SHUT UP!

Do you ever have those days when you’re mind just won’t shut up?  Thoughts just swirling around, bouncing off the interior of the head, crashing into each other, numbing you, crowding your head, making you literally sick to the stomach, giving you a headache, and all you want to do is knock yourself out so you can’t think anymore.  You just want to stop thinking.  You want to shut off all the valves and just……be. 

Can someone please tell me how to do that?

Learn Something About…Estes Park

Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.  The town is beautiful, well worth a day’s visit if you’re in the area.  There’s a lovely downtown shopping area, right on the Big Thompson River.  You can grab a sandwich or an ice cream and sit by the river, enjoying a gorgeous Colorado Mountain Summer Day.  Estes Park is also the home of The Stanley Hotel, a place that inspired Stephen King in The Shining, and was featured in the TV movie.  In this photo, you can see The Stanley Hotel in the background. 

It’s a very small town, with only about 6000 residents.  At the height of tourist season, they probably have more tourists than residents!  One of the largest Scottish Festivals is held in Estes Park, Longs Peak Scottish Irish Highland Festival.  This year it’s being held Sept 4-7.

Many people passing through Estes Park end up heading up Trail Ridge Road, which is “the highest paved continuous highway in the United States.”  It crosses through Rocky Mountain National Park and over the Continental Divide, reaching an elevation of over 12,000ft.  There’s a museum/gift shop along the road that (IMO) you can pretty much pass up, unless you need to go to the bathroom, but there’s a great short trail that starts there that makes for a nice little exercise break. 

 

When I lived in Colorado I got the chance to go up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park a couple of times.  It’s a beautiful area, with lots of activities, including rafting, camping, hiking, climbing, shopping, golfing, and even wine tours and tastings.  But I would advise not getting quite this close to the wildlife – they can turn dangerous very quickly.

 

 

Missed Connections…Or, What if it’s Fate stepping in to save you?

I don’t believe I’ve discussed this guy before, as I don’t really have a name for him.  Perhaps we’ll call him Fate Boy.  The first communication came in early February, when he winked at me.  I thought he was kind of blah, but I was willing to give it a shot, so I winked back.

(Side note - usually, if I’m interested in a guy that winks at me, I don’t bother to wink back, I go ahead and email him.  Winks are kind of…passive.  So the fact that I simply winked at this guy tells me (as I look back at this three months later) that there really wasn’t anything particularly interesting about him.)

He emailed me, and we proceeded to swap a couple of emails over the next few days, and then I think I gave him my phone number.  He left me a voicemail.  I left him a voicemail.  He left me a voicemail.  And here’s where I turn into a bit of a ditz - I’m fairly certain I called him back and left him a voicemail, but I couldn’t swear on it at this point.  Regardless, we never connected, and I was kind of in burnout mode anyway with Match, so it didn’t really bother me all that much.

Fast forward two months, to early April.  He emailed me on Match, saying that he was sorry he hadn’t heard back from me.  I replied (read previous paragraph about what I thought I did and my burnout), and we swapped a couple of emails.  He was about to get off Match, but he wanted to meet up.  Sure, I said, call me. 

He called me - and got my voicemail.  I called him, left him a voicemail.  He called me, voicemail.  I called him, voicemail.  (It is here that I would like to mention that I made very special note to myself that I did, in fact leave him a voicemail.  I heard the beep, I left a message, I hung up, and I thought to myself - I know I left a message this time, ball’s in his court.)

And that was that.  No return call, I was so sick of it at that point, that I didn’t care.  And my personal belief is that we were fated not to connect.  Simple, end of story.

And then…

(No and then!)

Sorry, And then…

I went out tonight with several friends to an outdoor gathering uptown.  We stood around talking and drinking for a couple of hours, then went to grab a bite to eat.  While at the restaurant, I got a text…from Fate Boy.  Following is our conversation…via text.

