blasts from the past

i know this has happened to other people, but i guess now is my time to run into blasts from the past - a.k.a. ex-boyfriends/ex-hook-ups. in a strange set of coincidences, i have recently randomly run into/reconnected with a couple guys i used to date and haven't seen or heard from or thought of for 2+ years.

ex #1

i know my ex worked in the neighborhood i currently work in 2 years ago when we were together. i've had almost-heart attacks a couple times thinking i saw him while walking to the subway, but i've been welcomed with a sign of relief upon realizing it wasn't him. but then, when i least expected it, i saw him. i was ordering a salad at a sandwich shop near my work. i happened to look up while the salad was being made and saw him waiting for a sandwich. my heart dropped. i felt like i was going to pass out. my mind went blank. i could have walked over to the register in the corner of the store to pay for my food and avoid him, but something told me to suck it up and go talk to him. so i walked right over to him while he was paying for his sandwich and tapped him on the shoulder. he looked up, completely not stunned (did he see me first and not come up to me?) and he said, "hey, i thought you moved to boston." (i told people i was moving back last year, so he must have heard it through one of our mutual friends.) my hands were shaking, literally. i was so nervous. he kept looking at my hands. did he notice i was shaking? or was he looking at the ring i had on trying to figure out which finger it was on? i don't really remember much about what we talked about. i hope i made sense. i asked him how work was, he asked me what i was up to. we talked for maybe 5 minutes while i was paying for my food. once i was done paying, we paused, he said he was waiting for a friend and i said i had to get back to the office. i don't remember at all what we said to each other when i left. did i say bye, see you later, good seeing you? i have no idea.

it was good seeing him. he looked the same - his hair was just a little longer. i'm completely over him. i've been over him for over a year. and there weren't any rekindled sparks when i saw him. i'm not really sure why i was so nervous seeing him, but i was. i'm glad i did run into him though. i'm going to be moving out of the city in a few months. he was the first person i clicked with when i moved to the city almost 3 years ago. i don't know how to explain it, but i feel like seeing him again put closure on something i didn't even realize needed closure and was some kind of sign that i really am ready to move away.

ex #2

i went to college with him. we had some classes together, worked on some group projects together, both lived off-campus where i'd see him out at local bars. we were acquaintances. he was always easy to talk to and i thought he was cool, but that's as far as my thoughts went. when i first moved to new york (right before i got together with ex #1), i was getting a sandwich for lunch at work and looked around the deli and saw him eating his lunch (wait, this is weird. what's up with me running into ex's at sandwich shops?). i had no idea he was in new york. i went over to his table and he was completely stunned to see me. we were both new to the city and didn't know too many people, so we exchanged numbers. i met up with him a few weeks later and we ended up having a weird pseudo-relationship that consisted of make-out session sleep-overs, holding hands on the subway platform, and shopping for vintage clothes. i never thought of it as dating. i don't really know what it was, but it was fun and lasted a couple months. then i started dating ex #1 and ex #2 and i lost touch. a little after ex #1 broke up with me, i contacted ex #2 again and found out that he was moving out of state the next day. that was the end of that - almost 2 years ago.

but then, a few weeks ago, i got an email from him. he wanted to know what i was up to, gave me his phone number and told me to call him. i wasn't really motivated to call him. he lives in another state and his myspace profile says he's in a relationship. what did he want? i wrote back a week later and gave him a quick update on my life and said i'd try to call him, not having any intention to actually call him. he said he'd love to chat and told me to call him. another week or two passed and i sent him a text message while i was on the train to boston. he told me to call him soon. why was he being so persistent? we made a phone date - and he called me. it was like we never lost touch. the conversation was so natural. no awkward pauses. laughing. giggling. maybe some flirting. we talked for almost 2 hours. he said he's glad we're back in touch. i agreed. he's coming up to the city this weekend and wanted to meet up, but i'm not going to be around. he invited me to visit him sometime (i looked it up today - he's only a 2 hour train ride away). i told him to let me know when he's back in my area. we agreed to stay in touch.

