I think we made our first of many forays into the world of sofrito tonight! Sofrito is kind of like a cilantro pesto used as a base in many Latin dishes.

We combined the following in a food processor until it is a smooth paste.

• 2 bunches cilantro (large stems removed)
• 1 onion
• 8-12 cloves garlic
• 1 green pepper
• 2-4 tbs. olive oil

Turned out great when cooked into rice. Sofrito has loads of possibility. Next time we may add something spicy, tomatoey, use annatto flavored olive oil, add a little lime juice, or follow one of the many different varieties that vary from region to region. You can also freeze this to have on hand. Use an ice tray for the perfect size to add to your recipes!

See what the other MoFoers have to say:

It’s official: I am a giant, enormous hypocrite. A fraud. A charlatan. (Thanks, thesaurus.) I come on here, with my high and mighty advice about ditching that bad boy, about giving the nice guy a shot, about growing up and learning from your mistakes and moving on. And what do I do? I invite Mr. Politics out for a drink and the next thing I know I’m asking him if he drinks coffee in the morning.

When things fizzled with QG, all I wanted to do was hang out with Mr. P again. Because — shocking, I know — I like him. I wish I didn’t, but I do. And I can’t help it. Mr. P is like a drug, and I’m addicted to him. It’s not that he treats me poorly or anything, but he simply is not going to get involved and consequently keeps me at a distance. Not enough for me to give up, though. Just enough for me to want him ALL THE TIME. He’s a genius, this one.

So after I’d officially given up on QG and subsequently stopped feeling guilty about still having the hots for Mr. P, I invited him out for a drink. I genuinely just wanted to hang out with the guy. He’s super funny, and the truth is he is leaving in less than a month. It is very likely that this will be the only time we’ll ever live in the same place. It’s even possible that I will never see him again. So of course, I begin to rationalize why it’s OK for us to hang out. “Strictly as friends, though,” I tell myself.

Yeah well that lasted about five seconds. As soon as we got to the bar, I knew where this was going. He slept over, but we didn’t sleep sleep together. Came pretty damn close, though. Too close for comfort. Something about Mr. P just makes me lose control. I want him. And he knows it.

But someone once said that’s the thing about bad guys — they know what they want, and when they want you, it’s exhilarating. That’s what pissed me off about QG — he was a pansy. He was sweet, but he didn’t have any self-confidence. He didn’t make me feel wanted. And so I got bored and lost interest. Mr. P, however, knows what he wants and goes for it. When we left the bar, he said, “Well, we can go back to my house or we can go our separate ways.” No dancing around the issue. To which I responded, “Or we can go back to my apartment.” Which is what we did.

Around 4 a.m. he said, “I need to go to bed. I can sleep here, or I can go home. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to stay over?” No sense in bullshitting; state the obvious. I said, “sure,” ever so coolly, trying not to verbalize how absolutely easily I would give into him. “Sure??” he said. “Sure? That’s like the least enthusiastic invitation to sleep over ever. Thanks. I’m never going to forget that.” HAH mission accomplished.

So, here I am again. Crazy for Mr. P, even though he’s bad news. But I genuinely don’t think he’s a bad person; I just think the situation is bad news. My friends are worried — and rightfully so — that I’m going to get hurt again. But we don’t spend time together, and so I have no expectation of this becoming something it isn’t. I’m not getting attached like I have in the past. Yes, I would like this to be more than it is; I’d be lying if I said otherwise. And yes, it’s frustrating that I find myself yet again in a situation where I’m nuts for the person and they don’t feel the same. But it is what it is, and I’m simply not strong enough to cut him out of my life completely. I like him too much.

That’s why I’ve decided to enjoy this for what it is: a fling. I know that it’s not meant to be anything more than that. I recently realized I know nothing about his family or who he is beyond his life here, and vice versa. We just don’t talk about those things, I think on purpose so that we keep a distance there. At least that’s why I don’t. But because of the way I feel when I’m around him — purely giddy and excited and head over heels — I don’t want to waste that. Feelings like that (albeit superficial and temporary) don’t come around with just every guy.

And shit, I just want to enjoy it.

Well it was. School holidays are in full swing, so being the mother of teenage boys it means that there has been sleepless nights are we are protected from all manner of invaders and there have also been some Guitar Heroes born. Yes it has been the week of the sleepover. Coming out of my room first thing in the morning to find lifeless bodies on couches and the floor, food disappearing as fast as it appears and being asked grammar questions over breakfast (I am after all, the mum who is an English teacher).

So I have spent my holidays baking. It feels like my house when I was at home when either my Dad or Nin would make scones for lunch or pikelets for afternoon tea.  I even baked a cake yesterday afternoon (please don’t tell them, they don’t know yet). But I think that it is drawing to a close, the caravan is moving on – they are going elsewhere. But apparently at the next house they don’t get baked goodies, they get pizza and BBQ shapes instead. My child is looking forward to that, but I am now officially “The Mum who Cooks”. They promise they are coming back – if that is the case, I need flour. And some sleep.

It’s been a pretty exciting past two days. =)

Some time in the afternoon, I slashed my toe while running up the escalator at Cine. Movie plans were cancelled because of my stupidity ahaha -_- and I caused my baober to worry and get angry at my carelessness. I also left a pool of blood in the lift..

