cold

i just spent the evening with MGF. i met him at his office (i wondered about that, actually. i walked up to the receptionist and said, "i'm here to see Mr. MGF. i'm a little early, though so don't worry if you don't catch him in his office." and then i sat there and read my book. i'm sure she thought i was a client or something until he walked up to me with is bag and said, "what, are you applying for a job?" and then we walked out together like it was no big thing. the GF works there too, is what i'm sayin'). he was gruuuumppppy! he could've warned me. actually, the whole evening was rather sullen. we usually spend a couple of hours talking and laughing and trash talking and tonight was sombre, sad and almost sentimental conversation. i asked him how things were going with the GF (not that i really wanted to know but i thought i should ask - don't ask, it's a me-thing). he said they had gotten into a huge fight and weren't really speaking. apparently, she had done a lingerie internet fashion show on the weekend or last week or something and he tuned in to watch - bad idea. he told her that if she wanted to continue to do stuff like that in her spare time, then he didn't want to see her anymore. yikes. so, they are at a low point in their relationship.

last week, i was talking to Baby Man about how he though i could approach the whole "backup" thing with MGF. he said at this point, it couldn't be done. well, the opportunity lent itself tonight and i didn't ask him. i even asked him if he had a backup and he said that he hadn't thought about it. i told him i used to have a backup but i don't anymore. and yet i didn't ask him if he would be mine. maybe i thought it would be weird.

the weird thing is, i can honestly say that - as a friend - i love him. i value his friendship very much. and yet there is only, maybe 5% that wants to be with him in more than just a friendship. truthfully, i think we'd be great together and yet there's something missing. anyway.

on another (sad) note, my OC is back from his holidays. he was very tired as he just got in last night so perhaps i should give him the benefit of the doubt. first day back, lots of e-mails to catch up on, etc. but he barely acknowledged me today (except when i was holding the baby...one of the girls on mat leave brought her 4 week old in - again- and they convinced me to hold him. i don't like holding newborns as a rule but mostly because i don't like the hand-off, floppy heads and all. but he was just fine with me and started to fall asleep the minute i held him. but i digress). maybe i am over him. and oddly enough, that makes me sad.

on the baby-tip, Baby Man brought his baby man in one day and i was standing in the hallway with the baby - he was about 6 months at the time so he was getting to the "fun" age. anyway, i was holding him and bouncing him around, cooing, etc. just being the total dork i am with kids, and i happened to glance over in the direction of my OC's office and, even though i wasn't in his direct line of sight, he had obviously been watching me and had the cutest smile on his face (my OC, not the baby...although the baby was right there with him). he had that same look today when he was leaning over to look at the newborn as i was holding him. i think we'd have pretty babies.

but i'm not there anymore. and all it took was three weeks. i thought about him the entire three weeks and now that's he's back, i don't think i even want to bother anymore.

p.s. done with the online dating. did i mention that the last time i wrote?

giant leap

let me tell you a story.

first, some background: my friend asked me a few months ago if i could recommend a good divorce lawyer in town as her parents, who have been separated for most of her 24 years, have finally decided to make it legal and get a divorce. naturally, i suggested a lawyer at my firm but i wanted to give her a couple of other alternatives. so, i asked my boss, the Ninja, if he knew of any good family law lawyers (he doesn't practice it himself). he gave me a couple of names and then said, "Joe Smith - he's the one I'd use."

further background to my story... the Ninja has marital problems. serious, serious marital problems. i don't think he knows that i know, but i do.

jump to the present. the Ninja has been very moody lately - kind of sad, tense and a host of other emotions that i've picked up on. we Cancers are very sensitive to other people's feelings and his moods have been killing me lately. he's just been so sad. i finally asked him last week, "are you stressed?" and he said, "yes." and i said, "is there something i can help with?" and he said, "no, it's all self-imposed."

today, he sends me an e-mail and asks me, "does the firm get discounted rates at any of the local hotels around here? if so, can you find out how much?" he has no files that i know of that require clients or witnesses to be put up in a hotel. but then again, he lives out in the valley and commutes every day so i thought, perhaps, he was looking for an alternative to working late (as if!) and then driving home in the late hours in the dark.

the sealer of the paranoid deal for me was as he was leaving today. he said, "ok, i have a dinner meeting with the Board guy. can you do me a favor before you leave today?" dutifully, i say, "sure". he looks skyward and i swear his voice cracked slightly as he asked me, "can you e-mail me Joe Smith's number?"

holy F.

boys!

