Citygrrrl

My world, at least.  Weds night was a lovely make-up for not hanging out on Tues night.  NG cooked a nice dinner, we went for a walk at sunset, made mad passionate love, then watched a movie.  The rest of the week followed a similar pattern of fun activities and time well spent.  We have some sort of plan for nearly every weekend through the rest of the summer.  Yet I feel like I still have plenty of time for myself.  It’s good.

Six more days and counting until my boy returns from Paradise. He called last night, tipsy on pina coladas, to chat. It was a fun chat, full of laughter and banter. He also told me he misses me “quite a bit.” He’s having a grand time snorkeling, swimming, hiking, and lounging on the beach so I’m pretty glad he misses me at all! I feel like I’m handling his absence pretty well. I miss him to pieces but I have enough going on to distract me from it. Especially on a beautiful day like today! Finally, some proper Portland weather!

I find out tomorrow if I got the job that I really, really want. It’s part-time, close to home (I could walk if necessary), and it pays well. I could hardly ask for anything better. I can take a part-time job because I have a side gig but neither is really enough to survive on so I need both. Getting this job would take a huge load of stress off me. NG hasn’t really known me without the threat of financial disaster hanging over my head. It’ll be awesome to be somewhat free of that. I’ve also had some other bummer-type family stuff percolating in the background. That looks to be over soon too. So, all in all, I’m feeling pretty excited about life and the upcoming summer. The mountains, the beach, the rivers. It’s good to be an Oregonian!

Ng is on vacation in Hawaii for two weeks.  He thought he would have cell service but after he texted me from the airport Saturday night, I didn’t hear from him again.   I sent him a couple of text messages but didn’t get a response.  Did he forget his cell phone charger? Did he get to his house in the jungle and discover that he had no service after all?  Am I going to have to go 9 more days without any contact at all?

I don’t need to be in constant contact but an occasional, “hi how’s it going?” is kind of nice.  So anyway, last night I got a call from a Seattle number and by the time my slowly moving brain figured out that it was probably his brother’s phone number, I had missed the call.  I called it right back and got voice mail because, of course, NG was leaving a message.  Arrrrrgh!  Sure enough, he only has one bar of roaming service which means he can get my text messages (broken up in random order, which makes them a fun word puzzle), but not send them or make calls.  His brother’s phone gets a couple of bars, so he borrowed it to call me.  Fortunately, he called me again awhile later and we got to chat.  Yay!  He wants me to keep the text messages coming, the naughtier the better.  It’s hard to send naughty text messages without getting naughty text messages in return, but I’m going to give it a shot.  He’ll call again in a few days, which works just fine for me.

There was a time several weeks ago when I thought I might have to go on a two month job assignment out of town. I would only be home on the weekends.  We ended up trying to figure out how he could be in Southern Oregon a couple days a week.  Happily, I didn’t have to go after all. With relief, he pointed out that we are just not wired to be apart for four days a week.  Pretty darned sweet.

Oh boy, this is a good one…

Christian Female Desired - 32

Hello , I am 32 and desire only a Christian female. Someone to go to the beach with , movies, church , mountain , whatever??? I go to church regularly and desire to meet someone with out kids to begin with and never married like myself. I’m a bit picky , but desire the lords will. Get a hold of me at your convienience. I am a bit short, 5ft 7 - 175lbs. Mike

My favorite part is “I’m a bit picky , but desire the lords will.” Good stuff.

Aaaaaghhuuummm.  I was shot down by CLG this morning.  He was polite but distant.  No suggestion that we meet some other time.  No date for me tonight!  I hate sitting around on a Friday night.  I may have to bake something ridiculous.  Or, maybe I’ll try to round up a couple of friends for a movie night.

