If I Were a Boy...

Wow, so I'm posting like twice a month now?  That's sad, but I'm not ready to walk away yet!  It's cathartic, right?

So let's see...the weekend before last, my parents came to visit and we had a lovely time.  We had dinner in the city on Thursday, then Friday we hung out during the day (manis/pedis for the ladies) and then went to The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria on Friday night -- free from 4-8 pm!  It was really interesting, and there was much more to see than I expected.  It's really interactive, too, so we ended up staying longer than we planned, and then rushed home to eat a late supper since we were starving by then.  Saturday Hike's family (mom, mom's bf, and Grandma Fran) came over for brunch, and everyone got along really well.  It was lots of fun and chattering and his family loved my apartment and the food and everything, so I call it a success!  Saturday night we were lucky enough to get my firm's Yankees tickets, so we saw the Yankees/Mets game and it was a great cap to the visit.  The folks left early Sunday morning to drive back in time for work/school on Monday, so it was short but a very sweet visit.

Last week was full of movies (Thor, meh), softball, and catching up with Hike (unchaperoned, I mean), and then this past weekend was full of very masculine events.  Friday night was the Elks Lodge wrestling event in Elmhurst, Queens, which is probably exactly what it sounds like.  (The tickets were a part of his birthday present earlier this month, along with the New York documentary by Ric Burns, brother of Ken.)  It was entertaining but too long for me at four hours.  I can be a good sport for any event once, though I'm not sure I'll need to see wrestling ever again in my life.  (Though for anyone who knows wrestling stuff, Mick Foley was there, and so was Sid Vicious -- both are past-their-prime wrestling royalty, apparently.)

Saturday we woke up and headed to Long Beach for some sun time!  It was gorgeous and so nice to be on the beach, especially one as uncrowded as Long Beach.  We laid around and even played with the Frisbee for awhile.  Afterwards we grabbed a late lunch in Rockville Center (Long Island), then I finally tried Ralph's Italian Ices (the cream ice, which is like Italian ice and ice cream together), then we drove around a bit looking at the nice houses, as we'd been talking about how RC would be a great place to live and settle with kids, though it's rather pricey.  But it's a goal. 

Saturday night we went to Gleason's, a local bar, to eat some more and watch UFC with his friend Yoshi, so more man sports for me!  Sunday we relaxed a lot, watching some Civil War documentary (Ken Burns' this time).  Then we went our separate ways for awhile (nap time!) and he came over for dinner, then we went back to his apartment to play this video game that I actually ended up really liking.  It's got some Myst-like features, so it was fun to help him solve the puzzle-y stuff, though the occasional gun fights were less entertaining as I didn't have the controller.  But still, ADDICTING.

Then Monday we picked up Frannie on our way to his mom's for a BBQ!  I made a Mexican Bean Salad and we had all sorts of grilled meats and stuff, and sat on the back patio and relaxed.  It was just perfect for Memorial Day, and the weekend as a whole felt really long and relaxing, like a true break.  It was great!  Oh, and his mom put up one of those cheesy photo frame collections in the living room with a quote about FAMILY, and it's got at least two pictures of me with the rest o' the fam in it.  So I guess it's official?

Now this week will be short, and I have another softball double-header tonight, then tomorrow Hike will come over, Thursday is Harpie dinner, and this weekend is pretty booked with his social calendar stuff, though hopefully we can get back to the beach soon.  I feel so mellow lately -- for me, at least.

Well, friends, I hope you are all well and haven't given up on me.

The Stevie Centennial

This is my 100th post!  Yes, that's exactly why I waited so long to put one up.  I was building anticipation!

I will try to catch you up briefly on where in the world I've been this summer...I think we'll go back to our old friend, the bulleted list.

