A little check-in with myself

I have to come up with a labeling system for posts so readers know which ones have actual dating content and which ones are boring.  This one's boring, although I did meet a very good looking man just now.

I don't see him as a love interest or anything; it was just a pleasure to look at him for two hours.  I went to a talk about...the history of capitalism I suppose would sum it up, but it was more interesting than that sounds.  It was a very small group, just six of us and the speaker. He sat across from me.  Really, a very beautiful man.  Afterwards he was walking my way so we talked for a few blocks and shook hands when we parted.  And this is what constitutes an noteworthy moment in my life, ha!  Simple pleasures...

I also went to a sketching club meetup and had a nice Sunday drawing the city (and it was St Patrick's day, so fun to watch the festivities.)  Afterwards the group went for lunch and the restaurant turned out to be more expensive than I would have picked on my own, so I had a $10 half-sandwich and tried not to think about the money!  Really was good for me to draw from observation again, and was inspired to see the other artists were in the habit of sketching all the time everywhere they went.  I used to do that.  Why am I wasting my time playing Solitaire on my phone while I'm riding the bus?

So I'm feeling good about all these weird events and meetups I sign myself up for.  I need something to look forward to.  In a big way.  There's a dark moody cloudy always lurking, and I'm trying to outrun it.

It might help if I knew what I was looking for.


These next two weeks I'm working 7 hour days, with kids, no breaks.  So going out every evening is really too much.  Plus Meetup is sending me 10 emails a day!  I will have to prioritize and cut activities soon.
But the group things I did this week got me more invites to join even more events!


In other news, this two week gig I'm doing right now is really rubbish.  Frustrating as all hell.  One of my co-workers told the kids we were playing the 'Quiet Game', which is 'Be quiet and whoever makes a noise gets to do push-ups.'   WTF!  Who decided to let her work with children?

I am thinking I'm going to do a big 'strategic plan' for my life, and break down goals into steps and decide what is a priority right now.  I've started working on that.
I really think I should contact people in the field and find out if it's the right field for me (I don't need to do a third career change) and how they got to where they are.  I was trying to track down an old teacher so I could interview her, asked an old classmate if she knew her whereabouts, and old classmate happened to send me a job posting.  This was just hours before the deadline to apply, so I thought that was a lucky omen and reminded me of the power of networking.
I accepted the Sunday teaching gig, and just generally have a feeling something's going to come up, careerwise, for me really soon.  Even if I end up doing a bunch of little gigs (so much more tiring than doing one regular job), if I just had a regular schedule and income I could settle into working on other parts of my life.

I broke my own rule of no browsing on OKCupid.  I said if I signed in, I had to write to someone.   That lasted three days.  I haven't written to anyone.  Still a little burnt by the last attempt.  Still facing the 'I'm not dateable' demons of doubt.  Still longing longing longing for some SPOONING.

Some guy I've never met 'friended' me on fb, because we had four friends in common.  I accepted so I could assess his dateability.  I think he's not for me, but was surprised that this is how I think now.  Social life on the internet is weird.

And in my browsing on OKC, I went through the matches from the next closest city, two hours away.  This feels great, because there's little chance I will actually know anybody, and it's enough distance that a relationship is plausible but unlikely. So I can 'pretend' all I want, and say that the distance is what keeps me from writing to them.  Alternately, I think I could convince myself that the distance means I could write to them without investing too much.  All hypothetical at the moment.  Anyways, the point is that I read this profile of a classic comic-book geek (he draws them) who looks like Duff from Ace of Cakes, and sounds like he has the personality to match.  And part of me responded to that.  No he's not a deep thinker or into social justice but he's a good guy who would be fun and likes to cuddle.  I read his responses to the 'sex' questions and we actually seemed to agree.  Phew!  It was beginning to seem like everybody on the internet was going to wild orgies except me.  The point of this rather pointless paragraph is that I think I know what I want, and then I'm not sure.  I had a feeling we'd get along, but I'm not sure I trust my OKC profile-reading instincts after my track record so far.  Also reading this profile made it a tiny bit clearer to me that I have an idea in my head about who I think I can get, who I think would like me-- "This guy doesn't intimidate me at all, therefore I like him"  Does that make sense?  "This guy sounds like he would be patient with the sex difficulty"- HUGE BIG DEAL TO ME.
Maybe if I make myself write to five guys on OKC, I'd include comic-book geek, but I don't think I will just yet.   I mention it more for what it revealed about me and my skewed perception of men/the dating world.

I feel like I had some other little tidbits but it's late.  And so to bed, Eleanor.