. Would I be conscious enough to realize my own death? Or would it simply be a stop in consciousness? If the latter, then who would even know? It's like that old cliche about whether a tree falling in the woods would make a sound even if no one is there to hear it. Would my cessation of consciousness even be realized by me? How would I realize it if I no longer have consciousness?

What I fear most about dying are the consequences my death would have on those I love, especially my parents. I fear how devastated my parents would be, how they may never fully recover from that shock, and how much they would suffer. For that reason, I would never be able to carry through a suicide, not because I have such a great unshakeable respect for life, not for my own sake and desire to live, but for my parents to not suffer the misery of dealing with my death.

Driving on a dark dark highway a couple of nights ago, I ran through these thoughts of death. What if I swerve and hit a siderail? What if a car runs a red light while I'm driving through the intersection? Then the thought dawned on me ... How would I feel about my death if my parents no longer are a concern? All the voices in my head paused. I felt calm.

That scared me.

annoying meetings

The lady sitting next to me in a meeting earlier today wouldn't stop hmm-ing to everything that was being said. You know the type? The speaker would make a point, and she would nod her head and make a "hmm" sound, as if to say, "hm, interesting."

Fine, whatever. I do that sometimes, too when I really do think the speark made an interesting point.

Except, she did this for every other sentence that came out of the spearker's mouth. GAHHHHHH. The meeting lasted an hour. I almost stabbed my own eye out of agony.

smile

Relationships really are so up and down. Last time, I was so down and hating the world and asking why just why am I putting up with Broadway. Are the good parts so good that they completely outweigh the bad?

Last night, I slept alone ... the first time that Broadway and I consciously slept apart in the 7 months we've dated each other. I know that's hard to believe, and I sometimes wonder why we (he) place(s) such weight on whether or not we are spending every night together.

Nevermind why I slept alone, but I felt more lonely than ever this morning ... He came over in the afternoon. He's never given me flowers before. He's just not the flowers kind of guy. Yet there he was, outside my doorway with a huge bouquet of flowers in his arms, looking at me with those big anticipatory eyes, nervous, not sure whether or not I would forgive him. Tears poured out of my eyes again, this time from joy and from love. All it took was one look at those eyes, and I knew that I had already forgiven him.

He sent me an email just now with the subject "you", with this silly little link the only line in the body of the email. It brought a smile to my face because he's right, that is me. But more than anything else, he knew me so well to see me in that cartoon immediately, and I knew him so well to know that the way (brevity) of his email meant that he he sent it with the most love there ever was in the whole world.

I really do wonder

I really do wonder sometimes why I go through this, why I put myself through the hell of enduring and dealing with his depression. If it's bad now, what will it be like in some years?

I don't know how I am supposed to act. I try to be unminding of the silence from him, and despite the dismissal and lack of warmth I feel, I try to be cheerful and unjudging and continue to interact with him in a normal tone. And still, the best I get in return is nothing. When he does speak, it scathes. He may not intend for it to, but inevitably it does. It's almost better to get the depressing silence in comparison.

I just don't know what I am supposed to do. The only thing I know to do is to walk away, leave him alone, and cry on my own.

I'm selfish and mean

I convinced Broadway to come stay at my place last night and lured him by saying I'd make him pumpkin pie, and that I would do my laundry which would give him clean underwear. He'd been out at his house, and I'd been dragging my feet about doing laundry, so he went through his last pair a couple of nights ago (I know, gross).

We got back to my place around 9, and I subsequently wasted away a couple of hours and didn't get around to the laundry until 11. Broadway had a deadline he was rushing to meet, but still helped me carry 4 loads of laundry to the building's laundry room around 11pm.

When we got back after loading the washers, I set the timer on my oven to remind me when to go downstairs to move laundry to dryers and laid down in bed to read my magazine. Having only had 4 hours of sleep the night before, I fell asleep.

Fast forward 30 minutes ... the timer's going off, and Broadway comes in to ask me why there's a timer going off. I, in my sleepy confused state, mumbled something about "what timer?", rolled over and fell back asleep.

Fast forward another hour or so, I wake up, more confused than ever and see Broadway in my bedroom doorway laying out clothes flat in a laundry basket. I ask him what he's doing, and evidently, he had gone downstairs, moved the clothes to the dryer, and now had just brought them, dried, back up to my apartment.

Through all of this, I just slept. Instead of letting me help him lay out dry clothes, he told me to go back to sleep (which I groggidly did).

I woke up this morning and thought about how I would have reacted if he had done what I did last night. I would have blown a fuse. I would have been so furious, crying about the unfairness of the situation. I would have run to my computer to document just how wronged I'd been by Broadway. I would have yelled at him until he apologized, and then rubbed it in some more about how badly he treats me sometimes.

Broadway said nothing last night. He just quietly finished all of my laundry while I slept soundedly. He finally made it to bed at 7am this morning when he finished his assignment.

I can really be so selfish sometimes.

o, blockbuster

Blockbuster changes up their mail-rental program more often than John Roberts changes his stance on unifying the Supreme Court. I've paid the same monthly amount to Blockbuster now for over two years, but somehow what I get is constantly changing.

Yesterday, it miraculously changed for the much much better: I returned three DVDs last Friday and found 6 new DVDs in my mailbox yesterday. My queue actually says that I have six movies out, even though I'm still on the 3-out-at-a-time plan.

I'm not complaining.

depression

I started seeing a therapist at the beginning of this year because I naively thought one would be the panacea to all the problems I was struggling with at the time (parents, Doctor and other past relationships, general life direction). I stopped after just three sessions because she made me feel worse about myself. Maybe inevitably, when you go to someone whose sole job is to listen to you whine about yourself, there's some neaturally-associated guilt of feeling overly self-centered. However, I thought the point of a therapist was A) you're paying them, thereby lessening the guilt, and B) they're the experts at making you feel comfortable no matter what and listening and sympathizing.

