Thursday, September 17, 2009

post-op

i swear it's not the jinx that's kept me away. there have been too many changes. too many uncertainties for me to put down on e-paper. it's hard to talk in the midst of a tornado...whether self-imposed or not. and it's not that i have a better grip on things now but perhaps by writing about it, i can stop being in my head so much. ...not likely, but it's worth a shot, yes?

so, i have a roommate now. a friend i've known for a few years. financially, it's a better situation, and i DO like the place we moved into significantly more than i have liked any other place i have lived in in this city. however, it is a bit strange to go from living alone for however many years to living with someone...well two someones (due to a long set of complicated circumstances, her boyfriend has been there for the past 3 weeks). so i feel a bit like the third wheel on a tricycle (unnecessary and somewhat out of place). you want to know what is NOT a cure for a lovelorn heart? living with a couple. no matter how lovely the people or how un-pda they may be, there's something...i don't know...awkward about it. but anyway, it is what it is for now, and it's only temporary, so that's all i will say about that.

(insert 12 minutes of picking at my cuticle and listening to tevin campbell's "i'm ready").

so...the guy. ugh. the idea of even trying to write about this makes me want to delete this whole thing. i don't know where that stands. next week, it will be a month that he's been gone. and next week he is scheduled to return. i will be glad when he does so that we can either pick up where we left off or i can go on about my business. i would certainly prefer it if it were the former, but there were a few times over these past weeks when i was certain it was the latter. for example, i sent him a text message AND a cute, funny email prior to his surgery (oh, did i mention that he went home to have a lil' surgery?), and you know what he said to my cute, funny email and well-wishing text? nothing. nada. nein. now, we had corresponded through text prior to that once or twice when he initially left (he doesn't really talk on the phone, which is fine as i'm learning that most guys don't. but that also leads me to wonder wtf guys did before text messaging. seriously? like how were people hooking up prior to the convenience of not actually having to talk to the person you wanted to do?). anyway the texting was rare but fine. a week passed. then came my attempt at wishing him a "happy surgery." then nothing. another week passed. in that time, i went from thinking that he was just really tired and needed to heal and would contact me when he could...to cursing his every breath when he found time to update his facebook status with phrases like "i like all things buxom" (which for those of you who've never seen me...is the f.u.r.t.h.e.s.t. thing from what i am). arg. so i blocked his facebook updates and prepared to "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" his ass all out of my head. how rude, i thought. not even so much as a thank you? or a "i made it through. i'm alive."? common courtesy would dictate that you say something, right? so obviously, you not responding to me means that you're a dick.

well, what i didn't know (and i mean SERIOUSLY did not know because it didn't and still doesn't make sense to my brain) is that, on average, guys tend not to respond to communications that lack questions. now this is obviously a generalization and does not apply to everyone, but according to THREE women i know, this is indeed the case for a lot of men. so, i was advised, i should not take the silence personally but rather understand that this is merely a male behavioral thing and that if i want to actually hear from him, i better ask him something.

i told myself i wasn't going to ask him ANYTHING, but a few days later, after i finished a basket of honey's kettle chicken and fries (and some other shit happened), i decided that i needed answers. i needed to know how the fuck he was doing, when the fuck he was coming back and if he would in fact respond to my damn email. so i composed an email and loaded that bitch with questions. five to be exact. so he'd have no damn excuse.

it read:
are you in pain? do you have a hole in your belly that's covered with gauze? did they give you your gallbladder in a jar when you woke up? essentially, how are you feeling post-surgery? i hope you are much better. and when are you coming baaaaaack to lala???

his response was:
yes. yes. no. so-so. Soon.

which pissed me off to no end. i mean, really! i understand guys aren't verbal creatures, but wtf? one word answers? one word answers! i couldn't decide if a half-ass response was worse than no response at all. no response means "i'm dead" (rarely) or "i'm not interested" (usually). either way, it boils down to " leave me alone." a half-ass response means "i'm PROBABLY not interested, but i want to go to heaven one day, and i might not get there if ignore you, so i'm doing this purely for selfish, posthumous reasons." well, i thought, at least i know where i stand...i guess. but man, what a dick move. again, i was cuing up the "eternal sunshine" shit when, 8 minutes after the first email, i received a longer, better email...with words and shit.

