Coincidence?

Here's a story that illustrates a fairly new intention and belief of mine. In the past 9 months or so, I've begun drawing people into my life who don't fit the mold of my previous expectations and pictures of who I find myself hanging out with. It's difficult to describe how this has been intentional without me being fully aware of the change in myself, but it has been both. My acceptance has opened up a bit, and in parallel timing, I have established friendships with a handful of really wonderful people.

Once upon a time, I headed out to Sevananda to buy a few quick groceries. I felt no rush, it was a laissez-faire summer afternoon. I had finished teaching and not yet started actively looking for a new job. I was probably near the peak period of my serial dating phase. I park my car and meet a guy right side the store. He gives me the usual explanation that he means no harm, just needs a meal. He said he'd just moved to Atlanta and didn't have much money. Pretty clean-looking guy. Definitely not stinky, high, drunk, or even grungy.

It's the middle of the afternoon, pretty busy, I feel completely at ease, so I say, "Sure, pick something out and meet me at the check-out. No problem." I buy the food, and we go outside. To show his gratitude, he plays me a song on his recorder and creates a poem just for me:). It was sweet and the recorder made me laugh a little. We introduce ourselves and he wants to chat and hang out more. I've gotten to the end of my comfort zone, so I excuse myself. He's cool, though.

Last night, I go upstairs to play Scrabble w/ Les because we haven't hung out since our little "tiff" so to speak. Anyway, so he suggests inviting his friend over to play with me. I say, "Sure, is he hot? Should I go change out of my sweats?" Friend comes over, we hang out, have fun, he says he's lived here about six months, very eager (without actually hitting on me) to hang out with me again. And I'm thinking, why does he look familiar? Huh.

When I went to Sevananda today, it dawned on me! Friend and I met at Sevananda this summer!!! Crazy! I'm like, NO WAY! But the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that it's true. Everything fits. Bizarre and cool. I just emailed him to ask if we'd met at Sevananda, so we'll see if my memory is correct.

Shout out to my friend kewlkat!! She just got her first "real" career-related job. She starts next week as a Bilingual Human Rights Representative for the Human Rights Commission for the state of TN in Knoxville. Rock on kewlkat!!! Congrats!!

For Sale

At this point, the goal is to find people who have the means to pick up my furniture and take it off my hands. Not in the "haul it off to the dump" sense, but just in that I don't have to sell it per se. This will also serve as a learning session on how to post pics to the blog. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Let me know if you're interested or want dimensions of any of the furniture. Ok, so formatting and layout is not my forte. It's just a drag.

Exit Polls

First off, go Dems!!! Nancy Pelosi ROCKS! I'm psyched that we're going to have our first woman speaker of the House. I don't mind if we don't officially take the Senate since we've got 50% of the votes already anyway. Electing a Dem Prez in '08 will be smoother if we don't control both chambers. Though the avenger in me also really wants to just continue beating some ass, so that we'll have a real lame duck. I'd like the recovery process to begin ASAP. Enough of that, I'm not in the mood to vent politics.

Here's where I want people's opinions. This was the gist of a google chat that I had with a guy friend of mine this afternoon. I'll qualify it with examples of other banter that goes on with my guy friends. One, we joke about quickies, servicing each other, "how much time you got?"..."well, how much time u need?" Another friend let me spank him on Halloween (I was a 50s housewife carrying a mixing spoon) and wasn't uncomfortable until it actually started to hurt. Anyway, that's the background to how I relate to my pals. I thought I was at a similar comfort level with Les (short for lesbian, but that's a whole 'nother story).

Ok, so Les and I are kidding around about me choosing a tattoo. I ask if he likes tattoos. He says no. I ask if he'd think I was sexy with one. He says no. I say, "oh, well, I guess I won't get one then." this is all well and good, he knows we're kidding. then I say "it doesn't matter, you don't think I'm sexy, anyway." expecting to get a response along the lines either, "yeah, you're right," or, "sexy mama, u know ur hot." some witty reply.

But no, he takes that as a loaded serious question and doesn't know how to respond. I re-iterate that I'm teasing, and we hash it out later. Bottom line, he still thinks it was a weird statement/implied question. I can admit that I was curious to hear whether he went to the exaggeratingly affirming joke or chose the cut and dry rejection. But he thought it was way out of the joking realm. Am I wrong? Would I have been crossing the same line if I'd been talking to Spankee or Quickee?

