Swamped

This past week has been brutal at school. I had to do an annotated bibliography for Humanities that involved TWELVE SOURCES and between a half page and a page of summary for each entry. On top of that, I've had to read two short stories for American Lit, and do Math homework and Statistics homework. This weekend I have a five page Literature paper to write, Math homework, a Statistics quiz to study for, and I still have two short papers for Humanities that I need to write that were due weeks ago!

The coming week doesn't seem like it will let up much, either. Besides the Statistics quiz, I have an Excel project and quiz for Math, I need to prepare a five minute PowerPoint presentation for Lit class, and I may have jury duty Wednesday, which will just throw everything out of whack. I wouldn't have minded jury duty so much had it come over the summer when I wasn't really busy. But during a semester when I'm struggling to make straight A's, and falling slightly short in a couple classes, it just comes as a bothersome and unnecessary distraction.

I am still hoping to get accepted to State soon, but because it is still hanging in the air whether or not my GPA will be sufficient, I am needing to register soon for another semester at Wake Tech, just in case. I have enough credits for an Associates Degree, or I will after this semester, so I am really out of classes that I want or need. I may sign up for a couple Psychology classes, but beyond that I have no clue what to take.

Seeing as I've been a little overwhelmed lately with school -- I'm not used to actually doing work -- I am a little concerned with how I will manage to cope at State when the classes are harder and the professor-to-student ratio is considerably lower. And the cost of school will be higher at State, which means financial aid won't extend as far. Unless my stocks begin to pay off quick, I may be forced to get a job, which will only push my education goals further from my reach.

Right now isn't a good time to look for a girlfriend. At the moment I don't have the time or the money to devote to dating. But lately I've been feeling a little isolated and it would be nice to fill the loneliness. As a result, I've been thinking about Ex again as a sort of self-medication. She has become my latest imaginary girlfriend, filling a space held by so many other girls before her.

Is it bad that I often seem to be walking the fine line between sanity and delusion?

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Refl-Ex-ions of the Past

I saw Ex again this afternoon. She was walking down Oberlin toward Hillsborough Street, near the NC State Bell Tower. This time it was unmistakably her, which can only mean that she's back in school, probably working on a Master's Degree of some sort. I was tempted to pull over and offer her a ride, but I thought better of it.

For the next few hours I actually found myself fantasizing about a potential chance meeting in some eatery along Hillsborough and what the conversation would be about. Permutation after permutation wound their way throughout my mind like a boa constrictor until the life was drained from me.

I had almost begun to forget about her. The thrice daily prayers for her return to my life to no God in particular had dwindled to perhaps a once a week afterthought, and I was actively weighing options for looking for a new face to fill the loneliness. Then, almost as if by clockwork, Ex walks back into my view to remind me that she's still alive.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want her to NOT be alive, I just don't want to be reminded that she's alive and not with me! Or, perhaps more to the point, I don't want to be reminded that she's still with HIM, the guy she left me for.

It's really hard for me to get away from the sense that I was cheated out of something. I was, after all. But, after all this time (it will be three years the first week in June) what do I think Ex could possibly do to rectify my loss? I mean, she did give me almost a year of her life. But her cheating on me took almost three years away. The problem, of course, is that she can't give me back those years... I took them away from myself. I'm the one who allowed me to become saturated in a thick sauce of sadness and regret. And it was me who allowed myself to subconsciously place Ex in the familiar role of a mother who shouldn't have been my lover and who left me before I was ready.

The anger and misplaced jealousy that have kept me tethered to Ex for the last three years is the same anger and jealousy I experienced as a child, years before I realistically should have. The real tragedy here is that it is the debt of my mother which I have been waiting for Ex, and numerous others before her, to repay. It is a debt that has taken far more from me than Ex ever could. And, unfortunately, it is a debt that no one can ever repay.

So, I suppose if fate were to one day make that chance meeting with Ex occur in real life, rather than waiting for her to apologize to me for any supposed misdeeds, it might be in order for me to offer up my own apology to her. After all, no one should be made to pay for a crime they didn't commit.

Keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

The Twists of Fate and Women

Life seems to take some really odd turns at times. I have a lunch date this Tuesday, January 20th, to eat pizza with a 20 year old girl named Ashley.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Yep, I have a date. Ashley is cute, but she smokes and she's had a bit of a wild life in her short time on Earth. I asked her out tonight at the Elk's Lodge while I was swing dancing. Her mother is one of the regulars at the dance. Truth be told, I'm attracted to her mother, too. And her mother is actually closer to my age than Ashley is. But, her mother is already dating someone and, even if she wasn't, she is unlikely to be interested in dating a guy who is in college. I'm pretty sure that my interest in Ashley is purely sexual, which isn't a good reason to ask someone out. It's especially not a good reason when there hasn't been much reciprocal sexual interest expressed.

Ashley wasn't the only girl I wanted to ask out tonight. There is a girl named Joanna who has recently started showing up at the dance whom I'd like to ask out. In fact, when I showed up at the dance tonight I actually intended to ask Joanna to lunch tomorrow, since I figured she wouldn't have to work on Martin Luther King Day. Joanna is probably around 30 years old and doesn't smoke or drink or anything like that, at least not that I'm aware. However, Joanna is apparently somewhat religious, which gives me some pause. I'm not particularly religious despite having grown up as a Presbyterian. You see, I went to a Presbyterian college after high school that pretty much cured me of religion. Ex was religious, but she was a Conservative Jew. I've long been attracted to Jewish girls (I like them even before I find out they're Jewish!) but somehow I wasn't ever bothered by their faith. It wasn't until Ex used her faith, or rather my lack of it, as an excuse for why we would never get married that I began to shy away from the idea of dating a woman who has a particular religious belief.

Joanna seems like a nice girl, and by spending most of the night talking to Ashley I've probably ruined my chance (assuming I had one) with her. The sad thing is I even spent a few minutes tonight toying with the idea of trying to date both girls at the same time, as though I somehow had the money and social wherewithal to maintain such a feat. Didn't I learn from that mistake in high school? I am so not good with women.

Have fun, and keep living life... But try to dance with one partner at a time!

Back in the Saddle Again

The semester is almost over. Final exams begin Thursday, with my last happening Monday the 15th. Actually, the Monday exam is just final presesntations for my HUM 220 class. I'm going to swing dance with a girl named Amanda who is in the class with me. I've known Amanda for a few years through swing dancing, although she dances West Coast while I prefer East Coast. I've long been attracted to Amanda, but there's a half dozen reasons that I'd never ask her out, not including the fact that she's never expressed any sexual interest in me whatsoever.

Truth be told, I'm not very good when it comes to asking women out on dates. Actually, I'm not great at reading social signals, in general, which leads to me being rather ineffective when talking to women. As a result, I don't date much. It's not unusual for me to go five years between girlfriends. I just don't think to ask women out very often since the reward vs. attempt ratio is so low. But, lately, I've been really looking for someone to ask out on a date (looking, not asking, being the operative word).

When I met Ex, I didn't ask her out the first time we met; we met at a laundromat. I might never have seen her again. If it hadn't been for some luck, and me going back to the laundromat at the exact same time on the exact same day of the week for the next MONTH, I would have never been able to ask her out. We dated for almost a year. Ex claimed that she liked the fact that I waited until our second encounter to ask her out, but I still think it was a stupid thing to do.

And yet I continue to do it! I hate asking women out on a first meeting. It just seems too aggressive. And I'd like to know a girl a little bit before I ask them to spend time with me. Apparently, the accepted custom nowadays is that you ask a girl out for coffee or, at the most, lunch. But I'd like to sweep a girl off her feet, not interview her to help me run a non-profit organization!

Perhaps I'm setting my personal standards too high. After all, with my financial situation I can't afford to sweep anyone off their feet. Although, if the economy continues to decline, sweeping a girl off her feet will only require buying her dinner items which AREN'T on the Dollar Menu!

My friend, Osterberg, is of the mind that a first date should always be a sedate affair because you don't want to set the bar too high in the beginning of a relationship. Perhaps he's right, although I always put more pressure on myself to maintain the bar than any girl I've ever dated has. And the relationships, like my relationship with Ex, likely suffered as a result of establishing some high expectation that I could never fulfill to my own satisfaction.

I think I'm starting to see why I needed to get the lightsaber!

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.