this one read:
Surgery went fine, but when they do laproscopic surgery, they inflate your stomach with lots of air, so they can see around inside the belly area. In my case, they used a bit too much air pressure (which is necessary when someone has so very much muscle like myself) and the air ended up over-stretching my diaphragm to the point of tearing some muscle in my shoulder. This caused about a week of very very intense pain in the shoulder, and inability to sleep the first 3 nights (which is worse than pain). I was on so many painkillers my brain was soup for a week. The shoulder pain is mostly gone, my stomach barely hurts, and I'm finally off painkillers. I need to see my Dr. on Monday for my follow-up so he can clear me to travel. After that, I'll either come back to LA on the 23rd, or wait a few extra days so I can see my cousins' band play a big show on the 25th. How have you been? What's new?

oh shit. elaboration! and wait, what's that? are those questions for me at the end!?!? snap. jackpot. of course, my high was tempered by the first email. i mean, why couldn't we just do this (the second one) the first time? or combine the two? why put me through the agony (that you had no idea i would go through) with the one word answers? whatever. i got an email. with words. and questions. and i was satisfied. furthermore, i responded to his email AND got a response back. it was a communication orgy!

i will try not to analyze these emails. actually, i have already analyzed them; i will just spare you the agony of going through my analyses with me. suffice it to say that i have concluded that they sound "normal" and all indicators point to a "resumption of previous activity upon return". this, of course, could be totally wrong. maybe it is. maybe it isn't. maybe it is. maybe it isn't. round and round. this is why i just want him to come back so i can know...one way or another.

am i being crazy. (yes. i heard some yesses in the background). but you can totally stop liking someone in a month. or have a change of heart. hell, you can do it a lot faster than that. good lord, i'm paranoid. i just need to relax and wait. what's another week?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

p.s. to panic and panties

did i mention that i still haven't even saved his number in my phone?
that's how weird/freaked out/uncertain/mentally scarred/just plain crazy i am.
maybe if we make it to the end of the year, i'll save it. maybe...

and i still haven't purchased those undies.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

panic and panties

so remember the guy who was sending all the text messages and whatnot, and i was so not interested, and then he friended me on facebook, and i was like, "damn, i'll be glad when i get a boyfriend, so i can change my status to 'in a relationship' and then this douche will leave me alone." well, once again, the joke is on me because that fucker just changed his status to "in a relationship." mutherfucker! i mean, i don't give a shit that he's off the market but merely that he's off the market before me. uggghhh. i saw her pictures. she's aiight. she's no janet reno or anything, but i'm sure she makes him happy, and they have these ridiculously cheesy FB exchanges. for example, under a photo of him, they had the following correspondence yesterday...

her: Sexy businessman. Do you have a girlfriend?
Yesterday at 10:02pm
him: yes...you and she look alot alike! *wink*
Yesterday at 10:04pm
her: Wow then she is hot. Oh well, she is lucky.
Yesterday at 10:06pm
him: i think i'm the lucky one...
Yesterday at 10:07pm

and i am the unlucky one to have stumbled across this. i wasn't FB stalking, i swear. but i saw that wretched red heart, indicating that someone had found love, and i couldn't help myself.

as for me and the guy...well, things have been normal, which is enough to cause panic. normal = seeing each other a couple of times a week with an unspoken understanding that we will be sleeping in the same bed at the end of each excursion. the other day, as i was lying in bed after an enthusiastic make-out session, i thought to myself, it's sad that i'm at the age where sex is pretty much a given. i mean, when you're almost 30, you can't very well get by on first, second and sometimes third bases (which one is third, again?) for very long. at some point, you're going to have to bring it on home. and it's not that i don't want to. it's just that there's something particularly sweet and innocent and...tidy about a relationship in which sex has not entered the picture. i mean, i'm not clingy, i don't need to talk to him all the time, i don't need to see him all the time, i don't feel any emotional extremes. i don't care THAT much about random girls on his FB page. i feel under control. and aside from all that, a pre-sex relationship is just...i dunno...it's beautiful and fun in it's own pressure-less way. and once you do it, it's done. there's no more anticipation of it. it's a part of the relationship, and you will continue to do it with this person until you 1) break up or 2) die. fortunately, no pressure has been imposed on me to do it, though DESIRES have been expressed as of late, which led me to consider all of this. my only hesitations, aside for the aforementioned, are that i don't want a guy to be intimate with me AND other women, and i need to know that he's going to stick around. call that whatever you want (a relationship or just an understanding), those are my requirements.

