ex's and oh's

So, as I mentioned in my previous post via the ever so popular social networking sites a couple of my exes have found me. I got the strangest message from one, R, telling me why he feels we had issues. OMG, this gives me flashbacks to the worst nightmare I ever had ~ me stuck in the elevator room of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland with every boy I ever dated. Said boys then decided to either tell me how horrible I was or tried to get me back. In my defense of this crazy dream, I had it after a night of drinking jager to get over a bad breakup...so let's not read to much into it. Oh yes, I get the irony of this drama occurring at the Happiest Place on Earth does not escape me, all I can say is I was in my 20's at the time.
So, back to the message from R. We had exchanged a couple of notes-messages back & forth catching up. He is divorced from the woman he married after me, no kids, but a dog they fought over. I do love how people feel the need to tell you what they think you did wrong. Apparently I was not ever there enough in our relationship. Now by this he doesn't mean I didn't spend enough time with him, oh no, he clarified exactly what he meant. He feels that I never opened up enough to him the way he saw me do with others. An example he gave was that I had something going on with my best friend, DK and I didn't ask, tell, invite him to be involved. Basically what it all boils down to is that I put him too low on my list of priorities. I had college classes, a job to pay for said college classes, friends and family, but in his opinion he came at the end of all of that.
OK, not going to lie at all, my first thought was screw you. I mean this is all from a good decade ago, who cares. I did break up with him, but he also had a date the weekend after that happened so he didn't seem too broken up at the time! Well, then I stopped to think about it a little bit. I will give him a bit of credit and say that it is mostly true. I am great at sharing my life with my friends and will drop things to help them even. I tend to be much harder to get to know in a relationship. I care about the people I choose to get involved with, but I hold back quite a bit until I hit my comfort level.
With R, he was the first guy I dated for any length of time after my breakup with D. To know why this matters, D was the first in a lot of things for me and to this day is one of only 2 guys I have said I Love You to. He was an amazing guy who I loved, but in the end found I was not in love with. The hardest part of breaking up with him was accepting that and hoping we would both be better for it. My friends at the time...and some even now think I was crazy to ever stop dating him. R came along about 9 months later, met him at a dive bar I went to with my co-worker restaurant friends. He went to my school and also worked as a waiter so got my job hours and stresses. He was fun, cute and made me feel good about myself. We dated in what I thought was a casual way and didn't fight at all. He never met my mom, who lived 40 miles away, but many of my school friends. I never had him stay over at my place, I always went to his. I have no idea if this was some sort of control issue as I could leave or what. That was one of the things he brought up when we broke up. I broke up with him as my life was getting busier & after 3 months to be honest I didn't think it was going anywhere. To me he was like a friend I went to the bar, movies etc with and sometimes we made out. I didn't feel a big connection or growth. As I said he found someone fast, he had a date 5 days later, she knew him from work I think. They ended up married 2 years later. She didn't care for me much so we lost touch, only to have him find me online and send me a note letting me know what he had been up to all this time.
So in the end my ex gave me an oh moment, where I came to an understanding of what he meant and how much I held back in past relationships. I didn't let him in as far as getting to know me via my world, my friends, my family. I kept him apart from all of it and then left as there was no connection, well how could there be? I have learned now that you have to open yourself up some in order to get that back. I think I actually appreciate what R said even though no one ever likes to be told they were wrong ; )

social networking

I love and hate the concept of social networking. On one hand I am finding people I am related to, went to school with or even dated ages ago via these sites. On the negative side is that some people I would rather not find me. I didn't keep in touch with some friends from HS and college for a reason. Now all of the sudden they are on facebook or myspace or linked in or some place I am and able to see exactly what I am up to. I try to keep my info on these sites to the basic. I live in CA, by the beach, etc...not so much on details if possible. I have gotten much more selective as to what pictures I put up, comments I make to others that can be seen etc.
I am thankful that the stalker ex I had from SD is not computer savvy enough to bother trying to find me. This is the one all my friends said was so sweet because he brought flowers for every date and called me everyday. Is it also so sweet that he would call even if I said I was busy with work or school? I got off easy though with him as I realized how bad it was getting before it got bad bad bad. I ended up moving shortly after that and no trace of him ever was a nice thing.
The people that have found me lately are my cousin from M. that I lost touch with quite a number of years ago & was jazzed to get to see pics of her cute lil kidlets. In this day & age with family spread so far out I will take the contact in whatever way I can. Then just a couple weeks ago I had 2 ex-boyfriends find me. Actually excited about both of these also as I always hoped the best for both of them. They were my two serious boyfriends and meant alot to me. The funny things is both of them got married to the next girl they dated...guess I was good practice : )
The thing is that while I loved both of them and am not wishing to be with either one, it does make you stop and think what if? If things had been slightly different I could be married with kids right now , or to be a bit of a pessimist I could be divorced and looking to start over. Who knows, but it is kind of fun to ponder too.
So, all in all while there are moments I hate how available our lives are via social networking I think I have to come down on the positive side after all.

