So, Christmas? Christmas.

My myriad hair bows

My Nutcracker collection

The girls, two weeks ago

    Christmas rivals Halloween for my favorite holiday.  I have really fond memories of Christmas when I was a kid.
    We would decorate the tree one Saturday while watching Christmas movies, and even though we got distracted, it wasn’t a big deal.  We always got a new ornament from my mom, and I always got a new Nutcracker to add to my collection.  I don’t quite remember how old I was when this started, probably in the vicinity of five or six.  I got one each from my grandmother and great-aunt, and I’ve gotten at least one every year since.  I now have thirty-eight, but only thirty-four are in the picture.  I ordered a Dracula one and an Elvis one off Amazon, and I couldn’t resist the dirt-cheap Santa and Elf set where the Elf’s hair looks severely windblown.  I have quite a few, ranging from a snowman to a pirate to a jester, and of course the crazy new ones.
    We would also spend quite a bit of time making cookies, but I don’t remember it feeling like a long time.  We used to make pecan pies (tiny little tarts), pecan balls, chocolate crackles, spice cookies (cutout cookies), espresso crisps, brown cookies, and Oreo snowmen.  Those ones sucked to make, but they look really cool.
    It was fun (and materialistic, I suppose) to notice the presents multiplying under the tree.  My mom also made it a fun, stealthy thing to wrap my brother’s presents.  We also drove around and looked at Christmas lights.  I’ve grown to love Christmas lights over the years, and I would definitely be one of those people with figurines all over the place if I could.  I’d also be one of those people crying in January when it’s time to dig them out of the snow.  But I love me some Christmas lights.
    We always had egg puff (a weird egg...casserole thing?) on Christmas Day, and ham on Christmas Night.  My parents also made a big deal out of taking pictures of us at the entry to the living room, before we got to open any presents.
    As silly and cliche as it sounds, Christmas hasn’t been the same since I found out the truth about Santa.  We’ll overlook the fact that I was a bit old when I found out.  I had gone to the Warner Bros. store at the Burlington Mall with my mom in November or something, and picked out a Harry Potter shirt that she had me try on to make sure it fit me.  I watched her buy it, and then I got that shirt from Santa.  The rest of the day was ruined.  She made me promise not to tell my brother, and I didn’t, but it sucked a lot of the joy out of the holiday.
    The older I get, the less time it feels like I have, and the harder it is to step outside of work (and at my job now we can’t acknowledge holidays) and take time to celebrate real-life things.  It feels like this month has just flown by, and I haven’t even finished one of the things I wanted to know (sorry, Amanda and Hannah!).  It’s kind of a bummer, and for some reason the past few days I’ve been feeling the lack of time a bit more keenly.  I’ve been super nostalgic for my childhood.
    BUT I’m doing what I can.  I’ve been a sock fiend for some time now, and I have a respectable collection of Christmas socks.  I also have a slew of Christmas earrings, and the above pictured gaggle of Christmas hair bows.  Thank goodness it isn’t weird for someone to wear hair bows at my job, because I freaking love hair bows.
    I’ve been cranking the music this month, and coordinating my socks/earrings/hair bows daily, but I just miss when it felt like I had time to bask in the atmosphere of Christmas.
    In a sort-of-related vein, New Year’s.  I used to think it was such a cool, mythical, mysterious holiday.  Suddenly, in one minute, it’s a whole new year!  Now that I’ve stayed up past midnight as an adult on totally normal nights, it’s like, big whoop.  I was never a big drinker, so there’s that.  And there’s the fact that if you go into the city like “everyone” does, it’s still cold as balls.  Add to that the fact that two years ago on December 30, that guy I *thought* was my friend assaulted me.  I kind wish I could skip a majority of next week.  After Christmas, honestly, we can skip straight to January.  Thankfully, the day after the assault, I had planned to babysit the girls with my brother (look at how big they are!).  We had chocolate milk in champagne flutes, and ate pizza and munchkins and painted our nails.  I had found a Party Kit at Walgreen’s for like $8, so we had party hats, those cheapo plastic leis, strings of beans, and noisemakers.  We were only there till like 9:30, I think, but we “celebrated.”  We also watched a Princess Sofia movie, and now I’m pretty into Princess Sofia, but that’s another story.
    So!  In summation, earlier today, when I had one baby, he was asleep, so I was listening to a Christmas station on Pandora and feeling some hardcore nostalgia.  I hope the kids I teach don’t grow up to be jaded like me.  They’re so full of joy (except when they throw super pleasant tantrums), and I hate the thought that someday Christmas will leave a bad taste in their mouth.  I hope they don’t get lied to about Santa when they point-blank ask their mom, and I hope they don’t open a present from Santa that they watched their mom buy.  I don’t want these poor babies to lose the magic of such a fun holiday.

No-Shave November

This is 28 days' worth of leg hair.  Seriously, the last time I shaved was Halloween.

All nice and smooth and power-tweezed.

