never so much more than ever I was this day
(I am, apparently, in an e.e. cummings frame of mind.)
So... in the many months that I've been horribly neglecting LJ, what have I been doing? Lots of neglecting, mostly. I haven't hung out with my local friends Zach or Jason in a million years, and I feel kinda guilty about it. I have, however, been making friends with a bunch of people in the local knitting group that I now go to, and I gotta tell you, it feels so nice to have some female socialization from time to time.
Let's see... I also bought a car, back in early December... I don't think I wrote about that. It's a very secondhand Audi with all-wheel-drive, and I am very enchanted by it.
Umm... I still love my job at the yarn store. I still only work part time, and feel like I should be working full time, but, honestly, I don't think I have the time or the energy to do so. I don't know what I do with all my time, exactly, but apparently it's NOT sleeping enough.
Damnit, I'm so LAME! I have nothing to report! Highlights... highlights... I guess I've been doing a fair amount of socializing with family members in a more grown-up way, which is nice. In December, I went down to NYC to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (which I utterly failed, by the way-- I think probably I should've been taking the Level II test instead of the Level III test. Also, maybe I should've studied for more than just 2 weeks beforehand. *sheepish grin*), and stayed at my cousin Erica's place. She's married to a very sweet guy named David, and they have 2 kids. On that side of the family, I always had more contact with Erica's sister, Christine and Christine's husband and kids, so it was really awesome to really get to know Erica and David (who I previously had exchanged exactly 2 sentences with), and to play with their kids, who are both quirky and adorable. Also sometime in November, I went down to Philly to visit my beloved Aunt Carol. We went to the big Philadelphia craft show, which was just amazing. There was so much beautiful stuff, and it was all SO DAMN EXPENSIVE. I was inspired by so much. There was a crazy girl from Finland who made amazing felt hats, and a lady who made jewelry out of twists of paper and leather and other weird stuff, and it all ended up looking beautiful and organic and completely altered from the materials' original appearance that it seemed magical. There was a guy who just had rugs, just rugs! But they were all beautiful designs, and somehow he'd sheared the pile so that they were like... like frescos. With a little bit of three-dimensionality that just made them even more beautiful. I tried taking pictures, but it didn't convey the effect. There were a pair of super-gay weavers who I remembered coming into WEBS once. They were from P-town, and they were incredibly cute and friendly when they were buying yarn, so I was thrilled to see that their stuff was gorgeous. Jackets and shawls and all sortsa stuff. There were two people who worked in clay who I wanted to just kiss. One was a lady who threw pots and then carved away from them as much as she could, so that they were just... I dunno... like coral bones. Like rocks in the desert, worn down by wind and sand. Amazingly ethereal and beautiful. The other was a younger woman, closer to my age, and she made these beautiful, bizarre little sculptures that looked kinda like if a sea cucumber and a tiger lily had a torrential love affair. I wanted to buy one SO BADLY, but the tiniest, cheapest one cost a couple hundred, and I just couldn't justify it, especially since I didn't think I could get it home without at least one of its delicate little tentacles snapping off. There was a lady who made PURSES out of polymer clay, but they looked like WOOD. Crazy, no? But they were silly and wonderful and beautiful, and I found myself coveting one! CRAZY! There was one lady who I fell absolutely in love with who made paintings, only they weren't paintings. She was actually a weaver, and she would weave with different fibers, and then dye the weaving, and the different fibers would take the dye differently, and then she'd paint on it, and then she'd put shiny paper behind the fabric so you could see it glimmer in places.. I can't explain it, but the effect was like looking into a forest, all shadowy and layered. I seriously considered buying one of her pieces, but, again, super-expensive. Also, I have nowhere to put it. I decided I would wait until I had a place of my own, and then that would be my house-warming gift to myself. She was an absolute sweetheart, and seemed really pleased with my enthusiastic praise.
