I Like Mike (not)

From: myke
Date: Mar 25
Subject: finally a pretty face on myspace

my name is myke if u wanna chat or party or watch the games on my big screen or bbq or go hottubbing in my back yard its all good just looking for intretsting people is all as friends maybe more who knows
myke


From: Mike
Date: Mar 28
Subject: Oh my god

[My name] you are hot god why not take a risk and tell you so any man would be proud to have you by his side I know I would what ever you doing keep doing it ................................Love Mike

Ding Dong

From: Jeff
Date: Mar 20
Subject: hello

Hello, I saw you on another site and would like to talk with you. I just signed up today on [name of site that smrtygrl is *not* on] and will be uploading pictures today. I will also try and add a new photo here. My email address is [deleted], I look forward to talking with you.


From: Jeff
Date: Mar 22
Subject: how are you

lets have some coffee sometime


From: Jeff
Date: Mar 24
Subject: No Subject

how are you dong other then getting swamped with emails.

2 Legit 2 Quit

I hate spending the weekend with M3.

Hate it hate it hate it.

I hate waking up with him on Saturday and Sunday and Monday mornings and especially how half a second after he opens his eyes, he smiles at me and the corners of his mouth turn up more than they usually do even when he's just sitting around reading the Economist or something.

I hate how we always have lofty aspirations for weekend productivity and we make lists and say we're going to work out or go running and then we never end up doing much of anything but neither of us care really.

I hate how much he makes me laugh. And how his eyes crinkle and his nose totally changes shape when he laughs.

I hate how he almost never walks past, near or around me without kissing or otherwise touching me in some way. And sends me air kisses when he's out of reach. And not the gay kind where you kiss into your hand and then make-believe blow it across the room.

I hate how god damn cute he is when he gets impatient with me, like in the grocery store for example when I'm distracted by cheese.

I hate that we're super huge dorks when we're together. And we think its awesome.

I hate how much I like his sister.

I hate how my dog barfed twice on his carpet and in between the two unfortunate incidents also went pee on his bed but M3 still took pictures of her the next evening when she curled up and fell asleep on a mound of his clothing because even dogs get crushes too.

I hate when I'm trying to be a badass during a serious conversation about the state of our relationship and he says something that makes me giggle.

I hate how easy it always is when I'm with him. How easy its always been. How easy I think it always would be.

I hate all of it.

Because on Monday mornings, it all comes crashing down around me.

This morning particularly sucked.

Because I cried all over my boyfriend's water-resistent windbreaker pullover thing.

Over & Out

Its not that I haven't had shit to write about. Quite the contrary, in fact.

I have plenty of shit.
Big shit.
Potentially-relationship-with-M3-jeopardizing shit.

But I absolutely, positively don't want to talk about it.

(Though clearly I'm about to do so anyway.)

M3 said it best last night. (We talk on the phone now, you see. I lifted my pre-existing semi-ban on having voice-on-voice contact once I realized last week that not only do I enjoy actually speaking with him, he even occasionally has something interesting to say. Plus, sometimes he's naked when we're on the phone.)

The more real our relationship gets, the less its something I want to share with the world.

What M3 and I have been doing since January looks indeed from every conceivable angle like a relationship. We haven't spent a Saturday or Sunday apart for weeks. We've both, on multiple occasions, driven 4+ hours roundtrip on a weeknight for the opportunity to spend fewer than 10 hours together. He's met people in my life who are important to me. And likewise. We're talking about the future (not **The Future** spelled with caps but like May, June and July) with a degree of certainty that two people wouldn't even bother to superficially muster unless they both felt confident that something real was developing between them. We're content doing domestic crap. He pretends to pay attention (though not terribly well) when I try to bestow upon him the methodology of risotto preparation. And anyone who knows me well would recognize the gravity of the simple fact that I even have an interest to begin with that he be included in the risotto preparation. He jokes about our potential future offspring's facial characteristics, and getting engaged, and meeting my mother. And at this point, I've not only totally lost track of the number of times he's submitted a thinly- or not-at-all veiled comment about me moving to his mid-sized city, I also can't seem to shake the idea out of my mind even though I know that very same mother M3 jokes about meeting would so totally kick my ass three ways from Sunday if she knew I was even entertaining the notion let alone occasionally, non-purposefully and entirely accidentally perusing various websites where jobs in his mid-sized city might occasionally, non-purposefully and accidentally be posted.