Drinks with CLG went pretty well. He’s a nice Jewish boy from NY. I think I didn’t contact him originally via ConnectWithMe because he’s short. He was cuter than his photos though. He was also fun to talk with. We shared some online dating stories and talked about how we experienced 9/11. At the end I felt like he was in a hurry to leave, and I’m not sure why. I may be too tall for his taste. I think he wants kids, which could also be a deal-breaker. He only recently started dating older women. When I say older, I mean within 8 years. I’m 4 years older than him, which isn’t a big deal in my book, but it might be in his. As I say rather frequently these days, we’ll see.
After the date, I went to a birthday party. When asked why I was getting there so late I told the birthday-boy that I’d had a date over drinks and he said, “Oh yeah? How’d it go? Never mind, you’re here so it couldn’t have been that great.” It was an interesting point. I’m not sure what CLG would have made of this particular group of friends or what they would have made of him. I’ve never brought a date to one of our gatherings. I’m worried that any date I brought would feel like they were under a microscope. These are mostly a group of my guy friends. They all have spouses and significant others but I suspect they would be rather protective of me when it came down to it.

Anyway, I’m off to hang out with my ex husband and his girlfriend. I like my life!

Earlier I mentioned my reluctance in going to J-’s party Saturday night. I’m back, and it wasn’t bad! He introduced me to his brother and sister, I chatted with his new soon-to-be sister-in-law and it was all good. He did a nice job of playing the host. I was only there for maybe an hour but I think that was about right. He seemed sorry that I was leaving, which was sweet and kind of surprising given how his introduction to his girlfriend went.

It went something like this…

J-: Oh, and A-, this is Citygrrrl. I was telling you about her. Citygrrrl this A- my… <choking stuttering sound>… yeah.

Me: Hi! It’s nice to meet you! <thinking, oh god dude, you are so fucking dead>

A-: Nice to meet you too. <gas pain smile of impending doom>

The rest of the conversation went reasonably smoothly although attempts to bring her into the conversation were mostly met with more gas pain smiles. I beat a hasty retreat after making sure to include her in the invite to my upcoming housewarming party. It would have been a little easier if he had ever talked about her after we stopped dating. We’d go out for drinks or to a show and he’d never talk about her. I went into this party not even knowing if he had a girlfriend anymore.

It would have been nice to say something to her that indicated I knew of her existence. For instance, I could have said, “A-, I’ve heard so much about you; it’s nice to finally meet you! J- told me you were doing such and such, how’s that going?” All in all, it was fucking hilarious but I really need to make it clear to him that I have absolutely no problem talking about his girlfriend.

My other worry is that his unwillingness to declare her as his girlfriend will get me on her shit list and she won’t let him hang out with me. He claims to want to hang out more and see some shows coming up this month. Oh, what am I saying? I am so already on her shit list! It’s really just a matter of how they decide to handle it. Soooo, we’ll see how that goes!

Today is Saturday and rather than go to the house party of a former lover, I’m sitting here messing around on my laptop. I haven’t seen J- in several months and while we’re friends, I’m not anxious to go to his party. I won’t know anyone but him and possibly one other person that I met almost a year ago. On the other hand, I’m feeling a little guilty about not going.

<5 minutes later> Oh hell, I just called him to find out what time the party is at and he sounded like he genuinely wants me to show up so…I will. I have another party to go to afterwards so I’ll have a good excuse to leave. But, who knows? I might not want to leave early.

Sunday night I have a date with a guy I met online. He’s in an open relationship and is looking for a play partner. Play partner can mean many things but in his case it seems to mean he’d like to find a friend with benefits. Safe, fun, no strings. I’ve been in an open relationship myself so I understand where he’s coming from.

I’m also a fan of having friends with benefits. I’ve never had a one night stand and would prefer not to. It’s much more fun to have someone you like, but aren’t interested in romantically, as a semi-steady lover. My friends who are my lovers are people I have something in common with besides sex. We go out for drinks and talk, see shows, share a meal. It’s similar to dating but there’s the knowledge that it’s most likely temporary. I say temporary because in my experience, myself or my lover invariably end up committing to monogamy with someone else. The nice thing is that the friendship stays intact, even if we don’t see each other very often. That’s how it is with J-. We were lovers for a time and now we’re just friends. This guy I’m seeing tomorrow, if we dig each other, will fall into the same category.

It’s time to go make myself look presentable for this party…

My plan is to write entries based on current events and then when I feel inspired to do so, write background entries.  The last few years of my life have at times been like a Penthouse Letter, a dumb Jerry Springer episode, and a Meg Ryan movie.  I’ve actually managed to pare down on the drama and find some semblance of balance recently.  It’s very nice.