So that was awesome, but even if the craft show had sucked, just getting to spend time with my aunt was wonderful. We hung out, and talked, and went to breakfast together, and the farmer's market, and she made me collard greens, which I'd never before eaten, and I LOVED them. And we talked and talked and talked, about all sorts of things, from my love life, to what my mom was like as a child, to techniques on getting strangers to talk about themselves, to her problems with a new employee when a google search of him revealed that he used to be a fetish photographer. Sigh. Man, I totally can't wait til I have time to go see her again.
More recently, in January, I got to hang out with my mom's OTHER sister, my Aunt Lisa, who was in Boston on business. She and I have never been as close as Carol and I (partially just 'cuz she lives further away, but also just because she has a very blunt, confident personality, and I've always been terrified of her), so it was both interesting and enjoyable to go to dinner with her.
In love life news (because I KNOW you give a damn!), Raymond and I have been seeing a lot more of each other, and things just keep getting better and better. I feel like we're really comfortable with one another now, and yet still in the honeymoon phase where we're still really excited about everything. If I had time to write a filtered entry, I would go into detail about how amazing the sex is. But instead I will merely sit here with a happy little smile on my face for a few minutes. *sighhhhhh*
Ok, so that's the good. The iffy is my relationship with Lou. Back in January, we had a big fight, and since then things just haven't quite been the same. The fight was about money, and even though Lou eventually conceded that maybe I was right, and that buying Xbox games instead of paying his phone bill wasn't in his best financial interests, still, a lot of things were done and said during the fight that just made me feel... tired. I felt like I'd lost a lot of respect for him, and like I just didn't want to bother anymore. I still tried to see him at least once a week, but we mostly just hung out and watched TV while I tried not to be snappish and grouchy. I definitely saw Raymond a bit more often, and enjoyed myself more with him. Last night, Lou and I finally hashed it out, and I think things are on the mend... but for the right now, I definitely feel like the hierarchy of relationships has changed. It used to be that I thought of Lou as the constant, the solid foundation, the home to which I would return, my main papi... and now I definitely feel more devotion towards Raymond in that way. I dunno... it's weird, and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if this is allowed. Can Lou stand to not be the Alpha in my life? Does it make me a fickle whore to feel this way? I'm conflicted about it, and confused. I don't know if it means that Lou's time is coming to an end, or if it's just one more phase that our relationship is going through, with many more to come in the future. Sigh. Anyways, I'm sure this is getting boring, me wallowing in my drama... but hey, what else is LJ for?
Now for the not-yet-sure: On Friday, Leesa at work revealed to me the following: 1) she's attracted to me, and has been from the moment she first saw me (YAY!). 2) she has a girlfriend, and has had one for the past 2 years (HUH? This seems to directly contradict what Malea said about her, which makes me REALLY want to sit down and get the facts from both of them). 3) They have an open relationship (umm... YAY again! Right?) 4) She's not looking to get into another relationship (um... FUCK! So why the hell'd she tell me she liked me, then? Just to torture me? ...actually, I could kinda get into that-- being tortured by hot women is apparently a hobby of mine... maybe it's just that they can tell that I like it? Hmmm... must work on that...). So yeah. I don't even know what to say about this. Except that I went to the company belated-christmas-bowling-party on Sunday with Raymond, and we got a good eyeful of her girlfriend, and it was generally agreed that even if we had to walk barefoot over hot shards of glass and then through a pool full of raw sewage and rattlesnakes, we would SO Hit That. I mean, she was Hot-with-a-capital-slap-in-the-face-of-pure-hotness. Good LORD have mercy. So yeah. First thing I need to do when I go to work tomorrow morning is pull Leesa aside and tell her, "Look. Your girlfriend is AMAZING. ...Uh... I mean.... we need to talk."
