Sweet and Spicy

Scene: Our house, dinner time, post eating, pre clean up.

me: I'm still a little hungry, but I want a different taste.
dr soc: Yeah me too. I feel like I need something sweet after the spicy. (playfully while playing footsie with me under the table.) Get over here baby!
me (kinda whiny): Why don't I get to be spicy? ::pause:: Oh. It's because I said it like that isn't it.
--dr soc shakes head but in agreement--
me: Sigh. Just as I suspected.

Self Esteem

I've been keeping word document of jobs I have applied to and the date that I applied on for my own personal book keeping. Single spaced, size 11 font, remove space between paragraphs (which by the way, is a feature of microsoft office 10 that I hate and think is stupid, because it's visually stupid and and excessive. And, fyi: that extra space between paragraphs is not going to make your 3 page paper miraculously turn into the 5 page paper you need) list that is roughly half of a page full. I strike out the listing when I get the thanks but no thanks email. About 70% of the positions have a strike out through them, and the only reason I haven't struck out the rest of the positions is because I will cry.

I received another thank you for your interest/application but you have not been considered for the position email yesterday. And while I do appreciate the courtesy, it still stings. At least I got some sort of acknowledgement though. I discovered I wasn't considered for other jobs by either checking my application status, seeing the position re-posted, or seeing that the position has been filled and/or interviews were being held right now! (yes, that's so exciting for them. The rest of us not in the running are so happy.)

I knew this wouldn't be an easy process, and I knew it would take time. It would be a reality check to say the least. (It also doesn't help when your mom tells you "you always get jobs so easy!" and gives you a false sense of accomplishment.) But what I didn't expect was how quickly I would get demoralized and how much it would impact my self esteem and all other aspects of my life.

Such as: studying for the gre. I keep making excuses as to why I'm not studying, but the truth is I hate how studying makes me feel stupid. And when I don't score well on practice test, it just proves to me that I'm not smart enough to get into grad school.

My running. I'm pushing myself too hard at the gym and I know it. But I keep going to more and more fitness classes and pushing myself to the point of nausea because I feel like it's the only thing I have control over. I was at a 10 minute mile, and I'm roughly at a 9:15 mile now. But I need to be at a 9:00 minute mile to break 2 hours on my next half. So since I'm not there, I feel like I'm not doing anything

The dogs...as sweet as they are, try my patience every day. I get frustrated with Bailey more often, yet anything that anyone says remotely negative or concerning I automatically go on the defense. I'm on the defense a lot.

My face is breaking out horribly, which makes me really self conscious. I'm dealing with acne at twenty-fcking-eight, which is bull sht. So even if I was to get some sort of interview, I'm worried about how my skin will make me appear.

I'm so lonely. I don't know anyone here except dr soc, and it's hard for my people who have lives to have time to visit. And as for meeting people, well, see the vicious cycle known as not having a job to provide me human contacts, and lack of funds to do anything with the human contacts I don't have.

Loyalties

This was Mike's facebook status update yesterday: A year ago today Sarah and I went on our first date. My life has been better ever since :)

First: squeeeee! And yes I cried. (And then my response was to "like" his status, comment that I double super like it, and updated my status to: check out mike's status, it's super awesome and I love him more than ever!) (We express our deepest emotions and feeelings via facebook and never face to face. We prefer to share our intimacy with the world and not each other)

While he got more "likes" on facebook, we each got a few happy comments on our status updates. But one of the comments on his status was from, get this, his ex-girlfriend's mom.

I know, right? She's happy for him and she hopes things continue to be happy for him, so that's nice. I'm amused and I'm happy she's happy for him (and me in a little way). But I do find it a little odd and wonder, where exactly do her loyalties lie?

The Date That Changed My Life

A year ago, I tried on four(teen thousand) different outfits, carefully planned my makeup, checked my nerves and finally met the guy I had been emailing for 2 weeks.

Best first date ever.

Happy anniversary my love!

Math Is My Strong Subject

Seriously, math has always been something I'm good at. Yeah my skills get rusty if they don't get used on a constant basis, but all I typically need is a quick refresher course and I'm good. I whipped college algebra's ass and was able to test into calculus without taking pre-calc. Though pre-calc may have been helpful because that's where they teach you trigonometry so I struggled with that in my calculus class at UK. Math wise I was OK, just a little behind, but legally I was in trouble because the only thing that stopped me from stabbing my classmates was that I didn't want to ruin one of my better pens. (And it turns out I could take Stats 200 instead of calculus for my sociology degree, where I did not want to stab anyone in that class and I got a B in. So, win!)

Anyway, this is actually a dog post and not a math post.