MGF responded to a harmless e-mail i had sent him on friday afternoon, after i had seen him at the call ceremony. he finishes his response with, "You looked hot today according to one of my friends. I told him that I nailed you, even if it isn't true - it's a guy thing, sorry." i had to laugh. we traded a few responses back and forth, mostly about whether his friend was hot and whether he was married. i kept pestering him to tell me more, send me his picture, etc. i don't know why i needed to know; i just did. at one point he said, "If it helps, I thought you looked amazing too." i responded with a heartfelt, "thanks, it did help." his final e-mail before i logged off today was, "If you're really thankful, you'll send me naked pictures. I'll be sure to forward them onto my friend. Ha, ha, hee, hee." boys.

however, he didn't specify naked pictures of whom. :)

maybe it IS me

i went out on a brunch date with a guy i met online. we've been trading e-mails for a number of weeks (a no-no for me) and finally managed to find a mutually convenient date for ... well, a date.

from his first e-mail to me, which detailed the recent breakup of his 13 year marriage, i had my doubts as to whether he would be someone i wanted to even meet. he's a bit older than me - he just turned 41 - which was also a bit of a concern. and if it wasn't the narrative of his divorce that put me on red alert, it was his mention of the fact the had attended several Tony Robbins seminars in the past few years. not that there's anything wrong with that. he's also considers himself a Buddhist (he's caucasian, not that there's anything wrong with that) and went to all events concerning the Dalai Lama last weekend or the weekend before. in fact, he was a few minutes late for our date because he had to run down to Wal-Mart to buy a VCR because his broke and there was a show on the Dalai Lama on TV today that he wanted to watch. ok. but, his pictures were cute and he seemed nice enough in his e-mails (albeit wordy), so i thought i would give it a shot.

the two voicemails he left me over the past week were normal. nice voice, didn't ramble. when i spoke with him on the phone on saturday night, he sounded fine. he almost insisted that he pick me up for our date (he lives in langley and we were going to south surrey for brunch at northlands golf & country club - home of the PGA tour, thanks very much). i told him it would be fine by me if i just met him there since it didn't make sense that he drive all the way out to pick me up, only to drive all the way back to where he started from. i think it was just an "old-fashioned" thing to suggest, which i appreciate, but i had no idea whether he was a serial killer or not. and then he kept suggesting that we go for a walk at the pier in white rock after brunch, if i was feeling comfortable.

i won't detail the date but i will summarize my thoughts - he's a really nice guy. boyishly cute, very successful businessman, seems very grounded, generally a happy person. yet he came across (to me) as a bit of a fruitcake (and not in the gender-specific way). it's not that he preached what he learned at his Tony Robbins seminars, because he didn't. it's not that he was loopy or did weird things at brunch, because he didn't. but the overall package... he was dressed in a hawaiian shirt, shorts, runners and white athletic socks...yes, pulled up. he pressed his hands together and bowed at me when i walked up to meet him. he was severely encroaching on my personal space, which he warned me about but i didn't realize he would be such a frequent offender. he did this weird sort of audible breath intake thing at the end of some of his sentences. he crinkled his face at me when he smiled after saying something about himself. and then he bailed on the pier walk idea (which was fine because i was going to bail on it anyway).

i don't know that he'll call me again and i don't know whether i want him to. he was a good hugger (he said i was too and went in for a second one, which i gladly gave) but i can't see myself as anymore than friends with him. not that we have anything in common enough to be friends.

i know i'm a little slow but i think i've realized why most of the guys i like but aren't attracted to are not my friends - we just don't have anything in common. it's arguable that i have anything in common with MGF, for example, but for some reason, we manage to stay in touch and fairly regularly. heck, i see him more often than i see my good friends from school. i wonder what the motivation is.

incidentally, i saw him at the call ceremony at the law courts on friday afternoon. i don't know that he was surprised to see me but he hugged me twice. he knows Baby Man (they said hey and shook hands). odd, because i talk about MGF with Baby Man. and it turns out they know each other. spooky.

serious mad crush

i just finished watching "House". how can an old guy be so hot?

my cousin says it's the character - the ascerbic, loner doctor whom you know has the capacity to love and be loved yet doesn't allow himself because he's been hurt so he dedicates himself to his work. i believe that.

yet, i saw hugh laurie on "Ellen" the other day and ... still sexy. i think it's the scruffiness factor too. and the british accent. and he's tall. and has blue eyes. and that one-sided half-smile. and he plays tortured so well.

the part in the show tonight where he's eye-flirting with the almost-18 year old girl... rrrrr. he can eye-flirt with me anyday. yow!

more flirting?

