.no hard feelings.

i went out with the short guy last night. after a bizarrely fated chance meeting and possibly the longest chain of schedule-negotiating emails in the history of half-hearted dating, i got it over with. i went out with him.

what's more significant than the date, if not as interesting, is the entire day that i spent paralyzed with anxiety on my couch, with a hot water bottle and a pint of haagen daaz dulce de leche and the entire sixth season of sex and the city. i am terrible with anxiety. it's uncanny, my ability to swell up with inordinate amounts of anxiety about every tiny event in my life. i spent most of yesterday having a heart-pounding argument with myself: it's just a date. not even a date. a date is dinner or a movie. this is a drink. just one beer. but oh god, all i can see is opportunity for horror. where will we go, first of all? i can only handle a bar that is dark, with booths, and a wide selection of draft beers. i need there to be at least three ipa's to choose from. that is what i am comfortable with. and when i walk in -- how late should i be? -- will he already be there, or will i be first? and should i wait at the bar, have a seat, order? or should i sit at a booth? should i face the door, or away from the door? will he recognize me? that's silly. i always think that people will not recognize me, or when i call them and say, "hi, it's julie," they will pause for a good three or four seconds and then say, with irritation, "who?"

but of course he will recognize my face. my question is will he recognize me if i sit away from there door. probably yes, he will figure it out. i should sit a booth so that there will be sitting, and distance, and a table between us. and no awkward standing, and facing each other, and people looking at us and thinking, "that man is shorter than that woman."

that's how it goes. and goes.

my sister called later that afternoon, shortly after he called me to finalize plans. "he sounded so nervous," i told her. "i mean, i'm nervous too, but i don't act nervous."

my sister agreed. "i know. i mean, by the time you're in your twenties, you think you'd have your shtick figured out and you could handle calling a girl to make plans."

i must not have mentioned that he's slightly older than me. "yeah, you'd think by your forties you'd have at least that much figured out."

"WHAT? he's in his forties?!"

the age thing is much less of a problem for me than the height thing. this is evidently not the popular attitude.

i finally got up off the couch twenty minutes before i was supposed to meet him, at seven, at the dive bar down the street. not the one that's closest, that i go to most often, and that i like the best. i suggested we go to the slightly less convenient, less cool bar. i don't want anybody to see us.

i brushed my teeth, futzed with my hair, put on some blush. i tred on my usual going out clothes, shirts with a bit of a neckline that show cleavage and fit snugly. jeans that are tight in the ass. then i took them all off and put on a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt and a hoodie, sneakers. it was something i would wear to school in the eight grade, comfortable, mother-approved. i was going for ugly. my phone rang and i chatted for ten minutes, not bothering to say i should probably go, i'm about to be late. and at seven on the dot, i jogged out the door and headed to the bar, boyish, frumpy, and frowning.

he was there first, sitting at the bar and halfway through a beer. i didn't even need the knitting project and book that i bring with me every where i go just in case, god forbid, i am alone and don't know what to do with my hands. i said hello, sat down at the next stool, and ordered a shot of whisky, neat, with a beer back. i drank it quickly and it went straight to my head. in all of my anxiety, i forgot to eat dinner.

i'm a nervous talker. i started talking immediately and didn't stop for an hour. i talked about my job, how hard it is to quit smoking, my ugly couch, my friend's baby. i talked on and on about the most mundane topics and didn't pause for him to contribute to the conversation. it's an awful nervous habit, talking too much, but i couldn't seem to turn it off.

he seemed bored, confused, possibly annoyed with my antics. it didn't take me long to get drunk. i was shitfaced by eight o'clock and slurring words. we were talking about movies, and i was a caricature of a drunk lady, like in that episode of friends where rachel gets drunk on a date and realizes she needs to get closure in order to get over ross and throws a man's phone
into the champagne bucket. i kept saying, "have you seen that movie? what's it called? what's it called? WHAT'S IT CALLED?" only drunk people do this, repeat themselves like this, louder and louder without giving any more information.

