I am not engaged. It's just my tuna.

Although for half a second at the lunch table at work today, it was almost the rumor going around. Allow me to explain.

A bunch of us often eat lunch at work together. Sometimes outside at a table we borrow from the restaurant next door and sometimes inside at the conference table. Either way, hilarity generally ensues. I mean, anytime you have a bunch of people who have been cooped up in a room in the same seat for more than 4 hours who, while doing their other work, have had too much time to think about things to talk about at lunch it's gonna be an event. Usually it's the Yankees. In fact, there is a very specific line being drawn between the Marketing and the Development departments because Development is all about the Yankees while Marketing hearts the Mets like no other. I am a Mets fan. I am also in the Marketing department. It's all very simple logic.

In any case, there I was eating my tuna sandwhich and talking to Angry Squirrel and The New Girl about how my mother woke up early to make me tuna (she's suffering from empty nest syndrome since my sister left for college). Angry Squirrel thinks that I should relish in the fact that my mom wants to make me lunch because I have the rest of my life to be independent. This is where it gets weird.

No one knows how or why or what lines could have possibly gotten crossed, but somehow The Tool thought he heard that I was engaged. Here is a reproduction of the exact conversation, including my inner thoughts which will help you to recreate the entire situation. Inner thoughts are in parentheses:

Hesper: So yeah, she got up and made me tuna.
Angry Squirrel: Well, you know, it's really nice of her.
The New Girl: Yeah, your mom seems sweet.
Angry Squirrel: I mean, I say let her do it; you have the rest of your life to be independent.
The Tool: Wait, you're engaged? Did that happen this last weekend?
Hesper: Uh, what? (who said engaged?) I'm not engaged (to WHO would I even be engaged???)
The Tool: I thought someone said you were engaged...?
The Gopher: Wait, you got engaged?
Hesper: Whoa, no! (All I need is an office party where I have to explain where I'm not only not engaged, but also not even in a relationship...oh god...there will be cake...)
Angry Squirrel: Who said engaged?
The Tool: I thought someone said engaged, but then I remember that last week she was talking about some relationship thing...
Angry Squirrel: Yeah, we were talking about her tuna.
Hesper: (Oh, what now? And did he seem upset that I was engaged? Maybe The Baker is right and he does have the hots for me...)

So now, of course, I'm blushing because I'm embarassed for The Tool that he would even mistake that so badly. I mean, tuna...? Seriously? No one even mentioned engagement. The only thing I could think of later was that he misheard what we were talking about when Angry Squirrel said something about me being independent.

This is a great example of why I love Angry Squirrel though. I mean, only she would have the guts to smile at him and say, "We were talking about her tuna" in such a way that really said, "Um, I don't know what you think you heard, but you're clearly an idiot."

So the thing about this little lunch table is that people seem eager to jump on the gossip bandwagon. And there isn't really much gossip. We're not a big office. And if I were engaged, I don't think I would be able to leave it on the downlow for almost an entire week. That would be a shrieking Monday morning in Angry Squirrel's office. Not a tuna-based sidenote over the local newspaper's sports coverage while The Giggler and The Gopher discuss who the starting pitcher is for the upcoming game.

So I got a new camera

Technically I got a new camera a couple of months ago for my birthday, but now I'm taking the time to get to know my camera. This has only made me nostalgic for the days when disposable point and shoots were the norm.

So, in true artistic form, I've spent a lot of time on self-portrait. There are a few reasons for this, and none of them good:
1) My myspace picture was outdated. I needed to update it to reflect the new haircut.
2) I couldn't think of anything better to shoot and my dog was not being cooperative.
3) I have an innate fear of photos and I have decided to try to get over it. So, I shot about 30 shots of only me. Not me hiding or making a face. Just me.

And no, you don't get to see most of them. Sorry. I am not a massochist.

