I seem to go through periods of time where I get a lot of headaches. This is one of those times, apparently. I’m sure part of it is the weather, part of it is pollen/mold, part of it is stress and part of it is who knows what. I woke up this morning with a headache in my right eye; when I get a headache like that, especially in the morning, my day is pretty much ruined. I called in to work, fed the cats, then got back into bed. At 1:30, I still felt like shit. I showered and ate some chicken noodle soup, and now I’m hoping that helps or at least doesn’t make things worse.

I have so much that I have to do, both for school and for getting ready for mah bitches coming to visit this weekend. Last night I got into bed about 10:30 and was going to read my book for school but picked up Glamour magazine instead (a magazine I’ve had for over a week but hadn’t touched, btw). It was so nice to read something frivolous. That’s probably what gave me a headache. LOL

I’ve been working out with evil trainer girl for 3 months or so. I asked her if we could do another fitness assessment so I could gauge my progress. Now, I’ve been pretty much half-assed about this, because I haven’t been doing much exercise other than my once-a-week workout with her.

Part of the fitness assessment involved push-ups. I did 13.

THIRTEEN!

Let me repeat: THIR-FUCKING-TEEN!

That is more push-ups than I have done, cumulatively, IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Yes, they were “girl” push-ups. But still! 13! And that was with evil trainer girl watching me like a hawk!

I was so excited, I had to call my mother! LOL

I have been a weepy mess this week. Weeeepeeee. Part of it I’ll blog about later. But I think part of it is that I switched forms of birth control this month and am now back on the pill. The hormones seem to be jacking me up. I burst into tears last night after reading Scott’s email response (it’s in the comments of my last post) and at other random points throughout the night.

This morning I nearly cried again after seeing Jason’s picture on my match “who’s viewed me” list. I came thisclose to sending him an e-mail. Srsly. It was like my fingers were on the keyboard, ready to tap out God knows what. Then I had a flash. A moment. A voice in my head said, “Monique, you don’t owe him any explanation. He doesn’t need to know why you blocked him from e-mailing you.”

Sometimes I am quite smart. And sometimes I even listen to myself.

So I gathered up my stuff, grabbed my umbrella and went outside. I drove to Kroger, got a Lean Cuisine for lunch (and a bag of jelly beans lol), and by the time I got back to the office, I was more concerned with how frickin’ humid it was outside than with ex-boyfriends.

Now I’m listening to It’s All Over/And I Am Telling You from the DreamGirls soundtrack. I still love that movie!

I dated Scott #1 in the spring of 2006 for three or four months. At the time it seemed to me like we’d take two steps forward, then one step back. Of course I blamed it on him being a douche; isn’t that always the case? Ahem. Anyway, over time, I realized that I had a lot to do with how the relationship worked out. I knew that he wanted more than I could give, but I didn’t realize at the time how little he was asking for, you know? It’s not like he wanted a commitment right away, he just wanted what I want — someone who is emotionally available.

Scott and I have been looking at each other’s match profiles for weeks … this happens every few months. I see that he checked me out, so I check him out. Repeat ad nauseum. Last night, I decided enough was enough; to me, it felt like I was consciously ignoring someone that I knew. So I sent him a hey, how are you, blah blah blah email. He replied and we exchanged probably 4 or 5 messages, about school, living downtown and politics, because we are both raving liberals.

I didn’t reply to his last message and while I was lying in bed last night, I decided it was time that I apologized to him, for no other reason than I wanted him to know that I was sorry. Here’s what I sent him this morning –

I wanted to apologize to you for the way I was back when we were dating. At the time, I thought that being a year out from my divorce was no big deal, but I was in no way emotionally ready to be dating anyone. I distinctly remember you telling me that it would be nice if I let you see my vulnerable side and that I used to humor as a shield, and I swear to God my immediate response, which I did not share, was to think, “Who are you, my therapist?!” I believe that is what is called a red flag. ;-p. Anyway, I did the best that I could at the time, which really wasn’t much at all, and for that, I’m sorry, because I did enjoy your company. — Monique

I know I screwed over a lot of guys because I didn’t realize the depth of my pain at the time. As long as I had a man’s attention, I didn’t have to deal with the pain and grief over the loss of my marriage. I told Miss Sodapop she was rubbing off on me, but with characteristic humility, she transferred the praise to the 12-step groups. It’s amazing what attending two meetings has done for me.

And now I’m going to cry some tears of relief and happiness, because that’s how I feel right now.