sleep & life are good

I have sleep issues quite often. Either waking up at crazy hours and not being able to get back to sleep or just having trouble falling asleep. I think I jinxed myself the other day when talking to my dad by saying " I actually have been sleeping quite well lately" Um yeah so that must be why I woke up at 5am and was not able to go back to bed? You know it is dark still this early in the am? It is now 6:30 and the first hint of light is starting to show up in the sky. I love how the sky looks right now, a soft blue as the moon goes to bed and the sun wakes up.

I do believe the last time I was up at this early was when I was working the job from hell and a water pipe broke. I had to go to the restaurant and turn off the water. I am thankful everyday that I no longer work there, but things like that top the list.

My new years resolution was to be more thankful of the little things in life. To stop and enjoy when I have a nice sunny day off. To be able to appreciate that I live in a great little house, in a great town, with great friends. I know...that is a lot of greats, but it is all true. I have people that I can call to come join me for a late afternoon chat fest with champagne on my porch. I have a house that I don't share with anyone...not having roomies is fab! My dad lives close enough to do some "honey do" list stuff when I need it. Most of my life is fantastic and the parts that aren't are definitely getting better. So, I am going to look at my getting up at an hour that most of us should be sleeping as a chance to appreciate the early am beauty and just take a nap later when I get tired ; )

MIA

I haven't been on here to post in about 10 days. Life just got in the way I guess. First there is work, looks like I am getting more hours, which is good, but not sure how that will work with my part time unemployment benefits. I heard there is not a cut off of hours, but rather income? The site makes it really hard to find the simplest answers on it and hell no am I spending half my day on the phone or in the local office to find out anything.
Then was St. Patty's, the Saturday before my friends had their second annual party, quite fun. I was a bit of a party fail though in that I left quite early. I had a good time though and it is always nice to see my friends, have a shot or beer and just relax. I had worked all that day and was getting up early to drive to SD to see friends. So, Sunday was me getting up at 6:30am to pack, get gas and get moving. The drive was nice, no traffic, gorgeous weather and great tunes.

( I love LA radio )
I got to SD about 2pm and had a nice visit with some people I don't get to see very often. My friend D from college was out visiting family & it was my first chance to see her cute lil baby boy Lemon. ( don't worry it is a nickname ) Our party got livened up by her mom having a heart issue and the ambulance being called. The dept. is one block from where her brother lives so they got there in seriously a minute. Super nice guys, and a couple quite cute ones! They even had us take pics with Lemon by the fire truck after mom got loaded up into the ambulance and taken to the hospital. Have to have something good come out of not so good things.
Then it was off to sit in the er at Kaiser for 3 or 4 hours...boy do I love that.
There was seriously good people watching though on a very late Sunday eve at the major ER in SD. Have to be entertained somehow don't you know?
By the time all was said and done it was almost midnight so I crashed at D's hotel in a chair, it was better than the floor trust me. I actually slept ok considering.
The next day was spent hanging out with my mom, doing a bit of shopping. We went to the mall, which I don't think I have been to in like 5 years. Lots of closed stores there, but surprisingly lots of the same stuff is still there. Bought D some See's candy as they don't have one near her in CO. Then mom and I went to lunch at the Hunter Steakhouse. I worked at this one when I was 18 and it hasn't changed a bit. The food was great, all as good as I remembered except for dessert. How can it be mudd pie when it is made with mint & cookies and cream ice cream...what happened to chocolate & coffee? Major sadness, but champagne at my mom's made up for that : )
Tuesday was D family day at the zoo. I gave up on taking pics pretty quick as D's hubby J hobby is photography & his camera is hella better than mine! Though I did get some nice shots...like this