FateBoy:  Hey! how was <the outdoor event uptown>?  sorry i never heard back from u! <FateBoy>! hope u r well!

Delightful:  Last i know, i left you a vm.  Just bad timing i guess!

FateBoy:  R u guys still out?

(Obviously this guy saw me at some point in time tonight, and it’s about this point that I realize he is probably in the restaurant I am in.  Sadly, for the life of me I can’t remember what this guy looks like, but I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, thus giving myself the opportunity to scan the people there to see if I recognize him, and giving him the opportunity to approach me.  Neither happened.)

Delightful:  Yes.  I think i am leaving soon.  hope you had a good night

FateBoy:  Can i try calling u again?

Delightful:  I don’t know.  I’m kind of thinking it’s a sign that we never connected.

FateBoy:  Good point! take care!

FateBoy:  U will always wonder what could have been! c u out & about!

Delightful:  Maybe next time you see me your should say hello

FateBoy:  True! i will! when will i c u again?

Delightful:  Who knows?

Forget the excessive exclamation marks in his texts - WTF?  I try to keep myself open to possibilities, and who’s to say this isn’t the man I’m supposed to marry??  But seriously, at this point, I’m thinking SOMETHING is intent on keeping us apart.  The least of which is his unwillingness to approach me in person and say hello.

I don’t know - I’m really kind of pissy about the whole thing.  I hate just ignoring people/texts/emails, I try to be a better person than that, to be slightly more mature than that.  But maybe I should have heeded my friends advice:  “Don’t reply.”  And this was from a good male friend, one that hears all my juicy dating gossip (you would think he was gay - he’s not).

At what point do you stop being ”a nice person” and start being a pushover who should know better?

Out with the old, In with the new

I feel the need to do a little bit of catch up on the dating scene.  Things have been really slow lately.  There was a time, in the height of the Scottsdale era, that I thought about terming my match subscription.  I kind of let it slide for a while (didn’t log on for about three weeks), but I never really felt that I was ready to give my all.  Who knows, maybe that was the death of it, as has happened to me in the past.  But whatever.  The point I’m trying to make is that my dating life has been slow in part because of my lack of effort. 

Out with the old:

Let’s see…Scottsdale.  We had dinner last Saturday - so, what, 11 days ago.  It was pretty boring.  We exchanged a couple of tests on Sunday, and he ended up saying that he was sorry he had been AWOL lately, that work had been crazy and that he had been missing his family, and he was feeling antisocial.  Fine.  I’ve been there.  I didn’t hear from him most of the week, and I called him and left him a voicemail, I think on Wednesday.  I didn’t hear back from him until Friday, when he called (and got my voicemail) and said that he didn’t see that I had called or left a message until just then.  (Yeah, right, I’ve used that excuse before.)  I went to a crawfish boil on Saturday (YUM!) and texted him to see if he had found a place to watch the Derby.  He said he was just going to stay home, and asked what I was doing the next day (Sunday).  I replied that I didn’t have any plans.  He texted that maybe we could go see a movie, and he would call me on Sunday (this past Sunday).  Then I got a text from him Sunday morning saying that he had gotten a free ticket to the golf tournament, but that he would call me later.

Wednesday, 10pm, and I still haven’t heard from him.  I’m done.

In with the new:

I had a date last night, the first first date I’ve had in a while.  It went well.  Of course, I tend to “interview” well, and that includes first dates.  So we’ll see.  He has been dubbed The Pilot, as he is (duh) a pilot for one of the major airlines.  We met for drinks, and had a good conversation.  He seemed interested in a second date.  So we’ll see. 

That’s it.  That’s all I’ve got.  More to come…I hope.

Wow -

So, Match.com has been fairly slow lately, making me feel a little unwanted.  In the last two weeks I’ve gotten 7 new emails or winks.  I updated my profile today (check out the newest profile here) and I got 9 new winks or emails - including a very promising one (and 6 I was completely uninterested in).

I’m feeling a little more upbeat.