Jason emailed me again last Thursday during the hockey game; we exchanged a few more messages. Today I looked at his MySpace page (our pages are both private and we’re not MySpace friends anymore) and his status said, “Jason has a giddy feeling that can’t be shaken.” Of course he could be giddy over any number of things but you know what? I don’t care. So I blocked him from being able to communicate with me via match.com. It isn’t good for me to be talking to him. If he wanted to see me, he would have asked by now, and if he just hasn’t gotten around to it, well, he’ll figure out a way if he works hard enough.

My whirlwind trip to/from Michigan with Miss Sodapop and her girls is ovah. Here’s a recap.

Thursday
Yay, the Red Wings kicked the Dallas Stars’ asses! Miss Sodapop, Josie and Chloe arrived during the game. While we were eating chili dip, Josie hopped up on the couch, with a hairball covered in cat yak that she had found somewhere. Sufficiently disgusted, dinner was over.

Friday
After a sleepless night, thanks to the effervescent Chloe (she ran from the living room, where Sodapop was “sleeping” to the bedroom where I was “sleeping” CONSTANTLY. Good thing she’s adorable), we crabbily hit the road. An on-the-go breakfast from Panera did wonders. We made it to MI about 3:30 p.m. and soon were on our way to dinner at the yummalicious Chinese place and then on to IKEA.

We also drove up and down a street about a mile from my parents’ house, because the guy that does their house painting said that the Red Wings goalie bought a Victorian that was purple. Well, there are about 5 houses with some purple on them … and come to find out, my dad thought it was closer to one street, where there are no Victorians at all. So the stalking trip was fruitless but fun.

That night, I think Sodapop and I went to bed about 10 p.m. TIRED! And thanks to many walks that day, Chloe and Josie slept too! Yay! Sodapop remarked that she really liked my parents. I told her they were being especially nice to each other because she was there. LOL

Saturday
After some running around in the a.m., Sodapop and I went over to my friend Jennifer’s house and then it was on to Comerica Park (I still want to call it Tiger Stadium). We got a sweet parking place, only a block from the stadium. That was good because the long walk was still to come — about 5 1/2 flights in all up to our seats. That fucking sucked. Four flights up to the 300 level then another flight and a half to our row. Bite me, Comerica Park! Our seats were a bit higher up than anticipated (four rows from the very top) and directly in the sun. Despite putting on sunscreen, we all ended up with light sunburns. The people around us were more entertaining than the game (at least for Jen and me) and there were some yummy, albeit married, men in front of us. I ate a kielbasa and some peanuts, drank a beer and two bottles of water, and did not argue when Sodapop was ready to leave in the sixth inning.

If you have ever been to downtown Detroit, you know that going home is never the same is getting there. Getting there is a breeze. Going home is FUCKED UP. Construction did not help matters. We ended up switching expressways about 5 times and drove through the ghetto (my dad called it the ghetto-lite, I guess that wasn’t even the really bad part of the city) before Jen cut across four lanes of traffic to get on 94W so we could get the fuck back to the suburbs.

The fresh air was exhausting, and after leftover Chinese food and brownies, we watched 2 periods of the Wings game (they fucking KICKED ASS again), an awesome Sci-Fi Channel movie with Ian Ziering as Hernando Cortes then went to bed. Despite going on many walks, Chloe was NOT tired. Ugh. Her jingling-jangling jumpiness kept waking me up. Good thing she’s cute.

Sunday
My mom wanted to go out for breakfast so we went to a family-owned place nearby. It was crowded and we had to wait forever, but the pancakes I had were fucking amazing. They even came with a pitcher of melted butter! OMG. Sodapop licked her plate clean while I was a lady and left some of my breakfast untouched. ;-D

The drive home was a bitch. It fucking poured for about 120 miles and then rained pretty much the rest of the way (290 miles in all). We got back to my place about 3:30; transferred stuff to my car to hers; then Miss Sodapop hit the road back to the Ville and I hit the hay for a nap.

Wheeee … what a whirlwind trip. I’m pooped. Sodapop took 177 pictures. I’m sure she’ll post some of them on her site …

Last night I worked on school-related stuff until 10 p.m. Blech. I just now finished watching my 5th and final lecture for this week. I also wrote a discussion posting that was due today and read through the marketing research for our online simulation and crunched some numbers for that. I have another conference call tonight at 8:30, and I still have to start in on my book (60 pages to read). Le sigh.

This afternoon I ended up emailing Jason back. He replied immediately, as usual. More hockey discussions, of course, then I mentioned I got fried dill pickle chips for lunch (coincidentally from the same restaurant we went to on our first date lol). Maybe 3 or 4 emails went back and forth, that’s it. I told my coworker Mary that if I felt cuter today I would have gone to his work, marched in and called him out on his hockey bullshit.

