They say it’s not right and we move too fast

Pittsburgh, Part One

It’s only been two months and I’ve already come to realize the worst part about long-distance relationships: the ride home. I hated this morning, hearing Pittsburgh Boy’s alarm go off and feel his legs untangle from mine. It was only 4:30 in the morning and I pretended to be asleep as he picked his way through the hotel room to the sink. I hate the horrible goodbyes, knowing that you’re dissecting every bit of your schedule to find the next available weekend, the next hotel room. Feeling the stress of looking at jobs around the country and wondering if it’s even going to work anyway, and then spending more time looking at the placements in his area.

The ride out there was intense enough, and I feel like that should be a whole post upon itself. I’d spent all night awake after getting to help on a major operation at work. And then, to made a long, convuluted story short, a huge accident happened in front of my car on the way out and I did CPR on the driver of the one car until the ambulance arrived. By the time I reached Pittsburgh, I was worn and exhausted, stripped to my camisole and skirt and holding my blood-stained blouse. He arrived soon after, and it was such a strong feeling of relief. We drove over to his newly-married friends’ house for an out door dinner (which I should mention was a bit awkward as they’d only gotten ribs, until I told them that my diet is steadily based upon beer anyway). Back at the hotel that evening we could hardly sleep, both of us so giddy to be back together. We curled up in the hot tub, his fingers twisting around mine, and I caught myself thinking that I wished this could be every night instead of once or twice a month.

In the morning, we woke to have a breakfast of ommelettes, toast, and potatoes at his favorite diner, followed by a long walk along the river.

     

We stopped by an old ice cream shop for root beer floats, and then went to the Pittsburgh History Museum.

For dinner, he took me to this amazing church-turned-brewery. The old altar was converted to display the giant tanks of brewed beer:

We sat outside in the garden, sharing cherry-puree beer and spinach, feta, and gouda dip. His kobe beef salad and my couscous salad were literally works of art. Everything was so mellow, enchanting. Of course this is when I ask if we can go visit College Roomie…

Could I get used to being loved the right way?

How very like me to run away from the blog for a week when things get stressful. You’d think my life would be easy seeing as how it’s summer, I don’t have a REAL job…

For starters, I think my partner is trying to sabotage me at work. I wrote last week about how he deleted the entirely of the major analytical project that we had at work. I finally redid the entire thing, met with one of the heads of intelligence of the corporation we’ve been working with, and presented the entire project. Everyone was impressed, I got major kudos from all of the sergeants. Today I went to make more copies of the folder…and one of the parts had been deleted. I’m not a complete computer whiz, but I know how to check when documents were altered. This one was altered on Monday, when he was in work and sitting at the very computer all of the documents were on. I took a few hours to retype everything, made up four copies of the new folder, sent everything in an email to three of the heads of the operation, and then wrote four copies onto CD-Rs.

And then there’s the bit about how my college ruined my financial aid again. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you’ll remember my frustrations in the winter when they basically “lost” all of my information. We sorted it all out, I thought it was safe. I’m taking out loans to pay for graduate school and working quite a bit to help pay for it (three jobs!). Well, they did it again. I tried to help out the payment by paying partially for the classes out of my own account. The school? Tried to pay for allof the classes out of my account. Try stopping at an atm for cash and realizing that your account is empty. And getting an email that your attempt to reserve a hotel room in Pittsburgh for the weekend has been denied because said account is now empty. It took me three days to sort out, during which time almost every hotel has reserved out, leaving me with either the 175/night room with a hot tub or the 60/night flea ridden disaster.

That brings me to Pittsburgh boy. Things were really great, up until he went to a wedding this weekend and to make things short, had made drama with his ex-girlfriend. I guess I handled all of it really well though, talked him through everything, discussed how he needed to cut her out of his life. A few nights ago he got a bit drunk and called me at one am. In his drunken flirting, he kept telling me that he wanted to freak me out. ”I know how to do it,” he slurred. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” Actually, he said it about twenty times. He knows that even cuddling and hand-holding makes me have a panic attack, so this was kind of the nail in the coffin. He called me a few hours later after he’d sobered up a bit and laughed at it. “But really though, what would you say if I told you I was falling for you?” I didn’t tell him this, but I believe it. It’s heading in that direction with the exception of a few hiccups (his ex-girlfriend, the distance, my lack of a hotel room).