Oh, and I cried. T_T

After treating the wound and having dinner at his place, baober came home with me! ^^ wahaha. I felt like such a kidnapper. Or a pignapper, haha as I would prefer… We had macs for supper. Erm. =D

Baober discovered some michael Jordan DVDs that pa got some time back. We watched a bit of tv before he played the movie. It was really late and I remember being so drowsy, and everytime he caught sight of my wound he’d just frown and sulk and feel so helpless about it. I felt so sorry. O_O

I remember falling asleep on my self constructed bed of large sofa pillows next to baober’s sofa bed and woke up first to wash up. Then, we kind of switched and I went back to sleep as he went to wash up… then we headed to macs for breakfast! Aww maaan! Not macs again… whatever la

After b-b-baober left, I went on two shopping trips to get more items for the bbq in the evening. My toe was killing me slowly…

People started to stream in at around 5-6pm to help out. It was nice. (: There was like a group helping to set up the pit next to the pool and another in the kitchen juggling potatoes (honest!)/cooking. Then we had people to start the fire and bring food outside and it just started rather nicely (:

I kept worrying that there was going to be insufficient food but I was wrong! I felt really thankful that many people liked the food! cause I decided to use my own recipes this time round and prepared everything from scratch, more or less, so this means alot to me. (: And I can say that I know how to marinade bbq food now, whee! (: That’s one more achievement …

Then the pool was utilized. xD

And Mrs Toh came! And so did Axel hehehe…

After the fire got too weak and we were all tired and full, we cleaned up, and I’m sooo happy (you have no idea) that everyone helped to wash and clean and then we had ice cream together in the living room. Felt like a big happy family of greedy pigs, I tell you. (:

Then some left, and some stayed… til the morning. Well thank goodness I have like four sleeping bags at home and loads of space and comfortable pillows! And My Tutor Friend was funny =) while Sunshine Cleaning was sad… It was still a nice experience. I was feeding off left overs from the bbq through the night and in the morning. My goodness. =)

And then everyone left one by one, and after the house got nice and clean again with mum’s help, I slept for a good two hours before getting up to cook dear something yummy, and here I am now. (:

Delivery service is on the way, my love. (: and yay for art class and friends

For those who missed out for whatever reason, I’ll make sure there’ll be another time, promise!

We’re off and rolling now, and I’m ecstatic about the way things are going. I’ve already found at least two places where our memories are different, and countless places where hers fill mine in seamlessly, as though she were carrying around half the story in her brain, and I the other half. That’s not necessarily what I expected, and it’s fascinating to me. I have responses, but first a quick bit of business. We’ve elected to go with first names, so I will go ahead and explain that I am Sharon and my fellow poster is Erin (a revelation that should explain the rhyming names fiasco. Add on to that that we once went to winter formal with guys named Rob and Bob, and that we have simultaneously dated guys named Josh, and you have a real banana-fana-fo-fana mess on your hands.)

And now, to the memories: The main thing that struck me about Erin’s post is the mention of the “perfect murder” question, and the remembrance of the taped mystery plays on the old tape recorder (which was black, and which I think had no microphone. We just had to bend down over it and talk into it – very awkward!). I have plenty of memories of that time, but somehow I never thought to bring it up. And I don’t remember asking about planning the perfect murder, but I’m certain that I asked it. It was something I thought about a lot. I mentioned being a bit macabre, but I don’t think that was the whole of it. I was simply an enormous fan of the mystery genre. My (paternal) grandparents have this bizarre house filled with old things – things on top of things, all over everywhere, big fat Buddha statues next to crucifixes and porcelain kittens – and on a visit to their place I uncovered boxes of old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries. I moved on from there to Agatha Christie. (In 8th grade history class we were assigned a project to make a diorama (remember those?!) about the life of a famous person who influenced us. This was in the early nineties, when grunge was king, and most of my classmates made boxes for Kurt Cobain. Mine was for Agatha Christie and was filled with old typewriter keys, miniature candlesticks and pistols, and a small train car.)  I also remember vividly a day when another friend, Elliott, and I were standing in the front office of our elementary school, waiting to talk with the secretary.  In the far left corner of the office, we could see this kid from the grade below us – Tyler, I think.  Or maybe Tanner?  It started with a T – talking to his mom on the phone.  He was a bully, although a fairly small one, and was having to call home fairly often.  This time it was because the back of his clothes were caked with playground mud.  We heard him say, “No, mom.  We weren’t fighting.  I was just running and I tripped.”

“I bet he’s lying,” Elliott said.  ”He’s always in a fight.”

“He’s lying,” I said.  ”If he’d fallen while he was running, the mud would be on the front of his pants, not the back.”

“You should be a detective,” she said.

And so I decided I would be.

