Birthday, In Photos

I've been pretty busy considering I had a whole week off work. On Memorial Day weekend, C and I went to the Santa Cruz Blues Festival. Then on Sunday, we went to the Watsonville Air Show. I didn't end up taking a lot of photos at either event, mostly because it was overcast and hard to tell what I was taking photos of. C took some cute pics, including a few of me and him.


The day of my birthday, C took me down to Monterey. We walked around the Aquarium, which was lovely, and then we went around Cannery Row, which featured several candy stores, including the afore-pictured "pomegranite" taffy. We ended up having lunch at some British-type pub which was delicious, and I left some euro cents as a tip.


Then, since I had the rest of the week off, I ended up visiting Psycho Donuts with my friend Kim. The diagnosis, the donuts are overly sweet, covered in candy and sugary toppings. A plus for me, but a minus for Kim (and probably those others without my sweet tooth).

Tomorrow, it's just back to work.

My Decision Making Process

I realize that I often don't answer email, or I look at it quickly and leave it in my inbox, thinking that I'll eventually get back to it, and then I totally forget about it. Even though I spend a lot of time reading email every day, I spend very little time replying or thinking about replying. My boss sent out a thing about having lunch brought in two weeks from Togos and to get our orders in for what we wanted, and I ended up sending her what I wanted about half an hour after I got the message. Even though I have over a week to send it in. Because when it comes to thinking about what I want for lunch two weeks from now, I'm really on the ball.

I'm taking next week off work and I have no real idea what I'm going to do most of the time. I do want to plan some things so I don't end up just sitting around the house and reading books. Then again, that's not a horrible idea. Next Wednesday is my birthday and I don't really want to be at work anytime near my birthday, and I had enough vacation time to cover this.

Old Stomping Grounds

My maternal grandmother frequently uses the phrase "old stomping grounds" to me, which I always find kind of disturbing. The stomping part calls to mind a mosh pit. I think I just tend to dislike any phrase which someone uses all the time like that, to a point of where I can almost predict when I'll hear it again. Anyway, I did go to some former grounds of stomping last night for dinner. It was date night with C, and we went to this venerable San Jose restaurant. If you haven't been there, well, let's just say the interior calls to mind a different era, but as one of the older restaurants around, it comes by this aged interior honestly.

I hadn't been back in a few years, since I was with my ex. We went there a few times, every so often. I remembered the first time we went, because it was one of the first times we had a conflict. Or I should say more accurately, when he had a problem with me. We were sitting there, eating dinner, and I was talking a lot about myself, my day, or whatever it was I was talking about. Then later, we went back to my house and were sitting on the couch, and he just seemed kind of low and quiet. I asked him if he was okay, and he said, actually no. He started telling me about how I speak unclearly and how it gives him a headache trying to follow what I say, and if I was just someone he was seeing, he wouldn't mention it, but because he sees a future with me, he thought he should bring it up.

When something like this happens, I tend to jump into solution mode. I think that's my tech support background, someone introduces a problem, and I start looking for ideas on how to solve it. So I was asking for specifics, thinking about what I had said, trying to figure out how I could do better. And I had thoughts and ideas of trying to speak more clearly, be more articulate. I felt bad for making him uncomfortable and wanted to do what I could to make things run more smoothly. This was the first time we ever had the discussion about how "I don't talk good." But this discussion returned many many times in many different ways, and despite my efforts at trying to speak clearer and louder and pause more and whatever, he would always be irritated at me, say I wasn't trying, that I was stubborn, that I was trying to hurt him because I wasn't speaking clearly. I don't think I could tell you how many times we had this discussion in one form or another, and it always made me feel badly.

In looking back, well, I can see serious red flags in this story. Why was it always my fault that I was speaking unclearly, and not his fault in that he wasn't listening well? And that I was somehow doing this to annoy him, not just because I speak the way I speak and have always spoken and really, it seems to work well enough for most of what I do in life. And how, when confronting me, instead of coming right out and saying something at dinner, he got all passive-aggressive, withdrawing for effect to make me come to him and ask what was wrong. And yet there is that compliment in the middle of him wanting to be with me, if I could just fix this one thing to make me acceptable. He'd always say that we got along so well, just this one thing. Well that and the fact that I ate too quickly or made noise when I was eating, or when he was watching television, or that my shit didn't smell good (which honestly, he complained about, and quite frankly, whose does?). And he'd always tell me that he was just telling me this to benefit me in the future, because even if I wasn't with him, who would want to be with a woman who was so inarticulate and therefore unloveable. It sounds pretty ridiculous typing it out like this, but when you are in an emotionally abusive situation, you just don't realize how bad it is. I was always asking friends if I was speaking clearly, if people understood me, and always worrying that the words that came out of my mouth were some kind of mess that no one would ever "get."