I took the Coaster from O'side to SD, which was great. I got to sit back and watch the scenery without dealing with traffic...loved it. I also got chatted up a bit on the ride to SD which made me smile, always fun to flirt a bit. Got back to N. Co. in time to head out for a mini pub crawl in C'bad with some other friends. My cmg ( bestie from jr hs ) her hubby R and some other people who I hadn't seen in forever. I didn't know that downtown C'bad actually had that many bars, much less Irish ones. I was wrong. There is actually a area of about 5 blocks that has 2 Irish pubs, a total dive bar, an old school neighborhood bar, 2 upscale type bar-rest type places and an old bar that defied description, but had cheap ass drinks. 2 newcastles, 3 coronas & a rum & coke cost us $17.50...sweet. I had a great time and almost didn't want to come home, but the real world was hitting me upside the head with things I needed to do so home I came.

I worked Thursday-Sunday, including a bit of management training, go me. now I have 3 glorious days off and am not quite sure what to do with them.

What a horrible problem right? haha

but is it flirting?

So, I have this friend who comes to town every now & again, and when he does we indulge in a little harmless flirting. I like this as he is just what he appears to be: A guy who is not looking for any commitment, wants to hang out and have a good time. Being aware of this to me makes him harmless as I know not to expect anything from him. We have fun drinking, playing pool, flirting and yes even occasionally making out. He was around recently and it made me realize just how out of practice I have become with the whole world of flirting and dating, also how very much I enjoy the activity of flirting with a cute boy.

I have a great group of friends that consists of some couples and a couple of single guys. There really isn't any other single gals in the group other than me. I am so used to this that I don't give it much thought. However today I ran into someone I used to see quite a bit at my old job.

(Funny enough all the same vendors & salespeople come to my new job.)

He said something to me that honestly I couldn't tell if he was being flirtatious or not. His comment was basically that he had thought about me for a couple of days after we last saw each other, which was a random run in on the street near my old job about a month ago?

It was at this point that I realized how very out of practice I was at all of this. There was a time, back in college for instance where I would have been confident enough in the comment being all out flirting, that I would have flirted back to the reward of a number or date.

Now, I just kept doing my work that I had been in the middle of and made small talk to him....ugh this whole dating flirting thing is way to hard. Guess that is why I am single!

going back to school

After much debate with my finances I have deiced to go back to school. I went to a local jr college here in the early 90's, got GE certified and went off to SDSU. I really thought I was going to love my major, speech pathology, as I had gone to a speech therapist twice growing up. To me this meant I had an idea of what I was getting into...oh no I did not. The course work at an undergrad level was killer. Out of the 4 girls I meet during orientation for my major, only 1 graduated in it. The other 3 switched majors and I left school altogether.

I studied my booty off and my GPA dropped from 3.7 to a 2.8 in one year. I had never worked so hard for such negative results ever in my academic career. After another year of pushing thru I decided to switch to my minor, psychology, which I enjoyed. However at this point it was a case of to little too late. I was burned out on school, the room mate from hell and dating life. I decided to take a leave of absence from school and move.

I do not regret that decision, it was right for me at the time. Coming back to my little town of Shangri-La was good for my soul in a myriad of ways. I got to live on my own away from my big support system of friends. I found jobs that kept me in that beach lifestyle, even if they didn't satisfy me in my career goals.

In the past year and a half I have gone thru some big changes. I was let go from the job I worked at for 6 1/2 years with very little sentiment from the company. I got bad news health wise about a friend, then got good news about the same person. Went thru a cancer scare of my own that in the end was nothing, but I could live without doing that again.

All of this made me stop and think about what I really wanted from my life. I am not one to want for much, I live fairly simply, don't want for that fancy car or big house, but rather to be happy with my life. My current course of crazy restaurant work was not making me feel happy or as if I was moving ahead at all. Since I had so much free time I decided to start looking into what choices education wise were available for me. I found that Cal Poly has an adult degree program that I could attend classes at night. The application process is already started, the fee was only $35 and if I get financial aid it could be very doable for me even with my current budget. My mom is so excited at the idea I am sure she will even offer to assist me financially, which I will not turn down. I am quite excited actually at the idea of going back to school. I think the past 10 years were a good break and now I am doing this because I want to, not for family pressure or any other reason. Oh, and if I get all my paperwork done fast enough...I could start on March 30.

