the first resolution that i made at the end of last year was that i wanted to run in the flying pig in may. i won’t be running the actual full 26.2-mile marathon, mind you. i will consider my resolution a success if i’m able to run a 5k without stopping to walk. i’m relatively sure that i’m underachieving there, as at this point in my training, i’m running two miles at a decent pace without stopping. as the date gets closer, i may change my resolution to a 10k or maybe the heart mini-marathon (15k). i suppose that changing my resolutions is perhaps not very resolute of me, but i figure as long as i’m upgrading them as opposed to downgrading, i’m okay, right?

the second resolution that i’ve made is that i need to seriously cut down on my smoking and/or quit altogether. the problem with that is that i really enjoy smoking. during my time in scotland, there were many days where i would only have one or two cigarettes, and the vast majority of the time, my first cigarette of the day here would be on my drive home from work. so, clearly i’m not so addicted that i need to have a cigarette every couple of hours, and i was never one of those smokers who has to light up first thing in the morning. at this point, i haven’t purchased a pack of cigarettes since january 2nd. my friends kate and jenn are weekend smokers, and they’ve been gracious enough to allow me to have a cigarette if i happen to be hanging out at their place. in truth, over the years they’ve bummed so many smokes off of me, they’ve told me they probably owe me a carton, so i don’t feel so bad taking them. i think that some people might see this as them enabling me to smoke, but i see it as them assisting me in not smoking nearly as much as i probably would otherwise.

for the first couple of weeks, it was difficult to not have that cigarette when i was driving home from work at the end of a stressful day. i missed the familiarity of holding the cigarette in my hand, inhaling, then exhaling the smoke, and with it, all of the stress, the bullshit, the drama, of the workplace. it was almost like a visible release of all of that tension, even though physiologically speaking, i was probably only adding more. removing that psychological part of my addiction was the most difficult part of quitting; the physical part of quitting smoking was cake in comparison.

so with drastically cutting down on smoking, i’ve rediscovered my appetite (as cigarettes are a natural appetite suppressant), and i’ve also rediscovered my sense of taste (as smoking also slightly decreases your ability to taste). as such, for the first few weeks, i ate a LOT. food tasted so good to me, and i was also hungrier much more often than i was previously. i’m sure that both of these things have to also do with the fact that i’ve been much more physically active for the past couple of months. regardless, my caloric intake went up much faster than my burning them, so i gained some weight in the process of quitting. this isn’t something that really shocked me; the majority of smokers experience weight gain when quitting smoking. besides, my accomplishments with my race training and stopping smoking are enabling me to not lend much credence to the fact that i’ve gained five pounds. i consider it a very minor setback, especially given the fact that i was a smoker for 16 years, and that this time a year ago i was 50 pounds heavier. things could be much worse.

i made no resolutions in the relationship area of my life, and yet strangely things have been going well there, too. for so long i had no prospects for dating, there was no one that interested me enough to make an effort, and so i ignored that part of my life completely. i think because of the Composer (mentioned in my previous entries), i’ve come to realize just how many interesting people there are out there, and getting to know them is really part of the fun of dating. after christmas, the Composer and i met up again, and i got quite a few things out in the open that i had been thinking about over the course of the time that we were apart. we had a very good discussion about why things went south, and that there are just things that neither of us can provide for each other that are deal-breakers in our own books.

but my biggest concern out of us not dating anymore was that i would lose my friendship with him, and i told him as much. as it turned out, the feeling was mutual. in truth, we just really enjoy each other’s company, and regardless of our many differences, our personalities mesh well together. (also, i love making him laugh; he has a great laugh.) so, out of that conversation, and subsequent conversations, we’ve come to an agreement of sorts, one that implies physical intimacy without the structure of a relationship. (<– or "friends with benefits") i really DO want to settle down in the near future, to find someone with whom i can have every kind of connection; physical, friendship, and emotional. i won't be able to have the kind of depth of relationship with him that i want to have, and so i've been very honest about the fact that i will continue to look for this, and i have been. i've met a couple of people with whom i feel that might be a possibility, but of course it's too soon to tell.

those are all of the things that have gone on in the last month. hopefully i update again sooner, and with more positive accomplishments to share!