when i first hung up the phone with him, i thought yeah, we'll never see each other again. we live in different states and i'm moving farther away soon. but then i thought about it more. i felt a spark on my side while talking to him. it's not often that i meet guys who i get along with so well. every time i talk to him, it's natural. maybe there's something there and i shouldn't let the distance get to me. maybe there's nothing there. but how will i know? he's recently single (he needs to update his myspace profile). i'm single. why not see where it goes? maybe i will take the train ride out and visit him one of these weekends. maybe i'll give him a call in a couple weeks and see how the conversation goes. whatever it is, i'm excited about reconnecting with him and i look forward to finding out what's going to happen.

thoughtfulness

work has been crazy. papers and post-it notes all over my desk, phone ringing every 10 minutes, too many unread emails in my inbox. but most people on my team are busy like i am and some are even busier than me. and i feel bad for them. i'm friends with the two guys who are feeling the brunt of the work and i know how frustrated they are. i know that when i left work at 7:30, they still had a whole night of work ahead of them. before i left, i called one of them. i could tell by the tone of his voice when he answered the phone that he was losing patience with the phone calls. i told him i was heading out. he didn't sound too happy to hear what time i was leaving when he still had a good 4 hours left to work. but then i acknowledged that i knew he had a long night ahead of him and i asked him if he wanted me to get him anything (like food, coffee) before i left. i could hear him smiling through the phone. he said no thank you and said it was sweet of me to ask. i knew he totally didn't expect me to acknowledge the fact that he had to stay late and he appreciated my genuine offer and concern about him working the whole night. it made me happy.

my friend's boyfriend's father passed away last week. his father had been sick and was 85, so it wasn't unexpected, but of course it's sad. i don't know my friend's boyfriend too well. i've hung out with him only a handful of times. he lives on the west coast, her and i live on the east, so he's not out here too much. my friend talks about him all the time and i knew what he was going through while his father was sick, so i felt bad and i sent him a sympathy card. i like sending cards to people. i take my time choosing the right card and put thought into what i write in the card. i find it's always hard to find a card for guys because so many of them have pretty flowers or are pink or purple. so i already had that challenge ahead of me when finding a card for the boyfriend. and sympathy cards are hard because you want to find one that says the right thing. well i lucked out and found a sympathy card with a brown and green theme to it with a quote by an author my friend's boyfriend really likes. i was so glad that i found such a perfect card for him in this situation. well today i got a voicemail from the boyfriend thanking me for the card and he said about three times in the message how beautiful the card was. i knew he really appreciated me thinking about him. and that made me happy.

i like being thoughtful. what i like best about it is knowing that i made someone else smile when they didn't expect it. it makes me happy. it's so easy to get caught up in your own life - it's important to take some time and think about others. yeah, i have a lot going on in my life right now, but so do other people. and some of them are going through a lot more than i am. it's important to let those people know you're thinking about them.

what a week

3 of the most stressful days i've ever had at work
45 more stressful days until the commercial i'm working on makes it on-air

6 o'clock on friday and the week is done

2 dollars and 50 cents for a slice of pizza w/ peppers and onions for dinner
13 dollars and 8 cents for a bottle of wine to relax

2 weekend days that i've been looking forward to all week

i'm lazy

i'm a hard-worker and i'm ambitious, but when it comes to the day-to-day - i'm lazy.

i hate washing the dishes. i usually only get around to washing the dishes when i run out of bowls, which usually happens twice a week because i only have 4 bowls. i eat cereal every morning and often need a bowl for pasta or salad for dinner. sometimes when i run out of bowls for cereal in the morning, i eat cereal out of coffee mugs. well, i only have 2 coffee mugs. most times, i'll wash the dishes by the time i get to eating cereal out of coffee mugs, but i have resorted to eating cereal out of my drinking glasses out of extreme laziness.