So I remember the tape recordings. I especially remember being crouched on our knees in the grass in my backyard, bending over that recorder and taking on different accents to represent various characters. (My specialty was a syrupy-sweet Georgia Peach, an accent drawn from watching Designing Women reruns with my mom. I seem to recall that Erin was always willing to play male characters and drop her voice, something that I found very brave. This connects again to my sense that she was never afraid to be silly or to pick on herself, something it took me ages to be comfortable with.) If I had anything at all to do with the writing, I’m sure that all plots were based around Christie’s And Then There Were None, which I considered the height of artistic achievement. (Despite the general shyness, I was also an extremely opinionated kid, and I shared my views on “art” with anyone who would listen.  And even some people who wouldn’t.)  Those tapes are long lost, but there is another remnant to prove our memories. Summers weren’t the only times Erin spent with us. She also stayed a few days each Christmas, between the time that school let out and when her mom could get a holiday from work. Those visits overlapped with visits from my (maternal) grandparents – called Granny and Pop by everyone, including Erin – and my Pop LOVED his camcorder.  (It was enormous and cost over $1000, if I remember right.  Unbelievable, really.)  He also tended to dote on the only daughter of his only daughter, and when he visited in December he tended to film everything I did.  This included the plotting of advanced and complicated murder mysteries.  So there is some footage somewhere.  I’m hoping to digitize it and share it with Erin; maybe we can liveblog the watching experience!  I haven’t watched the tapes in ages, but I know that one contains a scene wherein I grab a leaf off of the ground and hold it up to the camera for our audience to see that it has been spotted with white paint.  I scream, “It’s been burned!  Maybe it’s from the power plant nearby!”   I don’t know how I jumped from white paint to burned leaf. I don’t know what the power plant had to do with the mystery.  Also, we didn’t really have a power plant nearby.  It was a sewer plant.

And, actually, that brings me to the second point I wanted to make – the point about houses.  It’s interesting to me to realize how much Erin valued the house I grew up in, mostly because I valued it a lot too.  It was an amazing house, but not for any reason I can put my fingers on.  It might have been some magic worked by my mother, who valued that house more than she’s ever valued an object in her life – before or since.  It was her particular domain, and she worked hard to make it exactly what she wanted.  She’s something of a homebody, a powerful constant with a daughter who never stays still.  It took us a long time to understand each other, but I know now that when I look back at that house, I loved it and found it comforting because that’s exactly what she wanted.

That being said, I also want to mention that our house was in a neighborhood that eventually became one of Baton Rouge’s slums.  The Piggly Wiggly down the street was broken into on a routine basis; our cousin who lived a block away once had gunshots fired in her garage in the middle of the night.  There was a sewer  plant three blocks away.  This was not a serene place, particularly in the early- to mid-nineties.  The house was magical, and at the time we didn’t understand what was happening to the neighborhood, so we didn’t know.  We didn’t care.  We reveled in that house, in the backyard with the deck that my Pop (the abovementioned video director) built for us.

Once we were teenagers, though, Erin was the one with the magical house.  My family moved (reluctantly) into a new neighborhood near the university where my dad is employed.  Around the same time, Erin’s family left their highway-side home for a comfy wooden Acadian (so Louisiana!) with an enormous porch like something out of a film with dueling Cajun banjos.  Each bathroom had a different colored toilet, and the upstairs that she and her brother shared was enormous.  She had a real brick chimney jutting through her room, and her artistic mother let her paint song lyrics on her walls.  Our new house had no magic.  My mom’s spirit had sustained the old one, turned it from something ordinary into something orderly and comfortable.  She hated the new house, hated that she’d been driven out of her domain, and we never really grew comfortable.  I miss home often, but I NEVER miss that house.

And there’s something about the politics of childhood mixed into all of this too.  Important but unstated in both of our stories is the fact that one of our mothers worked and the other didn’t.  This situation formed a lot of things around us, but I don’t think we ever really realized how much.  Added onto this is the fact that we were the poorest kids in our grade.  We went to a private school that housed the children of high-dollar locals (although not the HIGHEST dollar), and I think on some level we had to have known that.   And sometimes I wonder if that’s another reason we banded together.  Neither of us was destitute by any means.  We had all our needs provided for, and several additional comforts.  But there were notable differences.  Her family drove an aging minivan.  Mine drove a Chevrolet Caprice donated by my grandparents. Our compatriots at school often slipped home in Mercedes.  (The only exception I remember to this was a girl whose grandfather picked her up everyday in an El Camino.  Somehow, though, it never registered with me that she fit in with us.  Her parents were missionaries/preachers and thus part of the school’s royalty.)

When I spent the night at Erin’s house, it was a different home, different atmosphere, different food.  But one thing was distinctly the same: things were never fancy.  The year before I met Erin, my two best friends at school were the daughter of an oil-company executive and a divorce attorney.  When I ate dinner at their houses, we ate at dining tables in a room reserved strictly for eating.  When I ate at Erin’s, we ate marshmallows out of a bag and bon bons out of the freezer, singing the jingle (“The thing about a bon-bon, it’s almost always gone-gone!”) and jumping around, never fearing that we might break or smudge anything.  When her parents made us dinner or breakfast, we ate it at a table in the kitchen, just like we would at my house – a table where we could be watched over and talked to while the cooking was going on.  (I also seem to remember her dad cooking for us fairly often, something that was new to me in my fairly gender-traditional house.  My dad only makes eggs and peanut butter toast, although I think this has more to do with his “absent-minded scientist” demeanor than his gender.)  Childhood involves a lot of socioeconomic politics that we just can’t grasp until too far in the future for the outcry to be relevant.  So we may have been divided by the politics of working/non-working mothers, but we were thrown together by economics.

