sexy texting

here's why you don't do it when you're dating someone else. you can slip up.

i didn't. at least with that. but it reminded me why i am not seeing other guys right now, even though we don't have an official status.

last night i sent a text about my doc to...my doc. instead of my gfriend. sweet. it was rather innocuous & happy about the upcoming trip, but still. how easy to screw up...

so orlando is on. v. happy. we'll see how things go. he is ticketed & planning things.

now the q is - what to do for v-day. hmmm. what do you do for a first unofficial v-day anyway? i'm thinking...

this guy continues to make me very happy. i like. since i'm getting closer to him, i'll probably be writing less, out of respect. about him that is. me, i can always write about me.

after all, that's what this blog is about.

go me.
go me.
go me.

so far so good

well, i'm doing ok with my doc. learning how to communicate, you know, adjust, to somebody new & what they want.

i think the fact that we decided to travel together one month in is raising interesting challenges. we've not yet got a division of roles & responsibilities yet so it's a little - perplexing - from my point of view.

being the planner, i've got everything i need to do planned out already. he's not so much that way. oh well. i'm hoping it will a) happen, & b) be fun. at the very least, we'll enjoy it.

i think traveling is a better option than showing up & meeting his friends as a couple. we haven't even figured out what's going on yet for sure & need a neutral territory to make that happen. preferably one where it's not 13 degrees as it was when he was here. that's a little limiting on - everything.

i seem to be using the word "little" and dashes a lot. hmmm.

in other news, how about that superbowl? finally a bowl worthy of its title, even though i wasn't a fan of either team. just give me a good game, if my boyz ain't playin'.

in still other news, how will daschle make it thru & the president still look good? yeah. not happening. not sure if our new prez is going to besmirch his good name with the appointment of a felon. so my guess is obama will publicly stand behind the man & tell the committee to veto it. it's a no-lose solution.

yeah. i want a felon in office. one with a conscience. yes. who gets embarrassed. right on time, in front of the committee.

did he not think it would catch up with him? are we so jaded we think no public servant (let alone HHS) can be found that hasn't committed some sort of legal infraction?

bah humbag. put him out on his dashcle-a**.

ghosts in the closet

there is that period of getting to know someone new when you just wait for all the ghosts-of-relationships-past to pop out of the closet & freak you out. or make you fall down the stairs & kill ya.

this is one of those times.

the elephant in the room between my doc & i is - why are we both so hot & still single? i'm not sure if i will bring it up, but it's like so fricken' obvious that the question is there.

wonder if i should try to just have a white elephant sale instead of pointing out that there is one. maybe the new buyers could come get it while his head is turned. or mine.

:)

undependence

the transition from being a successful working woman to a sweet girlfriend is not an easy one. i mean, that is if you like a man to be a man & you to be sweet & nice.

how the hell do you get things done? this will be interesting.

i'm so used to just making decisions & doing them. like i want to travel here, so i'll buy a plane ticket & go. now i'm waiting to see what will happen after i've made a couple comments about it. time to sit tight. it's odd to be out of control. v. uncomfortable.

i was talking to a friend online that married at 38. she was telling me about the power struggles she & her husband are having. yes, that will be me. i'm so used to doing my own thing it's hard to NOT.

effecting change when there are broader objectives than your own is a definite skill. it's not one i'm particularly acquainted with, but i definitely want to learn it. being taken care of by a man whose judgment i trust is valuable to me. i'm tired of running everything on my own. so now if i give up that right, i have to take deep breaths & try to figure out my next strategy.

after all, you can't tell a guy what you want & also tell him how to get it done...

scared, boo (hoo)

i just had a chat with one of my childhood classmates. who i haven't talked to since. & he was advising me to take it slow with my doc.

ok, NOW i'm depressed.

i thought i was. bother.

now i'm scared from that. in addition to my own overwhelming fear.

i'm already getting to the attachment stage which is just uncomfortable sticky goo for me. i don't like missing anyone. it's actually like being hungry in a really yucky way. your stomach hurts all over & you are cranky & bother.

did i say that.

urgh. as if i need anyone to tell me to be more careful. i am the queen of careful. some call it - bitter.

update

well, i was able to easily resolve the little "convo" (as cosmo would say) with my doc by telling him i do want to hear everything he observes about me. but if he can just tell me first what's coming & then follow his comments up with lots of "you rock!" at the end, i should be just fine.

i said i had this manager at work that i told "you'll get the best out of me if you start everything with - 'you are doing a great job! now can you do _____ different?" & he sure got a lot more work out of me that way!

he laughed at my description & all was ok.

whew.

i guess that's one way of asking for what i want while still being light. yes, apparently it can be done.

in other fun news, i was interviewed by a reporter & was quoted in the AP. 75 different news sites picked it up including major papers around the country, so it was fun to see self as first quote. this is the second AP story run i've had this year, though in the first one only 15 papers ran it.

mr. busy called me yesterday with drama. he's been dating a psycho who found a nice note i left him when at his place in september. she apparently thought he was cheating on her, although that was before they started dating. i was fine to get on the phone & talk to her (which is what she wanted) but he ultimately handled it with his impeccable logic. funny guy. he seems very happy for me & my doc, with whatever is going on. but interestingly enough is now probably starting to see me in the light of "oops..."

