Long time no see

This is a list entry.

New awesomeness has happened over the last year, such that I'm in preparation at the moment to arrange MY OWN HOUSE such that MY BOYFRIEND can MOVE IN in two weeks.

Which means I need a plan. The house is kind of in total disarray, and I want him to have his own space here. And I need to make that so it can happen.

Edited 3/19/10
List:

• Kitchen: all the normal stuff to clean. Dishes, etc.
  
• Laundry: ditto the above
  
• Living room: get the seedling setup going (for once! jeeze!), straighten up
• Den: Wood goes outside. Tools get put away, crap gets picked up. Curtains get re-installed. Carpet gets vacuumed.
• Bathroom: sweep, put away stuff on counter, clean counter, make room in a few drawers
• Bathroom #2: sweep, wipe counters
  
• Guest room: Move camping stuff out of closet to attic
• Office: make room in closet for M, clean, remove extra crap, put up curtain rod and curtain
• Bedroom: move out of season clothes to guest room, clean out drawers, sweep and vacuum, wash sheets, etc. Move lamp and put other bedside table, well, bedside.

I'm sure there's more. There's a ton more to do for the frikkin' garden, too. Time to get a move on!

How to Attract Your Soul Mate in 14 Easy Steps

Today at work I was rooting around online looking for some free, ready-made lesson plans to address budgeting in a teen-parent household. I didn't find any good ones. Ah well.

However, one organization had a handout targeting at-risk youth, to help them during their search for love.

I copied it below, and there's a link to the PDF as well.

Do me a favor and read this advice. Keeping an open mind, what bits do you think are valuable, and which are crocks of shit? I want to hear from y'all!

How to Attract Your Soul Mate in 14 Easy Steps

1. Write down exactly what it is you want in a mate…every positive detail. Keep adding to the list as you think of new items.

2. Avoid the negatives and focus on the positives. List out what you want and don’t define what you don’t want.

3. Look in a mirror and tell yourself that you truly deserve her or him. Genuinely affirm this. Deep down in your subconscious you must absolutely believe it to receive it.

4. Feel this person is already a part of your life. He/she is with you at meal time,
exercising, sleeping. In the shower, affirm it. Driving to work, feel it.

5. Make vacation and party plans, movies too. Carry on as if this person was right there beside you. Plan your next apartment, the kind of car you will be driving together, along with the color and every other detail.

6. Wear a new bracelet or a rubber band as a reminder, switching wrists, so it doesn’t get stale. Every time you feel or look at the bracelet, reaffirm your feelings and thoughts. There is no limit to the number of times this can be done throughout your day. The more often, the better.

7. Place the list of your heart’s desire on the night stand. Morning and evening, place your hand over the list and feel the vibrations and that loving feeling.

8. Act as if you are in a restaurant. Place your order with the server. Once you have ordered, go on with your life comfortably certain that your meal will be delivered in due time. It’s the same in attracting your soul mate. Get your order in and then enjoy this creative experience. It’s all about the law of attraction. You will get what you think about regularly. It’s a law of nature.

9. Collect perfect moments. Revel in that special feeling that all too often happens once or twice in a lifetime to the average Homo Sapiens. Remember a time when your entire body tingled and you were transformed. Now use your mind and body to visualize and recall both the perfect moment and your heart’s desire. Feel this person as a part of you. Absorb him/her into your life in that perfect moment.

10. Smile! During each and every one of the above exercises and experiences, smile! Smiling has a magical power all its own. After all, you now are a very happy person who can feel the love of your life with them.

11. Carry a small “Mate Finder” stone. Rub it, and feel the positive vibrations. Visualize the look, smell, feel, touch and taste of your mate. Caress it and imagine the face of your soul mate. Look deeply into their eyes.

12. Remember this individual is also seeking you, so you need to get out there. See yourself as a powerful magnet drawing together two loving people…you and your soul mate.