One of the first things you learn as a literature student is that it’s tough to trust an unidentified narrator.  So if you’re going to put any time into reading me, I suppose I ought to explain a little about who I am.  And if you’re going to take any interest in my compatriot’s responses and stories, I ought to tell you a little bit about her, and about how we fit together.

This can serve as our first iteration.  I’ll tell you who I am, who she is, how we met and lived connected lives.  But she gets her chance too, and I’m going to ask her to challenge not just my stories of her, but my stories of myself.  No one ever sees you the way you think.  And I’m curious to know if my self-definitions fit her memories of me at the various stages of our lives.

So here goes:

I am a drifting former graduate student (of literature, clearly) who has made her way through countless different lifestyles and shifting identities.  My one constant, essentially, is my inconstancy – my inability to stay anywhere for long.  I bounce a lot and rarely stick.  But what really matters here is what I was like a long time ago.  Because that’s the version of myself that met this long-time friend, and that’s the version I’m interested in hearing her take on. As a kid I was quiet and strange, the sort who, once she finally started talking, would fail to be quiet at appropriate times.  I was terrified of nearly all real-life situations, especially those that involved meeting new people.  My inner life was detailed and complex, but out in the daylight I was hopelessly disheveled and confused.

I remember E as being a counterpoint to me: friendly and talkative, unafraid to be silly, to giggle.  I was a horribly serious kid, and she helped to temper that with a lot of laughter.  She is someone who has never seemed afraid to feel a little silly or ridiculous.  Her hair was also so blonde it was nearly white, and her eyes are a strange shade of greeny  blue.  I am deep-eyed and, if not smiling, immediately appear to be sad.  We had something of the light and the dark about us, I think, that helped us match up well – but that also helped us grow apart for a long while in our later years.

We met on the first day of the second grade at a nondenominational (read: incredibly religious) private school in Baton Rouge, LA.  (I’m fessing up towns but not necessarily names of places within the towns.  We have yet to carve out how much anonymity we want to retain here, so I won’t reveal too much in this initial post.) It was my second year at the school, but I was shy and first days were always difficult, implying different teachers and different procedures.  (This was before I developed my deep, deep affection for change.)  I rarely ever talked, so how I met anyone is beyond me.  This is one of those times when memory serves to repress certain aspects of self for others.  My memories of feeling shy and silent and strange (something I now know most kids feel) are so powerful that they overcome any recollection of speech.  What I can say for certain, though, is that E.T. became my friend through alphabetical order.  The most likely person for a shy kid to eventually talk to is the girl who sits behind her everyday, so I can only assume that’s how we met.  But, as is the purpose here, maybe she remembers it differently.

We became fast friends, and from that point until she left for public school if 5th grade, we shared the same classrooms and essentially the same memories.  I was a part of her family and she was a part of mine.  She’s in a huge percentage of our home movies.

We attended the same middle school, although this time separated by the strange divide of the gifted and magnet programs.  We went on to the same high school, attended the same church.

But none of this provides you with much entertainment, or with much information that she can serve to contradict or confirm.  So, in the spirit of storytelling, I offer up a list of the most prominent memories I have from our childhood.  All of these will likely serve as story fodder for upcoming posts:

1. Playing unicorns in the front yard of her house, probably with her younger brother in tow.  Her front yard faced out onto a fairly major street but was blocked by a row of bushes.  We would beg and plead with her mom to take us across the street for snow cones (only in the summer).  This particular snow cone stand made a fantastic rainbow snowcone that turned everyone’s teeth a dark shade of disgusting.  We would pretend to be unicorns for literally hours, debating whether unicorns were only girls or whether there could be boy ones too (a debate mostly intended, I think, to keep younger brothers away).  We had a big red plastic jewel that featured heavily in these games.  It was probably supposed to be a warp stone of some kind that took us into other worlds to help people learn about unicorn power.  She got the jewel from a grab-bag present that came from the Nursery Outlet where we had gone to purchase a Christmas tree (memory blends seasons).  The grab bag concept consisted of a big barrel of paper-wrapped small gifts at the front of the store by the registers.  Each one cost probably a dollar or so, and her mom must have bought us each one.

2. A sleepover she held for her birthday in which we all watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Labyrinth, the latter of which made me cry so uncontrollably that I had to be removed from the room by her every-understanding mother and given Peanuts comics (or possibly Garfield) to read until I could calm down.  I remember being sad because my younger brother was still very young (maybe three at this point) and I somehow equated the lost baby in the movie with him and felt sad.  Telling this now, I feel like that must have been a reflection of guilt for feeling like I didn’t appreciate him or some such thing – just like Jennifer Connelly in the movie.

