One amazing week...

So Jordan and I have just had a couple of firsts. The most recent one is that we've spent time together every single day for seven days. It started last Sunday at lunch, then Monday night he came to fix my dad's computer, Tuesday he watched Idol and Glee with me at my place -- then kidnapped me for the day he had off on Wednesday, then we had stir-fry and worked on my dad's DVD-burning issues on Thursday, and last night was 5 Guys and movie night. It has been absolutely wonderful and amazing and I'm already totally spoiled for having him in my living room to greet me when I walk in the door. The other first was that this past Wednesday was the first time we had a day together with precisely *nothing* to do. No deadlines, no people to see, no places to go or anything to do except enjoy each others' company. It was just positively luxurious.

Right now he's at home, having a well-earned sleep and I'm at work being very bored, as it's awfully slow. But I'm a happy camper nevertheless, because I can't see any way this isn't just about perfect. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. :-)

More changes afoot...

So it's been since the end of January that I've posted here. I've been pouring all the creativity that would have gone into my blog into a tarted-up Facebook page. But I've been enjoying it, as I have friends on Facebook that I know in real life (work, friends, my son, Jordan...) I'm also enjoying building an amazing relationship with Jordan, and realizing that he's rapidly becoming more than just my "boyfriend". He's friend, confidante, lover, technical resource (almost a colleague!)...and could maybe even be family. I'm presently wearing a ring on my left hand that belonged to Hubie, his grandfather on his dad's side. There aren't any diamonds, so nothing's official, but he told me he's regarding it as a promise. We have 9 months to keep waiting, watching, working and loving.

He has my son today, just for fun and bonding and cool geeky guy stuff like that. Can't even begin to say how this warms me from the inside out. Just wish my dad wasn't so damned cynical about the whole thing. *sigh* But I also know I need a couple more friends in my life; "besties" that I can lean on for companionship and fulfillment and not expect Jordan to be all that to me. He works so hard every day, not just at work, but personally to hold down the physical pain he's in every moment. He hardly ever lets it show, but last night was pretty hard for him. It hurt me to see him that way and not be able to really help, but I think just being there was something. And as much as I'm not wild about sleeping with him in my dinky full bed (his queen-sized bed is much more comfy!) I wouldn't trade nights like last night for anything.

I think I'm going to have to make an effort to keep better track of things for the rest of this year. I don't want to miss any of this adventure, and a running account of it will prove an invaluable resource. :-D

What to say when there aren't any words...

Tonight hasn't been horrible or anything. In fact, I watched the encore presentation of the Apple iPad announcement tonight with my son. It was pretty cool, and I now have another gadget to covet. *sigh* Last night I was with Jordan, curled up in bed with him while we ate amazing Thai food and watched the State of the Union address. I really enjoyed watching my guy with my *guy*, and then laughing through American Idol, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.... (why didn't someone turn me on to that sooner?!)

I went home relatively early last night with my Sesame Street Bedtime Storybook from Powell's, and actually got my dad to read me my favorite of the stories from when I was 5. *hee!* Then I talked to Jordan after his X-ray and poor busted toesie....

....and now tonight I have no Jordan. Dammit. I talked to him for about 5 minutes tonight after work, but the poor guy was so beat after not sleeping last night that he just collapsed into bed around 7 and hasn't been around since. It sucks. But who is around, you may ask? Michael. He tells me that he thinks we could still be friends, but when I talked to him last he couldn't understand why I was telling him about Jordan. Oh, and thinking I would be jealous of his new girlfriend. Of course, I wouldn't be human if I didn't acknowledge that I miss the sex once in awhile. That said, I don't miss it enough to ever put up with his crap again. I also don't miss that it was so infrequent and one more thing that we fought about.

What I really miss is a chance to fall asleep in the arms of someone who cares for me. Me, for myself, not what they want me to be. Not who they think I am when I'm really someone else but they can't see it. I think Jordan may actually be that someone, and I'm so scared I'm gonna fuck it up that sometimes it makes me nauseous. And this Sunday he's gonna meet my dad and my son. I laughed it up a bit on my Facebook page, but this really has me kinda spooked. I mean, those two can be a handful for their own separate reasons even for me, let alone a perfect stranger!

