Long Shot

I felt compelled to submit an application to be considered for a presidential appointment. I have no desire to move to DC, or to change jobs right now, but figured what the hell. I'm so excited that we are going to have a Democratic president again, and even more excited that GW Bush is outta there. I would feel incredibly honored to serve in the Obama administration, especially now that Hilary Clinton has been appointed as Secretary of State. Yay! What a great choice, and I'm glad that she has decided to accept. I think it shows great strength of character on her behalf. I would love to have the opportunity to work under her and help improve our country's reputation internationally.

The application process was very simple. I went to www.change.gov and filled out some basic information indicating that I was interested in applying for an appointed position. A few days later, I was forwarded a special link that said only I could use. I filled out the online application, which requested basic information career and academic experience and also had a number of areas in which applicants could indicate which agencies and even specific positions they are interested in. I wanted to appear to be as flexible as possible, and selected State Department, Commerce Department, US Trade Rep, and several others. There were a couple of opportunities to write something, and I said I'd also be interested in overseas diplomatic postings.

The chances of even getting selected for an initial phone interview are, I'm sure, extremely miniscule. But, you never know if you don't try. No idea what I would do if I were actually to be offered a job. First of all - I have this house, and there's no way I could sell it. I don't want to sell it, anyway. I could rent it out for probably half of what the monthly mortgage costs. So I would have to live in a college-student type of housing situation in DC, like I did when I was going to grad school. Live in a house with a bunch of other people and just rent a room and furnish it from IKEA. Good times. But - nothing I have to worry about at this time.

The Last Two Months

I realized tonight that R. moved to town two months ago, and that's when my life changed a bit...definitely for the better. I think the main difference is that I've had less time to myself, which takes some getting used to. But I don't mind, because I am pretty crazy about him and really enjoy having him around. I never would have thought I'd be dating a guy who is: from Alabama, a Republican, a gun owner, and an ex college football player. Who drives a huge Chevy truck AND rides a Harley. Doesn't exactly sound like my type! But, he is also adorable, sweet, generous, smart, thoughtful, adventurous, and pretty much up for whatever I want to do. Since he's arrived, we've done the following: spent a weekend in Tahoe with a bunch of my friends, gone camping in the Sierras with his brother's family, spent a fabulous weekend in Napa Valley with some of his other family members, gone to Apple Hill, went bowling, saw female mud-wrestling (it was a fundraiser!), attended a celebration for Taiwan's national day in SF, had cocktails at the Starlight Room overlooking SF at night, and a bunch of other stuff. Oh - and he convinced me to go for a ride on his bike. As in, motorcycle. I was scared to death but didn't want to admit it! Never again...I get heart palpitations just thinking about it! Crazy.

This guy is talking about future plans...like taking a trip together after Christmas, and planning a ski weekend for his birthday in January. I feel a little apprehensive about stuff like that, but I take it as a good sign that he plans on sticking around.

Thing that perhaps freaks me out the most - he purchased a toothbrush for me! That I can use when I'm at his place. I thought he was joking at first. He was over here last week and asked me if I had a toothbrush for him. I was like "...uh...", wondering if he was serious (he was!) and went to go find one. Sure enough, he did buy one for me. I've used it already. It's a "medium" and not a "soft" like I prefer, but I'm not complaining. I actually re-organized my medicine cabinet to make room for his toothbrush (the one I provided for him). Weird.

This blog might be a bit boring for a while, if I keep on just dating one guy!

Happy Camping

I just returned from my first (and possibly last!) camping trip. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I'd never been camping before age 34. But, in my defense, it just wasn't something my parents were into, thus they never took us when we were kids. Plus, we had a cabin, so who needed tents?

I went camping for one reason and one reason only: because a cute guy invited me. What other good reason would there have been? I actually had fun, because I was with him. We went to Sequoia National Park, which is about an hour east of Visalia. And Visalia is 3 hours south of Sacramento. His brother and sister-in-law and their 3 daughters live north of L.A. and we met them there. They are experienced campers and brought everything for all of us.

