How NOT to blog

Apparently, there are several things that are less than ideal for blogging.

The first, very obviously, is being on the road for work for six weeks working lots and not having a laptop.
I know this seems like a "well duh!" moment, but I thought I could work around it.  I bought a tablet because my laptop is old and slow and cripplingly heavy. I kept the tablet for a whopping three weeks.  It didn't support some of the programs I wanted, I didn't use it nearly as much as I thought I would (like for blogging!) so I got my $250 back. I thought I'd blog the first two weeks I was away when I did have my laptop with me.

I didn't.

I didn't blog when I was home on the weekends.  Granted, I'd fly to Seattle and arrive at home about 21:30 Friday night then leave again for the airport about 16:00 Sunday. That left roughly 43 hours at home. I spend those meager hours enjoying myself and to some small degree, feeling guilty about not doing chores even though that was the last thing I wanted to do.  I only got home three of the five weekends that I was working away so honestly, I don't feel that guilty about not doing chores.(promise and threat, expect at least one more blog about work).

The second thing that is less than ideal for blogging is happiness.  I know that some people do blog about all the sunshine/smiley/happy moments in life.  I've approached blogging much like a songwriter. Pain, frustration and suffering make for great songs! They are the nourishment needed for poets to create. Happiness, at least in my case, breeds blogging laziness. When I'm (mostly) happy, I don't have anything to rant about (except work of course). I have more patience.  The storm in my soul has weakened from a Nor'Easterner to a springtime Seattle drizzle.

I might be able to talk about my happiness . . . there are two reasons I probably won't.  One - It's hard to be witty and biting and sarcastic about happy things. Two - I understand that things on the internet exist forever.   I don't mind that when I'm snarky.  The happiness in my life I protect to the exclusion of blogs.  It's easy to jinx happiness in my experience. So to that end. . .

Expect a few blog coming up but still containing vitriol about common stupidity, inane life happenings and work, because that's a great thing to vent about.  Don't expect me to extol the details of my happy internal land of sunshine, kittens and ice cream.

Three?

They say bad things happen in threes.  These definitely don't qualify as the world's worst but they should at least be int he world's most inconvenient category.

I woke up this morning at abotu 6:15.  My alarm was set for 6:30 so I rolled over to grab a couple minutes more.  When I woke up again I thought that it felt like a long fifteen minutes and I was right. It was 6:40.  My phone was dead. I somehow managed to get to Missoula without a phone charger, or any other cables actually. I'd borrowed a cable from a friend and used it.  The phone was at about 10% last night and this morning it wouldn't do anything.  I didn't know if it was just a dead battery or certifiably dead. Great. No phone. No way for co-workers or family or anyone to reach me.

I was able to get a charger at the Verizon store this evening when they confirmed it was just a dead battery. He gave me 25% off the charger and drastically (12.99 down to 3.74) screen protectors too. Ok! Back as part of the world!

I got back to the hotel and had a voicemail. It was from my neighbor who is taking care of my dog and cat while I'm away. She'd left a message saying that there was a veritable river of water running down my front porch. She couldn't tell what the source was or what the problem was. Damn.  She also knows my mom and called her about the water when she couldn't reach me.  Mom had another neighbor turn the water for the house off at the streets and he's going to monitor. I have no idea what the damage is.  It could be just the spigot, it could be a full pipe burst. With the water off I could repair the former, I can definitely not repair the later.

I won't be home for another nine days and when I do get home, I'm only home for about 42 hours. I can't schedule repairs since I don't know what's wrong and I won't be there to authorize and pay for it.  That may mean my only day home is spent fixing the house and not showering.  For Fucksake.  Is there a worse time this could have happened?

Now. . . What's number three?

Hi!! Ohhhhh, Montana!!

I'm on the road for work.  This trip has taken me to Missoula, Montana. I'll be here for twelve days. I expect to work at least nine of those days. Here's the break down so far:

Pros -
* Sunny, not super dense low lying fog like at home recently.
* Local Microbreweries - I tried DraughtWorks on Sunday.  They had a great bock beer (De-Bock-ery) and a good ale (Half Nuts Rye English Brown Ale).  I'm hoping to try both KettleHouse and Taproot this week.  I also bought Bitterroot ales at the grocery.
* A payday! Paying the bills isn't overrated!
* A change of scenery doesn't hurt.  I've been walking to and from work, the snow is pretty.  It's good mental stimulation to be working

Cons -
* It's a small town in Montana.  Even though I'm working most days and I'm only here twelve days, how much is there to do?
* It's cold.  Really cold.  Forecasted high of 31 today but I was outside only in the dark at 7 am and 630pm. Snow is predicted on Wednesday.
* It killed a few plans I had at home.  This project backs straight up into one in February with only a weekend home in between.
* Usually for a long stay, I'd be put up in a hotel with a mini kitchen in it.  This time, just a regular hotel which means lots of eating out and cold food in the room.

