Saturday, December 30, 2006

Resolutions

I dug out one of my old journals the other night and was pretty amused by what I had written. The first entry was dated January 1, 2002. I was curious to see what I was thinking five years ago. My list of New Years' resolutions was as follows: get whiter teeth, eat healthy, exercise more, stop biting nails, learn Spanish, get rid of credit card debt, save money, keep my checking account balanced, and do some volunteer work. I'm sorry to say that of all of these things, the only one I've accomplished has been to pay off my credit card debt. And that just occurred this week! I should say I have made an effort to learn Spanish. I took a 6-week course, bought a book and a phrase book. This all took place in 2006.

My journal for the first week of 2002 went something like this:
January 2: "still eating well and exercising." Well, it's only been one day! I should hope so. Next day: "eating good today. didn't exercise." Hm, already starting to go downhill. January 4: "eating somewhat worse today. was hungry often. had muffin from La Bou and some chocolates. didn't exercise. Forgot. But will work out a lot this weekend." January 5: "not a very healthy eating day. went downhill when I ate a box of Junior Mints at the movies. Then had pizza and See's Candies later." The rest of the journal pretty much follows this pattern. I think this is why I stopped making resolutions - never kept them, so what was the point? However, if I were going to make resolutions, they would probably be the following: save money, stop biting my nails, do some volunteer work, eat healthy and exercise more. Oh, and keep better track of my checking account. Hm, this list looks pretty familiar! I'll check back in 2012 and see if I've made any progress!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Mistakes

One of my very good friends got married over the summer to a guy who she had been dating for about 5 years. When they first started dating, she was the "other woman." He was cheating on his girlfriend with her. This went on for about a year, until the girlfriend found out and dumped him. My friend and this guy, now her husband, had a very tumultuous relationship, to say the least. He cheated on her when they were dating and when they were living together. He continues to go out multiple times a week with his drinking buddies and sometimes doesn't bother coming home. He is living the college party lifestyle even though he is almost 40 years old. Some 21 year old girl has a crush on him and calls him and sends him text messages all the time, and he allows it. He is never without his phone, and is constantly sending and receiving texts from his friends. He even sleeps with his phone! All of his friends do drugs and he claims he does not, although he manages to go 2 days without sleeping sometimes. Right. Why she married him, I do not know. She is really unhappy, and she hoped he would change his ways when they tied the knot. Didn't happen. He is who he is, and now she feels stuck in a bad situation. To make matters worse, she's pregnant. I think she wanted to get pregnant so that he would change. Now she's realizing he's probably never going to change. She doesn't want to be a single mom, but she also doesn't want to raise a child with a father that is never there. Quite a dilemma. I don't know what I would do.

Another friend recently got married to a guy who is about 20 years older than her and has already been married 4 times, and has 5 children, one of whom is only 2 years younger than she is. He's also an alcoholic, a pothead, and a former crack addict who has been institutionalized. Twice. Oh, and he's already cheated on her multiple times. To reward him, she marries him? I don't get it.

By the way, both of these women are young, beautiful, intelligent (notwithstanding their choice in men), and have everything in the world going for them. Me? I'd rather be single FOREVER than be married to guys like these.

Things that annoy me

1. My neighbor clomping around upstairs when I am trying to sleep.
2. Felix meowing loudly in the morning, begging for food, when I am trying to sleep.
3. Guys who say they will call and don't.
4. Grammar mistakes such as misuse of apostrophes. Using plural when possessive is intended and vice versa. Example: "The Smith's" and "1980's".

Friday, December 22, 2006

Cough, cough

Being sick sucks. I haven't been able to take any time off work, but here is a list of all the things I've missed out on by being sick this week: holiday party at 33rd St. Bistro with my friends, dinner with a cute AF pilot, going to the Wrangler Bar (although, since I've never been, I don't know what I missed), an authentic home-cooked Italian dinner, going out to The Park with my friend Jason, going to see The Holiday with Kristin, and most of all, I'm missing out on going to the annual Triple Xmas Party tonight! This is a great party and a Sacramento Christmas tradition. It's a sex toy exchange party. Last year I came home with a Squirting Realistic Cock. No joke. Good times! (NO I have not used it...I plan on keeping it till I can re-gift it to the right person at the right time.) So, I'll go home and once again lay on the couch, watching DVDs and going to bed at 10 am. Then tomorrow I have to finish my Christmas shopping. Which I started two days ago.

Monday, December 18, 2006

The Nerve!

Just got back to my office from a meeting and was very surprised to see this message from Christopher in my e-mail inbox:

hi michele,

hey, i had a great time on saturday night, thanks again for inviting me. you have a really nice group of friends. it was good to see the ones i had met before and meet the new ones. what wasn't fun was getting home at 4:30am and getting up at 7:30am to hand out christmas presents in oak park! but it was worth it, for both.

my warmest,

christopher


WTF?? "new ones" indeed! So, he's basically telling me he was probably with his "new one" until at least 4 am because he lives a half hour from where the club was. Unbelievable.

I don't intend this blog to be an outlet for man-bashing, by any means, but come on - this guy deserves it! Hopefully I'll have more positive stories to tell in the near future. The Triple X-Mas Party is coming up on Friday night, after all. A Christmas sex-toy exchange party is always a good time!