3. Spending the night at her house ALL THE TIME.  I had no bedtime as a kid, so I was late to bed and late to rise.  E, on the other hand, had always woken up at the absolute crack of dawn.  So she would fall asleep before me and I would stay up reading whatever books were available – usually the Babysitters Club – until I could fall asleep.  She would wake me up early, though, to watch Garfield cartoons.  A good bit of our childhood was Garfield- and Bullwinkle-themed, I think.  I still remember laughing hysterically with her at a Garfield comic that featured the phrase “bean-filled whack-bonk” and another involving the paradoxical and Schrodinger-like “empty cat in an empty box.”  We were little baby absurdists.

I could go on, but I’ll stop here for now and pass the mic to her, for the first real test of our experiment.

If you are in your 50’s or older then you probably had a sleepover when you were a kid.  Tent up in the back yard you’d crawl into sleeping bags and tell stories.  They were  mostly of the ghost variety as I recall.  It was all for fun, full of giggles, and when you did get there… a safe slumber.

I thought those days were gone forever.

Then I looked out my window tonight.

So is this how it’s supposed to work? When a guy is a decent guy, is this what it’s like?

(Disclaimer: Parts of this post may make you gag. Sorry, but I found an adorable guy and I’m gonna spill the details.)

Saturday there were a few parties around town and QG met up with us out at one of the bars. I talked to him briefly, but then he most of the time chatting with one of the guys, which was totally fine with me. He doesn’t get out much (until now) and I was glad he had other people to hang out with. Afterward, he drove me and another friend back to a house party where we’d started the night. When we got there, I instructed my friend that her job was to get QG as drunk as possible so he couldn’t drive home. Evil, I know. I live within walking distance, so I would just have to insist he sleep over. Of course, the plan worked. The party’s host challenged QG to a drinking game, which QG totally won. The host, however, threw up in the sink. Sorry dude, but thanks for helping a girl out By the end of the evening, the group planned to meet up for brunch in the morning and QG and I peaced out around 2:30.

He was sober enough to drive me back home, but of course I offered for him to stay over anyway. “Well, if we’re gonna do brunch in the morning, I guess it would just make sense…” he said. Riiight. You’re staying over for brunch. Mmhmm.

We spent the next hour or so chatting on my couch and drinking water. It was nice, but we also sobered up. Unfortunately, this situation (inviting a guy I like but don’t know very well to spend the night) was unfamiliar territory. I didn’t really know where to go from here. So, I changed into my PJs (a cute pink tank dress — flirty but tasteful — that I’d obviously picked out just for this type of occasion) and started to brush my teeth. He, however, started rooting through my fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine. “Wanna open it?” he asked. Poor guy. I realized then he was just as nervous and awkward about this whole situation as I was. And he wanted us both a little more drunk. So I agreed, and we downed that entire bottle in 20 minutes.

By this time it was after 4 a.m. and time to go to bed. I can’t keep staying up this late all the damn time. But before we did, I made a trip to the bathroom, and THANK GOD I did. There, I discovered I’d gotten my monthly visit from Aunt Dot a week early. WTF. However, I realized this was a huge blessing in disguise — like the granny panty situation with Mr. P, it gave me a very good reason to keep things above the belt. I like QG, but this was our first sleepover; I didn’t need things to be going that far.

I walked back into my room and told QG I had one rule if he was going to sleep over. “Ok…” he said cautiously. “You are not allowed to make fun of my hair in the morning because I have no idea what it’s going to look like,” I said in an attempt to break any lingering ice. He laughed, but I could tell he was still awkward. Which was evident when I had barely even turned off the light and he literally attacked my face.

I’m going to chalk it up to him being awkward and nervous and drunk, but I won’t lie: it was pretty bad. He seemed overeager and the result was forceful and sloppy. However, he got much better, so I’m just going to give him the benefit of the doubt because I like him. He’s just so damn sweet. Like, when we weren’t making out, he was kissing my nose, forehead, chin, shoulder, etc. Just little kisses. It was adorable. And when we went to sleep, he let me rest my head on his chest, and it fit perfectly. That doesn’t work with every guy. The First hated to lie like that; it was uncomfortable for us. But with QG, it’s a perfect fit. Of course, I still couldn’t sleep, but that’s beside the point.

In the morning, we had some time to kill before brunch at 11, so I made myself coffee and him some tea. And we sat on my bed, drinking coffee/tea while he watched “Meet the Press” and I checked email on my laptop. It felt so comfortable, like we did this every Sunday. At brunch, he paid (racking up the brownie points here) and afterward when he left, he kissed me goodbye. Actually that was pretty awkward as well… I gave him a hug, then he stared at me for a brief moment as if thinking, “Should I or shouldn’t I?” before he just dove in for a quick peck. But the fact that he seemed just as awkward about the whole thing as me was adorable and refreshing.

So that’s how we left things. We didn’t make any plans; I just thanked him for brunch and a fun night. There were a lot of firsts for me that night, mainly the fact that this is the first guy since college who I’ve liked/made out with but who hasn’t stopped mid-makeout to tell me he can’t get involved. Literally every one of the last four guys, including The First, delivered some form of that line to me. So, I’m thinking that’s a good sign. Along with the fact that he stuck around for brunch, paid for brunch and kissed me goodbye. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say he likes me

Which leads me to my next point: Greg Behrendt has some great advice, but he doesn’t know everything there is to know about guys. Had I asked Greg about QG early on, he would’ve said those six familiar words: “He’s just not that into you.” But like Casey has pointed out, shy guys are strange animals.

