What happened..........

Alright, so here’s what happened for those interested.

 

 

After staying at my place two Thursdays ago, Rachel went out of town for the weekend. I didn’t hear from her when she got back. We touched base once or twice last week, mainly at class. In normal conversation, she mentioned several times that she felt like her entire summer was booked, with weddings, going out of town, etc, etc, etc.

 

So, I wasn’t sure if that was a hint that she wasn’t interested. I’m not too savvy in the feminine mystique anymore, if I ever was to begin with. She had plans for the entire holiday weekend, although she was supposed to call on Friday and never did. So I talked to Karen on Sunday and asked for some advice on what to do. Karen confirmed my initial plan of letting Rachel know that I was interested when things slowed down for her, so I crafted the email that I’ve posted below.

 

Start

 

Hi there, hope your visit home was good.

I just wanted to let you know that I've been doing some reflecting the past few days, and our conversation from 10 days ago really stands out in my mind. I felt like we connected on some level, and I really enjoyed being able to share some of my experiences with you. I hope that it was as enjoyable for you as well.

I know your schedule is crazy right now with finals and what not coming up soon. I have a great deal of respect for how hard you are working towards what you want to do. When things calm down for you some, I'd love to take you out for a date if you are willing. I'd like the opportunity to find out what other levels we might connect on.

Good luck on your finals, and getting your papers done. If you need to blow off steam or decompress some, give me a call.

Tom

 

End

 

So I sent that on Sunday evening. Monday afternoon I got an email back from her. I won’t post that here, but it said that she was extremely flattered, and agreed that we connected, but thought that we didn’t connect in the same way. She said she hoped we could still hang out and be friends. I of course replied positively to both, and I apologized if I made her uncomfortable in any way.

 

 

So that’s what happened for those interested. Obviously I’m disappointed, but I’m also going to be realistic about this. She’s the first woman I’ve really asked out since the divorce, which was final 3 years ago this June. So I don’t think I did too bad, and I haven’t jeopardized the friendship I think.

 

I’m happy I didn’t try to play any games, as some suggested I do. That would have made things worse I think. It certainly would have prolonged any uncertainty, and I don’t deal well with that.

 

Eventually I’ll find someone that can handle the straightforward and caring way I approach things, right?

 

 

Well, that's that then

Well, forget all that girl stuff. I got the notice that there is absolutely no interest there from the romantic side of things.

Part of me feels a little used, most of me is just disappointed.

All of me knows it's probably just my fault anyway, and I read too much into whatever.


After an exhausting weekend, this is a wonderful way to end it.

Oh how I look forward to this week.

Backing Winds: May 26th chase

Backing Winds: May 26th chase

Neat Pictures

Counsel

Right, so my biggest concern right now, and this has been bugging me all week, is this question:


Who counsels the counselor?



Again and again I am faced with this, and I'm just not sure why. At this point, it has to be my fault. I am either picking friends very poorly, or I'm not letting them know I need to talk in any type of effective manner. If it's the former, I don't know what to do about that. If it's the latter, then I need someone to help me figure out how to communicate better, which is difficult if I can't communicate that to them in the first place.


I eventually work through things when left to my own devices, but it means days of being in a bad mood or just being depressed. The worse the problem is, the longer the time period necessary.

Maybe some of my poor mood the past few days is just being tired of feeling like the only person walking the path.

"Vampire" To Protest White Castle's Garlic Sandwich

"Vampire" To Protest White Castle's Garlic Sandwich

Blah week

Ya, definitely a blah week.

I'm not sure what the deal is, but I have yet to deal with a pleasant person this week. Every place I've gone, everything I've done, I've run into assholes.

I must look like everyone's outlet. I have been bitched at for things out of my control.
I have been ripped by customers for things other people have done.
I got bitched at when a customer caused a problem (I was supposed to know she would do that, and make sure she couldn't. No really, that's what I was told.)
I took the brunt of a bad day from another customer today, this time because their fax machine broke. I don't work on fax machines, never have.
Even people I know and that know me have been on edge. I have yet to talk with a friend this week without it getting ugly in some way for the most part.


I'm just not understanding it. I've been super extra nice to everyone the past two weeks because I've been in such a good mood, and instead of getting that back, it's been the opposite. The couple of times I've needed to talk no one has been available for whatever reason.

I had a hard time getting up this morning, and I've had a real hard time staying in a good mood today. Physical Therapy was extremely difficult this morning, and my pain level has been worse today than it has been in 3 weeks.

I suppose the good mood had to crash sometime, I just wasn't expecting it in this way I guess.

Done!

So I had a long post posted already, but I decided to get rid of it. It was too preachy, and I was too frustrated at the time I wrote it.