(Yep, looks like a relationship alright.)

Trouble is, I know that M3 has doubts.

"What if?" doubts.

And oddly enough, I don't blame him one bit.

What if he had taken some time to get to know himself, to play the field, to figure out what he really wanted after ending his last relationship instead of rushing headlong into a shiny, new one with me?

What if there's something better out there?

What if we took a break and he explored the answers to these questions...and then some? Would the lessons he'd learn be worth taking the chance that I wouldn't be waiting for him when and if his journey of self-discovery ultimately led back to us? Would his path ultimately lead back to us? And is he okay with the possibility that the answer to one or both of those questions could very likely be "no"?

Making an exclusive commitment to another person is hard and its scary and its a hugely enormous risk. Which is probably why its something that neither of us have done for years. Him: 3+. Me: Almost 10.

"It's a leap of faith," he said on Sunday.

(No fucking kidding.)

So, as M3 and I sort our shit out, you won't be hearing from me much. What's on the table is just too significant. Too consequential. And far too terrifying for me to think about one potential outcome in particular, let alone attempt to creatively express my thoughts on the matter in a decidedly public forum, the audience of which includes but (at least on most days) is not limited to M3 himself.

I'm audi.

I especially like when guys send me emails they've never used with any other girls before.

From: chris
Date: Mar 13
Subject: No subject

Hi my name is musicman.I love your smile It's warm and friendly.talk to soon.
sincerely,the musicman

From: Mike
Date: Mar 12
Subject: Hello [my name removed]

Caught your profile on Myspace. Nice to meet you! Liked what you had to say about yourself. Nice pics of you too.... [FYI: Smrtygrl says precisely zero about herself and has posted one pic, singular, on her page]

Would like to chat with you some time.... Look me up @ msn and yahoo id: [removed but included an unfortunate reference to a camaro]

Double Secret Probation

M3 is so completely full of shit. The debut of his self-mandated Sex Reduction Strategy (SRS) fell woefully short of its goals last night. And there's but one person to blame. And in a dramatic turn of events, that person is not me.

We hadn't planned on seeing one another this week at all, which to be honest is actually a huge reason why we allegedly have too much sex in the first place. Generally when we finally cast our eyes and genitalia upon one another, its been days upon days upon days since the last time we had the pleasure. That translates about 97% of the time, at least for yours truly who is entirely unapologetic about being smack-dab in the midst of her sexual prime, to needing to spend the first sixty to ninety minutes of any meeting engaged in boudoir-related activities. (The other 3% of the time, its more like thirty to forty-five minutes because we're on some kind of schedule or something.)

Last night we broke with convention, spending our first 180 minutes together in public...and in the charming and amusing and witty company of his totally fabulous sister, A. A is absolutely the type of girl who I'd be friends with regardless of how cute her older brother happened to be, and that's a really great (not to mention relieving) realization to make.

Last night was our very first meeting. A sit down dinner sort of thing. Most certainly not exactly the light and breezy, "let's grab a quick cocktail" no pressure scenario that I would have architected if given the choice, but no way was I going to pass up the opportunity to meet one of the most important people in M3's life even if I had to do so stone cold sober. With little in the way of options through which to even loosely tie one on before making A's acquaintance, I allayed my fears instead by reminding myself that M3 and A are very, very close and if I've already somehow miraculously managed to win him over, A can't be far behind.

In the end, I don't think I did half bad. Kept my lusty paws off of M3 for the most part...didn't ask any questions or make any comments that would embarrass either one of us...didn't get shitfaced...and M3 said that we seemed to "hit it off well...scarily well." All in all, if I were assigning a grade to my performance, I'd have to go with a solid B. Leaving room for improvement but clearly competent enough to score an invite for a sleepover at A's place a few weeks from now when M3's out of town.

