Persistence... and irritants.

You can barely see my eyes because they are so utterly PUFFED UP from this massive sinus infection I am currently recovering from. However, I am not so utterly stupid or clueless when it comes to matters like the following. Like, take this strange pervy guy, who sends me a message every time I am online, probably has no social skills, and I imagine likes to jerk off in front of his webcam.

August 16
bluezeus7: was testing out cam
eileen: were you talking about a webcam?
bluezeus7: yes mine
bluezeus7: is it ok to try it out?
eileen: i can't see you
eileen: doesn't bother me

And just now, the same thing.

September 29
bluezeus7: was tryin cam out
eileen: you were months ago too
bluezeus7: what happened
eileen: you were trying your cam
bluezeus7: oh was it ok?
eileen: i have no clue, i don't like those things and don't watch them
bluezeus7: need you to help me test now
eileen: it doesn't work on my computer, sorry
bluezeus7: yes it does , its easy
eileen: no, it doesn't. I don't chat on Yahoo, I chat on a program called Trillian, which doesn't allow cam viewing access.
eileen: besides, i kind of think it's creepy that all the time you want someone to watch you on cam
bluezeus7: oh now its creepy, and now u dont look at em?
bluezeus7: change your name to The Retardian on Trillian
eileen: wtf? at least i'm not trying to pimp myself out on a webcam
bluezeus7: you can do better than that

And I can do better than that. I can help him. Horny wo/men of world, check out Mr Blue. He'd love to display himself on his webcam if you're willing...

Another use for solitaire

I was driving, trying to control my cup of coffee, answer my mobile, and navigate the interstate in peak-hour traffic. The phone flashed with Carrie's name, and I answered to have Carrie laughing, wanting to tell me a story of her morning where her daughter Kate was very quiet, the quiet where you automatically assume a toddler is smearing feces on the wall in portraits of fairies, and sigh a big sigh when they are just tearing into a box of sugary cereal and have it spread all over the kitchen floor.

 

"All of a sudden Kate came into the bathroom and said, 'Mommy, hands! Hands!'  I smelled them it wasn't any sort of body lotion, and knew she hadn't touched Jerms' cologne or anything like that. You can only guess what she got into."

 

I cackled. "Does it start with Kentucky and end with Jelly?"

 

"Yes! She got into our drawer and found the KY, and said 'Kate, are your hands warm?' and she said 'Hands warm! Hands hot, Mommy'".

 

"You use the warming KY, Carrie? Perhaps I'm out of the sexual loop, but that stuff wasn't around when I was having regular sex."

 

"Well, you know, ever since having Kate things have been a little different in that part of my body."

 

"Gotcha."

 

And somehow, I don't recall how, but we were discussing the usage of KY and those special drawers that women have, where the toys are located and so are special lotions. Then this was the kicker. Carrie continued, "Ours has books in it, and you know, hand-held solitaire games."

 

I nearly swung into the car in the lane to my left as I laughed. "I've never heard a vibrator called that as a joke name."

 

"No! It's not a vibrator. We actually have hand-held solitaire games in our drawer..."

Randomness

There's a birthday gift for a certain someone that has been sitting in the front seat of my car. She knows who she is. She is not forgotten. It is just that I am too stupid to write down her address, take her gift to the post office, and mail her package.

 

I think I'm getting more dyslexic as I get older. I just wrote the previous sentence and wrote the word mail as male, maile, then mail. Then I realised I wrote the subject as Ramdonness instead of Randomness.

 

My work laptop sucks. I have no wireless here at home and well, I've been blogging from the Frank, the work laptop, from home lately, just due to the INSANE amount of work I have been doing from home every single evening and needing to connect to my employers VPN. There is some little flicky-flicky-flicky thing that occurs when I try to comment on blogs. Trust me. I read your blogs. I want to desperately comment. I simply can't.

 

 

Now, run along to your perfect little lives.

Shitwreck

Digestive issues run rampant through my body after surgery. My primary issue seems to be lactose intolerance, where anything in dairy form seems to enter my body in the most delicious form and exit in the most voracious and unappealing of ways.

