Powerpoint Hell or... Is It All Worth It?

How do we find our worth?

I've been critical of people relying too much on their partners for their source of happiness. Clingy and with no backbone and life of their own as I saw them, I've laughed at those people. After all, how could they lose sight of their own selves and give themselves so wholly to someone else without any regard for their own well being?

I'll never be one of those people, I said to myself from time to time again. I am the epitome of independence, paving my own way through life and not relying on anyone (well, maybe a little bit on my parents but, that's besides the point). I am the modern woman, confident (at least for the most part), happy with myself (most of the times), fiercely tough and oh so well put together at all times.

But today, after over two weeks of routinely spending about, and often more than, 20 hours a day on work to prepare for my thesis presentation and receiving a lackluster review, I realized something. I rely on work for my source of happiness. Work is what controls my life 100% of the time.

Crazy, isn't it? As I stood in front of my thesis critics, surrounded by presentation boards and half-numb from sleep deprivation, I heard them say things about my project, I heard them ask questions. I responded with as much interest and enthusiasm as I could muster up while trying to not fall asleep standing up. I wrapped up the presentation and took down the boards. Ad then itt was over. Just like that.

And as far as the last two weeks go... Can I really ever get them back? Am I any better than those people I laugh at who spend all of their time catering to and adjusting their schedules so they could spend as much of their time as possible with their significant others? Perhaps, they are too dependent and perhaps their co-dependency is not healthy. But am I really better than them?

I've let my work control my life. And a healthy dose of passion is never a bad thing - if I ever end up finding a job in my field in THIS economy, I am certain that I will be happier than about 90% of employed people out there. But I have also sacrificed all of my social life, all of the joy one gets from the first few days of spring, and all of the meaningful conversations I could have had with my good friends from the past and present. And for what? Work? How am I any better if I am just as dependent on work as others are on their lovers?

Maybe it's time to close the lid of my laptop, walk out on my balcony and get a lungful of fresh air for the first time in two weeks. Or maybe, as it is in my case, it is time to simply fall into somber sleep for about fifteen hours.

Starting.... now.

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Dealing or Not Dealing

My apartment looks like someone broke into it, went through all my drawers, threw the contents on the floor, tosses things around some more, rolled around on the floor and left. Socks, papers, pens, random articles of clothing, remote controls, sunglasses, books, candles and more! can all be found somewhere on my living room floor. Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg, 'cause my bed room is not in any better shape.

Yup, it's getting closer and closer to the finals week and I am finding less and less time in the day for myself, sacrificing every minute and every bit of my sanity all in hopes that the hard work will pay off and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to snag a rewarding job sometime soon.

Frankly, every time toward the end of each school quarter, I ask myself an all-important question, "How am I going to make it through this week?" All I can do is keep pushing, keep eating take-out food, consume coffee by the buckets and not sleep.

And to add insult to injury, every time I stop to take a break, Mr J pops into my head out of nowhere and all the old emotions come back up to the surface. It is never a more inconvenient time to cut ties with a person you love than during the finals week. The lack of sleep combined with a dose of anxiety mixed with a couple of teaspoons of uncertainty and insecurity are hard to endure as it is. But add all these unresolved emotions that I am trying to put behind me and the mixture becomes almost agonizing.

Perhaps it's not all that bad and being a drama queen is something that I need to do in an effort to deal with it all. Perhaps it is what it is and I need to suck it up and let things run their natural course. Time is the ultimate healer and I am looking forward to the day when I can finally start feeling better. I just know that if Mr J didn't decide to be a complete toolbag, my week would have been just a little easier.

Heart-crushing pain, you are no match for me. Somehow, some way and some day, this too shall pass.

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My Heart and What He Did to It

Someone noted my blog as one of their favorites to read on bloginterviewer.com and to that someone, I say, thank you and I am super excited that my semi-coherent ramblings can actually be considered a good read! So please check out, if you will or care to do so, the interview thingie I did at bloginterviewer.com. Just click the button above (cause I finally bothered to learn how to link pictures to things) and gimme some love!

