i've cheated

i hate to tell you people this, but i've been cheating. on you guys. with twitter.com.

there, i said it.

in my defense, i posted an invite for all of you, so it's not my fault really. plus, one or two sentence blogs are so much easier.

fortunately, i can multitask.

i have a lot to say, but i'm also tired, SO:

i'm having a problem with this guy who has become a little too attached to me. his name is zach. he's an actor/director/writer type guy. he's cute and all, and he ADORES me, so that's always what i look for in a man.

but lately, he's gotten too smother-y. he keeps calling and texting, and it seems he's rather needy. the other day, i said to him, i said, "zach, you can't keep doing this. all you're doing is pushing me away. you're suffocating me. and i know. i know that it's hard for you, being a super-famous actor and all. because i'm sure you're expecting girls to fall all over you. but i am not other girls. and i know i am fantastic, believe me i know. but you have to give me a little space."

and then he went on for about a half hour about how i was stunning and amazing and not like any other woman he's ever met before. and he loves my obscure sense of humor and also loves that i can kick his ass at castlevania. he loves how ivory my skin is, and the way my neck smells right where it meets my shoulders. he says even my PB&Js taste like heaven, and he can't stop thinking about me. he thinks i have the voice of an angel. and naturally he can't live without the incredible sex.

he started to cry a little bit, and i had to feel bad for him. i mean, how hard is it to want me so bad and not be able to have me? that would destroy any man.

anyway, i told him i didn't know what else to say and that i had to take another call and he said it was okay, that he had to get back on the set anyway (but i could tell he was lying.) and after i got off the phone, i went into my front room and watched some reruns of scrubs and watched him passionately kiss the chick on there for like 3 minutes. and i had to admit, he really looks sexy. his lips are so soft. he uses his hands a lot, and cradles your face in them. it's sweet. i bet when he has to kiss other girls that he imagines it's me.

he's texted me a few times in the last two hours, and i haven't returned any of them. i told him i was going to lunch with ed norton on thursday (which i'm not) and he sounded disappointed and asked to come over afterward. i said no.

but i do agree with him in a way. i am super beautiful and probably one of the greatest girlfriends a boy could ever have. i'm just not ready to settle down yet. can't anyone understand that?

not just the elderly get duped

my roommates and i were watching a dateline show this weekend. the show was an investigation into internet purchases made with stolen credit cards.

the camera crew, in disguise as a shipping company, would deliver packages to an older couple's house. on a weekly basis, this couple received tens of thousands of dollars in electronics that were purchased (unbeknownst to them) with a host of different cards, under the name of a woman who didn't live at their address.

the dateline crew investigated a little bit more each delivery, asking questions about the person whose name was on the shipments, who they were, did they live there, were they family, etc.

dateline was able to interview the husband about the packages and their contents. evidently, his "business partner", a woman in australia whom he had met over the internet, was buying all these things and using the couple as a waystation. she would buy stolen playstations, cell phones, stereos, etc, and have them sent to this house. the couple would repackage the items and send them to different places all over the globe for this woman.

by the end of the investigation, the wife was no longer at the house. i'm not sure what happened to the wife, exactly, but i can guess. it turns out that through internet correspondence and photographs, the woman business partner (who was model-esque, young, and WELL endowed) had declared her love for this rotund, 60ish, balding man with a speech impediment. she sent pictures that might as well have been in barely legal, and told him she loved him, she wanted to marry him, and that from the moment they first met, she knew they were "soul mates." he continued to receive and "launder" these stolen goods out of love for this young woman, for her love and the promise of lots of money in return.

as it turns out, he got neither.

dateline finally revealed who they were, and confronted him. they let him know that all of these items he was reshipping were purchased with stolen cards, and that he was being scammed by this "fiance" of his. once the news set in, you couldn't help but feel your heart burst a little bit for this man. watching his face, you could tell that even more than caring about the $40,000 of his own money disappeared in this venture without a dime in return, he was heartbroken more than anything else. he loved her. so much so that he didn't see that it was implausible that a hot, young, single, exotic girl would devote herself to an overweight, awkward, older, married man whom she had never met in person. mostly, it didn't occur to him because he didn't WANT to see it.

at the end of the show, someone in the room said, "how can anybody actually fall for that? how could he honestly not know he was being had?"

i agreed silently, and then gave it some thought. i began to see how an intelligent, normal human being can be taken advantage of. i know this because i have been.

i didn't send money and my bank account information to anybody in nigeria, nor did i fall for any pyramid scheme, thinking that if i invested a little money, i would get it back tenfold. though i didn't lose my life savings. i did lose some sleep, lots of pride, and many wasted hours being miserable - all of which are actually more valuable than money now that i consider it.