I've been assigned to the Internal Medicine outpatient clinic.  Ten providers, fifteen nursing staff that I'm helping.  There have been a few other support people but they are all in and out and busy with other things.  I'm the only one dedicated to that floor. They were all very nice and grateful.  No one excessively angry or frustrated. I got free lunch and put in a bunch of hours, which fills out my paycheck. I was busy and on my feet all day which is a pro and con. I'm going to try to get a blog up most days but we'll see how close I get to that.

Booby Traps

<Scene: enter Elmer Fudd, dressed in his brown hunting gear, complete with ridiculous hat>
Elmer: Shhhhhh, I'm hunting wabbits. . . .

(three, two, one) SHA-PING! He's caught by the ankle in a rope snare and whipped up by the poor sapling he used, only to dangle helplessly mid air as Bugs Bunny inevitably asks

"Ehh, What's up doc?"

What plays in my head when I hear booby trap.  Well, after the thirteen year old me finishes snickering.

Dating is full of booby traps.  They are different than minefields.  Booby traps are ones that we know are there and yet manage to get caught in any way, a la Elmer Fudd. [I know that technically booby traps can be and often are hidden, thinking specifically of the Vietnam War, but they never really are in the cartoons.] Mines are the ones we didn't know were there or see them but when we bump them they blow up in our faces.  Today's musing is booby traps (heh, heh).

This time of year is booby trap city.  It starts with Thanksgiving really, I suppose. Thanksgiving and Christmas are both family holidays.  Therefore, if you are still early on in dating someone, as I think I kind of am (more on that in the next blog), there is usually at least one awkward conversation about meeting family.  Are you coming to my family thing? Me to yours? It's difficult to meet your partners family for the first time at Thanksgiving or Christmas because A) there is likely to be more family around than just the usual clan, B) there are all kind
of traditions and family must-dos to wade through, C) there's alcohol, which even if you don't over drink, someone else might and an embarrassing encounter with Uncle Ed is the last thing you want to be your first impression.

I've kind of been dating someone and we somehow skated through the November-December holidays without issue.  It helped that I was out of town for Thanksgiving, hence making it a moot point. For Christmas he had a ton of familial obligations with all kind of family so I (perhaps slightly less than delicately) told him to go do his family thing and I'd see him after Christmas for New Years.

Another booby trap.  We did make New Year's Eve plans.  It's the first time I've had a "date" for NYE in  . . . uh . . counting. . .well, hmmmm . . . anyway. Dinner, a show, a midnight kiss.  No friends around to mingle with, just us so it was easy really. I did meet a couple of his friends the day before and I think I passed.  It was good that we were at a Seahawks game which provided ample distraction and gave us all a common cause.  Otherwise meeting the friends can turn into a grilling.

Whew, you're thinking you've missed the booby traps by making it into the new year.  Silly you.  Target started putting out Valentine's Day decorations two days after Christmas just to remind you that another, and potentially the biggest booby trap is around the corner. Valentine's Day can be tough even for established couples.  If you are dating, eeeeekkkkkkk.  Are we making plans? If so, how serious? Gifts? Again, how serious? There's all this pressure from society to give in and do flowers and cards and chocolates and stuffed bears and jewelry and lingerie and aaaaaaaggggghhhhhh.  I believe, as many do, that Valentine's is a crock of consumerism BS concocted to get us to by stuff in the post-holiday lull.  I haven't had Valentine's plans in, well, about as long as I haven't had NYE plans.

I've sort of managed to sidestep this one too I think.  I'm scheduled to be out of town for work on the actual day.  Since I'll be home for the weekend and then gone again, we sort of assume we'll see each other.  The catch is the gift/no-gift (which also comes up at Christmas).  I don't want V-Day to be an overblown awkward incident.  Let's just make awesome plans like we do on so many other weekends and call it good.  Flowers would be nice but that is plenty sufficient.

Not too long after Valentine's Day is my birthday. Again, we're back to gift/no gift. Gifts always are fraught with tension.  Was is personal enough but not too over the top or was it dreadfully generic? Did one person spend obviously more than the other? Was one gift a sign of taking things to the next level?  Did one person not get a gift to give? Stress central. With this particular guy, his birthday is about two weeks after mine, so we do this dance all over again.