Anyway, moving on to juicy things because I'm sure you're all totally excited about my camera. I mean, I know that I am but I don't expect you to be because you most likely will never get to see it in real life. And yes, in case you are wondering, I am lying down in the picture. Mr. Fooseball took that picture when we were watching Family Guy last week. That's the only picture I didn't take myself. Mine are actually somewhat blurry because i have yet to master the whole "hold your camera away from your body and take your picture" thing. In fact, I'm much better at the "oops, I accidentally took a picture of the inside of my pocket" thing.

So, back to the juicy stuff that I have yet to touch on. As I said, I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately, which gets me thinking about past relationships and what went wrong and what went right and what I miss and what I don't miss and what I liked and what I didn't like. And all of that thinking makes me really want to eat a lot of oreos. Oreos are really great things...all that chocolate and fluff...

But yeah, I think everyone hits a point where they don't necessarily miss the relationship itself, but the familiarity of the relationship. It just seems so much easier to just know the person rather than put yourself out there and know that this new person may reject your quirks, your interests, your past. And then you have to get to know the other person. How do they like their coffee? What is their humor style? Are there any habits they have that are downright disgusting, like picking at their toenails? If they do have any disgusting habits, how much of them can you overlook before you turn to the other person one rainy night while watching television and scream, "There's scratching and then there's downright picking and you bypassed picking the moment the tip of your finger disappeared!"

Anyway, I was checking people's away messages, just to see what they were up to without having to have a real conversation with them. Most people refused to post what they were actually up to (which is something I'm definately guilty of) so instead, I was bombarded with song lyrics. The most popular songs as of late? Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" and Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars." This to me basically tells me who is single and who is in a relationship.

Justin Timberlake's song, while about a couple, is not really about love or romance or anything sweet and cute. In fact, I would go so far to say that, after listening closely to the lyrics (Pretty babe/you see these shackles, baby/I'm your slave/I'll let you whip me if I misbehave/it's just that no one makes me feel this way) it's safe to assume that this is mostly about sex. Kinky sex at that. And while kinky sex would require some sort of trust on every level, it doesn't necessarily require love. This can be proved or disproved with a simple trip to your neighborhood fetish club. I doubt that most of those people even know their...*cough*...friends' real names, let alone dreams and ambitions. This doesn't mean that some of these people who are quoting Justin aren't in loving relationships, but my guess is that most of them really like to go out dancing. And also think that they are so amazing that they alone are "bringing sexy back." Having met some of these people in person, I beg to differ. I wouldn't go so far to say that they are making sexy hide in a man-made tunnel out in the Middle East, one step ahead of Bin Laden, but sexy is definately not in the same timezone.

On the other hand, Snow Patrol's lyrics about washing the world away and lying down with another person has no real hidden meaning in the away messages. They are in a great relationship and would like to lie down and "forget the world." While this is cute in theory, it seems a bit odd to want to completely dissolve the world away so that it is just you and your significant other. I mean, what if you need a doctor and neither one of you has been to medical school? It could be a serious emergency. I think you should really sit back and ask yourself, "Do I trust my partner to give me home-made stitches?" If the answer is no, forgetting the rest of the world is a bad idea.

Carrie Bradshw is not perfect.

I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately (who hasn't) and with all of these Sex and the City episodes buzzing about on tv, I've realized a couple of things. 1) Carrie Bradshaw got some of it very wrong. 2) Whenever emotions are involved, people get hurt. 3) In my next life, I would like to be a male beta.

I'll start with number 3 and work my way backwards here.

First, I should explain that I have officially named my fish Voldemort (Voldy for short), for those of you who have been worried about him. He has this little pesky habit of swimming upside down which I'm trying to convince myself makes him amazing and not evil, what with him hanging out on the nightstand next to my head. I'll keep you posted if I should find any random animals coming to pay homage or some sort of weird wands lying about. Chances are, Harry Potter and his little friends won't be visiting but in the even they do, you can be sure that I will post pictures. Moving on to the interesting stuff, male betas (as Voldy has shown me) have incredibly little to worry about when they're not in the wild. In captivity, and in Voldy's case, he has a great bowl that is probably the equivilent to a decent sized studio apartment, plenty of plastic plants, a great gravel color combo (if I do say so myself), and, to top it all off, food arrives once a day around 7pm. This is a great life. Great apartment, great furniture, great color scheme, and no worries about food. That being said, I'm sure he'd love to have a great female beta, but one of them would probably eat the other so that is not going to happen.

