Novel Writing, Book Sale Hell, and More Meetups

Not super interested in going to sleep, because tomorrow when I wake up, it will be book sale week at school.  Cue the meltdowns--and I don't mean mine.

I know, it could be worse, like when I had coworkers jumping all over me about it at my old school.  But still, it's not a fun week for me and probably not fun for kids who can't spend money and need to borrow books. Ugh.

I also had a sort-of date tonight.  Met someone for dinner.  He'd messaged me online a few weeks ago and seemed kind of normal, but he lives in Maryland.   Next thing I know, he's visiting family in the area (because he grew up the Philly 'burbs) and wants to have dinner.  O.K.  I'm a little tired because this was my weekend to work at the library and I'm getting over a minor case of the sniffles (plus it's the second anniversary for The Cat), but what the heck.

He's nice.  I still think he's too old for me and we might not have enough in common, but he's pretty decent at making conversation.  Laughs a lot (maybe too much for me) and likes to bring up the parts of my profile he found amusing repeatedly (that kind of irritates me and I'm almost ready to delete them).  But I want to give him a chance.

A coworker also wants to set me up with her chiropractor.  He's divorced (annulled) and has a teenager, but. . . again, I'm just looking to meet somebody who is kind and decent and knows how to treat people well.  I said why not, give him my number.  I'll keep you posted.

I'm trying so hard to be open, but it's just- I never pictured myself with somebody so "old."  Maybe I'm just having a hard time reconciling my age with what age I think I am.  Lord knows people are shocked when they find out my actual age, so. . . I'm sort of wishing I'd fudged my age a bit online just so men under 45 would even look at me.  But they're all looking at 30-somethings (good luck with that, fellas).

Other than that--not a whole lot going on around here.  It appears my trivia team has dissolved because no bars are hosting trivia locally anymore.  I am behind in my grading (surprise) and my apartment cleaning (but who can blame me when the weather can't make up its mind from one day to the next and I've got clothes/shoes/coats everywhere to deal with varying weather?).

I am getting out every week to work on my novel at the write-in hosted by my hometown library.  Might not be working on it any other time, but it still feels good to get back into all that. In fact, now more than ever it has been important for me to keep busy and distracted from other things.

Like a text message from Chef on my birthday after NOTHING for a year. (I deleted it. We're not friends and it's going to take more than a token greeting to get a response from me. A big-a** apology, perhaps.) And continuing to run into people associated with him, and getting questions from others who should know by now ("Are you still dating. . . ?") Seriously, a year later???

I can't tell if stuff with him keeps coming up to remind me I need to keep looking forward, or to signal I still need to deal with something.

Because I did dream about him the night before my birthday--something I haven't had happen in a long time.  And in the dream he was better and wanted to be in a relationship.   Dream-me asked, "What about all the stuff you said in November, how your 'feelings changed'?" and dream-him replied, "I honestly don't remember saying all that, because I wasn't all right then.  But I got help and I want to do this."  

Sometimes I wish my life was half as good as my subconscious thinks it is.