Uh...

There's this guy who's been stalking my OkCupid profile and journals every day, and has said almost nothing, which is somehow really creepy to me... especially when you see the pictures of him.

The biggest problem with OkC is that when you upload a new photo, a teeny, tiny thumbnail of it goes on the homepage of all people who are looking for someone like you. (In my case, all the photos are of single males who like women.) Why is this a problem? Because of what I previously mentioned... that if you click on someone's profile, you then show up in their list of recent "stalkers" and then they can go check out your goods. The worst part of that whole deal is that when an image is tiny, it often looks interesting or innocuous until you open it up full size and your blood runs cold.

That's what happened with this guy. One of his images was in the cropped, tiny thumbnail square and he was in my age group, so I clicked. My mistake, because it invited the following email:


From: Thorgrym (610 miles)
To: theshecreature
Date: Aug 26 7:37am
Subject: Don't take this wrong...

I won't lie; I was initially curious because you "Stalked" me. So few have done that that I'm forced by my insatiable curiosity to find out more.

But, having done that, I find you witty, charming and fun to read.

Yes, and I find you beautiful, as well, but that is a secondary consideration.

I'm overcoming my shyness to send this--contrary to popular belief, the 'Net does not lessen shyness; it merely reinforces the negative aspects of it by giving one a false sense of security--only in the hopes of one thing: giving you a bit more hope in life.

I expect nothing in return. No communication, nothing. If all I have done is helped you a little bit by complimenting you on your charms, that's good enough for me.

There are far, far too many people out there who do not know their worth. I suspect you may be one of them.

Take care,

Thorgrim




37M, York, Pennyslvania
65% match 72% friend 22% enemy
*shudder*

I'm thinking he's probably an overly handsy gym teacher or he likes to hang out in parks around the swing sets.

Writer’s Block

Last Wednesday night, I couldn't sleep. I was frustrated... VERY frustrated. And I was in pain. But I really couldn't blog about either, because both had to do with a certain someone whom I'd been dating for about 11 weeks. You may have seen him in my top friends spot (he's not there now, so don't confuse Cully for this person, please! he's since been moved out.) I had a literal pain in my neck from the figurative pain in my neck, whom I'd been dating. I really shouldn't kiss and tell, but why should I stop now?

I gotta say, with the exception of one rendezvous where he left me covered in purple bruises and looking like I'd just wrestled an octopus, there was nothing to report... and I mean NOTHING to report... at all... in 11 weeks. And the last time he'd stayed here, about 2 weeks ago, all he did was snore and jump and twitch and fart all night, relegating me to the couch to try to get any sleep at all, which left me with a seriously crimped neck, which progressively got worse, like a slipped disc or something, leaving me walking around with my head tilted to my shoulder. And did he ever so much as help out with a massage of any kind. No. He was an all-around impotent, inexperienced, and ineffectual guy, you could say.

Anyway, I'm not one to keep my preferred readers in the dark for too long, so I thought I'd finally post this entry from last week, which I'd placed on OKCupid instead, because I didn't want him getting a notification before I'd broken things off and had to hear him whimper about not being able to read my blog... because he tends to cry at the drop of a hat. I've finally chosen to drop the axe, however, and free myself from any more nights sleeping with five of the seven dwarfs: farty, twitchy, snorey, jumpy, and sadsack.

Yeah, I know I'm terrible. I'm also still extremely cranky from not getting any for all these weeks and still quite crimped up, so cut me some slack, yous guys.


Why I'm still up... Aug 23 4:08am

I get asked that question quite often by people who are usually up at this same hour, but with the excuse of "I couldn't sleep, but why are you up?"

Well, if I could sleep, do you think I'd be up? No.

Tonight I tried and tried to sleep, but there's been a pinched nerve in my neck/upper back for about 2 weeks now, so no position was comfortable. Plus, I found myself really wanting to drive to an all-night convenience store to buy some Reese's Peanutbutter Cups and a pack of Marlboro Lights (I don't smoke anymore, but I couldn't shake that thought). So instead of taking my life into my hands with the purchase idea, or taking a Tylenol PM that might leave me groggy all the next day, I opted for another plan.

FRESH BAKED COOKIES!

Yes, at 3am.

I've done this before, but usually I can distract myself with something more productive (and less filling). But there are times when I just cannot resist the calling. Like tonight.