    So this year, to be obnoxious, I decided to participate in No-Shave November.  Only my legs, not my armpits or lady bits or anything.  Originally, my brother had agreed to do No-Shave November, too, but he wimped out about 6 days in.  At first, it was a little weird to keep feeling hair when I put lotion on, but I eventually stopped noticing.  J made a face when I told him I was doing it, and I said that if it got weird to just tell me and I’d shave, but he never did.
    I decided that instead of shaving, I’m going to use the epilator I got a while ago.  It’s pretty much a bunch of electric tweezers.  So I did that today, hence the pictures.  At first it freaking hurt, but after a while I couldn’t feel it at all.  It took kind of a long time, and it’s not perfect, but I read somewhere that the first few times it’s a little weird, and after that your body sort of gets into the groove.  Which makes sense, because it was that way when I started laser treatments, too.  The first few times my body was like, “Woah, wait, I will not be hairless!”  And now it’s just sort of given up.
    If this epilating thing works, then I won’t need to shave anymore, and the longer I do it, the less frequently I’ll have to do it, which is nice.  I’m all about doing extra stuff now to save time later.  And I didn’t cut myself, which is nice, cuz I almost always shave the back of my ankle off.
    Tonight I’m going to the Zoo Lights at the Stone Zoo with my brother and one of my friends/co-workers, E.  We’re going to Kowloon afterward, which’ll be fun cuz it’s Kowloon, but it’ll also be fun cuz E’s never been there before.
    I’m trying not to think too much about work, but I’m not really having much success.  I’m just so bummed.  I don’t want to be there anymore, but I like all the people I work with.  I just hate feeling like I’m just a body to stick wherever it’s convenient, and I hate feeling like I’m being punished when I didn’t do anything wrong (at least nothing I can think of).

Trying to keep things positive...

Pretty sure this is going to happen in my interim classroom.  Also, I definitely did cry on Tuesday after I got told about this stupid new thing.

     So I’ll start with a list of things I’m thankful for, since it’s Thanksgiving and everything.
    - My dad, who spoils me, a lot, and doesn’t ever make me feel like a burden
    - My brother, who always has my back
    - My grad school friends, who “get” writing/reading/all that good stuff
    - My friends from before grad school, who were there for a lot of me growing into my nerdiness
    - My work friends, who get how it is to have the job we have, and keep making me feel like I’m good at it (you’re good at it, too, for the record)
    - My students, who make me feel loved
    - The twin girls and their sister, who treat me like one of them, in a good way
    - All the decisions I made, big or small, that led me to where I am today
    - Nerdy things <3
    - J, who is super chill and also caring, smart, funny, and nerdy

    Work on Tuesday was...bad.  We had our Q360, which is when corporate comes and checks everything out to make sure we’re doing everything we’re supposed to be doing.  Which we are.  That’s not the bad part.  In the afternoon, they had me switch with one of the toddler teachers, so that the director and our person who is basically a district manager for curriculum could talk to me and another toddler teacher.
    Turns out, they hired a second teacher for the younger preschool room.  She has some personal stuff she has to take care of before she can start.  So they’re moving one of the toddler teachers (my exercising co-worker) up to be with the current younger-preschool teacher.  Which means they need a certified teacher for her room, since her co-teacher is uncertified.  That, apparently, would be me.  Even though I don’t want to.  I want to be with my co-teacher, S.  I don’t want to be a float or a teacher in another age group.  I feel like it sounds bratty, but I want a turn to get what I want.  I had thrown it out there that maybe I wanted to be a permanent float, because if you’re going to throw me all over the place, you might as well make it my job and quit pretending you’re going to let me go back where I came from.  I didn’t mean make me a fucking toddler teacher.
    So, why don’t I want to be a toddler teacher?  Well, for starters, the kids are much more mobile, obviously, which makes them harder to corral and keep track of when you’re going outside and stuff.  It’s also a lot harder than you would think to have them all eating and sleeping at the same time.  It’s kind of a shit show to pass out all the lunches and try to get everyone to sleep around the same time.  They also make much bigger messes with the toys.  Not to mention, their curriculum is much more challenging, since they’re that much older and their skills are that much more developed.  There is also a child in the room who is potty training, which I’m not comfortable with, and another child who will only let you change them if they’re standing up, which I’m also not comfortable with.  AND there are three kids who have been known to...use their teeth on friends.  Which I do not feel equipped to handle on an all-day, every-day basis.
    But it doesn’t fucking matter what I want, because I’m just a body.  My director told me that she thinks I have good classroom management skills, but I think it’s a load of crap.  If my classroom management skills are so good, put my back in my age group.  One of the teachers currently in my age group was hired as a float, so why not have her be a float or an interim toddler teacher, and let me be with my kids and my co-teacher?  I can’t figure out what I did, because my evaluation went well, and my director is usually pretty up front about it when people do things she doesn’t like, but I must have done something, because it feels like she has it in for me.
    My interim co-teacher has been really nice, though.  She lives in my town, and I’m going to go over to her house at some point this weekend to talk about curriculum.  This should only be for a few weeks, but I don’t want it to happen at all.  I feel very overwhelmed and ill-equipped to do this.  I don’t really know what I’m doing, which is fine when I’m the caboose for going outside, or I’m playing with half the kids while one of the main teachers in the room does an activity with the other half, but it’s not fine for full-time.  I don’t want to be that co-teacher who just kind of flurps around and makes the other teacher do all the heavy lifting.
    I know this sounds so whiny, but I just...want things to be the way they were before we were short staffed.  I want to be in my room, with S, with our kids.  I feel like I’m being punished, and it’s really bumming me out.

Two months worth of shit to catch up on? I've got to update this thing more often

I'm a vampire.  I have fangs and everything.

Now I'm a witch, with my awesome wings and tights and shoes and Lolita-esque dress.

