In Brief (because I'm tired)

1. It would appear that The Guy likes me too. Yes, I am certain.

2. Tomorrow is the retrieval day for my egg donation. Trying not to be nervous as I'll be unconscious the whole time anyway. I hope the check clears quickly so I can go to IKEA on Friday and buy a new bed. I realize that's mercenary, but I have a feeling that it's going to be a little while before my ovaries go back to normal and my abdomen stops feeling like it's filled with highly sensitive Dazzle Dirt (tm), so I'm focusing on the immediate benefits.

3. I was rejected by my final grad school today, likely because my second letter of recommendation never freaking arrived. This entire application process was so fraught with stress and roadblocks, perhaps the universe was telling me that this just isn't the right time for me to be going back to school. At least, that's the line I'm taking...

4. Did I mention about The Guy? I did? Good. Just checking. :)

30 Going on 13

Once upon a time, many moons ago, a girl sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, cradling a cordless phone in her lap and trying very hard to work up the nerve to dial. Finally, with a deep breath, she steeled her resolve and punched in the number.

Girl: Hello, [Boy]?
Boy: Yeah?
Girl: Hey, it's [Girl]. (Pause.) You know who I am, right?
Boy: Yeah, of course I do.
Girl: Um, Okay, So... I was just wondering... Wouldyougooutwithme?
Boy: Yes.
Girl: (Pause.) Really?
Boy: Yes, really.
Girl: Cool. (Pause.) So, ummm... watcha up to?

The hard part over, they talked for hours. They talked about music, TV, books, school. They had no classes together but made plans to meet at the library during study halls when school was back in session. She learned that the boy had actually asked her out (via a friend, naturally) months before, but she'd said no, because she'd had him confused with someone else.

It was Christmas Eve, 1993, and later that night the girl wrote giddily in her diary that she'd already given herself the best Christmas present she could ask for--a boyfriend.

They had declared themselves, they were a couple. Only then did they go about the task of getting to know each other. As it turns out, they were well-suited, and young love blossomed. It was four months before they even kissed. Five months before their first fight, break-up, and reunion. By Middle School standards, their 7 month relationship was practically a marriage; and when it ended (with no shortage of drama, as young relationships invariably do), she licked her wounds for a little while, then brushed herself off and moved on. The thing had run its course.

* * *
It's a simple story, I know, but when I look back on it that's what strikes me the most: simplicity.

The other day I was talking to The English Ex about our respective dating difficulties and he asked "Was it always this hard?" To which I could only reply, "No. It wasn't."

I miss the simplicity of being able to say, "Hey, I like you. If you like me too we should be a couple. Wanna try?" and saving all the worry over whether or not it's a good idea for a later date. Unfortunately, as a woman now officially in her 30s, saying that to any guy before even going on a single date would surely send him screaming in the opposite direction faster than you can say "Wedding Registry."

But that doesn't mean I don't want to do it.

Of course, I'm thinking about The Guy here, but I'm thinking about that Boy too. We barely knew each other. Hell, I didn't even realized he'd already asked me out, because I had his last name confused with someone else's! All I knew is that I thought he was cute and I got all jittery when I ran into him in the nurse's office one day (I had poison ivy, he was icing a sprained ankle)... and we were together for practically an eternity, from an adolescent standpoint. So how did we know? How did we know that we would actually get along, be good for each other, have anything in common? Was it some sort of crazy, relationship sixth sense? Or just blind luck?

I wish I knew, because I get the same feeling around The Guy... only magnified, and muddled by years of experience, of both the positive and negative variety.

I barely know him, though I do actually know his last name. I just know that I like him, I feel good when he's around, and when he's in the same space I want to be close to him.

So why can't I make that leap? Why can't I gather the nerve to simply say "Hey, let's go out sometime. Like now, for instance?" Why was my 13 year old self so much braver than my 30 year old self?

Perhaps it's because my 13 year old self had yet to feel the sting of real rejection. Rejection is like a poison ivy allergy--something else with which I am acutely familiar. Over time, the body's allergic reaction to poison ivy intensifies rather than diminishes, so that each subsequent exposure causes a more violent reaction until you're like me, and a simple brush with those three leaves from Hell means a trip to the doctor and lots of steroids. I think I react to rejection the same way. As time goes on and I experience it more and more, even the little rejections feel like earthquakes in my psyche.

Like I said, I barely know The Guy... but I have a feeling that if he shot me down, I would take it hard. Very hard. And doing a show together means I'll be seeing him fairly regularly for the next month or so, making it very difficult for me to lick my wounds and move on, as my 13 year old self would have done.

Granted I feel that I already made my intentions perfectly clear when I kissed him, but he is a guy, he could have just chalked that up to my being drunk. A kiss doesn't carry the same weight at 30 as it did at 13, which is a pity really, as it's still an infinitely enjoyable way to pass the time. Or maybe he's having the same, ridiculous inner monologue that I am, and we should both just get the hell over it and see what happens.

I have no way of knowing what he's thinking, what will happen, or what I will eventually do. For the moment I'm still stuck on my bedroom floor, staring at the wall and searching for the courage to dial.

Good Karma... and Money

Have you ever had one of those hangovers where it feels like your brain is suspended in jello, and every time you move your head, it bumps painfully into your skull?

Yes?

Well after six days of hormones, that's how my reproductive organs feel. Or maybe like someone removed them all together and replaced them with a brick. A brick with lots of nerve endings. Similes aside, it is not exactly what you would call pleasant. Though on the plus side, my overwhelming horniness has abated for the time being, as the thought of anyone actually touching the lower half of my body makes me cringe.

Tomorrow morning's sonogram is going to be just a barrel of fun.