Instead, I finished the last book of the Dark Tower series. It's done.


One of the best experiences I've had. It's not all pretty, some of it is horrifying, but it is worthy.

Monday

Long day, though I can't say much went on. I heard from Rachel and saw her at the dojo, so that was cool. Trying to keep things light for a while yet. I think my only concern so far is how busy she is. Very typical grad student, and that might be an impediment to anything for a while yet.

Not going to worry about it :).

I got to talk to someone I knew when I was kid today. Ran into them in Kroger's in West Chester. She stopped me, and I completely didn't recognize her. She said she didn't really recognize me either, but had overheard me say something when I was on the phone and knew it was me. It was kind of strange. She complimented how I looked, said I looked better than I did in high school, wanted to know how things were. She asked about my ex-wife, and I explained that situation to some extent to her since she went to high school with her. She was shocked, and very apologetic. ( I still don't get that really, it happened, no one could control that, and that's that.) She showed off her new child, which was a very cute little girl not more than 6 months old.

Now, all this stands out in my mind perhaps because I had somewhat of a crush on this girl when I was early in high school, but she never really gave me the time of day. My, how times change. I won't say that she blew up, but it's close. She looks closer to 40 than the 31 she is, and I mean that in most negative ways you can think of. I could tell she was shocked I didn't look the same. (I'm actually in better shape right now than I was in high school, and I wasn't too horrible then.)

It made me feel really good, and really bad for her at the same time. If she is any indication of what marrying early and having kids does to you (and my brother and his wife are starting to look this way at 27 for him and 23 for her), then no thank you. Everyone looks so stressed, so tired, so OLD. I guess perhaps I'm glad in that aspect that I'm no longer married.

It may be selfish and vain I suppose, but I tend to think of it as mature and patient instead. Those things will come when they come. People live longer nowadays anyway, no need to rush and have kids by 30. 30 isn't the halfway point of life anymore like it was for our grandparents and their parents. There are no wars to shorten our lifespans, and medicine gets better every day. When women in their 60's can have children these days (regardless of whether or not you think that's right), why is everyone in a rush to have them right now?

Full

Well, I was hoping to hear from Rachel tonight, but doesn't look like that's going to happen, which is ok.

I got a ton done this weekend. It took some rather forceful urging, but I finally have my house to myself with nobody's stuff taking up room. I got the entire upstairs cleaned and vaccuumed. I got my bathroom scrubbed. I got the basement floor scrubbed, and the rest of the old carpet cut up and sat out for trash. I went grocery shopping. I got the carpet shampooed in the great room. The house is finally starting to feel clean again.

On top of all of this, I had time to go to the dojo Saturday. I tossed frisbee with Brian for a bit, which was a bit more stenuous on the ankle than I anticipated. Went out to dinner last night with Brian. Hilarious mexican place over by him. Hilarious for two reasons: First, they have a sign that says "Aqui hay Bimbo" (Here we have Bimbo). Obviously Bimbo is some brand name in Mexico, but it was damn funny half drunk. Also hilarious because this restaurant has a "Viking Combo" consisting of various mexican pieces of a meal. I'm not sure any real Viking would have EVER had anything remotely similar to the meal Brian and I had, but it was there, so we had to get it. Greg came over today, which was cool since I haven't seen him in like a month.


All in all it was a pretty good weekend, and I'm interested to see where things go this week.

Sadness

No readers, not over the girl. Things are fine there, though she's in Columbus for the weekend.

Damnable book! Another character has died, and I stopped reading the other day as soon as I saw it coming. I worked up the courage to read that part today. I will unashamedly say I cried like a little baby. It was hard to finish that part. Very hard. King describes the grief of one of the characters that survived in a very poignant way, and that really got to me this morning. I'm sure the emotional rollercoaster I've been on the past week didn't help, but I cried.

And honestly, it felt pretty good. I'm going to try to push to finish the book this weekend I think, if I can stand sitting that long.

Update

Ok, so here's what happened last night.

I got to play hero again. She ran out of gas on the way to my place, and I had to run and rescue her. She was pretty embarassed, so I really downplayed it and told her not to worry about it, and I made sure to tell her about my times running out in the past. That made her feel better. She had some work to do, so I read while she did what she needed to. (BTW, Stephen King JUST KILLED ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS, and ^&*&$(%^O& if he didn't kill one I wasn't expecting him to. I was shocked)

We hung out for a bit after that, talked about a few things. Time went by way too fast, and before we knew it it was 2AM. I offered to let her crash, and she accepted. I was a complete gentleman the whole time, and I offered to take the couch if she wanted the bed. She was fine with the couch she said, so I got blankets and pillows for her.

