Why can't I want the boys who say the nicest things? So I went to my high school reunion, the eleven year one, and I hung out with a guy that I reconnected with on myspace. This was a guy that I knew since kindergarten. I hadn't seen him since senior year in college writing. The guy went to Northwestern, which is kind of a big deal, right? Anyway, we hung out the whole evening, and I mainly went to see him, and I was kind of facing my fear of going to something like that all by my single self. I didn't just hang out with him, though, I mingled with other people as well (more on that later). Anyway, when the reunion was ending, he asked if I wanted to go get something to eat. We actually ended up at the Pied Cow, which is the place where I met up with Chad on our first date. We had a good time hanging out, and I did feel some sort of chemistry with him, but I wasn't completely blown away or anything. Since it was just reconnecting with an old-sort-of-friend, I was kind of surprised when he sent me a message on myspace when he got home that said, "I wish we had made out, I get shy sometimes." I was like !!!!
How do you respond to that, right? It's not as if the idea never crossed my mind, but he lives in Colorado, and he is the self-described nerdy type from high school (but always such a genuinely nice, great guy, and I never really thought that about him). I didn't really expect him to say something like that. Anyway, I responded by saying I had no idea he wanted to make out, and that it would have been fun, but it would have been such a cliche about what goes on at high school reunions, right? Well, this is how he responded, and I just can't get enough of it: "Yeah, yeah, I know the making out woulda been cliche, but I firmly believe in your lips, and that your lips could have overcome the undesirability of cliche-land." Maybe I'm a sucker, but daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
Unfortunately, he was not the one that I felt butterflies about at the reunion. There was another guy there that I talked to for a little bit. He gave me his number and told me to call him if I go down to the bay area, which is where he lives. Even though there is no hope of anything happening between us because of the distance, it was the first time in so long that I have met someone and just felt butterflies and chemistry with, and I know he felt it, too. Of course, he is the one who accepted my friend request on myspace but has not sent me a message or anything, so whatever. I think his purpose in my life was to remind me that I can have that FEELING about someone besides Chad again! I will meet someone else, and that person is not my coworker who likes me (who also says things that make me want to die because they are so sweet), because I do not feel that way about him at all.
I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. It sucks.
Anyway...the new year. It's a new year and time for a new me, right? No boys unless they fall into my lap or something. My goal was to go until Christmas, but now my goal is just to meet a guy the normal way. I don't want to deal with online dating drama. I want to live a drama-free life right now.
So winter break was decent, but it went way too quickly. I hung out with my coworker who likes me a few times, just as friends. I told him that we needed to be just friends because I am not over my ex-boyfriend. Which is true, but maybe I should have told him I am also not interested in him. I wasn't sure at first, because he is so sweet, but once I met the other guy, I knew.
I hung out with Jose, which was a complete disaster. He disgusts me.
I also hung out with Chad twice. We had our Christmas and then we had New Years. Both were nice, but very final. He gave me a beautiful necklace--it was exactly the kind of necklace that I have wanted for a long time (I guess kind of trendy, but whatever). It's one of those circle pendants. I love it.
I got to hang out with my brothers and sisters briefly. I got some cool presents from them and had a good time. My favorite present was one from my sister. She got me J-Lo earrings. That cracked me up so much. I have gotten many compliments on them, most notably from my eighth graders. :)
What else? I got some cool gifts from my mom, too, and I think my favorite one from her was my pink and green wallet. Justin got me a $50 sephora gift card, which I can't wait to spend. My mom also promised to buy me a WII whenever they come in stock. That might be ages from now.
My mom is still staying with me, and that is going pretty well. She is in closing on her first house, so she thinks she will be moving out at the end of the month. It will be really strange to live all by myself again. I hope it won't be too lonely.
