Cocoon

Just a quick update, as I'm overwhelmed and need to gather my thoughts.

I closed OKCupid (temporarily), but think of opening it at least once a day

I haven't been in contact with Nerdboy for a whole two weeks.  Also hard to resist contacting him.

TMI, but I have no sexual desire right now.  But I would sell my grandmother for some affectionate cuddling....

My sister has moved out of Mom's and into her new townhouse, taking a whole bunch of chaos with her.  My mother left early this morning for a trip to Europe.

I am alone in Mom's house for the next three weeks.  I have to look after the old dog, and the plants and fish tank.  Should be easy enough, except the house is a mess.  I plan to do some deep cleaning this week, starting with the kitchen.

This past weekend, being my grandfather's funeral, my sister's move and Mom's packing for her trip, was Peak Stress, accentuated by The Ear Incident, in which my sister's young puppy bit a chunk off her old dog's ear while we were out of the house.  Came home to blood and fur everywhere. I felt we were an extremely dysfunctional family.  The old dog (15 years old) is not recovering well, seems to have lost some of the will to live, but maybe it's just the painkillers making her dopey.  My poor sister.

I am pretty much unemployed except for the third week in July, but applied for a job in recycling and weirdly enough, am being considered.  (I'm an artist who volunteers in environmental issues.  Art for pay, garbage for fun.  It's a bit backwards)  So, that would be a huge change and would really shake up my quiet hermitage here at Mom's.

I have such high hopes that I will use this down time to sort out some things and pick a new direction in life.  Maybe find a place to live, exercise, eat right, start making some art...

It's a lot of pressure.  There's a high chance I'll watch a lot of home decorating shows in between cleaning out five years of accumulated crap at Mom's.  (Some of which I left behind when I moved out three years ago, so I owe her at least some cleaning)

The little car I bought has a bunch of small problems, the most fun being the car alarm randomly going off for no reason.  I still don't drive it much, very shaky with shifting gears.

2016 just seems a year of general shakiness for the world, for so many close to me.  And for me personally.  Well, maybe a new world of recycling is opening to me, although I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

Am I ready to date?

Two posts in one day, decided to split the topics.
So, Nerdboy is still on the fringes of my life, although I'm trying to ignore him.  That's in the previous post.  This one concerns a decision.

I have an online dating account open on OKCupid.
I had a bit of a crush on someone's profile,  from a city two hours away, but didn't write because it seemed impractical to meet.  Meanwhile, a chubby photographer messaged me ( I often search for people who list 'environment' as an interest.  His profile mentions 'a safe environment' and I kept forgetting.  So he saw that I had visited more than once and got excited)  and that conversation has been going for two weeks.  I'm not particularly interested but I have no reason to reject him.  I think he would have asked to meet me already but my grandfather died and he's being respectful of that.

So then Faraway Crush closed his account, and Photographer didn't message for a few days, and I panicked or something and sent my first message to someone else, who we will call Silver Fox.
(So, so cute).  And he wrote back the next day and said he was back with his ex but was open to talking as friends.  So I wrote something back to be polite, and he wrote back a fairly chatty message.  Turns out we have two arts organizations in common, not sure how we hadn't already met.  And I wrote back again, and he didn't answer all week.  I was not surprised.  I was a little uncomfortable that he still had a dating profile up while in the tender stages of reconciliation  He did edit it to say he was unavailable, I guess he didn't know how to change the setting to 'seeing someone' instead of 'single'.

And then yesterday I got a message from Silver Fox saying, this is a drag, you seem interesting, but my girlfriend wants me to close my account.  She's okay with me messaging people, just not through OKC.  Here's my email and Twitter.

Why are boys so dumb?  SO, SO DUMB.

Anyways, we follow each other on Twitter now and I have fantasies about his relationship not working out and me stepping in....Not really though.  I want somebody's second chance to work, even if mine didn't.

So.
I haven't heard from Photographer in a few days.
No one else is messaging me.

Either I close the account or I start messaging some people.

I really want to date again.  Even though dating is the seventh level of hell.

But I have no place to live, no steady job, want to lose 5 more pounds...want to be more dateable first.

I don't know.
I check OKC obsessively.
The two profiles I most like are in two different cities, both about 100 km away.  One is across the border in the USA!
Am I picking unobtainable people on purpose?

I really really really want someone who cares about the environment and I'm surprised there's only a small handful, maybe 30 men in a 100 mile radius.  It really narrows the dating pool.

How do i meet fellow greenies in real life?

Nerdboy won't go away

Oh, what a month.

So, I ended it with Nerdboy in May.  I bet he wouldn't go a week without contacting me.  He did make it 8 days, then he just had to give me some random stuff he was getting rid of.  And when I saw him, I realized I was mad at him.  It was a short and awkward meeting.
But, I had given him a piece of my art that I needed to borrow for a show.  So, I asked if I could pick it up the next day (Sunday).
Sunday I texted to let him know I had driven my new car (small victory, I hate driving stick) and was in his neighbourhood all day.  He didn't answer.  I was a bit concerned, but was distracted doing other things.  Just as I was getting ready to leave, he texted back.  He said he'd turned his phone to silent all day and 'disconnected from reality'.  He said he needed a walk and would come to my studio.  (uh, did you not get the part about me driving?)
I waited.  What was going to happen?  He arrived with the art piece, and he smelled of booze.  He let me hug him.  I expressed concern about his mental health, the drinking. He said it was the first time he'd fallen off the wagon, seemed to shrug it off.
I said I'd drive him home.  (Because I'm still shaky with driving manual, I was a bit nervous about the busy street by the studio, so was glad to have him for that part.)
and I drove reasonably confidently and he was pleasantly surprised, and there we were, parked in front of his house (my old home)
And he said, Do you want to go get gelato?
so i went, even though I hadn't had dinner.  (we left the car parked at his place and walked)  And he said he felt very guilty that he'd hurt me twice.
I said I could have stood it all except seeing the dating profile.
And he didn't answer, and conveniently some cars honked at each other and the topic changed.
Somehow we agreed that even though we should be taking a break, we both wanted to be friends. And that he could come help at the aforementioned show on the following weekend.

Talk about emotional labour-  comforting the guy who broke your heart because he feels bad about breaking your heart.  I felt stronger than him, actually.

At the show, following weekend- he helped set up on Friday, and was a but moody but helpful.  I was going to sneak in some of his art to my booth but at the last minute he freaked out and wouldn't bring it.  Saturday he showed up and was definitely in a weird mood but warmed up during the day, and went home and brought his art, and it did well, and everything seemed fine.  We talked about going to dinner together but decided we were tired.

Sunday he was cheerful and in a quiet moment he decided to tell me a funny story about being hit on by older men on the internet.  WAAAAAAAAH!  I do not want to hear about his internet dating.  I told him so and punched him in the arm.  After that I wanted him to leave but he did not.  Dammit,, I needed his van to unload or I would have sent him away.

He packed up everything efficiently, and it reminded me of many shows he's helped me with.
Back at my studio, everything put away, I hugged him goodbye, too long, and told he he had to leave, and burst out crying.

Monday he texted to ask if we were going to see a movie.  (I guess I'd invited him weeks before on facebook, it was a special screening.  I'd forgotten about it)  I said I needed more time.
He said, I understand, I'll be here when you're ready.

And I've seen him once since then (another urgent dropoff of stuff) and he texted today that he saw me walking on the street.