:)

urrgggh

my doc is feeling the need to point out things about me. this tends to come out without any warning & kind of shock me. not that he's wrong. it's kind of like reading agatha christie describe me. he's very good at it.

problem is - it's not sexy. it's killing my attraction to him. at least in that particular moment.

he then wanted to end the conversation & go work out & i was like hey wait, you started this conversation, we need to finish it. he was like well, i want to keep things light between us. i was like, light? i didn't start this topic.

so he had to run (on call) & i texted - hey let's talk tomorrow. so please. a request - before you want to tell me things that make me feel undesirable, please think hard 1st about how to say them in a loving way.

i've never really said things like this to a guy, but i think it averted an unhappy situation & also asked directly for what i want.

dude, be nice.

i'm super-sensitive to criticism so this will be a problem for me if it continues. we'll see what happens.

sigh.

he says we're still getting to know each other, so that's about where he's at with the whole thing. i am gonna just keep going with my life & try & forget about what's going on with him. if something goes on, he will need to make it happen b/c of course, now i'm getting scared.

urgh.

the cure

so my doc came. and went.

and i'm super enthralled. i mean, i so respect this guy. just awesome.

apparently he thought the same thing. his first comments when he arrived back home were, when can we get you out here to visit? i was like, how about, now?

kidding. i was like, great. i'm there.

so i cancelled my vaca with mr. busy who congratulated me on my good fortune with my doc.

in an odd twist, mr. ny tells me he might be coming here to work. wants me to help him find a place. so i e-mailed him the URL for craig's list. happy to help. but not to f*. so i won't be seeing him again. although i haven't told him that yet. i suspect he really won't care either.

so i guess you could say - i have a boyfriend again. for the first time in 2 years.

i compared the picture of my cheater ex with my doc. it's very interesting. i always thought my cheater was the cutest guy i had dated & would always miss that. but no - my doc is way cuter than the cheater, and this is objectively so - so really i am so lucky. as cute guys are a real bonus for me. good looking guys are fine. but i like cute guys with dimples & boyish grins & wow, i lucked out.

super coolness.

happy me.

what is this anyway?

i'm feeling something odd. fear of a guy being smarter than me. it is so wierd.

i don't usually date guys that i either respect or admire completely. it seems on some fundamental level they're missing either one of those things. i have yet to find out my doc's weaknesses, which will probably be very obvious when they do appear, but until that time i'm just a little in awe of the things he talks & thinks about.

and it's scary.

like the topic of respect. we were talking about respect and he was saying we have a healthy level of respect between us. and i was like, um, we need to talk more about that. that's not a concept i'm familiar with.

so when i brought it up again, so now we could talk about it, he was like, ok, what do you want to talk about? and i said, um, again, this is not a concept that i'm familiar with, so how about YOU talk? so he monologued for a few minutes on the topic of respect & his opinion of it. and i listened & walked around the issue & generally went hmmm.

a very big hmmm.

those of you that have come from families with little respect, you will understand my not understanding this concept.

and after the conversation i found myself wondering if he is arrogant or if i am just so unsure about dating a guy that is stronger and more powerful than i. being a very strong woman, this almost never occurs. so i don't know what to make of being the weaker or more protected gender, shall we say, in a r-ship.

i will have to think on this more. many things to think about now...

oh the horror

i cried my eyes out a few nights ago, just terrified. it is absolutely considered a life-threatening experience for me (by my psyche) to really really like someone. it's like i have this fear of thawing out in the hot tub, that if i do, when i melt, i will have no spine left at all & then turn into a wet spaghetti noodle. which will then be consumed by a mean monster of noodles, and i will cease to exist.

part of this is that i tend to flip-flop from highly independent to highly dependent & guys just go WTF? at that. not like i don't.

i'm trying to figure out how to transition slowly from in- to dep- and still maintain a sense of self. it's a very shaky sense of self i have anyway.

the good thing is, is that my doc highly values the self he has seen in me, and he wants to keep it. he's not one about having me be his-self, but my-self. (yes, there are guys who just want you to be whatever they want...)