So back to the Chad thing. We had a low key New Year's. We watched a movie and made artichoke dip like we did last year. The sad part, of course, was that our resolutions were all about staying away from each other. So far I have been doing pretty great on my resolution, and he has been doing well, too. We said we can't talk or have contact for two months. It has been since Monday, January 1st. He did call me yesterday, but I didn't answer. He sent an email asking for my address because he owes me some money he wants to send me. So I sent him the email with the address, but that's it. So that's it--more than a week without contact. The 2006 Ms. Boombastic would have answered the phone, but the 2007 Ms. Boombastic had self-restraint. Go me.
I miss him a lot, but you know.
Luckily, Nathan is also going through a lonely break up with his woman, and so he wants to hang out with everyone, too. That means I don't have to spend my weekends wallowing in self-pity. We hung out on Friday with Scarlett and Olivia, the other new girl at work. We just went and played pool, but we had a really good time. I also heard some fun gossip. The guy that I went on that weird date with at my school is now dating K! But I guess they are keeping it a big secret. Nathan told me about it and I told him about how I went on that sort of date, but I made him promise not to say anything, especially to K. He better not, at least not to her. We also talked a lot that night about what went wrong between him and his woman. He told me all about the sex stuff, which I had already heard, and just about how he feels about her in general. I guess they have basically done nothing more than kiss for the last year and a half and he loves her as his best friend. Interesting. Who at this age stays together that long when they are not having sex? I guess them. When I asked if it was hard seeing her at work he said it wasn't because he rarely runs into her, and it had been way harder with me. We never talk about that, so that was kind of weird. Anyway, we had fun that night, and then another friend called on the phone who wanted to meet up with us, but we were tired and wanted to go home. She said they were hanging out the next night, and so Nathan asked if I wanted to go. So I ended up hanging out with him and two other coworkers the next night, too. That night ended up being sort of crazy.
One thing that Nathan had told me that I forgot about was that the night that we last hung out before Thanksgiving (the night that I was telling K that I still loved him), I also got really mad and started talking about how much I hated him right in front of him. I was also basically cussing him out. I didn't remember any of that until he said it, and I felt really bad. It was my angry drunk coming out, I guess. So I apologized and told him that I don't really hate him, and if I did I wouldn't hang out with him so often. So on Saturday we were all drinking quite a bit, but I was drinking a glass of water for every drink and pacing myself so I didn't get too out of control. We were drinking really expensive drinks, too, and were going to kinda chichi places. Anyway, it was fun, but different than usual for me. Well, Nathan was getting pretty drunk, and he mentioned again about how I said all that stuff about how I hated him. I said that I had a compliment for him and said he was a very forgiving person to have me say all of that and then he still wants to hang out with me...which led him to say, "No, YOU'RE a forgiving person." This led to us, for the very first time ever, having a conversation about how things ended between us two years ago. I was so shocked that we finally talked about it, but I am so glad that we did. I always thought he thought that he handled things just fine, but I discovered he didn't think that and felt awful for the way that he treated me. He said I was so sweet and innocent at the time, and that he is the type of person who sabatoges anything good that he has, and he is so sorry for being such a jerk to me. I told him that I wouldn't have been so hurt and angry if he would have just said, "You know, things are just not going to work out between us." Then I told him that it was a good thing because we are not right for each other anyway. He wanted to know why. I also said that it was good because he also met her and had a fairly good relationship with her, which was a good thing. Another thing he told me was that he hadn't wanted me to leave Justin to be with him, but he wanted me to leave Justin because we weren't right for each other. Well, it was a little late for that, right? I also acknowledged that it must have been overwhelming having someone like you so much, the way that I did him, and at the time I had no idea about any sort of games of dating so I just let him know very quickly...Anyway, we talked about a few other things, and I told him I was so glad we talked about it because I felt like I couldn't be real friends with him again until we did.
The other weird thing about the whole night was that we ran into our boss, the principal, and he was on a date. Apparently, he had just met the date that very night, because our principal is like a mackdaddy. So one of the girls we were with likes him, so she was kind of upset, but trying not to show it. Well, he said he was going to this one bar next, and Nathan said we were going there, too, and asked if he was going to buy us a round. Of course our principal said yes. So we ended up hanging out with our principal, the girl, her friend, and two of the principal's friends. It was kind of crazy. Our principal bought us two rounds of drinks, and I felt very sorry for him because of it. I tried to help pay, and he only let me pay the tip.