13. It is VITAL that you act as if you have already found this person. This isn’t a hope or dream, it’s reality. What you need to do is actively participate in attracting this person. This will only work if you feel it as deeply as you would something that has already happened. Give thanks regularly for this.

14. One cannot sit home and wait. This is an activity so get out there!

From this publication.

That's the way....

SO.

I think I mentioned earlier today that I'm a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit stressed out. Well, it's getting worse. I know I'll get the things done that I need to do, but I've been left feeling absolutely wrung out. I've been on the edge of tears all morning, and a couple of times have even tipped over that edge.

No weeping or anything. Just a quivery voice, a need to look down, lump in my throat, and then a few tears have escaped onto my salmon-colored shirt. I put out a few feelers to friends just to vent a bit, and set my chat status to "woe-is-me."

---><--- This close to tears That's what my chat status says. A friend of mine that I don't talk to often, a friend who lives just far away enough to make visiting enough of a pain that it doesn't happen, a friend of mine whom I've not seen in person in over a year----this friend saw the passive "be nice to me" cry for help. Sweetheart, he is. Gave me a bit of "Tut Tut, turn that frown upside down!" attention, and then we commiserated a bit. All of a sudden all my stress and all my "Waaaaaaaaaaaah!" emotions turned around and focused on this friend. Y'all, you could hear my internal soundtrack change from The Smiths to KC and the Sunshine Band.

Poor lad didn't know what had hit him, but he rolled with it. "Stew, it really HAS been a long time since we've seen each other. I miss you! And we're both SO STRESSED!! We should really do something STRESS REDUCING!" (There's history there. It's not an out-of-the-blue offer/suggestion.)

Gotta love subtlety. And hormones/weakness.

The one seriously interesting bit here is that this is the first time in AGES that I've interacted with a man and considered him as a *man* rather than just another person. I wonder if the stress put a chink is some armor I wasn't even aware I had.

Reconstruction

"Hey, do you remember my Laura Palmer halloween costume? The one where I put on a flesh toned bodysuit, made my hair all big, made my face an ashy gray and wrapped myself in a clear plastic tarp?"
"YES! That was the best costume ever. And Joel came as what's his name...Kyle MacLachlan...Agent Cooper! But all he did was slick his hair back, because he already wore a barn jacket. Such a cop out, and he thought it was so great."

At this moment I am entirely content. I'm at Nemoid's, and I just got back from brunch and a long catch-up session.

I'm rarely at a loss for words, but as I try to figure this out right now, I can't explain the depth of how this encounter has affected me today--all positive.

It's been fabulous to see Crush again, and I am just extremely happy and at ease. He lived part of my life with me that I'd not revisited since it happened, and the feeling of shared history is one that I'm beginning to value more and more.

"And what about that time we sat outside my dorm and we just kept talking until the sun came up?"
"I don't remember that, specifically, but I do remember one time when you had a big linguistics project and we were both in the Tunnel until all hours while you transcribed."
"That's the same time! That's what I had been doing down there!"

I'm trying my best to live in this moment, this glorious moment, but my mind keeps jumping ahead to when this mini-vacation will be over, and I'll be back in the rut. I need to both rekindle and forge new relationships that will sustain me like this one has. It seems like such a small thing, but the worth of it is immeasurable.

"Hey, do you remember when I sat on Tip O'Neill's lap?"
"Of course I do. I took the picture!"
"Do you still have it???!!!"
"No...it was for the newspaper, so I never really had it, per se. Do you remember his speech, though? The font was so large it was, like, one sentence per page."
"You actually got his speech?"
"Yeah, he was so funny. He finished it up, and turned to us and said 'Want this?'"
"That's awesome."

We reminisced, and we caught up, and we had some glorious conversation about hopes, dreams, and many fears. We share a lot, I think, and there's also a wide enough gap in our experiences and where we are that it would be folly to consider more than friendship. I sense that this friendship renewal is going to be fabulous for us both, if we can keep up contact reliably.