On that note, emotions are crazy little things. I have yet to talk to anyone in any kind of relationship who can say, with 100% accuracy, that they were never ever hurt by the other person. Yes, in the beginning of a relationship it is easy to say that you have yet to be burned, but if someone burns you in the beginning, you're just going to break it off with them. And even in the beginning there are things to work out and discussions that must be had and emotions put out there on the cutting board, waiting to either be slaughtered or nurtured.

And finally, as much as I know there may be some backlash from the SATC fans, Carrie Bradshaw is not perfect. How can she be? Her experiences in dating in no way really resemble mine except that they both involved men. I mean, yeah she has some good points, but when it comes to my life, none of her psychosis matches up with mine. Therefore, she may be right for her own situation, not for mine at all.

I know that I am damaged, having somewhat recently ended a 4 year lightswitch relationship. Knowing this and knowing myself fairly well, I decided I would take some time to work on me before jumping into another relationship. As soon as I decided this with my entire being, I met someone.

Now, of course you would think that this is where I get all sentimental about love and relationships and how they can change your life and you never know what is coming next, but as I said, I know I'm damaged. Be prepared for a fresh breath of air in the dark haze of "new happy coupledom."

I met Mr. Fooseball through friends. He seemed nice enough; funny, mature, all of that stuff. So of course, thinking that nothing would come of anything because I was not in a place where it would go anywhere, I made out with him. This is the point at which I was prepared to say "ok, well thanks" and call it a day (night), but he insisted on getting my phone number. And then he insisted he would call me. He also insisted I was pretty and that I was amazing and he had been afraid to start talking to me. Yeah right. Me? Sure there, buddy, I'm certainly intimidating. I know this because many people have told me how much I resemble mobsters, Jack Bauer, and the women of World Wrestling. Needless to say, I am a skeptic. Also, as far as first encounters go, this was a little too good to be true. We made out and that really should have been the end of it, but instead, he was adorable and smirked and said that he would call me.

As a single woman in this century, I took that to mean either he may call me at some point or that he wasn't going to call but felt the need to call because it was the polite thing to do, after having his tongue in my mouth and all (Hallmark really does need to make a card for that occasion...). And then, just because fate likes to prove me wrong, he called. And then we went out.

Now as far as first dates go, I haven't been on many in the last couple of years, but they generally go something like this:
* Awkward meeting
* Silence, following by nervous giggling
* Getting food, eating as neatly as possible so as not to show all of your bad sides in a single evening
* More awkwardness
* Talking about common interests and things that are coincidental
* More awkwardness
* The end of meal "is this is?" phase
* "Ok, well I had a great night/do we kiss? Do we hug? What happens now?" end of date.

This date went more like this:
* Meet up, he gives me flowers
* Casual banter while bowling
* Coffee and casual banter, a lot of laughing
* Walking on the boardwalk and casual banter
* Sweet kissing, dancing under the stars, and casual banter
* Walking back to our cars, goodnight kiss, end of date.

So, while normal people would be talking about how nice and sweet this date was, I took the opportunity to freak out. He was too sweet, it was too nice and he was too intuitive about what was going on with me. Am I just not sure how to be romantic? Am I so used to settling for normalcy that anything above and beyond freaks me out?

Why was I freaked out at all? Well, this I knew the answer to. I am freaked out because beginnings are scary. He's a very intense fooseball player and an even more intense person. Mr. Fooseball does not play by any of the rules I've played before. In fact, he doesn't even play the game. If any of you have ever seen a movie starring John Cusack, you'll know what I'm talking about--the guy just puts whatever he's feeling right out there for the sake of putting it out there. For someone like me, who takes things slow and isn't easily tricked into opening up (I take months to hug well), this is a bit much.