You know when your friend goes through a tough break-up, you are the epitome of rationality, comforting and nurturing and telling him/her that no matter how bad it hurts, it will, inevitably, get better?

Well, it does get better. You know it does. Surely, you are certain that it does. You've been through this before - you had to let someone go or someone let you go for whatever reason and the pain was unbearable for some time. When you knew that what you were doing was for the best, and that there was no viable future for you and your former companion, and that your tears and hopes were not worth remaining in the dead-end situation, you put on a brave front, kicked your heart to the curb and let your brain make the rational decision. And you felt that pain. And you dealt with it somehow. And you came out a stronger individual as a result of your experience.

But when you, yourself, end up in that very same situation once again, all rationality goes right out of the window. And after you've cried uncontrollably in your pillow to stifle your sobbing because the walls of your apartment were too thin and you didn't want your neighbors to hear your laments, after you've wiped your face with a tear-soaked tissue and reminded yourself that you deserve so much better and that he is a fool to treat you this way, you still felt that painful pang that felt more like a punch to your heart. And that's when you questioned yourself, asking "Is it really going to get better?"

Okay, so I am talking about myself here and the final straw that broke a camel's back in the ongoing saga with me and Mr J. After he declared that he will be "too busy" to visit me for his spring break this week, I've decided that I've had enough.

Enough of his irrational jealousy and late night phone calls, enough of him questioning every single post on my Facebook wall by my very platonic male friends, enough of it all. I am done with Mr J and, this time, I do believe that I'm done for good.

I have been living in a fantasy land for the last several months, thinking that, somehow, Mr J and I can end up together. Who am I kidding? He is not ready for a relationship. Instead, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Well... not even eat it. He just wants to control the cake and question the cake about cake's every single move. But the truth of the matter is, the cake is very single and, as some time passes and the cake will find a rewarding and fulfilling job and settle down somewhere, the cake will be ready to date again.

So, as the cake... I mean, as I am sitting here and having a second beer and feeling the alcohol begin to dull my pain, I am ready to call it quits on this quasi-relationship for good.

Goodbye (and fuck you), Mr J. Someday you'll be nothing but a distant memory and, someday, you will realize that you've let a great girl slip right out of your stubby fingers. Don't worry, that day will come, but it will be far too late to salvage anything you've already irreparably destroyed.

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Kindly, Step Aside...

It's hard to make conversation at a night club - there are just so many distractions, auditory and visual eye candy competing for your attention all the while you are attempting to get to know someone in a loud, booze-infused atmosphere. Surrounded by beautiful guys and gals - plenty of skins showing, bare midriffs, tight bodies - you can't help but keep your eye on the scene, even when you meet someone new.

After all, how deep of a connection can you really make with someone when Ludacris, Lil John and Flo Rida are all screaming in your ear, demanding that you get "low, low, low"... "lower than you kno'". Bounce, bounce, bounce, you can't help but let yourself slowly catch the fever and the beat of that next infectious hit. Your foot begins to tap the floor, head starts to bob and then when your favorite song comes on and blasts out of those speakers, well, you can't help but interrupt whatever conversation with whomever you're trying to talk to at the moment and yelp in excitement, "Oh, that's my soooooong!"

Some girls make a mistake of looking for a Mr. Right in the hottest club in the city, not knowing or, at least, not wanting to understand that some of the guys are only looking for a one-nighter, a pretty face to forget in a couple of days. Some girls, especially the younger ones, do not realize that some guys may be after only one thing and they may do or say whatever it takes that night to get what they want.

I remember when I was 19, my best friend from high school and I decided to hit up a night club for the very first time. It was such a different environment from anything I had experienced up until that point. Growing up very sheltered in high school, I was, what can be and is conventionally considered to be a nerd and a bit of an outcast. And once out of high school, I was pretty determined to shed my geeky image and transform into somewhat of a social butterfly. Needless to say, hitting up a night club was always on my list of things to do to complete my metamorphosis from an awkward teenager into a cute college girl and maybe win some hearts in the process.

