Trust issues?

Talking to my roommate on Sunday:
Roommate: "One day you're going to want to meet someone."
Me: "Well, I would like to now, but I don't know how to meet someone that I would trust."
Roommate: "So, you're just waiting for some guy to show up with 'boyfriend' tatooed on his forehead?"
Me: "Well, no, I don't think I'd trust him either."

A rose by any other name

When PJ began dating Lara, his first girlfriend after our breakup, I was upset. In order to deny her existence, I refused to use her name. I only met her once face-to-face, so that wasn't a problem, but writing about her in my old paper-bound journal required creativity. Contrast that my recent entries about T's current girlfriend Kathy. Her identity is not masked through use of a nickname or initial. Previously when trying to disrespect a woman's role, I refused to call her by name and now I use that name as that sign of disrespect.

Oops

"Angie, your fax isn't going through," the receptionist informs me.  "Do you want to check that fax number?"

"I'm pretty sure it is right," I reply. "I took it off her fax cover sheet... wait, I see the problem.  That is our fax number--I used the 'to' number instead of the 'from' number."

Oops.

What are the chances?

Of going to the movies and sitting two seats over from one of my least-favorite former co-workers in a half-empty theater? Running into him again in the parking lot after the movie?

Had to share

"'When couples drop out of sex, they're often less willing to be
playful...to be friends,' says Weiner Davis." Parenting March
2005

What were HER parents thinking?

The best setup

My coworker R was on the phone with her flirtation C last night while he was at his pool league. When his turn came up, he handed his cell phone to one of his friends. R could hear singing in the background and asked what it was.

"Frank Sinatra," was his reply. "We all chipped in and brought him back from the dead."

"How'd you do that?" she asked.

"By the bar, of course."

Borrowing trouble

PJ and I broke up around Labor Day and I suffered through our failed reconciliation about a month later. One night in November I was in my dorm suite by myself. I heard my roommates' phone ring and then stop--and then mine rang. Of course I answered it. It was PJ on the other end.

"One of your roommates said I could borrow her wine goblets tonight for the dinner I'm making. Could you find them for me so I could come up and get them?"

"Oh, okay," I replied.

A few minutes later he appeared at my door and I handed over the glasses while we made awkward small talk. I think we were both glad when he left to go downstairs to finish his dinner preparations.

My roommates came home a little while later and I told them about PJ's call and visit. My roommates exchanged a look and one of them broke the news to me that he had been preparing dinner for a girl, Lara, he'd met earlier that week.

Classy--borrowing glasses from the ex-girlfriend to impress the new prospect.

Bear

He sits cross-legged on the floor in my bedroom, keeping an eye on me and even tolerating the sailor's hat which sits at a jaunty angle on his head and has my name written across it. Every so often I run my knuckles over his head fondly as I walk past him, remembering when he came into my life.

When I was five, my grandparents brought this huge package to my house as a gift for me. I don't remember much from my childhood, but I do remember tearing into the package, wrapped in trashbags and taller than I was, while standing in our kitchen. There he was--my huge bear.

My grandfather's business was almost 30 years old at that time, and my grandmother had just received her first paycheck from it, despite helping build and run the business since its inception. She was near Boulder visiting her parents that weekend and she saw this bear in a little store and knew I had to have it as a souvenir of her first paycheck. So she bought the bear and her dad helped put in the passenger's seat of her car to bring it home. "I'll bet you could drive in the carpool lane with this guy in the passenger's seat," he laughed.

That bear also starred in my elementary school act of Elvis' "Won't You Be My Teddy Bear?" Showing his good humor, he also tolerated the other kids punching in his long nose--better than I did, not surprisingly.

This week, whenever I see him, I also send off another birthday wish for my grandmother. Happy 75th Mia!

Not a good sign

I walk up to the checkout counter at my friendly nearby Staples and the checker asks if I found everything I needed.

"Yes," I reply with a smile.

"You were in here earlier today, weren't you?" she asks.

"Yes, I needed a modem with the drivers on CD and you don't carry any--the salesman was really helpful--so I went back to my office, found out which modem you sell has drivers available online, downloaded them, and now I came back to buy the modem."