     That being said, I was a vampire for Halloween.  Kind of.  I went to Salem with J (I’ll just call him that, for now) the weekend before Halloween, so we could dress up and walk around and experience the Halloween vibe without dealing with the shit show that Salem is on actual Halloween.  I wore my red heels, and we walked around a ton, and there was this little carnival area that had a couple rides, and he held my bag while I went on them, because I love rides.  They had an Egyptian-themed pirate ship, a pirate-themed bus ride thing?  All the seats are in a row, and it moves in a big circle...some fairs have that type of thing and it’s a bus, ok?  They also had a knock-off Matterhorn, and a zero gravity ride, where you’re all strapped into the edge of a drum-like thing that moves in a circle and slowly transitions from flat to sideways.  And they had a merry-go-round, which I went on because, fun, and because it used up my tickets.  There was a girl there dressed as Maleficent, from the Angeline Jolie movie.  And she was young Maleficent, all brown with these brutal horns and huge wings.  It was awesome.  And we went in Harrison’s, this cool comic book store, and we got Butter Beer (Butterscotch cream soda) from a street vendor.  And we went to Beer Works and got these cute things that were four little beers on a paddle-shaped chalkboard.  It was super fun.  I’ve never been to Salem in October before this year, and I actually had gone with one of my co-workers earlier in the month.
    But I made a fatal mistake.  I wore my heels all day long.  My feet were on fire by the end of the day.  I brought other shoes, but of course I was a dingle and left them in the car.  I ended up with these horrible blisters, and both of my big toes hurt like hell and were really bruised.  It also turned out that I had a blister underneath my right big toe, which then separated my nail from the toe, a little bit.  This past Friday, I was able to pull most of it off, and there’s a really thin new nail growing in.  I was just so afraid it would catch on my sock or something and pull itself out unsafely, making a painful, bloody mess.
    On actual Halloween, J and I went to Dave and Buster’s.  I dressed up as a witch, with fun orange and black tights and witchy shoes and spiderweb wings.  And I was smart enough to bring different shoes in with me.  We had a ton of fun, and it was nice cuz it was a Saturday and there weren’t that many people there.  I stayed over at his apartment that night, and when we got home we ate junk food, which we had previously planned because neither of us really eats junk food anymore.  Well, I do here and there, but he seriously almost never does.  It was cool, and sleep cuddling was cool.
    Which brings me to...we are officially together!  I guess that was a big question mark I had in my last post.  It didn’t go as smoothly as I thought it would, but it obviously ended fine.  While we were having this decidedly less-than-romantic conversation, he mentioned that he still misses home and wants to go back, clearly worried about me not being from “home.”  I told him that if we were together and he wanted to go home, I would go with him.  Which is true.  If he loves me and thinks we have a future together, I will most certainly go with him.  Most of my social interaction takes place online, anyway, and it’s cheap enough to come back to MA for a weekend or something if I fly Spirit.  And it’ll put me a little closer to the West Coast and all my homies out there. :)
    Whether or not we get to that point, I’m happy with him.  He makes me feel good and smart and pretty, and we joke with each other a lot.  He’s into cuddling, and he’s introducing me to shows he likes.  He even let me help him make dinner when I went over there recently, which helps my confidence.  A lot of what he does for me helps my confidence.  I’m trying to do the same for him, and I hope I’m succeeding.
    Right now he’s home for Thanksgiving.  He left Friday afternoon and comes back on the 1st.  I saw him Thursday night, which was kind of sad, but I held it in.  I know he’s not doing it to hurt me or get away from me or anything like that.  I just wish I could have gone with him, because I want to get out of here for a little while, and I hate Thanksgiving.  I know that the holiday will happen no matter where I am, but it would be nice to not be forced to clean my entire house and spend all my free time this week cooking stuff I don’t know how to cook (which means teetering on a panic attack while my mom gives me looks for not knowing what I’m doing), and have all of those dishes be dishes I don’t like.  It would be nice to have people know virtually nothing about me, and maybe be interested in what I had to say.  Maybe someday.
    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about butterfly effect-type stuff.  Like how every decision we’ve ever made, no matter how insignificant we may think it is, has led us to this moment.  Like, what would be different if I had stayed blonde two years ago, instead of going back to red?  Stuff like that.  When people ask, “If you could do it all again, would you do it differently?” Only if I knew that certain things would stay the same.  We’re also assuming a level of memory skill that I don’t have, but saying you could remember exactly how things went, no, I wouldn’t change anything, unless I had a guarantee that some things would be the same.  I feel incredibly lucky to know the people I know, and to have J in my life.
    It’s kind of funny, I wouldn’t have met him at all if I hadn’t made an impulse decision.  My summer started with a J and ended with a J (same exact name).  I met a guy at the graduation party of a friend of mine from the theater, who actually ended up working where I work now, before she went to Europe to teach English for a year.  This guy, J#1, flirted with me and danced with me the whole night, but then wasn’t interested in me.  So, out of spite, I set up an Ok Cupid account.  And of course, there was the whole mess with the Drummer, after which, out of spite, I re-set up my Ok Cupid account.  So, if I had just done what I normally do when I get rejected, and retreated into my shell and sulked, I wouldn’t know J.  And I do find it funny that they have the same name.
    Work has been a little rough lately, but I’m getting into a groove, and other than that bump in the road, I’ve felt comparatively very good lately.  It’s very encouraging, and I hope it keeps up.
    Last, random note: I have an appointment tomorrow with the allergist.  I’ll be getting updated skin testing, along with a renewed prescription for my Epi Pen, and I’m going to ask about allergy shots.  I will likely be very itchy and tired tomorrow night, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.

Halloween costume!

These are the costume pieces I have so far.  I look hawt.