Well, it didn't really work for me. She made me feel worse, and I felt that talking to her trivialized my problems in a feeling dismissed kind of way, and I often left more angry than when I walked in. It's hard to tell if I just picked a bad therapist for me or if I would have that reaction to every therapist.

Anyway, the point is that I'm thinking of seeing a therapist again because of Broadway, but I'm just not sure if I want to take the plunge again.

Broadway is chronically depressed. It does not seriously affect his life (at least not yet), but does manifest itself in extremely irritating ways: he is overly cynical about EVERYTHING, and he is so difficult to mobilize, in every possible way. Making decisions about where to eat, where to go for toothpaste, when to go home from work ... he just drags his feet in everything that he does.

I struggle between wanting to be supportive, knowing that he can't help it (or can he?), and wanting to kick some sense into him to just suck it up because life's hard sometimes. A lot of our conflicts stem from my wanting to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and yell at him to get a grip on his life.

My biggest problem is just that I can't relate. I don't understand how he just absolutely can't help it. I feel that if he would only put his mind to it, why can't he wake up before 1pm every single day??? It is incredibly difficult for me to be nice to him in these situations. I used to try to wake him up, then I eventually got mad after a while of not being able to wake him up. Now, I don't even try. I get up and leave in the mornings when I need to leave, and I call him sometime around 1pm to see what he's doing or if he's still snoring.

I just don't understand depression. I don't understand the inability to control one's negative thoughts and not being able to become consumed by negative energy. He tells me that my getting mad and frustrated at him just makes him feel worse and more depressed knowing that I'm pointing out the very things that he does badly, which he knows he does badly, and which he can't control because of his depression, and it's all just one big downward spiral.

I don't know how to deal with that. I just plain don't understand, and I want to call in the experts. What would a therapist who deals with people like him daily say? How do I function around him without frustrating myself and making him more depressed in the process? Is that even possible? What exactly am I getting into anyway?

And scarier thoughts down the road ... Broadway's dad is the exact same way as he is, if not worse. Would Broadway become the same with old age? His mother finally decided she couldn't take it anymore and moved out. Would I eventually hit that stage, too? If so, would it be better to withdraw now?

So many questions with no answers. I don't want to have too high of expectations, but maybe a therapist could help, if only because s/he sees people with real depression problems like him and would understand the thought process that is so hard for me to grasp.

i can be nasty, too

One very small group in my company wants to be independent from its supervising division, and has been harassing me about it for the past few weeks. I managed to set up a meeting to discuss this situation between the group and the chair of their supervising division, and volunteered myself and another colleague from my office as mediators. (My office also happens to hold the power to grant them their independence, if we deem it necessary and appropriate)

The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and will be a 4-5 person informal discussion about whether this group really just needs to work better with its supervising division, or if this group really warrants being independent.

About an hour ago, the group leader emailed me asking if there will be a projector present in the particular conference room where we're meeting because they have a PowerPoint presentation they would like to show. In my three years here, I have never been to an internal meeting like this and used powerpoint (or seen it be used). But whatever, no matter how unusual, fine it's a valid request. We use powerpoints always when we meet with clients.

However, the final comment in his email made me fume:

"There is a very nice conference room with projection capabilities down the hall on my floor, but I cannot reserve it unless our group is independent."

Only division supervisors (and others designated by him/her) have the ability to reserve conference rooms, so what he says is true ... but was it really necessary? It was an intentional, in-my-face comment highlighting another "disadavange" they have just encountered as a non-independent entity. F- that.

Normally, there is a projector I bring along to that room when we meet with clients, but his comment pissed me off so much that I simply wrote back:

"Hi Group Leader,

Since there will only be 4 of us, I think a laptop will be just fine.

-Seine"

Gosh, it bugs me so much that he thinks he can impress us with a powerpoint presentation. There is not a culture of powerpoint at internal meetings in our company, not even if I'm meeting with my most senior supervisor. Everything is informal, and everything is roundtable. He really is shitting his chances by bringing a presentation, especially since I will be present.

You see, he comes from a consulting world. He worked as a consultant briefly before joining our company, one of those top firms who convince you that they're teaching you the "soft" skills ... like the fact that you impress when you show up with a powerpoint.

What he doesn't know is that I know that consulting world up and down. I came from that world, and I left because I couldn't stand the pretentiousness. He has no idea what he will getting himself into tomorrow. Unnecessary presentations won't buy my loyalty. They will only piss me off more and align me biased against them.

I really was planning to show up to the meeting tomorrow completely unbiased, just to talk to him and his supervisor to gather some facts and really evaluate if the group's request for divorcing the parents division is valid valid. But now I'm just pissed, and I actually don't want to help them at all. I want to be immature and fight against them, make it hard for them to become independent.

It's bad because I actually do have that power. This situation was entrusted to me, and I will be writing up the review report. I feel like I already know what I will write, without having ever set foot in that meeting.

friends & awkwardness

My best friend from college called me last night. I deliberately let it go to voice mail, and despite expecting this reaction, I was still shocked at the amount of negativity I felt toward his voice when I finally listened to the message this morning. It wasn't anything he said. It was a typical message: "Haven't talked to you in a while, was wondering how you were doing. I'm busy as usual; law school's really keeping my hands tied. I went to India last month, and I'm dying to tell you about that ..." blah blah blah

It wasn't the message itself ... what bugged me was his sentence intonation. He has a way of raising his voice at the last couple of words or so of a sentence, any sentence, sentence after sentence after sentence. The mere thought of that intonation makes me angry, and I have no idea why.

He and I really were best friends in college, especially the first couple of years. As all cross-gendered friendships go, there were times when the friendship/relationship boundary was not so clear, but we got through it all and each graduated vowing to stay BFFs forever.

