Fleeing the State

I'm leaving the state of Massachusetts tonight!

It's the first time I have left the state since June when I flew off to San Diego, unless you count Rhode Island (which I don't, it's barely a state.) I grew up so close to Rhode Island that its more like visiting a neighboring town rather than a completly different state, except for the fact that their tax is 7% where as Massachusetts is 5%. That fact just makes shopping it Rhode Island unfavorable.

New Hampshire is a whole different story. While I grew up in the south eastern end of Massachusetts, New Hampshire was North, making it seem very far away. It also holds many family anecdotes, like the time I lost my big toenail in the swinging door of a New Hampshire Burger King, or the time we almost lost my little brother at "Story Land" only to find him eventually in Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater's Pumpkin. I've seen the infamous "Man in the Mountain" who has since met and untimely death and most notoriously I have shared a motel with a hunted murder, but that's a story for another time.

Tonight I'm heading up to Lake Winnipesauke with girl J and her fiance. The idea is to unwind and relax before the chaos of the next week starts. I can't believe their wedding is only a week away. GJ's fiance, D's mom owns a gorgeous house about 20 yards from the lake. Its sleeps close to 15 people and I just the kind of place that comes to mind when you thing of rest and relaxation. My favorite aspect of the place is that it has floor to cathedral ceiling windows that give a breath-taking panoramic view of the lake.

There will be reading and hiking, some movie and football watching, but above all relaxing!

Relaxing means no thoughts of My Crush, whom I've been thinking of constantly since yesterday. I want to somehow get up the guts to maybe get the nerve to approach the subject of hanging out again. I thought I had convinced myself I didn't care, but the close proximity of yesterday convinced me differently.

I'm torn between the "just go for it, you have nothing to lose" theory and the "obviously he would have asked you out if he really wanted to be with you, so don't hurt your pride" theory a la He's Just Not That Into You.

I just don't know what to do.

What's in a Greeting?

My job is ridiculous. I just received an email from my immediate supervisor. It was sent to all the staff in the office:

Hi,

Starting now would you please answer the phones saying "Registrar's office, (your name) speaking." We can no longer answer with just our names.

Thanks,
Your Supervisor

The funny thing is that when I first started in the den of despair, I was told to answer with just my name. In fact, at first, being unsure of how to greet the clients that called in, I would say, Registrar's Office, until my supervisor, whose position was then what my position is now, told me I could just use my name.

Its really not a big deal, it just struck me as trivial. Now I feel silly answering the phone, while before I felt buisness-like, brisk and efficient. Now I sound all sing-song and stupid.

I responed kiddingly to the email saying it would be hard, but I would try my best. I was trying to be humorous, but in the past year or so, my supervisor has become a little more serious.

The response was "Okay, please do try... maybe a stick up note on your computer to remind you..."

I give up. Will the world end if I answer the phone incorrectly?

So now, purely for my own amusment, there is a long piece of masking tape across my keyboard with the words: "Registrar's Office, Kate speaking!" I get a huge kick out of it everytime I look at it.

Ironically enough, I probably need the reminder. I think this morning alone I'm 1 for 10 on phone calls, using that greeting.

Topic Change!

My Crush came in this morning for a staff meeting.

Damn him for looking very fuckable!

Also, damn him for talking to me like we never made out!

Damn them all!

Its Becoming a Serious Condition

I just developed a crush on a person at my counter. He was married, he has a child and he was only asking me about preschool enrollment. It had to have been the most bland conversation ever, but he was attractive and I felt very self-conscious and silly while talking to him.

I think its the fact that I've been with out any physical contact for so long. Well not even that long, about a month and a half, but still, I'm feeling the absence so much that I'm starting to look like a fool in front of cute men: cute, married fathers in fact.

My Crush was my last hook up. He was okay, but I felt like he was going to take some work, unfortunately I never got to actually find out. I wonder how he would respond to an invitation for a purely physical relationship? I'm up for that! I pretty much thought that that was how it was going to go anyway.

I at least have and end to this dry spell in sight.

November 2nd G comes to go to S's wedding for four whole nights.

I think I'll make it, but I'm not quite sure. I just checked out a 19 year old, one of our students, but in my defense he looks MUCH older, in a moody, sexy, guitar player kind of way. It makes me wish I were 19 again, but with my 27 year old brain.

And the Hits Keep Coming

I knew it would happen eventually. I had to have contact with My Crush for work purposes. I was dreading it, knowing that I would some how end up sounding stupid and/or pathetic, but it had to be done.