    Ok, so I had kind of decided on my Halloween costume by accident, and I just went on Party City’s website to see if they had stuff to help me finish it, and now I’m jacked!
    It started with me just innocently...wasting money on a white, blood splatter skater dress from Hot Topic.  I mean, it was $12.  After I bought it, I started thinking that since it’s not something one wears every day, I should probably work my Halloween costume around it.  Then I remembered that I have a pair of elbow-length white, blood splatter gloves.  So I’m going to be a vampire of some sort.  I decided to stay with the red/white aesthetic, and I have these cute red heels I can wear, and a white petticoat if I so choose.
    On to Party City!  S (my co-teacher) had mentioned before that she was Vampire Bella for Halloween before, and had gotten fangs there.  So I’m poking around, and they have a shit ton of fangs, including some that come with bloody tips.  And they have fake blood.  They also have two kinds of bloody tights, blood splatter and...violent stabbing?  I’m gonna see if the store has them, to compare them in person.

Bloody tights #1

Bloody tights #2

 Of course, they have plain white tights, too.  Oh, and I guess they have bloody stitches tights.

Bloody tights...#3?

 They also have a white cape and a red cape, and a bloody tiara...so I’m going to be a vampire bride/prom...queen?

Love it.

    In other news, the ex has a girlfriend now.  He met her on Ok Cupid, which I had encouraged him to go on.  I’m happy for him, and I hope it works out.  It was really sweet, he deleted his profile pretty soon after meeting her in person, and he officially asked her to be his girlfriend the other night.
    I..think?  the guy I’ve been seeing is doing the same thing?  He hasn’t deleted his profile, but he hasn’t been on since we started hanging out.  I asked him earlier this week if he was talking to other girls, and he said no.  Then I asked him if he wanted to, and he said no.  I was afraid to push any further, because it’s a slippery slope in the clingy department.  The ex thinks he’s going to ask me to be his girlfriend soon, and I hope he’s right.  I don’t like this in-between, unclear thing, where it’s still totally within either of our rights to do stuff with other people.  I am not ok with doing stuff with other people.  I don’t like not knowing 100% where we stand.  I like being a girlfriend, and the special stuff it entails.
    He and I went on a ghost tour in Boston last night, which was fun.  I love that kind of shit, and he was amused because it had a historical angle.  I feel like I’m in a good position, maybe?  because he was like, putting his arm around me and touching my hip and stuff in public.  And he kissed me on the subway platform (because we’re teenagers in a pop-punk song, I guess), and he had his arm around me on the T the whole way back.  That’s all good stuff, right?
    He also pays for my food and stuff when we hang out.  Which is really nice, but at the same time my anxiety kicks in, and I feel guilty.  I’m still a little afraid he’ll decide that I’m only in it for free food, or that I’m not worth the money he’s spending on me.  It’s nice being spoiled, but I’m terrified that it’ll be thrown in my face.  And the longer it is that we’re floating in the relationship abyss, the more it seems like that’s what’s going to happen.  I know it hasn’t been long, at all, and I know I need to chill out, but it’s not in my nature to chill out.
    I did tell him that we definitely have to find something to do on Halloween, so that we’re not just sitting at home all dressed up, and he seemed down, so there’s that.

Anxiety Time

I definitely took home the tiny Corona bottle and the yellow holder thingy.

    I am officially at the point where my feelings are super easily hurt.  Part of it is just a right now thing, because I can’t stop myself from going on The Drummer’s profile every so often, and it’s ridiculous, but it kind of hurts that he’s still alive.  I mean, my memory of him would be better if he just...wasn’t around.  In any capacity.  I’m kind of disgusted that he’s so easily reachable, geographically.  I’m disgusted with him for treating me the way he did, and I’m disgusted with myself for trusting him.
    The guy who wanted to be into me but just wasn’t is back on Ok Cupid, too.  I only noticed because he changed his profile picture.  I don’t know why my feelings are hurt, because I don’t want to be with either of them.
    Or, I don’t know, maybe I do.  I kind of see them being back on there/not being into me as confirmation that I’m not good enough in some way.  If I’m being honest, I see it as confirmation that I’m not good enough in more than one way.  My mom is fond of saying (when I’m sad about things like this) that everyone only has one successful romantic relationship, but after so many terribly failed attempts, I feel like it’s got to be me.  There’s got to be something fundamentally wrong with me, and I’ve got a pretty long list of what that thing could be, but I don’t have it narrowed down to one.  That means I can’t focus on it and change it, but I’m also afraid that everything I come up with is a “wrong” thing, and that’s a lot of stuff to fix.
    I’ve hung out with that guy two more times in the last week, and we’re hanging out again on Thursday.  When he walks me to my car, I wonder how long it’ll be before my memory of his walkway makes me cry instead of smile.  How long before I’ll get painful tiny flashbacks of how happy he looks to see me, when he no longer wants anything to do with me?  How long before he realizes that my weird, squishy new “skinny” body isn’t attractive at all?  Basically, how long before I unwittingly fuck this up?
    I’m trying really hard not to like him, and I’m failing miserably.  He’s told me a few times that I can stay over if I want, and I say no.  It’s complicated.  My OCD/introvert self doesn’t want to have to do my morning routine in a weird place.  The little girl in me is afraid my mother will try to tell me I can’t sleep at a boy’s house.  The scared me doesn’t want to stay over until we’re in a relationship.  The scared me wants to be in a relationship with him, and the more I drop hints and he doesn’t get them, the more scared I get.  The more he talks about how he thinks he wants to move back home eventually (which I totally get, because I would want to do the same thing), the more my heart breaks a little, because I don’t want him to leave.  In trying not to like him, I ended up super liking him.  I would stay over if I had a promise that I wasn’t just some girl he was sleeping with because she kept coming over.
    I feel so bad when we get food and he pays for me.  I’ve had it drilled into me since I was 19 that I’m not worth someone’s money, and it’s weird and humiliating and makes me wonder what the catch is when someone doesn’t mind paying for my food.  It makes me want to cry, because my gut reaction is that he’s wasting his money.  Or that he’s going to start seeing me as the girl who’s only along for the ride because there’s free food.  I did cry when Eddie and I went out after I graduated and he paid for me.  I did it while he was in the bathroom, and I was able to contain it, but I feel so guilty when people pay for my food.
    I’m too scared to ask him if he’s talking to any other girls, because I don’t want to know if the answer is yes, and I’m not at all confident that the answer will be no.  I know I’m not good enough to occupy someone’s full attention, and it bums me out.
    In more uplifting news, my friend who’s moving to Spain had a little get-together thingy at the new Dave and Buster’s in our town on Saturday.  I picked up my fellow redheaded co-worker, and we both had a ton of fun!  We got our drink on, which was cool, since usually I can taste the alcohol in “fun” drinks, and it totally ruins it for me.  We both got a watermelon margarita, then she got an iced tea thing and I got an awesome drink called a Candy Shop, and then she got a blueberry lemonade (which she let me finish), and I got this thing called a Coronarita, which is a margarita with a tiny Corona upside down in it.  That guy told me about them (I’ll figure out a nickname for him soon, I promise), and when I saw a picture of it in the drink menu I was like YES.
    I’d (obviously) never been to Dave and Buster’s before, and I can’t wait to go again.  I love things like amusement parks, where you can feel like a kid even if you’re an adult, and this was like that, too.  I’m glad it’s so close to my house, but it could also end up being really bad for my wallet.

