A special kind of desperate?

Someone on a message board I frequent posted a response to a question about online dating that they “never have and never will” because it “takes a special kind of desperate.”

Desperate? Really?

I think of myself as a lot of things, but “desperate” is not one of them. I know there are a lot of other people who read erin-go-blog who have tried internet dating, with varying degrees of success/failure.

Stephanie met her dear husband on an internet dating site.

For my part, I just so happen to have met the intelligent, attractive, articulate and witty R on an internet dating site.

The way I see it, it’s just one more way of opening yourself up to meet more people. I ventured that I’ve met just as many freaks, losers and weirdos in bars as I have online. She replied that at least in bars, you can see who you’re dealing with and know if you want to proceed further. Well…yes and no.

I’ve always treated online dating as a sort of “blind date” with a pre-screening process. When I’ve met someone online, I have generally exchanged a couple of emails, spoken on the phone, and decided from there, rather quickly, whether or not this is a person I care to meet. My instincts have served me fairly well. As far as I know, I’ve not been on a date with anyone who’s married, homicidal or overtly creepy. No one has stalked me.

I understand being wary of it. I even understand not wanting to participate in it. But I don’t understand condemning the thousands of perfectly normal, functioning members of society who choose to use online dating sites as a means to meet new people.

What do you think?

To my mom

I’ve always had a very close relationship with my mother, just as she did with her mother. I know how lucky we are to have the relationship that we do…I know it’s not something that everyone can say.

Sure, sometimes we drive each other crazy, and I probably shouldn’t have stayed at home as long as I did after graduating from college (under the same roof? It was…erm…uncomfortable at times), but I am 30 years old, and I can honestly say that I like spending time with my mom. I miss her when I haven’t been home in too long. I call her just to talk.

She’s pushed me to do better, been there to pick me up when I fall, and has helped me through countless difficult times. She’s always been my greatest defender, my steadfast supporter, my friend.

I’m afraid I might not say it enough, how much I appreciate her.

I love you, mom.

Thank you.

About a blog

With all this talk of “blogiversaries,” I decided to dig back through the Erin-go-blog archives and see what was up.

I started the blog, on the urging of a friend, on Feb. 21, 2002. I posted a test post. It said, “This is a test. BEEEEEEEEEP!”

I didn’t post again until January 26, 2003. I was alone watching the Super Bowl and ranting about the Coors Light Twins commercials.

I posted about once a month (twice in May!) until July, when I posted a whopping 3 times! Posted twice in August, but I really started posting regularly in September 2003 when I decided to also keep an online chronicle of my student teaching experience.

My first post in September was on Sept. 8, so I’m calling today my blogiversary. Yay, me.

Of course, the true blogging on a daily (or almost daily) basis started in October…after the infamous breakup. This became a forum for me to express all of those crazy, sad, angry, bitter, heartbroken feelings I was going through. I took some time to skim through it, and it’s amazing to me how far I’ve come…I can’t believe it’s been almost a year. At the same time, I can’t believe that he was still in my life only a year ago.

So thank you, blogger, and faithful readers. You’ve been my therapy. 🙂

Back to school again

Second class went reasonably well…there were a few stumbling moments, one or two moments of “attitude” from the students, but once we got rolling, it seemed to be fine.

I had assigned the first chapter, an introduction, for reading. There really wasn’t a whole lot to it. Why is writing important? How do we learn to write? Blah blah blah. But the minute I got there, I got complaints of “I didn’t understand the reading.” “There was too much.” Not sure what to do about this.

I went through and highlighted some of the main points for them. We talked about different types of writing. Tone. Style. Genre.

As an activity, I handed out a bunch of pieces of writing, all of them by me. I had them get into groups and try to determine who the piece’s intended audience was, what the purpose of the piece was, and what the author’s tone was. I think they at least somewhat enjoyed that…

I was walking by the classroom before class stared, and I think I overheard one of them saying that he was upset to have a first-time teacher. I try not to take these things personally.

Next week, we start doing some writing.

