Engaged!
September 7th, 2009 § 1 Comment
My apologies, here I went on and on for a whole long to do about Paul and I and how we found one another. Well, forgive me but I need to fast forward past a lot of stuff to tell you, I’m engaged!
After a little over a year of dating, Paul and I went to Morro Bay this weekend for our anniversary. We arrived after 5 hours of driving to find our hotel room had ants, old torn carpeting and was just not the kind of hotel we were expecting the Inn at Morro Bay to be. We went to dinner that night in Cambria and the food was terrible. Feeling a little defeated by our vacation we went back to the hotel to go to bed.
The next morning we got a couples massage which was in a shed with a nice thin white sheet to provide privacy and then decided we had enough. I guess I was too bummed out over our terrible trip, to realize that Paul was unusually anxious about something. He told me we needed to make one quick stop before we decided to head back home.
We drove down PCH and stopped at a little beach about 5 miles from our hotel. We walked down to the beach and quite honestly, everything after is a blur. I remember somehow Paul was suddenly on one knee with a ring in his hand asking me to marry him. I proceeded to sit on his knee and hug him and of course I said yes!
It was tremendously simple and sweet and very unexpected. I love my future hubby, I love my ring, and I couldn’t be happier with the amazing family I will soon be welcomed into. So, I hope you will forgive me for the fast forward but as far as I am concerned, my journey begins now.
Entry 1 of My Paul Story
August 31st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Growing up I dreamed of the day I would date. The idea of meeting a guy, the first kiss, the first time he said, “I love you.” I had big ideas for love and as I grew older, with each passing year, that hope faded. Relationships took their normal toll. Falling in love, realizing after 6 months you were never really in love and then staying for months longer trying to build up the nerve to finally break the relationship off.
I’ve been a serial dater for years. I dated the same guy all throughout high school. I broke up with him when I realized I needed to take the journey of single hood, one I knew I needed to take in order to find out who I was. That single journey lasted a few weeks, before I found myself in another relationship, and then another, and another and another. Clearly there was a pattern that I had began which was solidified on Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house when the place card next to mine simply read, “boyfriend.” Apparently my family knew my pattern well enough to know that if they wanted to remain current with my love life, they needed to remain generic.
It was sad really. I had always picked safe, nice guys. I was never into the bad boys. I wanted a guy I could be sure wouldn’t hurt me, a guy I knew would much rather spend time with me than with his friends or at a club. I wanted a guy who, in all honesty, liked me more than I liked them. While in return I got a safe relationship I never got a relationship I wanted. To choose a nice guy is a wonderful thing. To choose a guy solely because he is nice, is a dysfunctional thing.
It wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles over three years ago, that my picker went from safe to really really stupid. I began a string of relationships with men that should have sent safe-seeking me fleeing in the other direction. I dated a musician who only wanted to make out on his couch in between his guitar playing. I dated a guy I worked with who, unbeknown to me, had a fiancee that I discovered only after she confronted me. To this day, I believe there is no lower relationship point in the world than to find out that you are the other woman. I dated my neighbor who quickly became the reason why I spent the last three month of living in Los Angeles in an empty apartment sleeping on the floor.
My last three months in Los Angeles were torture. I went from a cozy apartment overstuffed with furniture to nothing-in a matter of 4 hours. I dreaded going home every night to the emptiness that seemed to swallow me whole. It was during the first week that I convinced myself I was stuck in some sort of relationship purgatory, paying my penance for leaving a string of men who loved me and who I was unable to love back. It seemed unfair that all my prior boyfriends had been able to move on, get married, have children and here I was, still single going through a horrific breakup and sleeping on an air mattress in a hollow apartment. But I had a choice. I could, A. let the bitterness of failed relationships swallow me up and cave into despair, or I could B. Pick up the pieces of myself, take control of my life and approach dating with as much vigor and determination as I had my career.
Luckily I chose to move on and take control. I wanted to run full force into dating, which to me was the same as saying, I want to run full force into sheer terror and unavoidable torturous demise. I wanted to go on as many dates as possible, meet as many guys as possible and spend the time sifting through each of them until I found one I really wanted–regardless of wether or not he wanted me more, or was safe. I figured there was no scarier place to exorcise my demons, than online dating.
