Vintage

Tonight, (Saturday) I was supposed to have my big birthday bash.  The sexy dress bought weeks ago, the killer shoes ready to be shown off, and make me look taller in the process, the proper undergarments laid just so, the hair, cut and styled, and what happens? Rain happens.  A.WHOLE.LOT.OF.RAIN.  The party was being co-hosted by the Musketeers, aka as Michelle and Maricela.  We decided that the dismal weather was not going to let up and rather than having to be out in that crazy mess, we rescheduled The Trifecta Party, for next Saturday.  Yes we named it.  You see, our birthdays are so close together that we decided to have one big party, rather than three separate ones.  So I named it The Trifecta Party.  -Pretty cool right?  Right.  Just agree with me dammit!  But alas, there were grumblings from the masses.  As soon as I posted it on Facebook (because you know it's not really real, until that's done), my phone started blowing up with calls and texts and oh yes, of course my wall on Facebook. Some of our invited guests were just beside themselves with ire, for the date change.  Some were ok with it and others even welcomed the changed date.  Especially the ones that had previously declined.  Now, they will be able to make it.  My sister included.  See?  A silver lining in everything.

And so, since the only logical thing to do on a rainy Saturday night is to open a bottle of wine and write, here I am.  I've got a little jazz playing in the background and the rain outside, to complete my version of:  "Fun Saturday night".

NOT.A.WORD.

Let's move on.  So earlier in the day, after working on one of my stories for a few hours, I took a break and just sat on my sofa, and watched the rain fall.  My mind wandered to what else?  Men, of course.  I thought it apropos to take an inventory of the men that have come and gone in my life, on this the third day before my birthday. No not the notches on my bedpost.  Get your mind out of the gutter, freaks.  I'm talking about my ENTIRE roster of men, ever.  I gotta tell you, I impressed myself.  Seriously.  Not that there are that many, no, I am referring to the fact that with the exception of two men, all of the others have been much, much younger than me.  Wow!  The youngest man I dated was 15 years my junior.  We had amazing sex. He hailed from New York but loved his Mets, -I overlooked that because of the great sex thing, had a great accent (not all NY'ers do) and knew what he was doing, in every sense of the word.  Then there was the lawyer guy.  He was 9 years my junior.  He taught me how to gut a fish.  He was also the most incredible human being I have ever met.  Then of course, there was HIM, he was 11 years my junior.  He was my "bad boy", and he made me feel things, I never thought possible.  I fell in love with that one.  We didn't date.  Our pseudo relationship was merely for encounters of the sexual kind.  At least, in the beginning.  Then my emotions got in the way and things went, well, they went.  He was sexy as hell, and loved Shakespeare and the Beasties.  And he kissed like one I've ever known.  Sigh...  If I continue going down this path, I am going to need a shower and/or a therapy session soon.  Let me stop now.

You're welcome.

 I've come to the conclusion that at my ripe old age of 45 (for a few more days anyway)  I am just as baffled with this species, as I ever was.  While they are amazing creatures, I can't seem to crack the code that will lead me to the man I am supposed to be with.  Don't misconstrue, I have a blast meeting them and dating them, but as you know, after a while, even the most tempting apple, goes stale.  As I've gotten cough, older, cough.(boy that hurt me) I've become more selective, I take my time but I don't waste my time either.  Mine or his.  Fair is fair after all.   If I'm interested, I tell him.  If I'm not, I tell him.  I don't have time to play games.  I don't want to actually.  Life is short and games get manipulated and often times, someone inevitably winds up getting hurt.   A close friend of mine asked me recently, how that was working out for me -this new way of dating.  She was being sarcastic of course.  I've not dated anyone long term, in ages.  I had a few dates with Ball Cap Guy No. 2 recently, but that fizzled rather quickly.  Nothing bad happened, it just didn't work out.  So now, I've got my married friends, scurrying about, trying to find one of their "single" friends.  You know, the endangered species -as I like to refer to us.  While I appreciate the gesture, I cringe at the thought of yet another blind date or set-up.

This wine is delish!  You can never go wrong with a nice glass of Malbec.

Where was I? Oh yeah, men.  Hmm, I am just going to continue enjoying the ride.  Whatever happens, happens and go with that.  I'm sure there will be more inventory of my life in the next couple of days.  I do this every year.  Look at what I've done, what I haven't done.  It's not always pretty to be accountable to yourself.  But it's something, I believe, that is necessary for us to live happily.  It's a kind of cleansing, if you will.  Does that make sense?  Lie and say it does.

Alright kids, I've babbled on long enough.  I'm about to finish this glass of vino and jump into bed.

Do me a favor, have a great Sunday.

Ciao!