I'm just so happy. I'm with friends, I've reconnected with a very old friend, and I'm about to go to one of the other places that makes me happiest to see other friends.

Does it get better than this?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

And the 1" of snow we have so far with another expected, combined with scary low temps, is probably going to put the kibosh on the dinner Crush asked me out to tonight and the festive plans we were making with others for later in the evening.

Boo.

Ever optimistic, though, I figure I can stay here until Monday morning and then take off for Jamie's house. Maybe the extra day will mean Crush and I can spend some more time together. We'll see! He'll be calling later, and then maybe we can discuss alternate plans. He's really cute. (HEE!) And I'm also not as crazy crushy as I was. Luckily, swoony fantasy land does become tempered with time and so hasn't overwhelmed the reality of what is at any given time. I'm fantastically content, and it's great to get away from the pressures of work and my messy, messy bedroom.

Meanwhile, Nemoid and the family are treating me phenomenally well, as per usual. There's a big ol' pot of gumbo on the stove, and it's going to take supreme willpower not to dunk my entire head into the pot. I don't need any more bizarre, cuisine-related facial burns, now, do I? The roux...oh the roux. It was perfectly chocolate in color. The gumbo is for tomorrow. It's better to let it rest for a day.

Dinner tonight, since the plan of me taking MARTA to midtown and meeting up with Crush for the potentially romantic Ethiopian dinner has been thwarted, will be an Indian chicken dish. Not everything is or should be determined by the food you consume, but my cooking habits of late have been abysmal. Noodles with butter and parmesan. Or a can of tuna with salad dressing on it. Or fast food. Sigh.

SO this spoiling with gumbo and homemade Indian is just paradise.

Oh, and homemade waffles for breakfast. Dude.

Oh lord

ETA Crush=15 minutes. HOLY SHIT.

Update: 2 hours later. I promise I'm not going to liveblog this whole encounter. I was nervous, but then I was fine. We reminisced, and Nemoid was there with us. She and Crush and I all went to college together, and we all talked about old times. It was good.

Chill, honey.

I've been communicating back and forth quite a lot over the last couple of weeks with Crush, who is one of many people I'll be seeing this weekend when I road trip around Georgia. The most recent conversation ended with him promising to make me some mixtapes for the ride back, using the CD format.

Y'all. Mixtapes. Swoon.

I have to get a hold of my emotions on this. On the one hand, the giddiness I'm feeling is just a beautiful thing to behold. I feel like I'm 14 years old. I hop along on a cloud and reread our communications over and over. I analyze every word he says to see if I can tell any intentions or interest on his part beyond friends touching base again. On average, when we IM it's for like, 1-2 hours straight, non-multitasking. He makes me laugh. Oh, my, does he ever make me laugh.
On the other hand, all of this is happening just over IM! He's impossible to read—he could either be joking or flirting!! This could be anything! And also, I haven't seen him for 16 (holy shit) years! Since 1992! I've only seen a couple of pictures! And besides, there's the distance to consider.

I’ve been obsessing a bit about this guy. I admit it. My mind is running ahead of reality. I don’t know if he has any interest in me beyond reminiscing about Old Times, and yet I’m finding myself considering such insanities as whether or not I’d move if it came down to it. Whether I’d like his family. Whether he has a cat and if so, will he please get rid of it. Whether he’d want a traditional wedding or could we just elope, as I’ve always planned to do?

Hey Cart? Get back over behind Nelly where you belong, ok?

I’m analyzing our similarities and differences in areas ranging from communication style, to religion, to politics, to life goals…the things we have in common are uncanny. The differences don’t seem to be deal breakers. I was extremely relieved, for example, when his self-categorization as a “Staunch Republican” was quickly followed by a “just kidding.” I mean, we’re not 100% on everything, but who is? There are some major obstacles, though. We’re from extremely different cultural backgrounds, for example. But again, it seems more of a challenge/opportunity than a brick wall.

That’s all just fantasy, I know. And it’s not related to Crush himself, I don't think. No matter who the person was, I’d be having these racing thoughts if I were as interested as I am in Crush.

