Time to Make a Change

Vote, vote, vote. Vote with passion, vote because you care. Vote because there are things that are worth giving a damn. Vote because we are only given one life to live and having a choice is truly a privilege.

I am voting because when I feel hopeless and disillusioned, I can still feel like I can assert myself. I can still say that I have a voice. My decision is mine and mine alone. My decision is as simple as deciding to get up early in the morning and show up at my voting location.

I am voting because I need change. I am voting because I am homesick. I am voting because I am overworked. I am voting because I feel discouraged. I am voting because I want to establish my presence. I am pouring my passions and frustrations into something that I think will make a difference. I am voting because I still believe in the right to choose.

Vote to choose. Choose to vote.

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Sure Thing, Babe

It's been a bit unsettling to me as to how pessimistic I've been feeling about dating lately. Just to give a most recent example of what I'm talking about, I'll relay my most recent encounter with a guy who seemed to have some dating potential in my eyes.

After we exchanged numbers at a bar, I received a text message from him asking me if I was free to go see a movie that saturday. First of all, a fucking movie? I've always considered that to be sort of a cop out date because you can't really talk in the movie theater so what is the damn point of going to the movies with a stranger? You will still walk away from this date a stranger.

Second of all, a fucking text message? And it's not just him who prefers to text, not to call. I understand that text messages are so wonderfully convenient when you want to relay an important bit of information to someone but do not really have the time for a long phone conversation. Yes, text messaging comes in handy there, but not when you are asking someone out on a date! How tacky, how cowardly, how distasteful. And he is probably the fourth person in a row that prefers to text me more than call me. What's up with that, I say.

I bluntly texted him that I would prefer it if we had a phone conversation before we make plans to hang out, and luckily he seemed okay with that. He called me that evening and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he actually did not have a personality of a cardboard cutout. He seemed lively, humorous, intelligent, and I was again reminded as to how sexy his voice sounds.

That said and done, we made plans to see a freaking movie. Hell, I thought, it's been some time since I've been on a date, maybe a movie isn't such a bad idea. I did forewarn the guy that I might have to do some work over the weekend so our date plans were, by no means, definite.

Friday, the day before the date came, and to my dismay I began to realize that with the amount of work I had to do over the weekend, I wouldn't be able tto get out of the house at all. That meant that I had to cancel my date on Saturday. I texted him (hey, I was legitimately too busy to make a phone call!) with an apology and asked if we could reschedule for Tuesday night.
"Sure thing, babe." he texted me back.

Seriously? Babe? I sighed with disgust and showed the text message to my friend who was with me at the time. He rolled his eyes in affirmation of the inappropriateness of the guy's reply, "He's calling you babe already? You found yourself a winner."

Now Tuesday is only two days away and I am kind of looking at the impending date, if it will ever happen, with a feeling of doom, rather than excitement. I don't know when exactly I stopped enjoying dating, but that moment crept up on me and I no longer find myself excited when faced with a prospect of going on a date. Maybe it's the quality of guys I am meeting in this city. Or maybe it's not them, it's me. Regardless of the reasons, if I do go on this particular date and he calls me "babe" as soon as he greets me, I am so outta there.

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Tag!

I got tagged by She Is Anyway

Here are the Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

I am basically only doing step 3 because I am not sure how many people actually read my blog and it might be less than 6, for all that I know. Ha!

So, 6 random things...

1. I got my tongue pierced the day I turned 18 because I was just itching to declare my "independence" from my parents, and I was sheltered enough to not know the sexual connotations that came with a pierced tongue. What can I say... I was a pretty naive 18-year old! I still have that piercing and, to this day, my tongue is still the only part of my body that has a jewelry piece puncturing it.

2. I've decided that I'm going to really try and make an effort and... go to Las Vegas once a year from now on. They say that you have to experience Vegas at least once in your lifetime. For me, once is not enough. Twice wasn't enough either. I am willing to keep returning until I go broke or get old. Old people partying in Vegas never look cool or hip. Never.

3. When I was a freshman in college, I had developed a crush on a guy in my evening calculus class. I found his email online and sent him an message declaring my undying love for him. (Well, I just said that I am a girl from his calc class and I thought he was really hot) The dude replied with an email, saying that he was really flattered that I liked him but he was not the person that I thought he was because he was not taking any night classes. However, the next day I saw him in calculus... and he gave me one of those subtle, knowing looks. Ouch. I got rejected. How mortifying.

4. I have a cat (well, now he lives with my parents but I still consider him mine) and I named him Mr. Poop. When he was a tinsy little kitten, he had no interest in going to poop in a litter box, so he would just do his business wherever he please. What was even funnier is that he would, somehow, manage to get the poop all over his paws in the process, so I would always find brown pawprints in various corners of my parents' house. Thusly, I came up with his very appropriate name.

