Repeat: "It's not always about you. It's not always about you. It's not always about you." When did I become so self centered? (I ask myself in a blog entirely about me.) Canadian author has come and gone. It was nice to see him but I now feel slightly guilty about not seeing the actual reason for his visit. I assumed he was coming just to see me and that our unrequited relationship would get a jump start and I would be all aflutter with love and melancholy by the time he left. Really what did I expect? To have some sort of international love affair? I refuse to be the junior high girl with the imaginary boyfriend that lives in Canada. But, none of that matters anyway. That wasn't the point of this trip. It was not about me, even if I didn't realize it until he left. Things were weird from the start. He was friendly but not in the way I expected. He seemed broken somehow, just not together, and he didn't want to go anywhere or do anything but stay home and grade papers, watch tv, and sleep. This was baffling to me until I was home from returning him to the airport and I was with my roommate walking the dogs. In one simple moment of clarity my roommate pointed out that he is recently single after a long relationship and that is a dark and lonely place to be. He simply needed distance from his life and to spend time with a friend. How did I not see that?! Now I feel like I should have been less distant and guarded and should have been more comforting. Mending a friend's broken heart is something I'm good at, playing hard to get with someone that can't have me is not something I'm good at.
In an odd way I feel liberated. For two years I placed this guy on such a high pedestal that he was unreachable. Some part of my heart saw him as the unobtainable perfect partner. The pedestal is gone and my heart is returned. For almost two years he was the benchmark that I measured all others against. But I now realize that I created a fantasy persona for him. He was imaginary and it's impossible for a real person to compete with an imaginary person.
So now I'm struggling with a few things. I feel like I've lost something but it never existed to begin with. I feel like I've gained a friend that is real rather than a fantasy pen pal in another country. I feel like I'm ready to move on. I feel like I'm ready for reality. I feel like I might have a date with a certain legislator sometime in the very near future, possibly even tonight. Time will tell. I'm excited for the spring.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Update
Oh Mylanta, it's been a long time since I posted on here. SOOOO much has happened! I'll try to hit on the bullet points.
I went to Washington DC in March. It was AMAZING! I learned so much and in 4 days I felt like I had accomplished more than I had in the previous couple of years at home. I met some amazing people and fell in love with the GLSEN staff. New goal: I want to work for GLSEN. I applied for a job but I think I was too late. I see it's no longer posted and I wasn't contacted. But that's ok, my work in Laramie isn't quite done.
I have devised an exit strategy for myself. Step 1) Extract myself from certain clubs and organizations that are too dependent on me so that I have more free time for step 2) Finishing my freaking MA! After a semester of battling with the registrars office and the history department I have managed to have 3/4 of the F's on my transcript removed. My adviser's parting gift was a pile of irrational grades. He even opened a second section for a class he wasn't even teaching in order to give me one more F. I wish I knew what I did to piss this dude off. But now it's mostly fixed and I can register for classes and move on. Once I have my degree in hand I can move on to step 3) and decide what I want to be when I grow up (work for GLSEN) and somehow magically make myself into the perfect employee so they would be insane to not hire me. The sticking point is that GLSEN is based out of NYC and DC so that would be a huge change and I'm not sure how Miss Doggy would do in a big city.
Speaking of Miss Doggy... There was some recent drama involving my roommate, a friend in a neighboring town, a dinner party I was unable to attend and a "joke" that led me to believe they lost my dog, which made me think my dog was dead in a street somewhere. Lots of drama ensued, I yelled, I sent nasty emails, I was pissed for about 48 hours, and then I let it go. My dog was never lost, my friends are just jackasses.
Going back to this "I need to leave" idea. I feel like the last of the Mohicans. I am the last person left of the group of friends I had when I first moved here. 4-5 years ago I had this core group of friends and they are all gone now. It's just me left. I never imagined I would be the last holdout. Of course I've made new friends since then but many of them have left as well, or gotten into serious relationships or have somehow lost touch. This is a lonely place and it's hard to meet people and yet I'm always surprised about how many people I know. How can I know so many people and yet feel so alone sometimes? It's odd.