MGF and i have been e-mail chatting for the past couple of work days. i am only surprised because we never do it. usually i send him some sort of information e-mail and then he asked how things are, i tell him and then ask him how things are, he tells me and then suggest we meet for coffee. we figure out a date and then don't chat again until the day of, whenever that happens to be.

friday and then again today, we spent the whole day e-mailing each other. and again today, he says something like, "i would love the day when you call me and say, i've met the guy of my dreams - be happy for me. and truthfully, i would be happy for you and i look forward to when i can share that happiness with you." WTF?

i asked Baby Man what he thought of that and he said, in all seriousness, "he obviously cares about you and wants you to be happy, even if it means it's not with him." and then he said, "it's a good thing for you. i think you should go for it. get in between him and his girlfriend ... figuratively speaking, of course." then we started talking about my OC.

he and i had this conversation last week that turned to my OC's sexual orientation. Baby Man has come up with a plan wherein we will test his theory by me seducing my OC. my deadline is the Christmas party. i have not agreed to this plan...but i like it :)

handy woman

i fixed my oven lock. after some banging on the latch with the hammer and poking around the spring with the screwdriver, i finally decided to use the pliers and bent the damn latch up so the oven door can close. i can't lock it anymore but it's not like it matters - who's going to open the oven door if it's in cleaning mode?

hmmm

MGF and i had a bit of an e-mail exchange today, after i forwarded him an excerpt from an impaired driving charge defence. he asked me in a P.S. how things were going with the guy he dropped me off with the night before. i told him that i had ended it. this started our usual cheeky exchange but at the end, he said something something to the effect of, "i'm really sorry it didn't work out with this guy. i know you weren't interested in him but i was hoping he would be someone who would make you happy. i guess i will be your sounding board for guy problems for a little while longer." i know it sounds a bit backhanded but he meant well and i appreciated it.

in the midst of other e-mails, we touched on my project for him wherein i am to arrange a threesome for him (his GF has allowed him one freebie). this project, as we both know fully know, is a farce. it will never happen. but it's always fun to talk about. so i sent him an e-mail that said, "just out of curiosity, what is your age limit or do you have one? what do you think, maybe one cougar and one kitten, just for variety's sake?" he e-mailed me back, "i laughed so hard when i read the part about the kitten. so, are you the cougar then?" har har. i e-mailed back with a final, "i fancy myself more as the kitten - meow."

at least i've had some flirty e-mail exchange this week.

how am i supposed to cook?

i broke the lock on my oven door. i was making french fries and thought i'd try out the lock while i was waiting. it worked too well. something snapped inside and locked the door permanently. so i did some "work" and managed to force the handle back to the unlocked position...except the latch is still in the latched position. so, i can open my oven door but i can't close it all the way now. think about all of the wonderful things i am missing out on making because i broke the lock! i was going to try and make spanakopita this weekend. and i just bought two huge bags of french fries (2 for $8.00!). i loathe having to call a repair guy to come in and fix it but i'm sure it'll cost me less than buying a new oven, not that i can afford a new oven right now. not that i can really afford to buy the food that goes in the oven right now. i need to stay off e-bay.

stuck

how can you tell whether you're being too picky or whether you're just not attracted to someone?

none of the guys i've met and been out with this time around on my dating site have made me want to make any effort to get to know them better or want to see them more often than when they phone me and say, "do you want to get together again?" to be polite, i always just say yes, and then try to find excuses as to why i have to cancel at the last minute.

there have been ones that i've had a seemingly mutual interest in getting to know, but they never call when they say they will nor do they respond to my "feeler" follow-up e-mails to say i enjoyed our coffee. and it doesn't bother me.

it's like my ability to feel anything for anyone is temporarily out of order. but the guilt i feel for not feeling anything is still very much there. i don't get it.