So, last night, I took C to this restaurant. And we sat around talking about stuff, and he laughed at my stories in the right places, and seemed to get what I was saying. I did make an effort to speak loudly and clearly, but I didn't act so far out of my normal range of behavior. And if I wanted to be quiet, or ask him questions, or babble on about something, it was okay with him. Then we went back to my apartment, played with the computer, the cats, watched some TV and laughed together at the Daily Show, then had great sex, and then it got late and he went back home. And never at any point, did he say anything about how I spoke unclearly, or quite frankly, has he ever said anything negative about me, other than occasionally laughing at my driving in a friendly manner. In fact, the last couple of weekends, he asked me if I was happy. I am.

Believing in Vampires

I had an appointment this morning with my primary care physician. She ended up being about forty five minutes late for the appointment, but I had a book with me so I ended up sitting around and reading about the adventures of Sookie Stackhouse while I was waiting. When she came in, she apologized for being late and asked me what I was reading. I told her that it was a book about vampires. And she asked me, do you believe in vampires?

Now, when your doctor asks a question like that, what do you say? I mean it wasn't the psychiatry department but I'm pretty sure if she thought I was a nutbar, she would at the very least, note it in my file, and probably at the worst I'd get dragged away by those guys in white jackets. So I told her that, no, I didn't believe in vampires. Even if I did, this wouldn't be the situation to admit to it.

Greetings From The Future

When I got into work today, some misconfigured server had set many of our computer system clocks to some random date in 2145. For a minute there, I was thinking, oh cool in 2145 I'll be retired. But then thought about it a little bit more and realized, in 2145 , I'll be dead. Um, cheery. Though at least I won't be at work. Ha ha. It's been kind of a trial lately because my boss is on one of her micro-managery sprees and it gets harder to duck from it. It doesn't help with my coworker being out all last week and me going to a ton of doctor's appointments (nothing serious, just yearly stuffs) and her being spitting mad because of that. Seriously, that's why they give us sick time, so we can get stuff checked out. I don't usually have allergy problems, but it feels like it's been a bad allergy season this year and I feel like coughing and sneezing frequently. Tempting to make yet another doctor appointment to get that checked out.

Oops

Has it really been about two weeks since I posted? I guess so. I kinda got hung up on the idea of posting about Barcelona and never really pulled that together, then just kinda trailed off. I had some thoughts about posting the previous weekend, but didn't want to post that until I had posted about Barcelona, which I haven't done.

This past weekend was actually pretty restful. I spent a little bit of time volunteering and spent a lot of time with C. It's been going really well, we get along, like a lot of the same things, enjoy spending time together. We're starting to get to that point where we make future plans, have in-jokes, and have our unspoken rituals. It's nice being in a relationship again. I think the two year break that I had was really good for me though. I think about how I was when I first broke up with my ex, and even though I was doing a lot of dating, I wasn't really sure of what I wanted. Am I sure now? Not necessarily, but I feel that weight of desperation and anxiety of time-passed in a dead-end relationship has lifted. Enough time has passed to put everything in perspective and to feel happy at where I am.

The weekend before was hugely busy. I got invited to this fund-raising dinner through some friends of Heather's, and I ended up taking MB with me. I guess I should re-add him to the side bar, eh? Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with him, he was this guy that at one point I had considered dating, and then that pass, and we would still hook up on occasion but as nothing serious. Then he fell off the face of the earth for about a year and a half, and then reappeared in my life in January. And we hooked up a few times, nothing serious, and then I met C and told MB I wasn't interested in continuing the physical stuff, but we could remain friends. And we have, pretty much, chatting online on occasion during the day. And while my dating fortunes have rose, that is, I actually met someone I like, MB's have gone in the opposite direction. He started dating this woman that pretty much is a list of red-flags, including she doesn't have a job, or a car, or a place to live, smokes cigarettes, used to be addicted to meth, has been in jail for fighting with people, had three kids by two different guys but can't take care of any of them. So I took MB to this event with me, and he spent most of his time moaning over this woman who just seems not only ridiculously dysfunctional, but also seems to just be using him for money. Anyway, at least he drove up to San Francisco and he was pleasant when he wasn't kvetching about this woman.

Then Saturday, I came by for Kailyn's move to offer some moral support. I was going to do some cat-wrangling but she managed to get both of them over to the new place. The girlcat spent the entire time in the carrier, in the back, and one time when I was reaching back to pet her, she popped me on the forehead. Nice. Thankfully she didn't have her claws out, but really, I'm used to that kind of treatment from cats. Kailyn is probably the most organized person I've met, and she had her move planned out, and even had a sort of after-party for people to drop by and see the new place. In a few hours, she managed to do a ton of unpacking while I was watching, and her house already had less boxes than mine did (and yeah, it's been almost three years since I moved).

Anyway, this is long and rambly enough for a blog-entry and I should be getting back in the habit of writing a little bit more often than every 10 days.