so things went awry with the guy i was seeing. it was mostly me that was doing the running-away-screaming bit, but over the course of three months, i grew pretty fond of him, so it’s more like “walking-away-while-looking-over-my-shoulder” than anything. i’ve been pretty mopey for the last few weeks since i broke things off with him, and yes, it may have been a bit daft of me to do it right before the holidays knowing full well how much more alone i’d feel. *sigh* however, i felt like i was giving more than i was getting out of the relationship, and i find the idea of spending the holidays being with someone i don’t think wants to be with me FAR more depressing than just being alone.

one of the biggest things that i think i’ll miss about him is that, because he had an degree in musical composition (he was a composer), he liked to attend the symphony, musicals, local theater, etc.. not many (straight) guys that i know find those things to be particularly titillating experiences, so it was really nice to attend those events and be with someone who enjoyed them as much as i did.

at the very least though, i feel like i’ve at least “gotten back on the horse,” as he’s the first semi-serious relationship i’ve had in the last two years (which is also probably why i’m so mopey). i don’t want to be single for another two years, so i’ve decided not to lose momentum and get back out there. and perhaps this time, i’ll go about things a bit differently.

so that is what is consuming my life most at the moment. it would be nice to have some stability in the relationship department (whether single or not) so that i could focus my emotional energy elsewhere. i find the whole “finding someone” thing to be so draining that sometimes i’m convinced that i’ve been mostly single these past few years just out of sheer laziness. wow that sounds really lame when i reread it. but there it is. *shrug*

in my defense, my mind HAS been on other things as well…work (going live with new software on monday so it should make the next few weeks VERY interesting), the recent federal tax cut (which is another blog post entirely), the repeal of DADT (it’s about goddamn time) and major changes in particular friends’ and families’ lives. however, people will be arriving in about half hour and i still need to shower. and then…PRESSIES!!! \o/

today, i signed a lease on what i think may be my best solo living space to date. it has huge rooms, stained-glass windows, hardwood floors, a private entrance and porch, two fireplaces (non-working, sadly), and heat is included in the rent! while i was signing the lease, a friend of mine who happens to live in the area was walking by, and i told him i was moving in. he said he would just drop by and knock on my door sometime. that’s cool, i actually really like it when people just drop by, because people don’t do enough of it anymore, in my opinion.

i’m completely overhauling my finances, which will consolidate my debt load (the vast majority of which is student loans), and will cut my debt payments in half. this is an excellent development in my financial situation.

i am still seeing the guy i mentioned in my previous post and, well, he hasn’t run away screaming yet. so…i’m not sure if that means he can handle me and my particular brand of crazy, or if there’s something wrong with him. there IS always the chance that i may run away screaming, too. i guess only time will tell.

work is…work. there is some drama going on, and many changes in the near future. i don’t know what those changes mean for my future at the company, but i’m keeping my options open just in case.

so, this coming weekend, i’m traveling to chicago for a friend’s wedding. the weekend following, i will be packing and moving back to the city, and DEAR GOD that makes me happy. in the midst of all of this, i am attending a couple of concerts and a lecture. where in the hell am i going to have time to do all of this??

okay it’s now 10pm and i’ve been online for way too long tonight. if you’re praying people, pray i make it through the stress of the next 3 weeks. if i survive, i may have a minute or two to breathe. or even blog again!

so the question becomes: do i write a post about the things that have happened in my life in the last year or so? (and by “things” i mean the 5-10 most significant things, as a helluva lot’s happened in the last year or so and i really don’t have that kind of time. sorry.) OR: do i just write a post about something i’ve been pondering?

i think i’ll just do both.