i looked at his legs hanging off the bar stool and wondered what they would look like in bed, if i would notice that they were short, smaller than mine. i'm five foot seven and i have long legs. this guy is all torso. i won't be able to handle it.

he was the one to finally call it a night. at 9:30 sharp. i wonder if he did that because i'd been staring at the clock all night, not because i was bored, but because i didn't want to forget to go to bed at a decent hour on a sunday evening. i was about ready to say, sorry, buddy, but i need to head home to bed, when he finished his beer and said, "i think it's about time" or something to that effect. at this point, i had been loaded and rambling for about an hour, not to mention neurotic, badly dressed, and unable to make eye contact for the whole night. it occurred to me that this guy was not that into me. he wanted to leave early, he didn't make a single attempt to touch me or act flirtatious. dude was not into me.

this was perfect. i'd achieved the effect i was going for. we had no spark, no chemistry, and it was mutual. i was elated. i also had the spins.

i woke up this morning with a hangover fit for a saturday. i made coffee and left it on the stove because the smell of it was repugnant. then i sat at my kitchen table eating low-fat cottage cheese out of the container very slowly in hopes that i could keep it down and that it would prevent me from barfing. when i got to work, after a particularly dizzying and hot bus ride in which i didn't get a seat and accidentally managed to punch myself in the face when the bus slammed on its breaks, i kept my wastebasket very near. just in case i might hurl at
my desk, within earshot of my boss.

i was so pleased with myself to be in the clear, to have endured the dreaded date and to have arrived at a blissful state of mutual disinterest. no one is to blame. no one is guilty. it's just not
meant to be. he won't call, or if he does, it will be after a few days, and with some lame apology. and i'll say it's okay, i'll see you around. and he'll tell the story of his bad date with the 26 year
old lush, and i'll tell of how i'm a basket case who can't handle dating and i have a height complex. no hard feelings.

.uncommon knack for embarrassing everyone in the room.

so i'm sitting at my desk at work and the front desk bell rings, so i run out there all hungover and with food in my teeth or whatever and probably fucking cat hair fucking all over me. and standing there is the FUCKING GUY that asked me for my number on new years, who was all too short for me, but then when he didn't call i was all, fuck holy shit, now I'M BEING REJECTED BY SHORT MEN. so i'm standing there and having this totally awkward "what are you doing here?" "no, what are you doing here?" conversation with this guy. so i decide to say, and then proceed to say, out LOUD, "so, you never called me." cuz that's really gonna make the conversation less fucking weird.

and then it was just terrible and embarrassing as i suddenly realized that i'm standing there, at work, and announcing that i've been rejected, and then my coworkers started walking in. so i just died on the spot. it was horrible.

and then the sad, pathetic nature of my situation really hits home when i sit down at my desk and start to tear up while staring at my cold microwaved trader joe's enchiladas. my phone starts to ring and i think, either it's one of my friends for whom i just left a "omigod i'm so embarrassed" voice mail, or it's him. calling. because somewhere between the awkward confrontation and the searing humiliation, i charmed him. because that's what i was going for, you know, was like, casablanca or whatever, "of all the offices in this town, you had to walk into mine." but it came out more like, "i'm scary and angry. turn and run." anyway, so i have this moment of, like, hope and it's an unknown number that is calling me, so it must be him, and he must have walked right out of my office and thought, "i'm a fool not to have called her!" and i answer it, all cocky and flipping my hair.

"hello, julianne? this is so-and-so, confirming your fucking doctor's appointment tomorrow, you sad loser."

.i want to be an Actress Patient when i grow up.

so you know when your alarm clock goes off at 6:30 am and, in the disoriented state of being still half-asleep, the voices of newscasters and djs seem divine, as if proclaiming godly news of weather and pop songs?

it's like that for me every day. except today, what i heard on opb was legitimately moving. it was this doctor telling the story of his 89 year old mother who was grieving the death of her late husband, and started going to the doctor A LOT. the doctor finally realized that she wasn't visiting doctors for medical help, but for companionship and to have something to do. so he hooked her up with an actual job as an actor-patient at a university to help train medical students to diagnose patients. she gets paid to act, meet people, and help students learn to be great doctors. and she loves it. she calls herself an Actress Patient and is passionate about her new job.

how about that. there's hope for a meaningful career even at 89. thanks, alarm clock-cum transmitter of divine pep talks and wake up calls. message received.