And then we just grew apart. We stopped really keeping in touch, and every time we talked on IM or on the phone, I felt more distant from him than the last chat. In the few years since college, he got engaged (they had started dating during college), then got married, then just went on living life. Through all of this, I cared less and less about his world. I ran out of conversational pieces with him, questions to ask him about his life, questions to ask him about their life together, and I didn't so much feel like sharing my life details either.

With each chat or phone call, the conversations got more and more awkward. We don't talk much (maybe a couple of times a year), so in a way, we've still been able to keep up the pretense of BFFs despite the awkward conversations, but really only in name. True BFFs would never run out of things to share, no matter how long they've been physically apart leading separate lives and being out-of-touch.

So I know that I should really call him back. He's definitely making an effort to stay in touch with me. I should reciprocate. But honestly, it's just such a mental block to me right now. I keep finding excuses for why it'd be inconvenient to call him right now, why I should wait until I've done my laundry, and then after my laundry I excuse that it's really too late, I should call him tomorrow ... etc. etc. etc. ...

I have to do it. I have to pick up the phone and just dial. But man, those sentence intonations are all that's running through my head, and they do nothing to help me pick up the phone.

what a blast

The party turned out to be a blast. While not all Everybody-Under-the-Sun came, quite a few people did, including several surprises. All in all, probably 250-300 people passed through Broadway's place through the course of the night. The last folks didn't leave until almost 5am, by which point, I was already obliviously passed out in bed.

In general, I go up and down in how I feel about Broadway. Lately, there have been much more ups than downs, but earlier this summer the downs were getting rather oppressive. This past weekend, there were definitely more ups, and I seem to feel more strongly about Broadway each and every day.

As much as I don't like how Broadway tries so hard to defy the mainstream, cynically refusing to do things like go to Starbucks, he does love me in his own way. It's funny how when you've dated someone for a few months, you can predict how s/he will react to a certain situation without ever being able to actually articulate the behavior trend.

Broadway only does things that fit within his inexplicable boundaries for allowable actions, but somehow finds his own ways within that repertoire to show me that he loves me in cute little ways. And every once in a while (and so far literally only once), he will even venture outside of that bubble, like when he got us tickets to see Wicked, despite his general hatred for all things Broadway, all things showtunes, and all non-hip-hop music.

Granted, it took him over a month to even get the tickets, but in the end, he set aside all of his personal biases and got us the tickets for my birthday because it was something that I had always wanted to see. I've sort of accepted that no one will be perfect, and I've also been questioning less and less whether or not I can be with Broadway longer-term.

Also, in case it wasn't clear, Broadway is extremely particular.

party, party, party

Broadway and his roommates have a gorgeous place, a heaven for party-planners/throwers. They've lived together now for three years, and have had a bit of a reputation for throwing nice parties. When I started dating Broadway, my party-planning inner child almost immediately began scheming for how I could get in on some party-throwing action.

That chance came tonight. It's been a while since their last party, and my birthday is this Sunday, so together we're throwing a party. I would pitch in for th eparty costs and in return, be able to invite my friends.

Proud to show off a beautiful place as if it were my own, I invited everybody under the sun. Except the assholes. The assholes got an excel list of their own and were all deliberately excluded.

One side-effect of inviting everybody under the sun is that it loses some semblance of intimacy, not to mention that everybody under the sun ranges from good good friends to fringe acquaintanes. For example, I also invited Fringe Acquaintance's ex-wife. Fringe has said that he was coming for sure (despite having an early morning flight tomorrow), but who knows about ex-wife? And should I feel guilty for having invited the both of them? (Not purposefully to create awkward situations, but both being fringe friends, they both appeared on the party invite list of "Everybody Under the Sun")

There were some 350 Everybody-Under-the-Sun's, and since it's not a formal enough party to ask for RSVPs, I actually have no idea how many would come. All 350 would clearly be ridiculous: Broadway has a big place, but not THAT big. 50 would be altogether too disappointing. I would think I had better friends than that.

About 30 people have written back to my email invite, with the great majority of them along the lines of "So sorry I won't be able to come! I'm going out of town this weekend!"

Then there were the others who said "Sorry, my other friend's having a party!"

Is your other friend also having a birthday? No, I didn't think so. Strike 1.

Anyways, I'm hoping that of the others who have not written back, most are planning to show up. I tell myself, only half-jokingly, that this will be a good indicator of whom my real friends are :)

what to make of this?

An acquaintance texted me early in the afternoon:

"I'm thinking about walking by where you are. Wanna take a break from work?"

I kindly declined, making up an excuse that I had to get some work done before a 3pm meeting. The truth was, I wasn't comfortable going to hang out with him.

This guy has always been an fringe acquaintance. By chance at a mutual friend's BBQ one day, he found out that I also play frisbee. Since both of our day schedules are fairly flexible, he mentioned that he'd call me sometime to take a work break and throw some discs while the weather's still nice.

Sounded good to me. I'm always up for throwing.

Except when we did get together to throw about a week later, he mentioned that he just moved to a new place and that I should come over to see it, and "maybe we can get a drink sometime." I played dumb and suggested he throw a housewarming party and that I would come for sure to help celebrate.

Of course the thought crossed my mind that he meant more than just wanting to show his place to a friend, but then it seemed so unlikely that he would have any other intentions given that I thought it was fairly common knowledge that I have a boyfriend. Though being a fringe acquaintance, he may have never picked up on that.

I'm not sure how many more times I can come up with an excuse as to why I can't hang out. I definitely don't want to go have drinks with him...

Then again, he is very recently divorced (or separated, I'm not sure if the paperwork's official yet), so perhaps he really is just lonely and wants someone to hang out with.

today's snippets

My presentation Monday went really well. Part of the presentation was my pitching a brand new idea, and since my boss had very little time to look over my slides and give me feedback, I was really worried about getting grilled by him and everyone else. I lead a small project, and this was my one-year progress report to several fringe senior folks who fund the project. Over the last year though, the project hasn't really been going the way that I want it to, so I pitched a new idea to the very top-level people on Monday to see if they would agree with a change in direction.