After dinner, we bid farewell to A and headed back to M3's abode. Upon arrival, I attempted to engage him in a game of Boggle...or discussion of world events...or anything that might serve as a temporary deterrent to the inevitable. I took the opportunity as he kissed my neck to remind him of the SRS...the roughly 24 hours old agreement that he was instrumental in initiating and with which I was actually ready and willing to cooperate albeit entirely and completely on principle if only to make him realize the error of his ways...the what I maintain is a completely retarded joint alliance to which, within the first three minutes of the two of us finally being alone together last night, he'd seemingly lost any and all interest in adhering...

If I were assigning a grade to his performance, I'd have go with a solid F.

(I think I may have to grade on a curve.)

Curb My Enthusiasm

He knows I'm going to write about it. It's inevitable.

When a boy tells a girl that he's afraid they're "having too much sex," what else am I expected to do? In fact, despite seeing it in writing this morning and having typed it just now, its still almost unfathomable. I mean, its actually quite possible that this is the first time those words have ever escaped the lips of a member of the male species.

Our sex is becoming an end unto itself rather than an expression of what's between us, he says. He desires more brain, less boudoir. An emphasis on what's between my ears, not between my legs.

Say what?

My first reaction to this news was one of moderate horror. I was offended, almost. Was he trying to tell me that he's bored? Losing interest? Forgetting why he fell for me in the first place?

While admittedly its been quite some time since I've been in the early stages of a relationship that's actually fairly promising, if memory serves, the first few months are always marked by enormous amounts of unbridled passion and overwhelmingly uncontainable physical desires. God willing, A plus B equals limitless quantities of action. Side effects often include chafing, rawness, complete inability to maintain any sense of time or space, and - as M3 has called to my attention (and now yours) - an apparent (albeit hopefully temporary) loss of intellectual connection.

Its not that M3's suggesting we put the total kibosh on time spent between the sheets. But just between you, me and the proverbial lamppost, I think we owe it to all of human sexuality (not to mention the people in the apartment building across from M3's bedroom window) to keep on keepin' on at our current pace. It won't last forever. It can't. The bond between a boy and a girl grows and evolves in wonderful and meaningful ways with the passage of time, but let's be honest. "More sex" is generally not a characteristic that manifests itself as relationships mature.

But dial it down, we must, lest we lose sight of why and how we were so intensely attracted to one another in the first place. The cerebral connection that we first discovered and then watched unfold over a period of weeks before we were free to explore any other dimension of our attraction...it is today and hopefully will always be fundamentally why M3 and I work.

So, even though I accused him of being a total chick today, I get it.

And I'll comply.

Unfortunately, because M3's also the very same fella who, a few days prior to our first "real" date, asked that we take things slow...and then once in my doorway about 30 seconds into said date promptly forgot about said resolution, I'll admit to being just a tad bit dubious. Acknowledging the totally sound logic inherent in that request (and in stark contrast to his fleeting commitment to it) I indulged his wishes for as long as I could before my puritanical will and moralistic fortitude withered. I held out for like three dates or something. Total badass.

But unlike last time, this go 'round I'll know precisely what I'm giving up.

I can't promise I'll be nearly as cooperative.

Punctuation Much?

From: james
Date: Mar 7
Subject: No Subject

I noticed your picture just wanted to say love the look you look great in a dress and seem to have confidence, love that chat sometime if you would like james

Mute Point

M3, who has allegedly recommitted to increasing his workday productivity while decreasing his workday relationship-oriented dilly-dallying, daydreaming, emailing and other such wasteful yet thoroughly joyous activities, has checked my blog four times already today.

Actually, he has good reason to expect that I'd eventually get around to posting something. Because I had a total meltdown last night. And, really, what's more fun to write about (not!) then Smrtygrl's inability to express her emotions to a boy who deserves nothing less than for Smrtygrl to express her emotions to him?

We were in bed when I started getting mopey. Started getting that empty, hollow feeling in the deepest part of my chest. That dull ache which is so stubbornly resilient, its almost as if the more you try to overcome it, to exorcise it, or worse yet - to pretend its not there - the stronger it gets.

And the stronger it got.

It was Sunday night. 10pm-ish. And I'd just looked at the clock. Now hyperaware of the passage of time for the first occasion in two days. Because somehow in the midst of shopping for groceries and home furnishings and cooking breakfast while he washed dishes and making the bed together and eating Thai food and sushi and napping for three hours on my couch and walking with my arm looped in his, I'd completely allowed myself to forget that I only get M3 for two day stretches at a time. And then I have to give him back.