So the real question should be, "why cookies at this hour?"

The answer is simple. I'm sublimating. What I really want is sex. Of course, any glimpse into the tests I've taken should quickly reveal an on-going theme.

The problem stems from an extended period... nearly a year now... of settling for less than my libido would desire... a LOT less. Like the 7-month relationship with a developmentally-arrested perpetual 12-year-old who preferred comic books to sex, followed by 2 months of attempting to be celibate, followed by another much briefer dating relationship with a man who takes enough anti-depressants to kill a horse's libido and apparently less knowledge than a boy half his age (I met him on here, and if he reads this... sorry! At least I'm not identifying you!).

Anyway, after 2+ months of nothing at all with that and very little with the other, I'm about to jump out of my skin. I've even come close to calling in a stunt cock.

No, I'm not soliciting. Please don't offer. I'd prefer a real relationship.

The only similarity between those two men is that they're both Pisces men, born in 1970, and went to high school in the Bronx. Maybe something was put in the water in the 80s there?

It seriously makes me want to reconsider the many offers that have been made by guys in their early 20s. I think that they've learned what guys in their mid-30s have forgotten: women 35-45 have RAGING hormones! Seriously. We're the equivalent of what you boys were at 17... you remember how bad that was, don't you? Now think about that combined with all the sexual mastery and know-how that an additional 20+ years can bring. I'm like a deadly weapon.

So here I sit, surfing pictures of cute guys, which only makes it worse... forget about porn, because that is just too painful to watch. And toys or self-pleasure only go so far when you're craving the heat and sweat and passion of the real deal.

I also have too much self-esteem to troll the "intimate encounters" sites. That's like Darwin's Waiting Room in those places.

So I've polished off half of the dozen cookies that I baked. I don't even know how long that tube of dough had been in my fridge, because the expiration date was for March 2007. Wait -- March? Well, I'll be damned! Even my sublimation is a Pisces.

No, I'm not really into Astrology... I'm just searching for connections while riding a sugar high and still horny as hell in the middle of the night. Give me a break.

Anyone else in the same boat want the other 6 sugar cookies? I can't say they "hit the spot," but they weren't terrible either.

The child formerly known as...

Tonight I had to help Malachi print out an assignment, which happened to be a letter to a fictitious student named "Fred" who just started his first year of middle school somewhere else. I guess teachers have stopped caring about having kids make real penpals in far away places, since those dicks rarely write back (yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Jagriti Chattergee... 25 years later and I'm STILL waiting).

He did just fine on the assignment and the body of the letter contained the usual pablum about teachers and fun things at his new school. What confused me, however, was how he signed it:

Yours truly,
Vince Ryan

I looked at the assignment sheet, which very carefully detailed the layout of a proper personal letter and also contained the fictitious addressee's information. Yet in all of that, nowhere on that sheet was the name of a fictitious writer.

So I asked, "Who's Vince Ryan?"

Staring rather embarrassed back at me, Malachi sheepishly replied, "Um, th-that's me. Yep."

"Malachi... were you supposed to make up a character for this assignment?"

"Nope, that's what Ms. F calls me."

"Hang on... what?!"

"She calls me Vince, so do a few of my friends."

That's when I had a flashback of something strangely similar that I went through two years ago when Aidan had her class, and he'd come home announcing that he told his Language Arts teacher that his nickname was "A.J." because those are his initials and some other kids had names like "D.J." or "J.T." ... and then I had to explain to Aidan that nicknames are what parents call a kid at home, and those other kids were combining their first and middle initials, which wouldn't work for him, as his are "A.T.," and so I had him go back the next day and straighten things out with his teacher.

So I asked Malachi, "Did Ms. F ask you on the first day of classes if there was a nickname that you'd rather go by?"

"Yes, and my friends wanted me to have a name that sounded like it would go with playing the violin, so they chose Vince... I added the Ryan part."

Having a good laugh, I said, "But your name doesn't have ANY of those names in it. If your name was Christopher, your nickname would be Chris. Or if you and your dad had the same name, yours might be a little different so things wouldn't be confusing at home. There isn't even a Vince or a Ryan in our whole family, and unless you have another personality or an acting career that I don't know about, you need to stop telling people to call you this. Now do any of your other teachers call you Vince?"

"No, just Ms. F."