Stuff and Things

Hello Kitty is awesome.  That is all.

    So I’ll start with some stupid news.  Apparently, it is possible for people to want to be into me, but sadly be unable to actually be into me.  Fun times.
    In other news, I’ve been having a tough time lately.  It’s been getting better, but I was quite literally having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and I wasn’t doing much besides going to work and eating.  I’m not sure why this was happening, but I was talking to my co-teacher, S, about it today.  I was telling her that I felt better, and I felt bad because I felt like I made her worry.  I was right, and she’s very relieved that I feel better.  She was worried it was my medication, and I was wondering if the dosage was now off because I’ve lost so much weight.  Now we’re wondering if it’s my hormones being all wonky from going off my old birth control and getting an IUD.
    Speaking of, ouch.  It hurt going in, and it hurt after.  I mean, I didn’t cry or anything, but I kind of yelled, “Ouch!” a few times while they were fiddling down there, and I definitely sort of protectively covered my stomach (which obviously did nothing, since they were inside me, not on top of me).  I ended up taking a nap when I got home, and had my little cramp-easing catnip pouch thing with me, and I ended up going to bed early that night.
    Holy hell, cramps are a terrible thing.  I mean, I thought my period was still bad sometimes with the birth control, but I was wrong.  Again, it was nothing I couldn’t handle, but it was for sure something I could have done without.  It was super pleasant to suddenly feel pain like my uterus was expanding but feel an actual sensation like it was contracting.  It was also nice to feel three little spots in my abdomen bloom with pain periodically.  I don’t know how women go without birth control.
    Back to being sad.  I was feeling like I wasn’t good at work, or being a friend, or writing, or reading, or being an adult, or being attractive, and it was all getting to me.  I hung out with Eddie about a week ago, and we went drinking with his girlfriend.  I was totally ok to drive myself home, but I had fun while we were out.  I don’t know if this incident started me on my upward arc, but I think I did start feeling longer-term better that night.
    So Friday night, I’m chilling and creeping around on Ok Cupid, like ya do.  I’m doing the Quickmatch thing, which from what I understand is what the whole point of Tinder is (swipe left for yuck, swipe right for yum), and when you do Quickmatch on the computer instead of on the app, it shows you a tiny little queue of upcoming matches.  I suddenly see what looks like a tiny version of a profile picture I am familiar with.  I swipe until it comes up, and I was right.  The Drummer has a new profile on Ok Cupid.  He has a new username, which means he really did delete his old profile, which is nice, I guess.  However, his new profile is all lofty and philosophical, and I’m not trying to say The Drummer is crass and stupid or anything like that, but this isn’t the person I dated.  This person sounds like a pretentious douchebag, and the guy who broke my 2 ½ year dry spell was a real, very down-to-earth man.  I had deleted all his pictures from my phone and computer, unfriended his roommate, and when I discovered I had forgotten to unlike his band’s Facebook page, I did that, too.  I was all good and I was moving on, even if people want to me into me but just aren’t.  Then, his picture pops up.  It hurt.  It made me sad, and it peeled the scab on the love I had for him.  I’ve told so many people that I wish I had never met him, and I honestly do.  I know that the butterfly effect is a thing, and who knows what else would be different, but I don’t want someone to have the power to hurt me.  I don’t want these nice memories marred by this choking feeling in my throat, or this nauseous feeling in my stomach.  I want nice memories to stay nice memories, and I think I’ve put up with enough shit from other people to have earned that much.
    Anyway, when I woke up on Saturday, I was still kind of bull shit, so I definitely perused Ok Cupid a bit more aggressively than I may have in the past, and I found myself with a date for Monday night, and another date for some undetermined time this week or this weekend.
    The date last night went well.  He’s 32, lives like 15 minutes away from me, is from Ohio (which is a little freaky, because so is The Drummer), and is a lefty like me (so is The Drummer).  He’s a programmer, he likes anime, and he’s been to Burning Man three times.  We’re hanging out Thursday night so I can finally watch The Princess Bride.  But I still want to see what happens with the other guy.  I mean, I’m not putting too much trust in this guy’s interest in me, since it always happens that guys are super into me at the beginning, and suddenly they’re totally not.  So it’s only a matter of time before neither of these guys are talking to me, is basically what I’m saying.
    In more exciting news, my co-teacher, S, got engaged!  Her fiancé did it on the Jumbotron at a Red Sox game a few weeks back, and he had organized the whole thing himself.  Pretty cool, and sweet.  They’re getting married next fall, funnily enough on the exact day (and I think the exact time) that my ex-co-worker who I hate is getting married.  Poetic justice at its most poetic.
    I also made a conscious effort to get back into the swing of writing-type things this weekend.  I haven’t done any new work, but I finally edited the stuff I got from Amanda and Eddie for Packet 1, and I did send stuff out for Packet 2.  Perhaps tomorrow I’ll go through the edits Eddie made to my short story, and of course I’m a lazy butt and still have to go through the edits Von made to the same story. >_< But then I’m going to see if anyone else wants to read it, and after they’ve all put their two cents in, I’m going to start sending it out.
    That was a really weird sentence to type.  But I’ve gotta start doing it, and I’m proud of this story.

