Sign that I'm growing up (or growing insane): Just booked a flight for me and the boy to go visit my parents. A month from now. I'm trying not to freak out about the amount of commitment that indicates. :)

I know none of you have ever noticed this, but I'm (just the teensiest bit) obsessive.

Do you believe in free will?

It's amazing how much good half a day off work can do! Not only am I now healthy, but I am once again caught up on my Russian homework.

I am, however, feeling wildly out of sorts at the moment, and I'm not entirely sure why.

I bowled a 116 this weekend! That may not sound great, but it's far and away my best game ever. In typical me fashion though, I bowled 100-59-116. Consistency has never been my strength.

In other news, I'm miserably sick right now. I'm at work, but I think I will be leaving soon.

Damn this weather.

So I was on the phone with my dad yesterday, and I expressed surprise that he didn't have more questions about The Boy. The ones he did ask were very good-- "will he have intellectual debates with you?" and "does he treat you well?" But still, it was odd that he didn't have more. So he called back today. His voicemail message: "Hi! Now that I've had more time to think about it, I have a few more questions for you. Does he have any ex-wives or kids? Does he have any felony convictions? You know, the basics. So call me back and let me know. Love you."

My dad rocks :) He should be out to visit in a couple of weeks when he is jobless. Yay! (for him visiting and for him finally having free time)

Even when I'm not looking for a reason, I just love Craigslist. Why? Because of posts like this:


let's spoon and talk about nietzsche - 23 (M4W)
hi,

the title of this posting is pretty self explanatory. literally, all i want is to spoon and talk about nietzsche. that's all. i promise. i once tried spooning with a girl and talking about marx and that just didn't work out. she kept saying that i was hogging too much of the bed or that she should be the one with her arms around me.

Sensuality often makes love grow too quickly, so that the root remains weak and is easy to pull out.

i tried spooning with my cat but she doesn't really have a lot of intelligent input when it comes to nietzsche.

i guess if you really like spooning, but are not a fan of nietzsche i can just do all the talking myself and you can listen. or maybe, what would be my fantasy, is if you did your doctoral thesis on nietzsche and you just spooned me all night and read me your dissertation.

day 2 of cleveland marathon training, and i didn't run my 3 miles. the day's not over, but tonight's not looking promising. yep, this is going well. my own fault for running a race for my mom instead of for myself, i suppose. i have a feeling that training's going to be a lot less successful while in a relatinoship (i think i can call it that). unless, i convince him to become a crazy runner too... (insert evil laugh here)

as i type this i'm eavesdropping on a conversation between two of my profs. one is telling the other about her trip to japan and being in a forest surrounded by monkeys having sex. it's a little surreal.

You know you're too tired to be at work when you go to get a $1.50 coffee, pay with a $10 and tell the cashier to put the change in the tip jar. Oy.

And I forgot to relate the shock I felt this morning while watching the news and realizing that the building fire they were reporting on was about four blocks away. In retrospect I had been hearing an awful lot of sirens and helicoptors. Anyway, I don't think anyone was seriously injured, and it was far enough away that it didn't actually affect my life in any way. But it did make me realize how often I assume that the news doesn't have any bearing on me, as if everything happens far away and to other people.

I'm tired of this whole dating thing-- tired of talking about it, thinking about it, obsessing over it. I'm not feeling any more secure. I'm not any more certain that this makes sense for me. And I already hate having another person to consider in my life. I want to make decisions about what to do and when without thinking about how it will affect someone else. I want to enjoy training for the Cleveland Marathon without thinking about how the time it will take might affect a relationship.

I really really really like this guy. I'm feeling things about him that I've never felt about anyone. I can actually almost start to understand how and why people get married and have kids. But I've been happily single for far too long to just jump without reservation into a relationship.

***

Cleveland Marathon training started today with 3 miles. In an attmpt to avoid the injuries that plagued me last time around I am dropping back down to the novice training schedule. It starts out ridiculously easy, even considering that all my running for a while will be on the treadmill.

The parents apparently described me as "calm." Is that a good thing? I was pretty nervous (hadn't met anyone's parents in 8 years), and when I'm nervous I get quiet. I did hold my own while playing cards, but I was anything but rowdy.

Today, I met the parents. Yes, that's awfully quick. No, it didn't freak me out, at least not that much. It felt comfortable. I think I'm getting old.

In a move that will surprise no one except me, I am staging a return to academia. Of course, I haven't exactly moved very far from it since leaving grad school. Having been student, teacher, researcher, and administrator, I know that administration is the least draining (most of the time). But it's also the least rewarding. No pain, no gain.

So, having now been invited to contribute an academic article to a work in progress, I think it is time to return, tentatively and part-time, to the world of research and teaching. And so, I am going to re-join my professional societies, submit papers for conferences, attempt to publish already-written papers, and send out my CV to local colleges. Dammit.

If anyone has any helpful connections or would like to provide assistance in trying to recover data from my old laptop, let me know. :)

Perhaps I should temper this a bit before you all decide I need to go to therapy (I tried, didn't work).

