Apres Awkward

Since there's nothing terribly traumatic happening this week, you might just be treated to something relatively light-hearted and hopeful today!

But maybe not. We'll see how it goes.

Last night, I was supposed to get drinks with the Biochemist (for those of you who aren't familiar with him, he's the guy I met online - oh dear - and then proceeded to have a very awkward three month non-relationship with). The last time I saw him, I was wine-drunk and sobbing. Ooh, rough. Jacob was there. I smeared mascara all over his white t-shirt. I woke up puffy. In general, not one of my better moments.

So naturally, I think he assumed that I was heartbroken by the demise of our relationship. Heartbroken, yes. About him, no. You see, technically - we can play this game all day - technically, I've never been really dumped. Like told, "This isn't working out. We should see other people." And even though I get mad points for telling him hours before he did it that he was going to do it, I was still upset. How often do you get dumped by a person you were going to dump?

We just didn't click. At all. We both should have known better after the first date that nothing romantic was going to evolve out of it.
But still, we persevered.

I like to drink and dance and get naked in public (kidding, mostly). He likes to run triathalons and give anti-meat lectures (only once. But once is one time too many for this bacon lover).

Anyway, I was excited to get a drink and hang out, although a bit worried that we wouldn't have much to talk about. Not that I should have worried, I am known for my ability to babble on endlessly at any time about anything. I am excited by the fact that we might be able to be friends.

So when he called, cancelled - I was exhausted, so that was actual a very welcome cancellation, chatted with me for awhile (good conversation - I forgot that he can be really funny. and so can I) and told me he was glad to hear my life was going well, I was annoyed. Maybe I was more annoyed by the fact that I told him (jokingly!) that my feelings were hurt and I was going to cry before realizing that his last memory of me is of me doing exactly that.

Am I that patronizing to my exes when we hang out? If so, I swear to never again tell them "I'm glad you're doing well," as though I'm alluding to the fact that I thought they'd be a schizophrenic mess without me.

I said goodbye, and hung up, cheered by the fact that I am a completely normal twenty-something sort of single woman. Bridget Jones would be so proud.

This time for Africa

It's been a year since the epic adventure that was Cape Town began...

I've not got the words at the moment, so here's the music video for the song that I most closely associate with our time there.

When I got there, that very first night, my German roommate Svenja and my host mom Priscilla (Mama P, affectionately) played this song and we danced to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRpeEdMmmQ0

For fall, even though you're not here yet

This summer was my first not-real-summer. I didn't get to lay out in the sun or dip my toes in the pool without having to worry if one of the kids I was watching was going to go face first in and shriek out in terror. I didn't get tan. (Preemptively, I purchased face powder a shade darker than normal. Turns out, I've just been a shade darker in the face for about a month. Attractive, I know.) I didn't see anything wonderful except brake lights and Colorado Blvd by morning and evening commute.

That's an exaggeration, but for someone who loves summer afternoons of freedom, the idea of sitting on the sixth floor of an office building has been one of grief. Youth is gone, mostly.

I've been smelling fall in the air.
Autumn is coming, it's right around the corner.

The mornings bite crisply even as the days reach nearly ninety degrees. The nights are scented with nature, sort of unnatural in the middle of the city.

To me, autumn means driving through crunchy leaves and dark afternoons. It means fresh notebooks (it must be left over from my school days). It means tights and my favorite tweed skirt. It means pumpkins and squash and witch decorations.

My freshman year of high school, I rode to school with a girl who lived down the street. For all of October, she had a CD of horror film soundtrack songs. And so every time I hear one of those songs, I'm thrust back into the fall of 2002, the red cloth in the Ford sedan, the CD player (she took the face of it with her every time we parked, just in case her car got broken into), that CD, and the leaves. Always the leaves - the music added such an eerie aura to them.

I love fall. I love the cool mornings and the warmth of the days. I hate how the sun slips away faster and faster until it's gone and the winter has set in.

But the promise of fall is a glorious one.

And Halloween is right around the corner. Yay!