Unfortunately, the emotional resolve and clock-avoidance I'd exercised earlier in the weekend totally wavered once night fell, the darkness of M3's bedroom punctuated only by slivers of streetlights through the blinds and the red glare from his digital clock that was casting a thoroughly unavoidable light seemingly upon all four walls, the ceiling and every available flat, reflective surface.

I must have looked at the clock a hundred times last night.

With t-minus eight hours until I'd be leaving M3's side and embarking on yet another five day journey of solitude, I'd conveniently forgotten all about the conversation we'd had the day before. The conversation where we both acknowledged how, on Monday mornings when we're standing either in his doorway or mine, arms entwined, stealing just a few more kisses, reluctant to reach that very one which feels so entirely different from those that preceeded it because of its unyielding brevity, the weeklong stretch of time standing between that singular moment and when we'd next see one another always seemed interminable, infinite, and really potentially fucking horrible. Yet, we've both admitted that our separations aren't nearly as torturous in the end as they promise to be as we stand in either his doorway or mine on Monday mornings. Friday is upon us in almost an instant. Sort of.

Whether we experience this phenomenon yet again at the end of this week remains to be seen, but when you've just spent a whole glorious weekend with a boy who sure acts a lot like he thinks he's your boyfriend and who likes to make comments with loosely veiled subtext about how great his mid-sized city is and who has a sense of humor just as infantile as your own and who makes you feel like if you could choose to be with anyone anywhere at any given time...it'd be him right wherever you are at that very moment and for absolutely as long as possible (instead of the obvious alternative, that being Roger Taylor from Duran Duran on that yacht from the Rio video circa 1987)...the notion of spending five days apart is excruciating.

In last Friday's post, I predicted that this past weekend would almost undoubtedly feature a "I want this every day but can't have it woe is me" moment. When it was finally and entirely not surprisingly upon me last night, I cloaked my tear-stained idiocy fairly well, or so I like to believe, until a big sniffle proved impossible to contain and elicited an inquiry from M3 about my well-being. Instead of telling him how much I didn't want to say goodbye to him in eight hours and how much I loved putting away his groceries and how if this past weekend even remotely approximated how real life with him would be, I'd like to complete an application immediately please, I offered a one word response.

"Yup."

I guess sometimes you're just not ready to hear yourself say certain things out loud.

Last Friday, I made another prediction. One I actually hoped might come true.

I'd end the weekend liking M3 even more than I did at its beginning.

Yup.

Same Old, Same Old

This post is being slapped together pretty much just to ameliorate the guilty sensations currently being experienced by my conscience due to the fact that I'm heading into the weekend already on the verge of going two days sans blogging and there's next to no chance, unless of course I indulge M3's request to assume ghost writing duties, that I'll publish a lick between now and Monday.

And also because I'm sort of waiting for M3 to call right now to alert me to his whereabouts and genuinely have nothing better to do.

At present, M3 is en route to my mid-sized town. He will be arriving either via Greyhound within the next 15 minutes or via the latenight rails just before midnight. In either circumstance, and particularly given the certain red state-esque scariness that will undoubtedly befall him during said trip, I'd say that's a dead giveaway the guy's totally digging my scene.

Why would M3 willingly take the train or the bus to my mid-sized town when he a) has a vehicle of his own and b) I was headed up to visit him tomorrow afternoon anyway? So we can spend what will ultimately amount to between six and eight more hours together than our original plan that involved neither trains nor buses would have allowed, that's why.

So, tonight he'll roll into my mid-sized town after an inordinately long trip via quasi-public transportation and we'll stay up far past my normal Friday evening bedtime which is necessitated by my Saturday far-too-early morning watersport practice to which I'll end up driving still half-asleep because the undeniable upside of staying awake until all hours laying beside, beneath and periodically atop M3 is far worth the consequences. And then I'll come home to M3 and my dog and a warm shower and his really big, strong arms and I'll probably have one of those "I want this every day but can't have it woe is me" stupid mopey moments that I'll try to hide from him and might even think I managed to succeed in doing so until he reads this and tells me I didn't. And then we'll drive up to his mid-sized city for the rest of the weekend during which time I will tentatively meet his sister...possibly succeed in executing a trip to Target in spite of his vehement hatred of shopping because try as he might he really can't argue with the fact that as a man of 32 years, the breakup of a relationship of 3+ years is not a valid excuse to own but one plate, one knife, one fork and one spoon...