While we were at that bar I had a very weird experience. There were these two guys standing nearby, and one of them looked at me and kind of smiled at me. Nathan told me he was checking me out and that I should go talk to him. He said he would give me five dollars. Earlier in the night we had been talking about how we were all single and should all try to talk to people, but no one did. I took the bet, though, and went to talk to the guy who was looking at me. Well, when I introduced myself, guess what his name was? Chad. I was like, "Oh, no, that's my ex-boyfriend's name!" Then I asked how old he was and he said 25. I was like, "I have to get out of here! You have the same name and age!" He asked how old I was, and he guessed 24, which was a nice compliment. Then his friend told me that his name was also Chad. They also both has shirts that had Hurley on them, so I was teasing them asking if that was their gimmick to meet women--matching names and shirts. Well, I had enough of them and left them alone at that point. I figured the double Chad names were a sign that I wasn't ready to date yet.
Nathan was flirty with me, but he's a huge flirt, so who knows if it meant anything. Even if he liked me again, I don't think he would act on it since we are just finally becoming friends and we are on the same team. I don't think he likes me, but I do think he might be attracted to me still. So it will just be a nice little flirty thing, right? I just have to remind myself that he will never be what I thought he was, and he will never be what I need in a guy.
I realized that I never really talk about teaching anymore in here. I don't feel as connected to my students as I did when I taught high school. Part of it is that in the first years of teaching your students are everything to you, and I was also living in a place with no friends or social life, so I was able to be whole-heartedly into teaching and my students. I'm glad that I have a life outside of teaching, too. I think I like middle schoolers better as a group, but I related better to the high school kids one-on-one. I have good relationships with almost all of my students, but I am not as close to them individually as I was with some of the high school kids.
Anyway, I bring this up because I wasn't a very good teacher today. I had a bad time in my department meeting and I kind of let it get me down all day. I was snappish and a little sarcastic with some of my students. I realized what I was doing and shaped up for my block periods, but I had to apologize to one period for being sort of a jerk. Ugh, I hate days like that. Luckily they are super sweet about it, and some even asked me later on if I was feeling better.
Super sweet they may be, but many of them are dropping the ball academically. This group is so great and fun and nice, but some of them have turned into major slackers with their work. I have seven total failing my class, but we have over 60 kids on the team right now with two or more Fs--they have two and a half weeks to get caught up or they get put into a study hall instead of elective next quarter. I think many of them can do it, but... Last quarter we had 14 with 2 or more Fs. We had a huge whole team meeting yesterday to talk to them about it, so hopefully they get it together.
I have been totally inspired by Anne, who recently went to Europe by herself for a month. I plan to do the same thing in two summers. I want to go and see everything that I didn't get to see because I was traveling with someone who was a bit bossy. I also really want to see Scotland, Ireland, and other parts of England. I think I am going to fly into London like I did on my last trip and then just see where I want to go from there. If I feel adventurous I will go to some non-English speaking places, but I want to start where I know the language first since I will be by myself. I think it will be a little lonely, but also really exciting.
The other good thing is that I have a workout buddy now. We only have a two day a week commitment, but I also always go right after therapy, so that means I have three days a week that I have to go. We decided to try aqua aerobics, and we both love it. It is an hour long and it is a pretty good workout! It's also really fun. So we do that two days a week. The lady also does it on Wednesdays at the other location, but Olivia doesn't have a membership at all of the gyms (yet?), so we can't do that together. I am really excited to be back into it. I gained a few pounds over break, and I am eager to get rid of them and feel fit again.
Olivia has become a really good friend, so for the first time in a long time feel like I have an actual group of friends that I can count on. I'm so happy about the friendship thing...we'll see if I can ever get the guy thing together. Let's hope so.