"Has she been calling you that since the first day of school? Like when you raise your hand, she says 'Yes, Vince?'"

"Maybe."

That did it for me. Aside from the fits of giggles and then running upstairs to tell his brother and sister of these shenanigans and share the laughs with them, I finally calmed down enough to fire off an email to the unwitting teacher.

Hi there, Ms. F--

This is Malachi's mom and I just learned something kind of funny that I needed to clear up with you.

Apparently on the first day when you asked if anyone went by a nickname that they'd rather be called, Malachi thought he could give you any other name -- sort of like your class was a role playing game. When I saw his letter just now and asked if the signature of the letter ("Vince") was part of the assignment, that's when he told me that's what you call him and what he goes by in your class. I had to explain to him what nicknames actually are in real life, because he seems to just be going by this made up name in your class only. He says some of his friends call him this, but honestly, this is the first time that any of us here have heard of it. He goes by Malachi by me, his dad, his siblings, and all friends who call this house. I'm sorry if he's confused you. I just thought I should clear it up and hopefully you'd get a bit of a chuckle out of it as well!

--S

P.S. You also know me as Aidan's mom, but of course in this case, the two identities are appropriate!

This is what happens when kids grow up with role playing games and believing it's okay to create a new identity for yourself at the slightest suggestion. Of course, I really shouldn't be surprised. This is the same child who told everyone that his real family was from Mars from the time he could talk until about age 4... described life there in great detail, too, including how the gravity squished everyone's bodies into an apple shape and how they would bounce and roll around there, later adding that they were originally from Jupiter, but had moved to Mars shortly after he was born.

He still gets embarrassed when I tell people that story. I can't wait to meet his first girlfriend!

25 Sentences About Me

25 sentences about you

Finish the sentences:

1. I've come to realize that my ex is :
a mistake that I do not wish to make again.

2. I am listening to :
my inner dialog, as usual.

3. I talk :
to myself... a lot.

4. I love :
puppies, ponies, fainting goats... oh my!

5. I have :
a very active imagination... you should ask me about it sometime.

7. I lost :
my mind years ago... have you seen it?

8. I hate it when :
condiments touch the cheese on a sandwich.

9. Love is :
still a theory I'd like to test one of these days.

10. Marriage is :
something I want to try again, but only if I meet the right person this time.

11. Somewhere, someone is thinking :
dirty thoughts about me.

12. I'll always be :
over-educated and under-paid, it seems.

13. I have a crush on :
one of the instructors at my kids' Tae Kwon Do academy, but he's married and much, much younger than me, so it's just a crush.... no more, no less.

14. The last time I cried was :
when I read a friend's memoriam to his good buddy and fellow comic book artist, Mike Wieringo, who passed away suddenly this week at the age of 44.

15. My cell phone :
has a brand new phone number after more than a decade, and it starts with 404 now... so If you want to reach me, you'll have forget about the 678 number and ask for my new digits, because I have no idea how many of you are still trying to reach me on my old number!!!

16. When I wake up in the morning :
I always want more sleep.

17. Before I go to sleep at night :
I always want more hours in the day.

18. Right now I am thinking about :
where that person is who's thinking dirty thoughts about me and wondering why he's keeping those thoughts to himself?

19. Babies are :
totally and completely awesome... as long as you're having them and not me!

20. I get on Myspace :
far too frequently.

21. Today I will :
go to the gym, not just think about it.

22. Tonight I will :
take the kids to Tae Kwon Do and then pick up the lawnmower from my mother's house, so Malachi can finally mow the weeds tomorrow morning.

23. Tomorrow I will :
probably end up doing half the mowing, because Malachi will be too busy trying to run things over rather than pay attention to all the parts of the yard he's missing.

24. I really want :
a puppy... a pony... some fainting goats... a riding mower... all the various remodeling projects in my house to be finished... peace, love, and happiness.

25. The person who is most likely to repost this :
is me... but I already did.

Left is right

I had no clue until someone told me just now...

Left-Handers' Day 2007

And here I'd ignorantly squandered my day using right-handed scissors and greeting people via the status quo handshake standard. I'll make it up next year by writing rather than typing as much as possible with my wrist all curled over my words and by forcing everyone else to shift their fork hand to accommodate me at the dinner table, instead of the other way around!

Cheers, fellow southpaws!