A whole lot of nothing...

the night has fallen

it's so quiet i can hear my heart beat

this is when my mind starts racing 

i can't make it stop

sometimes,

i don't really want to

i wonder if other insomniacs go through this as well

wondering

thinking

regretting

longing

worrying

battling inner demons

as tired as my body is

my mind is on overdrive

do you miss me at all?

are you sorry?

was everything a lie?

i miss you

and i'm sorry

and nothing was a lie

stressing 

debating

plotting

rambling

it's what i do best at 12:49 a.m.

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The Name Game and Other Stuff

I see Wednesday in the not so distant horizon.  Excuse me while I do the "happy dance" around my room.  Ok, I'm done.  Thanks for indulging me.  What's up kids?  New week, new possibilities.  That's my mantra for the week, what's yours?

So, as some of you know, I am a paralegal and work for a kind of "mom and pop" shop, in H-town.  Our law clerk recently took the bar exam and is awaiting the results to be released, before he can officially be named the firm's newest associate.  Oh wait.  He's the ONLY associate.  Anyway, we were sitting around  fervently working yesterday, when my boss emailed me and told me that when I ordered the business cards for Robert (our law clerk), to make sure and put Stefan not Robert.  Uh, huh?  So I went to the source and asked him what he was smoking what in the world was he talking about.  That is when I learned that Robert's real name is Stefan but he's always liked the name Robert and so, that's what everyone calls him.  Even his wife.  However, in all legal documents, drivers license, etc., he is "Stefan".  Which brings me to my next little story, come on, you knew it was coming....

A few years ago, I was working at a different law firm, and our runner's name was Hector. One day, he walked into the office and informed everyone that he was now going to be called by his real name, Joshua.  Right.  Hmm, wait don't stop reading yet.  I've got yet another one for you.  I dated a guy  back in my twenties, that told me his name was Sandro (no typo there).  So "I" chose to call him Marcos.  Ha.  Ok, not really, I only called him Marcos in my head.  But you see where I'm going with this right?  No?  Ok, WHY would someone with a perfectly good name want to be called something other than well, their real name? I get nicknames.  I do.  I mean, I have a ton of nicknames that friends and family enjoy calling me.  But to go from Mark to Hector or Jim to Fred or something like that, well that's just baffling.  Isn't it? No? Meh.  I'm not very creative this evening I'm afraid so this is all you get.  Humor me.

What's going on in your world?  I came off from a fabulous weekend.  We celebrated one of the Musketeers birthdays.  Sure her birthday was last Tuesday, and sure, we went out that night to commemorate the anniversary of her birth, only to be followed by a weekend at the Hotel Galvez in Galveston. -Sun, fun, beach, pool, cute boys, and lots of adult beverages. What more could we ask for?  Why, a repeat of events of course! This coming weekend is the other Musketeer's birthday.  For that auspicious occasion, we are hitting the road to San Antonio.  I call that upcoming trip: Triple Trouble.  -come on, what else would you call three crazy  innocent women on a road trip? Exactly.  Stay tuned for updates or requests for bail money.  Kidding.  Maybe.

Ok, so I have Jay Leno on for background noise right now.  And Justin Timberlake is on.  I don't care what anyone says, I find him to be quite sexy.  He brought it back, for goddsakes!

Enough.

Thanks for hanging out with me for a bit.  You're all the best!

this is what happens when i can't sleep

I should be sleeping but I'm not.  Obviously.  Instead I'm here, in front of my computer, typing away aimlessly.  I'm restless and my mind is overflowing with things to do, problems that need solving, pondering life, mine and in general.  You know, the usual stuff that seems to invade my head on a Sunday night.  Er, early Monday morning now.  So last week, I wrote about how I am kind of anxiety ridden about my upcoming birthday.  Remember?  It's okay, just lie and say you do.  Anyway, that got me thinking of course, about where I am in my career, in my life, what I want out of it, what I need to change, in order for these things to happen, why I'm still single.  Boom.  And there it was.  The underlying reason for my birthday angst. I am tired of being alone.  I am tired of dating idiots who just don't get it.  I am tired of being everything to everyone else, but nothing to myself.  A friend of mine asked me recently, if I was happy with me.  Sadly, I answered no.  And I'm not.  I pretend to be.  There is a mask I wear every day.  It portrays someone that is smiling always, happy, ready to dance, to sing, to act like a fool, to be your cheer leader, your confidante. But when I get home, I take the mask off, and see myself as I really am.  And you know what?  I'm really tired of what I see.  I don't want to wear the mask anymore.  I don't want to "need" to wear it anymore.  Does that make sense?  Don't get me wrong, I love life, and everything that I have, what I'm having trouble loving, is myself.  And therein lies the problem.  It's a work in progress. Every.Day.  So how can I possibly make someone else happy, if I can't make myself happy? Yeah I know all that.  I get it.  And believe me, I'm working on it.  But it takes time dammit. And I'm running out of patience.  I see my friends, most of them married, with kids or happily single with their lives, and then there's me.  When did I become this person?  See? This is the kind of stuff that runs through my mind almost daily.  Sometimes not as intense because I drown it out by living, going about my day.  Therapy has helped tremendously.  So I am extremely pleased about that.  My therapist is great.  She "gets" me.  And she doesn't sugar coat ANYTHING.  Her words are sometimes more painful than if someone were to have punched me in the face.  Really.  So, I know I'm getting better and facing my demons and all that.  But none of that takes the pangs of longing, away.  I feel as if I'm the poster child for failure.   Ha, except I'm a grown woman.  That same friend that asked me if I was happy with my life, also asked me, if I had someone to share my life with, be it a boyfriend, lover, husband, would I still feel alone?  I thought long and hard before responding.  I wanted to blurt out that no, I wouldn't feel alone if I had someone to share my life with.  But that's not true.  See, the problems I have, the emotional baggage that follows me around, has nothing to do with whether or not I am in a relationship. It has EVERYTHING to do with me.  I 'm working on that, and fervently taking notes and practicing what I preach.  Because I really do want to be happy with myself.  I really do.  The guys I've dated, both casually and seriously, have taught me a lot about myself.  Some lessons harder to swallow than others.  But I think that that has made me a better person, in a sense.  Maybe I didn't see it then, but I do now.

