so i think i figured out my problem.

i just like too many men... i like about 5 guys at the moment on different levels and for different reasons. maybe more. i think i have an addiction. but i don't know how to STOP. and I don't know if i WANT to stop. I'm having a blast...it is challenging...i'm learning a lot about myself, and strangely, relationships. or at least i think i am. i am learning whatever it is i think i want to know. like what i won't be able to tolerate, and what i will when Mr. Right finally does make his grand appearance.

I need someone who can take my ridiculousness and believe in me and understand it and break the rules with me, but not all the time. he needs to support me, but let me support him too. let me take care of him. he needs to understand my moods and my interests, but i want him to have his own too. he needs to believe in something. he needs to want to travel, but with me :o)

Warz and i discussed the honeymoon stages of relationships last night. see, i am ADDICTED to them. I love honeymoons. I love weekend trips and visits and flings and first, second and third dates. I keep telling myself that I just have not met the right guy yet...but part of me wonders if an internal change is required...but in the meantime i'm having a blast...if it ain't broke don't fix it?

oh, and i am LOVING the Eagles lately.

I just had a flashback of the summer I was in Breckinridge with my parents and met one of the guys working at the hotel for the summer...totally made out with him in his summer cottage after going to an outdoor Skynrd concert and drinking cheap wine. ahhh youth.

there is something about the sounds

of the city on a Monday morning. It is especially notable after the near silence of Sunday. The engines, construction, trains....starts out relatively quiet....slowly increasing to the 9 am rush, then evens out for the day, picks up again later, and then the quiet of night. The sounds of industry and work yet the sluggishness of a Monday morning, the reluctance. The sun rising slowly in time with it all. A big orange one today, particularly pretty. I'm going for a run on the beach then Bikram.
I took a "me" weekend and stayed in...got up early for Yoga and a bike ride Saturday, and then went indoor rock climbing with R. It was super fun and we are going again tomorrow. We went to Scottie's afterward and indulged in steak sandwiches and beer, watching the water and talking about life...what a great place. Sunday I got up and read the paper at Starbucks, rode over to Crandon Park, did laps in the pool, worked on some homework and made sweet potato rolls for a friend's Oscar watch party, which was really fun. I loved Angelina Jolie's look of jade earings with the black dress...I"m ripping that off for my Barrister's dress this year.

serious glut of material

which probably means there is plenty i'm just not thinking. i was sitting in class earlier and had this thought that i feel a little uninspired lately. not quite sure where to look for it, either. like i don't feel creative. dull. very strange feeling. i guess i just need to shake it up a little. gonna take this weekend "off" -- do healthful active activities like yoga and rock climbing and maybe paint a little. well we will see how that actually goes lol. i need some male excitement in my life, for sure. starting to really think i handled the entire Choco situation very poorly.

unconventional

i just got really scared. it just hit me that i could end up leading a very unconventional life. i see my life taking two paths: one...working for a couple years, accepting it, meeting a guy, getting married, having babies, lock down, retirement, white picket fence (or gate), suburbs, saturdays at the mall, soccer games and girl scout meetings, dance classes and senior proms. two....working for a few years, getting fed up with it and teaching English in Peru, putting more footsteps on the earth, meeting guys, maybe someone special, maybe not...coming back to the states with a completely unfathomable different perspective and setting out on a new adventure here or there or anywhere.

it is a scary-as-all-hell thought in that it means i have no plan. direction, but no map. i just don't see myself chained to a desk for the next 5 years of my life. i don't know what i thought it was that i'm getting into....and granted i'm at a great firm...but unless something comes along and derails me from work being my focus in life, i think i will soon go crazy. or come up with an exit strategy.

i'm taking spanish and it is very inspiring. everything i learn about it makes me want to learn more. i kind of just want to screw everything and go learn spanish. obviously that is not happening but the girl can dream. man and it is just soooo great taking it in Miami, because it is like a constant challenge...all day every day...i hear Spanish at the store, read it on the roads, and listen to it on the radio....when i don't want to think i can think in Spanish...can't believe i blew it off for so many years...

anyway maybe i am just having a moment of wishful thinking...but one needs those. i actually just really hope i come out somewhere in the middle of all that.

mini relationships and the things they teach me about myself

so my ex-boyfriend from college, S, senior year....I hooked up with him over new years...came to visit this past weekend. I was apprehensive about him coming because i tend to DO this to myself...short little fling weekends that are amazing and then i get depressed when i realize the reality is anything but like it is for that few days. but i figured finally that, hey, i'm still young and single and if that is going to be the case I am going to embrace it. So he came in...it's funny how some people you are just naturally comfortable with. like, even though we haven't been together in 3 years and hadn't spoken in 2, i just felt natural and comfortable with him. i could be myself and just generally didn't care what he thought about things i say or do...you know, that comfort thing. also part of that is that he's staying with me for four days so he can't piss me off.

anyway. i told him sex was off the table -- freaked out about STD's and pregnancy as a cover for emotionally being freaked out. the first night i thought it would be really hard to stick to that once i saw him, drank tequila, and got in bed. but when we were fooling around i just got this really strange feeling in myself that was like, you know what, this is my body. i have to respect it. i think in the past i didn't take full ownership and control of my SELF. if i do not feel emotionally comfortable with something, no amount of physical attraction is going to make it ok for me. so in that department, we (I) had a great weekend of manual satisfaction, but i just did not feel like i could give myself to him in that way (even though we did in the past)...and i conciously or subconciously blame him for some of my issues in that way for a number of reasons...

but it was nice to hang out with a boy my age who is at my same place in life and is just generally a little rough around the edges. he's just a huge BOY. i'm used to being around guys who are a little bit older and refined...so it was a change but at the same time i NEED someone who can grasp the finer things in life. maybe that is shallow of me but i at least like when someone appreciates certain aspects of fine dining or artistic representation. but then again he would suprise me with other observations that were insightful and cute.

also being around him was an interesting reflection on myself. i realized how much i value my space and my time...about 24 hours in i was going nuts...i just wanted to be alone, go for a run, not have to entertain someone. the thing is it is so FUN to entertain someone and show them all my favorite things to do in town...i felt like some things he did not appreciate...but how much of that is just him being a boy and not "getting" the things i do... again, self reflection. so anyway it is fun to entertain someone, but man, a boyfriend is a lot of work. keeping him fed, showered, happy, entertained...i guess i need the person that i am with to appreciate that i am doing and enjoy doing those things for him. like i made pancakes one morning and a pizza for us one night...i LOVE LOVE LOVE doing that crap for guys...it's rare that i feel like they "get" what it means to me to be able to do that for someone.

Also my moodiness was reflected when someone else was there to receive it 24 hours a day. i can go through an up hour and then a down hour, and while i wouldn't even notice if i'm bustling around the house or running errands, when the switch happens while you are constantly hanging out with someone else, they notice and call you on it.

oh, yes, and i was thinking about Workie quite frequently over the weekend. it is such a wound in the flesh sometimes. i am so crazy about him...see him in my future...reminisce about the summer...paint this rosy picture for myself in my head...thing about where i WAS that summer...just completely obsorbed...i want to tell him so much...but i'm terrified and feel like i have to proceed with extreme caution to protect my livelihood as much as my heart. but how much of it is reminiscience and how much of it is real? How are things going ot be when i start working? does he think about me as much as i do? we keep in touch through occasional emals and phone calls, such as when funny things remind us of eachother or when i have travel quesitons for him. i just want things to be how they were...i want my heart to be open...but then i don't even know if it was right with him.

sigh, oh the matters of the heart.