Fish Tale - pt. 2

The whirlwind begins...

So by my previous description, you may be wondering why on earth I'd be dating such a man... right? I certainly didn't paint a pretty picture, but at that time, I'd truly given up (yet again) on dating. After a summer of ricocheting from one Mr. Wrong to another to another, I realized that I'd lost all sense of direction. The funny thing was that I never really went looking for any of that... they all found me. Why does crazy seem to be drawn to me like a moth to a flame? I don't think this is the forum nor the blog subject to address it, but I do have my theories.

By mid-August, however, I'd had it with the crazies and decided to hang up my dating hat and head back up that mountain of solitude. I do this periodically... I'll over-date and then I'll stop entirely for many, many moons. This is a pattern that I've repeated... 20 months on the mountain, 18 months on the mountain, 14 months on the mountain... self-imposed celibacy. It's my way of clearing my head. Has it worked? Not really.

So there I was, about 7 weeks into my next retreat when I was hit with a triple proposal: a part-time job, free software and skill training, and a relationship. I'll admit that part of me worried that if I didn't accept the relationship, the other two offers may disappear. The urgency of his offer made me feel put on the spot, but I thought that maybe I could still control the progress of things if I agreed to go along for the ride. Little did I know that I would be lucky to be able to hold on with all the 180s this man would pull along the way. Control was something that I would never have in the presence of such a master manic control freak.

After I agreed to date him, our next day together was to be our first day of work. He explained then that there would be "employee hours" and "girlfriend hours" and that the two should never overlap. I thought it funny and asked what I should refer to myself as if I ever meet anyone... "Am I your significant assistant? Your executive other? Your girlfriend-in-training? Your girl Friday and your girlfriend Saturday? What?" This was something that never was resolved.

Because of the oddness of the situation, I decided that the best thing would be to take him before a not so impartial judge: Cully. Although any meeting of an ex-boyfriend would likely cause a new beau's blood to run cold, my new beau was a huge comic book dork, and I knew that the excuse to see the inner workings of a real studio would make him giddy like a little girl. Well, I didn't exactly know that, until I suggested it, then he might as well have had braids and tube socks, because the nervous giggles didn't cease. It was a surprise visit on Cully, and yeah, I put him on the spot by phoning while in the neighborhood and asking to come by, but he graciously allowed it.

Gigglepuss and I arrived at Gaijin Studios and he never stopped chattering... and the longer we were there, the more animated he became. I eventually dropped back to talk quietly with Cully, as we watched him blather on and on about old times and familiar stomping grounds with one of Cully's studio mates. Cully mentioned the animated behavior to me, which I agreed that he was quite a character and definitely bigger than life. Then as we were about to go, Cully did something unusual for him... he leaned a little closer to the new beau and dropped his friendly tone a bit to say, "Be good to her." A warning that did not go unnoticed and was talked about weeks and months later, with each successive retelling getting sterner and scarier than it really had been.

I met his roommate the next day, a young girl with whom Dean admitted to having a crush on when she was his student... but when I met her, it was clear that she was a lesbian. Actually, I couldn't believe that he was so blind, but I guess when someone has their head so far up their own ass, they don't really see these things. I know Dean had been pussyfooting (so to speak) around asking me if I had a problem with him living with a girl, and finally at the end of our third workday together, he asked. I truthfully told him that I didn't, because she was extremely sweet and genuine and I added that maybe he should be more concerned that she'd dig me more than him. He was still truly clueless.

Since we were on the subject, that's when I brought up the person who didn't sit well with me... the girl he'd gone on several dates with and spent his whole drive from Miami talking to on the phone. I was leaving that afternoon and I was not going to see him for 12 days, because our schedules had pre-existing priorities, and he was flying out to New York City to train folks at ABC (yeah, the network) that Saturday through the following weekend. Unfortunately, the Miami chick was coming in the next afternoon and I wouldn't be there. She was staying the night on her way across the country to resettle in Portland, with cat and all of belongings in tow, and with no job or place to land when she got there. I saw this as a potential pitfall... here he was in a big, empty apartment... and here she comes with all her stuff. If she had second thoughts, which as I later found out she actually was having, then it could be so easy for her to stay. And although he didn't tell me at the time, she's already discussed with him the possibility of Portland not working out and Atlanta being her next choice.