Now, at least, I'm starting to understand why the compensation for this process is so high. I don't mean to sound mercenary, and I know that I am giving someone a great gift... but in my present state of discomfort, cold hard cash is a far more tangible reward than good karma.

I've also developed a new-found respect for diabetics, or anyone else who has to administer subcutaneous medication while in a public place. I've had to inject myself twice while at work, and let me tell you... perching on the edge of a toilet seat with my tights around my knees and my skirt hiked up around my waist, preparing to stick a needle in my thigh while shouting "Occupied!" as one or more persons rattle the door trying to gain entry to the restroom is not a position in which I ever expected to find myself.

The subsiding of my sex drive, however, has not decreased my interest in The Guy in the slightest--leading me to believe that my attraction to him is not just the hormones and that, for better or for worse, I do actually like him. We had a late night text message conversation last night, and the fact that I've read over it a few times and can't help grinning while I do so also points in that direction.

Yep. I think I'm in trouble.

Stalemate

Day Three of Self-Injected Hormones: Still horny, though perhaps not as blindingly as before. Plagued by insomnia--again, not unusual for me, but definitely intensified. Maybe a tiny bit crampy from time to time, but nothing unbearable. Giving myself injections has turned out to be far less traumatic than I thought it would be. I was given the option of taking them in the thigh, and I quite literally can't even feel it. Definite WIN.

As to my personal life, I've seen The Guy (No, I really couldn't come up with a better nickname than that. I tried.) twice since the evening that I mauled him. Both times we were at rehearsal, and both times he has been cut before I was, thus thwarting my schemes to get him alone somewhere off theatre property--be it only the subway--in order to more objectively evaluate the situation. I have tried, and apparently failed, to indicate that I would enjoy doing just that. My subtler hints have gone unnoticed, and the one whopping LARGE hint--namely kissing him in a not-at-all-subtle fashion, right after saying something akin to "I'm far more attracted to you than I should be"--has not since been addressed.

It feels like the level of flirtation has escalated, but it's difficult for me to say when all of it is taking place in front of the rest of the cast--one of whom is aware of the events of the previous evening, having been in my inebriated company immediately thereafter. (If you think I have no filter in my blog, you should see me when I'm drunk.) The one significant change I can note is that, when he is supposed to kiss me on stage, he actually does so now, whereas before he'd been faking it. That may, or may not, be something.

In other words... I haven't got a frakking clue what is going on, and short of dragging him into the dressing room, locking the door, and having my way with him (or what way I can have under current restrictions), I'm not sure if or when I'll ever figure it out.

Not that I'm not enjoying myself along the way mind you. Flirting is fun. Cute boys are fun. Feeling slightly jittery around someone new is fun.

But by now you've all become at least mildly acquainted with my Crazy, and these hormones are not making her any easier to keep under control.

Right now, The Happy, Sane Froggy Who Just Enjoys the Moment is at a stalemate with the Crazy... but when that Stalemate becomes a Checkmate, well... I just don't know who's going to win.

Stuff and Foolishness

There is simultaneously a lot and very little going on in my life these days.

I've started rehearsing for another show, which is taking up the majority of my free time, and much to my delight it is shaping up to be really great. I think I'll actually enjoy the curtain call this time around, unlike the last show where I just wanted to escape the stage, and my scene partner, as quickly as possible. Also unlike the last show, this time around I actually find the men I'm sharing the stage with--gasp!--attractive... one of them more than is probably good for me, but more on that in a minute.

The other news is that, after more than a year of waiting, I have finally begun my egg donation cycle! I took the stop-you-from-ovulating hormone shot a few weeks ago, and tomorrow I start the daily produce-lots-of-eggs hormones (giving myself shots--fun!). Thus far the only side effect I think I've noticed is being, well, exceptionally horny.

Now, granted, this isn't exactly an unusual state of affairs for me, so I'm not sure I can blame it entirely on the hormones, and I'm thinking the effect has been intensified by the fact that at the present moment, my lust actually has an object on which to fixate.

Which brings us back to the guy in my show. I say it's not good for me to be so attracted to him, mainly because he's a bit of a stoner and a bit of a flake (the two so often go hand in hand) and while stoner-ness doesn't bother me, one thing I absolutely cannot abide is flakiness. On the other hand, he's also cute, funny, and has a ridiculously sexy voice... and when he's in the vicinity I have a very hard time keeping myself from just pouncing on him and ripping his clothes off.

Indeed, the other night--after an inordinate amount of Yeungling--I entirely failed to control my lustful urges and stuck my tongue down his throat. He didn't seem to mind.

I can't help finding it ironic that I actually meet someone I want to have sex with right when I begin a process which will prohibit me from having sex for a month.

Unless, you know, I want to have a zillion babies. Which, clearly, I do not.

Fucking figures.

And absolutely none of the above prevented me from spending an entire 60 minute commute this morning indulging in daydreams about which, for the sake of decency, I will not go into detail. If there were any telepaths on the A train this morning, I highly doubt they were bored.

Now, I know what you're thinking, because I've thought it too. Maybe it's a good thing that I can't just jump into bed with him. Maybe this means I'll actually have to get to know him before sex becomes part of the equation. And you're right. Or you would be, if I was positive I wanted to date him. I'm not.

I try to take gossip with a grain of salt, but I was told he's got a reputation as a bit of a man-whore. There's the whole I-hate-flakiness thing, which I can tolerate in someone I'm only having sex with, but can't handle in an actual relationship. There's the fact that my judgment is currently so clouded by hormone-induced lust that I can't stop thinking about taking his shirt off long enough to determine exactly how much I like him. And finally there's the nagging fear that I do really like him, which, for all the reasons listed above, might turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing.

It seems that neither the course of true love NOR true lust ever doth run smooth...