like the guy i went out with after my coffee with MGF. he e-mailed me that night to apologize for the abrupt goodbye and told me that he wanted to hug me goodbye because i smelled good but he didn't because the train came right away and he realized that if he left right then, he could catch his bus home. he told me that he thought i always looked good (elegant and stylish is what he actually said). then, he phoned and left a message for me last saturday night, saying the same thing and also apologizing for putting me on the spot when he said he wasn't seeing anyone else. he is still on two other dating sites and he still checks them regularly (so why isn't he seeing anyone else??). on paper, a great guy - nice, intersting stories, polite, well groomed. but in person, a bit dry and doesn't really seem all that interested. i don't know. am i wrong for not being attracted to him?

is there something wrong with me for wanting more than what these guys i've been meeting have to offer? am i wrong for not giving them more of a chance to show me what they can offer? i've always been a big believer in the first few impressions but then again, i was wrong when it came to MGF. i never thought he'd want to settle down and that's why i stopped dating him and yet a year later, he's got a girlfriend and i'm still single.

i think i'll go for a walk tomorrow at lunch and smile at people. let's see where that gets me.

sour grapes

once again, i had a fantastic time with MGF tonight. i met him at his office (there was a misunderstanding as to where we were supposed to meet - he meant i should come upstairs and meet him at reception and i thought we were going to meet where we always do in the lobby of his office building. a mock argument ensued and a bet was laid. i think he was unclear as to his instructions but we'll see tomorrow.). we walked to his apartment because he wanted to change his shoes (they were new and his feet hurt). we got to his apartment and we chatted while he changed out of his work clothes (he always keeps the door open, the little perv). he suggested we go to McD's for ice cream. i jumped on that bandwagon pretty quickly. we walked and talked. stood in line and talked. i stood back and let him order, watching the cashier flirt shameless with him (in front of me, how rude!) while he was completely oblivious ("how many ketchups would you like?" moan, moan, wink, wink). we sat on the library steps, as we always do, had an impromptu picnic and people watched. we talked. while i don't know how the subject even came up, he complimented me on how i looked ("you look amazing today. black is a really good color on you."). then i mentioned to him that i had a date after i met with him. we talked about it and he chastized me for agreeing to go out with someone when i had no real feelings for him. i was thisclose to standing my date up and spending the rest of the evening with MGF.

he offered to drive me to the date because i would've been late otherwise (actually, he said, "let me drop you off where he can see me and you can tell him i was your 5 o'clock!"). as we walked back to his apartment, and i verbally agonized over why i was going out with the guy i was about to go out with, MGF said, "why don't you just tell him you met someone? tell him that you've met someone that you want to get to know better." and i said, without really thinking, "you mean, what i told you?"

as the words came tumbling out of my mouth, i looked at his face. he sort of smiled as he realized the truth to what i had just said but he didn't look at me. i tried to make light of it, laughed and gave him a hug as we were walking, and he laughed and said, "oh, don't touch me now!" i managed to save some face by saying, "well, i obviously picked the wrong guy back then, now didn't i?"

i love being with him. i feel we get along so well. i'd like to think that eventually, one day, we'll end up together but i don't think it will be that way. a combination of bad timing and poor frame of mind (the latter on my part) prevented us from forming more than just a friendship and i think bad timing and circumstance will prevail. i know it's not positive thinking but at this point, it's not going to happen.

c'est la vie. zut alors!

done.

i am emotionally burned out. i think that's the best way to describe it. i would literally like to just hibernate for about a month or two - no socializing, no phone calls, no chatting, no online dates, no going out. just me in my apartment, reading or writing or pondering the meaning of life. alone. by myself.

it kind of scares me when i get like this. i mean, i'm fully aware of it so it can't be all that bad. and it's not as though i haven't been on the phone or visited with my friends this weekend. but just the thought of having to converse and be interested in someone i know i'm not interested it - that takes too much energy. i've already let one of my online potentials know i'm not interested. i only have a few more to go. maybe i'm not ready. maybe i really am too picky.