So me seeing him this weekend (and clearing the air on all of this “love” bit) kind of depends on whether or not my school gets my funds back into my account by today. If it does, I’ll be in Pittsburgh all weekend, maybe in a hot tub with that sexy boy and a bottle of champagne. Hopefully not in the flea-ridden hotel.

Say what you need to say, part II

See the original post here, and feel free to add your own anonymous venting in the comments. It is seriously refreshing.

-The few emails aren’t enough. I miss being able to walk across campus to your dorm room and climb in bed. I miss the times we watched movies and snuggled, I miss the times we cried over boys. When I think of college, I always think of the moments with you. I know you’re going through some confusing times and there’s nothing more that I want than to be able to fly around the world to be with you. It scares me to think that we won’t ever have that proximity again.

-I can’t really imagine my life without you in it, but I don’t know exactly how you’re supposed to fit into my life now. How do we go from what we were to just being friends? When things happen in my day, when I hear a good song, when I read a good book- you’re always the person I want to tell about it. Maybe it’s just comfort, maybe I got too used to having you around in one way or another. I’m always going to love you, but you’ll never care enough to actually make things work.  

-You annoy the living crap out of me. I cringe every day coming to work knowing that I have to deal with you. I hate the fact that we both share the same title, but I put in thousands of times more effort than you. The other day? When you lost two weeks worth of data after reformatting our disk? And then stood behind me crunching Doritos while the tech guy and I furiously tried to save the information? And even THEN sitting with your feet up on the desk while I spent 12 hours retyping the information and coming in on my day off? I hated you with every single cell in my body. I used to wonder why you couldn’t get hired with two Masters degrees, but now I know.

-I know I act like a tough girl, but you see past that. The other night, when he said those things to me, I felt protected by every word that you said in response to him. When you asked me out earlier this year, I didn’t take you seriously- you come across as egotistical and pretentious. But the other night on the phone you brought up the homeland security class in which we had watched videos of toxic chemicals being used on bunnies. You brought up exactly what I was wearing that evening, how I tilted my head to the side and looked away from the screen, how you saw me on the verge of crying. You said that I was beautiful then, and that you loved ever single one of my crazy quirks. Then you told me that you regretted never having a real chance to show me that. Part of me really wishes that we’d had that chance.

-It scares the living hell out of me that you’re slipping back into depression. In high school, I could never understand why I couldn’t make you happy. I understand now that it’s chemical, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. All of those corny commercials about depression affecting everyone are actually right. I want you to never hurt, to never be sad. But I’ll be with you through everything again.

-I haven’t felt this way about someone ever and it scares me. I know I’m getting attached, but I have a terrible history of attachment leading to disappointment. I am absolutely terrified of falling for you because, in all honesty, the odds are against us. You’re everything I could ever want in a guy, and I know that I’m going to be head over heels if we keep this up. I’ve never been able to connect with a guy on every level the way that I do with you.  I keep trying to sabotage what we have, to detach myself. Make excuses for why I can’t see you, act like I don’t care as much as I do. But really, I’m praying that everything with us works out.

-It’s been three years since your death, and every day I think of you. I heard a laugh last week that sounded just like yours and I really thought for a moment that you were there. I’m writing this with your ring around my finger, wrapped in your blanket. Your life is still very much a part of mine. Life will never be as beautiful without you in it.

-I get it, you’re famous. You have a website, you have thousands of fans. I’ve known you since we were young, before things were like this. Part of me likes the fact that people scrambling for your autograph see you leaving with me. Or that people recognize you when we’re out. But I also can’t stand the inflated ego, which I guess comes with the territory. I miss the kid I used to tease and dunk in the lake, I miss the boy who tried to kiss me when we were drunk in the cabin in the Alps. I miss the guy who used to make time to see me and didn’t care whether he had matching monogrammed wine glasses and a Rolex.

