stand off-ish

i had someone on my dating site send me a smile and his pictures. nice. he then sent me an e-mail that said, "you seem a little stand-offish." who says that in an introductory e-mail? ok, he's right and i thought it was really funny that he even mentioned it but, really, who says that?

i have a date (not with that guy) on thursday. i'll let you know how it goes.

the sushi guy date was okay. no sparks on my end and not on his either. by the next day, he had deleted me from his MSN list. you gotta love that technology - at least you're not kept wondering.

i wish i didn't have that nagging feeling that i'd be missing something if i left my dating site again. i'd be off it already. but i always wonder who i would miss if i stopped using it all together. maybe after thursday, i'll take myself off again.

not to sound like a hypo, but i think i have rosacea. i'll have to see a dermatologist to be sure (duh) but my dad has it and i understand that it's hereditary. also, in women, they tend to exhibit symptoms when menopause begins. hmm.... could explain a few things.

i'm not going to make a special appointment to see my doc. i think i'll just go to see her when i go to see the specialist next month. kill two birds with one stone, as they say.

i wish i had more interesting news for you but that's about it. i've been laying low for the past few weeks, with a few outings here and there, but mostly quiet and i plan on keeping it that way, whether i like it or not.

i miss my doctor

my "old" doctor "retired" last year - he's now the director of some private medical clinic in the city. the new doctor that took over his patients (or that the clinic referred patients to when he left) is younger, a female but not as good. i always feel so rushed when i'm in there to see her and really, i only ever go for my annual checkup. and i'm convinced now that she doesn't prepare before she sees patients because she walked into the exam room today and said, "so, what can i do for you today?" you asked me to come in, remember? it should at least say that much in the notes. grr.

in a hour, i am meeting another online date, for sushi. usually i don't do meals on the first date but for a number of reasons, i had to give in. first, i don't drink alcohol. second, he doesn't drink coffee. third, i really wanted to go for sushi. fourth, he doesn't live downtown and doesn't work downtown but offered to come out my way to meet up. i think that's it.

about him - not sure why i'm meeting him, actually. he seems nice enough, although i think he's more of a boozer than he lets on. not that that's a bad thing necessarily but it's certainly not something i do so it's something to consider when screening for potential dates. in fact, his picture had him hoisting a mug of beer up to the camera - again, i can't remember why i smiled at him but i did. oh well, i guess we'll find out what he's like in a short while. i'll keep you posted.

stupid thing

over a month ago, i confessed about this guy that i had met on my dating site and began chatting with. i think i mentioned that MGF admonished me for phoning this guy before he phoned me. i haven't heard from the guy since. remember i thought he was lying dead somewhere?

well, i was on my dating site earlier this week and who should be on at the same time as me but this guy - i don't even think i gave him a name. anyway, he's alive and well. no, i didn't talk to him. i haven't see him on MSN since i saw him on the dating site and today, i checked (yes, i checked) and he's deleted me from his MSN list.

i know it's a stupid thing to feel sad about but i am a little sad. if i take MGF's word, this guy never bothered calling me back because i was too accessible (too "easy" i think were his exact words) - i called him so why should he bother calling me, type-of-thing. no challenge. go figure.

i went for a medical test a week ago today and last friday, there was a message from my doctor's office. she wants me to come in to discuss the test results. that sounds good, eh? :) i see her tomorrow afternoon.

of course, i'm letting my imagination run wild with this one. she might just be updating me on the status of things or she might be telling me my situation has gotten worse (i could have told her that). she could prescribe a higher dose drug (which would suck because my moods are just fine, thanks very much) or it may be that surgery is the only way to go. in which case, i'll start looking for my dog now. har har.

some assistant fire warden

i decided to go to bed early tonight. at 9:30, i packed it in and was probably sleeping by 10. about fifteen minutes ago, i was awoken by the shrieks of the building's fire alarm. i should be thankful that: a) they work; and b) i heard them. i got up, wandered to the window to see if i could see fire or smoke. i then wandered out to the livingroom window to get a better view. then, i checked just outside my front door. i peeked around the corner and saw a neighbour trying to press the smoke alarm. he saw me, shrugged and walked away. i spent the next five minutes trying to find my ear plugs and hemming and hawing about whether to phone 911 or just our property manager. then, i got dressed, grabbed my cell phone and wallet and keys and wandered down the hall. i met up with my neighbour who said she couldn't find her cat and that we should mosey on outside. i could see a firetruck outside the window.

we get to the ground floor and open the lobby door and there are four firefighters, fiddling with the sprinkler panel (all about 6'3" in their uniforms but none to write home about). outside, a handful of neighbours stood. i thought to myself, "huh. i guess i should take these things seriously, even if i know it's just the sprinklers malfunctioning."

