So sleepy

So, so tired. Is that because I went to bed too late, didn't sleep well or overdid it yesterday? You got me.

This week, the gym/exercise thing is going well. I went on Monday. The plan was 16 minutes of cardio plus upper-body weights and shoulder physical therapy (PT) exercises. I started with five minutes warming up on the treadmill, then the weight routine. I was weak--literally. I could not do as many reps as last week with the same weights. I went down a pound or two where appropriate and completed fewer reps in other cases. So lame! I did my full PT regime (or the part that is doable in the gym) and then I just stopped and skipped the cardio. By my rules, it still counts.

The plan for Tuesday was yoga (at the gym) followed by kickball and a walk home. I did all three! Kickball even required mild exertion because I got on base the two times I kicked and even ran for a few extra bases each time. Plus, I fielded the ball a few times. It was like, you know, actual exercise. The walk home was mild, of course, being broken into three sections (work to field, field to bar, bar to home). I participated in a couple of rounds of the drinking game for the first and only time this season. I looked wistfully at the one and only appealing (to me) guy on our team and swore unaccountably at my super-earnest and very likable officemate.

During the walk from the field to the bar, my phone rang. I didn't pick up but the caller left a message. The caller was the "salsa" guy who I'm supposed to have coffee with tonight. He was calling to confirm. I really, really, really didn't want to call him back. When I got home, I didn't call. But when it was nearly 10pm, I forced myself to call. We had a brief, disjointed conversation where I had to repeat everything twice. We're still meeting tonight.

My shoulders are terribly stiff and sore and I just figured out that it's from the yoga. That's not good.

Darn it all if I don't feel goofy and out of it today. Like I could just fall asleep right here at my desk. I'm experimenting with a little eyes closed typing and boy does it feel good. I find myself slowly swaying and listing from side to side when I walk or stand up. I want to go to the gym and just do weights today. I want to go straight home and tuck myself into bed. I want to go home and do laundry, clear off the dining room table, mop the kitchen floor, clean the bathroom, start packing for my trip and watch tv. I want to do nothing at all. I want to walk home instead of going to the gym. I want to take tomorrow off and do housework. I want to take tomorrow off and do nothing in the name of Rosh Hashanna. I want to take tomorrow morning off and go to services and come to work in the afternoon and go to the gym.

What don't I want to do? Meet the salsa guy for coffee or call the Spanish lessons guy. Oy vey.

Happy New Year, y'all.

Grateful for: plans.

Texting is the new black

How about some more boy stories? It's been too long, really.

First, it turns out that Sailor doesn’t have a girlfriend. (Sailor is a guy from work on whom I harbor a smaller and smaller crush. And he's on my kickball team.) Or, if he does, it's a secret girlfriend. I know this because work-friend, Nina, said she thought he might be gay (she's the one I thought I heard him tell about his girlfriend--boy did I do a poor job of eavesdropping). Gay, huh? I never considered that--and I don't get that vibe from him. Nina's evidence is that Sailor spends a lot of time with another guy from work (they work in the same office). I don't think that means anything--I spend a lot of time with work-friend, Nancy, and it doesn't make me a lesbian. I used to spend a lot of time with Diego at work, and people thought we were a couple--but we weren't--because Diego is gay!

I said, "No gay man in his right mind would join a kickball league as a social outlet!" Nina wasn't convinced. I ran the idea by Diego (with no context) and he wasn't convinced either. I don't think Sailor is gay, but it sure would explain a lot. Either way, he's still not interested. I was pleased to learn that Nina is as mystified by this guy as I am, though.

Next up, is a guy from facebook. The other day some crazy Republican guy emailed me and we've been flirting virtually ever since. Just a little pleasant banter back and forth. It's fun and makes it easy to ignore that unpleasantness called "work."

For the last two days, I've been in training. Today, I decided to pay attention, so I didn't email him. When I got home, we had a short exchange and it ended with this invitation, "i gotta go. if ya wanna text me or something (should you be very bored) hit me up at xxx-xxx-xxxx."

Wow, how the times have changed. I was tempted to text him, but I didn't…yet.

Grateful for: distractions.

Smells good?

This has been a good weekend. I had dinner with a big group on Friday, including visiting old friends. We went for a drink after in a very un-crowded Adams Morgan bar. Apparently, 9:30 is very, very early for Adams Morgan. By the time we left, around 11pm, the stripedy shirts and low-rise jeans were in abundance.