In other not-yet-sure news is Phil, the cute snowboarder in Burlington. Although, actually, tonight he's in Stratton, which is an oh-so-painfully-tempting hour-or-so away. I have told him repeatedly that I will gladly drive the hour-or-so to see him and have dinner with him, but so far he has not invited me up. His car died earlier tonight, and I also told him that I will gladly drive him back to Burlington if need be, and he seemed remotely interested. In our various communications (phone, texting, and emails), I have managed to pry out of him that he is definitely interested in a possible sexuo-romantic involvement with me, and is cool with (though not necessarily enthused by) the whole non-monogamous thing. So far he doesn't seem like a jerk, although I readily admit that I don't know him that well yet. If I had to write a profile of him in the back of a comic book in which he was a character (a la Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut), it would read:
Likes: running, snowboarding, cats, snakes, scorpions, conspiracy theories, curly hair, freckles, salmon, fresh produce, soy milk with cherry-vanilla granola, Spanish food, riding motorcycles at dangerously high speeds, reggae, working as a nurse in an old people's home, taking naked pictures of himself with his phone (not that he's sent me any, mind you-- but I'm workin' on it. ;-)
Dislikes: dogs, stupid girls, drunk girls who try to kiss him (which apparently happens frequently while he is doing the next thing on the list), working as a bouncer at a club, running into trees while snowboarding, driving without a valid license, having to choose between snowboarding all day and going to work so that he can make rent that month, when his bedroom is messy, George Bush.
I mean, granted, that's a pretty good start as far as our compatibility goes... but it still leaves a lot of territory as-yet-unexplored. There's still plenty of room in there for him to turn out to be a jerk. Sigh. I hope he's not. I am so very, very into him. *such a dweeb*
Yikes, it's late, and I have to get up pretty early tomorrow morning. I'm possibly meeting Aimie for tea, and I also have to get my wheels aligned at 8. Sigh... and then work. And after work, I might meet Lou for Valentine's Day dinner, if the snowstorm doesn't prevent it. And after that, knitting group. And I had plans to get up early and bake linzertorte cookies for Valentine's Day for my coworkers, but I'm not so sure it's going to happen now. *LAZY and LAME!*
*hugs to all*
So... in the many months that I've been horribly neglecting LJ, what have I been doing? Lots of neglecting, mostly. I haven't hung out with my local friends Zach or Jason in a million years, and I feel kinda guilty about it. I have, however, been making friends with a bunch of people in the local knitting group that I now go to, and I gotta tell you, it feels so nice to have some female socialization from time to time.
Let's see... I also bought a car, back in early December... I don't think I wrote about that. It's a very secondhand Audi with all-wheel-drive, and I am very enchanted by it.
Umm... I still love my job at the yarn store. I still only work part time, and feel like I should be working full time, but, honestly, I don't think I have the time or the energy to do so. I don't know what I do with all my time, exactly, but apparently it's NOT sleeping enough.
Damnit, I'm so LAME! I have nothing to report! Highlights... highlights... I guess I've been doing a fair amount of socializing with family members in a more grown-up way, which is nice. In December, I went down to NYC to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (which I utterly failed, by the way-- I think probably I should've been taking the Level II test instead of the Level III test. Also, maybe I should've studied for more than just 2 weeks beforehand. *sheepish grin*), and stayed at my cousin Erica's place. She's married to a very sweet guy named David, and they have 2 kids. On that side of the family, I always had more contact with Erica's sister, Christine and Christine's husband and kids, so it was really awesome to really get to know Erica and David (who I previously had exchanged exactly 2 sentences with), and to play with their kids, who are both quirky and adorable. Also sometime in November, I went down to Philly to visit my beloved Aunt Carol. We went to the big Philadelphia craft show, which was just amazing. There was so much beautiful stuff, and it was all SO DAMN EXPENSIVE. I was inspired by so much. There was a crazy girl from Finland who made amazing felt hats, and a lady who made jewelry out of twists of paper and leather and other weird stuff, and it all ended up looking beautiful and organic and completely altered from the materials' original appearance that it seemed magical. There was a guy who just had rugs, just rugs! But they were all beautiful designs, and somehow he'd sheared the pile so that they were like... like frescos. With a little bit of three-dimensionality that just made them even more beautiful. I tried taking pictures, but it didn't