it's comforting to know that i really am calm in these types of situations. but perhaps a sense of urgency is needed when it comes to fire safety. thank goodness i live in a lowrise.

hopefully, i can get back to sleep.

vincent

i've been singing with my Magic Mic for the past hour or so now (poor neighbours). i've sang everything from laura branigan's showstopper, "Gloria", to bette midler's "The Rose". i've laughed as sang the carpenters' "Goodbye to Love" and cheesed my way through Queen's "Somebody to Love". i've been fine. i've laughed at myself. i've wondered if the neighbours can hear me and if they can, do they think i'm nuts? and then, i get to one of my very favorites, don maclean's "Vincent".

lately, when i've sang it, i've started to cry when i get to the part where he sings, "and when no hope was left in sight on the starry, starry night / you took your life as lovers often do / but i could have told you, vincent / this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you". this time, i started to tear up and my voice started to crack as i sang, "now i understand / what you tried to say to me / and how you suffered for your sanity / and how you tried to set them free..."

i can't understand it. i'm starting to think that perhaps, my subconscious knows something that i don't. perhaps i am mentally ill - clinically depressed or schizophrenic maybe - and i don't know it yet. why the song about the genius yet suicidal artist makes me cry, i don't know. "...perhaps [i] never will".

signs, signs, everywhere there's signs

the Department of Justice has a posting for a paralegal. i've received the posting no less than four different times from four different, unrelated sources. do you think it's a sign? i should apply for it. the starting salary is more than i make now. what's the worse they could do? hire me?

volunteered at the judges' dinner again tonight. and again, two years in a row, public transportation done me wrong. last year, i think it was snow related or the traffic was at a standstill. this year, a skytrain car decided to go off the rails (when i was not on it) and messed up the entire system. a trip that normally would take me 25 minutes took me almost 2 1/2 hours. i was suppose to be the first person to get there (with the nametags and the attendance list) and i was one of the last. luckily, i arrived with so much adrenaline pumping through me that i was able to butterfly around to different tables and socialize. i joked around in the buffet lineup with one of the provincial court judges. i joked around at the receiving table with an appeal judge. i made great conversation with a very attractive male lawyer sitting beside me at our table (he's married with child on the way). i was even able to say hello and sustain a good conversation with my former boss, now PCJ in Surrey. it was fab. but next year, i'm taking the day off so i can actually get to the event on time.

and now, to bed for this girl.

OD

my mom phoned and left a message on my voicemail about an hour ago. it was something to the effect of, "i don't know where you are right now and i know your brother normally goes to your grandma's on saturday night but can you two come over tonight? there's something i need to talk to you about."

i phoned my dad's and no one was home. i phoned my mom and she said basically the same thing she said on her message. and then told me to phone my brother because she hadn't talked to him yet.

i phoned him and asked him if he was going to grandma's tonight. he said no. i said, "ok, mom wants the two of us to come over tonight." i don't even think i told him that she wanted to talk to us about something. he said okay and i told him to phone me when he got home.

a few minutes later, he phoned again and said, "what's this about?" i don't know. why? "dad wants to know if he has to be there." huh? "dad wants to know if he's supposed to come with us tonight." i told him that as far as i knew, it was just supposed to be the two of us. so my dad will go to my grandma's instead. i hung up the phone.

and now, as i am thinking about it, it was a strange question for my dad to ask. as far as i know, they're not even speaking to each other right now; why would she want him to come over with us?

there's something going on - something is amiss. he knows something we don't which means they've been talking. or communicating in some way. knowing my mom, she's just being over-dramatic about wanting to tell us something but then again, you never know.

weathered

i know i bitch about this whenever i get the chance but i hate it when it snows! i don't still live on the west coast because i was hoping for a climate change. i live here for the mild weather. a foot of snow on the cars is not mild. this is freaking ridiculous.

because i live by mostly side streets and gigantic hills, they don't bother clearing the streets or the sidewalks so this morning, i slipped my way to the train. i should've bought ice-skates instead of snow boots.

i don't mind the cold weather - i actually like how cold and crisp the air is. but enough of the damn snow. enough of the ice. enough of the skytrain malfunctions. enough of the buses not running because they haven't cleared the hills.

i mean it - if it's like this next year, i'm moving. to san diego.

on a different note, i am entertaining the idea of becoming a foster parent. i know that the kids that need fostering aren't angels but i think it's a good way to see whether or not i could actually handle being a parent while at the same time, helping out kids who need it. not that i have any room in my apartment to do this. "entertaining" the idea is really the only think i can do right now.