 

For your consideration, I shall present three examples to gain your understanding before I quickly lose your faithful readership faster than Britney Spears loses hair, talent, underwear, credibility, money, family, and her children.

 

Example one: Caramel macchiato, sugar-free vanilla, non-fat milk, light foam.

Example two: Vanilla ice-cream, hot fudge and peanut butter.

Example three: Pizza

 

You see, it just runs right through me now. Without so much as a tummy rumble, what you could consider the alarm clock of digestive issues, waking you up to prepare you that QUITE POSSIBLY you may want to be in the vicinity near a toilet at some point in the future, my body now has gone from resorting from acting like a peaceful country avoiding war conflict, and now all I feel is this sudden twinge and immediately sirens blare and DEFCON 1!, DEFCON 1!, DEFCON 1!, starts chirping out as I squeeze my thighs tightly together and hobble off to the nearest loo.

 

The Payroll Nazi at work is known for similar issues. I have deftly managed for three years to avoid the work restroom between the hours of 1 to 3 p.m. because of the lingering scent of old lady shit stench that cannot be masked by industrial-strength sanitising air spray. And now I am her. An old lady with digestive issues whose shit really stinks.

 

I had an early morning meeting at Starbucks and on my two-minute drive back to the office my body started blaring that damn DEFCOM 1 signal. I ran-walked-clenched-squeezed my legs through three security doors, left my belongings in my office, continued to engage my sphincter muscles as I hobbled to the other side of the building, past the receptionist who suddenly wanted to engage me in conversation as I mustered a 'not now - in a rush' with one of those pained looks on my face, and then mere seconds later felt the most awkward and uncomfortable yet sweet relief known to mankind.

 

Until someone walked in. And choked. And went... well, I think it was, "Err-ohhh-ugggghhhhh". Then she quickly left.

 

And to be honest? I'm actually kind of proud.

Having crabs

We walked into a chic-chic restaurant, where the girls are all like models with their perfect hair and perfect skin and perfect make-up, and they just lay around the front area because, well, they're the hostesses with nothing better to do than to schmooze the customers and show them to their seats and inform them that Cedric will be serving them. A cinch of a job, really.

 

I didn't make it as far as my seat because just barely inside the door I started sniffing.

 

"What's that smell?" I asked the beautiful blonde girls, still wrinkling my nose while they didn't answer me. "Seriously, what's that smell? Seafood?"

 

"Yes", she said, with winged eye-liner that resembled Amy Winehouse on a good non-rehab day. "Our lunch special is a crab quesadilla with spiced-chili sauce."

 

"Oh. I thought I walked into a gynaecologists office and caught a whiff of something bad."

The art of juggling

"I'm over at my brother's tonight", the message read. "We're staying here tonight."

The problem with the Date Juggle is the realisation where you, yourself, realise you are part of someone else's juggle.

As one who is completely uncoordinated with walking and talking in anything resembling stiletto form, when questions are posed and I'm asked what I'm doing, it's hard to make up a flighty answer in response. Yet as a woman, I have twelve intuition-satellites orbiting the earth, honing in on liars and beep-beep-beeping a signal back to me when any dimwitted male gives me an answer like he's, say, hanging out at his brothers. Because here I am, part of the juggle, a ball figuratively frozen in mid-air waiting for him to to get done with his date and juggling game, waiting for his hand to come back round to me, and figure if he wants to keep playing with this Ball of Eileen or toss me aside.

Meanwhile, my own game is going on. I'm sitting across from the Ball of Steve, the ex-best friend of my ex-fiancee, where he is telling me I'm much nicer without Chris around. Wishing I'm with the other guy. And when I cross my leg and it kind of hangs outside of the table and Steve reaches down and rubs my ankle over the top of my pants, I feel a little taste of Cajun come up the back of my throat which is not good, because we're not eating Cajun, but it's what I ate for lunch seven hours earlier, and between Cajun and this Italian I'm now eating are not the kind of fusion-food I enjoy. Besides, I want this juggle to end, find myself unable to stop, and then feel even more ill when Steve sends an email later saying how he can't wait for our second date.