I'm nothing if not professional!

So I call and his phone goes right to voicemail. I leave the message stating the purpose of my call. Lucky for me I have this sick/nasal/raspy/sexy voice thing going on.

He calls back and he uses his full name when I answer the phone, like I need the clarification. We get the business stuff out of the way, it entailed placing a new student on his schedule.

"So you'll let me know if she's starting next week?" He asks.

"Maybe." I chuckle. "Or maybe I'll just tell you next week when you show up."

He laughs, "Ouch!"

Then I feel my smart mouth had made me sound more vindictive than flirty, so I switch to business.

"I'll give the mother a call and then get back to you." My crisp business tone is back, hampered only slightly by my stuffy nose.

I call the mom and she is starting the next week, so I call him back to get it out of the way. Let me just say, I'm nervous making this call. It uncontrollable and it makes me furious! I feel like I'm back in eight grade calling a boy I like and not really know what I'm going to say.

He answers, I relay the message. Then I have to ask him another question.

"Did you get all that information that I left you about that ensemble." More work talk, but I don't really care if he got it or not I'm trying to prolong the conversation. "Flute Teacher had me going in circles trying to figure out what information to give you, so I wasn't positive if that's what you needed?"

"Yah, I got it. Flute Teacher is making my life annoying right now with this." Then he laughs. "Every time I see him I think of that story you told me about him. How after hours he dances around the place playing his flute!" He laughs more, damn him for being flirty!

"That's not what I said!" I protest, laughing along with him. "You're going to get me in trouble for telling stories about this place!"

"Yah, Its too late I've told everyone!"

"Yah I'm sure!" We're both laughing, it seems comfortable.

Then abruptly. "Okay well thanks, bye"

I pause, "Umm, bye."

That's it.

The most frustrating part is that I've convinced myself that we wouldn't have been a good fit and it probably wouldn't have lasted, but I thought we had fun, and we always laughed when we talked and hung out. I guess you can just never tell.

On top of this event, I got a call from G. He's back in the country, but we having talked yet, because we wait for him to adjust to the time difference and I don't like talking to cranky G. He called while I was at lunch, and didn't have my phone with me to tell me that he's getting on a plane tonight and won't be able to call me for a while.

It makes me sad because I was so looking forward to hearing from him. I'm also sad because his birthday is Sunday and I had sent him a gift and now he won't get it. Its his 30th too.

Oh well. I think I'm going to go find a nice big rock to climb under for a while.

How to Offend a Metrosexual

I was lounging on the couch the other night, still nursing my lingering cold, reading my cooking magazines and getting giddy over the new recipes, when J and IWG came bursting through the door into the apartment. They were fresh off their jog which only made me feel like more of a lethargic slob.

There's a brief discussion on who is going to shower where and they head off. I hear some murmuring and then from the top of the stairs, IWG yells down.

"Kate do you mind if I use some of your shampoo and conditioner?"

I'm a good sharer so I yell back, or at least I try to, but my voice doesn't exactly work. "Sure help yourself!"

I don't think anything of it. I don't care if she's using my stuff. She's using J too!

Well it obviously bothers J. He comes down the stairs to use the downstairs shower, much to A's displeasure, all offended.

"She doesn't want to use my shampoo!" He is incredulous.

I'm unsympathetic, "So?"

"Its good shampoo! Its expensive rosemary and mint shampoo from Aveda!"

I know this is the shampoo he uses. We share a shower and I've even tried it a few times. Its okay, but very minty.

"J, sometimes people don't like minty shampoo. The shampoo I have, although cheap, is mild and her hair is thin. Your shampoo might be to harsh for her." I reply calmly, ever the diplomat. I feel like I'm talking to a five year old.

"But still, why wouldn't she use it!?" He's not listening. I ignore him and eventually he goes and takes his own shower.

I'm slightly offended by his disgust with her choice of shampoos. I like my shampoo, its gentle and it makes my unruly hair soft.

If I thought that was going to be the only display of immaturity it this hour I was sorely mistaken.

Some of J's habits disgust A. So the fact that J is in his shower is too much to bear. He stands in the kitchen barking orders at J.

"Hey Guy! You better use the squeegee!"

"Hey Guy, don't touch my shampoo, hey!"

Yes this is how A speaks. I'm trying my best to duplicate it in writing. Its somewhat a cross between a surfer and a Canadian. It makes me giggle and more than once I've found myself adding "hey" to the end of my sentences.

Soon J comes out of the bathroom to find A hovering.

"Did you use my stuff?" He demands.