I made my profile and made myself a promise; every seemingly sane guy I encountered, I would have a conversation with, and if that went well I would proceed to go on a date with. Within two days and 1,000 visits to my profile I was hooked. I met guys for dinner, for drinks and after 5 dates and countless “get to know you” conversations I was completely and totally over it. I didn’t want to talk anymore about growing up, if my parents were still together, what I liked to do for fun. I was so sick of those conversations the thought of talking about myself one more time, I was sure would send me over the edge. Dating was like the gym, it was exhausting and had yet to prove it would provide the results I hoped for.
Through online dating I met a guy who managed MMA fighters which ultimately ended when, after spending the evening at his house watching Caddyshack, he proceeded to make out with me while clinging to me like a spider monkey. I am not doing the moment justice here…the guy literally, mid make-out, wrapped his legs around my waist like a five year old who didn’t want you to leave and clung to me. Once I wriggled free I quickly wriggled away and we never spoke again. I dated a guy who seemed nice, we went to dinner had good conversation, and in all honesty, I hoped to see him again. I called him twice afterwards, and over a year later, he has yet to return either of those calls. I went on a date with a guy who was the epidomy of metro sexual in trendy jeans and a bedazzled skin tight black t-shirt. We went to dinner for an hour, I felt no chemistry and thought it was mutual until he proceeded to call and email me three times a day for the next two weeks. I was upfront and told him I felt no chemistry although he was a nice guy and wished him the best…his response, “I am much too good looking for you anyway.” Sadly, the calls stopped, we lost touch and I would bet my unborn children that he is still single, living in the Greater Los Angeles Area and getting weekly spray tans.
Five dates and I was exhausted. I willed myself to forge on and stay committed to my quest, although I did so with far less enthusiasm than I started with. After a month of an active profile and a handful of terrible dates under my belt, I was sifting through my inbox when I saw an email that stood out. At first glance it was seemingly normal, which was the first thing that got my attention. It wasn’t a cheesy, “you are beautiful” email, he didn’t open with a stomach turning, “hi princess”, his email was casual, witty, simple and endearing. I checked out his profile and thought his pictures were cute. I did my fail-safe average of taking his cutest picture with his least attractive picture and I concluded that he was more than reasonably attractive. After a few email exchanges we decided to do the first phone call. I braced myself for the painstaking polite conversation that inevitably comes with this step of the dating process.
The first time I talked to Paul on the phone we clicked. It wasn’t the “he’s cordial and friendly to me and I am friendly back” kind of conversation, it was much different. I enjoyed every second of talking to him. It was the kind of conversation that is easy and fun, where you go back and forth and the conversation is like a good game of ping pong. He lobbed a ball to me I pinged it back and we went like that for 7 hours. We ended our conversation as the sun was coming up and I went to bed smiling.
We met for the first time and our first date was the best date I have ever been on, which really doesn’t do it justice because I haven’t really been on many good dates. I will say though that had I ever been a contestant on the Bachelorette and went on one of those helicopter flights to Napa Valley kind of dates…my date with Paul would remain the best date I have ever been on. This is even more funny to me because we did nothing. We met for dinner, took a walk and went to Starbucks. Everything was easy and comfortable, like I had known him long before that moment and I liked him…even before it was clear that he liked me or was safe. He could have been lying to me, he could have had a secret wife, he could have just wanted to get laid and move on to the next unsuspecting on line profile…but every part of my being was telling me that he was good and he was right.
We promised each other in the beginning that we would go slow, so as not to ruin the relationship. We had both been down roads where we rushed things. He told me how his reservations for rushing stemmed from breaking up with a girl after losing interest because they moved to fast, I didn’t have the courage to tell him my fear of moving too fast stemmed from the fact that I was sleeping in an apartment on the floor.
It is now late and I am tired and cross-eyed so I will call this entry 1 of my “Paul story” because there is so much more of this story to tell.
Just Jack
August 11th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
As a puppy Jack was enthusiastic. He suffered from separation anxiety, which I reminded myself of often. I had to remind myself, otherwise I would have grown tremendously angry when he ate all the foam out of the bottom of my mattress (which I discovered one night when I fell completely through it), chewed my prescription glasses to pieces, ate the crown moulding off all the door frames in the house and barked like a banshee every time I left him.