I flat out told him that if she moved in, I would tell him to have a nice time and he'd not see me again, because I had nothing invested and could easily walk away. It was all up to him.

From his later description of the evening, he must've acted like a bigger nutjob than usual, because he was terrified he'd mess up. As soon as she walked through the door, he blurted out, "I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!" Now, I don't know if that is true, but he sure sold that version of the story. I know that he was too neurotic for anything to have happened, so I believed his story. He claimed that the next day he helped her gather her stuff and basically pushed her out the door. Because he basically had pushed me out the door the last time we were together, thanks to a kiss that went on longer than 30 seconds and he must've been getting thoughts, I could imagine him doing something similar with her.

Back up, you say? Yes, he literally pushed me out the door because of a kiss.

The next week and a half was pretty uneventful. Dean called regularly to check in with me and tell me about the folks at ABC and about the tours he was getting of various show sets. He also told me that although he had a long haul getting from his parents' apartment in the Bronx to Manhattan every morning and evening, he did love that he could walk three blocks, get a knish, eat it for the next 3 blocks, then find another place selling knishes and get another... he'd usually get at least 3 before he hit the subway... each way. I thought he was exaggerating, but time would later bear this out to be quite possible with this man.

Oh, wait. Did I say it was uneventful? No, of course it wasn't... because as soon as he got to his parents house, he decided to show them and his brother some pictures of his "new girlfriend"... but without telling me, he decided to show them my Flickr site as a slideshow.

How could that be funny? Here's how.

When he returned from NYC, we had just 2 days together - which were work days, of course - before he was headed out of state yet again... this time he was driving to a wedding in Orlando. He'd previously asked if I wanted to be his date; but because he asked before I'd ever met him and he was still living in South Florida, I said "no thanks, that'd be weird." After we met, however, I asked if he still wanted a date to that wedding... within minutes he was calling and booking a flight for me to come in for that day. Meanwhile, he was driving down several days early, to be part of the pre-wedding festivities, as a member of the wedding party.

Because he was who he was, he couldn't just get up in the morning and go. Instead, he puttered around and worked on motion graphics stuff, packed, went to the store to buy gifts and things for his friends in Florida, then didn't get on the road until about 6pm... just in time to be stuck in Atlanta's rush hour traffic. The delays made him decide to stay at a hotel in Lake City, Florida, rather than continue driving into the wee hours of the night. If you read the blog that I posted about it, then you'd were probably beginning to believe I was dating George Costanza. (And you wouldn't have been too far off.)

Did I mention yet what role he was playing in the wedding party? He was a bridesmaid, actually. I found this endlessly hilarious, but he seemed only increasingly bothered by his bridesmaid status, especially when I retold the story of how one of the groomsmen was seating me and asked if I was friend with the groom or the bride, and I replied, "Neither. I'm here as a date of one of the bridesmaids." As his eyebrows rose, I had to tell him the rest of the story. He had a good laugh, but Dean thought that I enjoyed telling that story just a little too much.

The wedding was... well, it was a typical wedding. Interestingly, his friend (the bride) pulled me aside at one point to ask me to "be gentle with him," because he had "been through so much already." I told her that she had nothing to worry about with me... too bad she didn't pull him aside and tell him to "not be such a douche." Maybe it would have helped.

She was a long-pined for crush of his youth and was the second of such girls in his life that I was to meet... another two in Atlanta he managed to keep me from ever meeting, despite me asking repeatedly... and the BIG ONE that he never stopped talking about round the clock would be introduced to me later in another Florida visit. It seemed that there weren't any women in Dean's life whom he didn't have some huge crush on at some point or another. Now, we all have our crushes and unrequited flames, but usually we've put them in their proper perspective once we hit our 30s. Not Dean... he gushed over them like I've never seen before or since.

When the wedding ended, we had a moment of truth ahead of us: a shared hotel room. Now backing up a bit, when he booked the plane ticket for me, we also booked the hotel room together. First, he wanted separate rooms, which I thought was too pricey and just plain ridiculous. So then he insisted that we would have double beds, instead of one king. It turned out that all of those suites were taken, so the only ones left were the suites with singular kings. He reluctantly agreed to book the room, but swore "NOTHING WILL HAPPEN!"