...and then, at 6am on Monday morning when all of our time together has been exhausted and its the beginning of another long week apart, I'll leave. Liking him even more than I do right now.

In other words, next week's posts are still going to suck ass.

The Q.T.

The vast whiteness on the screen before me is mocking my happiness, taunting my joy, and otherwise desperately pleading with me to resume my thoroughly irresponsible but generally quite entertaining online dating ways so that I might restore my blog to its glory of yesteryear.

Smrtygrl's writings used to be replete with tales of short-lived and ill-conceived lust for boys who's appeal directly correlated to precisely how little the two of us had in common, heightened states of disenchanted disappointment brought on as a result of the receipt of horribly bad and wholly inappropriate holiday gifts and small kitchen appliances, and semi-intermittent bouts with alcoholism that somehow enabled me to cope with all of the above and then some...and all of which at one time or another marked an admittedly pretty shameful existence before I fell hard and fast for a blue-eyed boy of 5'8" who might actually like me just as much as I like him.

Hard drinking' and fast lovin' has given way to a state of contentment and (no longer cautious) optimism the likes of which I'm not quite sure I've really ever known before. And the quality of the content on my beloved blog is proving, with each passing day of M3 and my blissful courtship, to be the most innocent of victims of this crime against all that is supposedly exciting and fun and liberating and empowering about being a single woman of a certain age. If literary inspiration were a penis, I'd venture to guess that my tendency to periodically refer to myself in the third person probably wouldn't be the only thing I'd have in common with Bob Dole.

On Monday, having returned from my alpine sojourn with M3, I somehow managed to pull it together and write a heartfelt post marveling how the most mundane and routine moments with someone you care about can somehow end up being the ones you not only treasure the most deeply but for which you most desperately long when you're never together for enough time to even fathom what it'd feel like to take them for granted.

Later that day, I emailed the dear friend with whom we'd just spent the weekend. I thanked her profusely for her hospitality and expressed how happy I was that she and M3 had a chance to get to know one another a bit.

And then I explained how fucked I am.

In the midst of crafting Monday's post, I reached an unfortunate and not entirely unexpected milestone in my fairly short and not terribly illustrious history as a blogger.

M3 reads my blog pretty much every day. I know this. And he knows that I know this. And as much as I sincerely hoped it wouldn't become the case, that knowledge is causing me to self-edit my thoughts and to curb my freedom of expression in a way I never did before when my subject matter a) didn't read my blog and b) who would give a shit anyway?

And so, even though M3 has been lightheartedly and only half-seriously joking this week about how I really need to get the hell out of my mid-sized town, find a job in his mid-sized city and move my ass up there pronto, I simply can't write about it.

I can't expose my truest of emotions and write about how -- despite the blinding, undeniable reality that anyone in their right mind could (and given my occasional propensity to succumb to inexplicable bouts of irrationality when a cute boy is involved, probably should) compose a list of indefinite length consisting of the myriad, obvious reasons why its totally crazy to even joke about relocating to be with a boy I've been dating for just over one month but no more than two depending on who's doing the counting, let alone even dabble in considering the possibility of potentially pursuing the notion at some time in the future -- his jokes are totally freaking me out.

In the bestest of ways possible.

(But its more than that, really.)

In recent days, I've been completely overcome by a surprising and startling and entirely unfamiliar desire to be protective. Protective of something precious and rare and altogether on the verge of almost-completely-implausible. Something that, for the first time I think possibly ever, feels like not only does it belong to me, but I'm not terrified to acknowledge that I'm one of just two people being entrusted to treasure it. And nurture it. And keep it safe.

And private.

And that's all I have to say about that.

That's Deep, Yo

From: Smrtygrl
Date: Feb 28

Please tell me more about this fascinating philosophy of yours...

From: J DILLS
Date: Feb 28

i just enjoy a mature women who can hold a convo an down 2 go do stuff rather than just party all the timerather then all the little girls my age.