5.When I was 16, my then twenty year old boyfriend decided that it would be a great idea to get me drunk on our second date so he bought us two 40oz bottles of malt liquor and we sat around watching TV and drinking at his parents house. The sadness of it all is that I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. I hope to believe I am not that cheap of a date any more.

6. I buy Dwell magazine instead of Cosmopolitans and Vogues at the airports so I can look like a refined intellectual. Though I am absolutely obsessed with all things architecture, sometimes I do feel the need to leisurely read one of the lighter magazines. Being an architecture grad student, you can't help but feel a little overloaded by the architectual world once in a while. However, at an airport, I am not a grad student, I am a young, busy, incredibly successful architect, dressed to the teeth in latest fashion, sipping on a steaming vanilla latte from Starbucks, and reading Dwell, because I simply have to stay on top of the latest trends in building design.

Yay, this was fun!

Edit: and I'm tagging Narcissiste to do this, per her request :)

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The Two Month Curse

There is a scene in some movie that I now don't remember the name of, where this prying, social-skills-lacking, intrusive, neurotic (yet lovable) post office worker is having an intense conversation with his work partner, played by Claire Danes, I believe. He says something to her along the lines of, "What gives you the right to be so self-righteous! Look at yourself - none of your relationships ever lasted for more than two months. You just pick up and leave every time!"

I mean, basically he was implying that she might have been somewhat shut-in and, perhaps, promiscuous in her personal life and that denied her the right to pass judgment on him. The part that struck a chord and made that movie conversation particularly relevant to me is that the man never explicitly accused Claire Danes of sleeping with those men; all he said was that her relationships never lasted long - but the promiscuity implication was undeniably there, in his gestures, in his eyes.

That kind of bothered me because lately, well.. for the past two years, I haven't really dated anyone for more than two months. Right around that two month mark, one of the two things inevitably happens - either I lose interest in a guy, or he loses interest in me.

The thing is, though, out of those six two-month relationships over the two year period, I'd only slept with two guys. That's one guy per year. That is not promiscuous, at least, not according to my standards. But I can see how, to an outsider or simply someone who doesn't know me so well, those six brief relationships, intermixed with a bunch of others that consisted of a a few dates here and there, could have been implicitly equivalent to the amount of people I had slept with in the past two years. That would roughly make it 10-12 men in two years.

I mean, who knows what people may think of a 24-year old woman who's been essentially single for the past two years but who's dated around a lot during this same period of time. But, really, I don't feel any guilt towards having a long list of short relationships. They didn't work out - end of story. What I am slightly concerned about is the kind of image I am imposing on myself.

Which brings me to my next point - The Neighbor and I have called it quits. Yup, at the two month mark exactly, we came to a mutual conclusion that it is no longer viable for us to continue this, increasingly passionless, relationship.

I'm sort of glad that it's over, and I'm definitely glad that I didn't sleep with him. At least we both had the decency to conclude our relationship with a conversation.

"We can still be friends. If you need someone to go to that football game in November, just let me know - I can get cheap tickets. And you should come to my birthday party this weekend, if you don't have any other plans. I'll call you and let you know the details about it later on in the week," he said as he was leaving my apartment.

He, indeed, sent me a text message a few days later with a formal birthday invitation, but he never called. And I never went to that party. I watched that movie with the post office worker and Claire Danes, instead, which in my opinion, was a far better way to spend my free time.

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Impromptu Sex Talk

I will write this only because I just might be drunk. Tonight, on the first night of the first weekend of being back at school - I am feeling tipsy, sitting at my laptop and sipping on Sam Adams Boston Ale, I am feeling tipsy.

Now onto my drunken topic: Best sex I've ever had. Funny story about this dude because he was a good friend of mine for a number of years. I just turned 18 when he declared that he got himself a new girlfriend and I was more than happy for him. Genuinely happy for him, because he was such a friend. Such a friend, but nothing more.

I was just starting my very first semester at the University of Pennsylvania and I was still living with my parents as my lovely school was not that far from the 'rents' house. I got myself my very first work-study job at a museum affiliated with the university, and though I was only 18 years old, I was feeling all grown up for the very first time in my life.

Since my friend had a car and I had yet to acquire one, he, sometimes, would volunteer to pick me up and drive me home. A nice gesture of friendship that I gladly accepted whenever it was offered. Taking a subway home was not at the top of my favorite-activities-to-do list. I accepted his offers and I waited for him, rain or shine, in front of the museum, until I saw his 1995 Honda slow down and pull out of the general traffic flow to the curb to pick me up.

After he would give me a ride, I'd invite him to my (my parents') place to watch a movie. We'd chit-chat merrily and part our ways at the end of the night. No strings attached. Just two friends having a good ol' merry time.