"Why does it matter?" J responds neither confirming nor denying. This only fuels A on further.

"That shit's expensive, guy!"

"Calm down! I'll give you the seventeen cents worth of stuff I used!"

This goes on for a little while like a ping pong match, before I get bored and turn my attention back to my magazines.

At least living with these guys provides unlimited entertainment!

A day later, J came down the stairs and AGAIN asked me why she wouldn't use his shampoo. A whole day later!! I can tell its been bothering him all this time.

I chose to ignore him. Its too exhausting dealing with metrosexuals and their products!

It Just Figures

Now that the crazy week is over, the debilitating headache is a distant but painful memory, I figure I can get back on track. I can start eating better, and more often, I can start going back to the gym and I can start to feel normal again.

I was completely ready for this new routine to start. Then I woke up with the mother of all colds.

Now all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep and the thought of food makes my stomach churn. Forget working out! I can't even breath through my nose and walking up stairs is giving me problems as the cold has started its decent into my chest and lung area.

I'm starting to get desperate though. I'm in a wedding two weeks from Saturday, and I'm wearing a strapless dress for the first time EVER. Being somewhat well endowed, I have shied away from the strapless dress, but seeing as the dress was not my choice I have to grin and bear it. The little Portuguese seamstress has promised me that she would fit the dress so I won't have to worry about anything, but I'm still very worried.

I had plans of toning my arms, getting back into my gym routine, but the past few weeks have worn me out so much that typing this is fatiguing me! Pathetic!

I told myself that I was going to go to the gym tonight, but of course half way to work I realized I forgot my gym clothes and of course I still have my gym membership next to my OLD apartment so the round trip to retrieve the forgotten clothes would be fruitless. I also think that doing the 45 minutes on the elliptical in heels may produce shin splints.

It was the though that counts.

The boys have been having their girls over lately, and of course they're all perfect. They come in and I'm sitting on the couch crosslegged, messy ponytail, and surrounded by tissues. I answer their greeting in a voice akin to a migrating goose, and burn with embarrassment.

I'm hoping this cold will run its course quickly and I can go back to feeling normal-ish, because I don't know if I've ever been completely normal. I'm just tired of feeling like a big blob of sick and tiredness!

Last Week in Review

Whew!

I was glad it was Monday. Then Monday started.

First I want to flash back to the end of last week. IT was a long trying week, but it was moving along quickly and most of it was under control and I was pretty proud of the way everything had gone at work. I knew I was running myself into the ground though. Lots of caffeine, little food and a lot of worrying and stress.

Thursday was a somewhat humiliating day in retrospect and even though I was disgusted with myself for doing so, I paid extra attention to my appearance because Thursday is My Crush's teaching day. I was slightly nervous all day, since he doesn't start teaching until 4:45. The office was busy and I was occupied, but turned to see his back at the mailboxes and the I had to take a phone call and that was it. Not backwards glance, no small smile, no acknowledge of any kind.

I could feel my face burn and the irritation sink in. So it didn't work out dating, but we still work together. Can't we be cordial? Above all I was embarrassed. I can't even pretend to know what went wrong, the whole situation is just embarrassing now.

I even had to call Ex M for a little reinforcement on the way home. He actually was a big help and made me feel so much better. He had a great response to my whole story.

"Seriously Kate, He is either gay or has a girlfriend."

I like his response because both his reasons really have nothing to do with me. Except if he is gay, I'm not a man.

Friday came and I was happy to see it. I knew it was going to be a quieter day, with a much smaller schedule and less people to deal with. I also was getting out at 2:00 because in the warped minds of my bosses that seemed fair for making me work on Saturday. Maybe if I didn't have to work the following Saturday that would make sense and I could get a jump-start on the weekend, but nope, I got to be back at work at 9 am the next morning.

I was talking to a woman at the counter about her sons piano lessons, when I started squinting and blinking, there was a glare on her face. I smiled apologetically and turned away for a moment. I turned back to the woman and tried to continue my conversation, but the glare was still there. I squeezed my eyes close and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was very aware of how strange I was acting, and was starting to get embarrassed. I shook my head once to possible clear the glare, but it didn't' t work. I had to face the facts.

The woman looked at me with concern. "Are you okay?"

I squeeze my eyes shut again, "No" I said miserably. "I'm getting a migraine." I had an aura which is my tell for a migraine. Its usually like if you look at a bright light and then see the glare, but it also distorts things. I can't see strait, read or focus. Seeing them usually produces instant nausea and distress of what was to follow.

