Category Archives: personal

Love in my tummy

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So yes, Valentine’s Day was simply lovely…Rand and I had dinner at Rue Franklin. We started with some appetizers…mine was a tasty pasta dish with rabbit (yes, rabbit) and bacon, and about a pound of butter. He had an arugala salad and also some sea scallops (I’m almost sold on sea scallops…this is the second time I’ve tried his, and they were quite yummy…). For dinner, we both had the filet mignon, which was absolute perfection. I had a chocolate raspberry truffle tort for dessert. Mmmm…

*my apologies to my dear roommie for not sharing details, but the first time I saw her afterwards, she was half sleeping, and so I just gave her the bare-bones description!*

Our waiter was someone I actually recognized…a couple of years ago, Jen and I went to karaoke at the Tudor Lounge and spent most of the night talking to this guy. He went up and simply rocked “Rock the Casbah.”

“I think I know our waiter,” I told Rand.

Before we left, I stopped him and asked if he’d ever done karaoke at the Tudor Lounge. He got a sheepish grin on his face and said “Yeah.”

“Okay, that’s how I know you,” I said. Hee!

After we’d ordered our meal, Rand asked me if I noticed how the wait staff is trained to stroke the man’s ego…I hadn’t. “When you ordered,” he told me, “he just kind of nodded and said okay. But when I ordered, it was ‘Oh, yes, excellent choice sir.”

I did notice this when we ordered our dessert. Rand ordered fruit sorbet, followed up by “Yes, a perfect way to finish off.” Heh. Interesting things that I don’t notice…probably because I don’t do much fine dining. 😉

I also received a beautiful bouquet of roses.

I gave Rand this adorable little book:

And ordered a DVD that I knew he wanted. Unfortunately, the DVD hasn’t come in yet, so he got an IOU.

I also got him the “Romance” edition of magnetic poetry. To make it a little extra-special, I bought a magnetic dry erase board and wrote a little poem for him. It was a big hit. (Maybe I can get him to take a photo of it for me?) 🙂

(aside…how cool is magnetic poetry? and this? I didn’t even know there was such a thing!)

I hope everyone had a pleasant day!

More on my adventures in substitute teaching later…

More than just holding hands

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What’s it like
when all your dreams come true?
When your life
is given something new
and you begin to live the way you’ve always wanted to?

That, for me, is you.

Happy Valentine’s Day, baby! 😉

Let me count the ways

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The other day, Rand and I were talking about Valentine’s Day, and I asked what he wanted to do…

“I made a reservation for six,” he said. “Does that work for you?”

Does it work?

I was shocked, in the most pleasant of ways.

You see, the entire time I was with X, he never planned anything. Not once. Not one Valentine’s Day, not one anniversary. I had to plan everything. And it’s not as if I have outrageous expectations…sometimes, a girl just wants to feel valued. Cherished. Important.

And I do. I really, really do. 😉

Friday ponderings

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I got a pleasant little surprise in my inbox a few minutes ago. Just a little note of validation for which I am extremely grateful. I think that we (“we” being the collective universe of bloggers) sometimes wonder if anyone really cares. We all have moments of self-doubt…am I boring? Does anybody really want to read about my stupid life? So sometimes finding out that, yes, someone does, can make your day. Thank you. 🙂

And for a complete change of direction…today, I want to write about January 21, 2001.

I had just moved to Buffalo the previous summer. Other than college, this was my first move away from home. I come from a very close family…meaning my extended family….grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. I hadn’t seen (or really talked to anyone but my parents) since Christmas. I had spent Saturday evening, the 20th, hanging out and catching up with an old friend from college. I got in around midnight, then hung out for a while with Jen and her then-boyfriend who were in the living room watching TV. I think we watched Iron Chef. I went to bed, probably close to 3.

A little before noon, the phone rang. I got up to answer it, which was kind of unusual. It was my dad, and it was obvious there was something wrong.

“Your grandma’s in the hospital.”

I didn’t know which grandma he meant. Neither of them was sick.

Grandma Angie, my mother’s mother, had collapsed in her bedroom Saturday night after complaining of a headache. A blood vessel had burst in her brain. She was in a coma, and wasn’t expected to come out of it. I told my father I was coming home, assured him that I was okay to drive. I hastily packed a bag and explained to my roommates that I had to go home. I didn’t take a shower. I asked Jen if I could borrow some CDs for the trip.