"Great," she says. "Do you want the product replacement warranty on the modem or the phone?"

"No, the modem is a gift and my current portable phone has lasted for eight years and ten moves, so I should be good."

"What kind of phone is that? XXXX? Oh." She leans toward me and begins to speak at a lower volume. "The voicemail will be the first part of this to go. When you call customer service, tell them that you only bought it 14 days ago and that the store you bought it from won't accept it as a return. If you have to, you can threaten to call the Better Business Bureau."

/GULP./

Demanding satisfaction

I got this cute green blouse about a year ago that I wanted to wear yesterday, so Wednesday night I pulled it out of the closet and noticed it was pretty wrinkled. The care instructions said "low iron when necessary" so I shut off my misgivings and warmed up my iron. After laying the blouse on the ironing board, I put the iron to the blouse and quickly pulled it away--but too late. There is now a melted hole with singed edges in my blouse. And a factual email demanding satisfaction in some customer service lackey's inbox.

Update: an actual human being contacted me from the store where I bought it and I'm going to call her today to give her more details and find out what they are willing to do for me.

Why I love living here

Forecast: Maybe a few sprinkles with highs in the mid 50s.

11 am: Spring blizzard conditions complete with rapidly accumulating wet snow and gusting winds.

2 pm: Clear sky, sun shining, and snow on vehicles and roads completely melted.  A few flakes still falling.

Not wanted

I've been considering trying online dating and in preparation for that step, have tried to define what I'm looking for in a man right now. In general the qualities I want seem straightforward: intelligence and a sense of humor. The specifics are a bit more limiting, for example, I'm looking for someone within about 5 years of my age, working in a professional position, and childless. It is this last criterion that currently has me worked up.

That guy that J introduced me to a couple weekends ago has an 8-year-old son. Being perfectly honest, he is nice but I didn't feel any special interest. Trying to figure out how to let him know I'm not interested without hurting him or upsetting J, I've thought about using his son as an excuse, but that doesn't feel right since that isn't the main reason I'm not interested. However, it has forced me to examine why I feel so certain that I don't want to date a father.

I'm in my mid-twenties and I've been supporting myself for several years now. I have all the basics of modern life and a few luxuries. I hold several leadership positions including working with girls from 11-21. I've been babysitting since I was 13. Obviously it isn't that kids scare me.

It is the idea of being a parent that terrifies me. I've wanted to eventually be a mom for as long as I can remember, but right now I don't feel like I enough of an "adult" to be a parent. Before I become a mom I want to be married to a great guy and have a home with him. I'm not ready to take on a parenting role to the child of a man I'm dating.

I would imagine that dating a man with a child would also have a different dynamic. At this point dating is something I'm out of practice with and I would prefer to start out casually. I'm probably assuming too much, but I worry that I couldn't casually date a dad.

So, for now, I'm sticking with my choice that dating a father isn't for me. I hate to make a blanket judgment like that, but I have to do what is right for me.

The way the simple folk live

The first night I babysat Alex, she was eating dinner when I arrived. Her dad explained her routine to me and then I joined her, sitting in a high stool at the tiled kitchen island. I'd had a quick dinner before I arrived so I watched this slight shy girl pick at the food in front of her. It appeared to be some pasta and sausage dish that most seven-year-olds wouldn't enjoy. Once her dad and his girlfriend were gone, she began to ask me if she could be done with her dinner and have her Hershey's bar for dessert. I knew she hadn't finished what her dad had determined was "enough" but I felt like this was a little girl being forced into living like a grown up, and I was happy to indulge her a little.

I babysat Alex a number of other times over the next year or so. Once that summer we managed to set off the security system and I didn't get the code punched in before the alarm company called to see if we were okay. I juggled two phones, reassuring the alarm operator that I was a babysitter and we were fine, while I talked to Alex's dad on the other line to try and find the correct art book in the living room to find the code. I did find it and managed to not require a visit from the police, but even now when I think of that house, it represents a higher class of living than I'm accustomed to.