I talked to Sputz about this. Sputz is my best friend and she has a pretty firm grip on where I am and where I'm going and all of that. She thinks I'm nuts. Then again, we recently had a conversation about finding guys that went something like this:

Sputz: There are 3 guys in my MSW program and at least 1 is gay. I'm pretty sure I can turn the gay guy, though. I think it is love.
Hesper: Right. Good luck with that. I know it's always turned out well for anyone else who ever tried it. Always. Like anyone who ever went after Mr. Piano Player. He's very much not gay now.
Sputz: Uh, what? Are you joking?
Hesper: Yes.
Sputz: I was so almost on Facebook.

Now, that conversation wasn't really necessary to the story, but it does illustrate the relationship I have with Sputz.

But I digress, back to my fears of intimacy and my fears of relationships. So, after the amazing first date, we hung out a few more times, each one really great, each one romantic, each one causing me to have an out-of-body experience where I would literally say "Really? Are you serious?" because of the level of cuteness and intensity.

Mr. Fooseball knows this and finds it funny that I would actually have that reaction. Even when I'm completely insulting and horrible he finds me amusing. In fact, he actually called me late at night a few nights ago because I told him I was super cranky and he wanted to hear what I sounded like when I was super cranky. Even as I type that, I think of how corny it is, but the truth of the matter is, it's actually really nice to have a guy find you adorable when you're cranky and whining about how your sheets aren't lining up correctly and how it's pissing you off.

So where do I go from here? Well, I asked him for spme space because it was too much too quickly and I know that where I am right now, I would not be good in a relationship. Just the idea of being responsible for someone else's emotions is causing shaking and double vision, let alone knowing that someone out there would be expecting certain things from me. And it isn't that he isn't amazing...in fact, because he's amazing, I need to take some time. If he were a schmuck, this would be easier.

But instead, he's a nice guy and while he isn't perfect, he's understanding about everything I could possibly need. In fact, I was talking to him about how I was having trouble writing recently, and he's the one who suggested a Sex and the City style blog. Which means that yes, I have his permission to completely expoit him. So, incredibly long and pointless story short, I guess you can look foward to Carrie Bradshaw-esque posts.

The Fishy Problem

I have a fish. I had a fish but he passed away from old age. Now I have a new fish and while he is very pretty, I can't seem to name him for anything. This is only a problem because my mother keeps walking into my room and doing that baby-talk thing she does to the dog and doesn't know what to call him. In absense of a name, she has taken to calling him Mr. Fishy. While I'm sure that at one point I had a fish named Mr. Fishy (at about the same point I had Mr. Big Bear, Mr. Blanket, and Mr. Sand Box), I should be able to come up with real a name for this fish.

I have considered using He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but I don't want an evil fish who will start using magic as he grows and becomes more powerful, causing me death (or at least a hiddeous forehead scar) in my sleep while he lulls about his plastic plants.

My brother, the thespian, has suggested I look for something out of a play. Like Stanley. Or Eugene. He only really wants this because he gave me the fish for my birthday and because he is a very huge Tennesee Williams and Neil Simon fan. He has other ideas, but they include Dinner, Fillet, or Stick.

In the meantime, my fish is afraid of his food. This makes me want to name him something like Anorexic or Dumbass. If you sprinkle a few granules on the surface of the water, just as the kind people at Nature's Cove Pet Store suggested, he will back away deep down to the gravel and hide behind one of his plants. While the term "fighting fish" may apply to the species as a whole, I'm pretty sure mine is more of a pacifist. He certainly would not have made it in the real world where there are other Bettas out there just waiting to tear him apart feathery, blue fin for feathery, blue fin.

Welcome to Brunch!

Welcome to The Brunch Platter. Why brunch? Well, mostly because it's really a great meal and no one appreciates it the way that they should. What is it? A huge sampling of foods and people you won't ordinarily see together, just like Sunday Brunch. Except this will be more entertaining than the huge fight between Great-Aunt Mildred and Great-Aunt Bea that caused the specially designed seating at Cousin Leah's Bat Mitzvah.