there's this lady at work who has been talking about setting me up with her son's friend. i'm open to it but today, i asked her, "how tall is he?" and she said, "oh, not tall. average, i guess." she said not much taller than my OC, who (if he didn't slouch) is still only about 5'10". i responded with an, "oh." and she said, "oh, this girl. you are picky. no wonder you haven't met anyone!" that may be so, but i don't think that makes me wrong. i mean, one of the guys i'm "dating" right now told me how much he weighs. it turns out (although i didn't say anything but in hindsight, perhaps i should've), i weigh 5 lbs more than he does. that freaking sucks. perhaps that's when i lost interest. and i know that's not much but how many men do you know want to weigh less than their significant others? and how many women want to be physically larger than the guy they are dating? if that makes me shallow, then call me a puddle.

i hate it when they try to figure out everything we have in common. maybe i really don't like them but it just irritates me. i don't want someone exactly like me - i need someone who's different from me but can appreciate what i have to offer (and vice versa). great, you like to stay home and do nothing on your days off? that's a selling point, isn't it? you're really going to encourage me to be more than what i am.

fuck i'm cranky. i'm going to bed.

p.s. coffee with MGF tomorrow (assuming he doesn't reschedule again). i'm looking forward to seeing him, just not the date i have afterwards.

before sunset

there was a delightfully refreshing moving that came out in 1994 or 1995 called "before sunrise". it starred ethan hawke and a french actress/singer named julie delpy. if you don't know it, the story is of these two young people who meet on a train heading to vienna. she is on her way home to france from budapest and he is stopping in vienna to catch a flight home to america. after chatting on the train, he convinces her to stop in vienna and kill time with him while he waits for his flight home the next morning. she agrees. they spend the evening wandering the streets of vienna, taking in local culture but mostly, talking. i loved this movie because it wasn't your typical love story set-up. anyway, they part and vow to meet in vienna six months later.

in 2004 or 2005, they released the sequel to the movie called "before sunset". it takes place 10 years after their parting in vienna (while the girl doesn't look too much older than the 10 years that have elapsed between the making of the movie and the time in the movie itself, ethan hawke looks like hell - he looks about 30 years older). he is now a successful writer who is stopping in paris on the last leg of his book tour. she is an environmental activist who lives in paris and comes to his book signing, hoping that he will remember her. he does. they spend the movie wandering the streets of paris, talking about their lives since their last meeting, and what their lives would have been like had they actually met up when they said they were going to (he showed up; she had to go to her grandmother's funeral; he wrote the book about the night they spent together in vienna). i loved that they took up the story 10 years later, and 10 years after the last movie was released. real time, real aging (at least on julie delpy's part; what the heck happened to ethan hawke???).

i tell you about this because both movies were shown last night on tv, back-to-back. i didn't watch the first one (truthfully, i have both on DVD) but i caught the second one just as he was doing his book signing at the paris bookstore and he sees her for the first time. the first time i watched the second movie, i don't remember what kind of headspace i was in but i cried at the end - not because it was sad and not because it was happy. i don't remember why. so, i watched the second movie again last night because i wanted to see what would happen. and i cried at the exact same spot. and it wasn't a happy or a sad cry. mournful, i think would be a better description.

it's the part in the movie where jesse and celine are riding in the car, driving celine home on his way to the airport to leave her for the second time. they are finally talking, discussing, airing out their feelings about their parting and what their lives might have been like had they met up again in vienna like they planned. when i was watching it last night, i started to get emotional when celine starts to lose it slightly and starts talking about how much she's been hurt in relationships and how now, she feels like she's unable to really love anyone. how every guy she dates ends up marrying the next woman he dates after her. the last emotional straw for me is when jesse tells her about his marriage and how he's tried everything he could to save it and the only reason he's in it is because of his little boy. he says that he doesn't want to get divorced at 52 because he realizes he never really loved his wife at all. and then he says that his idea of romantic love was never the same after the night he spent with celine in vienna. that he's never been able to feel the same way about anyone since then.

this one scene makes me realize that no matter how well you think you've dealt with your emotions in the past, there's always something left over that is going to be tweaked by the most unlikely thing and you'll have to deal with it, albeit on a smaller scale, all over again. to write this entry, i watched the scene again. and it made me cry again. and as the movie demonstrates, memory and emotions are powerful things, even if you're uncertain which one is driving the other.

breakthrough

last night, as i tried to get to sleep with a million and one things on my mind, an idea for a story came to me. it was just the premise and i only managed to get the first two paragraphs written at 11:30 last night but it's something. i'm inspired. i'm writing again.