a few big things that have happened in the last year: my sister’s gotten married (finally!). i was the maid of honor and ducked when she threw the bouquet at the reception (i was one of three women on the floor and it was heading straight for me, OKAY?). i lost 50 pounds by eating a helluva lot less and exercising more. i still have about 25 pounds to go before i’ll be satisfied, but holy hell i feel much better about myself and damn, i really missed my figure. i moved out of my now-brother-in-law’s house and right into my own parents’ home. i would like to point out here that it’s fabulous fun telling people that you’re a 30-something living with your parents, and that the main reason is because of student loans you’re paying for a degree that you don’t have. i may be the biggest loser (and not necessarily in the weight sense) on the east side of cincinnati, but i have a job and coworkers that i love, and awesome friends (kate and jenn) who let me crash at theirs when i get too drunk to drive back to B.F.E., so it’s not all bad. said friends also have very cool cats who like to hang out on the spare bed when i stay over, so that’s cool too. (also, to be fair, i’m getting my financials sorted and should hopefully be moved out in the next month or two.)

i decided to try getting back into the dating game last november, and it was a shockingly abysmal failure. objectively speaking i can say that there was probably 20% of it that had to do with me, and the remaining 80% because the guys were, well, douchebags. (no offense to actual douchebags meant.) just one eensy example: one of the guys stood me up and then gave me the excuse that he put on his own facebook wall (we were facebook friends) that he was sick – 5 days before our date – and that i should have gleaned that he wouldn’t be showing up for the date because of that. *facepalm* i did say we were facebook friends, right? so after the third douchebag, i ran screaming for the hills and decided to lie low for awhile. then i met a friend of a friend at a party a few weeks ago (who, i’m happy to report, is NOT a douchebag), and we really hit it off. i certainly didn’t see THAT coming, and i’m pleasantly surprised about it. and that is all i will say about him at this juncture. more info forthcoming if ensuing dates are as successful as the first few. we’ll see.

RIGHT. onto pondering things….

…and dammit, facebook is being all wonky and i can’t get into my facebook messages. one of the things that i wanted to blog about was in a message i got today from lynne. grr.

– one hour later –

nope. still not working. *kicks facebook*

i’m going to bed.

g’night. (or “g’mornin’” for those across the pond.)

most of what i want to write about (and have wanted to write about) are things that i don’t think i’d like to go into on my blog, and i don’t know why really. when i look back at some of the things that i’ve written about, it’s not like i’ve exactly kept silent about my feelings on a particular subject or person. in fact, i usually veer way into the “TMI” category on many things. but perhaps it’s because of the depth of my feelings, or because of my audience, and how what i say will be received or perceived.

i am apathetic about life in general, and at the same time i think i care too much and i am probably over-sensitive right now. so, i’m going to sign off for awhile. hopefully, sometime in the near future things will return to normal.

1) i was working out regularly at the free gym at work when i first started and actually had the time to do so. during the period of time that i worked out (about 3 weeks), i had more energy, i slept much better, my thought processes were much more precise, and i felt happier in general. i stopped mostly because i began working more and later into the evening. clearly, regular exercise needs to become a very high priority for me.

2) i’m a pretty insecure person and sort of a pessimist. i’m not sure if this is a recent development, or something i’m just now noticing (although i’m pretty sure it’s the former). regardless, i don’t like either of these things about myself right now and i need to work on them.

3) the gods were smiling on me and the timing of my job search. i happened to have the qualifications and skills necessary for a job that opened at the exact time that my employer needed them, and the circumstances were such that it’s possible that i may not have gotten the job otherwise. (this is vague, but for various reasons, i can’t go into detail here.)

4) those people that are truly your friends, regardless of how often you talk to them, will always be your friends, and will come through for you when you least expect it.

and that’s all i have for today. come back after i’ve gotten a decent night’s sleep and am perhaps working around 40 hours a week. i may have blogged again by that point.

after getting back to their house and each of us taking much-needed showers, we took naps in preparation for the foam party down at the dock (may want to turn down your speakers for that link). i had never been, but kate and jenn have been telling me about the messy fun that ensues at the foam parties for several years, so i was looking forward to it. after waking up from naps, i was simply not feeling it. mostly, i was exhausted from the day, even after a nap, and didn’t think i was up for it. however, after some food, i was feeling better about shakin’ my groove thang in a giant dance floor filled with foam. then as luck would have it, kate started feeling not-so-great, so we ended up going back to their house and all passed out watching “a mighty wind” (also a great movie, don’t let the fact that we fell asleep watching it tell you otherwise). we had each only had one beer at dinner, so apparently, painting a house in 80-degree humidity for 8 hours can really take your energy levels down a notch. or ten.