i also hate putting clothes away. i'm usually good about putting clothes away after i clean them, but when i'm getting ready in the morning or at night and i try on multiple outfits, i pile the clothes on my couch and let the pile build during the week until i have extra time on the weekends to put the clothes away.

i'm always rushing in the morning because i hit snooze too many times, but i hate figuring out what i want to wear the night before. and that's usually a problem because most of my work clothes need to be ironed. but, i'm too lazy in the morning to iron, so i usually end up wearing jeans or dressing more casual than i probably should. one time, i put on a shirt and realized it was wrinkled. i didn't want to take it off again to iron it, so i warmed up the iron and ironed the front of the shirt while i was wearing it.

and lastly, i hate paying bills. not because i don't have the money to pay for them. it's because i hate sitting down, opening the envelopes, and going to my bank's website to pay them. i have had to pay late fees so many times just because it takes me weeks to open my cable bill and when i finally get around to paying it, i realize the due date was a week before.

well, i have a pile of clothes on the couch i'm sitting on, an unopened cable bill on my table, and i have no idea what i'm going to wear tomorrow, but i'm going to continue my laziness and go to bed now.

happy unbirthday to me!

today is my birthday - i'm 25! i can't believe it. this is the first year that i have not wanted to get older. 23 was fun, 24 too. i was young, carefree, just out school, new to a city. now i'm 25.
i know it is young - i'm still the youngest of a lot of my friends, but turning 25 seems like more than just another birthday. i've been working in the same industry and living in the same city for almost 3 years. i feel like i should have some sense of my life at this point. but i don't. what am i really passionate about? what career do i want to pursue? do i want a career? will i ever be ready to commit to being in a relationship? do i want to stay in new york? what do i do with the little money i am saving - travel or save it to buy an apartment or house?

yes, i am a quarter of a century old and i am going through my quarter-life crisis. it started a few months ago when the winter was ending and i realized my birthday was coming. i wasn't excited about turning 25. i didn't have any answers for myself about my life. every week i was coming up with a new job i thought i'd like and i would research it for days. i looked into teaching english abroad, working for a non-profit, teaching in the us, being a copywriter, being a producer, going back to school. in the end, i realized it's not so easy to switch professions and i don't have the motivation to pursue something else right now. i thought about what interests i have and what i feel passionate about. i've always been into music and let that interest slip away from me when in relationships with people who didn't share the same interest. but music makes me happy and so does art and culture and fashion. i want to keep those passions in my life.

so slowly, with the occasional anxiety-filled days, i am getting through my quarter-life crisis. i'm trying to take it a day at a time and not plan so much ahead so i could enjoy my life right now. because i am still young and i don't need the pressure that i am giving myself. i'm single, can afford to pay my rent and still go on the occasional shopping spree, and i have a great set of friends and family. i'm 25! it's still my unbirthday, but i'm thankful for starting another year of my life on a healthy note.

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friends who make me feel better when i'm feeling down
a sentimental card
clothes that look good on me
shoes that don't give me blisters
chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting
a sunny spring day
a compliment
laughing and smiling
baked mac & cheese
stretching
angels, stars, and hearts
vodka
pizza with peppers and onions
nice people
the wonder years
audrey hepburn
a lazy tv day
taking a day off from work
the sound of rain
understanding random french words
greek flags
money
the beach
a good hair day
happy hour
6 o'clock on a friday
bob dylan
ben harper
office space
say anything
giving someone a thoughtful gift
people magazine and rolling stone
the bowery ballroom
central park
a good story
how i met your mother
nighttime
sleeping in
my comfortable bed
clear skin
the signature salad from cosi
the sandlot
jim halpert & dwight schrute
junior mints
the museum of modern art
leaving a good tip
pinot grigio
making out
m&ms
damien rice
daisies
roses
yellow tulips in the middle of park avenue
newbury street
harvard square
andy warhol
email from friends
tetris on my cell phone
boxer briefs
itunes
waterfalls
exposed brick walls
........are all things that i like.