Skewl

This is the main building of my grad school

    So school happened.  It’s weird to think I graduated a year ago.  It feels like so long ago, but at the same time it feels like it just happened.
    Amanda and I stayed at the hotel associated with school, and luckily I only had to work three days out of the ten.  When Amanda was showing me the clothes she brought with her, I realized that I had clothes that matched almost everything she brought, so we were twins for a lot of residency.  (Good thing my lazy ass hadn’t packed anything before she got here...)
    The hotel was nice and air-conditioned, and the beds were cozy and soft.  My mom had loaded us up with plenty of snacks, instant coffee, and instant oatmeal for the whole residency, and I was able to get away with only eating at the dining hall twice (the food is absolutely horrific there).
    Having Amanda out here really helped.  When she had to take an extended semester in the winter, I was bummed, and for selfish reasons - I didn’t want to wait another six months to see her.  But obviously she didn’t do it to me, which I knew, but it turned out all for the better to have her here.  I needed her, and I told her that.  I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to be alone in the car with my thoughts for a half hour drive each way every day.  She helped me see that I’m ok, I’ll be ok, and the fact that someone can’t give me the love I want and need doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of it and I don’t deserve it.
    I decided to take a selfie every day while I was at school.  Part of this was because I was dressed up most days, and it’s fun to show off cute clothes when I usually wear a uniform and pajamas.  It was also to make myself feel better.  I can look back on those pictures and know that I look good.  Or good-ish.
    I set my profile back up on Ok Cupid after the break-up, as per pretty much everyone’s advice.  I also decided to get a Plenty of Fish account, just for the hell of it.  Amanda helped me navigate that, too, since as a female I’m subjected to creeps coming out of the woodwork.  There are some positive things that might come from those sites, too, but nothing is definite yet, so I’m keeping my mouth shut for now.  It did help me feel a lot better about The Drummer, though.  I’m still angry and hurt and confused, but it’s not a constant ache that makes it hard to breathe and function anymore.
    I went to Amanda’s graduate lecture, and two other graduate lectures.  When I first started, I was so intimidated by the graduating students, and how much more they knew than I did.  But now that it’s people I know in those positions, it’s super fun to go take their classes, and the vibe to me feels much more casual and fun.
    One afternoon, we went to the Natick Mall because Amanda wanted to use some Haute Cash at Torrid before it expired.  That store is awesome because I can buy tights and boots there that will actually fit my calves!  We had awesome shitty Chinese food at the food court and went to Spencer’s and Claire’s, and rounded out our trip with some Starbucks.  It was a fun bonding experience, and retail therapy in and of itself is always cool.
    I talked with Amanda about how I sometimes feel bad at residency.  People are always asking what I’m writing, and I don’t have anything to tell them about.  As we talked, I came to the conclusion that my problem is not having a deadline.  I let everything slide because no one was directly expecting anything from me, and it’s just turned into a year where I didn’t really produce anything.  Amanda had the perfect solution: we will exchange packets with each other.  And we will start sending short stories out to magazines.  I’m nervous about that last part, but it has to be done.  And the more I do it, the less nerve-wracking it will be.  I’m also going to exchange packets with Eddie, who reappeared suddenly right before residency started.  This should give me the kick in the butt I need to start being productive again.
    Graduation was fun, and nostalgic.  The three other Fiction girls in my semester were there, one as the Graduate Assistant, one visiting, and one graduating (she took time off to take care of her new baby).  It was nice for us all to be together again, especially because the new-ish Mama probably won’t ever be coming back out here.
    Amanda and I also made friends with a third semester Creative Non-Fiction student.  It was just us and him staying at the hotel, so Amanda and I let him hitch rides with us.  He’s a sweet guy.  He’s a retired pastor, but he has a great sense of humor and isn’t uptight at all, like I pictured a pastor to be.  He told me he watches his grandkids when his kids go to Bonnarroo.  I should have been born into that family!
    The last Sunday of residency was my two friends’ wedding reception for all their friends out here.  Unbeknownst to the Seattle one, the Bird was turning it into a surprise ceremony.  I got drafted as Seattle’s Maid of Honor, which meant I had to make sure she brought her vows to the restaurant (where we were using the function room), and make sure she did what she needed to do when she needed to do it.  It all turned out beautifully, and I’m so happy for them.  I can’t wait until I have the money to go out and visit them.  And, of course, Amanda and Hannah as well.
    Right before school started, one of my bosses announced that she is resigning and moving back to Cali.  All of her family is out there, so it makes sense, but I’m sad to see her go.  She was really good at getting us to do what we needed to do without making us feel bad about it, and it earned her a lot of respect.  This upcoming Friday is her last day, and it will be a hard day for all of us.
    She had told me about an app called Meet Up that she uses, so I downloaded it this week, and it turns out there’s a writer’s group that meets at a pizza place near my work on the last Tuesday of every month.  So I signed myself up.  We’ll see how it goes, since I think I’m far younger than everyone else in the group.  But who knows, it might be super fun.
    In other news, I saw Trainwreck with one of my work friends today.  It was hilarious and super cute, and we both agreed that we love Bill Hader.  I also love that he’s a normal-looking guy who actually has a personality.  It’s obviously no secret that Amy Schumer’s character has trouble with monogamy, but it’s nice that the guy she tries it with is a dude you might actually run into in real life, not a Calvin Klein model or Ryan Gosling or anything like that.  I like that it’s putting the message out there that normal guys are totally, 100% worth checking out.  Because they totally, 100% are.
    I just have to remember to breathe in, breathe out, and take things one day at a time.