The problem now is where to go from here. Do I get in touch? Or wait for him to contact me? Until now, I’ve been the ballsy one in this scenario and have set up all of our encounters. If he really is interested in pursuing this, I want him to show it. So, I think I’m going to have to take a deep breath and put the phone down. Like my friend’s post-it reminder in her room says, “DO NOT CALL OR TEXT UNTIL HE DOES.” Good advice.

I went to see my mother, and that was interesting. She looked better than I thought she would, but still fairly ragged. I guess having no teeth does that to a person’s face. Oh well. She was very excited to see me, and I was excited to see her, and it was lots of fun.

She met me right at the station, and we went put to Burger King for lunch. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, as they closed the BK in my town. A shame, since I actually liked it a lot more than McDonalds. Anyway, then we went to Hamilton. Oh, Hamilton. Why must you keep all my favourite people from me?

So, we got there about 45 minutes later than I thought we would, and L— was not there. I was horrified, and thought that he had gone home. I actually called his house twice. Turns out his bike exploded and he was actually later than me by about 20 minutes. I may or may not have run at him when I finally saw him. We proceeded to explore a science building and the student centre, and then it was off to get food.

I think L— was very surprised that we asked him to come with us for food, although he knows how much I insist on him eating well. It was a very good dinner, too, and he got half of mine because I was full. He seemed a little distant, but that improved over the course of dinner. Then, he suggested what I had been waiting for him to suggest. He asked if I wanted to go to see A—-.

To be honest, I’d really wanted to be able to meet her. I was so disappointed that she couldn’t come and meet me at the school, so of course I agreed that we should go see her. The mother eventually agreed that her and her boyfriend would go back to the apartment and L— and I could go wherever we wanted. After a rather interesting walk, we arrived and it was AWESOME. Nnnngh. She’s so pretty.

It was a great visit, I think, and I finally got to meet her! And she really is pretty and funny and smart and gah. It was a little awkward, what with the boy being there, but that’s fine. It’s not like I stuck my hand in his pants or anything. Wait, that’s right, I did. To be fair, he had hidden the scarf down there.

Later, we were late for the bus, so L— and I spent an hour at the bus terminal, and I got to pet a kitten. I also burst into hysterical tears, but he calmed me down. Then I hopped on my bus, and cried all the way to my train. Then I cried for half the train ride. I need to stop doing that just because he’s leaving me/I’m leaving him, it’s not good.

I slept well on the couch in the apartment that night, and today my mother gifted me with a very old but very nice laptop, and then I came home. Personally? I can’t wait until I live in Hamilton, I really can’t.

So, what have we learned? Either meet people within 100 km of your house, or get used to the pain of leaving them behind. Also, sticking a scarf down your pants does not guarantee someone will not go after it, especially if they’ve been in your pants for vastly different reasons before.

So, I asked The Quiet Guy out. Over Facebook. I know, I know. It’s lame. But it was the only way I had to get in touch with him. However, that didn’t work; he never checks Facebook. So, I took a deep breath and got his number from a mutual friend and texted him. Game on.

We tentatively made plans to get together (not exclusively, just general social plans) Saturday night after he got off of work around 11. My gal pal and I were trying to find something fun to do but ended up back at my apartment drinking wine on my front porch. He came by (with two six packs for himself… interesting) and joined us on the porch for a few hours. My friend left sometime after 1 a.m., and I was curious to see if he’d leave, too. But, he made no effort to leave; he obviously wanted to continue the conversation.

So we spent the next hour and a half chatting about everything under the sun — which is the way late-night conversations usually go, I guess — from marriage to our careers/futures to bugs. I have a lot of bugs. And we made tentative plans to have brunch the next day with my gal pal. Around 2:30 we realized how late it was and began cleaning up the porch. I showed him around my apartment, and he was very clearly lingering in my living room, not wanting to leave. He asked about every picture in every frame, complimenting my photography skills (which aren’t that great), asked about my coffee table book, even commented on my diploma hanging on the wall. Dude was definitely lingering.

This was about the same part of the night a week ago when Mr. P so nonchalantly asked, “Do you want to spend the night?” The problem was, this time it was my apartment. And it was The Quiet Guy. And the truth is, I may not know Mr. P very well, but at least we have this regular flirtation going all the time. The QG — I really don’t know him very well. And I just wasn’t quite ready for a sleepover. This was the first time we’d ever hung out one-on-one. So, my awkward other half took over and froze up when QG made another comment about how late it was. He’d also had a lot to drink (I really hadn’t) but I didn’t acknowledge it. So, he said he should go and I let him. No hug, no nothing. But he didn’t even try.

This is where I get confused. The QG is clearly a good guy. He’s a decent, sweet, adorable, nice nice nice guy who seems to be interested. But it confuses a girl when you don’t even try to make a move. I mean, not even a hug? Seriously? I would’ve given him a kiss on the cheek or something if he’d given me a hug. I can’t lead all the time, mister.