.stay a while.

i started to unpack my new apartment today. i mean, really unpack ALL of the boxes. take out and arrange my things that are decorative and not useful. this is a big deal for me. i have moved seven times since i moved to portland three and a half years ago. in 2006, i lived in four different apartments. i'm totally serious. i have learned, from all of this moving, not to unpack all of my belongings. i unpack the pots and pans, the plates, the sweaters if it is winter, the shorts if it is summer. but the vases, the little madonna figurines and antique perfume bottles, the old picture frames, these are best left tucked away in newspaper and tissues, waiting for the next move.

but this new apartment, i'm telling you, it's beautiful. and it's all mine. it's big, with multiple rooms. i could have guests and still maintain privacy. it has a bathtub and hardwood floors. i want to stay here for a while. staying somewhere for a year would be a record for me, but i'd like to stay for more. i'm sick of moving, of packing and unpacking, of taking things to the goodwill and of paying security deposits. it takes all of my energy for weeks at a time. i mean, there's the searching, the looking at places, the deciding, the giving notice, the packing, the rallying friends and trucks, and then the big day, the move. it's an ordeal, exhausting and stressful. it's the reason i didn't pull it together to buy or make christmas presents this year and why i dropped out of the knitting class i paid for last winter.

i'm embarrassed to say, considering the inconvenience moving so many times has caused me and all of my friends, that i don't think it's an accident that i've moved so much. i don't think it's a series of unfortunate coincidences that have sparked three moves in one year. i think it's me. i think it's because i've been bored, if i had to pin it on one thing. i think i'm bored of myself and i don't know what to do, and then i start to pick and dwell on the loud neighbors or the lack of ventilation, the shower pressure is all wrong and the laundry just went up twenty five cents a load. it's dirty and i'll never get all those dust bunnies. i need a fresh start, a clean slate, to start over with something new. and when i'm in the heat of it, it's a thrill: stalking craigslist, touring apartments, shopping for new neighborhoods and bathrooms and lives. i think it's made me feel, in the past, like i wasn't just moving, but like i was moving forward. and i think i got hooked on that feeling.

my dad guessed this about me. i told him about my last move triumphantly like i'd accomplished an impressive feat, finding and relocating to my own apartment. and he was happy for me, but he said, "next time you get bored, maybe you can get a haircut or something." we don't talk much, my dad and i. much more than when i was living his house, but not enough that he really knows how i've struggled with my own restlessness and yearn for some personal progress and accomplishment. my ivy league friends have masters degrees, are running craft breweries, have already finished terms in the peace corps, are learning to deliver babies, are pursuing their dreams. i am trying desperately to figure out exactly, or hell, i would settle for a vague idea of what my dreams are. or rather, i've been treading water, manufacturing elaborate distractions for myself, wrapping breakables in tissues and borrowing moving vans.

but that's done. seven times is the charm. this apartment is my home, and it's going to be for years. plural. i'm not just unpacking my boxes, i'm breaking them down, flattening them, and slicing through the neat seams of packing tape. even though this makes my breath tight, and i raise my voice in my head: "you're making this so much harder for when you move again." but i'm not living in an apartment full of boxes. i'm not worried about moving again, i'm worried about staying. and when i get bored, which i will, it will be with me, not with the neighbors' parties or neighborhood bars. and i WILL get a new haircut. i will take a class, run a marathon. i will indulge any other impulse, and i will drag myself to therapy, to a singles bar, to the gre's. because moving forward is not achieved through moving apartments. it's time for me to start making some actual progress, and in order to do that i need to stay put.

