We knew we had to say something, especially after what happened Thursday night.  We had to let her know that worthwhile people care about her, not just that horrible piece of shit from her past.

We wrote a (stupid) message to her.  We profusely edited a (still stupid) message to her.  I talked to her friend about the situation on facebook and she told me to follow my gut.  She’s actually a super chill person and I’m glad we kind of got her “approval” before sending the message.  We still weren’t sure if we should send it.  Finally I just hit the send button like pulling off a bandage.  Here’s what we ended up writing to her:

Reading it over I feel so embarrassed!  It sounds so stupid!!!  FUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!  Well, what’s done is done.  She hasn’t responded yet, probably because she hasn’t been on facebook in a little while, so I’m really nervous to see what she says.  Actually, that’s kind of a lie.  I’m not nearly as nervous as I usually am about this kind of stuff, but I think that’s because I know no matter what we won’t lose her friendship (and her friend confirmed that).  She’s just not that kind of person to abandon you for things like this.  Mike, on the other hand, is really worried that she’ll say no, but it’s not because he thinks we’ll lose her friendship.  It’s because he is absolutely smitten with her (as am I) and he just doesn’t want to imagine a reality where she says no.  I understand that, but I’m worried he’s going to get hurt.  You have to prepare yourself for the best AND the worst, not just what you want to happen.

Anyway, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  It’s always the waiting part that kills me.

I just got back from Chicago with a stupid email from my adviser waiting for me to ruin my day.  I’m really getting sick of his passive-aggressive shit at this point, especially when I just got amazing results and spent the trip analyzing it in the car and while Mike and my friends were asleep.  Here’s the email:

Dear All,

I would like to clarify expectations regarding work hours and general group policy. Before I can do this, it would greatly help if you can tell me about your current work habits.

Please respond to this email and let me know your current work hours (daily), and if there are any “special” circumstances or work habits.

Thank you,
[insert adviser's name]

Basically, he told us all we could keep our own hours as long as we were making progress.  Since that statement, he has sent a bunch of emails really similar to this, usually right after someone is out of town for even a 24 hour period without telling him.  This time I’m sure it was spurred on by me and it pisses me off!  I get my work finished!  I work hard!  In fact, the day before the trip I stayed at the lab for 12 hours to make sure that I wouldn’t need any of the software we have while I was traveling.  I signed up ahead of time for microscope time tomorrow and Saturday so I would hopefully get some data to analyze on over the ASEE conference.  I have always been a very driven and self motivated person.  You have to be to get into graduate school!  But here he is questioning my (and my coworkers’) work ethic at every turn!  And you know, even if you would have been glad to do someone otherwise, the instant someone insists that you do it you don’t want to anymore.  It’s just such a stinking pile of bullshit.  He has no idea how to manage a group of graduate students.  That’ll teach me for picking an adviser who’s still trying for tenure.

Every time he sends one of these stupid emails it makes me think EVEN HARDER about switching to a different lab after I get my masters.  I mean seriously, fuck him!

Anyway…now that I got that out of my system…

The visit with my…I’ll call her my “current crush” because I get so giddy about hanging out with her that it’s like a high school crush.  The visit with her was pretty much awesome, especially the time before we picked up her friend (who is also pretty cool).  We were all just driving around and hanging out, and we started talking about relationships and things and she really opened up.  We were talking about past relationships, good and bad, and it made me feel really comfortable.  She must trust us.  I feel like that is the first step in any relationship.

However, the problem is we’re about as smooth as sandpaper, both of us.  I’m awful at saying the right thing at the right time (like thinking someone is pretty when I see them, but then waiting to say it until I feel awkward just saying it, and then just giving up and not saying it), and Mike is so shy that he often avoids physical contact even though he really really wants it.  Consequently, I think we can sort of come off as disinterested.  She seemed so open and interested when we first arrived, but as time when on (and probably because her friend was also there) she got a bit distant.  Thus, I analyze everything I said and did, wondering if I did something wrong or if she wasn’t interested in the first place or if I’m overanlayzing everything by wondering if I’m overanalyzing everything, etc…

So who knows?  I had a lot of fun.  It was a good trip, but I’m left with this sinking feeling that I did something horribly wrong (even though I’m sure I didn’t).  She let us borrow Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2, so I figure after I beat one of them I’ll send her a facebook message about it and maybe sneak in some kind of subtle comment about a possible relationship.  She’s really awesome, even more because of some of the conversations we had about love, relationships, and family values.  I shouldn’t be this nervous about everything because I know even if I tell her Mike and I are falling for her things won’t get awkward.  Even if she isn’t interested I don’t think she would stop hanging out with us.  She’s way too chill for that kind of thing…at least I hope…  Okay, seriously, I need to stop freaking out.

Holy shit, so I had an amazing day in the lab yesterday.  Everything that had been going wrong inexplicably suddenly worked perfectly!  I got the data I had been trying to get for a couple months!!

My excitement faded quickly, however, when I realized how complicated and tedious data analysis was going to be.  Unfortunately, no one in the lab has developed any type of automated program for the kind of thing I’m doing, and while we have some helpful programs they still require a lot of user input to function.  Makes me wonder if trying to program something would actually save me any time realistically.  Well, since I’m no wizard at programming I think I might resign myself to using the programs we have and focus my creative efforts into my experiments.  That will probably produce better results in the end.

