...Think, Think, Think...

An Open Letter to a Man Who Doesn't Appreciate What He Has

Dear You,

We've kept in touch off and on since we dated a couple of years ago.  I'm no fool, I know what you want. 
Every few weeks if you haven't heard from me you text, calling me honey or baby and asking how I am.  You use that as a thinly veiled excuse to ask if I'm single.  I am.  I think I will be for a while.  I'm not ready to be involved after what happened the last time.  My blind faith has eyestrain and needs a rest. 

You suggest we meet up.  You never really think about how far away you live and how although I can do that journey in a couple of hours, I don't really want to go that far and back on a work night.  Stay over, you suggest, but its too far to commute into the office in the morning.  You've never come up here to see me.  even when we dated you never bothered.  It was always about convenience for you and thats why you're still in touch.

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" I asked a while ago.  I'm paraphrasing but your answer came along the lines of, "Yes, but she's not as dirty as you are."  Dirty being the label for a woman who isn't afraid of her sexuality.  Since then, you've shamelessly been trying to get me to come and see you.

I caved in November and we had lunch.  All of an hour before you had to go back to work.  You hadn't changed much.  Still the same.  Over-confident.  Thinking you'd got me all figured out.  Cocky enough to ask "Where's my kiss?" and I kissed you.  But I didn't feel anything.  No warmth, nor any desire to continue down that path.

During lunch you avoided the topic of your girlfriend when I asked.  I was only doing it to make you feel uncomfortable.  I think it worked.  You said that we were "mates" and we didn't have to sleep together.  A few days later you text me again, asking to see me for "some fun."  I reminded you that you've got a girlfriend for that.  You come back with a reply that you're almost single, not understanding that being single is like being pregnant; either you are, or you're not.

You didn't realise that two years have changed me.  Before I was a victim (I use that word in the loosest possible sense) of the game.  Now, if needs be, I can be a player.  You think that I don't realise that you're spinning lines.  I know you don't realise that I've been subject to more skilled players than you, both on the receiving end and watching from the sidelines. 

Just before christmas you sent another text, asking to see me before christmas.  Then between christmas and new year you told me you were going to be away for new year but that you'd see me when you got back. 

A few weeks go by and your new year pictures are on facebook.  For a man who is almost single, you looked remarkably happy and cosy with your girlfriend.

This past week, you text me again to tell me I've been quiet.  I replied that I've been busy at work and mentioned how cosy your new year pictures looked.  You're so brazen that you replied "Yeah, it was a good time.  When can you fit me in?"

I don't know the ins and outs of your relationship.  Maybe everything is on the rocks, but I can't see that for a minute from the couple of hundred cosy pictures of you two together.  I feel for her.  She probably has no idea.  By the same token, I feel for you for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, because you're too stupid to see when you're risking a good thing.  Secondly, because I'll toy with you like a kitten with a ball of wool as long as you allow me to.

I'm not vengeful by any stretch.  But you see, I'm better than being your whore.  If you're not smart enough to work that out and to perhaps assign a little more worth to people, you'll get everything you deserve.

I should clarify, I don't wish you any ill will.  I just wish that you'd realise how lucky you are to have someone and how stupid that you are that you'd jeopardise that for the sake of a lay. 

Lots of Love

Beth

Non-Specific Post, Rant, Aims & Playlist

I'm having one of those days today.  You know the ones where you question whether its even worth you being where you are?

I feel like that at work today.  Things are bothering me and I've had a brief temper tantrum which led me to go and stand outside for a moment just to cool off (takes a lot to push me to this, but its what I do rather than find the person who caused the problem and beat them).  I've now hit the point of apathy.  Where you realise some brick walls aren't the right ones to bash your head against.  No one really wants a bashed in head, after all (although some people really are asking for it at times!).

Right now, I'm supposed to be at lunch.  I'm not hungry.  I didn't feel like walking out to get food.  I'm sitting with my ipod on, blocking out the buzz of office noise with assorted rock.  My playlist is at the bottom of the post, just in case anyone is curious as to what I use to calm down.  As music goes, its not that calm.  I will have to eat at some point this afternoon.  I've got crisps, half a box of Mint Poppets (I think these are like Junior Mints for anyone the other side of the pond) and there's definitely a Strawberry Cornetto in the freezer because I bought it on Tuesday and didn't eat it then.  Its not Ice Cream weather but who cares.

I've managed to achieve one thing on my list below which was to get Google Reader up and running.  How did I not do this sooner?  Its genius.  I can't quite explain the joy of not having to have 30 tabs open in Firefox just to check and see if someone has updated.  It means I can actually check my regular blogs more regularly than once a week because it allows me to be lazy and do what I need to do at the same time.  I'm very impressed.  Perhaps I ought to try and do more things on the list, perhaps they'll impress me too!

I've been in search of my first "For Dummies" book and couldn't find what I wanted.  I really want "Scientology for Dummies".  I try not to make wild stabbing judgements on religious ideas until I've read something about.  It seems that they aren't really up for the whole "For Dummies" thing.  Instead, I gave in and bought Dianetics off of ebay.  It'll probably just sit on the bookshelf with all of the other crap I buy because I love books but don't read.

I've got some ideas for posts in my head, so I'm planning on increasing my post frequency somewhat.  While looking hungrily at the Smitten Kitchen blog, I realised that I have quite a lot of food-linked memories.  I suppose most of us do, its the whole sense thing.  I can think of at least three different stories at the moment, although there's a possibility I'll only post two of them because perhaps the third is a little disgusting to share.  Athough maybe the disgusting stories make the best reading.  We'll see...