so how do i know that a guy is going to stick around? well, i will never know for sure, but at what point do i at least FEEL like he will? i don't know. but it's not right now, i'll tell you that much. perhaps to normal folks, a two month span of hanging out would be a good indication, but not for me. two-month-marks are when folks disappear or reveal that they are still in love with someone else, so i'm going to wait this one out and brace for any impending disasters. he is leaving today for three weeks or so, which is good and bad. good because i at least won't have to think about fornication for a good month. bad because i may never have to think about it again if he 1) forgets about me or 2) comes back and wants nothing to do with me. three weeks is a long time. anything can happen, and i still have insecurities when it comes to relationships and 21+ days is plenty of time for them to fester, multiply and spread.

and just a note to el mero mero, who left a comment on my last entry. first, thanks for reading. but i haven't avoided commenting on the boy simply because he's doing all the right things and is therefore unentertaining and not worthy of writing about. i mostly avoided writing about him because i didn't want to jinx it. i am a big believer in the jinx. for example, if i'm dating a guy that i really like and i buy new underwear, the relationship ends shortly thereafter. i swear! so i avoid purchasing new undies (but i really, really need some new ones right now, so i've had this full online shopping cart all day, but i'm afraid to click "checkout" because of what may happen). things that are important to me, things i truly care about, i actually don't talk about. i'd rather just see how they go and then discuss retrospectively. not just relationship stuff but career stuff as well. also, i figured that the people who read this thing, read it because of the crazy shit that happens to me, and if they wanted sap, they'd go elsewhere. perhaps i'm wrong.
but nice guys deserve all the props in the world, and if you're one of them, i'm saluting you today.

okay, but i seriously don't know what all is included in third base, L.A. a lil' help...?

Friday, August 21, 2009

apologies

tonsil infections and boys who behave themselves make manlessdogless a very dull blogger.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

update

yeah, so quick update. he called the day after i wrote that last entry. and...yeah, i was overreacting. okay, okay what else is new (at least when it comes to stuff like this). it's just some gallstones that will require the removal of the gallbladder at some point in the future, and he will likely go home to do it and to recover, but that should only be for a week. and that's it...no moving away for a "little while." no severe pain that keeps him from seeing me, as we did see each other last weekend (we went to dinner, we watched tv, blah blah blah, he stayed over) and more recently we went to disneyland (we rode the rides, watched the fireworks, blah blah blah, i stayed over). so for now, the waters are calm. i am enjoying myself and having fun, which is something i haven't been able to say in a while as it pertains to this aspect of my life.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

one hit wonders

so, since the emailing back and forth, we saw each other. and it was lovely and wonderful. we ate, he made me margaritas, we saw 500 days o' summer, which wasn't the best call on my part, but hey, what can you do? we ate jello jigglers, we laid on the balcony under a blanket, blah blah blah, i called in sick to work the next day, and we laid in bed. sigh... i had fun.

anyway, the next day he was leaving to go home for a wedding and his friend's memorial service, and he said he would call when he got back. now, i KNOW that when we lying under the moon he said the memorial service was going to be on the 14th, and i unsuccessfully prepared myself not to talk to him for 2.5 whooole weeks. however as of last night, he is back, so i heard, which means (i guess) that the service happened early than anticipated. anyway, that doesn't bother me. but there are a few things that give me pause, like something about him having his gallbladder removed and his body shutting down and him planning to go back home for a while and...something about working with dogs. this is all very piecemeal because this is second hand information as told to me by my friend who overhead all of this as she was pretending to be asleep in her boyfriend's room (her boyfriend is friends and roommates with this guy). okay, first off, i feel very bad for him if he is having some health issues, whether they be related to the stress of what's going on or something else. i really do. but in the midst of feeling badly, i also think i hear TAPS playing in the background, signifying the end of this whole affair. i mean, a gallbladder? going home for a while? dogs? this certainly doesn't look good for love. and then i wonder why it is that i always seem to meet guys who are in the midst of some inaccessible period. the "i just broke up with someone and i'm not looking for anything serious" period. the "i'm living in my car, trying to get my self together" period. the "i just want to hang out with my friends and play volleyball" period. the "my ex is stalking me and threatened to kill herself if i date anyone else" period. ugh. granted, the gallbladder period is one that this poor guy has no control over, so i'm not faulting him at all. it's just...interesting i suppose that guys, the ones i like anyway, are never in a position to have a relationship. and yet those are the ones i want. out of a room of 100 eligible men, i will undoubtedly pick the ineligible one. sigggggghhhhh.