So that night my friend and I made it out to this cheesy but highly popular night club Egypt down by the Delaware river in Philly. I was wearing these hideous purple and magenta pants and a sparkly red top and I remember the tingle of anticipation and uncertainty after I paid my 10 dollar admission fee and got frisked by a female bouncer before I was finally let in inside.

In retrospect, Egypt was always shady even before it started going downhill in its final years before it finally got shut down and replaced by a different joint, but I didn't know any better back then. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread - getting frisked felt like a part of an exclusive VIP treatment. It felt like a rite of passage.

So my friend and I got there early that night and picked a little booth to sit in and watched several raver-types twirl their glow sticks on an empty dance floor - a usual occurrence before your typical club kids invaded the club and drove out the ravers. My friend and I shared a $3 bottle of water we purchased at the bar - stone-cold sober and very excited - we were the prime victims of some hideous French boys with very bad intentions.

"Vould yew like too suck my lollipop?" one of the French dudes slid across the booth seat to move in right next to me, sandwiching me between the guard rail that separated the dance floor and the lounge seating and himself. I glanced at him in mild terror. He was, for some peculiar reason, sucking on a lollipop and I, for some peculiar reason, agreed to lick it.

He seemed very pleased with himself and whispered something or another in my ear, presumably trying to seduce me. I couldn't understand what he said - I was still getting used to the bass shaking the dance floor - so I looked over across the booth table seeking out my friend's help.

Needless to say, it was no consolation to me when I saw that, minutes within introducing himself to my friend, the other French boy was now busy introducing his tongue to hers. I felt disgusted by the whole situation and immediately excused myself and ran off to the bathroom.

Oh were we young and naive and fell for the cheesy pick-up lines and did stupid but silly and flirty things with the boys we hardly knew back then. Neither my friend nor I wanted to sleep with either of those boys that night (or ever) - we danced, we laughed, we had a great time, we went home by ourselves at the end of the night. The French boys weren't terribly heart-broken either - they found their next victims minutes after it became clear that we were not going to fall for their advances.

Now, six years later, I have no doubt that the French guys no longer ask women to suck on their lollipops... at least nowhere outside of their privacy of their own bedrooms. But sometimes I want to go back in time and take it back to that first night at a dance club, when everything felt so exciting and new and my hangovers were so brief and barely felt the next morning.

Of course the things I know now I couldn't have learned without my experienced throughout the years. Right now I can spot a douchebag from a mile away, and if a guy starts playing a game with me, I can move on faster than you can say, "Can I buy you a drink?" and never look back

But back then... back then, times were simpler and all of the heartbreaks and douchebaggery from boys... well, that was yet to come. And sometimes... I just wish I could get some of my naivete back.

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I'm Gonna Give It to You Next

Valentine's Day sucked.

I mean, basically, I'm not even going to sugarcoat it and lie about receiving flowers and poems and presents from the man of my dreams, aka Mr J. No, no, as much as I want him to be my knight in shining armor, I will be the first one to admit that he was the one who screwed me over and made the special day of love the worst Valentine's Day in a couple of years.

Granted that last year I received a dozen of beautiful roses from a good looking gentleman (that I wasn't particularly attracted to) and this year the first message that I got from Mr J was him being unreasonably and insanely jealous of a friend who wrote on my Facebook wall merely wishing me a "Happy Valentine's Day". I was pretty disappointed and heart-broken, to say the least. I immediately texted Mr J with a very sarcastic and telling "Happy Valentine's Day to you to..."

