A post in which I reflect on things, and cook**

I awoke at 5am to the sound of Terry’s *&^%$#!! car alarm going off. Since he had the keys, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to do about it. I could have gone out and broken the window, but of course once I got in I wouldn’t be able to turn the alarm off. I was lying there, kind of half comatose, trying to figure out some kind of solution, when it cut itself off. Good enough. I went back to sleep.

I got back up around 9:30 and turned on the computer. I went to visit a guy I had talked to before online. He apparently has a lot of money, and I know he has some very flattering pictures. That’s all I was going to say about that… Nice enough guy, but built like the “Time for Timer” guy that sang the “Hanker for a hunka cheese” song. In a jock strap, yet.

Leaving there, I decided to go on to the grocery store. I had the directions on the back of my grocery list. I breezed through Publix downtown, and picked up stuff for a pasta recipe I was going to make.

When I got home, though, I just wanted more sleep. I ate some whole wheat bagels I had picked up, along with one of my favorite indulgences – smoked salmon flavored cream cheese. I usually pick some up when I go to the Edge. When we were there though, M wanted to go out for breakfast. The breakfast was kind of a nice compromise between needing to eat something real (whole wheat) with still feeling that I was entitled to indulge myself, since I’m still poorly. I had half a cucumber in the fridge, so I sliced that up and ate it with my bagels.

I turned on Gigi on TCM and watched that while I ate breakfast, then just finished watching the movie. I put in a David Attenborough DVD, which is pretty much as good as a sleeping pill for me. I slept until about 2pm.

Eventually, I decided I had to get up and do something today. I got up, got on the computer. I had been talking to a nice guy online last night, but he wasn’t on today. I ended up going to see another buddy I had kind of dropped ties with for a bit.

When I got home, I went into the kitchen to start cooking. I made a spicy tomato sauce pasta with ricotta salata cheese. It’s a good recipe. Since I had some milk that needed using, I made a cream sauce and mixed that in as well to make a kind of spicy blush sauce. It turned out tasty, but needed more garlic, I’m afraid. It should be better tomorrow.

The penny item at Publix this week was vanilla wafers, so I used up the rest of the milk making some pudding and putting together layered pudding and cookies. I will eat the bananas in polite company, but the real reason I eat banana pudding is for the soft cookies.

I did some laundry, took out the trash, cleaned up the kitchen, and basically just kind of got ready for the week to start. I threw out M's leftover Chinese food, and pondered the compulsion men have to leave dead chickens to rot in my fridge. Michael did the same thing before he moved out.

Lisa called; she had been to brunch with Dad for Father’s Day. Apparently Dad thinks I’m mad at him or something because I haven’t called or sent a card. Interestingly, they didn’t call me about the brunch, although Lisa told me about it yesterday. Frankly, I just plain didn’t go. It takes a lot of energy to deal with them, and I just don’t have it to spare right now. I’ll see him next week some time. I called to talk to him this evening, but there was no answer at home or on his cell, so I just left messages for him. I was actually a bit relieved. I don’t know how good I would be at placating and navigating the complications of his temper at the mo.

I watched the Fox Sunday night line-up and ate a bit of supper.

The guy I had talked to last night is named Jason. He lives in Clemson, and he seems very nice. We started talking because his ex screwed him over as well. But I liked him, and he’s cute as a fucking button. We exchanged numbers last night, and I had planned to call him today, but by the time I kind of felt like it it was after 9pm, and I wasn’t calling someone I didn’t know that well that late. I was quite surprised when the phone rang at 10pm. It was him. Apparently he’s a bit of a night owl. I was very pleased to hear from him, and since I had slept half the day anyway, I didn’t need to go to bed right away. We ended up talking for over an hour. It was nice. He’s a nice guy. He may be the Rebound Guy, but I kind of hope not. We’ll see.

I’ve basically been kind of trying to put things in perspective today, and it kind of boils down to this for me: M isn’t worth all this. He screwed me over, lied to me, and hurt me. But he wasn’t around long enough to warrant this kind of angst. I went into that situation and led with my heart. I was as good to him as I knew how to be. But the first person in any relationship M has is always going to be himself. So what I thought was real wasn’t, and I’m mourning something that didn’t exist. The way he dumped me shows that he never really cared about me at all. I’m done. I’m not letting him affect my happiness or who I am as a person. I refuse to be jaded or bitter.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Trite, but true.