Wow,  this post sure did go South pretty fast, didn't it? What a Debbie Downer huh?  I had no intention of opening up about any of that, I was going to tell you about my weekend, and my writing and a date I had on Friday.  I guess the need to get this out of my head and into yours, was stronger than anything else I wanted to say.

Let's move on, shall we?

I met someone a few weeks ago, at a birthday party I attended.  Nice guy.  Great smile.  Easy on the eyes.  Someone I'm enjoying getting to know.  So last weekend was our first official date.  It was fun.  It was relaxed and it was intense.  Meaning, major chemistry all over the place.  Much, much to early to tell if anything more will transpire.  We're both just taking it one day at a time.  I'm almost twitter-patted.    He reminds me of "ball cap guy" that I met two years ago. Remember him? Minus the asshole part though.

In other news, I'm submitting two short short stories to Writers Digest tomorrow.  I mean, later today.  Keep your fingers crossed.  First prize is getting it published and a trip to NYC!  The novel within a novel, that I'm currently writing, is coming along.  Slowly.  But coming along none the less.  I hope to be finished with it by late November or early December.

Football season has begun.  All around the country, women have become widows, at least until February (after the Superbowl).  My Houston Texans, having come off an amazing season last year, won today!  A good day for Houston sports teams.  The Houston Astros won today too! What? It's still baseball season and I'm still a die-hard Astros fan. (so what if they have an horrific record!)

Annnd now, I'm sleepy.  It's way past my bedtime.

It's a brand new week kids! Make a GREAT one!

What Would Dr. Seus Say About This?

A dying breed.  That's what bookstores are called now.  -What's left of them anyway.  A shame really.  The first book I ever bought with my own money (earned by babysitting my sister), was Judy Blume's "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" ---- I was so proud of that purchase and couldn't get home fast enough to read my little paperback.  A few years ago there used to be a huge bookstore near the Galleria (famous shopping mecca in Houston) that I loved going to.  Just walking in, taking in the smell of new books, or perhaps the faint aroma of freshly brewed coffee, emanating from the adjoined Starbucks. I could spend hours and hours in there.  Browsing every aisle, skimming the pages.  Or sometimes, I would just sit and people watch, make up stories about them wandering around in there.  Bookstores make me happy.  Such  a simple pleasure, that is now slowly, becoming extinct.  Electronic devices are bulldozing the bookstore industry.  Why read a "book", when you have a nook? Yeah, that's the way it is these days.  I can't even imagine what it will be like when they are totally gone.  I suppose that I will be forced to embrace the modern day gadgets and all that, but until that happens, you can find me at Barnes & Noble.

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Writing prompt: In order to deepen and further develop your setting, we asked you to use local items or industries as a focal point of either fiction or creative non-fiction piece.  The word limit is 350.

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my mind won't stop thinking

Hello September!  I welcome you with open arms, a happy heart and anticipation.  This is my favorite time of the year.  The weather finally has mercy on us  becomes tolerable again, marks the beginning of festival season here in Houston, fall is right around the corner, and of course, the countdown to my birthday begins.  I'll be a year older in exactly 30 days.  I've been dreading this birthday more than ever this year.  I'm having trouble coming to grips with the number I guess.  This is very uncharacteristic of me.  I LOVE celebrating my birthday.  I normally celebrate it the entire month of October.  Up until a few weeks ago, I wasn't planning on doing anything and was actually just moping around thinking about it.  But then I realized that I should be counting my blessings, be grateful for what I have and what is yet to be.  And then I snapped myself out of my funk, and quickly transformed into my old self.  Which means, let the countdown commence! The only bad thing about this time of year is the time change.  Though it won't happen for another month, I dread already.  The sun goes down so much earlier.  It makes me sad.  That's the one downfall of the Fall.