They were open-minded, which was great! But they wanted to keep talking about the idea for a few weeks (months) before really going forward with it sometime next Spring. I would have wanted to start earlier, but I suppose I do have my hands pretty full right now.

In other news, I'm starting to get sick of my frisbee team. I play on two: one coed, and one all women. The coed one is incredibly fun, and we sort of just play for the sake of playing. The tournament this past weekend was with this team.

The all-women's team on the other hand, is starting to seriously get on my nerves. It is a much bigger commitment: we have 2.5-hour practices 2-3 times a week, and practice is just torture. I can't explain it, but I just feel like practices are complete wastes of my time. Not to brag, but I think I'm in better physical condition than most of the girls on the team, and I'm in general much faster. So doing drills are just silly for me when I'm consistently beating the girl covering me, though I do have to admit that the practices have helped my defensive game.

In general my philosophy is just so different from these women. They are very hard-core and want to play hard-core ultimate. I really have no interest in that. I love the game, and I love playing, but I like it in a laid-back way. I'll play it as long as it remains fun for me, and these practices just aren't fun.

So anyway, after practice yesterday, I was asking myself why I keep going if I dislike it so much? I'm at a point beyond where I need to learn self-control and do things even though I hate doing them ... so why bother?

But if I quit, I will feel like such a quitter. Ugh. Such is the dilemma. I'll probably stick with it for a bit longer. The weather's getting colder by the minute as well, so we won't be practicing for much longer.

I should post more often

I have this problem ... I want to write, and through the course of the day, I often think of funny things or stupid things or perhaps sometimes even insightful things that would be potentially good material for a blog. When I get home though, I inevitably forget or remember and decide that it's not worth the effort to go write on the blog. So this thing sits untouched for weeks on end.

For example, today, I thought of a great many number of things that would be great to document. Except since there are such a great number of them, it wouldn't really be appropriate (nor productive) to sit here for hours on end documenting the many topics that could describe the various aspects of my life today.

Here's a snippet, I suppose:

I have a big work presentation on Monday. I should get the final slides prepared and to my boss to look over, and I should have done this sometime this weekend ... as in today. Except today is 30 minutes from being over, and I only have ~70% of my slides. I NEED to rush these slides tonight before bed so that my boss can critique them (and once again make me feel like an idiot) first thing tomorrow morning.

I am a procrastinator, in case that wasn't made clear in the above paragraph. Not only did I not work on those slides today, I played in a frisbee tournament, went to a three-act comedy show, screwed around on facebook, and now am writing a blog entry.

Three interesting things I found on facebook today:

1) A fellow blogger whom I only knew in cyber-life found me and sent me a message on facebook, which admittedly, is still a part of cyber-life ... but now I feel much more substantively connected to him because of this new facebook connection. I haven't quite decided how I feel about that.

2) I found out about two engagements through facebook relationship status updates. I'm not sure how this reflects on my level of involvement in my actual friends' lives, but I thought it a bit strange that it happened twice on the same day.

3) Speaking of relationships, this guy I screwed around with during college posted some new pictures of him attending a wedding. And there's a girl involved. At first I thought it may have been his sister ... she looked kinda like his sister. But no, their dancing body positions, their gazes into each others' eyes, the kiss on the forehead ... these all point to their not being related in the sibling way.

I shouldn't be phased. After all, we were just screwing around. But back during a low point in my life two years ago, I often daydreamed that this guy would move here to be my prince in shining armor and save me from my spiraling relationship (and probably life) depression. I also wasn't delusional. We at one point seriously talked, over IM, about where his next move would be, and he wanted to try for Big Northern City here. No, I wasn't delusional. I promise. Though one advantage of IM is that it is physical documentation that would probably hold up in court if I demanded emotional compensation now that he is dating someone and no longer remembers wanting to move here to be with me.

On the brighter side of things, my frisbee tournament went well. My team won the tournament. My presentation didn't finish itself while I was running around in the grass. Bummer.

Now I should work to finish that presentation, so I don't end up staying up all night. Except I had a couple of glasses of wine at the comedy show, and being slightly tipsy, all I can think about is having sex with my boyfriend. Or really rather any penis for that matter.

nerdy guys at outdoorsy shops

It's been a while since I've been in an outdoors shop like REI or the local ski shop. Broadway's not really into the outdoors, and he's not so much a gear whore like me either. With the upcoming ski season though, I've been meaning to go check out any leftover stuff from last season to get a new snowboard. So today, I dragged Broadway with me to the local ski shop for their Columbus weekend sale.

I had forgotten how friendly the nerdy gear guys at these places can be. Looking at last season's boards and bindings and boots, a nice cute friendly sales associate came to answer my questions. By this point, Broadway had gotten bored of my pulling board after board out of the display to look at, so he had gone off to look for a new jacket for himself.

Since I was pretty intent on getting board, bindings, and boots today, I talked to the Gear Guy for a while asking lots of questions, etc. etc. After I decided on a board, he fetched some boots I liked in my size to try on, and Broadway came back over around this time. I had wondered if the Gear Guy was in any way flirting with me. He was very professional, never overstepping his bounds as a sales associate in any way, but there were certain things like touching my hand when he handed some boots over to me, or holding on for a bit longer than necessary when he shook my hand and asked me my name ...

Now Broadway knows that I have a soft spot for these gear guys, so maybe because of this, when he came to see how I was doing and saw that I was spending so much time with this Gear Guy, he gave me a kiss on the side of my face before leaving to go back to looking at jackets. I chuckled that that Broadway would discreetly stake his claim on me in front of the Gear Guy, and then satisfied with what he had done, would walk away again without a care.