Oh, but it could be that Caj-talian juggling in my tummy.

Where I live

I'm a follower, not a leader. I've tagged along in the footsteps of T-Shirt and am posting Google Map pictures of where I live and encourage you to share the piece of world where you live.

If you look at this lovely map, you'll see where my flat is in relation to my work, the closest Starbucks, and for personal reference, the closest registered sex offender. I'll hazard a guess in my immediate vicinity there are a few more sex offenders, just not yet caught. I'm sure the garden gnome look-a-like that spends half his day wandering around walking is not merely looking to compare himself to other gnome-like varieties, but looking for ways to spread his seed in his garden of delight.

And here is a little close up of my haven. I have fantastic access to the dumpster, but well, for some reason my building complex is home to certain family types that are habitats for individuals whom each have a vehicle. That's right, four adults, four cars, and they share a two-bedroom flat. (Ew. Gross.) I merely speculate on their occupation, but one family can't have it too bad as this obnoxious guy insists on taking a whole parking spot with his motorbike and I have the intense secret fascination of pushing the bloody thing over. Needless to say, if I make it home any time after 3pm in the afternoon I am relegated to a parking spot located somewhere near Canada or Dumpster City.

There's also a yippy dog, and said yippy dog is also an escape artist. Yippy dog is also known as Monte, and well, I hate Monte. I have Monte's mother's name in my phone now.

In addition to my flat I am also the joint owner in a piece of prime real estate.

Here is the lovely cookie-cutter neighbourhood. I shall refrain from telling you my ex-husband is from Texas and this whole estate has streets named after Texas towns.

Fantastically though, it was easy to give directions to people. "Drive until you can't drive anymore and you're about to hit a corn field. Turn left. Sixth house on the left. Or is that seventh?"

And here we are, in my favourite street in the world. When I lived in this house my best friend lived across the road with her pot-smoking boyfriend. We'd sit on our driveways drinking cheap wine and watch children ride up and down the road.
There was a couple that lived next to her that had a weird light emit from their house on a daily basis and we often wondered what it was, until one day we realised it was a tanning bed. When we finally saw into their house it was possibly the most ghetto house for white people I have ever seen. Black leather sectionals with brass lamp fixtures; leopard print rugs and prints of cheetahs and tigers on the wall. The scent of orange-scented kitchen cleaner was incredibly overpowering, and let's not forget the fact their whole second bedroom was dedicated to their in-home tanning bed.
So, welcome to where I live.

We'll see

He opened car doors, the restaurant door, paid the bill. Conversation was great and flowed well, and there was an intensity in his eyes that made me almost shy to look in them.

 

I broke him of his Starbucks virginity afterward as we walked downtown and sat and talked.

 

A nice guy. A really nice guy. He rubbed my back every now and then as we walked and well, he'd be the kind of guy you'd see with a friend and think how lucky she was to have such a nice guy. (How many more times do I have to say the words nice guy to assure you I'm aware he is a nice guy?)

 

He meets all my criteria. He far exceeds my height requirement. He works for one of the best employers in the nation. Good values, and clean car, because you know, it is incredibly important that a man shows respect for women and not have trash on his floorboards. (They're that important in the Dating Book of Eileen.) Oh, and let's not forget the fact that he knows how to dress and I approved of his shoes, and I think I detected a little Kenneth Cole in his cologne. I'm sure this man would have the T-Shirt Stamp of Approval, too.

 

And yet...

A rose by any other name

Email from an employee:

 

Hi Eileen:

 

I understand you work in humane resources.

 

 

 

Pity. Really. I try to be inhumane.

When lesbians make a gym teacher

Carrie and I were walking around and she casually asked, "Have you ever met Lisa?" and I shook my head no in response. She laughed. "You think you have a dyke-do? She fits the prototype, if you know what I mean."