1. Just because I don't immediately trust people doesn't mean I don't ever trust people. I know that my family and close friends (yes, you guys) would never intentionally do anything to hurt me. I think after 5+ years of knowing someone you can get to that point, and sometimes it doesn't take nearly that long. There are plenty of people in my life who have always been there when I needed them and vice versa. There are, of course, levels of trust. Like, I know my brother would never ever do anything to hurt me, but I also know better than to expect a phone call from him on my birthday. Some people are just flaky on the little stuff, but as long as you know that it's not a big deal. So, I am capable of trust. I just don't trust people as a whole.

2. I haven't actually broken things off with the boy. I'm going to try really really hard to give him the chance to earn my trust. I'm going to try not to freak out when I don't hear from him. And I'm going to try to let myself actually feel something, to let go, just a little bit. No promises, but I'll do my best.

A follow-up.

I have an inherent mistrust of people. All people. For those of you who think I'm strongly independent or a loner or whatever, the truth is that I just have no faith that other people won't let me down. When I tell people that my favorite activities are usually those I can do alone (hiking instead of climbing, running instead of group sports, reading instead of going to a play) they assume I don't like people. The truth is that I just don't believe that other people will always be there for me to join.

I don't mean this as a knock against any of you. Or anyone in my life, really. I have an amazing family and terrific friends. There is simply no reason for me to be so mistrustful. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I fail to create an attitutde of trust, people are less likely to want to be around me, and then they do let me down.

Recognition of the problem is supposed to be half the battle, but I've long known that this was true of me. I become a paranoid wreck in relationships, and I'm only really satisfied when my suspicions are confirmed. I haven't avoided serious relationships because I'm opposed to the idea or afraid of commitment. I just hate the relationship version of me, and I hate the thought of allowing someone close enough to hurt me. Have I let guys treat me like shit at times? Absolutely. And the reason is that in some perverse way I'm in control then. It doesn't hurt if I'm allowing it to happen.

The last time I remember letting go in a relationship was with the first guy I ever dated, my junior year of high school. And he turned out to be less than trustworthy. It would be easy to blame him. Or to blame the string of guys who've let me down since then. But I think this is just who I am. And since I don't know how to get over it, I think I might run away again. I love being single, and I love who I am when I'm single, so maybe that's what's right for me.

Ok, so the real reason I'm not sharing many details...

I have some serious lingering insecurities when it comes to dating and relationships. No matter how well this seems to be going, I am absolutely completely convinced that something is going to go wrong, and I'll end up with a broken heart again. I guess I think that will be easier if I haven't shared every detail of every date with all of you.

Of all the dating situations I've been in, this is the one I should have the least doubt about, but it's also already the one that would hurt the most if things were to go bad.

So please allow me my privacy.

Good things:
- When you choose a doctor at random from the phone book and later realize what a terrific decision you made.

- When you're invited, based on your past work, to contribute an article to an academic anthology, even though you've left the field.

- When a guy says to you on your third date, "when you meet my parents..." and you don't freak out.

- When you tell your mother you met a guy through an online personal ad, and her response is, "Oh, I just went to a wedding of a couple that met that way!"

The fancy, dress-up date went very very well :)

And this morning on the WGN news, the cultural segment featured reviews of Spamalot and the CSO piano concerto. And I had seen both. Damn, I'm sophisticated!

My coffeemaker at work is broken. Thus ends any shred of productivity I had left.

I wrote the following piece in March or April 2000. It's about a boy I didn't date, whose name is not really Eric. We went out a few times, but he had just met someone else and that was turning into something more serious than he'd originally thought, so things between us went nowhere. We're still friends, at least the kind of friends who email once a year. It's one of the few dating situations of my life that I look back at and feel completely good about. In any case, I think it helps explain some of my feelings about my current situation.

He turned to me, and his face showed me how sorry he was for what he was about to say. Behind the dark sunglasses, his green eyes told me everything I needed to know. I knew what was coming as well as he did, but somehow I wasn't sad. This was Eric, the first boy to ever truly know me as I really am right from the moment we met. He was amazing, incredible. I'd never met someone so brutally honest, so open with his feelings. No one had ever accepted me so readily. I didn't feel the need to embellish or exaggerate stories to impress Eric. Somehow he was impressed just by me and the things I actually did and said and accomplished. He cared about what I had to say and valued my opinions. And he remembered everything I said and wrote. No one ever really read my writing or wanted to, but Eric did. He read it, absorbed it and recalled every nuance. He went to great lengths to find out everything about me, and he wasn't ashamed to tell me that he did.