This feeling’s tearing me up, here we go now

I got to the boathouse early the other morning, early enough for me to pace in the boat bays nervously. The girls in my boat arrived shortly after, and we sat around on the upstairs deck talking about the impending race. One of the women introduced herself and I knew the name instantly- she was on the list of people leaving for the Olympics next month. I asked about it, and she smiled and proudly verified that she would be racing in the Olympics. I had an Olympian in my boat: add another ten points to my nerve scale.

We pulled our boat down and I checked the riggers, the steering, the footstretchers, and the tracks. Everything seemed to be perfect. When huddled on the dock for a bit, reviewed race strategy, and then walked the boat down to the water while all of the onlookers cheered from the deck. Within twenty strokes off the dock I’d lost every bit of nerve- the girls in my boat felt perfect and strong, the steering was direct, and the water was glass. We rowed the few miles from the boathouse up to the starting line and I had no problem getting into the stakeboats and getting a point. I looked over at lanes 1, 2, and 3 and knew that they’d be no problem- we’d get them early out of the gate. The boat on my right in lane 5 would be our main competition. They were young and muscular, just like my boat. The coxswain and I caught each others eyes and glared for a moment just as the judge announced our teams. I heard the “Attention…” and tensed, grasped the steering rod, and told my girls to breathe. A second later we were off.

With rowing, the start is essential. Our start was fast, and we flicked ahead of most of the other boats just as I knew we would. Lane five pulled ahead of us, and I could see the eyes of their stroke seat. We held tight to their stern, went stroke for stroke with them through the majority of the race. With five hundred meters left I got pissed.  We took a power ten and immediately walked on their boat and I never let the pressure off. Each stroke grew stronger, we inched through their boat. I caught their coxswain’s eyes again. “Fuck this,” I said, “We have a fucking Olympian in our boat. Let’s get them NOW.” From what I heard after the finish, this is where our stroke seat looked over at them, raised her eyebrow and said, “tata!” as we darted past them. I knew then, with 250 meters left, that we’d won. I heard our coach from the stands as we hit our sprint, bumped us up two beats and finished the stretch. The buzzer went on, and my bow seat screamed. We’d won.

We paddled it past the bridge and congratulated the other boats as they finished. They all turned and headed back up the river, the rowing version of the walk of shame. We paddled over the awards dock. My proudest moment was watching my coach in the stands. He wasn’t jumping up and shouting as some coaches do- he expected it. He told us later that the other teams practice six days a week in those boats, whereas this had been our first time ever rowing together.

I sang the majority of the row back to our boathouse, and we laughed over the “tata!” story. It felt so good to dock at the boathouse and have everyone cheer when we held up our awards. The awards, by the way, were ceramic beer steins, which we filled immediately at the boathouse bar after putting the boat away.

The rest of the day was spent celebrating with two of the girls from the boat- filling our beer mugs and getting down to the stands to cheer on the rest of our boats while drinking.

 

The view I get every day from our boathouse. Aren’t you a bit jealous?

Celebrating afterwards. My bow seat and I found this body suit (which is something that coaches wear for REALLY cold weather) hidden away in the boathouse. I swear I don’t normally dress like that.

The inches we need are everywhere around us… On this team we fight for that inch

I’ve got a race in a few hours, and I’m going to be honest: I’m dead nervous. It’s not that I’ve been in hundreds of races, both rowing and coxing. I’ve raced national teams, club teams, international teams. I’ve raced all across this country, out of this country. I’ve won and I’ve lost.

The thing is, I’ve just started coxing for this team. My dream team, actually. I grew up near the Cooper River which, if you don’t know, is a hot spot for this sport. I grew up watching races and knowing that I wanted to do this sport. I remember my first day on the water, on a freezing February day, and coming home to find ice between my toes. I remember my first race, and how my stomach jolted the entire row up the Schuylkill. We won that race, and I remember the first hug my coach gave me on the shore.

