Alone
I confess I have been having trouble following
Snickollet's foray into dating. Of course, I am thrilled that she is having fun with it, and envious of her resilience. I trust her to be smart, and careful, and to make good decisions for her own future happiness and those of her beautiful offspring.
I wish I could try it.
The fact is, that I was horrible at dating before, and I deeply, deeply resent having to do it again, when I am more than a decade older than when I met my husband. I feel ugly, stressed out, drained, and tired, and I can't even imagine adding another person's needs and desires into the mix. Of course, a "real" relationship would provide comfort, and support, and some desperately needed fun. But I still don't feel like I am ready to get to know someone--let alone make the foray into online contact. My friends are surprisingly useless in terms of making matches for me; one friend tried, but it was abundantly clear that even if there had been sparks (there weren't), the guy was too hung up on his 8-year-past-ex-wife to even consider dating. Whew--at least I wasn't the problem.
I'm not, at heart, a very friendly person. I can be gregarious, in certain situations, but only when I feel completely in control of the level of contact (a friend and I joke that this is why teaching is so perfect--the illusion of great intimacy and affection with a bunch of students who go away after 4 months). I have a hard time "getting to know" people in any setting that is not entirely directed toward something other than getting to know them--work, say. And that is not going to happen at my current job. I know it's hard for everyone, and that it takes effort, but the real problem is that I rarely like anyone that well on first impression--especially if he is male and a potential date (however remote that potential may be). I realize it's some sort of immature self-protective device, but it's pretty firmly instilled by now, and I am not in much of a position to work on changing it!
So after finally braving Snick's blog, and cheering for her (she actually had SEX!), I'm feeling really, really bad. Because it's been almost three years now. And I'm pathetic. And I still miss him, and he's never coming back.
Labels: sour grapes
True Confessions, Part 741
1. My little Chinese girl loves the Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton. Seriously.
2. She also loves Obama. "We want Mr. Obama to win, don't we, Mama?"
3. I have to acknowledge that even though I'd vote for Obama anyway, based on his policies and the opposition, it doesn't hurt that I would totally like to date him--if, of course, he were single and local.
Labels: TMI
Dorcasina: the upgrade
1. I am filled with embarrassing love for my ostentatious, heavy, pretentious, safe, solid, maneuverable, safe, easy-to-handle, slippery-road-proof and not-too-gas-guzzling German automobile, even though it makes me looks like the kind of woman who gives me hives. Y'know? Selling out is easy
and fun.
2. My husband's beloved laptop (an early iBook--he was an early adopter, although of limited means) finally died--no screen, no booting up, no nothin'. Although they assured me at the Mac Store when I purchased its replacement that they could transfer the data, my own ineptitude and failure to upgrade the operating system often enough meant they were unable to do so. This rendered me temporarily and somewhat inconsolable. His emails, his file for me labeled, in his usual unsentimental and concise style, "Hereafter Notes," the animated tasmanian devil that he and my daughter once watched multiple times a day. [I can probably find someone to extract the hard drive and retrieve the data, but at much more expense and inconvenience. I suspect it's his way of urging me to be less maudlin, but I resist.]
3.
That very evening, after asking the Mac Store guy about my 3 year-long struggle to retrieve or replace the Admin id/password for my "big computer" (the lack of which had prevented me from updating software, installing new programs, etc. for almost 3 years now), I
figured it out. It was utterly logical and so typically my husband--he used a default name for the i.d., and my own usual password. It really felt like a gift from the universe, especially when updating the system did NOT erase every file I had (all my photos, for example) from the computer. Thanks, love!
4. I've taken to wearing my engagement and wedding rings (mine and his) again. Not every day. But I missed the sparkly cognac diamond ring we chose together--on eBay--and while wearing the wedding rings makes me sad sometimes, wearing the engagement ring is, at least right now, making me happy.
Labels: messages from the beyond, RBOC, technology troubles