She was still sleeping this morning when I had to leave for physical therapy. She woke up briefly, and I told her to sleep as long as she would like. She thanked me, and went back to sleep.

I'm cool with everything so far. Patience, patience, patience.

Wowed

Right, so, I was planning on laying low tonight. I decided I wasn't going to call her, just so as not to appear too over-eager. I really don't trust my judgements in this area right now, been way too long since I've had to play this game. So, I start cleaning around the house, doing various odds and ends.

My mom calls. She and I had somewhat of an argument, and for the first time in I don't know how long, she called back to apologize. And who calls while I'm talking? Exactly. And I can't get my mom to stop talking long enough to ask her to hang on a second. AAAAHHHHH!!!!! So, the call goes to voicemail, and she leaves a voicemail. I finally catch a pause in mom's rant, and I explain to her that I need to call her back and why. She immediately says "Why didn't you say something?"

So I call back, and of course it goes to voicemail. AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! And my fat fingers accidentally delete the voicemail before I can hear it. AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!

The next hour and a half are pure agony. I completely forgot how much this waiting part of things sucked!!!!! I find as much as possible to keep myself busy. I start to think that maybe her voicemail was telling me not to call her or something. Oh my, how my mind goes nuts. Several times I ALMOST call her again and I hold off.


Finally, she just called. And asked to come over.

I'm so incredibly excited. And I'm going to play it as cool as possible. Oh what butterflies I have right now!!!!!

Update

So, the past few days have been interesting. A woman that I am interested in has been over at my house the past three evenings. It has been nice to have someone to talk to.

 

Monday night was nothing special, really just getting started on a friendship. Tuesday was much the same. Last night however, Brian was hanging out at my place after Kung Fu and she stopped by as well. I fixed everyone dinner, and we hung out and had a good time. Brian left around 11. She stayed behind, and our conversation quickly turned serious.

 

She’s in an odd place in her life right now, and I was immediately able to draw some corollaries to the time I spent after my divorce. So, we started talking about it. She expressed some frustration with her graduate studies in Psychology. It basically came down to a question of belief. I asked her if she believed that what she was doing was helping her clients. She said she didn’t know, wasn’t sure what she believed. She said she felt like she didn’t have a personal base to draw from to help people. She felt like everything was coming apart, all her friends had gone separate ways, so she really didn’t know where she was.

 

This is exactly where I was after my divorce. I had no base, felt like my friends were retards. The group disintegrated slowly from there, and that didn’t help the situation.

 

I explained all of this to her, and explained what I’ve done since then to find that base and get my life in order again. I explained it was important to have a few good friends to help you find that. For me, those people were (are) Karen and Brian.

 

As I explained some of this, understanding that this was a highly personal area, she started to cry. She said it was nice to finally talk to someone who understood where she was coming from. She felt like those around her didn’t take things so seriously, and were only interested in having fun. (Boy, sounds familiar, eh?) We discussed some of what she’s been taught in psych classes, and how that jived or didn’t with the bit of psychology I took in school. The conversation was absolutely great.  So, we continued to talk about various things regarding these deep philosophical notions. Until a little after 1AM. At which point I was having difficulty sitting still because my ankle hurt so badly after a 16 hour day before any of this started. I offered her either my bed (with me sleeping on the couch) or the couch if she wanted to crash rather than drive home, but she politely refused and went on her way.

 

It was a pretty good night, and even if the romantic connection doesn’t develop the way that I hope it might, I feel like I’ve at least found another kindred soul. She views things much the same way I do.

 

I can’t wait to talk to her again. I sent her an email early this morning telling her to keep her chin up, and that she was welcome to call me anytime if she needed to vent or talk. I also told her if nothing else, to take the email as a reminder that “Someone out there is thinking of you, and wishes you well.”

 

 

Quiet

So, I'm sitting, waiting on dinner to be done. 14 more minutes of simmering, so I've got some time to post a bit.

Challenge #1 to Al came and went today with nothing to report. Not surprised, not even disappointed. It was expected. I would have been shocked had he shown up.

It was a busy day, lots to get done, and lots got done. That's enough said there I think.

I've found myself in a really weird place for me. I'm having trouble finishing my book. (#7 in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, the last book). Not because it's difficult, or because I can't get into it. I'm having trouble finishing it because I don't want to finish it.

