My New Home Away from Home

(Originally written on September 22, 2009)

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I am finally into an apartment and am no longer living in the B-Dub!  It’ll still be a while before it feels like home – it won’t feel like home until I have Peabody and Lilly here – but it just feels great to get out of the hotel!

The Perfect Fit to His Mold

(Originally written on September 21, 2009)

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I’ve realized that I really was just a fit into the mold of the type of girl that Gaston goes after.  Short (would have to be shorter than him, god forbid, and he’s only 5’6” – I’m 5’1”), brown eyes, short brown hair parted on the side, wide smile – all of the girls Gaston’s “dated” match that description…and I perfectly fit the mold.

Why are these things never made clearly evident until after the fact?

U – G – H!

(Originally written on September 16, 2009)

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I just read the following post on Tomboy’s Facebook wall from her best friend (other than Gaston), who just happens to also be Gaston’s ex (not Heartbreaker, though):

I can’t wait to see you and Gaston at the LSU game.  Speaking of…tell that there boyfriend of yours that I saw a lonely black sheep wandering around on his farm earlier.  He should go find it.  Then maybe your lonely brown cow will have a friend.  Good luck out there – I hear running a virtual farm is tough work.

Ugh!  Not only do I now know for a fact that Tomboy and Gaston are actually dating (well, I’m going to cross-reference that with Rowdy, just to be sure), but they’re going to be in town together for MY football game – the only one that I get to go home for and attend all year.

Suspicious Tweets

(Originally written on September 14, 2009)

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Yuengling and Gaston have been twittering back and forth this evening and it appears as though Gaston is back living in my hometown.  And I think he might actually be dating or living with Tomboy.  Is he STILL working on his undergraduate degree?  If he actually graduates this semester, that makes it five-and-a-half years for him to complete it.  And, I mean, he has only ever had one, unchanged major and no minors…

Happy Beatles Day!

(Originally written on September 9, 2009)

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Today is nine-nine-nine, the day that the remastered collection of all of The Beatles’ albums and The Beatles:  Rock Band are being released for purchase.  Most people probably just assume that today, of all days, was selected for these releases simply because it’s cool that all three digits of today’s date are one in the same.  However, in all actuality, today was most likely chosen because the number nine had a very distinct significance to John Lennon.  He believed in numerology, as have many other rock stars (Jimi Hendrix and the number seven, for example), and was obsessed with the number nine – it literally controlled his life (think Jim Carrey in The Number 23).  I’m not going to go into detail about that; I just wanted to point it out.  If you’re interested in learning more, I would highly recommend reading Take a Walk on the Dark Side:  Rock and Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses by R. Gary Patterson – it is one of my absolute favorites, very intriguing and entertaining.

So – Happy Beatles Day!

Well, while everyone else was having fun today enjoying The Beatles’ remastered classics and Rock Band, I was sitting through forecast training in Connecticut.  It was a

three-and-a-half hour drive away one way, I had to be there and at the ready at 9am, and I didn’t get to leave until 3:30pm.  Yea, I got caught in rush hour both ways.  Let’s just say that today was definitely a very long day for me.  And the training was incredibly painful – as in having-your-toenails-pulled-out-with-pliers painful.  I mean, even after telling the guy doing the presenting that I have a Bachelor’s in Statistics, he still went through all of the basics (I was the only trainee).  It’s comparable to having someone today sit you down and insist on teaching you how to multiply, step by step, regardless of the fact that you told them that you already know how…for six-and-a-half hours.

Oh well, at least it’s over.

Pee on the Seat

(Originally written on September 3, 2009)

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So, as a woman, peeing in a public bathroom facility is much more “invasive” than it is for a guy.  You know, with the whole we-can’t-pee-standing-up-without-straddling-the-toilet thing.  Therefore, to help cushion their concerns and fears of contracting a disease (which I find to be ridiculous, really) and/or coming into contact with bacteria via the toilet seat, most women do what I like to call “hovering”.  And as a child in the first grade, I believe, I clearly remember when one of my friends told me even to go so far as to flush using the bottom of my foot so that I wouldn’t get bacteria from the flusher on my hands.

Well, I, too, used to hover…but then I lived in a dorm with hall-wide sink/showering/toilet facilities during my freshman year of college and got over it.  Now I’m satisfied with merely wiping down the seat with toilet paper before sitting down.

And this is where this post title comes into play:  every time I use the bathroom in the B&B office, there is always pee on the seat.  Always.  And I’m not talking about just a drop here and there – it’s normally close to a 360-degree coverage of the seat!  And toilet seat covers are provided in each stall.

I know for a fact that I am the youngest person in the office and I find this really disturbing.  And disgusting.  I cannot believe that women ranging from their mid-to-late twenties all the way into their fifties – full-grown, adult women – think that it’s okay to just pee all over the place.  And you wonder why people initially started to fear bacteria and/or disease from toilet seats…

Okay, so if you do still chose the hover method, at least clean up after yourself – it takes all of two seconds and you aren’t being rude and inconsiderate by leaving your pee for the next person to clean.  I’m not asking much.

