About that date...

So I went on the date. I turned into a ball of nerves about 30 minutes before meeting him. We txt'd back and forth as I tried to find a parking spot. I went a different entrance and embarrassed myself a little with "O hai! I back here!"

First impressions always amuse me. I went in with a certain...expectation. He completely defied said expectation and I was pleasantly surprised. Cute! Very cute!

The date itself was lovely. We ate sushi, we played video games and we saw a movie. Somewhere along the ride there was a spark of interest. The flirting went up a little as the night went on. There were a few innocent kisses during the movie. The good-bye was sweet with an offer of extending the date to a drink. I went home with a smile, thinking "Yep, I'll never see him again."

I'm so positive like that.

As of this writing we are still seeing each other. What started as mystery has turned into something else...what it is I can't quite say yet. He's sweet, charming, quiet, willing to stay up for 2 days just to see me. I genuinely like him and now I feel all awkward keeping a blog detailing my dating disasters. I will randomly post bits from the past, but will respectively keep the current details to myself.

Imagine that, I go in expecting a disaster and I come out with a crush.

Looky, Looky I gots a Date..y

It's been a while since I went on a date. Amazingly, this is a self-inflicted choice. I had an interesting summer which didn't really end on a good note, so I took a step back and made myself both physically and emotionally unavailable. Sad little life eh?

Over the past few weeks I've been...bored. Being a dating martyr is fun and all, it's saved me a lot of wasted time and energy, but a gal needs entertainment every now and then.

So I hit the online world again and there's a boy. I can't figure him out, which makes the whole thing equal parts intriguing and frustrating as hell. Perhaps I'm in for one hell of a ride. Normally in the past I've done the match, the chatting, the emailing, the talky-talk on the phone. Then two meet and *flop*. A little mystery might be the cure that ails me.

Get into the groove

Do you know Jami? She has this fabulous "little" (ha ha, little as in thousands and thousands of hits each month..bitch!) website. I highly recommend it if you are A: in need of entertainment and B: need to feel a little better about yourself.

When I noticed Jami and I hung out in the same city, I emailed her and thus a beeeyootiful friendship started to form. Well, we kind of Facebook stalk one another heh

She invited me out dancing last night and I happily accepted the visitation. I had been craving a visit to the dance floor for weeks and after my disastrous afternoon I needed a little distraction.

We hit this dive of a club. I guess it used to be a parking deck. It was small, dark and dank and I loved it! It was "Face off Friday" which translates into "Hip Hop/Rap/Reggae" night. We were in the minority which ended up being a blast!

We made our way to the packed dance floor and we shook our booties. This giant of a man started dancing with me. Not really my type but he had a chest of steel and good laws. I might need to change my perception of "type" lol. We drank, we smoked, and we had one helluva time. We chatted up some ladies from Cali who informed us that we were more California material than Atlanta since we were white and then reminisced about their lives going to Berkley schools and I overheard Jami shouting something about how Scorpios are so damned good in bed.

Towards the end of the night some rappers took the stage and I grabbed one of the cds they threw out into the crowd. Jami gave her digits to a very large black man which she totally blamed it on the alcohol baby.

Thanks girl, I haven't had fun like that in ages. Me thinks we need to make this a monthly occurrence! Oh yeah..and Happy Birthday!!!!!

Soooo...done?

I was married once. It wasn't pretty. When I tell people my story the #1 question I get asked is, "Why the hell did you stay so long?" and I don't really have an answer for that.

We were happy once, maybe. I'm pretty sure. The longer I am away from him, the fuzzier my memories of that life become. Our first official married fight happened 2 days into our honeymoon. It was only the first of many, many more to come.

We struggled, we tried to work things out. We produced a gorgeous child and oddly enough, his birth didn't really help our troubled marriage. We struggled some more after The Boy's entrance into the world but I knew it would never last.

The last 2 years of the marriage were awful, but in an odd way. He snooped into my life and didn't like the things he found. He confronted me, almost daring me to admit to things I had only dreamed of doing. I stayed because I felt an obligation to my son. I didn't want to break up his world and I thought, "If I can just get past this episode of unpleasantness everything will be fine."

One day I woke up and realized that I had been thinking and/or saying that phrase for almost the entire marriage. "If we can just buy a house, we'll be fine"..."If we can just pay off those goddamn credit cards, we'll be fine"...If, if, if. My life was a continuous pattern of looking over the next hill to see if the landscape ever changed. It was almost like driving through Kansas. Field after field of broken promises, failed dreams, and hoping that things would get better on their own.

The day we split was interesting to say the least. By that point I was Done with a capital D. I was finished with the fighting. I wrote him a letter and then sat and looked out the window while he read it. He ranted, he raved, he paced, he sputtered. The final line in my letter was, "I don't care what we do, but I'm over it." He asked what that meant and I shrugged my shoulders. He asked if I wanted to split up, I said "I don't care." He asked if I wanted us to stay together, I said "I don't care." It was then that we looked at each other and he said, "So are we done?" and I said "I guess we are."

It was that moment, that critical and simple moment that changed everything. In my head I could hear a heavy book slam close. I felt a tremendous weight off my shoulders. I sat by while he went into this weird, autonomous mode. He stated that he felt I was getting ready to leave, so he had been doing some research. He started dividing up our possessions, inquiring into what I did and did not want. He discussed custody and how we would handle our mighty bills. He discussed child support and assured me he would NOT put me out in the cold. I was numb with relief, so I just nodded my head. So many details that later meant nothing. I sighed and said, "I'm hungry...want some Taco Bell?" I came home and he had taken off his wedding band. That, my friends, was that...

I have no desire to relive the months following the split, but I will summarize with this: things got ugly. I lost my home, I was prescribed Valium and Zoloft and I found solace in the arms of strangers. I wept as I said goodbye to his family. I knew that there would be no way to remain friendly with them, save one aunt who has stood by my side. We went to mediation to avoid court costs and he was shocked when child support was discussed. He became angry and changed before my eyes.

I had high hopes that he would become a better father with his limited time. I had high hopes that once all the details were ironed out, once everything was set in stone...that we would be able to move on. Instead he became angry. Whenever I look at him I hear Yoda in my head, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering"...only replace the word Fear with "Your goddamn responsibilities asshole!"

We call him, The Douchebag