I remember being 12 and watching this team race, seeing the letter on their backs. When they won, their coaches didn’t hug them- they expected it. The only visible emotion was disappointment when they lost races, always by a few inches. I’ve wanted to be on this team since that moment, have tried for years. This summer I finally got a try out and made the team. Today is my first race with them.

I’ve relished every moment of waking up at 4 am to drive to Boathouse Row, loved shoving from the dock onto perfect glassy water. I’ve even loved gliding under the bridges and steering around trees that wash into the water after storms.

I have a bunch of pre-race rituals that I always do- short runs, listening to certain songs, watching a particular clip from Every Given Sunday (hence the title), and watching rowing videos. It’s like I have to completely smother myself in rowing in preparation. I realize that a lot of people don’t know much about what I do, so I’m posting a couple of videos. The first is the Athens Olympics Mens 8+ Final, and the second an awesome commercial out of Germany. So enjoy, cross your fingers for me, and hope that I don’t have a heart attack on the line.

Never lookin back again

Not to get all gushy over the Pittsburgh Boy again (I know it’s getting old, bear with me here), but you should probably expect him to be a regular on here for a while. He got all gushy today, told me how lucky he was to have met me, joked (at least I think he was joking…) about hopping a plane to Vegas to get married, and then asked me to be his girlfriend.

I said yes, and I haven’t stopped smiling since.

Even suburbs would be o.k. with you between my sheets

There’s this line that’s been running through my head from that show Sex and the City (look at me saying “that show” as if I weren’t just as obsessed with it as the majority of girls I know). The line goes something like this: “Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them.” And like that majority of women, I’ve always taken that line to apply to myself. I’d like to think for the most part that I’m wild, not exactly the domesticated type. When I was with the ex-Fiance, I walked away the first time he told me that he loved me. With Pete, I always tried to convince myself that I could stay distant. I took whatever measures I could not to get attached, regardless of how successful that was.

And then there’s right now. Right now I’m dating a guy who wants all the usual domesticated stops: dinners out (paid for by him), meeting the parents, going to church on Sunday. We’ve hardly been dating a month and he notions towards seriousness. Half the time I can’t determine if joking or if he plays it off as such after trying to gauge how I feel- usually I break into a deep sweat and try to remember to breathe deeply to slow my heart.

I think one of the most telling signs of all came today, when I was doing one of my anti-stress hobbies. For some reason, I’ve always found looking at houses and apartments to calm me. In college, I would procrastinate on Prudential’s website looking at estates outside of Washington D.C., cabins in Telluride, cottages in Maine, and lofts in New York City. I try to see if I could imagine myself living there, how my books would look on the shelves, and how many margaritas I’d have to skimp on to afford the place. And not to overbutter the crazy bread, but I also have a registry at Pottery Barn, where I pick the leather chairs that would go beside the arched windows and built-in bookshelves, the wine shelves that would hold my endless bottles of red wine in the room with my giant Lichtenstein print.

So today, out of curiosity, I was looking at houses in Pittsburgh. Not because I was making some unconcious connection to living there, but because I’d never really though seriously about living there until the jobs seemed to be there. Actually I had two windows up, one of my dream loft in New York City (two blocks from the river!) and one of houses in Pittsburgh. I guess it flashed in my head then that these were possible paths I could end up in, based up where I end up working. I mean, among many. But if I end up in Pittsburgh, I think that this boy is serious. I have no doubt that we could end up going to breakfasts on Sundays, splitting the paper. That we’d walk home, hand in hand, to our house with a front porch and flower pots lining the steps.

I guess my point on this is that I didn’t expect myself to be at this point. I’m not the type of girl to like the gushy parts of relationships. I hated dating the guy who always sent flowers to my dorm room, and I hated the man who insisted on paying for everything. I don’t feel comfortable holding hands or kissing in public, I don’t like talking on the phone every night or checking in every hour. I don’t like cutesy nicknames, “I miss you more!” contests, and I hate titles being thrown around so early. I couldn’t care less about meeting parents or cuddling in bed. Pittsburgh Boy likes all of these things and then some. In a way, even though it’s been so short of a time, I feel like I’m getting used to it. Maybe I’m not the wild, untameable woman that I thought I was.