This is by far one of the best series of books I have ever read. Period. It's not normal Stephen King scary, blood and guts, shock type writing. This story means something to him, and you can tell it on every page. I've been overwhelmed with the writing. I've been excited in spots, to the point where my legs bounce with nervous energy wondering what's going to happen. I've been overcome with happiness in places, laughing out loud or just smiling like the cat that ate the canary. I've even cried in spots that were particularly poignant. He ties together a great many of his stories into this story, and it's incredible what the man is able to pull off. He redeems a character that everyone had to believe was lost in Salem's Lot. He explains more about his big villain, Randall Flagg. The list goes on and on. He brings in the Wizard of Oz, ZZ Top, every Clint Eastwood western you've ever seen, Harry Potter (a particularly briliant way of doing that honestly), robot warriors, vampires, telekinetic powers, religion and lack thereof, I could go on for hours.

I don't want it to be over. I don't want to finish it. And yet, I'm thankful he has finished it. His accident a few years ago, and his brush with death as a result, spurred him to finish what he called his greatest work, one that he would finish and then quit writing for good when it was done. His accident changed everything, and we are richer for that.

Mother's Day Rap- Mr. T. Style! VideoSift

Mother's Day Rap- Mr. T. Style! VideoSift

In honor of mother's day!

Thursday conversations

Well, seems Thursday is turning into a night to have discussions.

Last night I went out with Brian and Al, and we ended up discussing a great many things. Mostly why things in the "group" have disintegrated so badly, and what, if anything, should be done about it.

My main point was that nothing really should be done. People, and friends, and groups of friends change over time. It's a natural process, and there is nothing wrong with it.

That's not really I think what Al wanted to hear, but he was at least listening to what I was saying for the most part. He expressed some dissatisfaction with his own life, and I challenged him to change it. We'll see what he decides to do.

The night was fine up until the end. The conversation got pretty heated regarding a certain member of the group. Brian and I somewhat teamed up regarding this. Factor in like 6 pitchers of beer, and things got a little ugly. Al ended up walking out. That was pretty much the end of the night.

I got a text message apologizing for walking out last night, which was a promising sign I think.

Well, I was going to post.............

I had a post planned out I think, but then I saw this, and I just have to post it.

This warms my heart, and I laughed out loud when I read it.


I would absolutely volunteer for them, what a fabulous concept.

It's interesting to think what a similar campaign might do in New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles. What type of press coverage would there be?

It's even more interesting to think what a similar campaign might do right here............

Dr. Update

I'm evidently a freak of nature, as some of you must already suspect, and others of you have been claiming for years............

The doctor was planning on having me stay in the boot for at least a few more weeks, perhaps as many as 5. However, based on xrays today, tests, and physical therapy results, he removed almost all of my restrictions. I've been given clearance to resume doing whatever I want to do.

He could not believe I had as much mobility and strength as what I do, which is weird for me because it feels so weak to me. He also said that he could no longer see anything on the xrays, which means it's healed clean.

It was a mostly wonderful report from the doctor, and much better than I had hoped for. I even got to go to the dojo tonight and start working again. It was painful, but in a good way. The leg has a loooooong way to go yet.

There was at least a bit of bad news though. The right ankle, my good one, will have to have the same procedure done at some point in the future. No timetable for it, but it's at least a year off, if not more.

Quiet

So, there are more things for them to move yet, but Kris and Darlene moved into their new house yesterday.

The house has been blessedly quiet today. I'm not sure there is any other way to put it.

This week, the work begins in cleaning and un-babifying the house.

But first, doctor tomorrow to find out what's next for the foot. Specifically what is to be done with the toes that don't work yet.

Friday

At least it's Friday. And the sun is out. These are good things.

I'm sorry to have been so long between posts. Besides the ridiculous schedule I've been on, I've been pondering what to say.

The answer is: I don't know.

I'm glad Kris and Darlene are finally moving out this weekend. That will help my piece of mind quite a bit. I'm tired of feeling like a prisoner in my own house. Hell, not even my house, my room. The rest of the house is an obstacle course of baby crap, and I'm tired of going to bed hurt every night because of having to get around baby gates and whatnot with a bad foot.

I'm worn out today. I'm incredibly tired from being sick this week, and from physical therapy. I feel like I've been run over by a truck.

I stopped by my aunt and uncle's place last night unannounced on my way back from a call. They were happy to see me. They expressed some serious concern over my mom's health, and that was surprising. I'm not sure what to make of that yet. I also of course got the "Are you seeing anyone" question, as always. I'm not sure why no one gets tired of asking it. I sure get tired of answering it.

I've had several people this week make arguments that ignorance is bliss (or similar such nonsense.) Self imposed ignorance, claiming that everything is alright when it's not because you just don't want to deal with it, is the height of stupidity in my opinion, and I get tired of people defending themselves this way. Just because you ignore a problem doesn't mean it's not there, take it from someone that learned the hard way.


I'm going to post some more this weekend, I promise that.