I instantly down four advil and hope for the best, but the aura isn't going away, and that's always the worst part. I knew the only way to get rid of it is to sleep it off, but of course I couldn't drive and there was no one to cover me until 2. It was 10:30.

I walked into my bosses office mouth open for deep breaths and eyes squinted so as not to see the aura.

My boss looks up. "Are you okay? You have the Jon Header thing going on." It took me a second in my foggy brain to realize he was comparing me to Napoleon Dynamite. Thanks Boss!

"No, I'm not okay. I have a migraine." I push through the other door in his office and make a bee-line to the restroom where I was spectacularly sick. I really did think the week was going to get better, but the migraine proved me wrong. I managed to make it home and slept all afternoon, allowed my pathetic sick self McDonald's for dinner and watched the Wedding Date with J. J can always be counted on for a chick flick.

The migraine subsided just in time for this nasty cold to set in.

My body is FURIOUS with me!

Hell Week

This week marks the worst week of my year. Its the first day of the semester at my job and as the front person, the person who knows everyone and the only one who knows what is actually going on it means ten hour days, stress, sleepless nights and no time to eat. It is awful, but lucky for me it goes by fast!

I'm tired. As I post, tipsy, I reflect on my tiredness. I am tipsy off twisty bottle topped wine. In my sleepy haze I bought it by accident. I was looking for a particular wine. A Mondavi Cabernet sauvignon, and I looked and looked, and finally I found it, I grabbed in and made my way to the check out. As I was waiting I put the divider on the belt. The woman behind me looks at me weird.

"Are you buying anything?" She asked me quizzically.

"Oh! The wine is mine!" I gesture toward the lone bottle sitting on the rubber belt, flanked by two plastic dividers. "Its been that kind of day." I add apologetically.

She laughed and help up her bread. "If only someone had cheese we would be all set!" There's something warming about shopping line camaraderie.

I looked at my wine bottle and noticed something amiss. The top doesn't look right! Then I dawns on me. Its TWIST TOP! The horrors. I was bringing this bottle home to share with A, a notorious wine snob, and in my exhausted stupor, I bought twist top wine! I was wondering why it was so cheap. Now I knew!

Its funny how I used to get so excited about a boxed wine sale at Rite Aid to drink out of plastic blue wine glasses and now I'm horrified at the though of twist top wine. Oh how I've grown. It was blush boxed wine too.

My eyes sting. Only three more days. Oh wait. Four more days, I have to work on Saturday. Its not fair, but no one really seems to care. I will make it and everything will be fine. They're just music lessons. Its not that big of a deal.

Now if only I could convince my subconscious that this was the case, I would be waking up at five in the morning and laying awake thinking about random work stuff.

I'm sporting some wicked dark circles!

Dirty Word

When people, manly women my own age, ask me if I'm single, I often reply apologetically that I am. Like I've just uttered at dirty word. I hate it that I react that way. I feel like I'm letting them down, because I don't' have anything to relate to them about. I can't commiserate on annoying boyfriends, or share my engagement story or amuse them with my agonizing wedding planning stories. I feel like I am a failure. I'm afraid that they pity me, and although one quite nicely told me that I should enjoy my single status for as long as possible, and sometimes she wished that she was still single, I know she wouldn't trade her life for anything. I just don't want the pity.

This is mostly self-imposed, I know this.

Most recently I don't even have fun single-girl stories to share. D has gone back to Florida without so much as a backwards glance, G is in Japan, and My Crush has become My Annoyance. I haven't heard from him in a week and a half and now I'm just wondering what the his purpose in asking me out in the first place was? Maybe I was just a bad kisser?

Well maybe we won't go that far.

The weekend has been okay, but every experience seemed to shove my single status in my face. I beautiful wedding shower with a fun, happy couple and sitting at a table of three married girls my own age, for one. I'm beyond happy for the couple, but you can't help but sit there and wonder if you'll ever get to experience something like that for yourself.

Last night I went out with my brothers and their significant others. It was fun and I love hanging out with them, but being the fifth wheel is never fun in that situation and then afterwards at the annoyingly hip Gypsy Bar, I couldn't help be disgusted by the scene.

"I think he wanted to dance with you." My sister-in-law shouted over the overbearing techno music.

I think I physically shuddered. I'm sure he's a very nice man, (doubtful) but the whole image of the club goers is such a turn off. I just wanted to be home, curled up in bed.

Even as I'm sitting here watching the US Open, I can't help but pathetically wonder where MY Andy Roddick, ahem, I mean Prince Charming is.

