re-entry

um, hi.
happy new year!
i’m not dead, although the cold got worse before it got better, but the doctor gave me some cough syrup with codeine and the resulting drug-induced sleep was so good for me i started to feel better before i actually was well which meant i got to come back to work and wear myself out. what a way to start a new year.
the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur. not because they’ve been very exciting, but with the holidays, the illness, start of the year work busyness and some socializing the days have just been zooming by. you’ll have to forgive me if i leave some things unblogged.
but, i know that there are at least a few of you out there who are curious about how my new year’s eve “date” with dante went. well, it pretty much didn’t. i showed up at the pub in my sparkly new outfit (earrings all the way to shoes new) looking damn scrumptious, if i do say so myself. he was there, but totally ignored me for about half an hour. when he finally came over to sit by me he was acting… odd.
then came midnight. let’s see… if YOU had a date for NYE wouldn’t you want to be where they were at midnight to get your kissing action? yeah, that’s what i thought. my date was nowhere to be found at midnight. he was somewhere completely else inside with other people. i was pretty unimpressed, to tell the truth. so, i just kissed meghan and mark instead!
a couple hours later, very near leaving time, he had suddenly taken more interest in me. we had been sitting at the bar talking for a while. he’d leaned over and kissed me, just a peck, but he was sitting really far away. he kept talking about what i thought of being with him in 20 years. i was thinking “but you totally dissed my NYE kiss”. shortly thereafter, m&m and i were offered a ride by a sober regular and i hastily paid my $92 bar bill (HOLY FREAKING GOD!) and ran out into 2006 after an awkward hug (honestly, i got more better hugs from people i’d never met before that night than i did from dante — being a good hugger is very important).
he phoned me the next day. i was still in the middle of my plague and i’d completely lost my voice during the night. it was a really good phone call, actually. he asked if i wanted to go to lunch on monday since i had it off work. i told him to phone me at eleven and we would if i felt up to it. well, monday came. eleven came. eleven-fifteen came. eleven-twenty-five came. i got fed up and went to the clinic (where i sat for an hour beside the puking kid), ran some errands, picked up my prescription, bought some noodles at the mall and then went home. when i checked my messages i heard:
“hi. it’s me. call me back.” at 11:46.
there’s just so much wrong with that. first, he was late. i hate that. if you say you’re going to call at eleven, you call at eleven. secondly, what kind of crappy message was that? you can’t be courteous and considerate to my voicemail? “hey, i hope you’re feeling better. call me back if you want to go get something to eat.” third, he was LATE!
even after all that, i’m feeling really, really lousy that i haven’t called him back. the rest of monday went in a trying to get better before going back to work haze. then work got busy and i was doing nothing but sleeping when i got home. then the weekend past. now it’s nine days since that message and i wonder if i should even bother calling now. there’s no good excuse. i really am the worst call-returner ever — ask anyone — but, he doesn’t know that and probably just thinks i’m a big jerk.
at some point i’m going to go back to the pub and he’s going to be there and it’s going to be weird. i don’t want to date him. i wouldn’t mind being his friend, but there’s just nothing there for me to get all fluttery and goofy over. yeah, it’s nice that there’s this guy who wants to sit beside me at the bar and thinks i’m neat, but… i’m finally willing to wait for the right thing instead of taking the thing right now. i deserve to get what i want and what i need. we all do. settling is for suckers. don’t do it.