Really broken up...question mark

Broken up or not broken up -- that is the question. As the two month mark nears, I find myself wondering whether we actually broke up. I mean, we said words to that effect. But since then we've been talking every day. And though we've dropped "I love yous," our conversations are still punctuated with sickly pet names. Just before we hang up, He sends me a kiss (the substitute for "I love you", I suppose).

And I downplayed all of this, even when Male Friend provided his telling analysis of the situation, the gist of which is that by talking everyday we're basically keeping tabs on each other, and making sure that no one else is in the other's life. But today it kinda hit me--that we might not actually be broken up--when he ended the conversation with a "Bye, darling." Darling. Darlin parlin. *Right in my gut.*

Darling got to me even more than the "big" news, which broke a few days earlier: He reiterated an invitation to Guatemala over winter break. "My mom must really like you or something," he teased, "She mentioned again that you're invited to Guatemala over Christmas."

"Mmhmm, your mom loves me. E'rbody knows that. And what about you? What do you think about that?"

Affirmative. He'd like it if I came. But, "We'd obviously be together while we're there, and then go back to not being together. Thar'd be kinda weird."

Maybe. Or maybe we'd be all enlightened about it and shit. Probably not, though.

(In case you're wondering, folks, I don't plan on making any decisions until well into November.)

For now, the only plan is to not follow The Rules. You know, those post-break up conventions that we're supposed to subscribe to. Instead, we've agree to just do what feels right (read: what feels good) in the moment. And if that means calling--for the second time in a day--then so be it.

So far, it's working. And, as Woody Allen once said (well, named a movie after), whatever works.

I've got a crush

...on Ryan Gosling. **swoooooon** Okay, so it doesn't really count, since it's a celebrity crush. But allow me to explain: except for George Clooney, who is just hot damn sexy (and serves as the prototype of my salt and pepper man), I haven't had a celebrity crush since seventh grade (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Sidenote: Ryan and George are co-starring in a movie that's coming out real soon, and I can't hardly take it!

Seriously, people, I have spent an inordinate amount of time over the past two days watching YouTube videos of Ryan Gosling.

Here's one of my favourites: Sexiest Canadian (sorry, Canadians, this is only viewable in Ame'ica).

Thinking of you...

I had been hitting the snooze button for well over half an hour, and just as I reached to silence the alarm for the fifth time, I caught a glimpse of His name on my caller's display. I picked up, and did my best I've-been-awake-for-hours-Hello?

"Good morning, bubs! Did I wake you up? I 'm standing at the base of the Washington Monument and thinking of you. Okay, well I don't want to hold up the group I'm with, I just wanted to tell you that."

And that's when my heart--which has been doing pretty damn well--melted. You see, for the year that we lived in The South, we had always talked about taking a trip out to D.C., but we never made it out there. But we also talked about going to India, and to Spain, and honeymooning in Greece, and checking out Belize and Honduras, and taking a road trip across the U.S., and going to the Eastern Townships in Quebec, and so much more. Why did we break up again? Maybe we should be together after all. We work well. He knows me better than anybody else on the face of this planet, and same goes the other way around. We still love each other deeply. Maybe we should at least go on a trip together sometime in the next few months. The other day when I mentioned to him possibly going out to San Francisco later this year, He surprised me with, "Well, maybe I'll be there, too."

I know it's best for us not to be together right now, but I just want to see Him and have a few days where we're back to us. How much do tickets to East Coast City cost anyways....

Screw it

This weekend I went into the hardware store to get me some brackets and screws to install shelves that I've decided are going to look absolutely fabulous above the couch in my living room. I'm pretty eager about DYI (mini) home renovation projects, and I've been known to undertake quite a few of them in the past...then get stuck and not know what to do next, and have to call my uncle to finish up (or, that time when I tried to rewire all the light switches in my house, a professional electrician). But now that I'm several hundred kilometers from home, and surrounded by people whose toolkit mostly consists of critical thinking skills, I'm forced to adopt another strategy.

So I'm soliciting advice from this 80-year-old man working at the hardware store about how not to screw up installing my shelves. "Well, they're going to bare books, so I know I've got to find studs, but how exactly does one do that?" "Oh, and how do you actually use a level?" [I usually eyeball it.] So he's setting me up with the correct sized screws, and I'm asking him questions along the lines of the two above, and he turns to me and says, "Don't you have a boyfriend that could help you out?" Silence, as I think about how to answer this suddenly not so cute geriatric. "Well, I did until recently, but you probably don't want to hear about that." [nervous laugh] "No, I don't," he responds, and shakes his head to reinforce or perhaps emphasize the point. But he presses on, "Well, what about a daddy or an uncle?" I thought about teaching this man a lesson, but figured at 80 he's an old horse (how does that drawn to water idiom go?) and set in his ways. So instead of replying, "Well, my father's long dead," I replied, "Yeah, but it'd be a long ways. They're up in Canada."

Anyways, I ended up posting an ad to Craigslist--which, come to think of it, sounded like an audition call for a low-budget porn flick: I'm looking for someone to screw in my shelves. You need to bring your own drill and stud finder. Hmm, maybe that's why I got three replies in the first hour. Well, just as I was typing a response to one of the men that answered the ad, I thought, "Screw it! I'm going to install dem shelves that will look fabulous in my living room myself. And if they're a bit crooked, well, then they'll be crooked!"

So, y'all, tomorrow evening the shelves are going up. I'm doing it myself, without the aid of a man. And they WILL look fabulous.

Hot commodity

I can't help but feel like a hot commodity these days. It feels as though persons who have a penile appendage seem to believe I've gone through my appropriate mourning period (all 1.5 months) and should now date them. Or, really, allow them to stick their penile appendage inside of me.

Now I've been known to unsuspectingly accept a date in the past (while dating Him). I'm sorta naive to those sorts of things, and this naivety served as a constant source of teasing while I was dating Him. He taught me the way of men -- "of course he wants to sleep with you." So I like to think that I'm more alert to that sort of thing these days. But guys seem to have evolved in the past five years since I've been off the market. They don't ask you out in such a straightforward manner, it seems. They're more sophisticated about the whole thing, which leaves people like me wondering if they just want to hang out or if they want to hang out with the possibility of inserting their penile appendage in you at some point. Take suitor #1, who is a colleague that I bump into at parties or in the hallway. He asked me, when I bumped into him, whether I would want to "grab a glass of wine sometime and chat". Well, how can I say no to that? After all, he offered, "I know breakups are hard, so if you want someone to talk to..." And then there's suitor #2, also a colleague, who was a bit more bold. I got this email (we never email) from him yesterday:

[Rollercoastess,]
Let me know when you are up for going to the XXXX bar this weekend. I have a number btw, but was not sure whether you still use it... Its ### ### ####?
[Guy who wants to screw you]

Let me add that I haven't hung out with this guy one-on-one either...ever. We have hung out extracurricularly in a group setting, like the time when he told me "I would dance over her dead body" (yeah, it's that guy!).

People, I don't know how to deal with these situations! So I did what any adult in this position would do: avoid it. That is, don't reply until you see the person who emailed you in person, then leave the room before you have to bump into them, then send them an email that says you're busy and maybe you can get together in a few weeks. That gives the message that you just want to be friends, right?