He emailed me. The stupid insane grin is back. Hee hee. 🙂
Author Archives: Cindy
finally!
Ok, the cute Air Force boy is definitely gone now. He never called me back, so fine, I can take the hint. Ordinarily, this type of thing would bum me out considerably, but I don’t really care today because… (drum roll)… I had a good date last night! After however many dozen boring dates that I’ve met through online dating, I finally went out with someone who I would actually like to see again, and who I think might actually be compatible with me. His name is Dave, he’s British (I melt for that accent), he’s cute, he’s smart, he’s funny, etc. etc. Oh, and he likes cats (major bonus points with me). I think what made the date so amazing is that we basically did nothing, and I still had a great time. We just went to a coffee shop in my neighborhood – he had coffee, I had decaf mint tea – and we sat outside on the sidewalk and talked. That’s it, just talked. For 3 hours. I didn’t even notice the time until all of a sudden I realized that it was dark and I was cold, so I looked at my watch and it was 10:30. Holy hell, I’m usually showered & in bed before 10. A guy has to be pretty remarkable to keep me up that far past my bedtime. So, I walked with him back to his car, and he asked if he was going to get a second date, to which I replied “absolutely.” He gave me a hug – he’s a good hugger too (more bonus points) – and then I walked home.
This morning while I was walking to work I was thinking about how much fun I had last night, and I realized that I was smiling. It occurred to me that I probably looked insane, walking down the street by myself at 8 a.m. grinning like an idiot. I tried to force myself to stop smiling, but every couple of minutes I’d forget and the smile would creep back. I haven’t had this good a feeling about someone for a loooooong time.
Now, of course, the morning coffee jitters are kicking in and I’m starting to go through my self-doubt cycle of wondering if/when he’ll call/email me again. I’m trying not to focus on that, but it’s such a bad habit of mine that I don’t know how to shut it off. I’ll be ok, I’m just going to study for my next Microsoft exam and distract myself from thinking about it.
Off-topic: sending lots of happy, good luck vibes for Kris, who’s applying for a job that would totally kick ass if she got it.
impatience
I left the cute Air Force boy a voicemail 2 nights ago, and he hasn’t called me back. So perhaps I really was just Queen for the Day, not for the Week or the Month. Or maybe I’m just being silly & he hasn’t called me back because he works graveyard shift & we’re on totally different work/sleep schedules. I suppose I’ll give him through the weekend to call me back, before I officially give up. Meanwhile, in the interest of not putting all of my proverbial eggs in one basket, I went on a date on Wednesday night. Nice guy, well educated, smart, relatively cute…. and na-da. No spark. I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual, so no big deal.
In other news, Chris G. called last night to tell me that he’s moving downtown. Yay! His new apartment is going to be about 1/3 of a mile from my place. I actually pass the building every day on my walk to work. So I’m happy that he’ll be able to come out & play with me more often. I’ve hardly seen him at all since he moved to Redmond last year. In my excitement over his big news, I even offered to help him move next weekend. I have a feeling I’ll probably regret that, but it’s typically easier to move someone else’s stuff than your own, so it probably won’t be too bad.
Oh, did I mention how happy I am that it’s Friday?
swoon
The cute Air Force boy called last night. We talked for over an hour & a half. I still think he’s probably too young for me, but god, he’s just too adorable. Obviously I’m smitten, I don’t stay awake until midnight on a work night for just anyone. He might be going to Iraq in July, which is absolutely terrifying. Even if I don’t end up dating him, he’s a really sweet guy and the idea of him getting blown to bits in a desert on the other side of the world doesn’t sit well with me. The world has a shortage of good kissers, we need guys like him to stick around. He assured me that he’d be safe because he’s an airplane mechanic, so he wouldn’t be in the front lines, and the type of planes he works on (C-17’s, I believe) have never been shot down. But I don’t think there’s any such thing as 100% safe in that country right now. So I know that starting in July, whether or not he & I are still talking to each other, I’m going to be checking the death toll list every day to make sure his name isn’t on it. It’s scary, and I don’t like to think about it. So in the meantime, let’s just focus on the fact that I have a new crush, and he is cute-cute-cutey-cute.
Vegas, baby!