Burg, Part 1

Burg was this boy I fell hard for, for a long time. I first met Burg when I came up north a few years ago. I started at the end of August, and he was in my same company and had started a couple of years ahead of me. The first time I met him, I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, he's really cute. Too bad I'm getting married to Engineer." Engineer requires a whole back-story of his own, which will come in due time on this blog.

At some point later that year, I got a sense that Burg may be interested in me, but I was so happily attached to the man of my dreams that I felt sorry for Burg that he was liking someone in vain. And of course, I still thought he was extremely cute, athletic, outdoorsy. All in all, a perfect guy for me if I weren't planning to get married. To someone else.

I started liking Burg the next summer. Engineer had decided that I wasn't important enough for him to stay in town for the summer and took a short-stint job down in DC. By this point, I had been up north for about a year, and with very similar interests, Burg and I ended up having quite a few mutual friends within our company and we had plenty of run-ins that summer.

The most memorable run-in was a camping trip we all took together with some mutual friends. There were two cars going, but we got separated on the drive up. I was in Burg's car with two others, and we got to the campsite first. Being that it was really late and that we were all tired, we went ahead and pitched tents to sleep instead of waiting for the other car. There were two tents for 4 people, and the other two people were kinda sorta dating, so that left me and Burg to sleep in a 2-person tent together. For those not tent-trained, a 2-person tent has a base about the size of a full-size bed. Nothing happened, but I think there was a whole lot of unspoken sexual tension and temptation on both of our parts.

My feelings for Burg grew and grew and grew, and while I harp a lot on religion as the breaking factor for Engineer and me, my lack of exclusive interest for Engineer was also a reason. When Engineer and I broke up in October, I happened to be at a meeting the next day with Email Boy. After the meeting, he went with me and a friend of mine to the nearby pub for some beers. There, I spilled the beans that Engineer and I had broken up, definitely well aware of the fact that I was making sure Burg knew I was now single and not attached.

Thus started a series of dates-that-never-were. At the time, I was in a office that was actually down the hall from him. Granted, it was a long hallway, and we were at opposite ends, but you would think being on the same floor would have been a plus in our favor to develop something. To make a long story short, we sent multiple-page emails to each other at least once a day for about a month, and finally saw a movie together. It was a film that he wanted to see, and he originally also invited two mutual friends along. The two friends had the intuition to not come, so the movie ended up being a "date" with just Burg and me.

All in all, after a month plus of sending emails, I got tired. He never made a move, and all of our communication was always on email. He gave me a book as a present; he got me truffles; he scheduled an ice skating thing around my schedule, skipping a day when I was out of town. Basically, he showed interested, but never acted on interest.

This all came crashing down sometime in January when he asked me to have a talk. This was some 1.5 months after all the ridiculous emailing started. When we sat down to talk, he basically said that he never made a move beyond email because he was scared of commitment. He told a mutual friend over the summer (the same summer we slept in the same tent together) that I'm the kind of girl he sees himself marrying. So when I became available, he was scared that I would be the last relationship that he would ever be in, and he wasn't sure he was ready for that.

"Oh, and by the way, I'm seeing another girl."

F-ing A. He strung me along this whole time just to tell he he's now seeing another girl? He kept emphasizing that she wasn't his girlfriend, and that they've only been on a couple of dates ... but that he liked her better because he didn't know anything about her, whereas we were friends, and he would lose a friend if things didn't work out between us. Since he wasn't one to date multiple girls at the same time, he really thought he should talk to me and tell me that things wouldn't ever lead anywhere between us.

Bullshit.

For the longest time, I imagined that he was dating some brunette bombshell (not blonde, somehow I don't think he's into blondes). A few months later, I found out that the girl is Asian, and has quite a slutty personality. Burg and Slut Asian dated and dated and dated more seriously, all while I went through two boyfriends, countless 1st/2nd dates, all of which flopped. Not to mention that when he started dating Slut Asian, he was 26/27, and she wasn't even allowed to drink legally.

I'm not bitter.

this week's conversation with parents

When I called, my dad asked me to guess what he and mom did this weekend. Of course I couldn't guess, so he told me. He and mom drove some large quantity of hours to Cincinnati for the funeral service of one of my dad's college professors. He got a call from the professor's family on Tuesday that the old man had passed last Saturday. When my dad asked about where the services were to be held so he could send some flowers or something, apparently the son wasn't very keen on sharing.

So my dad decided that he would drive to Cincinnati for the funeral service. Not knowing where it would be, he searched the Cincinnati paper's obituaries for the whole past week. So my parents took Friday off from work, drove all day and night, and showed up at the funeral service Saturday morning at 9:30am.

My dad was very proud of himself for having done this, and claimed that the family was appreciative. I asked him if it was awkward for him to show up like that, especially since the service turned out to be for-family-only small. He said no, that the family was very surprise, but also very grateful that he and mom came all this way.

I didn't say anything else because I didn't want to hurt my dad's feelings, but my inclination would be to say that he was intruding on the family's privacy. They didn't want people to know about the service; they didn't want a whole lot of people to attend. They just wanted a chance for a small family gathering to say goodbye to their father/husband who died. But they couldn't exactly turn my parents away at the door of the funeral home, especially since they had already come such a long way. I mean, talk about awkward.

Sometimes my dad just does crazy stuff like this, and he's very proud of how resourceful or cunning he was in procuring information (like going through the obituaries to find where the services are). I don't have the heart to tell him that he's probably going through more trouble than it's worth, and especially not that his troubles are probably not all that meaningful nor appreciated.

I feel like my dad is getting worse as he's getting older, pulling off more and more of these stunts where he inconveniences those he is trying to show appreciation for, and his saintly intentions are only realized by my mom and me. Or perhaps maybe I am just getting older and starting to see my dad's actions in a different light.

Confession #1: denting a rental van

Last Thursday, I volunteered to drive a moving van to help haul stuff from one end of my company to another. On my last run around, I needed to drop off some boxes in an area with low maneuverability. Driving a large cargo van (slightly bigger than a 15-passenger), I eventually got myself stuck between two metal posts.