The rest of the day proceeded to be a blur of arguments, accusations and apologies. Mr J almost immediately said that he was sorry for, allegedly, "forgetting" about V-Day, even though later on, he changed his story to telling me that he was really about to wish me a "Happy V-Day" until he saw a questionable post on my Facebook wall. It didn't matter to me... any of the apologies and any of his reasons didn't make much of a difference because, by that point, my day had already been ruined.

So the events that transpired since February 14th may or may have not been in my best interest and judgment. Still fuming over my Valentine's Day fiasco with Mr J, I decided to take this guy, whom I met a couple of weeks ago at a club, up on his offer and go get a couple of drinks with him tonight. I've decided that I would keep a open mind and go on a first date I've been on (that was not with Mr J) in a many months.

The new guy was smooth - he picked the day and the time and the place for our date - and I was impressed with the location he chose for our meeting. A quaint, tucked-away bar in the middle of a beautiful upscale neighborhood on a hill overlooking the entire city of Cincinnati. So it was just me and the guy for the first thirty minutes at this historic beautiful bar. Candle light, live music, delicious wine - it was a perfect setting to sweep a girl off her feet, and boy was I ready to get swept off.

I dressed casually, not trying too hard to impress but definitely going for that effortless, casual elegance that is oh so appropriate on a typical Wednesday night. He was looking fine, a bit older than I remembered him to look the first night I met him, but dashing nonetheless. We ordered our first drinks and moved a bit closer to one another at our corner table, in an effort to get to know each a little better.

We talked and talked. The wine felt good in my system. And I was... I was the girl on the edge of my plush seat, for the first time in what seemed like ages, genuinely interested in the guy who was sitting across from me. The candle light reflected sparking seduction in the guy's eyes and I made several conscious efforts to not stare at him too hard as I spoke to him about this and that.

"So, how are you enjoying Cincinnati? Better or worse than Philly?" his hand brushed lightly against mine as he moved in an inch closer.

And...

And all I could think about was Mr J.

The way he would talk to me, if he was sitting right across from me at this precise moment. The way his eyes would meet mine and the way his lips would part and curl lightly in the most radiant smile I've ever seen. My beautiful man was not there with me and I was on a date with someone who just didn't quite measure up despite all the seeming perfection on the surface.

I excused myself and walked to the bathroom to take a breather. I checked my phone. There was a text message from Mr J - the first one in a long while that was not full of jealousy and distrust. It was a message from Mr J I fell so deeply in love with:

"Hey cutie, thinking of you. Have a good night ;)"

My heart turned into a professional acrobat at that instant and did backward flips and cartwheels.

I returned to the table and drank another glass of wine and talked about exciting things and places I wanted to do and visit with the guy who made so much effort to take me out on this lovely date. The guy touched my hand a couple more times. And it felt nice, and it felt genuine. It just didn't feel quite right.

I promised the guy a second date but, frankly, I don't know if it's ever going to take place. After all has been said and done, time after time, I still continue to realize that I am so in love with Mr J that I can't even enjoy being with anyone else.

And maybe I shouldn't even bother with anyone else for the moment. Not even when Mr J and I don't quite see eye to eye.

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Catch Me

Sometimes I wonder how people, who only have been a part of my life for the briefest, time leave a lasting impact on me for years afterward. Their presence, however fleeting, has made enough impact on me to remember them years later. My presence, on the other hand, might not have made any difference or impression at all.

I tend to think of brief romances or flings at first. Most of them were never consummated - brief sparks of attraction, if that, they pop up in my head from time to time and I wonder why I am thinking about them at all. Like there was this one guy shortly after I broke up with my long-term ex-boyfriend who should have not been very memorable at all but, yet, whose face I remember to the smallest detail.

I met him during a girls' weekend to the Jersey Shore a couple of years ago at an almost empty night club my girls and I pretty much took over that night. He was sitting by himself, his contemplative gaze directly towards his beer when we walked into the club. I noticed him eye me up and down as I made my way to the bar to order my first drink and I could feel his occasional glances in my direction throughout the next hour.