Ok, the recap of the trip:
Arrived on Thursday afternoon. Checked into the hotel, met my roommate (nice girl, but very very quiet & shy – not the type of person I’m going to be best buddies with), changed clothes & headed over to our evening meeting. We got lost trying to find the casino where our meeting was, so we were about 20 minutes late. However, this led to my one celebrity sighting of the trip. We stopped at one of the hotels’ information desks to get directions, and at the registration desk was Wee-Man from “Jackass”. He looked at me, probably noticing the fact that I was staring at him like an idiot, and probably waiting for me to say something. But I couldn’t come up with anything to say, because it seems lame that a 28 year-old professional female should recognize a professional skateboarding little person (especially in the presence of 3 of my co-workers), so I just stared & kept my mouth shut. I heard later that he was in town for his bachelor party. Good for him.
Anyway, I finally got to the meeting & found out what this “team activity involving creativity & fun” was all about. They took all the new hires (read: me, plus about 50 other folks), divided us into teams, and told us that we had to come up with either a skit or a love poem that demonstrated our passion for technology. There was also a list of technical terms that we got bonus points for using. The skit/poem would have to be performed in front of everyone (about 200 people) at our meeting the next day. Upon learning of this assignment, I decided to start drinking heavily. We opted for the love poem instead of the skit, and decided to make it as dirty as possible (i.e., “my firewall burns with desire”, that type of thing). Turns out that pretty much everyone had the same idea as we did, and it was very embarassing to do this in front of a crowd of people the next day (after we had all sobered up), but they also gave us props/costumes to use. And it occurred to me that you can do just about anything when you’re wearing giant clown sunglasses, a witch’s hat and a feather boa. But it was still pretty awful.
As for the bowling, I tried. I really did. But I suck, and the 5 or 6 beers I had consumed beforehand didn’t help my cause. I bowled the first 7 frames, at which point I had a total score of 18. (I had some of the prettiest gutter balls you’ve ever seen.) I asked one of my teammates to start bowling for me after that, because I didn’t want to be the person with the lowest possible score. As it was, at our meeting the next day they gave out the winner/loser awards, and I won “Least Graceful Bowler”. Yay me. My prize was a shot glass. As if that’s going to help me improve my aim. In any case, there was a big powerpoint slide on the projector screen, with my name in big bold letters on it, which led to the most surreal moment of the whole trip…
This girl came up to me during one of the breaks & asked me if I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. I said yes, and my brain was trying to place where I knew her from. Turns out she’s someone who I went from 1st through 9th grade with. How strange is that? I haven’t seen this person in over 13 years, and boom, there she is. She’s based in Phoenix now, and she’s a developer, so the odds that I’ll see her at work are slim to none. She looks pretty much exactly the same as she did in 9th grade, too. She’s lost some weight, but her hair is still huge, and she still wears frosty blue eye shadow – all the way up to the brow, not a speck of eyelid showing. It was good/weird to catch up, but that moment just totally freaked me out for the rest of the day.
Oh yeah, after bowling on Thursday night, I ended up kissing a co-worker. He was on my love poem/skit team, and it was one of those rare instances where we met & instantly started picking on each other. I’m hardly ever at ease that quickly with someone, so that’s cool. He’s based in Denver so I’ll probably never see him again – or at least not until the next regional meeting. So no big deal. But damn, he was cute. And a really good kisser. Hey, what happens in Vegas….
Anyway, I got back to town late Friday night & collapsed. Scott & I got massages on Saturday (that was awesome), and Saturday night I went dancing by myself because no one else seemed to be around & up for it. I met a really cute Air Force guy, who’s probably way too young for me (he’s 23), but he was also a damn good kisser. So there’s been lots of good male attention happening for me lately. I must be having a good mojo week or something.
things I like about my job
1) Free coffee & at least a dozen different types of tea. And I don’t mean just plain ol’ drip coffee, either. There’s that too, of course, but there’s also an espresso/cappucino/latte-maker that is freakin’ awesome.
2) The soda machine only costs 25 cents. And it has both Diet Coke AND Diet Dr. Pepper in it. Hell yeah.
3) I met my career manager on Monday (more of a mentor than a boss), and he’s very nice. His name is Maurice, but everyone calls him Mo. I asked him if anyone calls him the Gangster of Love. He said no, but some do call him the Space Cowboy. So he’s cool. 🙂 He took me to a very nice lunch (company tab) and filled me in about lots of work stuff I didn’t know. He also told me that when I travel for work, if I’m going to be gone for a long time, I can take Teenie with me & the company will pay for it. He said that a lot of times if he’s going to be somewhere longer than a month, he & his wife will drive down with their cat & dog and all stay in the hotel together. (His wife is a writer, so she has flexibility to travel whenever/wherever she wants. Must be nice.) So that’s good, worrying about pet-sitters is honestly the one thing that had been making me not want to travel. But Teenie is a really good flyer, so if she can come with me, the problem is essentially solved.