Thank goodness for holidays like Arbor Day and Independence Day. They might be my new favorites, along with Memorial Day and Labor Day of course.

Mah Faze!

I was going to continue writing about dating today but then this thing happened which meant I really needed to write about it instead.

I got a black eye.  It's ugly. It hurts occasionally.  I've had people wonder, myself included, how it took this long for me to get one.  Most people know that if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all.  While I say that very tongue in cheek, I do have some strange things happen to me on a regular basis.  With this knowledge, how did it manage to take me thirty years to get my first black eye?!

I found the event online.  Snow Day Seattle.  They planned to truck in 34 dump trucks of snow from the mountains into the Seattle Center.  There would be a snow fort/castle competition and then attempt to set a new Guinness Book of World Records record for the largest snowball fight.  The previous record was for a snowball fight held in Taebaek City, South Korea with 5,387 participants on January 22, 2010.

The tickets were $25 plus tax each with all proceeds going to benefit  The Boys & Girls Club of King County. I mentioned it to 25 and he was excited about it too.  We both thought it would be a fun way to be a part of setting a world record.  How wrong we were.

Snow Day was last Saturday, during a stretch of very clear but very cold days here in the Puget Sound region. The snow fort building started at 1pm.  We arrived about 3:30 or 4 and got checked in.  We had read the website and brought goggles for eye protection as apparently eye lacerations are the most common injury.

Out into the snow we went.  There were lots of folks milling around.  Top Pot had a coffee truck so we each got one and had a walk around.  At some point we'd made a lap and stopped.  We were both thinking about needing snow for snowballs but most of the snow was part of the snow forts. The small amount on the ground, and what was in the fort, was really compacted, more like ice really.  We both picked up a "ball" and said something to the effect of "this is really hard.  It's going to kill someone". At which point we dropped it on the cement to see if it would break.  It didn't.  Several other people came and stood where we were and did the same thing; pick up ice ball, comment that it would hurt to get hit with, then drop ball on floor to confirm how hard it was.  We stepped on some of the ice balls to break them up.

The official snowball fight was supposed to start at 5pm.  Inevitably, "snow"balls started flying early despite the warnings over the loudspeaker not to start early.  It didn't take very long before I'd been hit in the shoulder, the arm, the leg. 25 took a couple hits, as did the girls standing near us.  We all yelped and comments that it really hurt.  I found a slightly strategic position with my back to a wall of a fort where I could watch for falling deathballs. 5 o'clock came and went.  They were still mucking about with checking people in and whatnot.  By this time it was dark, it was really cold and getting colder.  The deathballs were really flying.  I'd been hit a couple more times and was really over the whole thing.  I wanted to stay just long enough to officially be a part of the record and then bail.

It was about that time that in short succession I took a deathball to the back of the left side of my head and then a bigger one to the right side of the back of my head/neck.  Right.  Done.  25 had been patient with me being unhappy but trying to stay on.  At that point he said he was done too.  We tried to start heading for the exit which was maybe 50 yards from where we stood, but the trick was getting there across the slippery ground with deathballs flying.

25 took off towards the exit.  I lost him in the crowd.  I made it to a place with less crossfire. I took my google off to clear the fog so I could see where I was going and WHACK!
I got hit on the right side of the bridge of my nose.  My eyes immediately filled up with tears for a variety of reasons.  A girl standing nearby who saw it asked if I was ok.  I couldn't answer but when I looked up she said "you're bleeding!".  Damn it.  I couldn't tell what was ice, tears or blood.  I tried to pick my way through the crowd and eventually (maybe 20 seconds but it felt longer) made it to where there had been a big exit when we came in.  I snagged 25 and we headed for an official to get out.

He wouldn't open the gate.  He insisted on directing me up the hill and out a small exit.  I just wanted out.  I wanted to be where I knew I wouldn't get hit again. He refused.  He did mention that First Aid was in the adjacent building.  Fine.  I stormed off, a little panicky, in pain, furious.  25 led me inside and we asked the event organizers in there where first aid was.  Oh, um, well, they thought it was out where the snow was, wasn't it?  Screw it.  I went to the bathroom to take care of it myself.   No one seemed particularly sympathetic or willing to help, considering my face was rapidly swelling and blood was running down it (aside from 25 that is, he was wonderful).

After a mop up and assessment, we decided to go for food and drinks.  I thought whiskey-cokes would make a nice anesthetic, which they did.  My right eye swelled nearly half shut and by ten that night was already showing shades of purple. The swelling went down remarkably quickly.  The purple however, has gotten darker and darker.  The blue and green now reaches nearly all the way around my right eye.  In the inner corner of my left eye are tinges of blue, green and purple plus a shadow across the bridge of my nose that just appeared last night. The bridge of my nose is really the only place that has continued to hurt.