The freezing cold weather, however, I could have done without. The temp definitely dipped into the 30s at night. Fortunately we were only there for one night.

Next trip with R. is October 25, for an Oktoberfest party in Napa at his cousin's house. A slightly more civilized setting, and will be just as much fun, I'm sure!

Feeling Better

So, I guess I didn't have anything to worry about. (See last posting.) I feel relieved now. He thinks I'm a "beautiful girl." Yeah! I don't what part I'm more pleased about, the "beautiful" or the "girl." I'm just going to go with the flow and see what happens.

Too Much Thinking

I have been thinking about a boy all day long and it's driving me crazy. I'm just trying to NOT think about him, because I am pretty sure he is not thinking about me this way! I hate this feeling of becoming smitten because it always results in disappointment, sooner or later. Usually sooner, which I suppose is better. He's just so easy to be around, and it's easy to like him, and want to spend lots of time with him. Meanwhile he probably just thinks of me as a pal, someone to hang out with until he meets a girl he wants to date. Waah...poor me. Oh well. I should just enjoy and have fun, but no, my brain gets in the way. I thought someone as old as me wouldn't waste so much thinking about guys, but I also thought a lot of other things about getting older that aren't true. Like, that I'd never get pimples anymore. Ha! That's a good one.

He's coming over on Thursday on his motorcycle to take me to dinner and he's bringing a DVD. He thinks it's a travesty that I haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite.

Crush Redux

Guess I need to add another crush to the mix. This one is completely random. So, about 4 years ago, when I was living in Munich, I went to a work-related event and there were a bunch of Americans there, including a group of MBA students from a university in the South. One of the guys definitely caught my eye - he was tall, really cute, Southern gentleman, that whole thing. They were only in Germany for a few days, studying European business for their program. Being the gracious hostess that I am, I offered to show the guys around a bit. I took them out that night and then we met up again the following night too. I was getting along great with the one guy and thought for sure he kinda felt similarly about me...who knows. Turns out he had a girlfriend - I was ueber disappointed. Anyway - we kept in touch for a time, with e-mail. When I returned to the States, we continued to keep in contact a bit, talking on the phone a few times, mostly talking about job searching and such. He was interested in moving out to the west coast, and talked about Reno (why, I can't recall). Of course the girlfriend would be moving with him. Well, I heard from him out of the blue a few days ago. He sent me a friend request on LinkedIn and told me he had a job offer in Sac, and wanted my advice on places to live, etc. I was very excited but told myself, chill...the dude is probably married with kids by now. That's how my life works. I called him up yesterday and spoke with him for a while and it turns out he is not with anyone...yay! And it seems 99% sure that he's moving here. And I'm the only person he knows here. Yes! He'll be moving out here in a few weeks. I told him he could crash with me if he needed a temporary place and he seemed pretty interested in taking me up on that. Then we talked about him renting my room from me for a couple months, and I thought - sweet! Then after getting off the phone I realized, mmm, maybe not a good idea. If I want this guy to fall for me, he'd better not be too close for comfort right away - he'll just think of me as a buddy. I do not want to be just a buddy! Now I've got to convince one of my friends to take the guy in for a while, so I can tell him, oh, I found a way better and more convenient place for you to stay! Etc. I still think this is too good to be true. Hot guy I met in Germany 4 years ago all of sudden pops back into my life, is moving to my town, and is single?? No way. I suppose that stranger things have happened though. We'll see. Stay tuned. Sorry for the long paragraph!!

Crushing

I have been feeling a little pathetic lately about all the crushes I have. I never thought that a 34-year old woman would still be having one-sided crushes on men. It's kind of sad. On the one hand, it's fun to think someone is cute and have a little attraction going, but on the other hand, wouldn't it be nice if these feelings were reciprocated once in a while? Um, yes! Well, let me list out these guys to put everything in perspective.