• Last week I was away on vacation, and spent some time in Traverse City, MI (home of my Grandma) and also in Toledo, OH, my hometown.  It was very relaxing and outdoorsy.  In TC, we spent lots of time at the bay, throwing a tennis ball around in the water or lying on the beach.  We lazily tubed down the Platte River.  We ate well and often.  To combat some of that, my dad and I took a 25-mile bike ride through vineyards on the peninsula (between Traverse's East and West Bays of Lake Michigan), with the vineyard at the highest point as our goal (and then back home).  Check it out--there was a gorgeous view, and I tasted some sweet cherry wine.  We'd borrowed the bikes from my Gram's neighbor, and the downside was that mine wouldn't change gears for the uphill part of the ride (until I figured out how to kick the chain over myself)...so by the end, I had a very strained tendon on my right knee, but I healed in 24 hours.  I also fell off into the bushes at the side of the road once, but it's because I'm short (not because of the Cherry Wine!  Shut up, Dad!) -- I was stopping the bike and it tipped downhill (to my right) and my toes couldn't touch the ground on that side, so whoops.  I think that's where I got what appears to be a Poison Oak scratch on my leg... 
• Once back in Toledo, I spent lots of time with some of my best friends from high school and their adorable 2-year-old, who began calling me Princess (as well as Stephanie.)  I'm not sure what started it, but I encouraged it by calling him Princess as well, so it provided me with lots of amusement.  We took him to the pool one day, and he was terrified of the water (despite the turtle water wings I'd brought him), but he eventually made it in.  He also learned the hard way not to run by the pool, as he fell on the concrete and scraped himself a little.  Luckily Aunt Stephanie was the nearest to him, so I scooped him up and made it better, and got extra cuddle time as a reward.  (As long as I can give him back when it's cranky pre-nap time, I love pretending to be a parent.)  I spent time with the family at home, too, getting my nails did with my mom, going out to dinner, and finally making use of my parents' fire pit on my last night there.  Gorgeous.
• All in all, it was a great break and I really needed all that nature time.  Still, with so much downtime, I found myself back in some very painful thought cycles about the whole Mex breakup/cheating/lying/being a bastard thing.  It's really just rage and pain at this point, but I'm upset that I'm still mired in it.  I'm sure seeing him after his return to town (as he was away for a month in Minnesota, which was lovely for me) didn't help, but it wasn't like we made up or anything.  I guess I'm nice in person because I'm not used to being a combative bitch (are you surprised?) but I'd rather he just not exist, so that's been wearing on me. 
• I'm sure the other reason for that is because I was lacking some male distraction on vacation, which sucks because ideally I wouldn't need one to be OK, but clearly that's not the case. 
• So back to town and back to my male distractions, whee!  While I never heard from Montana, I still think of him fondly and wonder if someday, when/if he moves back to town, we will reconnect.  I know he's not perfect but he was so lovely for a brief time, so whatever happens, I'm very thankful to have met him and rebounded with him.  (I should write cards for Hallmark.)  Blackbeard is back to being pretty darn charming (after a bout with walking pneumonia which made him very quiet and withdrawn.)  My OTHER work boyfriend is also in play.  Have I talked about him yet?  He's the one I talk to more, and who makes mooney eyes at me a lot, and clearly finds me thrilling, but I'm not quite as physically attracted to him.  That said, he was diagnosed with diabetes last spring and has had to make some big lifestyle changes (so it'll go away) and he's getting much cuter.  (I know, I know, I'm terrible, but it's not that serious!  He's almost cured!)  So really, I think I'm getting in on the ground floor here, and things will only be improving.  We've started Blackberry Messaging (BBMing) occasionally, and we just blush at each other a lot in the office.  When everybody eats lunch in the conference room, I always look up to find him staring at me.  He actually has told me he loves me, but more in a work context, which sounds weird.  We were complaining about a few bad receptionists here in the past, and he said something like, "...except you.  I love you."  Blushy blush...even if he's just talking about my mad phone-answering skillz.  And I have a story about yesterday, too, but let's start a new bullet point:
• I was annoyed because the new receptionist that I'm training isn't quite as detail-oriented as I am, and she'd failed to finish one part of a project that was needed by a certain time and now I was having to rush to help finish it.  I get cranky about these things.  I briefly told him what was going on (or vented, fine) and he said "Well, not everybody can be like you..." and I THOUGHT HE WAS MOCKING ME.  I have been around my family too much lately, as they like to tease me about being perfect and they call me The Queen sarcastically.  I mean, most of you know me, right?  It's not off-base that I'm a bit controlling or whatever, and I usually think I'm right.  Fine, so what, who cares.  But so when he said that, I said "Oh no, do I come off like that?!  I don't mean to!" and he was all confused and I said "Oh, you're being serious?  I thought you meant I was acting like a know-it-all!" and he said "No!" and oops, awkward laughing, walking away.  So when I was heading home, I stopped in his office to say goodnight (like I sometimes do, shut up), and I just said "I apologize for not taking the compliment well...I've been around my family too much lately, so I thought you were teasing me."  And he said "What?! No.  I was laughing about that afterwards -- you're the last person who would act holier-than-thou."  And I said "Tell that to my brother," and yadda yadda it was fine, and I thanked him for the compliment and couldn't make eye contact and got all red.  So I like him a little, and I think we have a thing going on, but it may never materialize as you know, it's a tiny office.  Still, it's refreshing because he's seen me act like an idiot, or be stressed out, or be on top of things, or hungover, and he still looks at me like I'm just amazing and it's disarming.  So it's nice to have some flirtation during the day, not to mention two eligible bachelors to enjoy. 
• What should we call him?  So far I can only think of mean names, like The Other One.  Or Diabetes.  That's terrible.  Hmm...TBD.
• Otherwise, the summer has been fun and busy with softball, kickball, etc.  I'm eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies from my CSA, and recently discovered the joys of Sugar Plums.  They're real!  Not just in a Christmas song! (Though now I can't find them on the internets, so maybe my CSA made up that name...) 
• I also have to drop the 4 pounds I gained on vacation, but I think my diet will mostly take care of that, like it usually does.  I have NOT been exercising, at the gym at least, because this heat makes me want to do nothing.  After having two extracurricular games a week and sweating for hours, my free nights are usually spent catching up on DVR in front of the AC.  This is naughty, I know, but I am not beating myself up too much.  I will want to do more when the temperature is more reasonable again (see: 25-mile bike ride in Northern Michigan, where it's in the 70/80s and not humid.) 
• Schmauren moved to Boston.  Mex is a monster who should move away/die.  Britch has been MIA in Laos for six weeks.  While these things made me a bit lonely, I am happy to say that I've extended my social circle a bit and also gotten to spend more time with my best friends outside of my borough.  I'm spent more social time with both Schmess and Schmannon, who I met through Schmauren.  Schmess and I are on the same kickball team and even hit the town a few Saturdays ago.  We did quite well on the man-meeting front, though she has a boyfriend so was just my wing, until I hit my wall and decided I suddenly hated the guy I had been talking to for an hour.  Hello, Irish Goodbye.  Schmannon was very generous and took me with her to a Cheap Trick concert a few weeks ago!  We got tipsy on vodka-iced tea-lemonade things and yummy Southern food first, and then laughed along with middle-aged Long Islanders at Cheap Trick, and then left early once Squeeze started playing.  (Who? Exactly.)  We must make a pool date soon, YOU HEAR ME?
• Annndddd, I've been traveling to Brooklyn to spend time with my favorite sapphic ladies, Schmillie and the lovely Schmobly.  (Haaa.)  We went to a Brooklyn Cyclones game on July 4th (with Schmannon) and then Schmannon and I rode the Cyclone TWICE while the gays rode their gay ferris wheel, and another weekend we took public transportation to the beach (indeed!), and yet another time we had a lovely bison burger BBQ hosted by the magnanimous Schmevor.  I love nothing more in the summer than sitting around someone's patio, drinking and bullshitting and watching it grow dark.

That seems to cover most of it, and besides, I'll need to save some material for my upcoming MORE REGULAR posts, I promise.  I've missed you, and I hope you haven't given up on me.  Happy 100th Birthday, b-word!