(Edited - Make that 10 new for the day!)

Things I would change about myself if I could-

I wish I could do more with my hair and makeup.  My style can best be described as Basic.  I wish I had the skills to do more when the occasion calls for it.

I wish I were more outgoing around strangers.

I wish I had a better sense of style.  I usually simply throw on what’s comfortable.  I wish I knew how to pair things better than simply a pair of pants and a blouse.

I wish I were more ambitious.  I don’t have the savvy to make it in the corporate world, at least to the extent I wish I could.  I hate office politics, I hate playing them, and that does nothing to get me ahead.

I wish I were cleaner and more uncluttered.  I wish I could get rid of stuff more than I do, that I wasn’t such a packrat.

I try to change these things, but I simply don’t have the energy or the willpower to follow through.  If I changed these things, would I be a different person, or would I be the same?  Would I be a better person?  Would it make any difference?  Would I like myself more, or less? 

If I could change these things about myself, would I want to?

 

Learn Something About…The Defenestration of Prague

I was a history major in college.  Fat lot of good it did me.  No, I don’t ask “Do you want fries with that?” on a regular basis.  I did a little better than that.  But I’m not using my degree, and I find I’m losing most of my history knowledge.  Scratch that – I find I’ve LOST much of my history knowledge.

A couple of years ago, my first go round on Match, Soccer Guy won my heart early on by emailing me something along the lines of, “A history major, huh?  So if I wanted to know about the Defenestration of Prague, you’d be my girl.”  And I was clueless as to what the hell he was talking about.  He had to remind me, and then I remembered a lecture about it – but you would really think with a word like defenestration, I would have remembered that.  Trust me, I’m not likely to forget it again.

Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.  According to Wikipedia, it was used historically to refer to an act of political dissent.

The most famous defenestration, the Defenestration of Prague, occurred in 1618.  Actually, there were two Defenestrations of Prague, the first of which was in 1419, but the more famous was in 1618.  This event was central in the start of the Thirty Years’ War, which started as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire.  Some Catholic officials tried to halt construction of Protestant chapels, stating that Catholic Clergy owned the land.  The Protestants argued that the land was royal and available for use, and interpreted the attempt to halt construction as a violation of their freedom of religious expression.  On May 23, 1618, in Prague Castle, two Imperial Governors were tried and found guilty of violating the Protestants’ rights, and they were thrown out the window – the high window (how high, I don’t know).  The two lived, and according to them it was divine intervention and thus proved the righteousness of their cause.  The Protestants argued that they survived due to the large pile of manure outside the window.

Which just goes to show, piling on the shit may just save your butt.

One Word

Kill time.  Juice your creativity.  www.oneword.com  One word.  Sixty seconds.  Go.

Soothe:  The soothing melody of the guitar lulled me to sleep, and I wondered if he would soon join me.  He hadn’t the first two nights.  But maybe the third time was the charm.

Best of…

If you’re tooling around the internet, looking for something interesting, something to kill time, I highly recommend reading best of craigslist.

There’s the guy who can help get your ex-boyfriend back.  The guy offering kissing lessons.  Someone’s letter to their cat.  A letter to Winter.  A man’s anecdotes about his small…member.  Advice on how to get laid on craigslist.  Someone is selling a Vagina Couch (with pictures - MUST SEE!!).  The confessions of a BART Fartist.  The person who has a mastiff with a problem.  The guy looking for a dead deer.  A rant about port a potties.  Confessions of a Denver escort.  A note to the dogs.  A letter to the guy masturbating in the bathroom.  And one of my all time favorites, 143 reasons I will be the best girlfriend ever.

The week from hell - AKA What the hell did I do to Karma?

So, after the airline lost my luggage, and after the third floor water heater explosion that caused water damage to my unit, I ended up getting a cold (I’m blaming the re-circulated air on the plane, it gets me every time), and this morning I walked out and had a flat tire. 

I am going to be so glad to see the end of this week.