Jack was a pound puppy and with pound puppies comes baggage. Sometimes that baggage takes a while to get out of their system, for Jack it took about 8 years. But Jack was adorable and sweet. His big ears that flopped at the corners, his brown needy eyes, the way he would roll onto his back and bat his paws at me – all made me fall hopelessly in love with him. The day I adopted Jack, I promised him that no matter what happened, we were in it together and I would always take good care of him.
Within a few months of adopting Jack I discovered that much of his anxiety faded after long runs. So, every morning at 6am Jack and I would go for a 6 mile run. On one particular morning, Jack was tremendously excited to get out to stretch his legs. As I ran, he pounced up with a look on his face that I could swear was a smile. The main street was humming with hundreds of cars filled with morning commuters headed to work. I held Jack close to my side and ran as he pounced happily by my side. When we got to the center of the crosswalk Jack sprang up like a bunny and nipped at the waistband of my sweats. It wasn’t until I felt the cold rush of morning air, that I realized he must have gotten my pants caught on his tooth because when he returned to the ground, my pants went with him. There I stood, in the middle of the crosswalk, with my derriere exposed for everyone to see, wrestling to free my pants which were wedged between two of Jack’s sharp puppy teeth. Once freed, I proceeded to run the fastest mile I have ever run, back home to hide.
I had Jack for about 5 years when, during a routine vet visit, they found his blood work to be “concerning”. After a series of lengthy and tremendously expensive tests, they discovered that Jack needed surgery to remove 2 feet of his intestines and re-route his “plumbing”. I was told that after $7,000 worth of surgery and a 1 week stay in the hospital, Jack “should” be okay. I cried. I didn’t care about the money, I knew I would find some way to pay for it, but all I could think of was losing my Jack.
Time passed slowly the day of surgery. I went to work but couldn’t focus. After 8 painstaking hours the vet called to say Jack made it out of surgery. He told me I could anticipate Jack being at the hospital for at least a week, as this was a major surgery and required a great deal of supervised recovery. The next morning the vet called to say that I should come pick Jack up that afternoon. Apparently major surgery, 70 stitches and staples were no contender for Jack’s enthusiasm. He spent the night standing up, wagging his tail in his kennel and barking incessantly at anyone who would listen. Jack was making it known that he was ready to come home.
Convincing a dog with boundless energy and bull like stubbornness to take it easy is an impossible feat. Even though Jack was home we still visited the emergency clinic 8 times to get him re-stitched because he kept popping his staples. For me, the surgery was burned into memory, for Jack it was so distant it was as if it never happened.
Jack’s surgery was almost 6 years ago and his ”new plumbing” has left him with a handful of annoyances. Once weighing in at 70lbs. Jack is now a gaunt 40lbs. I blame his skinny obsession on the fact that we moved to LA for a while and the pressure of staying attractive in Hollywood got to him. Sadly, no amount of food will ever fatten him up and his appetite is insatiable.
Jack farts. Not mild offensive farts either. He farts long and stinky, nose curling, head roll into the back of your head smelling farts. Even more terrible is that he farts with reckless abandon. He doesn’t care who it is in front of, what time of day it is, or whether all the windows in the house are safely opened. His farting knows no boundaries. I briefly dated a guy who was not a fan of Jack. Granted, not every person can look past such vulgarity to see the adorable, sweet puppy within. This guy treated Jack with politeness, presumably only because he hoped to get laid. One night, we got to my house late and he said he was too tired to drive home. I told him he could sleep on my couch (I was well onto his ulterior motives and knew we had no future. Love me, love my dog…and clearly he loved neither of us.) I woke the next morning to Jack darting into my room and onto my bed and could hear my date cursing under stifled breath. I walked in to see him holding what was left of his shoes. Needless to say he left and the last image I have of him is watching him hobble shoeless to his car at 6am.
Jack and I have been through a lot together. He has been there for countless moves to new apartments, driven with me for hours in the car as we went on vacation, went to camp with me in the summer. Jack has sat next to me as I cried over breakups, he has stood watch through the night keeping me safe inside my apartment, he greets me every time I walk through the door – which never fails to make me feel important. It’s as if he promised the same thing to me ten years ago - that no matter what happened, we were in it together and he would always take good care of me.
