Dreamy Dream Boy

You know I have a few self-imposed rules about blogging. Although it feels like a diary-since when I write in it, it is just me and the screen-and that feels private, I do not treat it like a diary.

Certain subjects are off-limits. I don't have a hard and fast rule about which subjects or topics, but generally anything about my love life is not written about; my crushes and my crushing defeats, friendship troubles, or anything that I think could be taken as a personal affront to a specific individual, and certain stupid things I am wont to do that I cannot make light of or make fun of just yet-mostly those things stay OFF the internet.

But today I am throwing that rule out the window in order to swoon.

Yes, SWOON.

I don't usually go all gaga for a man, at least any more. Life and years have taught me that no matter what a person looks like, their character is ever so much more important to me and inevitably detracts from or improves their physical appearance ten-fold.

It used to be that I could see a good-looking guy on the train and spend months generally excited about him, and genuinely believing in a possible future between him and me. After awhile, I began to reflect on my dating history and realized that the ratio of men I meet to men I can actually talk to for longer than 5 minutes about anything at all is about 1,000:1. Looks on the train lost all meaning, and the bar experience lost all lustre.

Then I took it a step further, and realized the ratio of men I can talk to, to men who have compatible senses of humor with me is about 100,000:1 as well. Then I got standards and also realized that the ratio of men I could talk to, that thought I was funny AND that I thought were handsome, was about 1,000,000,000:1.

And since it is really hard to meet 1000 men, and the liklihood of having all those things work for me specifically is really small.....I have a 'realistic' point of view. In other words, I rarely swoon. I rarely get excited about someone BEFORE I have ever spoken to him. Once I speak to him and he passes the 'can we hold a conversation' test, my interest peaks but never does it raise to that level of amazing....and a secret part of me thinks this will not happen until he really is the husband that I am expecting.

And never-the-less, three weeks ago, I met a guy who makes me swoon. 'Met' is not really the right word, since technically I met him today. He tried to talk to me today but I got all giddy and left. Oh, but he is my kind of dreamy. My kind of everything, which is a little scary because it's been a LONG time since I have been this swoony.

He plays at the beach and he is soooooooooo dreamy, I get all fluttery thinking about him. The good news is, though he is handsome, he is a unique enough of a handsome that I do not fear any of my other volleyball female friends will fall for him, so no competitive worries. But at this point I do not know if he is married-he ought to be because he has a million dollar smile and oh.....yes.....I'm still swoony, even here, at the library. I literally ran away from him today. I felt all sweaty and gross and full of sand. Which I was-sweaty and gross and full of sand. Not my most beautiful. Sigh. Kind of doesn't matter though.

Oh. My. Swoon swoon swoon swoon.

Dare I give revealing details? He is not from the US. He is OLDER. He is physically my type. He wears glasses. That is all I am willing to share, not too revealing, I know. But it is what it is. Sigh.

Ok I am done.

BTW-sand was so hot I actually acquired 3rd degree burns on parts of my bottom feet. It hurts to walk right now. I need to bring my sand socks next time. When I see my dreamy future lover.....ah ok. Seriously. If I had a picture of him I would totally post it on my wall and look at it regularly, just like a teenager. I am very giddy right now. Oooo, what if he liked me back? How exciting.

Ok I am done. For real.

Capitalize This!

Back in 1996, when I was 18 years old and e-mailing was still very new and we were all starting to make it a regular part of our existence, I remember there were very lively debates about formalities and punctuations in writing.

All of the sudden our attention was drawn to which of us and our friends were terrible spellers and had terrible grammar and punctuation abilities.

I remember cringing at the incorrect use of words like there, their, and they're, and thinking, very briefly, as an aspiring journalist, how glad I was that I was such a good speller. To this day I still hate bad spelling but if I love you, you are forgiven.

I also remember deciding, that in e-mails, we OUGHT to have the freedom to be informal. After all, I spent so much time trying to avoid the famous Medill F in my classes that I couldn't possibly be bothered by, for example, taking the time to capitalize my sentences or proper nouns. I mean, how inane and tiresome. This was the digital age! And anyway, I was writing to my friends, who love me and do not judge me based on my attention to typing detail. Later on, that attitude also began to apply to blogging as well.

If I have ever commented on your blog, more than likely, it was in all lower case. But I have to finally own up to something. My attempt at devil-may-care casual tones in typing is a fraud. I'm a poser to the nth degree. Because for all these years, I have staunchly told myself that NOT capitalizing was easier, and for all these years, that has been a bold-face lie.

I began to notice, I don't know however long ago, that when I really get into it, when I type without regard, that capital letters find their way into my writing. In other words, I start to type something and as the words begin to flow, my little pinky easily and swiftly drifts over to the shift button and before I know it- BAM!!!! 'I' is capitalized. Sentence beginnings have capital letters. Proper nouns have capital letters; and NOT capitalizing a word actually takes more time and conscious thought than the other way around.

Who knew? I did. And I was not willing to admit it, and it is so arbitrary that I don't want to dwell on the psychology behind it. I just want to own up to it without making any promises. I may continue to comment on your blog in lower case. But I know it's a front. I'm like the kid who smoked to be cool. Oh wait, I did smoke to be cool. Well now you know.

Another Irony

I get warnings a lot from random internet sources-ones that say if I don't do something, sign up for something, pay for something, that something bad will happen.

I have learned to turn a blind eye to most of these warnings.

Recently Yahoo started sending me 'warnings' about my account's safety or something or other, about how I could be saved from potentially losing my password and other things.

I ignored it until the other day I tried to log on and Yahoo told me that I would not be able to log on until I created a some safe questions. Safe questions that I could ask to be asked in the event I 'lost' my password and could not log in.

Now all this is fine and dandy. I have this 'feature' on my bank website, my student loan website, and various other sites as well. I am basically ok with it, because I tend to forget those log ins and passwords from time to time. Ironically, when I do forget, where do they send the little reminder? To my Yahoo email account.

Now where does my Yahoo account want to send my password reminder? To my Yahoo email account. The ONLY email I have at the moment. Which, and I shall point out the obvious, is ironic because if I forget the password to my Yahoo account, and then it SENDS my password reminder TO my Yahoo account, there is still no way I can get it back.

It's ok. I am not worried. I know I can get another email, but that would be yet another password to remember and I know I would not use it anyway. I am settled here. Content. If the impossible does happen-memory loss due to some extreme occurence, or some other unconscionable thing, then I will deal with it when it comes. I'm crazy cool like that. Cool as a cucumber.

my heart and souls

two very special women are in the process of traveling speedily towards me now from places very far away. one is in a car somewhere in TX and one is on a plane headed to Heathrow. also one very special dad will be driving my way in about 24 hours, give or take. not a one is coming to see me particularly, in fact, not a one of them has a primary destination of chicago, but i believe i shall see them and my heart will be rejuvenated. the time will be short. but it will be ever so sweet.

My Interweb Pet Peeve

....when people make appointments with me for the following day over email assuming I will get the email. I just found out I missed an appointment on Tuesday because they only decided to tell me about on Monday! And I haven't been on the internet for a couple days. Grr. There goes some money I could have made, down the drain.

I have also had 'interviewers' do the same thing. Come ON, people. Verfiy by phone.....BY PHONE!!!!