maybe i'm jumping the gun and this won't be the case, but if i examine my track record.... and i KNOW you should only look forward and not backward, but wouldn't one be stupid not to heed past warnings?
whatever. i don't know. i don't even know how i feel about this yet. maybe i don't care. hopefully, i don't care. maybe he'll call me and tell me all this and we'll say our goodbyes and whatnot...and maybe not. i guess i should work on training myself not to think about this or him at all. agh!

i think my defense mechanisms are out of control, L.A.

Friday, July 24, 2009

remorse

so, i know some of you, most of you will be dismayed to know that i fb emailed the boy. i DID feel better after doing it though, so that was good. i wasn't stewing over it anymore.
then i got a friend request him. no response, just a friend request, and i was like wtf?
then i got the response, and holy crap was it a response. the exchange is copied below. and the details have been confirmed by an external source.

from me:
so in the three weeks since we first hung out there's been nary a phone call or a plan to go out again (aside from the one initiated by me). honestly, it's fine that you're not interested, but when you seem as though you are, in person, it gets confusing and leads to hurt feelings and all that jazz.

i still think you're a great person and all that, but i wish you would have been straight up or just kept it platonic or whatever. that would have been okay.

anyway, i'm not one for holding things like this in, so i just needed
to say that.


from him:

I'm very sorry, I've been a bit screwed up for the past couple of weeks. My best friend back home died last week, on the morning of my birthday. He has battled cancer for the past 2 years, and when it seemed like he was in the clear, what began as a mild skin cancer, came back again this year, and had spread to his brain and lungs. His father is a brain surgeon, and was doing everything imaginable to help him, and we were all certain he'd get better. However, he got very very sick about three weeks ago, and was hospitalized, and on the morning of my birthday, right as I was getting ready for a day of fun and celebrating, I got the call that he passed away. It came as a huge shock. Even though he was sick, he rarely let us know how bad it was. He was extremely private about his illness, and barely even let his best friends come see him, as he was embarrassed how he looked, frail with a bald head and many many scars from surgeries. Another one of our good friends is getting married next weekend in Chicago, and I was going to be in St. Louis along with some of the other guys for a few days, and we had all planned to go see him and cheer him up, but now that will never happen. I've never lost anyone close to me, so I'm not very good at dealing with this. I have so much to say to him, but I'll never be able to. Instead of seeing his always smiling face when I go home next week, I'll be attending his memorial.

I've barely slept at all this week and I cry whenever I think about him. He was such an incredible guy, and such a good friend, that this all seems so surreal. So, I'm sorry I've been out of touch, but this is just a really screwed up time for me. I really like you, and have a had a lot of fun hanging out, but I'm just not thinking straight lately, and I don't want to project all my sorrow onto someone else, especially someone I'm trying to seem cool in front of! My brother and parents have been helping me deal with this, they were close to John
as well, as he's been like a brother to me since we met in first grade. The past couple of days have been getting better, but I'm still a wreck. Again, I'm sorry, but this is a bit of a selfish time for me. I feel like a jerk for not calling you. I didn't know how to tell you all this over the phone. I understand if you're angry or frustrated with me, I would be, too. It's not like me to be such a jerk, so please don't think this is how I am....I'm just trying to get my head straight.


from me:

i am so, so, so, so, sorry. truly. deeply. and i feel like a snatch for sending that email and adding to what you have going on. i'm sorry. really i am. though i have never lost a friend, i can imagine that you are going something unbelievably difficult and that you just need to do whatever brings you the most comfort right now.

so i understand. and i appreciate you explaining it to me. if there is anything i can do to help you (including making jello jigglers), please let me know. and when you are feeling a little better, if you want to hang out, let me know that too.

again, i'm sorry. i'll be thinking of you.

***so that's that. i felt bad for even wondering if this was all true. trust issues? anyway, his friend did in fact pass away, and i do in fact feel so very bad. but at least now i know, and i can stop thinking bad things about him.