———————————————————————–

O.k. no, maybe I am. My chest tightened just writing this and I instantly reclicked on the link to that NYC apartment. And now I feel calm again. And can already imagine how I’d change the furniture and art in an otherwise perfect room.

Everybody’s got a hold on hope

A few quick notes from the past few days that basically sum up why I love and despise my field:

1. I got an email yesterday morning from the agency I’ve wanted to work for since I was, oh, say three. They’d read over one of my many thousands of applications and that my application had made it to the second tier for consideration. I’d be instructed as to when my interview would be shortly. The very best part? Not only was it exactly what I want to be doing, it was in Pittsburgh. Now, as I’ve said before, I would never move anywhere for a guy, no matter how perfect he is. But if my dream job was the main platter and a sexy guy was the dessert? In a heartbeat.
   Now don’t get too excited, as I did yesterday, dancing around the office with my boss and squealing. And possibly calling everyone close to me in my phone book. Because when I got home from the office, there was another email. In summation: “Oops, we made a mistake and didn’t mean to send you a congratulatory email. You’re actually under qualified (Ed. note: I’m not!) and we messed up. Sorry for that.” So, in essence, I was on the verge of tears all yesterday evening.
2. This morning I had the pleasure of sitting jury on a mock trial for a high school internship program. For the most part, I was surprised at how well the kids acted in the situation; one of the defense attorneys even took to cocking her neck and pursing her lips every time the prosecution’s witness stuttered over a fact. The kids tried hard with the legalese and courtroom manners, but the highlight of it all was when one of the kids representing the prosecution kept asking the defense’s witness the same question regarding guns. One of the defense attorneys stood up and shouted, “Objection! You can’t do that… can you?” at which the courtroom burst into laughter. Her co-attorney tried to remedy the situation by shouting, “Ob-JECT-shunnn! She all badgering the witness!”
3. After a long afternoon back over in the unit, I schlepped the six blocks over to the train station to go home. I eyed three guys walking towards me, noted the fact that all of their blood-shot eyes looked like they were falling out of their sockets. Everything in my experience told me that they were crack addicts. As I passed them, the man in the middle threw himself at my feet. “Marry me!” he shouted, grabbing my ankle. I noticed with desperation that no one in the near vicinity seemed to take this as unusual. “Marry me and make me the happiest Michael* around!” I shook him off, mumbled something about how I have a boyfriend, and half-ran-half-skipped the rest of the block.

This day could someday be an anniversary

On Friday I had another minor freakout. I spent the morning in an autopsy and after leaving work found out that Pittsburgh Boy hadn’t even left Pittsburgh. “We need to talk,” he said. He went on to say that even though he’s been fairly intense lately with us dating, he thinks we should take it slower, not throw titles around. I’m definitely not a titles type of girl, but my head started flashing back to PK. Four years of moderate dating with no titles thrown around? I couldn’t take that again. I told him that perhaps it would be best for him not to come then, that I didn’t want this just to become some stagnant relationship with no clear lines. Calmly, he told me to think it over for ten minutes and figure out what I wanted. I did want to see him, so I called back and told him to come before rushing back over to a crime scene.

The crime scene was, to say the least, morbid, so I handled it by meeting up for drinks with Gay Rower afterwards. We discussed how I needed to seduce Pittsburgh boy (hadn’t I already done that?) and what the outcome of the weekend would be. Another one of our rowing friends met up with us, and the two of them walked me back to my car. I picked up a cheesesteak and black and white cookies for Pittsburgh Boy, a nice welcome to the city. Over at the hotel I threw on boxers and a movie and opened a bottle of wine.

He got there twenty minutes later and I pounced. It felt so amazing to be back with him, so natural. There have never been any nerves, any uncertainties when we’re together. We took a quick shower and then curled up in bed talking for the night.

In the morning I took him to my hometown, where we had a fantastic brunch and then wandered the main street. He was infatuated with it, and raised his eyebrow repeatedly asking how long the train is to Philadelphia and wondering if they had his field of jobs in the city. We went to the local candy store, with jars upon jars of every candy imaginable, and filled up a bag of jelly beans and gummy worms.