convey the effect. There were a pair of super-gay weavers who I remembered coming into WEBS once. They were from P-town, and they were incredibly cute and friendly when they were buying yarn, so I was thrilled to see that their stuff was gorgeous. Jackets and shawls and all sortsa stuff. There were two people who worked in clay who I wanted to just kiss. One was a lady who threw pots and then carved away from them as much as she could, so that they were just... I dunno... like coral bones. Like rocks in the desert, worn down by wind and sand. Amazingly ethereal and beautiful. The other was a younger woman, closer to my age, and she made these beautiful, bizarre little sculptures that looked kinda like if a sea cucumber and a tiger lily had a torrential love affair. I wanted to buy one SO BADLY, but the tiniest, cheapest one cost a couple hundred, and I just couldn't justify it, especially since I didn't think I could get it home without at least one of its delicate little tentacles snapping off. There was a lady who made PURSES out of polymer clay, but they looked like WOOD. Crazy, no? But they were silly and wonderful and beautiful, and I found myself coveting one! CRAZY! There was one lady who I fell absolutely in love with who made paintings, only they weren't paintings. She was actually a weaver, and she would weave with different fibers, and then dye the weaving, and the different fibers would take the dye differently, and then she'd paint on it, and then she'd put shiny paper behind the fabric so you could see it glimmer in places.. I can't explain it, but the effect was like looking into a forest, all shadowy and layered. I seriously considered buying one of her pieces, but, again, super-expensive. Also, I have nowhere to put it. I decided I would wait until I had a place of my own, and then that would be my house-warming gift to myself. She was an absolute sweetheart, and seemed really pleased with my enthusiastic praise.
So that was awesome, but even if the craft show had sucked, just getting to spend time with my aunt was wonderful. We hung out, and talked, and went to breakfast together, and the farmer's market, and she made me collard greens, which I'd never before eaten, and I LOVED them. And we talked and talked and talked, about all sorts of things, from my love life, to what my mom was like as a child, to techniques on getting strangers to talk about themselves, to her problems with a new employee when a google search of him revealed that he used to be a fetish photographer. Sigh. Man, I totally can't wait til I have time to go see her again.
More recently, in January, I got to hang out with my mom's OTHER sister, my Aunt Lisa, who was in Boston on business. She and I have never been as close as Carol and I (partially just 'cuz she lives further away, but also just because she has a very blunt, confident personality, and I've always been terrified of her), so it was both interesting and enjoyable to go to dinner with her.
In love life news (because I KNOW you give a damn!), Raymond and I have been seeing a lot more of each other, and things just keep getting better and better. I feel like we're really comfortable with one another now, and yet still in the honeymoon phase where we're still really excited about everything. If I had time to write a filtered entry, I would go into detail about how amazing the sex is. But instead I will merely sit here with a happy little smile on my face for a few minutes. *sighhhhhh*
Ok, so that's the good. The iffy is my relationship with Lou. Back in January, we had a big fight, and since then things just haven't quite been the same. The fight was about money, and even though Lou eventually conceded that maybe I was right, and that buying Xbox games instead of paying his phone bill wasn't in his best financial interests, still, a lot of things were done and said during the fight that just made me feel... tired. I felt like I'd lost a lot of respect for him, and like I just didn't want to bother anymore. I still tried to see him at least once a week, but we mostly just hung out and watched TV while I tried not to be snappish and grouchy. I definitely saw Raymond a bit more often, and enjoyed myself more with him. Last night, Lou and I finally hashed it out, and I think things are on the mend... but for the right now, I definitely feel like the hierarchy of relationships has changed. It used to be that I thought of Lou as the constant, the solid foundation, the home to which I would return, my main papi... and now I definitely feel more devotion towards Raymond in that way. I dunno... it's weird, and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if this is allowed. Can Lou stand to not be the Alpha in my life? Does it make me a fickle whore to feel this way? I'm conflicted about it, and confused. I don't know if it means that Lou's time is coming to an end, or if it's just one more phase that our relationship is going through, with many more to come in the future. Sigh. Anyways, I'm sure this is getting boring, me wallowing in my drama... but hey, what else is LJ for?