Beats me. I'm just curious what other people think.

In other news, I'm getting majorly pumped about my upcoming trip!!! I took off from work yesterday to buy a digital camera and do other errands (and vote! woohooo!) Funny how whenever I buy impulsively, I almost always return it.

What happened is this. I've been shopping for an iPod shuffle and digital camera ever since I decided to head overseas. At first, I was determined to buy used, but Quickee convinced me that, at least for the camera, buying used would be catastrophe. He introduced me to Techbargains, the best discount electronics website ever, where I bought a shuffle for $50!!! including shipping!!!

The camera deals were pretty good too, but I was more nervous about that purchase, since there are so many damn choices. I call Spankee (these aliases CRACK me up!:)), and he gives me sound advice. I go to Showcase, don't love the one they have in my price range, so I go to BestBuy. I do my best to avoid large chainstores, but alas.

I buy the second to cheapest digital camera in the store, realizing that it's the exact same camera that I used when I was the photographer, "Technical Coordinator," at an outdoors camp two summers ago. Suffice to say, it was a cheap camera. I get home, eat my lunch, check Techbargains for good deals, find none, and go back to BestBuy.

It dawned on me that I wasn't the least bit eager to get out my new camera and play with it. Telltale sign that change needs to happen. Back to BestBuy. For $50 more dollars, I have the nicer Sony version of my previous camera as well as a 4-yr warranty.

Got home, played with my new toy, almost took it to work just to take pictures. I'm not that cheezy. I'll wait 'til tomorrow and take a few good outside Autumn shots. Then I'll play with downloading and posting them here.

This one goes out

......to the one I love. I doubt that song actually fits with this blog, but it's one of my favorite R.E.M. songs. Ok, so I've got enough guy friends complaining about internet dating and dating in general that I decided to look for a theme in guys that get a reply from me. This is mostly based on their approach, not so much about factors such as common interest, physical attraction, etc.

1. Long emails or phone conversations. Now, while these can potentially get weird beyond the very beginning stages of getting to know someone, at first, they're great opportunities to get conversation started and find common ground. And the thing I appreciate is when I get to read long emails without writing much in return. It's easy to read a long email and pick one or two things to ask about. Reading a person's rambles so to speak also gives a lot of perspective, so it's easy to spot fuzzy oddities that need clarification before I meet someone.
2. Positivity. If I'm going to hear someone talk incessantly about himself, which undeniably happens on most of my dates, I at least want to hear good, optimistic stuff. And the next best thing to being with someone who is genuinely interested in getting to know me better, is hearing someone who is visibly happy and excited about life.
   

I try to avoid giving unsolicited advice because I don't like receiving it. And so I blog. It's also amazing how popular I become as soon as I lose interest in dating. I was crazy stand-offish, almost rude, to my date Friday night, and yet, he just called and wanted to stop by to hang out tonight. As if.

All this dating stuff basically summarizes everything my roommate has ever tried to advise me about "the dating game." Play hard to get, smile all the time, make him chase you, blah, blah, blah. But I can never manage to feign disinterest. I don't fake very well. What's the point anyway? Of faking.

By george, I've got it!!!

I finally appreciate the "guys have to chase" phenomenon. I always thought it was this annoying egotistical power-trip for men. The Aries-feminist in me has always wanted to brazenly initiate, make the first move, not wait around for a guy to ask me out, yada, yada, yada. Now I get it!!

Being pursued gives me more time to decide how much I actually like the guy. I get the attention; I get the benefits of a relationship and dates even before I'm entirely sure that I like him. Sounds pretty fuckin' selfish, but it'll work for a minute. Interesting epiphany.

Soooooo....Europe here I come!! Ok, specifically, Dublin, Ireland; Tblisi, Georgia; and, Prague, Czech Republic. I'll be in Dublin for 10 days and Tblisi for 7. Prague will be my base for two months. I'll definitely visit my German friend in Munich and probably play tourist in Krakow and Budapest as well. Wooohooo!!! As a friend of mine put it, it's like "Faith does Europe!!"