Looking left, looking right, I wiggled the van forward and backward, trying to dislodge myself from the bind and eventually was able to drive out of it, but not without hearing a loud "clunk clunk". When I climbed out to look, I had dented the left side of the van in three different places. One was pretty serious, and I think the repairs/body work would be pretty significant because some panels would need replacing.

I said nothing to anyone and hoped that everything would go away, praying that since I wasn't the one who rented the van nor bought the insurance, nor would I be returning the van, that the damage would 1) go unnoticed, or 2) be un-traceable back to me.

That night, I had a long dream about how an email was sent out to the entire company asking for the person who damaged the cargo van to stop being a coward and to step forward. With a guilty conscience, I woke up the next morning and thought about writing an email to confess my crime.

I never did.

Now, four days later, seemingly nothing has happened. I haven't heard anything about damages incurred to a rental cargo van, so perhaps I did get away with it after all...

a haven for confessions

There are so many things I feel like I need to get off my chest. Writing in a personal journal just wasn't motivation enough, and I never seemed to have the time for it. Somehow, writing in a blog seems different, more alluring, perhaps because of the possibility of actually having an audience.

I'm not a perfect person. I make plenty of mistakes, and I often wonder if these mistakes would come back to haunt me at some point down the road. I'm not religious in any way, so I feel almost as if I would carry these mistakes through life as my personal burdens.

So in a way, perhaps, this blog is my haven for confessions.

something romantic

That's what I want. Despite my tomboyish teenage years, I am a sucker for romance. GB lacks the romantic gene. I bugged him about never giving me flowers ever, and he showed up to my apartment with a branch he pulled off of a bush with a cluster of flowers at the end. Cute? Definitely. Romantic? Not so much. Haha, not to mention probably un-environmentally-sound.

GB's demeanor can be summed up as quirky cute. He does things that put a smile on my face, and because I know him, I know he does them out of care. A few weeks back, I got to school much earlier than he did and toiled in lab for a couple of hours before sitting down at my desk. When I got back to my desk, there was a muffin next to my computer. Cute, right? The muffin had a bite taken out of it.

I smiled, because that's who he is. He cared to get me a muffin (which he did later admit to having stolen from some conference booth that had breakfast foods), and put his own mark on it to show his affection. He does things in his own cute quirky ways to show me that he cares.

But pretty flowers from the florist would still be nice :)

hungry cranky people

Ugh. GB and I went to see Transformers with a friend of his tonight, and because of some logistical/timing difficulties, we ended up going to a 8:30pm showing without having had any dinner. By the time we got out around 11pm, neither one of us could really think of a place with an operational kitchen.

During the entire movie, he fidgeted with my hand. He was either biting my finger, or biting down on my nail, or shifting my ring around, or trying to put my fist in his mouth, etc. etc. I was getting pretty annoyed at this, but didn't say much.

Post-movie, I mentioned that it was annoying. He made a face and said sorry.

We got in my car, dropped off his friend, and started driving home while brainstorming places to eat. At this point, I was beyond hungry that I kinda just wanted to go home, but he always claims disfunctionality during extreme hunger, so he wanted to go someplace. So I snapped a bit and told him that he can go wherever he wants to, and I'll figure out something once we get to where he wants to go.

He then said something along the lines of "I am really restraining myself right now."

I threw up my hands and gave him a questioning look ... as in, "Seriously, what the f-? What are you restraining yourself from doing?"

He then said very angrily that he gets a temper when he is hungry, and he is not going to put up with any of this. (Putting up with what???)

I snapped back that at least I don't bite people's fingers.

He jumped out of the car , and slammed the door behind him and started walking down the street. I had no idea what he was so angry over, so I slowed down in front of him and gestured through the window "What the hell is going on?" with my hands.

He angrily threw his hands up in the air, gave me a nasty look, and shoved his hands forward telling me to keep going. It was a busy street; cars were honking behind me, so I drove off. As I drove off, I looked for a place further up the street to pull over, but there were none. So I just kept going and came home.

Should I have coaxed him back in the car? I mean, seriously, what the f-?? I'm angry that he jumped out of my car (moving car!) in traffic and slammed the hell out of my door. What was he even so angry about? Was it just because he was super cranky because he was hungry?

I don't know what I should have done. Maybe I should have just waited for him, even if it meant stopping in traffic. I didn't know what to do in the middle of the busy street ....

*sigh*

Reading back on that last entry, I really sounded like a big immature brat. In the end, it's not a big deal whether or not his pictures are actually tagged, but it still rubs me the wrong way how passive aggressive Key is being on this whole issue.

Anyway, enough about Key. I'll update soon on GB. There's even some news about Willow.

giving me the run-around

I was down in DC a couple of weekends ago for a college friend's wedding. Before I went, I sent an email to some buddies from college still in that area asking if they would be free to grab brunch either day of the weekend. I debated back and forth whether or not to include Key, and really the debate came down to whether or not I wanted to make the first contact with him since he gave me the run-around about dinner back in February/March.

In the end, since I was including both of his roommates, I didn't want it to seem like I was purposefully excluding him, so I included him on the email. Everyone replied back (to all) that they were available, yet Key wrote nothing.

So down to DC I went. He & his roommates happened to be having a housewarming party Saturday night, and his roommate invited me to come along. The next morning, all of us (Key included) went to get brunch as well. Everything seemed great. He gave me a really tight hug when he first saw me; there was no awkwardness; he even came to pick me up the next morning to drive me to the brunch location.

I took some pictures, and upon getting back to Boston, I uploaded them to Facebook. Facebook allows you to tag people in your pictures, to name them and such, so I tagged everyone who was at brunch in the picture. A day later, I noticed that Key had removed his tag, which was rather strange. You only untag a picture when you don't like the picture, and I thought it was a good picture of everybody.