i think part of my terror is that it's too much too soon. i mean, i've known him less than 1 month. this is not 3-, 6- or 9-month conversations were having. so i think my reticence to jump in & risk noodling is warranted. he, on the other hand, believes in the theory of loving like you've never been hurt. part of me skeptically thinks that is a fine strategy for a guy who is pursuing & deciding when to call & when not to. or when to visit. he can just back off & stop & then he is protected. me, i have to decide how much to let him in.

alison armstrong talks about how receiving from a man is an active behavior. that is so true. there is nothing passive about it. the whole concept of sex is based on that. in the pursuit or whatever it is, you decide, based on the guy's intentions, what you will allow. this is what frustrates men so much about women. that we control their advances. the challenge is to receive with grace and yet keep some sort of protection up (yes, i have to do this) so that if he decides after 3 months or 3 dates or 3 minutes not to keep calling, then i will not jump back out in the snow & freeze myself again for another few years of men-free existence.

actually there's not much chance of that, as lately my problem is just how to handle the guys i currently have in my life. my female counselors (i.e. mom, friend) say it's fine to piss off a few guys about now that have no intention of being anything but playmates, in favor of someone who is actually serious about me & what we've got.

in that line, i've decided not to contact mr. NY when i go to NY, and if he contacts me, i will think twice about even seeing him. he is very good at seducing me, and given that my doc will probably be calling to find out how my conference presentations went, i'm not sure that i want to have him realize i'm not spending the night alone. and in fact, i'm not sure i'm even interested in fooling around with mr. NY anymore unless i don't have any other options. which now i do.

the reason being that in the level of respect for me, my doc appears to respect me somewhere near the top of empire state building, while mr. NY's level lands somewhere near the first floor. i was warned about mr. NY's lack of disrespect for women and i sure heard it when we had a fight and he said he'd wish he never met me, and other very mean things that had no reason to be said, given that we were only fighting b/c i asked him what something he said meant.

given what mr. NY said to me & how mean he was, i actually should have just not bothered again. but we've made up &, well, we'll see.

i have no standing commitment to my doc at this point so i can still do whatever i want, but i'm finding whatever i want to do is changing. i'd rather have an emotionally-satisfying conversation with him than fool around with another guy who doesn't respect me or particularly care what i do now or any time.

i must be - maturing?

just can't get away with it

i'm fascinated by my doc's read of me. yesterday he was telling me something & said "i don't remember if i told you this before..." & i said, "no, you didn't, it was probably some other chic." & he went like whoa.

& then he just was like wait a minute, i don't know when you're joking or serious if you say things like that, and i don't know how to respond to them. and he just wouldn't let it go. i was very fascinated. so i listened to him talk about it & didn't really know what to make of it. as he told me once, i just kind of walked around the issue & looked at it for a while. i'm still not sure what it was all about.

i finally said well, i'm not sure what i meant. i mean i might have meant that you might have said this to some girl in the hallway or i might have meant it for what it sounded like. i don't really know. i mean i said it & all, so you can take that for what it is. he seemed relieved at that answer, that i said i didn't know what i meant.

i have to clarify with him what his point was. i think it was that he wanted me to explain what i meant by it. but since he didn't directly ask, i wasn't sure what form my response was supposed to take.

this is the second time something like this has happened with him. and i like it. it is uncomfortable, like the hands of some new massage therapist on you, but it is cool. i told him gee, you don't let me get away with anything do you? i kinda like that. he said he did actually...

part of me is very uncomfortable with this level of disclosure. i am a hider. i don't reveal things. but i guess my discomfort with how fast things were moving & the potential for it to all be a hoax came out that way, in a snide comment about who else he might be seeing - aka confusing with me in his head...

in any case, we moved past the awkward part of that conversation & went on.

this happened once before, where he immediately reflected back to me how the intent of my communication with him was perceived. i find it refreshing and terrifying. i mean people don't usually tell you how your actions impact them in the moment it happens, and they definitely don't stop you & say, whoa, wait a minute. people tend to let sleeping dogs lie until they turn into vicious killing machines & that's the end of a relationship.

but actually i've started doing this myself lately. a long-time childhood friend said something rude about my mother and i immediately said, wow, that's not nice. so i'm starting to do that myself. but it is rare and uncomfortable.

i'm still not sure how i feel about this. he is a loving person and he cares about me so his questioning is not designed to do anything but define how i feel about him in return, it seems. but it is strange. i need to pursue this more to see what it's all about.

i do rather like a manly man though, one who can call me on my BS & say, hey! yo! what??

very like.