Bailey is 1 dog. Jules is 1 dog. And 1 + 1 = 2. So I have 2 dogs. This works in theory, yes. But in reality, 1 Bailey + 1 Jules = 70 lbs of spaztastic chaos, and roughly 116 lbs (I've lost weight!) of pet mommy exhaustion and frustration.

It's honestly getting to the point where I'm starting to not like walking them. Bailey is a dog that needs a walk every single day. And we're not talking a once around the block kind of walk with her. She needs good half hour at least to have any kind of impact on her energy level. She won't burn off enough energy otherwise. And high strung dog is a destructive and nerve shooting dog. Jules is smaller so she can run around the house and be ok energy wise, but walks are good for her too. I can handle Bailey just fine. I can handle Jules just fine. So, for efficiency's sake, I walk them together. Bailey and I alone walk well together. But Jules and I do not. And me, Bailey, and Jules most certainly do not walk well together.

They have different type leashes first off. Bailey is walked in a no pull chest harness and a 6 foot nylon leash I've had since her puppy days. Jules walks in a chest harness and an extend-able leash. I typically lock Jules' leash to the same length as Bailey's so as to not have a pack leader. But there are still problems on our walks.

Such as Jules pulls. Which isn't a problem in theory because she's 20 lbs and I am lots heavier than her. But since I carry both but different leashes in the same hand to keep the other one free, because trust me, I need that free hand, the leashes get twisted a lot and the girls play bumper dogs. Bailey gets distracted easy (just like her mom) and veers off disrupting/cutting off Jules. When Jules pulls I snap on the leashes as a controlling method, but Bailey's gets snapped too when she hasn't exactly done anything wrong.

But the biggest problem is when we see another dog and/or kids. Jules starts digging in pulling because she wants to meet someone, but Bailey I shorten her leash and pull her closer to me because she doesn't have the gentlest hello. And Bailey has been known to lunge, like most dogs do, but usually in excitement in meeting someone new (or a cat) Sometimes, I'm able to keep Bailey close with only a few head turns from her while Jules pulls with all her might, but we keep going without incident. But in other case scenarios, when Bailey does get riled up, she often flails about without being conscious of her surroundings, ie, Jules. And if Bailey flails into Jules, Jules gets upset and starts sh*t with Bailey. So then I'm contending with two riled up dogs who are creating mayhem. I have to somehow separate them so they don't harm themselves, each other, me and whatever lured them over, and I need to pull them away as fast as I can from whatever got them riled up in the first place. Add to that a poop bag or two (tightly knotted) swinging around like a bio hazard, and you have our afternoon walk.

I don't mind that I have to walk the dogs, it's just one of the responsibilities of being a dog owner. But that 1.2 miles can be exhausting when it's just us girls. The walks are a lot easier when I have help, but dr soc doesn't have the time most afternoons/evenings to take a walk around the neighborhood. Plus, he's never walked Bailey by himself, let alone both of them. I don't want to have to resort to walking them separately because I don't think my body can handle that in addition to my running schedule. (I've been pushing myself hard, and my body is starting to let me know it does need that rest day.) But I'm tired of this. And I'm sick of every dog training website telling me Bailey's behavior is my fault. But I'm mostly baffled at how 1 dog + 1 dog does not = 2 dogs.

Out of Your League

Ok, so even though I know I'm cute and funny and smart and charming and nice and all that other stuff that makes me out of many guys' league (did I mention I'm snotty too?), I didn't really know what caliber of guy I would get on a dating site. Turns out, when you are serious about finding someone (aka: pay $), the dating site ups their ante and sends actual possible contenders. Since I had listed education being important to me, many of my prospects were or had been in grad and/or professional school.

And school is important to me, but it's also a very sensitive subject as well. Remember at the time I had just changed my major to sociology and I was a year away from my bachelor, so to me I had nothing. (I worked my ass off and I have a degree now, and I have every right to be proud of that. But by no means has all been forgiven and forgotten with uc.) So here I am "communicating" with these guys who could see my lack of a degree a deal breaker. (Yes, I realize that someone who would immediately discount me based on my education status is a douche and I didn't want to be with them anyway. But still, I worried.)

Dr soc had listed he had made it through grad school on his profile, but I figured he meant masters (which he has as well) because most of the guys who were in a PhD program said they were in a PhD program. Clearly I was wrong. Because this is how I found out he had his PhD and this is how I reacted:

me: (via eharmony pre-written in depth questions): what are you most proud of in life?
dr soc: (via eharmony response) I received my PhD in sociology in August.
me: uuuuh, f*ck. He better not quiz me if he asks me out...

--2 weeks later on our first date (because he did ask me out and I of course said yes) as we discussed our families--

dr soc: my brother has his PhD in psychology. So between us we have the social sciences covered.
me (smiling and laughing because we are on a date and that is what you do when you really like someone and want them to kiss you at the end of the evening): Nice!
me (in head): F*CK!