I'm trying REALLY hard to be balanced in my approach to meeting up with Crush. I tell myself that no matter what happens this weekend, I am lucky to be back in touch with a dear friend. I’m trying to sit with the uncertainty of how he might feel.

But I don’t think I’m doing very well at finding the balance. If you’ve talked or IMed with me in the last few weeks, I’ve probably told you something like this:

“Ooooh! Crush said BLAH!! What do you think? Do you think it means Something? Is he really interested? Isn’t he so funny? Let me tell you what he said about BLAH! Oh, he’s just cute as can be. Look at how cute he is! Isn't he handsome? I love how the gray looks. You know, we practically finish each others sentences when we talk. And he and I have lived in the same places, but just at different times, over the years. It’s like we weren’t quite ready to meet back up and now we have!”

(I'm rolling my eyes at myself right now, but I'm still smiling.)

Emily tells me that usually I'm pretty fatalistic about any possible love interest. I'm worried about whether I'm being sufficiently cautious, this time. I'm scared that I'm idealizing this too much, and I'm scared that I'll be crushed if it doesn't work out, whatever THAT means. I have NO IDEA what I expect to come out of this weekend, and that scares me too. I'm so inexperienced at this whole romance thing.

I'm just a mess. But I'm grinning about it.

Cryptic

I still have that crush I mentioned several weeks ago. And I just admitted it to him directly after hinting for quite some time. And I can't tell whether his response was encouraging or discouraging. The direct response was opaque (basically that I didn't have to worry, because he was innoculating me with a weakened strain, and so I'd be immune soon--have I mentioned he's hilarious?), and the action was to say that he had to go to the gym NOW. Maybe he doesn't know himself, right? I'm still having fun with it, though. It scares me to think about what feels like an inevitable dashing onto the rocks of rejection, but I'll keep plugging onward, living in the moment.

Web 2.0

This morning when I woke up I had an email indicating a message on a social networking site. The one I hate. The one that is cluttered up with creepy bad backgrounds and such. I figured it was a spammer or bot or some other pernicious crap. I usually ignore that kind of thing, but since I'd recently had some breaches of security on there I figured I'd check it out and make sure nothing major was amiss.

It was from a guy, my age or thereabouts, smoking hot, single, and living in the area. Now, I wasn't born yesterday; I know that dating sites or other ad-driven places put these kinds of messages up and do bad things (like what? I don't know...hijack your account? Install malware?). But...he's just so so hot. I'm conflicted.

Here are the things that make me suspect it's not all it seems:
• He has no friends on the site.
• His profile is mostly, though not entirely, empty.
• He's seriously hot. Like...model hot. Did I mention that yet?
• The message didn't say anything much that would identify that he was talking to ME as opposed to the gazillions of other women on the site.
• One thing he says on his profile is that he hopes this is a place where he can meet a woman who doesn't subscribe to the stick-figure ideal body image. (Either he's perfect or he's preying on fatties)

Here are the things that make me wonder if it could actually be a real person.
• The little that IS on his profile is not cookie-cutter spambot typical.
• The place where he says he lives is just specific enough that it would have to be someone local rather than national. (i.e. not RDU or Raleigh)
• He gives a yahoo IM address.
• The message wording sound like a real-person. It references the holidays.
• Looking to stereotypes, his ethnicity matches his location (omg i'm going to hell!)
• He could be a non-native English speaker.
• Some of the pictures I have up on there are kind of out of date, hearkening back to a time when I was particularly svelte. Not all of them, but there are some of me looking like the hot hot hottie I am when I'm little.

Those of you who know me, or even those who don't, will note that my body image insecurities have woken up and raised their heads, getting ready to join forces with my current low self-esteem to put me in a place where I'll assume nobody like this guy would ever show interest in me.