One night was different, though. That night my parents were not home and we were watching some old DVD I dug out of my collection. Amidst our silence, he unexpectedly asked me,

"Do you like me?"

Many would interpret it in a platonic way. As in, do I like him as a friend. But I instantly knew what he meant. I turned my head towards him, got lost momentarily in his eyes, and said, simply and unpretentiously, "Of course I like you."

As he leaned in for the kiss, I simply couldn't pull away. I was selfish and passionate and filled with fire at 18, and I kissed him back, briefly but intentionally.

He, on the other hand, hesitated after his impulse, "I should get going," he said, and got up off the couch as if he was sitting on needles. He headed for the exit.

I followed him to the front door, where he struggled to pull on the door knob. The door was locked, and only I had the key to unlock it. As I opened the door with one simple move, he was free to run away, if he wanted to.

"I have a girlfriend, you know," he said, somewhat nervously.

And then, he pulled me towards him.

"I know.. I don't care..." I paused for a moment, evaluating the situation. Girlfriend or no girlfriend, I was fine with thsi arrangement, I decided. I, then, wrapped my arms around him and pulled him in for a kiss. He didn't get nervous this time, just kissed me back and we remained like that for a number of minutes.

We didn't get much farther that night and he left right after our particularly long make out session, but the next time I saw him, we, literally within minutes, began ripping clothes off each other. Goddamn he was good. And I was right there being damn good with him.

Though we haven't been intimate in quite some time, our friendship has ended relatively recently as we simply lost touch with each other about a year ago. At this point of time, I don't know if he's single, dating, or married. I don't know, and sometimes, I kind of wish I could still talk to him so he could fill me in, so I could become a part of his life again.

But life, as we all know it, never remains at a stand still. And some friendships are meant to not last forever. And so he, my friend circa 2002-2007, did not last forever. He was a chapter in my life... but damn, was that a good chapter.

Maybe, and I guess this is what I'm ultimately getting at, what I need right now is not impromptu sex talk.. but impromptu sex. Maybe even with The Neighbor, if he turns up at my place at just the right moment, that is.

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No Rush

"You've got a beautiful body. You've got a beautiful face. You've got a beautiful personality. I like your sense of humor and level-headedness..." he whispered to me last night, as I laid next to him in his bed, debating whether or not I should just do it and sleep with him, or hold off on that for a bit longer until I am absolutely sure.

He told me how I am just so damn special in between kisses, and I looked at him wondering how everything about him seemed so normal at the surface, but how lately... lately, I have been feeling that ignited spark, those butterflies just starting to fizzle away. Slowly but surely, I am feeling less passionate and more indifferent, without finding reasons for my fickle changes of heart.

Okay, so maybe shit isn't perfect between us. He's far too juvenile for my taste. I am surprised to be admitting this, since I tend to go for more... youthful-minded guys, perhaps, to find some diversion and, therefore, balance to my, often, demanding and time-consuming professional life. But lately, I guess, I am finding myself on a road to discovering that, to me, being young at heart no longer means going to keg parties and talking about Peyton Manning and Tony Romo until my brains explode. I have graduated from Bud Light to Chiante and Merlot, from band posters to vintage art prints, from boys to men.

He is also not as ambitious as I am, in terms of his career goals. It is fine if he is still figuring out what he wants to do, but I kind of feel like he is not even at that point yet. Like, he's procrastinating and waiting til God knows when to set up some basic goals for himself. I don't want a crazy workaholic - I've got enough of that in me, but I want someone who doesn't just daydream about what he wants, but takes it a step farther and actually goes after it.

I suppose I am also feeling a bit of outside pressure, seeing as I have been single for two years now. A part of me feels like I should at least try and make this relationship work, cause what do I have to lose? I feel like my friends are wondering sometimes why I have been single for such a long time. But I, myself, think that I will be more content if I stay single, instead of seriously getting involved with someone.

Whatever. I guess I am still in search for something (someone) else. And I guess I feel like I've got all the time in the world to find that person, so I am in no rush to settle down. This week's trip to Philadelphia to see my family before school starts up again should clear my mind up a bit.

And as for The Neighbor? I suppose, despite my complains, I am still satisfied enough to stick around in this relationship a bit longer. After all, I am in no rush.

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No Words To Describe...

Upon checking my year old account on a dating web site, I found this message, coincidentally sent to me just hours ago:

"so tell me why someone as beutiulf as u being ingle for?"

Gee, I have no idea, kind sir. Perhaps, I have just been waiting all this time to meet a man of incredible eloquence and good spelling. Or perhaps, I have been working really hard on avoiding morons such as yourself.

And then I wonder why I gave up on dating web sites after just a few weeks.

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