There is a large part of me that would like to have a life like that--cooking tasteful dinners, drinking wine, reading fiction that isn't romance novels, actually reading the Newsweek magazine that I get each week. Every day and almost every decision I make is at this crossroads--should I go to Walmart to get a replacement for the lamp in my bedroom that isn't working? Should I buy the Care Bear fruit snacks and Goldfish crackers for office snacks while I'm there? And then there are the bigger choices--if I date him, and we ended up together, what kind of life would we have? Would we have a library of art coffee table books and cook sausage and pasta dinners for our kids? Or would we live in a modest house serving chicken nuggets and reading trashy novels?

I'm at a crossroads--I can continue to live the easy life or make the effort to change and make my life more sophisticated. Should I date the man who would buy art books or the one who would read TV Guide with me? Do I want to give up my fruit snacks and crackers in favor of sausage pasta and wine?

Anger

I rarely get mad. People tell me that I just let things roll off my back. Generally, I guess that is true. My energy is spent analyzing and evaluating every move I make or even think of making. Maybe I just can't expend the additional energy to analyze what other people are saying to me--at least not in that moment. I certainly can't expend the energy to rage and scream.

I can't think of a time when I have raged. The ways I express my anger typically range from tears to sarcasm to holding myself rigid and shaking while I try to defend myself. But I've been exposed to quite a bit of turmoil and anger recently. The chapter I advise is going through a rough time and some of the women I work most closely with are experiencing the brunt of the negativity (hence my previous post).

Not being familiar with rage or people who rage, I am struggling a bit to figure out how to deal with this. Since I don't rage, I have to believe that there are more effective ways of expressing your feelings. How do you ask someone who needs to let out those feelings to stifle them in favor of communicating another way? Is there a better way to support someone who rages? I've been trying by sending little notes and suggesting that we get together. I understand that it is difficult to be villified for things your position required you to do, but please don't rage. It scares me and I think we can handle it better. Just let me help you.

Taking responsibility

Things people should take personal responsibility for:

• showing up drunk for a sorority ritual
• bringing alcohol to a social event at a restaurant when you're underage
• causing high drama because you're upset you got caught
• not doing your job
• no one reminded you to sign that form
• hurting other people's feelings by not appreciating the work they've done
• being unhappy even when we're trying to make you happy

I don't care that:

• you forgot
• you forgot
• you're upset
• you're busy
• you forgot
• you have your own commitments
• we're not mind readers

The Replacements

I was just finishing my freshman year and wondering where my place in the sorority was. I had never contemplated quitting, but at sorority functions I felt as I so often do--like a silent observer of the life going on around me.

Come May I attended our "Senior Sendoff" because it was mandatory. I was waiting quietly, expecting to be shut out of the regifting, when Pam called out my name. She declared me to be her "rush crush" and gave me her "Show us your Speedos" philanthropy shirt--one of the shirts which narrowly escaped being pinked recently. Thankfully.

Because there are just some things you can't replace.

Other mundane details

Friday night I got the bright idea to wash a load of whites and then my partial load of reds--but dry them together. Sure, sometimes reds run, but not while they're in the dryer, right? Wrong.

The white top that I loved, which apparently contributed to my "hotness" last Saturday night, is now pink. Bleaching will commence soon--once I get a spare moment.

Putting a smile on my face

My afternoon snack: Care Bear fruit snacks and Goldfish crackers.

How old am I?

How to handle this woman

I would like to be loved like in the movies, but there are a few other rules that one should follow if they would like to successfully woo me.

• Let me know you're interested but then let me process it. I need time and space.
• Don't make me feel like you're pressuring me. I'll run in the opposite direction.
• If I'm avoiding eye contact with you, I'm already pushing you away.
• Don't make me approach you--I won't.
• Let me fill the silence. If you want to hear what I think, ask me the question and then wait until I answer it. All of it.
• If I just met you on Saturday, on Monday it might be too early to start a phone conversation with: "Hey beautiful." If you've called me three-plus times in less than 48 hours, it is too many times.