Tomorrow morning I have to get up and get ready to go visit our lady friend in Chicago.  I’m really excited, but at the same time I know I have a lot of work to do, and I’m going to Canada on Sunday, AND I’m going to a wedding the weekend after I get back from Canada!  So much travel at such a crucial time in my research.  Who knew that I would just happen to get amazing data two days before my travel schedule goes haywire…

At least my life is pretty awesome right now.  There’s always that.

I think I deleted a good photo accidentally.

I forgot my camera yesterday and it makes me really sad!  Between the BBQ and the birthday drinking (the two events were unrelated, by the way) so many photo worthy moments transpired!  Fireworks and being able to drive an extremely drunk birthday girl home were the highlights of the evening.  Additionally, my most recent ex came to the birthday barcrawl and I had no problem talking to her at all.  In fact, I probably felt more comfortable talking to her knowing that we weren’t romantically involved.  Sometimes things work out just the way they should, I suppose. 

Ice cream!

It’s very difficult to take a picture of one’s own arm hair.

In a couple days we are traveling to Chicago to go visit the girl who gave me her phone number a while back.  Since that entry we’ve actually become rather good friends, gone to an anime convention together, and generally gotten to know one another a bit better.  I have no idea if she’s interested in us romantically, but because I just broke up with someone I’m probably imagining things because I miss being in a relationship.  Consequently, I’m wondering if anything will happen when we go up to visit.  Since I originally met her on a dating site, I guess I’m just a bit curious.  She did hug us both last time we saw her, but I feel like lots of people do that and it doesn’t really mean anything.  So who knows?  We’ll see when the time comes.

Regardless of what transpires, I’m excited.  And I’m in a good mood today for no apparent reason, which is a nice surprise.

Time to watch more Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.  :3

It’s so stereotypical to get back into the mood to blog when you are feeling down.  I’m so stereotypical.  Funny that a friend just posted a xanga entry on facebook in which he proposed to a girl.  Spoilers: she said yes!  If only that’s what this entry was going to be about…

Sometimes I shake myself mentally out of these kinds of funks and remind myself that my life is by no means hard or sad.  Sometimes I can remember all the good things I have and decorate my daydreams with them so vibrantly that I don’t even remember why I was sad in the first place.

Sometimes I can’t.  This is one of those times.  The last post I made was over half a year ago and since then a lot has happened.  I don’t really know where to start, so I won’t.  The bottom line is I made another mistake.  I talked about the last one I made, being too trusting and all, and this time I will admit the mistake was much less pronounced…but I still made it.

Desperation.  That’s all I can call it.  A feeling in the pit of my stomach so intense that it can’t be ignored.  Instead of approaching relationships with the frivolous glee that most people do, I attack them like a frenzied animal who has been cornered in the back of a cave.  Dating Mike was no different.  I don’t let things happen, I MAKE them happen.  I make them happen because I have to.  I can’t wait for someone to come to me because no one ever will.  My relationship desires are too complicated, too abstract, for someone to simply fall into my lap.  It’s all well and good for the movies, but for me, it has never happened.

Because of that, when I do identify someone as a possibility I tend to be…too lenient, shall we say.  I let things slide because of how rare it is to find someone, anyone, who fits the requirements Mike and I have.  And that’s good, to an extent.  One has to be flexible in a relationship, but to a point.  Upon discovering what I would call “fatal relationship flaws” I don’t give up.  I let them slide and keep going, hoping that ignoring the problems will make them go away and return me to the excited joy that comes with falling in love.  Lucky for me Mike didn’t have any fatal relationship flaws, thus the marriage and all that jazz.

However, we all remember (and by “we” I mean me because I don’t think anyone really reads this anymore) what happened in some earlier entries.  That relationship had so many red flags and fatal flaws that looking back I just want to go back in time and snap myself out of it.  I did learn a lot about myself in the process, but it seems I didn’t learn enough.

I did it again.  I broke up with our most recent girlfriend yesterday.  I’m feeling pretty down about it.  There is a silver lining, though.  Instead of letting it go on for months, I broke it off a few weeks after realizing the relationship had too many fatal flaws.  I’m getting better.  Maybe next time I’ll be able to recognize the red flags right away and talk about them as soon as they come up instead of letting them fester, even for a few weeks.

Maybe next time there won’t be any fatal flaws.

Maybe.

So, in summary, if I seem a bit down it’s just because we’re girlfriendless again.  But this time, the anger, the bitterness, and the deep depression were all circumvented by the timing.  It’s better.  I can say confidently that I will have no trouble hanging out with her in the future.  She didn’t lie to me.  She didn’t cheat on me.  She didn’t lead me on with her emotional vacancy.  She just wasn’t quite the right fit, but not because she did anything wrong.  And it’s better.  It means I’m getting better at identifying possibilities and abandoning the fatally flawed.  It’s better.  It’s better.  I’m better.

My, but what a terrible blogger I am.  I still haven’t told you anything about the girl I got the phone number from, as she isn’t the girl I’m talking about here.  What an interesting tale I’ve deprived you of.  I’ll have to fix that soon.