I cried for the entire two and a half hour drive.

I’m the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family. Not to give the impression that I don’t love my other grandparents, because I do, but I had a special relationship with my mom’s parents. I spent the night there frequently when I was young. Angie was the grandma I baked cookies with, the one who made the world’s best pies and homemade bread. She was the one who told me stories and sang me to sleep.

She was only 77. She was supposed to see me get married.

Her name was Angelina, which she never liked, and I never understood why. But she was always Angie.

I got to the hospital, where everyone was waiting. When I got there, a priest was praying the rosary in her hospital room. It was obvious, then…not that there was any life left in her at this point. She was already gone.

Thankfully, my mom and her brothers and sisters were spared the agony of having to decide whether or not to take her off the respirator. She went on her own, and we stood there, holding each other and crying.

My grandma collected angels. Angel figurines of all different types. Grandpa keeps her “angel table” up in the house.

I had never lost anyone very close to me before. A couple of great aunts. My great-grandparents on my father’s side. This was my first real confrontation with death.

I still miss her. We all do…

And on a happier note, I make note of this now because it is unlikely that I will be blogging tomorrow…tomorrow it is six months since R and I officially met. I am still amazed by him each and every day. R, thank you for answering my initial message, for “bravely showing up” at Brew Pub to meet me, and for being the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful, affectionate and sweet man I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. 🙂

Resolved:

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1. To get back to my (former) NaNovel this month. Nag me. Please. ; )

2. To actually use my free YMCA membership. I had to walk up six flights of stairs yesterday (broken elevator) and I thought I was going to keel over. Not good.

Yes, she’s alive…

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Erin-go-blog is indeed alive, and she had a very happy new year.

(don’t you hate when people talk about themselves in the third person? heehee…)

Look for details later tonight or tomorrow.

Happy 2005, everybody! 🙂

Waxing poetic

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One night while I was hanging out over at R’s, I picked up a book of Rumi’s poetry. I had not previously been familiar with his work (I don’t know much about poetry–I was always more of a prose reader/writer–but I’m trying to learn), but I found myself so moved by this particular piece that I had to get my notebook and scribble down the title and look it up later.

Looking for your face

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it.

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for.

Today I have found you
and those that laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did.

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you with a hundred eyes.

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold.

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine.

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow.

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky.

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer.

Ahh…breathtaking, isn’t it?

R and I attended a reading at Rust Belt Books Sunday night. A good friend of R’s was the scheduled reader, and I was utterly enthralled by her work. It was one of those, “wow…I wish I could do that” kind of moments. 🙂 I’ve been feelingso inspired lately. I want to read more, learn more, write more. I want to finish my NaNovel. I want to write that screenplay my friend Anita asked me about. I want to see films I haven’t seen, read books I haven’t read…

I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs this past year. I approached the great milestone birthday with trepidation, but it seems that it has brought me to a place of balance, of contentment, of confidence and security that I haven’t previously known. There are many, many reasons for this, I think, but I believe it has at least a little something to do with this wonderful, amazing man who has so quickly become such an important part of my life.

And for that, I say thank you.

Happy anniversary

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Today is my anniversary.

Today, it has been one year since the artist formerly known as assboy (I’ve taken, of late, to referring to him as “X”. As in “the ex.” While the title “assboy” has served me well and has been quite entertaining, it suggests a certain amount of hostility.) confessed his sins and changed everything.

I remember one conversation we had in those first couple of weeks…he was wallowing. His level of self-loathing was almost unbearable. I don’t know if he expected me to reassure him, say “no, no. X. It’s okay. You’re not a bad person,” but I couldn’t. I was in too much pain myself. He actually said to me, in the middle of one of these self-deprecating rants, “And now I’ve destroyed you.”

Whoa. Hold on. Back up there, my friend.

“No, X. You destroyed us. You didn’t destroy me.”

I still find it a little bit amazing that even in those horrible, dark, sad, self-pitying moments, I was able to recognize my own strength. I knew that even though I was hurting, even though I was angry and sad, and yes, scared of being alone again, that I would be fine.

And I am. In fact, I’m more than fine.

Happy anniversary to me.

A special kind of desperate?

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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?