Let me inject a little reality/counterpoints here.
I'm a cute, cute cutie.
I have a lot to offer.
I have lots of interesting good things about me.
I just finished writing a freaking kick-ass project proposal!
/stewart smalley

I have two choices. Action or inaction.

I'm leaning to action, believe it or not, but there are a couple of things standing in my way; the main one is fear. There are two fears. One emotional and one practical. Emotional? What if he's just being a tool? I don't want to be a pawn in that kind of shit. Pragmatically, I don't feel like dealing with another security breach of the gmail chinese spammer sort.


In fact, here's the message:
*******
Subject: WoW
Body: Hello Princess,

How are you doing?I hope you are having a wonderful time.
I am really attracted to you & your profile.I am wondering if you are interested and available.

My yahoo/myspace IM is REDACTED

Please buzz me when you are online.

Happy Holidays hun

NAME

**********

So, what do y'all think?

Inside joke

I just replied to an email by typing only "unsubscribe" in the body. Some of you will know what that's about. If not, feel free to email me about it. Email is up in the "About Me" section.

A secret, a secret!!

Isn't it fun to have a crush?? Especially if you have some shared history with the person so it's not awkward even though you'd not talked for 15 years?

Whee!

UNSUBSCRIBE

UNSUBSCRIBE!!!!!!

UN

SUB

SCRIBE


No more no more just leave me alone.

Mmmmmm Pavo

Gah!
So Full.

Did you think I'd miss a day? Well you were WRONG. Here I am!

Thanksgiving was wonderful; I'll wax sublime tomorrow when I feel more like slogging through details.

As I was leaving Maria's, I turned my phone back on, and immediately got a text message. From a number not saved in my phone, but which I recognized nonetheless (after a momentary internal 'huh?'). There's a reason the number is not in my phone, y'all.

GO AWAY!

If I had wanted to engage, I think the best return text message I could have sent would have looked about like this:

nlm
\ /

(Think about fingers)

I just didn't respond.

By the numbers

Back to work with a vengeance. I am pausing to take a breath after a day-long training in planning and evaluating effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy. When I'm done with my mini-break, it's off to a dinner engagement to celebrate fabulous women who win awards for being kick-ass. I nominated the one who won in the Teen Woman category.

3 meals eaten out at work events today.
2 slinkies
8 mini Koosh
1 blue and green yin/yang symbol molded from Playdough.
2 suits tried on to find something to wear tonight.
0 clothes that fit AND are both weather and event appropriate.
1 pair of boots that won't zip over my calf.
10 minutes contemplating how mad boss would be if I didn't go tonight
2 cups of coffee
12 FOURTEEN hour long day.
2 shades of lipstick used.
15 30 minutes late ETA
12 hours I feel like I could sleep right this second.
1 cute guy at training.
1 cute guy at training about my age.
1 cute and single guy at training about my age.
1 cute, single and gay guy at training about my age.
1 female colleague who rooted that out of him.

Status Update and (fever?) dreams.

So. I'm feeling a lot better than I was late last week. I didn't sleep during the day on Friday OR yesterday, for example.

But I'm not better.

Today I managed to get up early (didn't everyone?), take a walk to a new bakery, majorly clean the kitchen, do a load of laundry, make a really fantastic tomato sauce from the last few pounds of tomatoes I was hoarding, and then drop off the rent checks.

I picked up more Gatorade at el rey de la comida (It's been on sale. I've had about 10 liters of the stuff this week), and also bought some pantry essentials I was somehow lacking. I had meatballs to make! Cookies to bake!

By then it was noon. And I was shaky, in a cold sweat, and scared. I dropped all the groceries on the counter, and got in bed. I read for a bit, and then slept the sleep of the freezing cold and dead.

I've been having tummy issues today, so the Gatorade is more important than ever. Jesus this is annoying. It's now been a week.

I'm going to try to work from home tomorrow. Too much to do, and I feel good 1/2 the time. I just don't want to have to go in to work only to need to collapse.

