Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Seduced!

I was seduced, I tell you! No, not in the romantic sense of candles, flowery talk and promises of an investment portfolio miraculously unscathed by the recent economic turndown; I mean in the sense that I foolishly believed that I was safe. Safe from the ghosts of Christmas past. Safe from the evils of the world (ie many of the people I knew in high school). Safe from the lack of drama in a town known as ex-boyfriend-ville. Safe.

Informal messaging medium (ie Facebook) seduced me into believing that only the most fun people in my life would find me. It was blissful. People befriended me (and those of you who haven’t, please do… provided I like you)—most of whom I actually knew, which is rarely the case on myspace anymore. For many, many months, I believed that it would all just remain an entertaining, sharing place.

I’m here to tell you, Facebook is not safe.

It began with friend requests from people that sparked distant, and yet distinctly uncomfortable, memories. I’m pretty sure people who didn’t like me in high school are now my “friends” on Facebook. Ok. Fine. We all grow, mature. Oh, what the hell am I saying? No, we don’t. I have no idea why they are my friends on Facebook, since I’m pretty sure we haven’t thought of each other in any sort of warm and/or fuzzy way in about 25 years. But there they are—all calling me a nickname I haven’t used since I was 20. Swell.

Next came the ex-boyfriends of friends. Now, I liked the friends, but I’m pretty sure I had absolutely no difficulty ignoring the existence of their ex’s (as any good friend would) once they firmly moved them out of the picture. Why are we all pretending to be friends now? In addition, I’m getting friend requests from the “hangers on”. You know—the guys who came with the ex’s of friends. But not only are those people reaching out beyond the high school memory graveyard, but they also want to send me things and add me to their birthday calendars. Huh? I don’t want to remember my own birthday this year—I certainly don’t want the distant hanger on friend of friend’s ex-boyfriend from 20 years ago bringing it up.

I know what you are thinking—just reject their friend request. But I can’t. That seems rude, in a way that bitching about it all here on blogspot does not. I know, I have a confusing ethical guide. Love me.

But today… the very nearly final blow occurred. My happy, drama free social networking came to a jarring halt, when I saw his name. The Ex. He commented on a photo I commented on—hell, he commented on a photo I took. But he wasn’t commenting to me.

And I froze. We haven’t “spoken” since the great text message fiasco of March ’08. I’ve been way too busy to moon about and think of him… often…as much… whatever. Still, I’ve been really good. He had his busy new, happy husband life, and I had my… um… you know… um… whatever it is that I’m doing.

But time stopped today. I’m sure you noticed it. That grinding, screeching sound was me seeing the Facebook message “________ also commented on ______’s photo”. That name. Can’t mistake it. It’s unusual. And all of a sudden, these many, many months later, there it was in front of me again.

I didn’t look him up. I didn’t do a search for him. I’m pretty sure he’s new to Facebook because he’s never had the time for this sort of thing. I’ll probably not see his name appear ever again.

And yet….

What will my reaction be when a “friend request” notice comes my way? And more likely, how will I feel when it doesn’t?

Seduced, I tell you – lulled into a belief that this particular button was done being pushed.

How ridiculous of me.

Kate

Monday, December 29, 2008

A Muddle

I’m writing this from a great distance… straight up. I’m flying home from visiting my parents in Ohio (where it was 6 degrees (!) at the start of the week and 66 when I flew out), and I began pondering the many things today that don’t make sense to me—in addition to that whole weather thing, of course, because that’s just crazy.


VIP Tickets to Parties
I don’t understand having levels of “special” at parties. This behavior would be unconscionably rude if you were throwing a party in your home, but throw a party in a club, and it’s considered de rigeur. You have the normal people, aka the people there to actually enjoy the party and occasionally gaze wistfully at the VIP section convinced that some distant day they will also be important enough to get past the rope. Then there is the VIP section. From my, admittedly limited, experience the VIP section is full of people who paid extra money to avoid the people who actually want to be there. This section is also highlighted by the dawning realization that there is a level of Really VIP that they still can’t buy into no matter what the ticket said. It is my fondest hope that one of these days someone throws a party and says “none of you are really all that important” and K-Fed has to buy his own bottle.

But that’s just me.

I will, however, begin separating my friends at any party I throw in my tiny apartment. I’m just kidding. You know I’d never have a party in my apartment.


Carry-On Luggage
Here’s a tip: just because you can physically carry it, does not mean it is carry-on luggage. If you could actually float a family of 12 down a river on it, it is not a carry-on. Also, you swearing that “last time it fit” when it has clearly never fit into anything other than a semi isn’t fooling anyone. The good news is when you crush everything around you and shove with all your might to get it into the overhead compartment, you wont have to worry about it shifting during the flight. It won’t shift. Ever. Not even when you hold up all the other passengers when you have to pry it out during deplaning. Well done.

Turbulence
Turbulence. I don’t get it. I don’t like it. I want it to stop.

Book Boy
Why is the man I’ve now dubbed “book boy” sitting in the window seat? We should clearly be sharing intellectual discourse on the meaning of… um… well, anything really, as you know what happens to me when I am faced with a boy who reads. Sadly, it appears to be beyond my ability to chat with him when he is a) reading, and doesn’t really look like he wants to be disturbed and b) there is a sleeping person in between us. Fate is cruel.