.the perks of being a bus rider.

riding the bus is a pain in my ass. but the one major perk (besides not having to drive and give up half my paycheck for parking) is getting to watch the infinite parade of freaks who ride public transit.

usually when i walk out the front door of my apartment building at 7:30 am into the inevitable cold, rain, and darkness, i'm checking my pocket for my keys and lamenting not getting into my warm, safe, and solitary car. i mean, shit, it has radio that i can sing to. i can talk to myself in there. i guess i can talk to myself on the bus too, and i wouldn't be alone.

but rarely is a ride in my car as eventful as a ride on the trimet circus. i mean, i almost never have to call the cops on myself for refusing to pay fair, or for ranting and screaming and refusing to get out when i'm told to leave. this happens on the bus, however, once a week. i almost always take care to wear deodorant, and not to smell like throw up or booze. and when i'd like to get out of my car, i almost always stop for myself and open the door. rarely do i have to fight my way through a crowd of strangers to reach the door just in time for the car to pull back out into traffic, and rarely do i have to walk back several blocks to get where i'm going.

the bus seems to motivate me in a surprising way that being late to class or even high school gym never did: it makes me run. there's something unnerving about the haphazard staccato of the bus schedule. it's not going to arrive just when you're ready for it. stopping to feed the cat or to grab my mittens on the way out the door could mean waiting in the cold for an extra five, ten, or fifteen minutes. you never know. this makes me walk extra fast in my black work pants, staring ahead at the bus stop and nervously wondering if i'm going to miss it. and more than once have i run across the street, arms flailing, coffee splashing, ipod ear buds falling into my hood, to crash through the doorway at at the last possible moment to stare at a busload of people who have just witnessed me behaving desperately and foolishly. i thought i was too cool for that.

i remember when i first invested in my yearly pass -- that's right, a full year of bus ridership, not one of these pithy month-to-month passes, those are for pussies-- i was excited to interface (yes, i said interface) with so many people on a daily basis. i mean, odds are that some of them will be men, some of them will be single, there could be serendipitous seat swapping, eye contact while reaching to pull the yellow next-stop cord. the bus ride seemed to sparkle with romantic possibility. in reality, it sparkles more of urine and soda cans.

so far, the romantic bus fantasy has gone unrequited. i have, however, developed a (platonic, of course) fondness for some of the strangers (emphasis on strange) who ride the 12 and the 19. there's big fat long hair baseball cap guy, who wears shorts in the cold and removes his hat periodically to wave and fluff his hair like in shampoo commercials. i worry for his cold calves. and there's the sci-fi hipster, who i can't figure out if he's an adult or a teenager, but he's cute in that gangly anemic hipster way and wears t-shirts of punk bands and skinny jeans before they were co-opted by the gap and always reads paperback sci-fi novels. there's girl who gets on and off at the exact same stops as me. she's just a little bit skinnier than i am, with a slightly cuter handbag, boots, and jacket. i try not to scowl at her, but i can't stop myself.

so all in all, while the comfort and ease of solitary driving is not on my work commute, it is in part compensated for by these and other captivating characters. thank god most of them don't require phone calls to the police.

.relaxing by the skin of my teeth.

so today was my first day off from work. not thanksgiving, not christmas, just an extra day with no specific celebratory expectations. i went to bagby hot springs. like, i planned ahead. i hardly ever do this, and consequently i spend almost all of my weekends putzing around, running errands until the day is done. but this is a new year and i want to do things, not just run errands.

it took two hours to drive out there, plus a short hike. for an hour in a mineral-filled tub, it takes almost a full day of transportation. i forgot to get gas in estacada, the closest town by 40 miles, and spent the rest of the day wrestling heart palpitations. i was almost sure we were going to run out of gas. out there, in the middle of nowhere, and we were going to be stranded with nothing but a bag of trail mix and our already empty nalgenes, and we were going to die.

this is my day off, people. the fun adventure that i've been looking forward to for weeks. and i spent almost all of it in a state of panic. the almost empty gas tank has nothing to do with it. if it weren't for that, i'd be terrified that my cat was dying of an apartment fire, or i left the stove on, or i said or didn't say something to somebody that was all wrong. i'm a worrywart of the worst kind. i worry way past what is cute or comical, and on into what is terrifying to me and frustrating and annoying to others.

