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.
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