 

"Ahh, the gym teacher mold." I grinned, and continued, speaking of our favourite other lesbian-in-disguise, a woman we were sure was a gym teachers favourite student, until her pregnancy was announced months ago and so was the fact she's had a live-in boyfriend for over eleven years. "I saw Jenny at lunch the other day."

 

"Does she look pregnant?"

 

"No. She's almost seven months. She just looks like she over-indulged on the salt intake and is puffed up from water retention, and wearing umpire-waisted dresses to try and pass herself off as knocked up."

 

Carrie stopped for a second, puzzled. "Umpire? Don't you mean empire?"

 

I blanked. "Oh. I was still thinking of sports and gym teachers."

Two unrelated things

"His mother is already worried that people are going to get drunk at the reception. I told him he invited his best friends, and well, the only people on my side that will get drunk are me and you."

"Well, I'm not going to wait for the reception. I'm going to have a flask of vodka to help get me through the ceremony."

"You will not. That's sacrilegious."

"Why not? Catholics do it."

"You can't. It's a Presbyterian church."

"Well… I'll drink cheap vodka."

 

 

 

 

I have a date for Wednesday, and well, I was nervously racking my brain to cancel on him because I deliberately double-booked to go out with my current Number One instead.

However, I Didn't Want To Lie. The energy I spent all weekend, well, I'm sure could charge one of those potato-powered clocks or some other ninth-grade science experiment. Number One - Matt - you see, his ex-wife went to school with my friend's husband. Ten years ago. They have history, a connection. And by virtue of this connection, there is a friendship because they all hung out, which is, well, instant fun double-dates, when everyone automatically likes everyone and laugh at the hysteria of bad hairstyles of feathered hair and teen alcohol consumption and other high school pranks... or well, I can merely sit and laugh because I was not part of the crowd. I can just thank my lucky stars they aren't talking to my high school friends.

 

So, you see, there was overwhelming pressure to cancel on New Number Two - Nate - because I Didn't Want To Lie. But I didn't have to, b ecause he blew me off.

 

But hey, I'm going out with Matt on Wednesday and Thursday. A long term commitment in the world of Eileen Dover.

Feast or famine

I've now become one of them, you know, those women juggling different men, and referring to them by occupation, location, marital status, citizenship, race, or any other identifiable feature. Given that I have not slept with them, neither of them can be referred to as "The guy with the small dick". That's good, for now. 

 

But the bad thing with the Date Juggle is you're constantly bumping men around in positions of one, two, and three, on the most futile of reasons. Asinine comment? You go to the bottom of the heap. Drive a nice car? Up the top. Pay for dinner? Guaranteed top spot for at least a week.

 

Even though it is just casual dating, the absolute worst part is feeling like you are whoring yourself; sharing the history of your life with random strangers in the hope that maybe, just maybe, this stranger might become something more. And then when one of them asks what your plans are for the weekend, well, you already have plans...

Itemised billing

It wasn't by choice, but I was dragged by two dining companions to one of those American eateries where the menu consists of substandard burgers, salads, and an assortment of fruity cocktails that the server is required to offer you because they know the quickest way to up the cost of your bill is to get you drunk on empty calories.

 

While I desperately try to not base opinions of individuals based off those loud, nasally, Fran Drescher-esque voices, I immediately drew conclusions of the woman who was back-to-back with me at the table. Oh, and I tried, for minutes, to figure out why her voice was familiar and how I knew her.

 

And while I blatantly eavesdropped, I came to the point where I was ashamed on behalf of all womankind, for what the woman did.

 

"The fiesta chicken is only 9.99.... or, we could get the trio, that's 10.99.... I know it's a lot of food, but weren't we going to have a small dinner?.... so what do you want to get, we get to choose three things, and I definitely want the tex-mex rolls, and you'll want the mini-cheeseburgers... here's bite-sized dessert samples for 1.99..."

 

Seriously women.

 

Do you consider the man to be illiterate and unable to read a menu on his own?