An Unfortunate Series of Events at the Pub Crawl on Saturday

First (and last!) Holiday Pub Crawl, Saturday December 16, 2006
I live within walking distance of several of midtown's finest drinking establishments and thought it would be fun to organize a mini Pub Crawl just in time for the holiday season. A friend from LA who happens to be an ex (but I swear we're now just good friends) was staying at my place for the weekend and helped me to get everything set up. I was excited that Christopher (his real name - like I mentioned in my first post, not everyone is innocent) was going to be coming. This is a guy I met over the summer and had been talking to and hanging out with a lot lately. Just as friends, but with the distinct possibility that something more could develop. He also invited a friend of his who lives near me. About a dozen or so people showed up at my place for cocktails and snacks, then we set out for the first bar, the Zebra Club. More friends showed up there, and we headed to stop #2, the Old Tavern. Even more joined us there, and I counted about 27 people total. This is where the night started to get weird. Let me back up a moment: earlier that afternoon, I was carrying groceries in from the car and ran into my next-door neighbor. He is a friendly guy (but absolutely not attractive in the least - this will be important later) who I chat with every so often. He asked me what was new, and I decided to be nice (yes, this does take some effort for me!) and I said I was having some people over that night and he was welcome to come by. He said he would meet up with us at one of the bars on our route. Great. Didn't give it another thought, till he showed up at the Old Tav. So we left for the Press Club, our final destination that evening. The neighbor bought me a cocktail and started asking me how all of my friends knew each other. I got distracted - maybe by Christopher? Not sure, but I went and talked to him or someone else. Later on, one of my friends came up to me and told me that neighbor guy apparently thought of me as more than just the girl next door, and wanted to find out what I thought of him. (Ew - that's what I think.) Then he asked my friend if it would be appropriate for him to go up to a girl and ask her if she wanted to get married! He said to my friend that she shouldn't start planning our wedding just yet. Um, scary! He immediately turned into Creepy Neighbor Guy. I pretended that my friend from LA was my boyfriend, because I couldn't locate Christopher. Once Creepy guy figured out that I was taken, he started hitting on another one of my friends. Poor girl. The conversation went something like this: Creepy Neighbor Guy (CNG): So, do you have a husband or a boyfriend? My friend: "No..." CNG: "Do you want to go on a date sometime?" My friend: "Um, just because I don't have a husband or boyfriend doesn't mean I'm not involved with someone." CNG: "Do you want to go somewhere and make out?" (Seriously!! He said this!) My friend: "NO!" (horrified - ew!). I felt so bad that I invited him. But, how was I to know? He continue to stare at me on the dance floor and I wanted to get away from him. Meanwhile, where's Christopher?? Well, let me tell you. He had apparently found a new friend on the dance floor, some short girl with long bleached blond hair, and was hanging out with her the entire evening. Obviously, this annoyed me, but I had bigger issues to deal with (CNG). I found a spot on the dance floor where I could see Christopher and the blond chick talking in the bar area. I was trying to see what was going on. I was trying to convince myself that she was some long-lost friend and they were catching up with each other. This is what I wanted to believe, clearly. Eventually I walked over behind them and he kind of poked me and I ignored him. The girl was holding his arm like he belonged to her. Hmm. Not looking good for me, not at all. Someone else says "hi" to me and it is another guy who was on my pub crawl. I don't know him very well at all, but he seems like a decent guy. He is somewhat attractive, but short. I'm kind of tall, so this is important. I'm not one of those 5 foot tall girls who refuses to date guys shorter than 6 feet tall. No. I just want someone who is my height or taller. I don't think that's asking a lot. Anyway, I'm distracted by the nice guy and still trying to spy on Christopher and the blond chick. Then CNG comes up to say goodbye. Thank goodness! He leaves. I talk to the nice guy. CNG comes back and says, "Uh, are you dating anyone?" I lie and say "yes!" He says, "Oh, OK, well - good! That's great." Eww! Finally he left for good. Then the nice guy asks me out. I said yes, to be nice (again - have to make an effort!). Meanwhile, I'm trying to take in everything that's happening: my neighbor has manifested himself as a total weirdo and may be stalking me in the future; the guy I like, and who I thought liked me, has decided to completely ignore me and take up with some hoochie-looking chick; and now this other random dude is asking me out. In the meantime, one of my friends, who is in law enforcement, ironically, has gotten kicked out of the club and is outside being interrogated by Sac PD. Great! I decide it's time to call it a night and leave before anything else can happen. I grab my friend from LA and tell him I'm ready to go. We leave and I'm really, really pissed. As in mad. And, yes, a little drunk. I'm pissed at men and I take it out on him. We go home and eat leftover party snacks and drink water so we won't be hungover in the a.m. Fast forward to Monday afternoon - I haven't heard from Christopher, nor do I expect to EVER. I found out from Blake that Christopher and the hoochie chick were making out at the bar after I left. At least they had the decency to wait until I left!! His number has been deleted from my phone and I will delete him from my myspace friends list. I hope to never see him again, but unfortunately we're both involved with the same organization and will most likely run into each other at events related to that. Bummer. Luckily I haven't yet seen CNG, but seeing as how he does live next door, it's only a matter of time. And my friends think I should give the nice guy a chance. We'll see.

I created this blog because...

...I have a lot of stories to tell about things that happen to me and the group of friends I hang out with in Sacramento, CA. I have other friends that are spread out all over the country and the state and since it's sometimes hard to find time to talk on the phone or send individual emails to them, so I thought writing a blog would be a great way to keep in touch. And hopefully I'll amuse a few people too! I chose the name "Adventures in the (916)" based on the title of a novel I read, but of course because I'm writing about events taking place in my city. Depending on my mood, I may or may not change names of actual characters to protect the innocent. Some are not so innocent...