Mom's Home!

I stumbled into my apartment Tuesday night after being gone for five days. I was weighted down with clean laundry, an over-packed duffel bag, several plastic shopping bags full of groceries, and balancing a tin foil tray of eggplant parm all the while balancing dangerously on my heels. Two expectant faces turn towards me, not noticing my unstable state and they launch right into it.

P and A have obviously had a rough weekend and are ready to tattle on the bad seed.

"You need to be here more often!" Starts A, definitely the more vocal of the two. Lucky for them I am a good multi-tasker and a great listener. While he goes on and on about J, I am able to unload my self, put away my groceries and place the eggplant in the oven. All while making the appropriate "hmmms and oh reallys?" that are required of such a conversation.

Long story short. J is jealous that both P and A are getting regular, ahem, ladies attention. It would all be different if J was getting the same attention, but alas he is tragically hung up on a taken woman, and is annoyingly vocal about every aspect of their interaction. I have no sympathy on him, he brings it on himself and I have no respect for her because she teases him wickedly. She's basking in his attention and I don't have respect for women (girls) like her.

After being bombarded by A and P it calms down and I am allowed to unwind and eat something, but then J arrives home, and with a few jerky head motions I am sitting cross-legged on his plaid comforter waiting for it.

"You need to be here more often!!" He starts. Hmmm? Where have I heard this before. The fact that they value my presence so much is somewhat flattering and exhausting at the same time.

J then launches into a counter attack on P and A.

"C (A's lady) was here ALL weekend, and P and Legs were here too. I was miserable. A and I were supposed to hang out." J is all dejected. I try to reason with him and tell him he would be the same way if he had a significant other, and in fact he is rather pushy about being alone when Involved Work Girl (IWG) is around. As he insists that he would not be that way, I feel myself glaze over and I resort to the "mhmms" and "oh reallys" that got me through the previous conversation.

Its amazing how much those responses are all the they all need to feel like they've accomplished something and they feel better. I guess I can handle it if its all I have to do, but soon I feel these conversations are going to be repeating themselves and I may just crack one day.

The relief I felt when I was finally locked in my room was palpable!

(Started on Thursday 9/7, finished 9/10)

My Own Little Place

I'm still a firm believer that I will never feel the same way about some place as I feel about San Diego.

San Diego was like a first love. It was new and completely different from anything experienced before. SD was every thing that New England was not. It was warm, inviting, and calming. In Boston, you always had your back up, waiting for either the next blast of cold air or the next blast from a disgruntled Bostonian. In SD I always felt like I was walking around with wide open arms, ready for anything and everything.

We broke up though. I was looking to grow and SD was holding me back. I left with out a backwards glance and made my way to bigger and better things, but as always what I had imagined my new life would and what it actually was, did not match. The new career did not magically appear, the wonderful new friends that I would make in graduate school never materialized. I was back into the same pattern as I was in SD, but missing one thing. The place itself.

I'm sure in some way I am romanticizing SD to no end, but I can't help it. There will always be a soft spot in my heart for that gorgeous southern California city. Even now I grasp at any information about SD. I google old location, I look for jobs and apartment. I imagine the "what if". There are some days where it may not even cross my mid, but more often than not I am nostalgic over the place, I am jealous of others who get to live there or who talk about it like it is theirs.

Don't they realize it was mine first?

Like a jealous ex-lover I sneer at them. They will never know you, SD, like I know you, I think with a self satisfied smirk. They will never hold a job in the most beautiful place in SD like I did and they will never know the secrets about you as I do. They are not worthy of you as I am.

Sometimes there is panic that I have made the wrong decision, that I don't belong in Boston, but out there, and I've just been sidetracked. I know nothing is written and stone, there is always a way back. I know SD will always welcome me. It may not be financially forgiving, but it will always be there.

I've been very homesick for SD lately. I don't know if its because the end of summer is in sight, I don't know if its hormonal, I don't' know if its because my constant SD link is out of the country. All I know is that when I get that tell-tale homesick feeling its always for SD. I never felt homesick for Boston, the way I do for SD. G said I'm not supposed to call it homesick because SD isn't my home, but I disagree. SD is the place where I feel most at home and most at peace. Home does not necessarily have to be where you were born and raised. I think home is more of feeling that an actual place.

There s a hold that keeps me here, in the place where I am now. The needs of others has always been a stronger presence in my life than my own needs. For now I am here and I accept it, but every once in awhile that feeling of longing for SD just consumes me. I know I have to ride it out and let it pass, but that ride can sure make one sad.