I thought it would be a good test of will power. We'd been dating for only about 3 weeks and I did feel it was still too early, especially since he'd been out of town for 2 of those 3 weeks. I decided to make it easy on him and not do anything to upset the delicate balance... I went to bed dressed in nothing seductive and I kept to my side of the bed. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned anything beyond that, and despite all his previous protests and exclamations that nothing would happen, he went ahead and made something happen anyway. Caught a bit off guard, I didn't decline his advances, mostly because my libido is always up for some fun... although there was a part of me that had hoped things might be less stereotypical this time.

We hung around Orlando for one more day, visiting my old friends and then spending time in the village around Universal. The second night together, he started acting a bit strangely. One of the things that he said was, "I really don't want to disappoint you." That made my heart sink, and I told him, "Then just don't." I explained that it was my experience if a guy says those words, not only will he disappoint soon enough, but he also knows almost exactly how he's going to do it.

He snapped out of the low period a little, but the next day as we drove back to Atlanta, he grew quieter and quieter. The closer we got to Atlanta, the more withdrawn he seemed to get. He was driving straight to the Atlanta airport to drop me where I'd left my car and take my parking spot, so that he could hop on a plane to fly back to NYC yet again, this time to train folks at the National Association of Broadcasters for most of the next week. I thought at first that he was just starting to wish he wasn't leaving so soon... that he might miss me... so I tried to get him to talk about it, but I soon learned that I was mistaken. Dean finally broke his silence to announce that he regretted having sex in Orlando, because it ruined his whole plan... a plan that involved waiting until my birthday before crossing that bridge.

Let me clarify: We started dating at the very end of September, and my birthday is December 12th; so he wanted to wait approximately 12 weeks. But the waiting period wasn't the part I found amusing... it was his reason for wanting to wait was the best part.

"Because you said in one of your old blogs that you wanted sex for your birthday."

I couldn't help but laugh and replied, "(A) That was two years ago! (B) I'm sorry to tell you, but no sex is amazing enough to stand alone as a birthday present. And (C) I also asked for a pony or a trip to Prague in that same birthday blog, but I don't see you offering either of those!"

Despite the humor that I found in his lament, he didn't seem to cheer up and was visibly distressed. He was so distracted by this that he wasn't even interested in saying goodbye when we swapped car places and parted ways. This issue of "it ruined my plans" thing about sex would be a point of contention for him for the rest of the relationship.

The other bad omen that hit in October came when he finally returned from NYC. Our next day together was a workday again and he wanted to know where I was with the training (a series of cds that he'd created to let people train themselves, which he was making me go through from start to finish to edit them and work through them instead of him training me). I admitted my frustration in working with the software and it's lack of common sense. Final Cut Pro is pretty intuitive, but After Effects is not... not to mention that I was going nuts working on one little 5 second moment of imagery, rather than putting a story together. I told him that I thought I was most definitely an editor who wanted to use motion graphics on the side, but that I didn't think I could do what he did full-time for a living.

That was the first time I saw "the twitch." His upper lip began to twitch and although he was still smiling, his eyes looked enraged. He then said we needed to stop everything, because he had no use in his business or personal life for "just an editor." He proceeded to talk about how editors were monkeys who push buttons and that he wanted someone creative. The whole day came to a halt while he tried to reorganize his business plan and what he was going to do with me.

It was a strange moment. He instantly became cold and distant and started to treat me like I was a nuisance to him. I continued to talk to him through the day, telling him that I wanted to continue learning from him and maybe I'd change my mind, but I felt that it just wasn't sticking with me at all and that perhaps he could develop a new training program - one that other editors would need to learn from him. In this way, I could be his testing ground for what other post-production folks need out there. He finally agreed to such a plan, but not before acting as if I'd ruined everything for several hours.

Things between us seemed to calm down and resettle before the end of the month, but there were definitely some telling moments in those first 31 days that in hindsight really sum up the rest of the relationship and predicted the end.

Fish Tale - pt. 1

In the beginning, there was the word.

Actually, it was a bunch of words strung together in the form of a Myspace message. I don't even remember what was said anymore... some networking question about what else I did besides editing from someone who wanted to connect with Atlanta industry people before moving here. I do remember thinking that his message seemed a little full of himself, but I tend to overlook such things. I glanced at his profile and saw that he was a motion graphics artist and spotted a bunch of somewhat cool stills. I didn't go check out his website, because I was trapped in dial-up hell at that time... having lost my DSL modem to a recent lightning storm.