Playlist, in the order the ipod spewed it out:

Whiplash - Metallica
Cats in the Cradle- Ugly Kid Joe
Buddy Holly - Weezer
Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears
Breathe - Nickelback
Glory Box - Portishead
Redneck Woman - Gretchen Wilson
Get Inside - Stone Sour
The Pretender - Foo Fighters
Duality - Slipknot (given my mood today, I fully understand the notion that pushing ones fingers into ones eyes is a great source of relief from assorted bullshit)
Keep Hope Alive - The Crystal Method
Shout - Disturbed
The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
Through Glass - Stone Sour
Stacked Actors - Foo Fighters
Good to Go - John Corbett

Club 26

Yesterday was my birthday.  I'm now a member of Club 26 and I seem to have settled in a little easier than I thought I would.

Back in November while scrolling through my calendar at work, I realised how soon it was and felt my heart pound in my chest for a few moments, gentle waves of panic washing over me.

That night, I mentioned to my mother that I didn't feel like I'd achieved anything.  She told me that she hadn't achieved anything by 26.  I pointed out she was married by then and the only thing she could come back with was "Only just..".  She'd actually been married 7 months by her 26th birthday and living with my father for two years prior to that.  This is why I don't ask for any sort of support from my mother.  On the rare occasion that she tries, it doens't work.

By yesterday morning I'd calmed down about it.  It didn't feel like any other day.  It was just like any other Saturday.  I lay in bed watching TNA Wrestling until 1:30pm.  At some point my dad knocked on the door to my bedroom and told me there were cards downstairs.  I knew, I just wasn't that interested in the whole performance.

Eventually I dragged myself downstairs and opened the cards - everyone gave me money (always a bonus) and I also got a birthday cake, likely because of a mock hissy fit I threw last year at not getting one.

What I always find most interesting about birthdays are who remembers and who forgets.  I had lots of Facebook messages from people to wish me a good day, one of the girls at work went out of her way to get me a card and a Boots Gift Card (I was really touched, she didn't have to do that) and I had one text from the friend I went out with to celebrate.

The people who forgot:

My maternal grandmother - no shock, she only addressed the christmas card to my parents.
My godparents - these are people I see regularly, but no card.
The friend who I saw last weekend who I told it was my birthday this weekend.

I should probably stress that I'm not highlighting these people for some sort of miserly reason.  I'm not after more presents and I'm certainly not holding it against anyone.  Everyone has things going on in their lives that get in the way sometimes.

In contrast to those three, there was one friend who I'd invited along to dinner last night.  She didn't text back to say she couldn't make it but when I opened my front door I almost fell over a bunch of flowers and a card.  She explained that she wasn't feeling well but that she hoped I had fun.  Had I not had to rush to get a train, I'd probably have cried - I was so touched that she'd gone to the trouble to do that.

To celebrate, I had a quiet but fun dinner with my friend and his boyfriend at the Mongolian Barbeque in Covent Garden.  If you've never been to one, please go!  The premise is that you get a bowl and a plate and you walk along a counter of raw meat/seafood, fresh vegetables, spices and sauces.  You put together your own dish containing whatever you feel like and they cook it for you on a huge hotplate.  You put a lolly stick in the dish with your name and table number on it so the waiting staff can tell you which dish is yours.  For those among us lacking in maturity, this leaves plenty of room for name changes - at one point my friends became Horatio and Brian, while I stuck with my own name.

The food is absolutely yummy but the service left quite a lot to be desired.  The staff were all very friendsly but as a general rule, if I have to go and chase up my drink order after 20 minutes, I'm less than pleased.  Even more so when you get the bill and they've added an optional 12.5% gratuity.  Fortunately, it wasn't enough to dampen our spirits and we spent the entire evening people watching/people mocking and giggling into our food.

I didn't make any new years resolutions, I never do - but I think I'm going to have a list of things to do for my 26th year.  Starting with (in no particular order!):

• Be grateful for all the wonderful experiences and friends I have - its not that I'm ungrateful, but I should be more conscious of how lucky I am.
• See more of my friends.  There are people I adore that I don't see often enough.
• Start using Google Reader - that way I can keep up to date with my regular blogs on my lunchbreaks at work without having to remember 50 URLs
• Get my suit jackets dry cleaned - there are four that have sitting in a bag for about six months now
• Get my flat black leather boots re-soled/heeled - boring, but needs to be done
• Read at least one "For Dummies" book a month and learn something new
• Remember to put on moisturiser and eye cream every day without fail
• Try harder to stay calm in difficult personnel related issues at work
• Get a pedicure - I've never had one
• Clear my overdraft - starting this month, I need to pay off £50 a month, no excuses
• Record my huge DVD collection on a spreadsheet to avoid duplications
• Get out of the UK - even if it is only for a weekend in Paris!

I'm stealing an idea from the wonderful Kenneth here, but if anyone has any suggestions for other things I should do - please drop me a comment and let me know.

Happy 2008!

I haven't updated since before christmas, I know, I'm a terrible blogger.  And I know, I say that a lot.  I also keep banging on about how I'm going to blog more.

Its been hard lately just because nothing is happening.  My social life has somewhat ground to a standstill and I'm throwing a lot of energy into my work.  The problem with that is that I can't blog about it, just in case I say something that annoys the boss.  This blog is totally accesible to anyone after all, and I write under my actual name so in spite of the popularity of my last name I think they'd track me down!

This year, I'm probably going to use the blog to write some memoirs.  Things that happened in my past and how they've shaped me as I've grown.  I'm also going to aim to post some more photos as I'll be buying myself a new camera later this month.

Until my next post (which with any kind of luck will be tomorrow!) - I just wanted to wish all my loyal, stick-with-me-even-when-I'm-so-damn-lazy-I-don't-post-for-ages readers as well as any newer readers and generally anyone stumbling across the blog - a very happy 2008 and I hope that its a good one for you!

Bx