Who'da Thunk It?

And in a completely shallow, non spiritual, petty vein, and I am saying this here only because this is my space to bitch, moan, and wonder why...

Why do people who were were bitches to me in high school keep sending me friend requests on Facebook? I don't understand. Why? It's a mystery.

Prayer

Dating With Minimal Damage

Hello to anyone out there who is reading this, how are you? I'm good, thanks for asking.

The thing that I want to talk about is dating. I'm still chewing the experience from last week over in my mind, not out of malice or self pity, but because it was a learning experience for me and I am trying to extract what I can from it.

Dating is lots of fun, I enjoy meeting people and getting to know them, plus there's the sex and that part is good, but what really sucks about dating is that there is so much rejection flying around. It seems that everyone is constantly either rejecting or being rejected by someone and feeling sad about it. A couple of months ago I went on one date with a guy and declined a second date because I did not like his shirt. I am not kidding, it's true, his shirt was really tacky. Of course if I liked everything else about him the shirt would not have mattered, but in this case the shirt was the tipping point. He wanted to know why and I told him that the reasons were completely arbitrary, which is true. How could I tell him that he's a dork and I didn't like his shirt? That would be cruel.

So anyway, how then can I continue to date, which is something I want, while keeping the damage to a minimum? I don't want to hurt anyone and I don't want to be hurt myself. I want to have fun! I want to be in love. But the only way to do that is to get to know someone, and with that comes the risk that he is not what I am looking for, or I am not what he is looking for.

To avoid hurting others, I think that it is really important that I do my best to be respectful and honest. Also essential is taking it slow. It is easy to meet someone and think they are awesome and make promises I may not be able to keep. What I don't want to do is give someone the message: I love you I think you're awesome and I think we will be together for the rest of our lives, then get to know them, change my mind, and reject them. That is a shitty thing to do and I don't want to do that to anyone. I also don't want to scare them off, LOL. So I need to be careful and proceed with caution. I think I can relax and have fun but be careful not to make promises or talk about what we will do in the future until I have really had a chance to get to know someone.

These ideas are an important part of what I need to do to protect myself as well. If a guy talks about what we will do in the future on a second date, I will take it with a grain of salt. He might decide he doesn't really like me that much and then I will be crushed and that will suck. OK, so now I have a plan.

I've also been thinking about what makes a good first date. Dinner and a movie is not such a great idea because you have to sit there and chew and make conversation around chewing. I love going out to dinner and if my dining companion is a good friend we can relax and chill, but first dates are awkward. If things are not going well you have to sit there through a whole meal when maybe you just want to leave. After making small talk and chewing for an hour, there is the awkwardness about who pays. Meeting for a drink or coffee or something like that is better because you can sit there for a long time if you want but you can also leave.

An old friend is taking me to dinner tonight. It will be a fun no pressure date because we are already friends (I've known him for about 15 years) and also he lives far away so it's just a friend thing. He reads my blog sometimes so Hi Brad!

Happy HNT!

Hey now it's me, Sugarmag, wishing you all a very happy Thursday.

Congratulations Ms. Atwood

I was listening to the radio this morning and the first thing I heard as I was waking up was that one of my favorite authors won the Booker award for one of my favorite books. Margaret Atwood won the Booker award for The Blind Assassin. Happy dance!

Tuesday Shrooms

I am really really tired from so many nights staying up late working on my data base, but before I sleep I want to put up a recipe because it is, after all, Tuesday.

Way back a long time ago when I was in high school (around 1990), I was a vegetarian and I worked in a vegetarian cooperative grocery store. I live in a college town and when you are in high school in a college town, there's really not much to do but hang out on campus and that's what I did. My favorite haunts were The Nature's Table, The Depresso on Goodwin, and the Red Herring Coffee House, I was a 16 year old college progressive! Around that time I saw Carrie Newcomer play live for the first time (she played at both the Red Herring and Nature's Table regularly) and I learned to cook. This recipe that I want to share with you is from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, which was one of my first cook books...

Mushroom Pate

4 tablespoons butter
3 cups chopped onion

In a large skillet, begin cooking the onions in butterover medium heat. After about 5 minutes,add:

1 lb chopped mushrooms
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp dill weed
balck pepper
cayenne

Stir well and cook uncovered over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes.

Add:

3 Tbs dry white wine (you can use dry vermouth)

and stir, cook for another 5 minutes. Sprinkle in:
1/4 cup wheat germ
and continue to stir, cook for anohter minute or two. remove from heat. Cut into the mixture:

8 oz neufchatel (or cream cheese).

Use a food processor with a steel blade to puree the mixture. Transfer to alarge mixing bowl and whisk in:

1 lb (4 cups) ricotta cheese.

Bake in a buttered casserole or loaf pan at 400 for an hour and 15 minutes. Chill before serving, and then sprinkle with:

paprika
chopped fresh parsley
and serve with crackers or toast points.