******
I dreamed last night that I found Dave Neuhaus, living in GR. He had changed his name to something vaguely Arabic sounding (Abdul Auk, I believe), and had become concertmaster (despite not playing violin) of some orchestra. He was sharing offices with another guy I knew back in the day, named Carl Aronson*. Dave was wearing a turban, and for some reason I had to then watch a fancy slide show of his different looks.

*Carl was a Jew for Jesus, if I recall correctly, and played a mean trumpet. We were in a wind ensemble together once (Playing horn allows you to do elite things like this even when you kind of suck in comparison to the others. Nobody plays horn, so they're at your mercy.), and played something from Handel's Water Music. The ensemble kicked ass.

This is what I get...

i am 32 single white male in nc i lvoe to fish hunt camping garding. i lvoe country musice i good listern i was told. i love bubble baths candle light diner min golf scary movies. ok drop me line i send pic too hope you like and hope you write back

une lettre

From	jounpaire (4268 miles)	0% match 0% friend 0% enemy Compare
To	lastewie
Date	37 minutes ago
Subject	une lettre

No picture found. Be suspicious.
32M, Paris, France

salut ca va bien je suis kader age de32 an j'aim parles avce toi ok je laiss mou mail pour parles moi





(I left off the poor guy's email address, but seriously, WTF? I'm thinking spam, only the language/spelling is so horrid...Imperatrix, can you tell if it seems native-languagey?)

Quick update

Because I KNOW you want to know the minutia of my life and die a little death* when I skip a day.

Most importantly:
RAIN!

Next: Overwhelmingly busy at work. College recs to write, grants to plan programming for (huge task), tons of community education programming, trainings to go to, meetings to go to, fund raisers to go to, paperwork backup to beat into submission....ARGH!

Also: Last night I went out with the boy who called a couple of days ago. I had major reservations, but it was a Good Thing in that I feel closure and a sense of peace. The "what ifs" I'd been mulling over are now satisfied--there would have been exactly no positive outcome. WOOT!

Finally: I met Mary Easley last night at a reception I went to at the Governor's Mansion. She was extremely personable, and I am SO fancy. We talked about the rufous hummingbird that over-wintered at their house last year. It's not yet shown its vibratey body this year, but a rare bird is always a fun thing.

*Not that kind.

Ugh.

Guess who called?

Guess who answered?

(rolling eyes at myself)

Saturday morning

Just a few things.

First, it's gorgeous out today. I slept in, because I stayed up until 1:30 (!!) last night, had a chat with the roommate about radio voices, and then headed outside to work on the garden.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned my new bed. Wait. I have talked about it, but not in a long while. It's been a work in progress since last February, when I began to rip out sod. On about half of the plot, I planted zinnias there this summer, a few sunflowers (that didn't do so well), and a raspberry bush that a neighbor gave me. The other half spent the summer covered with a big blue tarp, to kill off the grass.

A while ago I laid (lay?) cardboard boxes over the whole area, and dumped some sawdust that I'd been using as mulch on my veggie garden. Then it just stayed like that. For weeks. And weeks.

Today I finally lasagna'd it. Spread out the sawdust. Then a layer of dried grass clippings. Then a layer of non-decomposed leaves. Then a layer of partially decomposed leaves that had somehow retained moisture in them from god knows then. To top it off, I shoveled the entire pile of well-cooked, well-cured compost over the whole thing. The I took about 7 buckets full of water from my shower, the roomie's and our kitchen sink and got the whole thing wet.

I can't wait to plant it all up this spring!

I fed the worms, too. The roommate worked alongside me while I did all this, cutting the front lawn. I had to show him how, because somehow he'd gotten to this age without every having used a lawnmower. So cute.

******

Yesterday I took my passing angst to AskMetafilter, so that I could see if anyone over there had any ideas what I could do about my boy situation (lack thereof). Interesting responses. If y'all have any commentary on it, feel free to drop it off here.

******

Somehow I've lost 10 lbs or so. I thought my jeans were a little saggy in the ass last night. Sure enough!