After he left, I began to worry that maybe I’d gotten too stiff at the end of the night and sent off friend vibes. So, I texted him.

Me: “Glad you came over! We should hang out more often. Hope you made it back safe- I didn’t even ask if you were ok to drive”

QG: “Well, I made it back. Let me know about brunch”

whoops.

Me: “Well dang next time you’re staying over. I should’ve asked! Don’t need to be reading about you in the paper I’ll let you know about tomorrow”

He didn’t respond to this, but I had also ended the convo by saying I’d let him know about brunch. I was worried I might’ve crossed a line; QG seems pretty timid in this regard. But, I wanted to make it clear that I was interested without being slutty. Inviting him to spend the night would’ve been slutty. And too much too soon. I wasn’t quite ready for that.

So that’s where we left things. Brunch didn’t happen on Sunday — staying up until 3 a.m. does that to you. I texted him and said we’d have to do it another time; he wrote back and said “Sounds good. We’ll hit it up another day.” The general consensus on my part was that he was interested, but perhaps just the slow-and-steady type. Which I am just not used to. I am used to the guys who make it blatantly obvious what they want: to get in your pants. Those guys are also the ones who end up being jerks.

So, like the title of this post says, I am trying something new. I am trying to make smarter decisions about my life in general, and that includes my love life. I have put myself in unhealthy situations too many times before, and going after Mr. P would just lead me down that same road. I’m not sure yet what this is with the QG; it may be nothing. But it could also be something worthwhile. At the very least, it’s showing me that there are decent guys out there who respect my boundaries.

I eagerly await the next update for you all, whatever that may be.

Morning Diva’s! its just after 8 in the am on Saturday!

Last night my sissy and i had an old fashioned sleepover at my cousins house (their parents are outta town) I had to come home early this morning cause i have work in a little bit. We had such a good time! Don’t you miss doin things like that?

I didn’t get the chance to blog yesterday evening, but i did want to come stop in and say HI!

just chug – a – luggin on my coffee!

Have a super fab Saturday morning babes!!!

(its cold and rainy right now) blahh…

ps. I need to find an outfit for tonight and have no idea what to wear! Any suggestions?

Here is a little snap shot of the Birthday Girl, eating the birthday dinner. Her party was just a week after Alix’s, so we were still quite tired. She will kill me for using this picture, but who cares. I cant really remember a lot of what happened, but i will have a go. We got there at the normal time which was 5:00pm. The theme was pink, and so we all dressed in pink. Her mum had made a pink grotto type thing in the dining room, and we all sat down to eat party food.

 Then, Jenna whipped out the cakes she had made for her, and so did i. The contrast between the two was terrible. Hers had bright, pink icing on the top, and each one had a letter of “happy birthday” on it. She had even brought candles, and there were little decoration sprinkle things on them. Whereas mine. I had only just finished making mine that night, there were about 50 of them all stuffed into one tiny lunchbox, and they were covered in yellow icing. The icing was not smooth, but lumpy and all over the shop. Everyone laughed.

After that, we all made our way into the lounge, and i obviously put on loud, raucious music that annoyed the whole house. We did this long into the night, occasionally just stopping to say somthing about somebody else, and then finally settled down to watch Saun of the dead. I found it quite disturbing even though i had seen it before. After the film, we took a lot of pictures, this one representing the film we had just seen.

took about 70 pictures. Here are just a few of us in posey positions. and made each other up.  Here is a picture of me painting Jenna’s nails with black nail paint.

Well, I managed to do something worthwhile this week. On Thursday, I got L—— and S–, and we walked over to J——’s house and spent the day there. I, of course, spent the night as well. We featsed on Chinese food, and then we watched The Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge. A beautiful way to spend a night, really, especially since I’ve got all the male vocals memorized.

The next day was even better, though, as the library decided they were giving away free books. My response was something like “ASDFGHJKL;’ MUST HAVE. GIVE THEM TO ME! MUAHAHAHA.” I may get a little bit excited when free books are on the line . . .

Anyway, I picked up Lord of Light (on L—’s recommendation), four books in the Amber series, and The Road to Avalon. Kind of reminds of The Road to Avonlea, only set in Britain. It’s turning out to be fairly interesting, although I’m more entertained by Volume II of Sandman right now *huggles gigantic over size*. It hurts my back to carry it but, by God, it’s wonderful.

Apart from that, not much of note has happened. I talked to L— as I usually do, he was offended as he usually is, and then he forgot about it the next day and was wonderful. I called him on Saturday like always (dear God, we’re in a rut already and we’re not even –), and that was nice. He was dreadfully tired, though, and I sort of had an urge to just tuck him in and sing to him or something. Granted, he lives a good 200 km away, so that would be kind of hard, but I can still imagine it!

Still no progress on the “for the lvoe of God, get over her” front, but, well. It’s not like I’ve ever expected progress on that front. I just wish he’d realize that I really don’t mind not being Number 1. Oh well.

And that has been the last three days. So, now I’m going to read Charmed Life some more, and maybe try drawing something from Sandman. And the Oreo is probably going to demand a walk.

Adieu and all that.

That’s pretty much the only thing I can say right now.