So I emailed him asking why he untagged the picture. He claimed that people were making fun of his "man-boobs" (barely noticeable) in the picture, so he untagged himself. I said I thought it was a fine picture, and I tagged him again.

I just checked Facebook again and noticed that not only did he untag himself again, he no longer any tagged pictures. Strange? I think this is strange.

I think he's giving me the run-around again. Maybe he's still "uncomfortable" with whatever, and he didn't want a picture that had him and me in it. Maybe his current girlfriend would throw a hissy fit if she saw the picture. I'm insistent on continuing to tag him because I want a straight answer from him. I don't want the run-around excuse of an email saying that he doesn't like the picture. Maybe I'm being particularly insolent. Whatever, I don't care. I feel like I deserve to know the truth.

this beard issue

GB has had a beard since his freshmen year of college (seven years ago). He shaved it once about a year ago just to test it out, and I've been bugging him to shave it again because I want to see his face (see point #5). I like beards just as much as the next girl over, but I like it for the scruffiness of an outdoorsy type, not for an everyday thing that's been trimmed five times over.

Every once in a while, something triggers my bringing up his beard, and today I asked him if he would ever consider shaving his beard. He asked why, and I answered "so I can see what it's like!" He argued that he shaved it a year ago and hated it.

So I said "Well, I didn't get to see it a year ago when you did shave it."

He replied stubbornly, "well, whose fault is that?"

I joked, "We weren't dating then, so it's your fault for not pursuing me."

This went back and forth, playfully for a while until I suddenly realized that perhaps I was annoying him with my persistent insistence that I'd like to see him clean-shaven. And sure enough, he soon came out full-force with his self-righteous logic:

"Well, it's MY face and MY appearance. You don't get to decide how it looks. I decide. I said that maybe one day, you'll get lucky, and I'll shave my beard, but that's not on YOUR schedule. That's on MY schedule, and you don't get to dictate that. You have no right. You're overstepping your bounds. In fact, you don't even have a right to ask me to do this. That's already overstepping yours bounds."

That really hit me hard. I know that I don't have a right to tell him what to do, but at the same time, I never thought of things as being that clear-cut, nor do I think they should be. In a way, we all surrender some rights by being in a relationship. Some stranger on the street certainly has no right to tell me how to dress, but my boyfriend making a comment about my shirt is gonna get more of my attention.

I feel pretty stuck on this argument (as I do with most arguments with him). I can't argue his logic; of course I have no RIGHT to ask him to shave his beard. He's right: it's not my face; it's his. But I feel like I should have the privilege of asking because I'm more a part of his life than anybody else right now, and he should take my request more seriously instead of dismissing it immediately because no one should have the right to tell him what to do with his beard.

Was I out of line to ask him? Is he right that I have no right to do so? Maybe I should have just dropped it altogether. I dunno.

I feel pretty hurt right now, but I know he feels self-righteous. So once again, I feel like I need to swallow up my hurt and go say "I'm sorry baby, you're right, I don't have a right to ask you to shave your beard. You should be able to wear it however you want." Which is how most of our arguments end, with me apologizing for something that I didn't feel I was out-of-line for.

*sigh* relationships.

not that I generally wish this on people ...

A few weeks ago, I ran into an acquaintance at a celebration reception for a retiring member of our school's top administration. In typical chit-chat fashion, we went through the formalities of asking each other what was new. His answer was typically cryptic, that so much was new, but he didn't have the time nor desire to go through all of it at that particular moment.

Okay ... Well, good day, and good luck on everything; I'm going to get another drink, and I'm sure I'll see you around. *Fake teeth-flashing smile* (Not).

To his credit, he did throw me a bone and allude to the fact that his wife of two years and he had recently separated, to which I made an empathetic face and expressed my concern. I gave my well-wishes, saying something vague and empty like "All relationships are hard. Good luck."

After I turned away to "get another drink", my actual thought was, "I wouldn't be surprised if your wife left you because you're an arrogant prick". This sentiment stems back to when I first met him some two years ago, realized that he was married to a cute girl, and immediately gawked to myself wondering just who in the world would marry this asshole.

Last week, Facebook declared both Uber-Prick and ex-wife to be single, so I guess they really are going through with the divorce (both of them are under 25!). Not that I generally wish this on people, but I kinda feel a sense of vigilante justice that he got what he deserved.

this contradiction of mine...

What's a good age to marry? I used to think 25, and here I am, rapidly approaching 25 with not really a prospect. Most days I WANT to find someone to marry, to settle down, to have kids. I'm not sure if this is what society tells me to do, or if there is some internal biological clock that's starting to scream now that I am less than six months away from my quarter-century birthday.

The other part of me is definitely not ready to marry. This is the part that I rarely admit to and certainly almost never let out. Deep inside, I know that I can hardly even commit to a dating relationship. My eyes are always wandering; my thoughts are always inappropriately focused on other men.

Just the other day, I got an email from a college fling. Even since we met in our first year of college, we'd been flirtatious with each other up until we actually hooked up in the spring of our third year. We dated briefly afterwards, left on good terms, but something was always still there between the two of us. After I started dating Key, he was always the model gentlemen, never so much as even look at me more than what was appropriate, but whenever we did run into each other, there was always a level of silent sexual tension we both felt.

So the other day I got an email from him that was quite flirtatious (though in response to a silly email from me that could probably be easily interpreted as flirtatious). He moved to an exotic part of the world about a year after we graduated, and he recently celebrated a birthday in a major big exotic city. I had emailed wishing him a happy birthday and told him that I hoped he had fun in Big Exotic City. He emailed back saying that he will be sure to celebrate closer to Boston next year so that I can partake in the festivities.