1) Aussie Guy. Hands down, he's been my #1 crush for the almost 2 years I've known him. I have been absolutely crazy about him ever since I first laid eyes on him. All this time, we've hung out together and on a few occasions, I allowed myself to think that maybe, just maybe, he felt slightly attracted to me too. Well, I'll never know. He's moving back to Oz. Actually, he flew back today. I had lunch with him a week ago today, and found out he has a new girlfriend! Bummer. Major disappointment. But really, it wouldn't work out anyway. Between me and him and probably between him and the new g-friend. I also went to his going-away party on Saturday night. I'm glad I went - he has a lot of cute friends, and it sort of felt like closure. But speaking of pathetic - I got a little drunk on vodka tonics and ended up leaving the party by myself. My friends decided to stay but I had to get back to Sacramento the next morning. I walked to the BART station by myself and I was a bit teary. I was pretty sad (also, emotions were fueled by the alcohol) that I'll probably never see him again. That is always hard. I was also regretting that I never even got to kiss him or anything. Big sigh.

2) Crush #2. This is a guy, who will go unnamed, who I met about 3 years ago. He is a friend of some friends. Same as with Aussie guy, I felt this instant attraction to him from the moment I met him. We've had this silly flirtation going on for a long time but nothing has ever happened. The intensity of my crush waned after a while, but every time I see him, I feel it a little bit. I still hold out some kind of hope that we might randomly hook up sometime. I don't want him to be my boyfriend - my aspirations are much lower than that. Plus, I don't think he's a relationship type of guy. I just think he's hot, that's all.

3) SF guy. I just met this guy a couple weeks ago, so he doesn't fall into the epic crush category like the guys above, but he's got potential. At this point, I'm still not sure if he is gay or straight. This is a common quandary when meeting guys in SF. I met him at a work event. I walked into this conference and there was a panel going on, and he was on the panel. I couldn't take my eyes off him - this one is hot and smart - major bonus. I saw him again yesterday. I arranged a meeting between him, me and several other people. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk to him much, but I sent a "follow up" e-mail today so we'll see if I hear from him. Don't a lot of people meet their significant others through work?? Can't it be a little easier than this? Sigh.

4) PG&E guy. This one ranks pretty low but it was the cause of a recent embarrassing moment. A hot PG&E guy has "serviced" my house a couple of times, and yes, I allowed myself to have a brief porn-like fantasy. Anyway - I saw him at a free concert about a month ago but didn't recognize him. I saw this very cute guy and I knew that I knew him, I just couldn't figure out how. He didn't seem to know me, or if he did, he wasn't acknowledging me. This mystery was really bugging me. My friend had a couple glasses of wine and went up and started talking to him. She told him that we thought he looked familiar and were wondering where he worked. I was out of earshot of her conversation. A few moments later she called me over and said "Michele, is this the cute PG&E guy you were telling me about?" I felt myself turn completely red and I looked up (he is pretty tall), smiled, and said, "yes." Oh god. His name is Joe. He is very, very cute and he remembered me! How exciting. Considering he goes into people's homes all day long, every day, I thought it was nice that he remembered me. However, we found out he has a girlfriend. Who lives in AUSTRALIA. What the hell?? He met her on myspace! I was pissed, thinking - here I am, a perfectly nice single girl living in Sacramento, and he is dating some chick in f-ing Australia? What is wrong with this picture, people? That was depressing. I saw him there again a couple weeks later and was proud of myself for going up and talking to him. He was there by himself. He remembered my name. "Michele, right?" He said. Yes! It's the little victories. I'm just hoping he will keep me in mind if (when) things don't work out with Miss Aussie.

These are just a few examples of my frustration with a lack of convergence of mutual interest between me and guys - in other words - why I am single. This is why. I like guys who do not like me (as more than a friend) and I suppose there have been guys who like me more than I like them. In any event, I never meet anyone who likes me back, or at least that I know of. So, this is a very long way of answering the question "why are you [still] single?"