Turbulence
Again, self-explanatory and seemingly unending.

Kate, hoping that everyone had (or is having) lovely holidays!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Health Tips... Or

As many of you have heard, either because I’ve been coughing down the hall or because you’ve emailed, I have been sick. We all got through the big charity event on Saturday (which turned out well, I think), and then promptly collapsed. I’ve been philosophical about it. I’m going home for the holidays next week, so I’m glad that it is not starting as I’m getting myself onto a plane. Last week would have been a disaster. So, all in all, I’ve accepted this with only slightly more complaint than a normal week—ok, that’s a little bit of a lie because I have been whining quite a bit.

I’m not good as a sick person. I’m not one of those people who really likes a lot of nurturing attention when I’m sick. In fact, I’m more like someone who needs to find an empty cave (aka my tiny, dark apartment) and lick my wounds.

I’m also impatient which makes me an even more delightful companion—unless you actually enjoy hearing how someone’s skin hurts and then you might actually find me quite charming. I have things to do, and I have no time for sick, so occasionally, I like to pretend that I have freakishly gotten over the illness in record time.

Yesterday was one of those special pretend days.

I had to go to the store. Despite the fact that I still had a fever and had just woken up from what turned out to be a 15 hour “nap”, I decided that I just had to convince myself that I was fine and get on with it.

So, I got in the car.

Dumb. Very dumb.

I got to the store without incident. I went in, got my stuff without major drama. Technically speaking, I realized that I didn’t have to go out at all because I remembered that I had already bought the thing I was looking for, but that’s not important. Now I have two.

And then I went out to my car—and noticed that it was still running. And that the keys were, obviously, still in the ignition. But the good news is, the doors were totally locked so no one could steal it.

I swear to you, I just stood there and looked at my running car completely perplexed; as though someone else had committed this act of colossal stupidity on my behalf. I looked around. No one else seemed to be stepping forward to take the blame. And I just stared at it.

Another piece of good news—I never replaced the hardtop on the jeep after it was stolen, so it is a soft top. The bad news is because the back was locked down and still full of stuff from the charity event, getting in the back was not going to happen easily. So, I very calmly, in what I am now calling a walking sleep coma, unzipped the side window.

All good right?

Yeah. Have you seen a jeep? Or better yet, have you seen me? I’m not quite 5’3” tall. The top of the tires are above my waist. So, here I was—apparently completely loopy, with a bag in my hand with stuff I didn’t need (because it would have made sense to put it down) essentially climbing my mountain of a car. The challenge doesn’t stop there because it was a back window and there is a support bar that runs across that window. Not a problem. Apparently, sleep coma girl was very flexible. I managed to angle my body above the bar, then twist and then pull my legs into the car where I very properly shut off the ignition, grabbed the keys, and unlocked the door (admittedly, there was about a minute there where I was hanging and wiggling both inside and outside the car). I continued in my “everything is fine, nothing to see here” fashion into the front seat, out the front door, so I could then re-secure the window…. still holding the bag.

Needless to say, I drove home very slowly, and did not try again until this morning. And yes, I checked, the car is off, and I have my keys.

I think we can officially declare me awesome in every possible way.

Hey, at least I didn’t text message the Ex this time.

Kate, still coughing, but on the mend, in LA

Monday, December 08, 2008

Kizmeet

Periodically, I get asked to check out other bloggers, and I thought this site might intrigue you guys.

If you are interested in hearing from a number of different perspectives on the dating scene outside of Los Angeles, you should check out this blog: http://www.kizmeet.com/blog. The blog is an aggregate blog of sorts – it combines perspectives from different love, dating, sex, romance, etc., bloggers from around the U.S. These people actually date and are both entertaining and informative! Be sure to check them out.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

The Event

And here's Elvis (aka Frank Spotnitz, writer and executive producer of The X-Files). I have to say, I've rarely been more impressed with someone. Frank is an amazingly classy guy, and it's easy to see why he is a fan favorite.






I love our volunteers. We've gone through the first part of tech and now we're working out the details of getting our beloved Elvis in the building. Here are some early pics.





























Thursday, December 04, 2008

Well, Sure...

http://www.wlwt.com/news/18196466/detail.html

I saw this headline, and I thought of you guys: "Man Says Wife Was Accidentally Shot During Sex".

Well, who hasn't that happened to? I mean, if I had a dime for every time a gun went off when I was having an intimate moment, I'd...um...yeah, I'd still be broke because this doesn't ever happen.

I had to click on the link just to be sure that he wasn't being euphemistic about a "gun going off".

Nope. He meant it. He "accidentally" shot his estranged wife in the chest when he reached for something on the nightstand.

That's just bad luck, that's what that is. There is nothing worse than reaching over for a condom and shooting your date instead. Obviously, there needs to be a warning label somewhere--maybe on the gun, maybe on the condom. Oh, yes, definitely on the condom: "warning: reaching for this when a loaded gun is in the vicinity of your estranged spouse who has a restraining order out against you, could result in you "accidentally" shooting her". Perfect. That should make the lawyers much happier. After all, he's probably very upset about this "accident" and is getting ready to sue somebody because of the lack of that very warning.

Yeah. Nothing suspect about this statement at all. I have absolutely no doubt that he should get over this mistake in about...oh...10 to 20.

Kate