by the time we had arrived to the springs, having slipped and slid our way for a mile and a half of frozen trails, i didn't even want to be there. i was ready to turn back around and get over with what we were about to do, just go and get stranded, hitch hike, walk for gas, call a friend, whatever. we were filling our tubs and the water scalded my ankles and i was thinking, as i tend to think when i'm in a panic, that i am incapable of enjoying anything, of having any fun or living in the moment. the slightest problem arises, and i lose my cool. i am not someone you want to be held up with in a convenience store.

thank god for hot water, heavy and sour with chemicals. that's why you go to the hot springs in the first place, to relax, but i was shocked that it worked. as soon as i got in the tub, i was mesmerized by overhead branches and the pucker of my toes. i actually began to take it easy. for me, this is a minor miracle. my kitchen cabinet is a shrine to relaxation, filled to the gills with wine, bourbon, melatonin, tylenol pm, niquil, pot. and i take it all, daily. with moderate effect.

that feeling lasted all day, that wet, heavy feeling that lubricated the rest of the drive home, during which the tank never even approached empty. i'm crazier than i can even anticipate sometimes.

.hangover 2007.

so it's new years day. 2007. i slept until 3:30 in the afternoon, waking only to pee and swallow back bile. it was the first new year's hangover that lived up to expectations. it was over the top and i was over the toilet. happy new year.

i came home a few minutes ago to my new fabulous one bedroom apartment and wanted to write. this computer's been sitting in basements and closets for years now. i haven't used it since college. i figured i'd just use word and type out some new year's resolutions. but i clicked on one of the airport networks on the menu bar and was surprised to see it light up with four full bars. i had no fucking idea this computer was set up for wireless internet.

i'm sure this means i'm the world's stupidest computer user. but hot damn, do i feel lucky. i went from not having a functional computer to free wireless internet in my apartment!

one of my new year's resolutions this year was going to be not to date. just to give it up, for one year, worrying, waiting, wanting. just focus on being comfortable and quiet, on being calm and content. just focus on me. and worry about someone else later. so of course it is fitting that i gave a guy my number in the first few hours of the new year.

my friend's husband, offerer of eye-rolling and simple, sage advice, says "don't second guess yourself." and i realize that i don't know the difference between my first guess and the second. i mean, is it my first guess to go out with a guy because, hey, it's just a date, and why not? or is that nagging feeling of nausea, that hunch that if i have to talk myself into giving somebody a chance, even though i'm not immediately attracted to them, is that what came first?

and why, on the first day of the new year that i pledged to put me first, am i already thinking about compromise?

i don't think you grow into wanting somebody. i think it's as immediate as liking cilantro or pistachios. you do or you don't, and there's no room for talking yourself into or out of it. i think when you meet somebody that makes you excited, you will feel excited, and when you meet somebody who is special, you will feel special. and there doesn't seem to be a way to expediate that, to hurry up and bump into that person. you can go out to a lot of bars, and you can dole out a lot of numbers, and you can have a whole bunch of first dates, but trying on a lot of people doesn't help you meet the right one faster.

i used to think staying home was a waste of time because you can't meet anybody when you're home alone. but every night you spend cultivating interests, relaxing, knitting, cooking, reading, writing, learning, and figuring it out what the fuck makes you happy, i think that gets you a whole lot closer to being happy with a partner. because if you're not happy by yourself, you won't be happy just because you're with someone.

i think i've put that expectation on everyone i've dated: i like you, so make me happy. with people who have something going on, their own friends and passions and interests, i'm needy. i want what they have. i want to suck it right out of them. and when they pull away from me to focus on these other things, i feel abandoned and jealous. with people i've dated who are sad, bored, and don't have their own interests, i hate them for being so needy and boring. but there's no point in putting that pressure on any relationship, on any other person. because nobody else could make me happy, no matter how much they loved me and wanted to, when i'm not happy by myself. it doesn't matter how sweet the icing tastes on a rotten cake. and i have got to work on my cake.