Wow.  I just had the most amazing weekend ever.  There was dancing, singing, more dancing, time with friends and family, lots of laughter, and late night shenanigans.  Good times.  It was exhausting and dehydrating (heh), but totally worth it.  I started on Friday and didn't stop until last night.  Today was all about resting and recuperating and of course, shopping.  Hey, don't judge me.  A smart girl never passes up a good sale.

You know what sucks about coming off a three day weekend?  Tomorrow I will be thinking it's Monday, ALL day.

That was my Labor Day weekend. How was yours?

Talk to me.

At Last, We Meet

We met online in early 2005.  At the urging of a mutual friend, I emailed him on a whim, in December of 2004.  Nothing fancy, just a short note from me, telling him about "Mel" -the mutual friend, and how she told me that we shared a love for writing and that we should get to know each other.  I hit send and went on with my life.  It took him a month and a half to reply, but he did.  And that's how it all started, our budding "online" relationship.  We called each other email buddies.  That's what we were.  It was through our email exchanges, that we began to get to know each other.  One of the (many) things I found the most attractive about him was that he actually took the time to write back.  I'm not talking about one liners or a few sentences here and there.  No, this guy, took the time to write very enticing emails.  He was well versed and I found that so sexy!  In the beginning it was the usual, trivial questions.  You know, like "Where did you grow up?", "Where did you go to school?",  "When was your last relationship?" -stuff like that.  But then, we'd take turns asking off the wall questions to each other.  Telling each other about our crazy weekends, our crazy friends, sharing, as if we were long lost friends, trying to find out about each other all over again.  He was very witty, and charming with his words, he was intelligent and sarcastic and I couldn't believe we had not made any effort to meet or even speak on the phone.  While at first I found it a bit odd, I grew to like the veil of anonymity that surrounded us.  Three months into our little email relationship, we exchanged pictures.  At this point, I could care less what he looked like.  I was already one smitten kitten.  But then I saw his picture.  My heart leaped and that was it for me.  I was done.  The guy was hot!  He was standing with some friends, in front of Reliant Stadium, wearing at Texans football jersey, jeans, and a crooked grin.  He had a goatee (the bad-boyish kind), intense, sexy eyes and hair the kind that made you (or me anyway) want to run your fingers through.  Of my picture, he told me I was pretty and some other stuff, but all I heard was pretty.  Neither one of us made a move to meet.  And so our cyber friendship continued.  About a month after the picture exchange, I threw all caution to the wind and gave him my number.  He called me almost immediately.  We were both kind of nervous,  but not really.  Finally, I could put a voice to the face.  And vice versa.  And so a new chapter in our relationship ensued.  We progressed from emails, to phone calls.  Lots of phone calls.  We talked about each others lives, dates, relationships or lack of, all kinds of things really.  He introduced me to late late LATE night phone calls, and other stuff that went along with that, too.  Nine months after we "met" online, we finally met in person.

It was a hot and humid, June summer night.  I'd never been so nervous and excited to meet someone in my entire life!  Here was this guy that I had been emailing and talking to almost daily for months and finally, we were going to be face to face, in person, and not online.  He told me not to be nervous.  Yeah, like that was going even possible.  We'd often talk about what it was going to be like, when we finally met.  But of course, nothing ever happens the way you think it will happen.  I met him outside of my house.  It was after we had both been out with our own friends.  I again, pressed him about finally meeting.  And he started the usual teasing banter that we usually played whenever one of us broached the subject.  Except this time, instead of playing along, he agreed to meet me and as he said, " to put you out of your misery"  My retort to him was:. he was the one suffering and it was "I" who needed to do him the favor of letting him meet me.  We laughed and agreed to meet that night.

He was leaning against his car, and I remember my heart pounding loudly, I even wondered if he could hear it.  He saw me walking up to him, and flashed a big grin.  I smiled back, and then we hugged.  He was a great hugger.  You know how some people just don't know how to hug?  Well, he had no problem in that area.  We stood there, in front of his car, talking nervously, laughing nervously.  I remember wondering if he was going to kiss me.  I really, really, wanted him to kiss me.  It started misting as we stood out there.  But we didn't even flinch.  And then, he leaned down, carressed my face, kissed my cheek, before finally brushing his lips softly over mine.  I think I sighed out loud.  I remember he smiled and then kissed me again. This time, cupping my face in his hands.  It was the best kiss I had ever had.  To this day, it still remains so.
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For the Red Writing Hood prompt this week: write about a face to face meeting which, for better or for worse, doesn’t go as planned. Fiction or memoir. -----Write On Edge

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