Anyway, I'm just bummed out right now that I have no one to talk to and it's late and my schedule is all up in the air and....*sigh* God, I must sound so whiny and bitchy. I'm getting spoiled now with Jordan, and used to having my own way. He's so sweet and accommodating to me, and I have my only-child "me me me" tendencies anyhow....

So for now I'm gonna go to bed and console myself that tomorrow is Friday and I have the weekend off, and so far my schedule for next week appears unchanged. Hopefully car show date will still be on for Saturday. I need my fix!

Updates and perspectives...

So I've now tried to add some organization to my life -- for instance, I now have multiple folders in my email account, according to stuff I get regularly. So stuff for my iTunes account, and my insurance account, and old junk from Michael and now new things from Jordan! Yaay! I'm also being more organized at work, and feeling like I am strong enough to ask for help when I really need it, but also recognizing when I'm just looking for external validation. My manager reminds me constantly that he trusts me, so I should trust myself. Funny how I can hear that from my dad and it goes in one ear and out the other, but Anthony.....

So now I have another writing assignment...as though this blog and my Facebook weren't enough! Jordan has sent me some wonderful essays with his recollections of our budding relationship. I really enjoy seeing these things through his eyes, and I think I should return the favor. I also want to write things down so I can analyze as I go along and make sure I don't see anything in hindsight that puts up red flags. So far it seems really good and I don't want to mess it up. So I guess I keep putting one foot in front of the other and just live.

It's complicated....

This is what Jordan says is the next step up from single if you've fallen under the spell of the succubus that is Facebook. So this is now my status message with Yahoo! Messenger. But I didn't start this....no, this was all *his* idea! *grin* I had no idea what a big deal this until I told one of my fellow girl-geeks at work. The look of shock on her face was priceless!

What I'm noticing are the changes I'm seeing in myself now. I haven't been out for lunch at work since the New Year. I'm brown-bagging it every day, even if the choices are sometimes on the order of a frozen pot pie. Still, it's not fast food or the junk you find in supermarket delis. This saves me money and reduces the size of my butt. Wish it just didn't take so damned long!

This thing, whatever it is, is complicated and heady and wholly enjoyable. Now if I could just get my iPod to only sing me sappy love songs... :-) Oh well, I guess that's what playlists are for. Maybe hormonal bliss will drive me to get off my butt and make a couple. Shall see....for now, have to go talk to Jordan. *blush*

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me....

....and I'm feeling GOOD! I know this damn thing has been stopped and started and re-started a million and one times, but this time I'm kinda feeling like it might stick. This time I know it'll work! (...says Charlie Brown, every time he comes running up to kick the football...)

So it's just past the first week of 2010 and many things are different in my life. I have a job that I like a lot....it's the same job I had just started when I last posted here! And I've been promoted twice for it -- once to be cross-trained to support multiple products, and once again from Tier 1 to Tier 2. I've even earned an entry-level tech certification from the company whose products I support!

I've also lost about 160 pounds of ugly negativity....no, my ass is still the same size, but Michael is no longer riding it about anything and everything I do that he doesn't agree with, approve of, or believe in. It was damned hard to do it, and I wrestled with the decision for months. But I wasn't happy. I was sad and angry and disgusted with myself for putting up with the crap from his end, and from my own! So a couple of weeks before Christmas, I poured everything I had ever felt for him into a kiss to end all kisses. Then I told to him to remember it, cuz he was never gonna get another one, and to have a nice life.

I spent the last two weeks of the old year being a bit mopey, but not overly so. I actually felt free for the first time in a long time. It felt (still feels!) a bit strange not to be talking to him, and I still miss it from time to time, but not to the point that I would ever go back. I think I mostly miss what I *thought* he was. I miss the person I thought he was, but I missed *that* when we were still ostensibly together!