Come on, ladies!

Go Phils!

(Originally written on September 2, 2009)

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I went to my very first Phillies game last night and had an absolute blast!  Yesterday at work, Wolverine (the guy who’s responsible for training me – and that’s Wolverine as in University of Michigan, not X-Men, very important distinction there…) told me that our boss had given him tickets and then randomly asked me if I wanted to go to the game with him.  I guess it wasn’t too random:  whoever was originally going with him cancelled last minute, then he asked another one of our coworkers who wasn’t able to go, so then he asked me.  And I thought, “Hey, why not?”  I mean, a major-league baseball game sounds much more entertaining than yet another night alone at the B-Dub.

Our tickets were “Diamond Club”, so we had a credit of $30 apiece on our tickets.  BUT we didn’t find that out until after we had already bought beer and brauts.  So…I decided that I was going to buy a jersey with it.  I settled on number 26:  Chase Utley.  He is H-O-T hot and, even better, his at-bat music is Kashmir by Led Zeppelin!  And I also later found out that he (recently?) signed a seven-year contract, so he’ll be with the Phils for a good while.

Anyways, our seats were in the sixth row, right behind home plate.  It was AWESOME!  And it actually turns out that we were all over ESPN Sportscenter last night because the Phillies’ pitcher threw a two-hitter.

Struggling

(Originally written on August 31, 2009)

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Since making the move, I’ve pretty much just been in my hotel room content alone every day (besides work).  I mean, I’ve been all alone for a week now and have been perfectly okay with it.  And I’m just watching TV to pass the time, watching, like, even on reality shows how those people even have normal interactions with other people.  And, I mean, I’m just not sure that I can ever experience those interactions of a healthy relationship again.  In fact, these tears that I’m crying right now aren’t even for missing anyone in particular – they’re all about the pain from the events that initiated almost a year ago and ended this past May.  The whole thing with Gaston happening right after being raped – that that ended so ugly.  It’s just an even deeper scar than the one left by the rape itself.  And I’m just really not sure at this point if I can come back from that.  I really don’t know.  Because just as much as I enjoy the sexual aspects of romantic relationships, I’m now starting to worry that either

1. that’s all my (potential) future relationship(s) will turn out to be, or
2. that I won’t be able to allow myself take part in any of that at all.

It’s just a really hard realization to come to.  And I’m not sure what lies ahead for me.  I don’t want to be this broken individual for the rest of my life – I don’t.  But I have to do something about it now and I can’t.  I’m in a new place; I’m supposed to be starting fresh and I don’t want to be reliving all of these nightmares that I have already been through time and time again.  I don’t want to bring that up here with me, but I’m afraid that I already have.  And I don’t know what to do about it.

This is my first “breakdown”/”episode” since moving.  I think it’s all because I spoke with my detective today and learned that everything with my case is just not okay.  The police who came to the scene misquoted me in their report, my rapist has said all of the “right things” he could say to clear himself (he admitted to having sex with me, but said it was consensual, which sets it up to be his word versus mine – which, for whatever reason, the government tends to side with his apparently),…  It just isn’t fair.  It just isn’t fair.

When will I stop suffering? I don’t know if I can even hold onto the hope of ever being fixed anymore.  Am I a lost cause?  Is the potential of my future love life all a lost cause? I can’t help but think that all I’m going to amount to at the end of my life is someone with a successful career and a lot of money yet no one to share it with.

Out of Character

(Originally Written on August 30, 2009)

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This is my sixty-ninth post!  Woo-hoo!

Alright, now that I’ve gotten that bout of immaturity out of my system…

I realized tonight that this is the first time that I have been away from home for any length of time and not looked back on a single photo – not even of Peebs and Lil.  THAT is really weird.  As (I think) I’ve alluded to before, I am obsessed with reminiscing and taking tons of pictures.  I think I have strayed away from looking back at pictures this time because I’m afraid that it’s just gonna make me miss them more.  But now I’m worried that I’m not missing them.  I don’t know what’s worse…

Anxiously Waiting

(Originally written on August 28, 2009)

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Went on my rental tour today.  God, it was exhausting.

I think I found a place that I like – now that I think about it, it was pretty much the only place that I liked among all the different ones that I was taken to – but they told me that it will be TWO MONTHS before an apartment becomes available (in any of my desired floorplans, that is)!

God, that means I could be stuck in the B-Dub for two months…it hasn’t even been a week and already I’m anxious to get out…

•     •     •     •     •

The detective on my rape case called me this morning, but I didn’t get his message until this afternoon (because I was on my rental tour).  In the message, he said that all of the reports have come back from the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) and that he wanted to fill me in.  I called him back at around 4:30pm and when he didn’t answer, I left him a message.  I hope he calls me back this afternoon.  Otherwise, it’d be weird receiving that call while I’m at work on Monday…