Friday, July 24, 2009

work, again.

this past week has confirmed it: i am *not* cut out for direct service provision or program operation. ugh.

we have a number of volunteers through a national volunteer program assigned to our site; then the budget thing happened. we had to lay off one of our program directors who was going to supervise half of the volunteers. to keep our volunteers, we offered them alternative assignments which necessitated, basically, the reworking of the volunteer program from the ground up - or ass backwards. whichever.

long story short: i am not a program director; i just write the proposal. why am i creating the workplan for a program? i am not a program director; i just write the proposal. why am i creating the job description for the program? why am i talking to the volunteers? why am i doing what a program director does? grrrrrr.

i'm cranky AND hungry.
...
last night i cooked dinner at M-'s place.
keeping things simple, i whipped up a very nice carbonara. but, geez, dude tools are primitive. do all single guys have kitchen tools from c. 1978?

we watched a few shows (catching up on TrueBlood and Hung - which is hilarious), held hands, dozed off on the couch and went to bed. and...that's it.

i have chosen to adopt a different attitude when it comes to the school-night celibacy we seem to be practising. i realized why i was so upset with the idea of it before - i have always placed an inordinate amount of value on sex as a rubric for how much a guy likes me. in other words, if a guy likes me, he'll have sex with me. this is not to say that this is true. B- had sex with me, but i don't know if we 'liked' each other. and i'm happy to say that there are dudes out there who have been fond of me (and i them) and we have never had sex. so it's not exactly a correllary.

but. in the past, i have equated my own value with the amount of sex had. there. that's closer to the truth.

(if my therapist was reading this, she'd be proud of my breakthrough just now.)

so when it seemed that we weren't having sex as regularly as i thought we ought, i automatically thought it was a reflection of my value. where this thinking comes from, i hesitate to probe. or, i'll just blame it on B- who will become my boogie man for all things dysfunctional and messed up.

(ExRoomie says that's unfair. 'He was mentally ill. He was on meds, or off them, neurotic and crazy. You cannot use him as a measuring stick.')

i realize that kind of thinking is warped, as well as sad, hence the change in attitude. the school-night celibacy is not a metric of my value (or a measure of his lack of regard for me); it is merely we are old and tired, in food coma and it's the middle of the week after a hard day at work. who wouldn't go to bed next to the person they like after all that?

baby steps that i will eventually allow myself to shower there in the morning.
...
P.S: to all my 9 (!) readers who were curious to know if M- knew about my blogging about him. Yes, he does.

Last weekend (which was really lovely and I'll write about it later, perhaps), we were hanging out in Nilda's and having really serious conversations again about our families. It's odd, the moments we choose to open up. We do it in public. Huh.

Anyway, we were there, forcing ourselves to be honest about things. He was honest about his family history; I was honest about mine. He was honest about his past lovers; I was honest about mine (though if he asks about my number, I will not answer - so none of his business.) And so, in the interest of honesty, I said: You know I mention you on my blog.

M-: Yeah? Everything?
D: No...just observations. Things that happen on a date or a funny conversation.
M-: Am I famous?
D: No, but you're popular. You're beginning to have a following. The posts about you are the ones with the most hits. Are you cool with that?
M-: Maybe I'll have groupies.

There you have it. M- is cool with it and looks forward to fan mail. Let the M- stories continue.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice. I like him. I am a groupie.

Joy said...

Awesome. If he wants groupies, I'm in.

I know what you mean about school-night celibacy (I really like that phrase). I also used to/still do sometimes equate wanting to have sex every night with being desirable and desired, with the relationship being good.

Anonymous said...

Count me into the cheering squad! -- SDP

Meekster said...

He's a great guy. I am jealous, but your stories give me hope that I'll find my next love eventually, too. I'm so happy for you, and I look forward to these posts because I love seeing you being treated so well by someone who seems to be a Genuine Nice Guy.

Groupie. Huh. I thought those days were behind me, but rock on! :)

Delia Christina said...

ha ha!
i will tell him his fan base is growing.

yeah, he's a good guy. not perfect (i'm not, either) but a really good guy. so i need to apologize to the Universe: yes, apparently there are good guys out there with whom one will want to groove. i was wrong. i stand corrected. mea culpa.

Trope said...

Okay, I'll be a groupie! :) Re: cooking tools, they all appear to be c. 1978 because they ARE from 1978. My boy (and the ones previously) refuse all upgrades to their kitchen hardware, including that ridiculous wedding registry BS. A quote from my spouse: "It's the pan I've always used, and I know how to make eggs in it, and you can buy a new one but I'm still going to keep MY pan and use MY pan." It's not a fight you can win.

Re: sex... you make a very good point. I think it's cultural programming for women to think more sex = more interest, which is really bizarre, given that I am not otherwise that interested in most of the people I want to have sex with.

Does your carbonara include hard-boiled eggs? I'm taking a survey.

Delia Christina said...

He has this one spatula that looks completely burnt. Like, actually scorched. And it's tiny. And his knives... And then there's this one drawer he won't let me open...

Whatever. Dude ways are not my ways.

My carbonara is very very simple:
3-6 egg yolks, beaten with cracked pepper and grated parmesan, tossed with angel hair and rendered pancetta, which was slowly cooked with one TB butter or olive oil.

Sometimes I add a little heavy cream to the egg mixture but you don't have to.

When I was in Italy, I made this for dinner and it wasn't so bad. (Though there pasta tastes so much better than ours.)

Delia Christina said...

*their* pasta.
grr.