as i've said before, my friend bob tells me that i have a beautiful ability to see the wonderful traits in people, no matter how tiny these traits might be, and love them for it. the problem is, because of this, i am unable to see the "big picture" in people. this has done me wrong more than once, but used in the right situation, it's an amazing gift. i've gotten to know people - friends, boyfriends - because i was mesmerized by this one, miniscule beauty about them. and it drew me into relationships with them i would have otherwise overlooked.

i dated someone about nine months ago. i saw so many great qualities in him. he was clever, fun, unique, funny. he wasn't striking my any means. he was older, and had not taken care of his body. the first thing i thought when i saw him up close was how pale and "soft" his body was. his body had succumbed to a decade of bachelor living and laziness. but there was something about him i loved. his eyes, his curly locks of hair, his energy. i looked past the negative and petty things, and realized i had found someone amazing.

from the beginning, my friends were skeptical. they didn't like him. they told me they didn't know WHY they didn't like him, they just didn't. it was a feeling, a "something isn't right" sort of situation. and even though i've been on that side of the fence with friends of mine and their new boyfriends/girlfriends that i didn't trust, i tried to argue that this was different. i explained away all the things they didn't like in him. i had an excuse for each one, or so i thought. i was offended that i had to defend him to my friends. after all, i knew him so much better than they did. he was attentive, he made me feel good, i LIKED him. how is it possible for a feeling that strong to mislead anyone? i trusted my feelings, and i trusted myself.

i'm not sure whether the negatives about him got worse, or whether i was becoming more able to see them. but just like i did to my friends, i explained the little things away. but at that point, i was trying convince myself.

he refused to let me go anywhere where his ex girlfriend would be out of "courtesy" for her feelings. i thought this was gracious, until it happened four or five times. and i called him on it. "she's going to know you're dating someone eventually, right? you can't hide from her forever." now i know he wasn't hiding from her. he was hiding me.

he kept his apartment in as bad if not worse condition than he kept his body. i've had dirty, disorganized boyfriends before. it's a small battle that i'm over fighting. it's petty to me, and i can think of so many other important things in a relationship.

dishes would be piled up, hair covered his shower/sink, years of layers of dust rested on shelves. he was barely home, and his bed and shower were the only things that looked relatively clean because they were the only thing he really used on a daily basis.

there's no excuse for a man in his 30's to live like he lived. yet i tolerated it because i thought he was sweet, funny, quirky. and i was happy, wasn't i? i was most of the time, anyway.

things had been on a slow but steady downhill for a few weeks. and late one night, i woke up cold in his bedroom, him asleep next to me. i crawled out of bed and felt my way to his closet. at the bottom of his closet was a plastic basket where all of his clean boxers went, and i reached in to grab a pair to put on. what i grabbed turned out to be a pair of women's underwear. and i could tell even before i turned the light on that they weren't mine.

instead of walking, rather running, out of his apartment and never looking back, i woke and confronted him. my position was, "if you're sleeping with someone else, that's fine. i just want to know. i deserve to know, not only for my piece of mind but also my physical well-being, since we're sleeping together. so, are you sleeping with someone else?"

he explained it away, that of course he wasn't sleeping with anyone, and they had probably been in there since his last girlfriend had stayed there. possible and plausible -- especially due to his housekeeping practices. still, i should not have done what i did, which was turn off the light and crawl back into bed. my small act of defiance, brushing his hand off when he tried to wrap it around me, didn't turn out to be enough.

the really ridiculous part was that i didn't leave that night because it was a relationship i wanted to salvage. i adored and wanted him. hard to believe, but i did.

it continued to get worse, and at the end he made some extermely shallow excuses as to why it wasn't working for him anymore. instead of being liberated and relieved, i was devastated. and for a long, long time afterward. i wanted the wonderful thing that we had back. i wanted him back. badly. he was too wonderful to let go. what did i do to push him away?

i think back on this and i want to die. i think of all the things i wish i would have done. i wish i would have listened to my friends. and then later i should have listened to those little whispers in my head. i showed weakness, and blind, stupid love for a person who was and still is unworthy of me. i was the one who was abandoned, and hurt. i was the one that wasn't good enough for him. i was pathetic and sad. a reject.

i began to see things like this man on tv saw his life. all the signs were obvious, but my naive, optimistic, loving side saw things as i wanted to see them instead of how they really were. on good days, like today, i wonder why? why would someone like me, with a heart larger than my head, care about a soulless, lying creep? why do i feel like i lost the game? why do i feel inferior? why do i feel like i was tricked? why do i, to this day, still want him back sometimes?

i want to be the person i am in my blogs - bitter, pessimistic, judgemental, and skeptical about everything and everyone. i know if i were. it would protect me from just about everything in my life that hurts me. but i can't. i will always show someone i love them even if it makes me look weak, because i'm being true to myself and my feelings. i'll always love people who don't deserve my attention. i will always lose. i will always lose, that is, until i find someone just like me. someone who gives more than they get, who loses more than he wins, someone who nobody else can see the real beauty of. and when i do, i pray to god i don't fuck it up.