I wrote back something about having taken motion graphics as a class before, but that I was mainly an editor and didn't work with anything nearly as sexy as what he did.

Granted, I was talking about motion graphics and it being flashy. Of course, he instantly took that to mean that I was saying he was sexy... which I wasn't. He was a bit cartoony... not unattractive, just definitely not what anyone would label as "sexy" by a long shot.

I also added some question asking about why it said he was in "LA/Miami/ATL" and if he accomplished that by having clones. Then I admitted to being jealous of his ability to clone himself and asked if he had a lab somewhere for that. I suppose he took that as flirting as well... "Hmm, she thinks I'm sexy and wants more of me!" I dunno... he tried to explain it a few months later, but I was laughing too hard to really hear what he said.

With that, our email exchanges were off and running... bombarding each other with messages and jokes and silly Photoshopped image comments for all to see. I didn't mind, because it was a safe distraction... he was long-distance, afterall. On the second day of messages, he was telling me he was totally smitten, he was canceling a date he had with some chick in Miami (where he still lived), and had moved me to his "top friend" spot. I was flattered, but also a bit concerned about his judgment... I mean, I hadn't even met the guy yet. I told him that I couldn't move him to the top spot, because that was reserved for Cully... but truth be told, I had decided not to date anyone for a long time, after a serial train wreck of a summer.

By the fourth day of this, he was asking if he could call... and by the end of that phone call, he was offering me a job at his company along with free training. After a few more calls, however, he was already having mood swings and showing signs of Jekyll and Hyde behavior... he claimed that it was because his first wedding anniversary post-divorce was impending and tried to blame the rabid squirrel behavior on the timing. I accepted it, but was wary.

By the eighth day, after I'd created and posted a Photoshop montage-comic to his comments, he called me to say that he really only needed an assistant in his life and not a girlfriend, so he wanted to cool off our phone calls.

I was confused, since I never agreed to be his "girlfriend" as yet, and especially since I hadn't even met the man. I suspected that he had changed his mind about me simply because he decided that he wanted to go on that date he'd originally planned, and he was trying to clear his conscience.

When I jokingly called him on it a few days later, he got pissed at me, slung some bizarre accusation or other at me, leaving me perplexed and attempting to over-explain my humor. That only gave him cause to sling yet another accusation at me about me being some sort of "Eeyore" or something... stating that although it was his favorite Pooh character, if he knew one in real life, he'd want to slap him and tell him to get over himself.

I was simultaneously pissed and amused at his accusations, especially because that's how I'd felt about him and wondered if someone in his life had gotten tired of his moodiness recently and used that exact line on him. I stopped talking to him for a bit to give him some space, while I decided if I wanted to continue being friends with the man. Mostly, however, I was dealing with some important events in my life: my father coming to visit and dropping some major emotional bombs, then my boys' birthday party... you know, typical week in my atypical life. Frankly, with all that going on, I really didn't have time for any other emotional roller coaster rides.

I did notice in my absence, however, that the girl he'd gone on that date with had been peppering his profile with new comments, and he did the same to hers. As a matter of fact, he'd actually been on a second and a third date in that short amount of time, and then suddenly he deleted his profile entirely from Myspace.

Noticing that he'd disappeared from my top friends list, I called him to find out what happened. It turns out that on his third date with this girl - whom he was still claiming wasn't a date but had previously admitted he found drop-dead gorgeous - he went to sit down on her couch while she "changed into something more comfortable" and he split the ass of his pants. Embarrassed by the realization that he was too fat and too dorky to ever consider being with such a stunningly hip girl, he freaked and dashed out of her apartment, returned home as quickly as he could and immediately deleted his profile, hoping the rest of the world would forget he existed.

Yeah, I know... that's what I said. "Uh, wait... what? You freaked out that you split your pants, so you deleted your Myspace page?"

He also said that he was taking the next 3 days to pack up his things and move to Atlanta, two and a half weeks ahead of his original schedule... all because of this "horrifying" weekend he'd had. Gosh, in hindsight, if that wasn't predictive of what a relationship would be like with him (not to mention all the other flip-floppy behavior), then I don't know what was. He said he'd be calling me from the road... he didn't. He talked to the other chick and to his brother the whole drive instead.