4) I’m going to Vegas tomorrow, for an employee meeting for the western region. It’s only for one night, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I’ve never been to Vegas, and I’ve wanted to check it out for quite some time. Mo warned me to plan on getting (a) very drunk, and (b) very little sleep. I told him that I had no plans of getting drunk with my co-workers and he said “Oh don’t worry, you will. You know that expression, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? That’s true for these meetings. You probably won’t even go to bed that night.” So THAT part sounds totally awesome – although somewhat scary, since I can’t remember the last time I stayed up all night. And my flight back to Seattle doesn’t leave until 8:00 on Friday night, so Friday is going to be one looooooong day for me.
On the other hand, I have to share a hotel room with someone I don’t know, which is a bit awkward. And there are some things on the agenda that the HR ladies have been sending out, with phrases like “team activities involving creativity and fun!” that sound like absolute hell to me. I am not a fan of those “let’s get a bunch of grown-ups who don’t know each other to stand in a circle and play a game” types of exercises. One of the events is bowling – which, if there’s going to be alcohol involved, I’m going to have to politely decline from participating in, because I’ll end up seriously hurting someone, most likely myself. I do have weird carpal tunnel-esque issues with both of my thumbs (years & years of typing), so I think I can use that as an excuse. Oh well, damn near any event is tolerable as long as there’s an open bar.
sleep sweet sleep
Apparently Blogger has completely changed their format, which I think is kind of cool, although it may take me some time to get used to it.
The weekend recap: Friday night, I did absolutely nothing. I ordered a pizza (low carb be damned, but I’m back on the wagon today), lay on the futon and stuffed my face. Saturday I cleaned/unpacked (still not finished with that yet), and then that evening, I was supposed to have a date but I think I got stood up. It was very strange, I had one phone conversation with this guy, and he said he’d call me the next evening to go out, but he never called. Which was fine, I wasn’t really looking forward to it – just from the one phone chat, I thought he was kind of a jackass. And judging by the fact that he never called again, I’m guessing that he felt the same way about me. Oh well, what are you going to do? The only thing that bugged me about that was that I specifically stopped cleaning and started getting dressed up because I was planning for the time frame that he said he was going to call me. And then he never did call, so Saturday evening was essentially a waste of make-up. Instead, I went to the tattoo shop to meet with the artist who I want to do my tattoo. He’s a super-nice guy, and he had some really cool ideas for how we could do my design, so I think it’s going to turn out to be even more beautiful than I had originally imagined. I also got to look a bit more at his portfolio (only a fraction of it is on the shop’s website), and he’s done some amazing work. So I’m really, really excited about it now.
Oh, after the tattoo shop, since I had no date & nothing to do, I went to Blockbuster & rented “Le Divorce”. I liked it. Also over the weekend on my cable movie channels, I watched “Iris” and “Laurel Canyon”. Iris was depressing as hell, which I should’ve figured out 5 minutes into it, but for some reason I continued to watch it anyway. Bonus for guys: Kate Winslet gets naked more than once in it. Laurel Canyon was good, and if any of you boys have an interest in seeing Frances McDormand’s breasts, this movie is your chance (she’s much more flat-chested than I had imagined, kind of made me feel good about myself). LC also features Christian Bale with his shirt off, which is a good enough reason to watch any movie, if you ask me.
Sunday was errand day – Home Depot, drug store, and groceries. I bought plants for my balcony at Home Depot. This is my first attempt at horticulture since the time I killed a cactus in high school (which is extremely difficult to do, I might add), so we’ll see how they do. I got petunias because they’re purple & cute, and I bought catnip so Teenie can have the kitty equivalent of home-grown angel dust. I pinched off a twig for her yesterday and she completely flipped out. But hopefully now that I have plants out there, my stupid upstairs neighbors will realize that someone lives in my apartment and they’ll stop throwing their f***ing cigarette butts on my balcony.
I think the highlight of my weekend was that I finally got to sleep – I’ve been averaging about 5 hours a night for the past month. Combining Friday & Saturday nights, I think I slept 19-20 hours total. It was lovely, I need to do that more often.