The AIDS Walk and Drag Queen Bingo were last weekend. As always, they were a BLAST! The weather was perfect for the walk and there was a good turn out. True to form, the weather turned bad as soon as I opened my chips at the bbq. EVERY YEAR! No idea why. Drag Queen Bingo was the best it's been so far! I didn't bring a date this year, which worked to my advantage in the end. I had a VIP table and brought some friends and generally had an awesome time. A "friend" at a neighboring table somehow turned into a 5 year old and started throwing markers at me. The first time it was kind of cute, the second was still a little funny, the third was enough. About 40 later I was pissed, the neighboring tables were pissed, and I snapped at him. Also throughout the night I was being wooed by a certain republican legislator. It was odd and unexpected but certainly not unwanted. I've known of this guy for many years and he had a bit of a "reputation" in the past. I'm willing to forgive the past as long as it really is the past and I have to admit I enjoyed the attention. Nobody has tried that hard with me in a long time. I should have probably been a little less aloof but I made up for it by the end of the night. He had been trying really hard with me and asking mutual friends about me and people from two other tables had texted me to see what I thought of the situation. (Yes, I am in fact a 13 year old girl, as are all my friends.) At the end of the night I was dancing and I saw him make his way out to the dance floor, he kind of danced near me and got discouraged and left when I didn't turn to him. (I should have danced with him.) Then a mutual friend talked to me and told me that he's never seen him act like that and wondered what I had done to captivate him. The night was nearly over, I had a long day and I was about to call it a night. So I went to him where he was sitting and told him I had a nice time chatting with him and asked if he had my number, knowing perfectly well that he didn't have it. He said asked me if I wanted him to have it. I told him to give me his phone and I programmed my number into it and instructed him to use it sometime soon. It was an uncharacteristically bold move on my part and I was oddly proud of myself. I figured if he was interested in anything other than a one night stand then he would contact me and we could go from there. Before I even got home he texted to thank me for my number and to say he had a nice time with me. Of course I got all grinny and happy since I am a 13 year old girl. He invited me to dinner last night. Unfortunately, he invited me to dinner at exactly the one time I wasn't able to go to dinner with him because I had a meeting and it was too late to get out of it. Plus I have an added complication coming into my life in about 7 hours.
Picture it: New York City, May 2008. I'm presenting at a conference and this cute guy comes up to introduce himself after my talk. He's an author (+1), has a PhD (+1), and planning on going to the archive I work at to do research at some future point (+2). He seemed nervous and mentioned going to an art show later in the night and I was too dumb to see that was an invitation. We corresponded for several months until he actually did come to town and stayed with me and it was wonderful. My guard was down within minutes and it was just like we had been best friends forever. He left, he got into a relationship, he broke my heart. It was dumb since we live in two different countries (he's Canadian) but I was still pretty heart broken. We had already made plans to meet up in San Francisco the following December and we spent a week together there in this awkward/ wonderful/ unrequited pseudo relationship. Then his real life and relationship took over and we had a lot less contact until recently. He's single again, and regretted pushing me out of his life. It sounds like a booty call but it's not. I like this guy and I'm content to simply be together when we are able and not when we are not. He's one of those people that I'm sure will be a part of my life, complicating things for a very long time, and that's ok. At any rate, he comes in today and will stay with me for 6 days. I'm excited and nervous and basically giddy. As cheese ball as it sounds, when I plan road trips and imaginary dates, he's the one I picture in the passenger seat.
*sigh* Why can't anything ever be simple or straight forward. So, in a week when he leaves I'll have a date with a republican to look forward to. That seemed a lot more exciting until I wrote all this out...
And that's my update.
I went to Washington DC in March. It was AMAZING! I learned so much and in 4 days I felt like I had accomplished more than I had in the previous couple of years at home. I met some amazing people and fell in love with the GLSEN staff. New goal: I want to work for GLSEN. I applied for a job but I think I was too late. I see it's no longer posted and I wasn't contacted. But that's ok, my work in Laramie isn't quite done.
I have devised an exit strategy for myself. Step 1) Extract myself from certain clubs and organizations that are too dependent on me so that I have more free time for step 2) Finishing my freaking MA! After a semester of battling with the registrars office and the history department I have managed to have 3/4 of the F's on my transcript removed. My adviser's parting gift was a pile of irrational grades. He even opened a second section for a class he wasn't even teaching in order to give me one more F. I wish I knew what I did to piss this dude off. But now it's mostly fixed and I can register for classes and move on. Once I have my degree in hand I can move on to step 3) and decide what I want to be when I grow up (work for GLSEN) and somehow magically make myself into the perfect employee so they would be insane to not hire me. The sticking point is that GLSEN is based out of NYC and DC so that would be a huge change and I'm not sure how Miss Doggy would do in a big city.