(to the privileged few of you readers out there who saw the "Patience Grasshopper" blog back in March, this is the same chick that he was calling constantly throughout our relationship and who later emailed me that unprovoked bitchy message about how I had no right to let my insecurities interfere with her friendship with him... yet another mind-boggling moment in this Outer Limits relationship)

When he got to Atlanta, he wanted to take the first day to look for houses with his new roommate, then the second day he was going to teach a class he was unprepared to teach, then that night he wanted to meet me for sushi. Why I didn't think that was too much of a whirlwind for me, I'll never know. I think I was too confused to see straight.

When he walked up to me on the night of our first meeting, I thought he was even cartoonier in person... short, very round, totally shaved bald, picket-fence smile that was bigger than life, and a LOUD Bronx accent. He was a bit like a living, three-dimensional, Puerto Rican version of Homer Simpson. Did I mention he was loud? We met at Rusans, which is a very chaotic place on a Friday night, but he somehow managed to talk over all the din in there. And instead of writing his order, he drew pictures of what he wanted, along with a cartoon of himself looking very sated and happy. I had to tell the chefs what he meant, so we'd get our order right.

He then proceeded to whip something out of his wallet. It turned out to be a ragged, folded up piece of legal-size paper that apparently contained his whole business model. The strange schematic made absolutely no sense... just a bunch of bubbles and lines and arrows and boxes with strange captions in them, like "The Lab" and "The Egg" and "The Anvel" and all created in some lame Windows graph program, with hand-written scratchings and other arrows and things written in with more ideas. He almost never took a breath while he described it all in animated detail... hands flailing, eyes ablaze with keen enthusiasm. My head was spinning, but I was also drinking a large sake by myself, so I thought maybe I was just a little tipsy. He finally asked if it all made sense and I jokingly said, "Perfectly." I thought my sarcasm was quite clear, but he thought I was serious and went on to gush about how no one else has ever understood his plan before me. (Gee, really? No one? Shocking.)

At the end of the night, I drove myself home (in case anyone's wondering, I wasn't at all tipsy... we went to see a movie after dinner) and I hadn't gotten more than 5 minutes down the road before my phone rang. When I answered, all I heard was him yelling, "Now that I've met you, I have to date you! I know it'll be complicated by us working together, but I'll figure out a set of rules. It'll all work out, I know it will." He wasn't asking me, mind you... he was telling me. I suggested that we should go out the next day and maybe discuss it further, but he was adamant that he had to date me.

The next day, we did talk about it... for quite some length... and he hadn't changed his tune, nor was there anything I could say to convince him otherwise. I tried telling him that I had a strict policy about not dating married men - separated or not - to which he said he just knew he was divorced by default and the papers had been filed over 6 months earlier, he just hadn't received the papers yet. I told him that it was too soon for him, to which he replied it wasn't soon enough. I told him that maybe he'd like to take his time - month or two, perhaps - and get to know me as friends, before jumping into dating me... to which he replied, "No, I can't wait. I have to date you now. I don't have that kind of time. It has to be now."

I was a bit shocked and thought, "Wow, he must REALLY be horny, because this is the most brazen and direct approach I've ever seen." Little did I know, we were apparently talking about 2 different things. When he was talking about "dating me," I thought he meant a full relationship, including sex. However, I later found out that when he was talking about "dating me," he meant that he just wanted a pal to go to the movies and comic book store with and occasionally kiss or hold hands... that's it. He also later (much later on) told me that he only wanted to get me "off the market" so that no other man could date me, while he monopolized my time... even thought I'd told him that I had given up on dating anyone and was ready for one of my long stints of alone time.

After a couple hours of this overly expressive, highly enthusiastic man selling himself and why it would be a great idea to date him and about how all of his other ex-girlfriend in the past always thought he was the most fun guy ever, I finally caved in and agreed. I still didn't know that he didn't want to have sex, but that's a story for the next segment.

All of the above occurred in just 3 weeks time - September 8 to September 30. Seems like a lot longer, and when I later pointed this out to him on an actual calendar, he too was surprised and thought it had been much, much longer than that. It's actually making my head spin just thinking about it... but as you can see in comparison to my previous post, this man broke from my ideal in almost every way. Yet I still gave him a chance... why? I'll get to that theory later, but right now, I think I need a nap.