My blog is back from the dead, and so am I

This is definitely me, as a zombie.

   So it’s been almost 10 months since I wrote on here, and the last time I did, it was an angry rant about men...oops.

Things that have changed since the last time I posted (in no particular order):
-    I started talking to, and stopped talking to, my abusive ex
-    Eddie is fucking history.  He did some annoying stuff, and now that he graduated, we hardly ever talk anymore.  Whatever, dude
-    I started therapy, because a situation cropped up at work that made me realize I hadn’t been properly handling my anxiety, and I had been living my day-to-day life at about a 7 or 8 on the 1-10 scale.  The work situation put it at a solid 10, and that was the signal that I couldn’t do this myself.  At least, for the time being
-    I started medication.  Zoloft, to be precise.  I also have Lorazapam for when/if I have a panic attack, but I actually haven’t had to use it (I did at the beginning, because my psychiatrist had me take both at once)
-    I got on a plane!  All by myself!  I wrangled it so that I had a 4-hour layover in Dallas, so I had brunch with the Bird, then I went to Seattle and spent the weekend with V!  It was so fun, and now I want to do all the traveling.  Hopefully I will either be going to AWP Los Angeles or Emerald City Comic Con with both of them next year ^_^
-    I became Infant/Toddler Teacher certified!  Now I can be left alone with children, and the person who covers my co-teacher’s break can be uncertified
-    I got moved from one Infant room to another, and I jibe with this teacher really well
-    I decided to have really short hair, and almost immediately wished I hadn’t made that decision.  Yet I keep being tempted to go really short.  Or else go ridiculously long and get dreads.  Since I can’t make up my fucking mind, I’m just growing it out
-    I’ve done a really, truly horrible job of both reading and writing, but I finished a book this weekend!  It made me feel really good about myself, and I think it was the motivation I needed to get me back into reading.  Now I just need to figure out a way to get my writing mojo going again, and we’ll be good
-    I’ve decided to be open about my abusive ex and my assault.  My logic is that it will help to take away the power they have over me, because neither one of them wants to be painted in a bad light
-    My parents decided to renovate our house, kind of.  We got central air, and we got a fuckload of our trees cut down.  Soon, the kitchen is going to be under construction, and then the bathroom
-    I started paying back my student loans, and it makes me very sad.  I’m handling it, but it’s still like...ew
-    I decided to get laser hair removal.  On my lady cave.  I’m just sick of having to shave and deal with my super-sensitive skin.  So far, so good :)
-    I have friends!  Rather than be a reclusive fairy-tale witch in a cottage in the woods, I’m letting people get to know me.  Of course, I’m still the same bitchy, sarcastic, dark woman I’ve always been, but now more people are privy to that
-    I’m going to be a godmother!  My soon-to-be-goddaughter is awesome, and she falls under the same category as the girls in my “These Kids Make Me Afraid To Have Kids” post.  She’s so great and smart and funny, and I love her so much.  I’m afraid that someone who has my DNA won’t measure up to the awesomeness I get to take care of every day at work <3
-    I got my eyes examined, because my dad was worried about my clumsiness.  Turns out I don’t need glasses, but the membrane or something in my eyes is thin on the edges, so I have to go back every year to make sure there are no tears.  The doctor assured me that it’s easy to treat if there are tears, but it sounds ominous anyway
-    One of my co-workers from the movie theater, M, works with me again!  She covers breaks in the Infant wing and a few other breaks here and there, and it’s cool to be able to spend time with her on a regular basis again
-    I went to New York!  To a convention!  All by myself!  I took the Peter Pan bus really early in the morning, and came back really late at night.  It was a book convention, to boot.  I bought a bunch of books, some of them signed.  I wore my Marauder’s Map dress, and about 3 other women were wearing the same dress haha.  But one woman was dressed as full-on Princess Belle, and I loved it!  This trip only cemented my newfound love of travel.  It’s so cool to get somewhere you’ve never been under your own steam