On the way out, I heard one of the students ask one of the others “How many English classes do we have to take?”

Yes, I’m teaching a “required” course. Which means they just *love* me. I said “I take it you don’t like English?”

He said, “It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s that I don’t understand it, and it’s really hard for me.”

Ahhh….my challenge of the semester.

I didn’t feel so bad about the attitude I’d gotten when R told me about his first class. Now, he has grad students…which one would think is a completely different world than undergrads at a community college, right?

He did an icebreaker activity with them, and asked them to tell him something about themselves that they wanted him to know.

One of them said “I hate icebreakers.”

😛

Head of the class

I walked into my classroom yesterday at about 10 minutes before class time. Over half of the students were already sitting there waiting for me.

I wondered what they thought. Did I look like one of them?

I said hello, smiled, and put my things down. I’ve never felt quite so on display before. The students weren’t talking. They weren’t reading. They weren’t doing anything. They were just sitting there. Looking at me.

I started to pull things out of my bag. The syllabus. The books.

I looked up and counted heads. My roster had 22 names on it. I had about 15 students in front of me. I looked at my watch. I wrote some stuff on the board. I looked at my watch again.

At about 5 minutes before class time, I opted to hand out the syllabus to the students who were already sitting there. A few more trickled in. I passed out index cards, which I asked them to write some identifying information on. And a few more trickled in. I got them caught up, passed out the necessary materials, and started talking.

I introduced myself, and once the words started coming out of my mouth, I was fine. I told them they could call me Erin, they could call me Ms. N, but “Just don’t call me Mrs. N, because I’m not married.”

They chuckled. Whew.

Talked about the books, went over the syllabus, talked a bit about what they were going to be expected to do.

“Any questions for me?”

Twenty-two blank stares.

“Okay then, I’ll let you go for today. Read chapter 1 and be ready to discuss it on Thursday.”

Whoosh! Mass exodus from the room. Yeah, I remember what that was like.

Now tomorrow, the REAL work begins. Wish me luck!

Wondering

A good friend asked me recently if R had access to erin-go-blog…I said that I didn’t know, but have been sort of treating it as if he did. So of course, since then, I’ve been obsessively wondering if he’s found it and has been reading.

Has he?

🙂

Weekend highlights

It’s been a very good weekend.

Spent Friday evening with R…dinner at one of those “stuff on the wall” places. Am becoming braver in my food ventures in that R ordered salmon, and I accepted a taste when it was offered.

And I liked it…well, but for the fact that it wasn’t seasoned well (read: not at all). So I wouldn’t order it at this particular restaurant, but I will definitely be trying it at some other place.

I had a mediocre chicken caesar salad. I prefer my caesar dressing creamy.

The two drunk men at the booth adjacent to ours became our new best friends. Upon overhearing R confuse Ann and Nancy Wilson in a conversation we were having about Cameron Crowe, Drunk Guy #1 interjected with a correction.

Later, when I went to the ladies room, R was sucked into a conversation with Drunk Guy #2, who lives and works in LA as a screenwriter. They offered to buy us drinks, but we politely declined.

When I came back, we did the whole introduction thing, and I had to laugh at Drunk Guy #2’s reaction to R’s name.

“You mean like McNally?”

hee!

We left at the first convenient moment (these guys could have gone on all night…).

I did have one kind of sad moment…I was having a conversation with R about him being the guy who knows random crap like the name of the bass player for the Scorpions (it’s Lothar Heimberg. Seriously. It’s freakish.), and I said, out loud,

“It’s really too bad we don’t talk to our friend K anymore. She’d like you.”

She would.

It’s too bad.

Anyway…

He gave me two more of his band’s CDs to listen to…one of them is a rock opera about monkeys.

No, I’m not kidding. I’m dating a guy who has written a rock opera about monkeys.

😉

We watched “Shanghai Noon,” which is far funnier than it has a right to be. I just may become an Owen Wilson fan myself…

He invited me to a little get-together his friend T was having at his house on Saturday…this friend is kind of like his Jen. They met freshman year of college, and have been tight ever since. I was very, very happy to accept the invitation.