Speaking of Miss Doggy... There was some recent drama involving my roommate, a friend in a neighboring town, a dinner party I was unable to attend and a "joke" that led me to believe they lost my dog, which made me think my dog was dead in a street somewhere. Lots of drama ensued, I yelled, I sent nasty emails, I was pissed for about 48 hours, and then I let it go. My dog was never lost, my friends are just jackasses.
Going back to this "I need to leave" idea. I feel like the last of the Mohicans. I am the last person left of the group of friends I had when I first moved here. 4-5 years ago I had this core group of friends and they are all gone now. It's just me left. I never imagined I would be the last holdout. Of course I've made new friends since then but many of them have left as well, or gotten into serious relationships or have somehow lost touch. This is a lonely place and it's hard to meet people and yet I'm always surprised about how many people I know. How can I know so many people and yet feel so alone sometimes? It's odd.
The AIDS Walk and Drag Queen Bingo were last weekend. As always, they were a BLAST! The weather was perfect for the walk and there was a good turn out. True to form, the weather turned bad as soon as I opened my chips at the bbq. EVERY YEAR! No idea why. Drag Queen Bingo was the best it's been so far! I didn't bring a date this year, which worked to my advantage in the end. I had a VIP table and brought some friends and generally had an awesome time. A "friend" at a neighboring table somehow turned into a 5 year old and started throwing markers at me. The first time it was kind of cute, the second was still a little funny, the third was enough. About 40 later I was pissed, the neighboring tables were pissed, and I snapped at him. Also throughout the night I was being wooed by a certain republican legislator. It was odd and unexpected but certainly not unwanted. I've known of this guy for many years and he had a bit of a "reputation" in the past. I'm willing to forgive the past as long as it really is the past and I have to admit I enjoyed the attention. Nobody has tried that hard with me in a long time. I should have probably been a little less aloof but I made up for it by the end of the night. He had been trying really hard with me and asking mutual friends about me and people from two other tables had texted me to see what I thought of the situation. (Yes, I am in fact a 13 year old girl, as are all my friends.) At the end of the night I was dancing and I saw him make his way out to the dance floor, he kind of danced near me and got discouraged and left when I didn't turn to him. (I should have danced with him.) Then a mutual friend talked to me and told me that he's never seen him act like that and wondered what I had done to captivate him. The night was nearly over, I had a long day and I was about to call it a night. So I went to him where he was sitting and told him I had a nice time chatting with him and asked if he had my number, knowing perfectly well that he didn't have it. He said asked me if I wanted him to have it. I told him to give me his phone and I programmed my number into it and instructed him to use it sometime soon. It was an uncharacteristically bold move on my part and I was oddly proud of myself. I figured if he was interested in anything other than a one night stand then he would contact me and we could go from there. Before I even got home he texted to thank me for my number and to say he had a nice time with me. Of course I got all grinny and happy since I am a 13 year old girl. He invited me to dinner last night. Unfortunately, he invited me to dinner at exactly the one time I wasn't able to go to dinner with him because I had a meeting and it was too late to get out of it. Plus I have an added complication coming into my life in about 7 hours.
Picture it: New York City, May 2008. I'm presenting at a conference and this cute guy comes up to introduce himself after my talk. He's an author (+1), has a PhD (+1), and planning on going to the archive I work at to do research at some future point (+2). He seemed nervous and mentioned going to an art show later in the night and I was too dumb to see that was an invitation. We corresponded for several months until he actually did come to town and stayed with me and it was wonderful. My guard was down within minutes and it was just like we had been best friends forever. He left, he got into a relationship, he broke my heart. It was dumb since we live in two different countries (he's Canadian) but I was still pretty heart broken. We had already made plans to meet up in San Francisco the following December and we spent a week together there in this awkward/ wonderful/ unrequited pseudo relationship. Then his real life and relationship took over and we had a lot less contact until recently. He's single again, and regretted pushing me out of his life. It sounds like a booty call but it's not. I like this guy and I'm content to simply be together when we are able and not when we are not. He's one of those people that I'm sure will be a part of my life, complicating things for a very long time, and that's ok. At any rate, he comes in today and will stay with me for 6 days. I'm excited and nervous and basically giddy. As cheese ball as it sounds, when I plan road trips and imaginary dates, he's the one I picture in the passenger seat.
*sigh* Why can't anything ever be simple or straight forward. So, in a week when he leaves I'll have a date with a republican to look forward to. That seemed a lot more exciting until I wrote all this out...
And that's my update.
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