Last night I re-read my blog posts from last June and July. One of the posts contained his explanatory email. I don’t think he meant to be a total douche, just like I didn’t mean to scream every obscenity that I know at him lol (ok I meant that at the time), but it was still a disaster. Dizz-ass-ter. So I don’t know. I don’t really foresee these chit-chats going anywhere. I don’t even know if there would still be a spark there. We took so much time and energy from each other, it was this constant whirlwind of activity, all revolving around each other. I really didn’t do anything other than spend time with him or text him when we were apart.

Regardless, I’m not feeling like I want to stick my neck out there for anyone right now, at least any man. Today a coworker asked me about MM and was shocked that I hadn’t talked to him in more than a week. I was just kind of indignant, you know, like how can he ignore me? ME! And really, the reason why I haven’t called him out on his bullshit is that I don’t want to hear the reason why. I don’t want to hear that it’s because of me; I’d rather just keep on thinking that he’s a douche. I still hear Mark’s words in my head and that break up was more than 2 years ago — he told me that I was everything he should be attracted to, but he just wasn’t. Yeah, thanks, big guy. I believe he reiterated that a few times too. The honesty was much appreciated. Not.

I’ve had this song in my head all day. Please do enjoy the great Don’t Stop Believing …

I did my civic duty and cast my vote today for Obama. I was kinda pissy because they didn’t have any “I Voted!” stickers. WTF? Being a show-off and all obnoxious about having voted is one of the best parts about voting! Pffft.

This morning I got into the elevator with this young man who asked how my day was, in a very cheery voice. I said, fine, and asked how his was. Then he told me his name was William. Oookay. I said, “Hi, William. I’m Monique.” (All of this happened between the 1st and 3rd floors.) After William exited the elevator I turned to the guy who had gotten in on the 2nd floor (coincidentally the guy who threw his keys at me) and said, “His name is William. He introduced himself to me.” We then proceeded to make fun of poor William. Key-throwing guy’s suggestion was to ask William, the next time I saw him, if he had that report done. LOL Yes, key-throwing guy and I are both doing our part to remain civil. Nothing else has been thrown.

Today I signed into my Match.com account and saw that a pop-up I had never seen before. It said that [the motherfucker] wanted to IM with me. I was like, WTF? and of course, because this involved the motherfucker, I panicked and closed out of Match. LOL Later on I emailed him, curiosity aroused, and basically said, “What was that about?”

Get this: He wanted to talk about hockey! Fuck me. He emailed back, “I was going to say ‘Go Wings!’” OMFG. We e-mailed a few times and I didn’t reply to his last one. Motherfucking bite me, ya know? I was like, come ON, I am not the only person in the world to fucking discuss hockey with!

Of course, everyone I told basically wanted to slap me for even CONSIDERING talking to him, let alone actually doing it. Sodapop and Laci (and maybe even Lucy) all chimed in, and at the office, Chris said, “And what makes you think he isn’t going to be a jerk this time?” to which I maturely replied, “I KNOOOOOOW!” while spinning in my desk chair.

Le sigh.

Sodapop told me I should tell him to leave me the fuck alone. But I can’t. No, I won’t. There’s a difference. I won’t tell him to leave me alone because I don’t want to.

Double le sigh.

The primary election is tomorrow and I’m still not sure who I’m going to vote for. My mind seems to change roughly every 12 hours. Who knows who I’ll end up voting for, I guess whoever sounds like a good idea tomorrow morning.

Go congratulate Miss Sodapop, since she got a job offer today! Yay!

That’s about all I got. I’m worn out. Bah.

I am feeling VERY antsy today and I’m not sure why. My homework assignment is 3/4 of the way done. It is a bit easier than I thought although it took me a good 10 minutes of thinking time to wrap my head around some of the concepts I had to explain. It finally became (kind of) clear to me, which made me feel good. My brain hasn’t totally turned to mush because of my steady diet of reality TV and romance books.

This week is a busy one for me. I’m working from home tomorrow, to rewrite my course based on feedback from my teammates. Then either Tuesday or Wednesday evening I’m going to visit my coworker D, who just had gastric bypass, then Thursday Miss Sodapop and the girls will be driving up here so we can leave Friday a.m. for Michigan. Saturday is the Tigers game (although Miss Sodapop continues to refer to it as the Yankees game lol). I’m hoping for free food from the parents (Chinese is on the agenda for Friday) and, of course, gas money!