My heart skipped a beat reading that, and I started to imagine all kinds of possibilities if he were to come around and visit Boston, most of which is completely inappropriate given my current status of in-a-relationship. This got me thinking that these days, I really do wish I were single so that I can make decisions by myself, without having to take anyone else's feelings into account. Essentially I want to be able to act and not be held responsible for my actions.

As soon as this thought crossed my mind, I realized this contradiction of mine: my brain tells me that I want to settle down because I am of-age, but the rest of me wants to live life without inhibitions imposed on me because of my relationship status. I want someone to kiss and to hold me at night, but I want just as much to flirt with cute boys standing next to me in a grocery line or to re-kindle an old flame.

I have come to terms with the fact that I'll settle down when I settle down. If that's meant to be 30, fine. If that's meant to be next year, then so be it (though GB would really need to step it up a notch here). If finding a mate for life is just not in the cards for me, fine too, I'll learn to deal because I would have to (though I hope this isn't the case).

That's all fine and dandy, but I worry that I'll never shake this habit of wandering eyes and mind, even when I have settled down, whenever that may be. I keep telling myself that I just haven't found the right person, that with the right person, I won't think adulterous thoughts. But less than 50% of me actually believes that. I worry that I will always harbor these thoughts.

Does everyone feel this way? Or do most people who marry really entertain no thoughts of other men? I wish I knew.

my manquarium

I got the link from Girl Dates London and built my own manquarium. I have to say that this is absolutely hilarious. Basically you build a man of your dreams, and he swims around saying cheesy things to you and even knocks on the glass.

My favorites so far:

"If a genie granted me three wishes, I'd wish for you, me, and a seahorse built for two."
"Goddess, if you left me, this manquarium would overflow with my tears."

Wow, this is fun. I'm essentially just sitting here with headphones in, listening to the manquarium guy pay me compliments. I am Goddess after all. hahahaha

so the boy has mono

Back when GB was being whiny about about sick, and I just wanted to cry about Key, we didn't know what was wrong with him. His symptoms got better for a few days, and we thought he'd gotten over whatever weird infection he had, but he ended up getting much worse and finally went back to the doctor yesterday, and they diagnosed him with mono after a blood test.

This whole time, he's thought that it may be mono, but my question was where he would have gotten mono? I've never had mono, but he claims that sometimes people can be carriers of mono without even knowing it. That seemed really unlikely to me, but okay whatever.

I guess the good thing is that since we now know what's wrong with him, he can't go on complaining and whining about not knowing what's wrong with him. At some point, I lost my empathy and compassion for his getting sick because I couldn't stand all the whining. I wanted to tell him to just suck it up, and all he would do is mope and drag his feet and whine and act more pathetic because he can't help it; he's sick.

*sigh*

So I wonder if I'll get sick, too, because I really have never had mono. I don't believe that I would have gotten mono and not reacted to it, or have had it and chalked it up to a normal cold. If I do get sick with mono, especially now that summer's setting in, I am going to be very resentful. Yet, I know I can't get mad at him; he couldn't help it. But then who DO I get mad at? The world, for my terrible luck?

parents

Relationship with the 'rents have been extremely down lately. I call my parents once a week, on Sundays. Sometimes we talk for a long time; other times it's a mere minute or two just to say hi, to check in. About three weeks ago, I had a really long conversation with my parents. This was maybe just a couple of week or so after my laying it out for my mom why RC and I broke up. I laid out for my mom how the biggest reason I am in grad school was for them (which is partially true), and how I really don't want to be in school, and school and research in general make me unhappy.

She seemed really surprised, asking me "But, I thought you wanted to go to grad school." *sigh* Such ignorance and injustice. That pretty much opened up all the flood gates, and I proceeded to tell her that she and dad never listened to what I wanted.

She used to always ask me "Why wouldn't you go to grad school? Why wouldn't you try to get the highest degree you can?" Errr .... maybe because getting degrees isn't like picking out apples at the supermarket? Even when I had four job offers on hand my fourth year in college, when I told them that I didn't want to apply to grad schools anymore, that I want to take one of the job offers and just see how I feel about school in a couple of years, their response was that I can't let go of the opportunity of grad school. If I don't even apply, I won't have that door open for me, and especially since I'd always wanted to go to grad school (a sentiment they forced on me). *sigh* Such ignorant bullshit.

At one point, I remember telling my mom about my thoughts of going with one of the consulting job offers and going to business school after a couple of years or so. She seemed okay with the idea, but her first question was "How does an MBA compare to a PhD? Are they at the same level?" All she cared about was the level of education I needed to attain, not the practicality of it. After my dad told her that a MBA is a MASTERS degree, god forbid, she decided that MBAs were no good because they weren't PhDs.

Her next project was to get me to get a finance/management PhD. "Why go just for the MBA? Why not get the PhD?" Errrr .... maybe because the only reason you get a PhD is if you want to teach and do research in finance, and I wouldn't NEED a PhD to be a banker. She is so ignorant, yet so insistent on what she feels is the pinnacle of education: the highest degree possible, the elusive doctorate.

Throughout my phone conversation with her, what my mom just couldn't seem to fathom was how this could possibly be? She was flabbergasted that I never told them before that I didn't really want to go to grad school, and how can this be true when I've never told them before? I never told them because I didn't want to get more lectures about how I've strayed from the path of education and knowledge. Whenever I questioned grad school, they always asked me because how I can be content with just a B.S. when I know there is MORE out there? They are blinded by the status of a PhD.

So now my relationship with my parents are a bit strained. I feel awkward talking to them. I figure time will help, because no matter what happens, they're still my parents. However, given this and the conversation about RC, I just feel much less willing to talk to them about things. They think about problems in a completely different light than I do, and theirs isn't necessarily helpful. It's too conservative, too ignorant.

And yet another part of me feels terrible for having brought about this rift between me and my parents. I don't want to resent them, and I don't want them to know that I resent them. *sigh* So it turns out that my parents are typical Asian parents after all: they simply can't let go and allow me to make my own decisions.