You never know who'll be your witness, you never know who grants forgiveness, look to heaven or sit with us.

xoxo

I'm Tired But I'm Good

My data base is done! I still need to do a little extra credit UML representation but that won't take long, and then I can do fun stuff like projects for my other classes. Ok so I am not exactly ready to celebrate yet and I am super tired, but I am getting through it. And you know what? This work is fun! I even kind of enjoyed building my data base.

This video is from the Grateful Dead movie. Good ol' Grateful Dead.



When in doubt, twirl!

I'm Gonna Lick This Thing Yet

I entertained the idea of dropping my database class today. The idea was very appealing but then I talked to someone else in my class and she said, "No! You are so close!" Then she helped me with a thing I was having trouble with so I guess I won't drop the class.

She is so awesome.

And Also

I love writing here LOL...

The dude I swear I am going to stop obsessing over clearly had issues. He was just divorced a few weeks ago after having an affair for years with his wife's best friend. So without going in to details (because who cares really?) he moved out over the summer, but before he did, girlfriend finally got impatient and hooked up with someone else. She was really pissed though and even though she had broken up with him, she was sending him lots of angry messages. Ugh.

Maybe he is still in love with her? It sounds like the things he talked about doing in the future with me are things he did with her, maybe he wanted me to be her, but less crazy. I dunno but the more I think about this the less I take any of it personally.

Better All the Time

Hey it's me. I am feeling better today. I have a lot to do, my house is a mess and I have a lot of work to do for my database class. That part is ok, I am learning a lot.

I think part of why I was so upset about the "break up" is that I was feeling rejected as much as I was upset about the loss of the dude. He was ok, there were a lot of things that I really liked about him, but he was far from perfect. There were things I did not like about him, too and ultimately, it's just as well. I think he is wiser than me and I am glad he ended it. Sorry for all the drama (insert eye roll here).

I'll meet someone or I won't. In the mean time, I have lots of groovy friends to keep me company. One is coming over later today to help me clean my gutters. If that does not make him an awesome friend, I don't know what does. He is also 20 years older than me and married :(. It's like the end of Some Like It Hot, Nobody's perfect. LOL.

Anyway, I got's shit to do.

xoxo

P.S. I think that one thing that made the "break up" (it was only two and half dates) difficult for me was that he talked so much about things we might do in the future before abruptly losing interest. I am going to be careful not to do that to other people, I'm not going to talk about things we might do next month until I am pretty sure we will still be friends in 6 months. That is just confusing. I am not sure why he lost interest, but from some things he said, I think it had as much to do with other things going on in his life as it did with me. I am trying to be considerate, kind, and respectful of other people but while I am doing that, I have to be myself. I am not going to dwell on this anymore. Life is short and I am going to spend it having as much fun as possible.

Gift

I'm still feeling a bit hit upside the head by today. I saw it coming and I was braced for it, but the impact sucked nonetheless. Now I am picking myself up, dusting myself off, and listening to some Grateful Dead.

Sometime last week one of my favorite people over at the Pub uploaded a show to Rapid Share so that I could listen to it. It's not on archive because it has been released commercially. It's a damn good show from 1969 and so I am sharing the wealth and putting the links up here so that you can listen to it too, if you want.

03/01/69 (Sat)
Fillmore West
San Francisco, CA

Set 1:
Cryptical Envelopment >
The Other One >
Cryptical Envelopment >
New Potato Caboose >
Doin' That Rag >
Cosmic Charlie

Set 2:
Dupree's Diamond Blues >
Mountains Of The Moon
Dark Star
St. Stephen >
The Eleven >
Lovelight

E: Hey Jude

This is a famous show and listening to it is way fun! These are rar files so after you download them, you will need to extract them. If you don't know how to do that and want to, just ask me and I'll help you out. It's really easy. The encore is in mp3, and it is actually really bad but kind of funny. Here are the links...

I really like Mountains Of the Moon. I love Jerry's voice any time, it's pretty sweet.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

encore

Have a wonderful day xoxo

Random Free Floating Random Thoughts

I am feeling a little down today, like I could sit around all day and listen to some Neil Young. It should be raining but it's not. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep because I have been working on a couple of assignments for my database class. It has been hard to get it done because I spend so much time taking care of my kids and I stay up late but when it is late I do not work effectively. So I just tired.

I met a guy and we went on a couple of dates and he lost interest. This happens, I know it is all part of it. I'm just sad because I really like him. Well, I have hurt others and so maybe I deserve it. Why can't I be really into someone who is also really into me? Sigh.

Dear friends who are reading this, please don't feel the need to write sympathetic comments, in fact if I remember I will turn comments off for this post when I done writing. I'm ok, this is just a place for me to put it. I'm just sad but I will move on.

I'm trying to be more even emotionally. I'm not really bipolar, at least not clinically, but it seems I am either really happy or really sad. Is the sad worth it? I know it is. I just don't feel so great at this particular moment. It doesn't help that I am so tired.

I need more fruit. Sleep would be good too.

Eat More Fruit!

It's so good!