Now for the not-yet-sure: On Friday, Leesa at work revealed to me the following: 1) she's attracted to me, and has been from the moment she first saw me (YAY!). 2) she has a girlfriend, and has had one for the past 2 years (HUH? This seems to directly contradict what Malea said about her, which makes me REALLY want to sit down and get the facts from both of them). 3) They have an open relationship (umm... YAY again! Right?) 4) She's not looking to get into another relationship (um... FUCK! So why the hell'd she tell me she liked me, then? Just to torture me? ...actually, I could kinda get into that-- being tortured by hot women is apparently a hobby of mine... maybe it's just that they can tell that I like it? Hmmm... must work on that...). So yeah. I don't even know what to say about this. Except that I went to the company belated-christmas-bowling-party on Sunday with Raymond, and we got a good eyeful of her girlfriend, and it was generally agreed that even if we had to walk barefoot over hot shards of glass and then through a pool full of raw sewage and rattlesnakes, we would SO Hit That. I mean, she was Hot-with-a-capital-slap-in-the-face-of-pure-hotness. Good LORD have mercy. So yeah. First thing I need to do when I go to work tomorrow morning is pull Leesa aside and tell her, "Look. Your girlfriend is AMAZING. ...Uh... I mean.... we need to talk."
In other not-yet-sure news is Phil, the cute snowboarder in Burlington. Although, actually, tonight he's in Stratton, which is an oh-so-painfully-tempting hour-or-so away. I have told him repeatedly that I will gladly drive the hour-or-so to see him and have dinner with him, but so far he has not invited me up. His car died earlier tonight, and I also told him that I will gladly drive him back to Burlington if need be, and he seemed remotely interested. In our various communications (phone, texting, and emails), I have managed to pry out of him that he is definitely interested in a possible sexuo-romantic involvement with me, and is cool with (though not necessarily enthused by) the whole non-monogamous thing. So far he doesn't seem like a jerk, although I readily admit that I don't know him that well yet. If I had to write a profile of him in the back of a comic book in which he was a character (a la Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut), it would read:
Likes: running, snowboarding, cats, snakes, scorpions, conspiracy theories, curly hair, freckles, salmon, fresh produce, soy milk with cherry-vanilla granola, Spanish food, riding motorcycles at dangerously high speeds, reggae, working as a nurse in an old people's home, taking naked pictures of himself with his phone (not that he's sent me any, mind you-- but I'm workin' on it. ;-)
Dislikes: dogs, stupid girls, drunk girls who try to kiss him (which apparently happens frequently while he is doing the next thing on the list), working as a bouncer at a club, running into trees while snowboarding, driving without a valid license, having to choose between snowboarding all day and going to work so that he can make rent that month, when his bedroom is messy, George Bush.
I mean, granted, that's a pretty good start as far as our compatibility goes... but it still leaves a lot of territory as-yet-unexplored. There's still plenty of room in there for him to turn out to be a jerk. Sigh. I hope he's not. I am so very, very into him. *such a dweeb*
Yikes, it's late, and I have to get up pretty early tomorrow morning. I'm possibly meeting Aimie for tea, and I also have to get my wheels aligned at 8. Sigh... and then work. And after work, I might meet Lou for Valentine's Day dinner, if the snowstorm doesn't prevent it. And after that, knitting group. And I had plans to get up early and bake linzertorte cookies for Valentine's Day for my coworkers, but I'm not so sure it's going to happen now. *LAZY and LAME!*
*hugs to all*