had coffee with MGF yesterday. nothing out of the ordinary was said or happened. nothing more to say. although, when i told him about that guy that i was MSNing with and then he never got in contact with me again (you know, the one that reminded me of my ex), he was a bit frustrated with me when i told him i e-mailed and phoned him. his said something to the effect of, "i wish you had phoned me for a consult first! you shouldn't have called him. men like the chase, even if they don't like the chase." again, i learn so much from him. he also chastised me for not applying for the paralegal position in his department. i don't know if i would like working with him - it would be with him too. when we went up to his office to get his stuff, he pointed to a small office across from his and said, "that would've been your office." as much as i would like my own office, my current desk is enormous; that office was tiny. i'll keep my desk, thanks.

but if i did leave my firm, which i won't, i would want to get into a bigger firm. apparently, BLG has a pension plan. and they currently have two litigation paralegal positions advertised. i'm not ready to leave my firm yet. but i'm "entertaining" the idea.

fixation

my coffee / after-work-bite-to-eat date with the persistent-but-not-pushy guy this evening was not unlike the temperature of my hot water when they switched the boiler tanks in my apartment building this summer: lukewarm.

i don't know if he was trying to be cool and not act like we'd never met before or what but when i walked up to him in front of the restaurant, he was very blase. gave me a one-armed, half-hearted hug (which we all know i hate) and the rest of the evening was chit chat, some discussion about our respective families, our jobs, the weather. one or two references to us getting together again but when we parted ways, he said, "let's keep in touch and maybe we can do this again," which translates into, "not going to call you."

don't get me wrong; i felt no chemistry with him. but once again, i wonder whether it's me. do i take that good of a picture that when they meet me in person, it's a disappointment? did i talk too much? not enough? did it seem like i wasn't interested in what he had to say? admittedly, i don't bend over backward to impress someone; that's just not my style. i always figure if we get along then everything else should come naturally. should i have more of a fighting impulse? should i be more aggressive?

i have a coffee date with MGF tomorrow afternoon. i know he will tell me the truth so i'm going to ask him what kind of impression i make. perhaps it's not a fair question since, at one point, he did like me enough to date me so he's probably a little biased. who else could i ask?

i know what you might say to all of this ranting; that it's not me, it's him. but at some point, i have to wonder, "it can't always be them so maybe it IS me..."

at this point, i don't care. there's a new "House" on tonight :)

on the other fixation point, ever since i read my journals, i've been thinking about 4M. a lot. i've been very, very, very close to calling him on his old cell phone number (like it's still the same one from 8 years ago but then again, mine is). like, phone in my hand, dialing the first three numbers-close. i've looked him up in the phone book and there are only two possible entries. this is all assuming that he: a) still lives in vancouver; and b) is in the phone book. i can't get him out of my head. i mean, there are a lot of guys that i've had crushes on over the past few years but i don't think of them much anymore. but 4M.... every so often, he pops into my head and then stays there for awhile. i'll see something that reminds me of him or i'll hear a song that reminds me of him. i think i just want to know if i pop into his head every now and then too. maybe. maybe not.

p.s. one of our girls on mat leave brought her baby in today. he's 4 1/2 months old and what a cutie! everyone said he really took to me and, let's face it, i was the only one that was able to get him to belly-laugh. just call me the Baby Whisperer.

skewed memories

yesterday, i decided to hack into my old journal file (well, one of them) that i had on disk. i know i have other ones but the disks may be lost forever now. anyway, i found four disks that had some of my stuff on it. one disk of poetry (which wouldn't open - luckily the originals are in a binder under my bed), two disks of short story drafts (only two drafts but they weren't bad for a 22 year old who thought she had seen it all) and one disk that had my new years resolutions from 1999 and my journal. i knew i would have trouble opening my journal as i always set passwords to open them and, wouldn't you know it, i threw away my password book when i moved (just another argument for packrattedness!). throughout the course of my evening, i read my short stories - a couple of which i might try to run with again - and chatted with a new guy on MSN (i've actually been avoiding him and was hoping he'd just get tired of waiting and stop contacting me - nice eh? - but he's persistent, but not pushy, so i'm finally meeting him on tuesday - i promise this time!) and intermittently, i tried every password i could possibly remember from six years ago. you can imagine how successful i was. until, late in the evening, long after MSN conversations had ended and after my movie was finished, i sat down and tried a few more passwords. i finally cracked it and my journal (from 1997 to 2001) opened up. and i read it - not every single entry but the ones i wanted to remember. mainly, the ones that involved 4M and of course, my Ex.