Saturday, I went to a BBQ (cookout for Southerners) hosted by one of my kickball teammates. Despite my best attempts to hold the entire team (with the exception of my previous acquaintances) in contempt, I found myself getting along well with two or three of them and observing some of the others to be amusing. At least they're friendly.

Prior to the BBQ, I ran around doing errands--shopping, picking up a package at FedEx. I had no idea what the package was, but it turned out to be some blogger swag. Recently, I received a solicitation to review a product (not a book). I agreed because I happen to like this particular product. Amusingly, it's a men's product--a kind of deodorant/ antiperspirant. I have a history of preferring men's cologne's to women's. I've been told that while I might enjoy the smell of a man's scent, a man might prefer to smell something more feminine on me. Recently, I started wearing a vanilla eau de toilette (less intense than perfume) and a guy actually commented on it. I used to like citrus scents, lime in particular. I also wear one other scent, which is a man's cologne called "Zizanie." My grandfather used to have a bottle in his bathroom and I loved the way it smelled. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with the new product. Give it to a guy? Wear it and risk smelling "masculine"? (I won't give away the deodorant stick, but the "body sprays" might go.) How do you write a review about a scent? I'll have to do some thinking on that.

Between the store and home, pre-BBQ, I impulsively called a friend to see if she wanted to join me for a free sushi tasting at the Rock & Roll Hotel. She said yes and I was very pleased that I wouldn't have to go alone to get my free sushi. We had a good time, enjoying the atmosphere, people watching, and eating tasty free sushi. (The place has been there almost a year and this was my first visit. Lame.) When we left, we waited for the free H St shuttle with a couple of guys, one of whom was very cute and very flirtatious. Beyond hanging with a new-ish friend, my banter with the shuttle guy was the highlight of my night. I also wore some of the afore-mentioned body spray product. Only the shuttle guy flirted with me--so was the scent a success or not?

Today, Sunday, I decided to do some weeding in the tiny back yard (aka, the jungle). Unfortunately, I couldn't find the pruning shears, so I couldn't hack our small trees and flowering plants down to size. What I could do was rip a ton of ivy off of our back wall. Argh! When I first moved in, we planted some ivy in large pots. The ivy has gotten out of control and was colonizing our wall. That's not good. I still have a bit of work to do to get it under control, but it wasn't a total disaster. I have to give it another day next weekend and buy some new shears so I can cut it way, way back.

After doing about an hour of hard work in the yard, I'd had enough and I went back inside so I could spend the rest of the day doing nothing. I was pissed, though, that none of the condo mates helped out. They never do. We don't have a gardener, so taking care of the yard is something we're supposed to share. (It's a small building and we're self-managed.) As far as I know, of this current group of tenants, I'm the only one who has ever yanked a weed. I'm seriously thinking about charging them a fee. We'd pay a gardener, right? (We would, we just haven't been able to find one for such a small job.) If I'm the only one doing the work, why shouldn't I be paid? About $20 a go (an hour?) sounds right to me. If anyone else ever decides to weed, s/he could get paid too. Why not? It might help me hate my neighbors less, too, which would be a good thing.

Oddly, I haven't had the urge to go to the movies today. I think I overindulged in The Sopranos and I'm all watched out. How strange! Talk to you on Monday.

Grateful for: free time.

Well rested

Yesterday, I was so zonked that I could barely stay awake until quittin' time. Since I got to work uncharacteristically early (8:10am!), I could have left at 4:40pm, but I stuck around until 5 doing nothing productive. I'm tempted to say I did nothing but that's not true. I cleared out my email box (80 new messages!), made some calls, changed my voice mail…oh, whoops, still need to do that…,worried about travel arrangements, printed out things I need to read, and generally got things ready for today.

After work, it took an hour to get home when it should take no more than 30 minutes. I don't understand that. True, I stopped to pick up some food along the way, but how could that have taken 30 minutes? I suspect that my slower than normal walking times contributed to the late arrival.

When I got home, I ate right away, fed the cat and looked at the tv. But all I wanted to do was sleep. At 8pm, that's what I did. I read in bed for about half an hour and then I fell asleep. This was against all of my recovery from jet lag principles, which say to force yourself into a regular schedule and stick to it. Even though I woke up at 1:30am (and fell back asleep until 5:30), I feel much better today than yesterday. That fuzzy, lead-foot feeling is almost gone. All I needed was a very long (drug-free) night's sleep.