I was feeling ballsy and empowered that night, fresh from a breakup and fiercely ready to face the single life, so I walked up to the guy and introduced myself to him. We spent the rest of the night talking and dancing and went down to the beach around 5am to watch the sunrise, all the while in a pleasant inebriated haze.

He was cute but stupid - I could tell that his intelligence was significantly below mine even as I continued to lose myself in a parade of drinks that made it into my system that night. But he was damn cute and I was certainly not looking to discuss quantum physics as I watched the sun rise at the horizon that morning.

Our light courtship carried over into that fall, as he did not live too far away from me but our physical contact never carried over beyond making out. I wanted absolutely nothing from that guy but to enjoy his cuteness as we bar hopped from one Philly bar to another all throughout that fall season.

"We should have had sex last night," he sounded hopeful as he said that to me over the phone one Saturday morning after another night spent in the bliss of Southern Comfort and strobe lights. He said that and I thought, "That's it. I'm done with him. I can't." and, just like that, I completely stopped talking to him.

It was weird the way I ended things because after that I did make a few drunk late night phone calls to him that were spread over the period of several months - we talked briefly every time, and for some time after that he did try to contact me on his own terms but I would never answer. I finally ended up deleting his number all together. The possibility of getting intimate with him was a strange turn off for me, despite his extreme cuteness.

I don't even know why I remember this guy as I felt so disengaged from him, emotionally and physically. There was nothing beyond his looks - no depth, no warmth, no connection and I was mean to him because I didn't think he was smart enough to have his feelings hurt by me. But it's safe to say that he somewhat cared and it's safe to say that I was somewhat of a bitch to him back then.

But why does it matter now, years later?

When I was sixteen, I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye for the very first time and getting captivated by what Holden Caulfield had said in the very concluding chapter of the book: "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." I feel like those might have been the most profound words I have ever read. I don't even know why Holden's sentiment is any sort of logical, but sometimes I feel just like J.D. Salinger described Holden to feel in those final few moments of the book.

I feel like that from time to time, about people who didn't really matter to me or people who I only met for a few moments at some random party. I feel like that about friends of ex-boyfriends whom I have only met once or twice and cute guys at bars with whom I only have had the most superficial word exchanges. I feel like that about kind strangers who give up their seats to the elderly on the buses and sassy women at the DMV who renew my driver's license, receptionists and random people's babies.

At some very inner, subconscious level, I kind of... care about all of them. And, bizarrely enough, I still miss all of them too.

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The Penis Does the Talking

When it comes to online dating and putting information in your profile for other people to view, sometimes even the most innocent statements can elicit the most outrageous remarks.

My profile, which I hastily crafted in a total of five minutes a long time ago, still provides me with a great source of information from desperados all over the world that creep right on over to my page to read my responses to the standard profile questions.

Imagine, if you will, Exhibit 239 - Mr. Unfortunate Head Shot - a guy with a variety of pictures in all of which the background behind his mug seemed to have been his small bathroom. One of his many forgettable head shots was taken a wee bit too up close, showing me just enough of a close up of his face for me to notice a bright red zit on his broad forehead.

His subject line was demanding my attention, just as his zit was demanding my gaze. "I'll tell you why we're bad at communicating..." it read, referring to my short lament withing my profile stating that I was frustrated with men who were bad at communicating their feelings. How could I not read on? Maybe his message was going to reveal the answer to my quandary after all.

What I saw next hurt my eyes and made me lose a little bit of faith in all humanity...

"...it's terrible to admit, but my penis is usually the thing talking when it comes time to portray some feelings/emotions. "you don't touch me enough, I feel lonely, other penis get to do this or that, what do I have to do to get more attention?
if my ex just started going down on me everytime I had an issue with her, I would be a total slave to her. it's an ugly truth, but it is the truth."

I messaged him back immediately after I saw the message and begged him to consider me as a potential first date candidate.

No, not really. I deleted the message and never looked back with regret.

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