well damn it all

Just got off the phone with the lovely people at the government cheese factory & all is well in my world once again. The only reason why I have not gotten any checks for the past 3 weeks is that in my rush to fill it out the last time I checked NO on the box asking if you had looked for work that week. Seriously? I did this stress and irritation to myself? Well, damn me all to hell. The conversation only took 4 minutes and consisted of them asking me 4 questions, with me answering them to their staisfaction. I only had one question, was I getting the money from that time, to which the answer was yes. WooHoo, life is good once again. Got my appt. at CP today to see how hard financially it would be to get back into school. I suddenly feel so much better about life, really!

this is what I am talking about

So, I just got a call from my friend A who got me in the door for the part time bookkeeping job that I have. She called to ask if I was free on Thursday as the owner would like me to come in, learn about other office work ( posting invoices etc ) like we had once talked about. I had mentioned to the owners when I saw them the other day that I had not found anything else right now in my job hunt, thus would be happy to pick up any extra hours they could give me. Guess my go-to attitude helped as I am getting just that. This job has the potential to turn into much more if I can manage to keep being patient and see what unfolds. I won't even lie that this pretty much made my day! Now if I get good news from the government cheese tomorrow then life will be even more amazing.

a life in books

I had someone ask me the other day what my all time favorite book was. I replied that I had too many to name just one. My friend said that was a cop out and I should have one that stands above the rest. Hers is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, which is in my Mt. TBR waiting patiently to be read. While I respect what she was saying I feel that I have favorite books from various times in my life. It is almost like a paper trail of where I have been.

I can't remember any small children's books really that stood out other than Where the Wild Things Are. As a older child I have fond memories of the Anne of Green Gables books and of all of the wonderful writings of Madeleine L'Engle. In jr HS I was in an advanced readers class due to testing out of the 7th & 8th grade ciriculum at my school. This meant that I went to the computer/reading studies lab for a period each day and did work in there. I was assigned all kinds of books to read with a report due once every week. I read Where the Red Fern Grows, 1984, Animal Farm, The Catcher in the Rye,

Lord of the Flies and various others.

When I got into HS I took as my senior elective advanced placment english lit. I hated my teacher, but loved the class. I could not get enough of Shakespeare, who to this day is amongst my favorite authors. I devoured such works as Beowulf, Paradise Lost and Moll Flanders. This class introduced me to Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, D. H. Lawrence and William Makepeace Thackeray. These writers changed my world by opening it up to new places, times and people. I found I could almost become someone else for a while thru the simple act of reading. I could experience places that I might never see in person, but could picture so clearly in my head.

As an adult I now read for pleasure and my tastes are quite varied. While, I will admit to loving a chick lit book or cheesy vampire type fantasy, I also look for books that make me think, a great memoir or travel book. So, to be asked to choose just one book out of the thousands that I have read in my life so far...no I just can't do it.

My latest good book is always in some way my newest favorite as I just finsihed it, it is fresh in my mind as to why it touched or affected me. Then there are those books that sit on my shelf and get read again and again that count in my top reads. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale, Where the Heart Is, Hotel New Hampshire, Women in Love, I Know This Much is True. Who knows, maybe buried in the hundreds of books on my shelf waiting to be read is my favorite book ever.

All I know is I will most assurdly have fun finding that out!

laundry and trash

My washer died on me last week. It lead a good long life of 15 years and at least 3 owners, but dying while mid spin cycle was still a bit sad for me. You see one thing that has been a constant for me in my years of living on my own is not having to go to a laundrymat. I always looked for a place that had a washer & dryer, even if it was a community one in our building while in college. That wasn't too bad as we had 8 of each and only 20 units...never too crowded. When I moved to my little slice of Shangri-la I had no washer or dryer, but my dad lived next door. I got laundry privilages and I shared my computer with him. A set up that worked quite well for the 9 years we lived by each other. When he moved a couple years back to retire to Mexico

( which thankfully only lasted a year )

I got custody of the machines. My neighbor hooked up gas, water & electricity to the

outside of my house out back. My brother & a good friend built an

amazing little shed to cover them...seriously if we have an earthquake

that is the most stable part of my house!

So, the having to go to the laundrymat today was a not so fun experience that I would like to make not happen again, oh let's say ever. I was one of a few english as my first language people there, and the only one without kids. I tried to look more positive about this and think, hey this way you get 2 loads done in half the time it takes you at home. Oh, and I could release some books as this is a somewhat captive audience right? Nice in theory. Soon to be disproved by the ever so charming man that "works" at the laundrymat, not sure

what his title is as he didn't talk, but scowled at all of us.