Tonight is my first (sigh) kickball game of the season. Hopefully that will tire me out sufficiently for another long rest. I will most likely skip the post-play drinking (shudder). Instead, work-friend, Nina and I may go for a drink before the game. After all, I arrived at 8:15 (!) this morning and the game isn't until 7:15, 2.5 hours after quittin' time. What else is there to do in all that time, work? I think not.

It's good to be home but I still feel disconnected from my life here. Maybe it's because before I get a chance to settle back in, I'm off to New York on Friday for four days of professional conference. I'm looking forward to it but the timing isn't perfect. Work is paying this year, my friend, JenA, is bunking with me and it’s in New York, which is about as good as it gets. Heck, I'll even be in the same time-zone— what more could I want?

Grateful for: good sleep.

Farce

I don't think I've mentioned kickball for a while. As you may recall, I hate kickball. Yet, I've joined a team for the late summer. I'll miss the first two games due to the Israel trip but oh well.

The main reason I'm on a kickball team is that I mentioned kickball to work friend, Nina, in passing and she got very excited. I told her if she wanted to do it, I'd do it with her.

The other reason is that Nina mentioned kickball to Sailor and he was also interested.

I also mentioned it to my new officemate, Pete, who was on a kickball team. He invited us to join the new team his housemate is organizing.

We all signed up. So far, so good.

Pete's housemate sent an email suggesting a pre-season happy hour for last night. I wasn't sure if I'd make it, since I'm trying to get things done around the house. Nina emailed yesterday and told me she was going. In fact, Sailor had emailed her about going. He asked her, she asked me, and we all went.

Farce!

More farcical is that when we got to the happy hour location, it wasn't there. Closed, apparently. I called Pete, who was meeting us later, and let him know. We met Pete as we were walking to another bar and the four of us went for a drink and some dinner.

Again, so far, so good. I'm a little leery of Sailor by now because he didn't follow up on the baseball game (he's going, but I had to confirm). He may be fine with being friends, but that's it. I'm slightly mystified because we get along extremely well.

We found ourselves at a very crowded downtown place. It was tough to talk in more than pairs, so while we stood at the bar waiting for drinks, I talked to Sailor and Nina talked to Pete. Later, when we sat down to eat, I talked to Pete and Nina talked to Sailor.

And, during the time I was talking to Pete, I overheard a snippet of conversation between Nina and Sailor. Nina said, "Oh, so how often do you go?"

"Probably we see each other every two weeks or so."

"What does she do?"

"She's in [inaudible] practice up there…"

I couldn't join their conversation and I had to go back to paying attention to Pete but I finally figured out what the problem with Sailor is: he has a girlfriend in NY. Story of my life! No, really, it is. Tom, my grad school boyfriend, had a girlfriend in NY. A guy I made out with in Ann Arbor had a girlfriend in NY. Well, that's all I can think of, but still! It's a horrible, horrible pattern.

Ok, maybe not a horrible pattern, but certainly a good explanation. And while he's still lame for not getting back to me about the baseball game and not managing to let me know he had a girlfriend (super lame!), this knowledge leaves me feeling relieved. I've decided he didn't tell me because he wants to be friends but things got terribly awkward and he didn't want to lead me on because he sort of likes me too…or something like that.

It crossed my mind to subtly give him a hard time about it—but I won't. Not just because I can't figure out something clever, but because I don't want to be mean.

It's frustrating that he's not available, though, because we are entirely on the same wavelength and that's rare. Also, he's incredibly smart. Way smarter than average. He is quick and sharp and doesn't miss anything. His interactions with Pete made this very clear. Pete is plenty smart but extremely earnest. Subtle humor is lost on him.

For example, Nina asked Pete, "So why did you want to work for [our federal agency]?"

"I just loved the mission statement!"

Sailor said, "Really? What did you like about it? I wrote it."

Pete gives Sailor a blank look but keeps smiling. "I can't remember, but I loved it!"

I said to Sailor, "Oh, c'mon, you haven't been working at [our agency] that long either!"

He said, "Oh, I wrote it before I started working there."

All I'm saying is that we would make a great comedy team.

When Pete stepped away, I said to Sailor, "You can't do that deadpan humor with Pete, he doesn't get it."

"I noticed! Did you see the look on his face when I made that joke about the mission statement? I'm trying to hold back."

He even has self-awareness! Awesome. Too bad he's lame and coupled.

And, as usual, we're moving on…

Grateful for: knowledge.