lemme tell ya, the memory works in mysterious ways. for the longest time, I was sure 4M initiated all of the shenanigans that happened the night of the game but it turns out, some of the really bad stuff was started by me. i read how not careful we were about keeping it a secret at work - that i remembered but what i didn't remember was that it actually started over that summer. the flirting was rampant over that summer but it all came to head at the game. amazing what alcohol will do, eh? i read over all of the sweet things he said to me and that i was smitten enough to have recorded in my journal and not surprisingly, it made me miss him. it made me really think about him and what he was doing now. i won't try to contact him but that doesn't mean i don't want to. he's probably completely bald now but he'll still have those amazing eyes and that perfect mouth. hmmm.

as for my Ex... i was unhappy for so long! why did i put up with it? why did i let myself be fooled by the pockets of happiness that were becoming increasingly rare? of course, i can look back now with a critical and impartial eye and see that he stopped putting effort into the relationship no less than two years in but i still stuck around for another year and a bit! that's me: always wanting to fix something that can't be fixed. stubborn.

i also enjoyed reading about my pursuit of Shtiny Jim. i was so on that year - meeting new people, unabashed flirting. what happened to me? how did i become so reserved and cautious? i wish i had kept entries about the two years following my breakup with the Ex. those years were a pretty wild ride, at least by the standards i set for myself (which we all know are different than the ones i unilaterally set for other people). since then, i think i've kept a pretty low profile. maybe that's my problem. or maybe, it's not a problem at all.

so, a week after the fact, here are my New Years' Resolutions (in no particular order):

1) Eat better and exercise more regularly;
2) Get out and meet people while doing fun things;
3) Live within my means (i.e. don't buy stupid things i don't need) and save more money
4) Learn something new this year (whether it be a skill or a hobby)
5) Keep better contact with friends and family.

or, to put it in another way, stop being a hermit...that likes to shop too much. :)

happy new year!

happy, new year?

went to an open house/housewarming at a friend's house on the 30th. i was hoping i would catch Dutch there. he's my friend's husband's best friend. we met at a bowling event the girls put together with the hubbies about three years ago and Jen had decided to invite some of her hubby's single guy friends. Dutch was the one i was interested in but he was only lukewarm to me. i never pursued it. but i'd end up seeing him or bumping into him in the weirdest places that didn't have any relation to my friendship with Jen. dragonboat races. beer festivals. at the mall. walking down the street at work. and he never remembers where he knows me from. he knows i look familiar. he knows he knows me from somewhere. but he can never place me. last year at their Christmas party, i was chatting with him at the buffet table (where else would i be?) and he asked me where i ended up after practicum. i told him the cross-streets where i worked and he said, "which building?" as fate would have it, he works in the building right next door to mine. no wonder i see him wandering around ever now and then.

anyway, this time around, it was getting to the point in the evening when i didn't think i'd see him at all. i had been there mingling for about an hour and a half when the people that i knew finally came. and i didn't even see when he came in but he did. i was standing with Tiger at the buffet table (where else would i be?) and up walks Tiger's hubby and Dutch. Tiger introduces herself and then Dutch looks at me and says, "and i think we've met but i'm sorry, i don't remember your name..." so i told him and he said, "of course, at bowling right?" Tiger pipes in, "we haven't gone bowling in a long time! we should go again soon." and Dutch heartily agrees. we stood there and made small talk for a bit and then he got called away. over the course of the rest of the night, we exchanged some fleeting glances but that was about it for interaction. there was one instance where someone asked me if i wanted a drink and Dutch made a comment about me needing some tequila but it fell on deaf ears (except i heard it). when he left, he remembered my name and said, "i'm sure i'll see you again soon." he has a girlfriend.

i had some of my single girlfriends over for new years last night, including one home from NY for the holidays. it was nice. my apartment is so clutter-free right now, i'm thinking of having people over every weekend, just so it stays that way. it's so nice to see the floor in my den again! my dining set is here now and i put it together by myself on friday morning. it looks really nice and it pits the space ferfectly. :)

anyway, new years was low-key, which i was hoping for. i had some appies and some champagne. we sat around and talked for awhile and then we watched "little miss sunshine" (which i had seen about a week or so ago but i loved steve carrell in this movie so i willingly watched it again. plus the end scene was worth it!) and then finished the movie in time for us to watch a bit of Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve 2007 and then toast in the new year. which brings me to my post du jour.

it doesn't feel like a new year. i didn't even bother with my tradition of writing my top ten resolutions after midnight. they're the same every year anyway (at least, the first four or five usually are). i think i'm just feeling off. not even blah because i'm not sad or depressed. i'm tired. i'm not bored. i'm listless. i've been away from work for 10 days and i haven't missed it once (normally i'm longing to go back after day 5). i don't want to go to work tomorrow. i want to stay home and sit on the couch and watch DVDs all day. it sounds like depression but it doesn't feel like it. i'm not sad. it's weird. i don't know what i am.

holy crap, my apartment is so tidy right now!!!