I think mostly I was intrigued by this boy. I don't think I'd ever met someone so similar to me. And yet I couldn't really pinpoint what it was that we had in common. I mean we were both intelligent and open-minded and probably shared a million other characteristics, but it was something that went much deeper than that. I could never shake this deep-down feeling that we shared some essential nature. Talking to Eric was like talking to myself. There's something really comforting about that. And yet talking to him wasn't like talking to anyone else ever was. He made me feel intelligent, And he challenged me to think beyond my normal, self-imposed limits. Somehow he had this way- and I'm not even sure he was aware- of making me realize that I could answer those tough questions without the normal bullshit of academia that was my typical protective shield. I had all the knowledge and analytical reasoning skills I needed to be an intellectual, but it took Eric to show me that. Somehow conversations with him never seemed to be over. They flowed so effortlessly from one thing to the next. And I'd walk away with more questions that I started with. I didn't know any of the mundane details of this boy's life, but I could tell you how he celebrated his 21st birthday in South Africa, or what it was like to sell fruit on the side of the road during a DC summer, or what it was like to see someone shot during a bank holdup in San Francisco. And I wanted to know everything about him- what position he played in baseball and what he liked to read and what his favorite classes had been and what kind of music he listened to and when he was moving and what languages he spoke. And yet there was never time to ask all the questions I had because the conversations just never ended. I wanted to talk to this boy forever and never stop. I don't think we would ever run out of things to say to each other. There couldn't be any subject too broad or narrow for us to tackle. And it all became so magically interesting when we talked about it.

In a way Eric scared me. Actually, in a lot of ways. It scared me that there could be someone out there who was so much like me. I'm an individual. I've never wanted to find my double, and yet here he was. My double, or maybe my soul mate. And he scared me because I realized that he was the kind of boy I wanted to marry. I wanted someone so passionately caring that they would read everything I'd written and want to listen to every word I said. Mostly, I wanted someone I could talk to so easily and openly without ever censoring myself or worrying about what I was saying. I wanted someone who would push me to be the best I could be and think the deepest thoughts I had in me. Eric did all that for me. That scared me because I wasn't ready to meet anyone like that. I wasn't ready for commitment and marriage and future. I wanted to live in the now, to have fun, to say 'to hell with consequences.' I was moving in a few months, and I didn't want ties. And I knew that regardless of what Eric was about to tell me, nothing between the two of us could last because of me. And how can you have a short-term fling with your soul mate? Or one of your soul mates, since I've never bought into the whole 'one perfect person for everyone' thing. And it all scared me because I didn't know if I'd find that that type of person when I was ready for that kind of thing someday. And I knew now that I could never settle for anything less. It's like tasting fine wine and knowing you can never go back to the cheap boxed stuff you drank at frat parties. It scared me, but not too much. I knew it was better to learn to be discerning. And I'd be happier someday for it. Lonelier, perhaps, but happier.

And so Eric started to explain. I knew what he was going to say before he started. Not the details, but the end results, which was all that was important to me. For once, I wasn't really interested in Eric's story. Not because it disappointed me so much, but because I knew he wouldn't tell it with his usual flair. It was the one story that he just weren't ready to be completely open and honest and detailed about because he couldn't know how I would react. I have to admit that I didn't pay much attention to the details that he did give. It was unimportant to me why we couldn't date. I knew we didn't belong together- not here, not now. I knew a short-term thing with him just couldn't make me happy. When I'd asked him out, I had no way of knowing how special he'd be. And I knew this was the one sure way to avoid having my heart broken yet again. And in a way Eric had already served his purpose for me, as far as dating was concerned. I'd proven to myself that I could ask a guy out and that I was still attractive and desirable. I'd proven to myself that I could go on a date with someone I didn't know and still have a wonderful time. I'd proven to myself that I didn't have to be looking for something to find it. Or for that matter even wanting something to find it. I'd proven to myself that there were still things worth finding and people worth meeting. Eric had done more for my dating life without actually dating me than most guys did after months of dating. So it didn't really matter why we couldn't date. I already knew. I just wanted to get back to what I truly loved about being with Eric- being great friends. I'd never had a friend quite like Eric before, and I couldn't wait to start talking to him again!

Why didn't someone remind me about winter weather before I left California?

I think my exes (don't ask what the 'ex' modifies) have a sixth sense. They know somehow--without me saying--that I am happy, and possibly moving on, and they have to make one last attempt to claim me. Not claim me for good, mind you, but just to keep me from getting over them completely. But they have failed- ha ha! So, even if this situation goes nowhere, there might be the happy result that I actually cut ties with my former flames. That's a big step for me!

In related news, I have apparently found myself a boy who plans our third date before we've even gone on our second. And the third date will require a fancy dress. I don't know how to be girly-- Help!

Happy half birthday to me!

I am not bringing someone to coffee, but that's because I've decided I want to have him all to myself for just a bit longer. Details will not be forthcoming on the blog, but they are available upon request, if you ask nicely. :)

I may be bringing someone to coffee...

Kelly is alive. Thank you for your concern.

I'm actually feeling a lot better, but I'm still tired enough that I don't have the energy to respond to emails and phone calls. I will be at coffee Tuesday.

Don't wanna go to work tomorrow. But at least I get to listen to my new ipod on the train.

Back in town, for a while this time, I think. Feel very very icky and not from alcohol. Paid a lot of money to party at a bar where I had two drinks and left early to go back to the hotel and sleep. Alas. There's always 2006. :)