We made a quick stop over at the races- College Roomie was there and things were tense with her, and I wanted to spend as much alone time with the boy as possible. We stopped by my house to grab Willa and I took him to the local park, which had a few miles of easy hiking and a spot for Willa to swim. We held hands through the entire walk and he stopped every so often to pull me closer to him. I really could not help noting how natural everything felt, as if this were our routine that we’d been doing for years.

We stopped by to drop the pup back off and (through devious planning on their part) my parents were there. I hadn’t wanted them to meet so early, wanted to give him and I time to develop before scarring him with my family. He got along well with them, was at ease answering their few questions, both sides teasing me at my insistance on leaving. And then my grandmother showed up. You see, my grandmother had made clear that she wanted to meet the man that I was holed up with for the weekend. The only way that would work out would be to trick me. Pittsburgh Boy handled it well though- while I was a general mess, he calmly talked about golf with my grandmother. I pulled him out of there as quickly as I could, ignoring pleas from my parents to stay for dinner.

Pittsburgh Boy asked to see our local grocery store- they don’t have this chain out in Pittsburgh and it’s actually very impressive. We walked through the rows of artisan breads and homemade desserts and chose a dinner of eggplant roullettes, stuffed shells, and cannolis.

Back at the hotel we settled in for a long bubble bath with glasses of wine- I’m by far not this type of girl but it felt nice to relax and just talk. He ran downstairs after and grabbed even more food from the restaurant- giant pub pretzels, spring rolls, and bruschetta- while I laid our spread out on the bed. I have not felt this relaxed or this happy in a very long time over something as simple as dinner on a hotel bed over intensely serious conversation.

In the morning I felt a pang of sadness knowing that I was getting this attached to someone who probably wouldn’t work out. Writing out directions for him to get home I realized just how impossible all of this is. We’re starting off our relationship long distance, and there’s a pressure for it either to continue like this or for one of us to move. It’s true that I’ve been interviewing for jobs there, but I’ve also been interviewing for jobs in New York and Iraq and Washington. I could never move somewhere for someone else, so at this point I’m just hoping that things work out.

Writing all of this out has really cleared up why he doesn’t want to place titles on us. It makes everything more definitive, makes us feel guilty if we don’t talk for a day or if we go a few weeks without seeing one another. But I know what it is- I’d rather drive the six hours to see him than drive five minutes to the local bar to see anyone else.

I’m tired of the lonely days and the dark endless nights

I came within an inch of breaking up with the Pittsburgh boy this week. I was going through waves of realizing just how great he is to realizing how much I hate being in relationships. And then there was the whole thing where I was thinking about Pete on a daily basis, having incredibly vivid dreams that I was back together with him, finding photographs of times we were together. I lined up all of the negatives in my head over Pittsburgh boy: that he lives so far away, that he’s a Republican, that everything feels so quick. And then Pete emailed.

Pete and I talked on the phone later that evening and while it made me miss him, it also made me realize what I have now. I have a guy who is packing up and driving three-hundred miles after work to spend the weekend with me. Who specifically got a hotel room at a hotel nearby the restaurant where we had our first “date” (It’s a very, very rare chain. Four or five restaurants on the east coast. The other one was in Harrisburg two weekends ago).  He’s bought a bottle of champagne, I bought a bottle of red wine. He’s called me every single day since we met, told me how beautiful I am, how crazy about me he is. I just cannot pass this up. The day after we met I came home and couldn’t stop staring at our pictures together. I don’t want to keep worrying if the person I’m with really cares about me, or whether he just doesn’t want to be alone and is “settling” (his words, not mine).

So I’m going to forget all of that and reaaaaaally appreciate what I have this weekend: an incredibly handsome, charming, intelligent, funny man driving across the state to see ME. A weekend of romping in a hotel, of enjoying crew races and a night out on the town. As Peter said: “let yourself be appreciated, twerp.” I’m going to do just that.

And mayyyyybe I’ll post some pictures on Monday! And maybe by then I’ll have thought of a good name for the boy. Any suggestions?