He picked me up on Saturday and we headed to the dinner party. I was nervous, of course, but his friends were kind and gracious and nothing short of wonderful. The moment we arrived, T shook my hand and said “I know you’re Erin. I saw your picture on the world wide web!” T, who also has an English-type background, asked me questions about what I do, etc. I explained that I have certification to teach secondary English, but haven’t found a “real” teaching job yet. He asked me where I got my certification and was surprised to learn that I went to the very school where he and R both work.

I never saw either one of them, as far as I can recall. Weird, eh?

I told him where I work, and about the teaching gig, and R interjected, “She’s also a writer.”

That made me smile.

I learned that one of the other guests is a teacher at St. Mary’s…the music teacher. It was his class I was subbing for when the girl jumped out the window. We had a laugh about that.

After dinner, we played Cranium. (I’d never played before…what a ridiculously fun game!) We played guys against girls and the girls kicked ass. Whoo!

When we left, R’s friends invited us to come back any time. T’s wife hugged me. When we got into the car, I asked R if he thought I “passed.”

“Oh come on,” he said. “I wasn’t even a little bit concerned about that.”

🙂

A question of relevancy

I went to bed early last night and slept like a rock. That felt good…

I had my interview yesterday, which I think went quite well. The job is, um, unusual. If hired, I would be working for a local search engine company in their relevancy department. This would involve a number of different tasks…editing and proofreading titles and descriptions for websites, actually writing the titles and descriptions for the client, if they desire, writing a small amount of ad copy. But the biggest part of the job is reviewing sites for relevancy to the keywords they’ve selected.

I had to complete a short test, reviewing four sites for relevancy to the keyword “books.” I had to comment on the relevancy, comment on the content of the titles and descriptions, and finally, write a pretend email to one of the clients explaining why or why not “books” would be a good keyword for them to use.

I feel like I saw a movie where someone had this type of a job. Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about? It was a female character, and she had a conversation with a male character about occasionally having to review adult sites at work. Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about? Please tell me I’m not going crazy!

I’ve decided to join in the 5 questions game, and I will be working on the questions posed to me by Annabel Lee. I hope to post them later today. Watch for them! (Check out her site…anyone using Poe as the theme of their blog is cool by me!)

And finally, I have a question for my faithful readers. Yesterday, I received an invitation to the wedding of a couple of good friends. The wedding is on October 9. I am thinking that I would like to ask R to accompany me…it seems too early to bring it up just yet, but I don’t want to wait too long…he’s a busy guy, and is likely to make plans if I don’t bring it up soon enough. RSVP date is September 18. What do you think?

You say he’s just a friend

So the meeting of Jen and R went quite swimmingly, I must say…when we left to go grab a bite to eat, he said, “Jen is very cool. I can see why you two are such good friends. She really brings you out.”

Aww…

R also got positive reviews from Jen. 🙂

So yeah, I’m not really sure what I was so worried about…other than the fact that it’s kind of a “step.” We’re still in that ambiguously undefined territory, enjoying whatever it is that we’ve got going, but still not quite naming it. Which, actually, is okay with me. It’s fielding the questions from others that’s the hard part.

Jen was on the phone with John when we came home, and Jen had apparently (I think) referred to R as my “friend.” And John wanted to know if he was “just a friend.” I didn’t have a response to offer. I just smiled, and probably blushed a little.

Well…definitely more than “just a friend.” I think we’ve effectively established that fact…

This man is completely unlike anyone I’ve ever dated before. Ever. And this is, I think, a very, very good thing.

He’s intelligent, witty, charming.

He makes me laugh.

He inspires me.

He makes me feel beautiful.

Every moment I spend with him, I learn a little bit more about him. I like what I’m learning, and I want to learn more…

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Yeah, so it’s gray and rainy and yucky outside.

And yeah, I’m stuck at work with too much to do and little will to do it.

And yeah, stupid tutoring job cancelled my shift for tonight. (again)

But I don’t care.

I have lots of things to smile about.

🙂