Sitting on my couch and blubbering through the last half hour of It's A Wonderful Life (like I do every Christmas Eve!) convinced me that even though I wasn't desperate enough to crawl back to him, I didn't want to spend another holiday alone (or worse). So I undertook to craft a personal ad that would attract the sort of person I might be interested in being better than just friends with, but who would meet my standards for intelligence, as well as sensitivity and wit. Being the nerdling that I am, but still a sappy girl for all that, I baited my hook with the most romantic Rush lyrics I could think of. I didn't go for "Madrigal", since I think of those as reserved for someone already in a committed relationship. Instead, I used the first two lines from the closing stanza of Hemispheres. I figured that anyone who responded to those lines would have some idea of who Rush was, and if they didn't, maybe they'd have a clue about the Jungian ideas Peart was drawing from when he wrote them. In any event, I'd stand a better than average chance of getting a reply from someone who might actually be able to keep up with me. After all, the guys who've made the most lasting impressions on me have been the ones who've been able to keep me mentally erect. (Hee!)

So after having to bin a few of the replies for their authors' lack of ability to follow simple instructions in a damned Craigslist posting, I got one that stuck out from the rest. In fact, it was the only reply that included a photo straightaway, and its author was the only person to *keep* replying even after I sent him a photo of myself! How sad is that, that I can't even meet the physical standards of your garden variety geek who listens to Rush and appreciates a girl with a helpdesk job?!

I replied again to the aforementioned author, and not only did he reply to the message with my image, but he thought I was cute! (So's he, just for the record...*grin*) And furthermore, he understood why it might be funny that my company handed out *RED* shirts to all of its helpdesk staff as appreciation for being part of the most highly-ranked computer tech support company in the US. He got that most geeks see a red shirt and immediately start watching their backs for the random alien laser blast that assures their doom. This, I thought, looks like a rather promising beginning.

So I woke up on New Year's Day after a particularly ill-advised party and went to watch the Rose Parade and nurse my headache. As I'm flipping channels that evening to settle on the MythBusters marathon, I get a mail message from the aforementioned author, asking how my New Year's party was, and would I like to meet up the next day since he would be in my neck of the woods. My hands shook a bit as I formulated my reply, but I said yes. Then I resigned myself to another coffee date where Craigslist friendships go to die. He sent me back his phone number (!) and said to call so we could get something set up. Around 10 pm that night, I picked up my phone and stared at it like it was gonna bite me, then punched in his number and prayed. He picked up and introduced himself, and he sounded every bit as adorable by voice as he did in print. We didn't stop talking until midnight.

I know I'm going into excruciating detail here, like I'm telling this story to someone who knows me, but it's just too amazing to me not to. I'll skip the rest of details, save to mention that we met at Fry's Electronics (OMG how cool is that?!) and had lunch at Sonic. We even agreed on cherry limeades! He did, however, tell me that he wasn't really sure what he was looking for when he replied to my ad, but that anyone who was real should be rewarded. And that's when my poor li'l heart just went, well fuck, this was nice while it lasted -- for two seconds.

Nevertheless, the conversation was good and fast and funny and we didn't repeat ourselves once. That was when we were talking about tech-y stuff and I went off on a rant about the stupid friggin' commercials for Bing. Learn how to search, you morons, and you won't have search overload! I told him that in my training for the legal profession I had learned how to craft a fairly decent search, and then told him that if people would just learn how to use Boolean operators, they wouldn't have so many problems with any search engine. And that's when things took a left turn --

He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, said something like "I have to do this", then reached over and kissed me like he meant it! We didn't *stop* kissing for a good minute, and I think I lost a few neurons right then since they just fused and burned out. I hadn't been kissed like *that* in a long damn time.

After one week, the best first date in the history of first dates, and a second that wasn't too shabby either, I am again convinced that there may be someone in this world for me to love who will love me back for the right reasons. Not because I'm easy, not because I'm easily-led, but because I'm complicated in ways that he seems to be intimately familiar with. I don't love him yet. I don't know him well enough to love him. But I know with all my heart that he is giving me every reason to take the risk of showing a man who I really am. And I can't wait to find out who he is too.