As I was moving my laundry from the washers ($1.75 each BTW ) to the

dryers ( $0.25 for 8 minutes ) he spied my 4 books I had sitting over by the magazines & free paper area. They man picked them up and threw them away. Books...who really throws away books? I could not even handle seeing it, yes I was leaving them in the big wide world, but I thought it was a nice thing for someone to have a bit to read. Guess this man thought it was trash someone left. I have heard stories of this sort of thing on bookcrossing, but have never in my life actually seen someone throw away a book. I choose to pick them up out of the trash, it was a freshly cleaned can after all , and rescue my books. They ended up going to the thrift store with my other stuff I had cleaned from my closet as I truly did not want to take them back home. As previously mentioned I have enough books at home right now.

latest book...Brothel

I found this book to be quite facinating. The concept of making your living having sex seems strange to me, but that is exactly what the working women of the Mustang Ranch do everyday. Alexa Albert's exploration of Nevada's infamous cathouses began as a public-health study into the safe-sex practices of these legal working girls and the effectiveness of condom requirements in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. It took her three years to gain access to the brothels, and when her project was eventually approved by the head of the Nevada Brothel Association, she was surprised to be invited to stay at Mustang Ranch, among the women of the brothel, for the duration of her research. The book is written in what I felt is a very non-judgemental way from a woman who was actually able to live at the ranch and interact with these women. She talked to them observed them to understand how and why they choose this as their lives. The confidence and yet insecurities that are shown are quite interesting. It is a powerful read regardless of what side you choose to the idea of sex for pay being right or not. In no way does this book glorify or make pretty the jobs that these women do, now does it look down upon them for it.

I offered it as a bookring on bookcrossing as I would love to get some reaction as to what others think of it. Was a bit suprised to see that I had the only copy registered on the site? With the number of people on there sometimes it suprises me what is actually available.

the book are taking over...no really!

In an effort to become more organized with my hobbies that are reading and bookcrossing I cleaned off 2 of my 4 bookshelves in my house this week. In doing this I went thru and registered any and all books I had on my shelves that I had not done. This led to a grand total of 349 books registered in the past month. To put this is perspective a bit, this means that my books to be read
(Mt. TBR as I like to call it )
is enought that I could not buy books for a year and have enough books to read at least one a day. OMG. I found books that I seriously thought I had read, that were just hiding out behind others on my shelf. I came across ones that I am really looking forward to reading. Also found ones that I realized I most likely will never read, good thing we have a local meet up this week!
I am doing my best to read all of my books, while at the same time not buy any more. You would think this would be easy, but books are my addiction...which is how I got to this point.
This is one of the shelves prior to being cleaned

notice there are double rows, I tricked myself a bit as i thought oh it's not that bad...hahaha. Well, since I have no cable there is a great deal of time to be reading. Next on my list is a chick lit one someone gave to me, Learning Curves and then a Brothel, a book about Mustang Ranch. I'll let you know if either is fab or just ok.

Now off to decide what to make for dinner as I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's today and have a fully stocked fridge. Then maybe I'll watch the latest episode of Dollhouse on Fox.com, the first couple of episodes hooked me enough to keep watching.

So, this whole not being completely employed bit is getting old and quick.

Now do not get me wrong...I am happy to have a job at all, even if it is a mere 3 days a week and never more than 15 hours that I work in said week. However, the lovely government cheese decided a couple weeks back that I had flown under their radar and not done a step of their process, the phone interview. Thus they cut off any funds coming to me until I do said interview.

This was febuary 16th that I got that news, while on a mini vacation to help my mom with some stuff no less. Now 3 weeks later I am getting that phone interview ( Wed. 3-4 between 8-10am )

if they decide I am telling them the truth and my answers match what they have on paper...hello why would I lie about making so little? then I will get checks once again. Oh joy. I am looking for a job every damn day too as this just proved to me that anything that comes from the government is full of problems and failure is bound to happen. Not a ton of prospects out there due to the time of year, our crappy economy and the fact that at least 10% of CA is looking for a job too!

So, to all my friends that are job hunting I wish you luck, may we all have a job and soon!

oh and in other news I have an appt. that same day ( 3-4-09 ) with a woman at Cal Poly in regards to going back to school. if I can afford it will be the big question with my lack of funds at the moment, but I figure it is worth looking into at least, right?