    I saved the best for last.  I have a boyfriend!  I haven’t come up with a suitable blog-nickname for him yet, though.  Suggestions welcome.  I met him on OKCupid, which I only signed up for because I was annoyed that someone blatantly hit on me and then claimed not to be interested.  From the outset, he seemed super promising.  He’s a year older than me, he has wicked long, dark hair, he’s skinny, and - get this - he’s in a band.  A metal band.  And he’s the fucking drummer.  I loooooove drummers.  He’s also super nerdy and smart, and I was nervous as fuck when we first went out.  The date went really well though.
    So!  Super cute story.  I texted him to tell him I was on my way from work to the restaurant (which I picked - hibachi, because why not?).  I was leaving a little later than I should have, and I didn’t want him to think I’d bailed on him.  He texted back asking for the address of the place, because his phone was about to die and he wanted to get as close as he could before it totally died.  I was like, fuck, he’s not going to show up, and he’ll use the dead phone as an excuse.  But he did show up!  Turns out, he stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought a portable charger thingy so that he could get to the restaurant.  Swoon.
    So we eat dinner and shit, and we’re talking long after we’re done with our food, and we finally go to leave, because it’s like 9:30 and I have work at 7 the next morning (so according to my self-set schedule, I should have already been in bed).  We talked outside my car for a bit, and then he asked if he could see me again. I said YES!  And he told me what he could remember of his work schedule (he’s a Supervisor at a Panera, so his schedule isn’t at all “normal,” like mine), and I asked if it would be creepy if I visited him at work the next night.  He said no, so we decided I’d come in around 8/8:30, so the dinner rush would be over.  I got all excited and told him so, and said I liked his hair and his bandiness and that I didn’t have to explain metal to him.  He said he was excited that I was a girl who liked metal.  And then we went home.
    Now I’m all moony and happy and shit at work the next day.  I mean, seriously.  I’ve been saying, at least to Amanda, for a while now that I needed to find a metal boy.  I needed someone who already knew what kind of magic metal was, and who believed in it the way I did.  Also, I clearly like drummers, since I was with one for three years, and it fits with my general life goal of doing stuff but not being the center of attention.  And the long hair, Jesus fuck.  So attractive.  He has a beard, too, a nice short one, which I usually wouldn’t really like, but it is so fucking hot on him.  Also, he’s a lefty, which of course I am, too.  So I sat in “his” seat at the hibachi table. :P  I tell one of my bosses, and my parade gets rained on.  She says to assume he’s seeing other girls from OKCupid, and that I should be seeing other guys.  She says she wishes I wasn’t going to see him at work so soon, because it looked too available.  She says it’s a bad sign that he didn’t try to hug me or kiss me or even hold my hand.  She says don’t expect him to want anything exclusive, and she can’t believe I ate in front of him on our first date, and that I told him I liked his hair and his bandiness and his metalness.  Hearing the sentence, “You have to assume he’s going out with other girls,” is the most depressing sentence I’ve heard in a long time.  It really only solidified what I wanted from him.  I wanted to be his girlfriend.  I didn’t want any other girls going on dates with him, and being the focus of his smiles and his jokes.  Which sounds a bit creepy, but hopefully you all know what I mean by that.
    He texts me as I’m about to leave asking if I’m still planning on coming.  Of course, I am, so, nerves shot, I go to Panera after dinner that night.  I get my yummy frozen lemonade and tell him I’m there.  I sit at a table that’s kind of behind one of the numerous walls Panera has.  I can hear him talking, and wonder how long it’ll take for him to text me and ask where I am.  Then he comes around the corner, and I stand up and give him a hug.  He hugs back, and sits down to talk to me for a bit.  We end up holding hands, and when he has to go back to work he tells me I can stay and wait for him to be done closing.  I kiss him, and he kisses me back, then goes to do his closing stuff.  At this point, I’m beginning to think all the advice I got earlier that day was total shit.
    After he’s done closing, we go chill in his car, because he’s going to drive me to my car later.  We make out and talk and play music for each other on his phone, and at the end of one make-out session, he kiss-drunkenly tells me, “I like you.”  I tell him I like him, too, and keep kissing him.  I had explained to him earlier that night what my claddagh ring meant (one way means you’re single, one way means you’re taken, just for anyone who didn’t know).  As we’re holding hands and listening to music, he takes my ring off, and my heart and brain start going fucking crazy.  Like REALLYREALLYREALLYREALLY.  AND HE FUCKING TURNS MY RING AROUND AND PUTS IT BACK ON MY FINGER.
    I say, “Yeah?”
    He says, “Yeah.”
    I say, “Say it.”
    “Will you be my girlfriend?”
    "Yes."
    I said I would delete my OKCupid when I got home, and he says normally he wouldn’t, but “this feels right.”  And he proceeds to tell me several more times that “this feels good.”  I didn’t get home until 1:30 in the morning. >_< But I was so fucking happy.
    Turns out, he had called his mom Tuesday night, after our date, and told her about me.  I had told my mom about him, too, as soon as I got home.
    That work-visit was June 10th (our relationship technically started June 11th), and the last two weeks have been freaking great.  I don’t get to see him that much, because of work, but that might end up being a good thing, because I tend to dive head first into things and I might have ended up making us sick of each other if I was able to get to him easily.  But it’s usually quiet enough for me to visit him at work after dinner if I have time, and he lives in a house with his bandmates, so there’s that.
    There’s also the maybe TMI statement of holy fuck.  Sex.  With him.  My God.  I want to find my high school boyfriend (the other drummer) and ask him why he couldn’t move his body like this.  Not only is he super nice about my anxieties and body insecurities, he knows what the fuck he’s doing.  I was afraid of how it would be the next time I had sex, since it had been so long, and since my assault happened, too, but it was fucking great.  I told him the whole deal with both of those things, and he was super understanding and let me tell him what I did and didn’t want to do.
    And now I should really go to bed, but fucking hoo-rah, I’m getting my life back on track in a fucking huge way.