24 hours later

I crossed "Set a World Record" off my bucket list (not that I have one) as we officially set the record. Now I remember why I don't like people and especially groups of people. Riot menatilty at it's finest.

Tired of Dating

The alternate title for this blog is "When will I be in a relationship?"

I went back through my planner and counted. I dated twenty one guys in 2012.  Not too shabby considering I wasn't really back in Seattle until the beginning of March.  The majority of those were first date only.  About six of those guys were multi-daters, as in two or more.
Two of those I saw regularly for more than two months.
There were fifteen others that I emailed or texted (please advise on the grammar of this verb) but never materialized into a date. 

Granted, 2012 didn't quite end up being the year of a thousand first dates.  I fell woefully short of that. Averaging 2.1 first dates per month means I'm trying.  I'm putting myself out there.  I'm meeting people.

It takes a lot of effort to date.  Lots more effort than being in a relationship.  When you are first dating someone you have to be on your best behavior all the time. The comedienne Whitney Cummings has a great bit about trying not to fart when you are out on dates for the first six months. It's true! No burping, no farting, perfect make-up, great hair, high heels, going out, being fun, not stressing about things, etc, etc.

When you've relaxed into a relationship, you can wear sneakers, you can have a sweats and movie on the sofa day, you can be your slightly lazy, occasionally slobby self. But not when you are dating. Not that you can't be yourself, but you have to be your best self.  You not neurotic, not whiny, never smelly, always done up, fun and funny self.

First and second and sometimes third dates are lots of small talk too.  Have you ever been to a party, maybe a work party, maybe a networking thing, where you had to make a lot of small talk for say, four hours?  That's tiring. You basically have the same conversation, or version of a conversation, over and over and over.  It reminds me of being a foreigner in Indonesia.  The limited English of many of the Indonesians meant that the conversation was the same "How are you? " "Where are you from?" "Do you like Indonesia?" "How old are you?" "Where do you live?" That's about the extent of it.

First dates are  "What do you do for work?" "Where did you grow up?" "What do you do for fun?" "blah, blah, blah". You watch for red flags, you use enough common sense to not ask the really key things you might want to know, like how long was your last relationship or when was your last long term relationship and why did it end. You have to roll those out slowly because, lord knows, you don't want to bog through that conversation if you don't have to because they hit four other red flags in the basic small talk.

While I am tired of dating and ready for some quality time with "my man" on the sofa, I am not yet willing to settle! I will not keep dating a guy who is a mismatch for me just to get to sofa time. Here's to pursing a great relationship in 2013 with as much if not more vigor than before!!

Crush

In general, I'm against unrequited love.  Out movie and pop culture tells us that it's romantic and dreamy.  That being in love with someone who is in love with someone else is apparently as common as, well the common cold.  Check out many of the popular movies: twilight (I think there's the werewolf kid who loves the creepy emo chick but she loves the vampire.  I'll confess, I didn't do my homework on this one as that would require watching those movies).  I did see Les Miserables last week and there was a similar love triangle with two girls falling for the same boy.
[As aside: I don't watch romantic comedies.  I don't think they give people a realistic hope for their own lives, or are particularly funny.  I realize that we should be able to set our expectations based on real life, but many people seem to have trouble making that distinction. Unrequited, undeclared, unfilled love often plays a big role in these movies.]

What's the point in pining after someone who is either oblivious of your feelings, or who is aware of them and simply doesn't feel the same way? It's not ideal by any stretch of the mind.

That said, there is something kind of fun about an old school junior high crush. I've got one. I've had it for a little while.  It's someone that I'm not pursuing. I don't think (I hope) that he doesn't know.  I doubt a relationship between us would work and I'm at a place in my life where I have a fair grasp of whether a relationship is possible within a couple meetings.

With a crush, that doesn't matter.  It's not about the relationship.  It's about getting jelly kneed in their presence. It's about the fact that's he's gorgeous. It's that he's totally unattainable, but I'm not really going to try. It's because I feel like I'm about 16 again when I'm near him.

I won't say too much for fear of exposing who it is.  I'll simply say he's a friend of a friend who I see every couple months.  Our lives hardly cross.  Yet every time I'm near him I get butterflies. I don't think of him if I haven't seen him. But when I do see him, it fuels my imagination for a couple days.

Sigh! Where's my notebook?  I could totally doodle some butterflies and hearts right now.