this weekend was cincinnati gay pride weekend, and today was the pride parade. we had been invited to a big party in one of the many beautiful old homes on ludlow (on the parade route) with free food and an open bar. (woo!) i signed up for, and made a donation to, the human rights campaign, who had a table set up in the house, to lessen my guilty feelings about drinking alcohol that i didn’t pay for. (apparently i’m still in the process of shedding my deep-seated catholic guilt complex.) (but to my credit, i intended to sign up for HRC anyway.)

the parade was fantastic, and i got a lot of awesome photos…with kate’s camera. (unfortunately, i forgot to get them from her, so i can’t post them here.) suitably buzzed, we headed down to the festival in northside to perhaps have another drink or three with some friends we met up with at the party. we walked around for about 15 minutes before the sky broke open and it started pissing it down. we escaped to one of the tents set up for city beat, where dylan (who also moonlights as the lead vocalist for local band buckra) welcomed us and asked if we wanted to sign up for a drawing for a $100 gift card for area restaurants. we figured he was gracefully allowing us to squat under his tent, so we signed up. then…after already being soaked, the water got too heavy in the top of the tent, and it broke on top of us, waterlogging us even more than we already were. luckily, no one was hurt. and actually, it was pretty funny. (i laughed, anyway.)

what was most remarkable (and wonderful) about the event, at least for me, was seeing so many gay couples openly showing affection to each other. i had to remind myself that we were in a Safe Zone – and god, how i wish that the entire country were a Safe Zone. (hell, i’ll just take cincinnati when you get right down to it.) sometimes when i see gay couples showing affection in public, i worry, because i know that there are still a lot of people who aren’t as accepting of gay people. especially with the recent hate crime, i just want my friends to be careful because i don’t want anything bad to happen to them because of some Intolerant Asshole.

one really encouraging thing i’ve noticed in recent past, and more evident today, though, is the growing recognition of the bisexual population within the LBGTQ community. from my personal experience, being bisexual can be, well, marginalizing. even though i’d place myself at about a 1.5 on the kinsey scale, and mostly date men, i still self-identify as bisexual. i’d wager that when you say the word “bisexual,” most people tend to think purely in sexual terms, meaning “will have sex with anyone regardless of gender.” while for some bisexuals this might be the case, there are also some of us who are attracted to people of any gender identity, and can emotionally and sexually connect with them as well. some people think that we’re “confused” (indeed, my gynecologist once told me as much during my annual exam one year when i was dating a man, when the year previously i was seeing a woman), lesbians we date fear that we will leave them for a man, men we date think we’ll leave them for a woman, and most straight men think it’s “huh-huh HAWT huh-huh.” bleh.

i think that as we learn more about human sexuality, and the many variances in gender, gender identification and sexual orientation, the more that people are understanding of the fluidity of our natures and that some people’s (and perhaps all people’s) sexual identity is not written in stone. and maybe once we can all grasp and accept that concept, then the entire world can be a Safe Zone.

(n.b. okay, i’ve gotten one nasty-gram, but grant me this small delusion of pretending my blog is more popular than it is. to his credit, my friend’s one nasty-gram counts for at least three. especially since my blog domain is hosted on his server, and he extended it for 2 more years, so there’s this whole little “obligation” thing going on.)

at any rate, i’ve come out of training and actually started my job, and me and the rest of my brand-spanking-new department have apparently been kicking some serious ass at our jobs, even for as new as we are. we’ve already received a slew of compliments in the short time we’ve been around. kinda makes you feel like you’re doing something right, you know?

i’ve managed to get a fair amount of things accomplished in the last couple of weeks other than work, though. for instance, i’ve had sushi, had a curry (or three), kicked some zombie ass in resident evil 5, played with cats, got invited to my friend’s wedding in lebanon next year (!), searched for an apartment, made a new friend, saw an afro-beat band, bought the new metric album (and now love it), and got hit on by a straight man at a gay bar. (yeah, i’m surprised at that last one, too. but it’s flattering nonetheless.)

so yes, i’ve been busy. my next goal? finding a date for a wedding in beirut. this should be good.