but in the meanwhile, all i can do is continue to be true to me, and make sure to listen to my head more than my heart every now and then. after all, my head reminds me never to send money to anybody in africa who claims to be a long, lost relative.

the week in review, vol 2

don't worry, this "week in review" shit ain't gonna last past this post. it's kinda gay i realize, but it's all i've got.

first of all, there's been an ongoing debate in a small circle of friends of mine. the jury's still out on it, but the male and female camps seem to be divided. here's the scenario:

say a guy lives next door from me. could be any woman, but we're using me to not incriminate anyone else. this guy recognizes me as being his neighbor, he may or may not know my name, and we've exchanged all of four sentences. he's not too kind, or too unkind to me. he's just, you know, GUY. hey, what's up? cool, see ya. typical guy mode.

if i am an attractive woman, can i go into his house, either invited or uninvited, and take advantage of him with no warning and no explanation? if there is confusion, by "take advantage of" i mean in the most adult way possible.

the women who have voiced opinion on this one have an opinion very similar to mine. i'm thinking, if it were me, what are the odds that he either a) looks at me like i'm insane, or (worse) b) kindly pushes me off as if to say, "ah, no. i don't think so."

the girls all seem to be worried about this, which is, i'm guessing, why this doesn't happen much outside of beer commercials and articles in Maxim.

the few guys who commented on this find it hard to believe that ANY man would not go along with this idea. still, i remain skeptical.

***

in other news, i'm having some driving issues. i hate driving. FANTASTIC passenger (we will discuss what makes me an amazing pasenger later) but i hate driving. there are many reasons for this. i have added on a few additional points to support my feelings this week.

people are starting to make their own rules in the name of politeness. it started out pretty benign, with people at 4-way stops waving people through when clearly the waver got to the stop first. but it's getting ridiculous now. i had some asshole stop traffic in the middle of a busy, two-lane road to let pedestrians across (mind you, there wasn't a crosswalk in sight - FOR A REASON.) who do these people think they are? you can't just say, "because i'm a nice guy, fuck the laws! please, go ahead. i'll inflict chaos for traffic in both directions to show what a polite driver i can be."

i hate these people. laws are LAWS. follow them. unless you are a super driver like me, in which case laws are merely suggestions.

***

i had a dream two nights ago that has been worrying me. i think somewhere, it's worrying freud also.

i was at a circus way out in the middle of nowhere. it was an inside circus, and it was more like cirque du soleil meets Double Dare (remember that show?) with trampolines, platforms and trap doors. however the idea of this "circus" was that they chose people from the audience to participate/compete. i participated, naturally.

and now the disturbing part: the theme of this circus was serial killers.

the idea was that a particular serial killer was chosen at random, and the "players" had to act out that killer's style/genre in the form of a reenactment type competition (which was more like an oddly acrobatic game.)

for instance, they would announce "Gacy" and the set would morph into that serial killer's theme, in this case, a colorful, abstract obstacle course of shapes and colors. there would be clowns, naturally, and some form of blood-covered knives or ligatures. the players, both employed at this circus and the audience participators, would try to complete this obstacle course faster and more accurately than the others to gain points. the losers would drop from the stage one by one through trap doors only to reappear in the next round.

i realize that makes little sense, as many dreams do when you try and explain them to other people. but interestingly, everyone involved, spectators included, enjoyed themselves.

i remember trying my best to win each event. my sister even showed up out of nowhere to compete. at the end of the competition, i was dropped through a trap door, and it lead to a hallway. after walking down it, through a door and into a room, i recognized it as Wonka's office from the famed movie (the original.) there was a half-clock on the wall, half desk, half coat rack. a circus worker, whom i'm assuming was taking on the role as Wonka due to his purple velvet suit and frizzy hair, approached me with a riddle which i answered effortlessly: "and so shines a good deed in a weary world."

i won, although i'm not sure what my prize was. but i was immediately escorted into the circus manager's office, where he told me that i was one of the best participants he had ever seen, and that if i wanted, i could start working for them as a performer in the fall of 2007 - no audition or interview necessary.

the dream pretty much ended after that. and wow, if nothing else, that signals that i need some sort of vacation or relaxation therapy.

***

i'm still finishing out the last of the enrgy drink trials, but at this point the frontrunners are Glaceau Vitamin Energy and Nestea's Enviga. It's anybody's game, though.

i'm sure there are a few other items i needed to bitch about, but they're not coming to me. although, during the typing of this message, i got word of a slight development in the boy-neighbor conundrum. don't get too excited, though. it's still daylight, and nothing *that* good happens until after sundown.