Yesterday, Mr. Politics asked what my plans were for the weekend. I didn’t have any for last night, so he invited me to a bar with him and a friend to watch a baseball game. Snore (the game, not the company, of course). I arrived toward the end, not caring in the least about the game but wanting to hang out nonetheless. I purposely did not invite anyone else, wanting to see how the interaction went with him and me without any of my friends around.

He was his usual self — effing sexy and hilarious — although I’m beginning to realize he’s kind of cocky. Which I guess is part of what makes him attractive — his confidence. But we began to argue over work-related things and it started to piss me off a little, because he was taking his anger out on me about things that I have zero control over. It honestly got a little uncomfortable at times, leaving us sitting and watching the big screens in the bar and me trying to make conversation with his friend. But he later apologized for being out of line, so whatev.

After the first bar we headed to our favorite spot — the trashiest biker bar in town. I literally love this place and will go any chance I get. We spent an hour or so there before he invited me to come back to his house. Now, the last time this happened (after my birthday party, when we and another guy just hung out until 4 a.m.), he made me feel kind of weird the next day because I’d stayed so late, although he later insisted that “if I’m up at 4 it’s because I want to be.” Anyway I made sure to clarify if he actually wanted me to come over and he said yes, he wanted me to come over.

So we headed back to his house and, once again, hung out in the living room chatting it up for a few hours before his friend went to bed. Mr. Politics began noting how late it was (4 a.m., yet again) and that he really should go to bed. Interpreting this as his polite way of telling me to go home, I agreed that it was late and I should go to bed, too.

“Do you want to spend the night?” he asked, nonchalantly, as if he was asking what time it was.

Well, shit. That’s not at all where I thought this was going. I smiled at him, not knowing what the hell to do.  He read my hesitation as a “no,” and said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. Of course I wanted to. That wasn’t really the issue. But should I? No. Did I? Yes. I acknolwedged that it probably wasn’t the best idea, but that I also was in no shape to drive home after a night of drinking.

“I’ll behave,” he said. Yeah, right.

We headed upstairs and I asked to borrow a pair of shorts to sleep in, which were of course a little snug on me seeing as how he is practically anorexic and, well, let’s just say that’s not exactly my problem. (Why do I seem to be going for the skinny guys lately?) I felt like I looked ridiculous in his too-tight shorts so I quickly jumped into his bed while he was in the bathroom. He came out, wearing only boxers — good gracious — and climbed into bed with me. He pulled me toward him, wrapping his arm around me as I laid my head on his chest. He patted my head and gently played with my hair. Swoon.

Then I looked up at him. “This is bad,” I said.

“Why is this bad?”

“This is really bad. We can’t be doing this.”

I’m pretty sure that’s about the same time we started making out. Whoops. I have zero self-control. Actually, that’s not entirely true because he, of course, wanted to go full steam ahead and I said absolutely not. We may chat a lot, but the truth is I really don’t know him very well. I was not about to get that intimate. Not to mention I had of course worn the biggest pair of granny panties imaginable (how was I supposed to know what was gonna go down?!) and wanted him nowhere near my nether regions. So, we made out for a while before we finally agreed we should stop.

And then he mentioned that he couldn’t really get involved in anything because he was too busy with work. Of course, story of my effing life. So, I blatantly asked him if he was just trying to get laid or if he was genuinely interested in me. If he was being upfront about things, I wanted to know.

“I like you,” he said. “I know you like me. I think you’re smart, I really enjoy conversing with you (yes, he talks like that; I think it’s adorable), you’re funny and I think you’re beautiful. But I just can’t get involved with anyone right now.”

This has literally been the case with every guy I’ve come close to dating, including the one I did end up dating. WTF. For the first time, I have actually “landed” (if you can call it that) this dreamboat who I have been crushing on for MONTHS, and I get the same old worn out response. I’m so freaking tired of it I could scream. Yes, the validation that he actually does find me desirable is great, but the truth is, no matter how many nice things he says — all together now — he’s just not that into me if he can’t make time for a relationship.

I’m not exactly sure how I responded (still drunk), but I believe I said something along the lines of, “OK fine, just as long as you don’t get weird about this now.” So we agreed that we’d be cool about it. Which obviously I will have to work REALLY hard to do, especially because the next time we hang out I’m going to want to jump his bones. He’s just so damn hot. Which I’m fairly certain I told him multiple times during our makeout sesh.

But I know me, and I cannot do the friends-with-benefits thing. I tried it with The First, which led to months of hooking up before I finally got him to commit to an official relationship. And we all know how well that turned out. So, I know I can’t put myself through that again. I’m just not cut out for that kind of “relationship,” because one person (me) always becomes waaay more attached than the other.

I really don’t remember how we left things; all I remember was him spooning me. He’s a snuggler, of course. Damn it.

This morning I got up and left early, saying good morning and goodbye as I tousled his hair. He said goodbye, although I’m not positive he was really awake yet. It will be interesting to see where things go from here.

This Mom and Auntie is very proud. Oh, and the best part? They were in bed at 7:25pm, per BOTH of their requests. Yes, I just might be SuperMom…only today…tomorrow is a whole new ball game

playing outside

Eating…because this is what Ethan does best