Better

I've stuck to my diet with the occasional leap into flour and brown rice. I bought brown rice chips on good faith; I'll see to bean chips (those require no dip because they taste so good).
I told Joe that I have a boyfriend and he took it really well. We've actually talked a few times since I told him. It's like he was waiting for us to be just friends again, even though we both struggle with it. He bought a living room set and drove on a heavily traffic-ed street near me and he said he still felt the same way getting close to my house. It'll be a while but so far, so good, which is surprising. He even answers me texts more often now. Kind of makes me wonder about things.
After the psoas massage, I've noticed more thoughts turning to Kaze and how I'm so glad we're not together. We haven't been together for about 7 years now. It's the same thing--we could be miserably married, my career would be considered a joke because he would be the bread winner, I wouldn't have my finances together, I would have cared about him but not had a connection, I never felt that I was in love.
I think about all the stupid shit I've done in the last 7 years too. I didn't take grad school seriously. I acted spoiled most of the time and depressed the other times. It probably contributed to a lot of struggles.
I spoke to R about how Rob touched me a year ago on NYE. She made excuses for him. Seriously, I don't care if he does it to you since you're close to him anyway but I'm upset because he's married. If he were single, I wouldn't take offense. He's nice looking, not going to lie. But it's uncomfortable. And I'm still uncomfortable.
It also brings up all sort of issues with touch. My mom was suspicious of me a lot of the time. She said I was flirting at age 10. I didn't mean it. I didn't even know what I was doing that would be considered flirting-- so that made me uncomfortable. When I was close to girls after I told my mom I was bisexual, she would make comments about each girl friend-- did you go over there to have sex? Is she your lover? Why was she over when we weren't home? So, I'm not even affectionate with my close girl friends because I worry that they'll take that as flirting too. Can't give a girl a damn hug without thinking that it could be misconstrued.
R also commented on a professor who has breast cancer. Now, this professor, Donna, singled me out and made my life miserable until she left the program. She was the director and I felt I had no one on my side and no rights like having someone there to witness what she was telling me about my school performance and about my behavior. A different professor had told her that I answered a question with humor-- but according to Donna, I was being defiant and oppositional. To me, being oppositional or defiant would have meant I stood in front of the class and said, "Fuck You, I'm not answering your goddam question." I did not do that. I didn't answer a question and she didn't come back to me to tell me to answer the question-- did she say that to this to Donna? NO! Fucking bullshit. So, Donna has breast cancer and I'm conflicted but it's someone who I know and suffering is suffering so, I encouraged other people to make artwork to send positive vibes to Donna for her healing. R found this to be shocking and very mature of me. I just keep telling myself, "Am I supposed to be angry at her forever? Why?"

JZ and I made it official that we're together. I made plans for Valentine's Day in NYC. It went by so easy. It got me thinking of how difficult it would have been with Joe and how awful it was with Jeremy. I kept telling JZ that I was happy and thankful he was there. He finally stopped me-- "It's not a big deal. This is not a chore." Well, with Joe, I couldn't even make plans like this because he would be angry, he wouldn't have fun because he'd find something, and he wouldn't know if he could get the day off until the week of and he would be upset about that too. UGH. And my anniversary/birthday trip with Jeremy included about 2 hours of us together and then he worked, drank with the guy and networked (I guess), and then we hung out with his friend and friend's friend-- but he mostly hung out with his friend and I hung out alone with the friend's friend. Then, Jeremy didn't go with me in the morning to get breakfast and we didn't go to Central Park even though we were close. We also didn't take a carriage ride even though I really, really wanted to-- because he didn't have money for it. And we had to take a taxi back because his feet hurt too much-- and we didn't walk the way I usually do in NYC. He also gave away a glass that I stole from a winery after he gave me shit about stealing it. I really fucking wanted the glass- he fucking gave it away. DOUBLE UGH! It wasn't long after that that we broke up. I realized how much he was holding me back, how his health was just deteriorating, and that he was just broke. I couldn't deal with it anymore. Plus, I tried to tell him that his friend didn't like me-- or at least was rude to me while he was drunk and he didn't fucking believe me.

So, this trip was amazing. Right before the trip, he suggested that we stay in NYC, which is expensive. But I think we did just fine and the hotel was awesome and it was just right there, no weary traveling. We did all this cool stuff like the Museum of Sex, drank Absinthe, went to MOMA together, read some books, went to book stores and record shops, and went to an amazing Indian restaurant. He left Sunday night and I stayed till Monday morning. I walked in the morning, just to walk. And you know, it was nice when it snowed. We went on long walks and had amazing conversations.
Only weird thing is that while we were being intimate, JZ told me he loved me. OMG, there is no where to run from that. There's no way to stop and say, "Um.... I just struggled and finally got into this about two weeks ago. It may be 2 months for you but it's not for me. I don't feel it." So, I said it a bunch of times to make sure that he didn't know I was uncomfortable. But now it's becoming easier. I do have strong feelings for him and I see a great future with us, where travel is easy and money is not so much a problem. He's about to get a raise once he takes the HVAC certification test and I'm just waiting on my professional license and then I get to keep a lot more money that I take in-- and damn, I've been taking it in lately. At the same time, if we broke up, I wouldn't be too sad. I'd hope I'd be just fine.

Last weekend, I went to New Haven. We got a cheap (but very decent) hotel after it was going to be about 3 when I got home. We watched my friend/ex's band, he met R and her husband (even though he thought they were just friends with each other), and I met his friend who I thought was imaginary. R's husband might even be interested in going to see JZ's band. The next day, we had breakfast, watched "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," shared a cupcake, had tea/coffee, and walked around New Haven, even went to The Grove Street Cemetery, which was on my list of graveyards to see. We smoked hookah and went to goodwill and bought windshield wipers. It was just a nice weekend. Otherwise, I would have gone to church and hung out at home. I'm glad I walked more than I usually do. And again, we had great conversation and talked about the future.

I'm in the middle of doing this nonprofit. And I'm not sure if I really want to do it. Things are going really well in business. And I'm not sure if I want to be responsible for programing. I love giving talks. I just want people to be able to rely on me for teaching classes at my own office or at a healing place that has space for it (and is of minimal overhead for me, which I did find and the owner totally thinks I could do a nonprofit on my own).

My supervisor is seeing me leave his side to explore other things-- like he wanted me to meet with him to go over my ad on a website because I used too many sentences with "I." I told him that I used another person's page as inspiration-- and that I would consult with Walter because he has copy writing experience. Walter and I did it in 20 minutes, without a long drawn out, "Well, you could use this. You could point out this," but NOTHING about how to actually write it-- and at the end of the meeting, he'd say it's up to me how I want to write it. OK. Then, what did we just do? What did I just pay you for? I need a copywriter, not someone who wants my money. He has plenty of it already. And although I respect him for sticking to his contract and making sure other people do, he does seem like he's just after money-- which really doesn't help when you're helping people or when you want to gain a good reputation. It's been a issue with me because it sometimes feels like he's screwing me over while telling me to be grateful and then telling me to improve my worth. I've had to do the worth thing without him-- and it feels good to say no to another person who wants to pay only $40 for my services while gaining resentful of me, and feeling like I'm not helping when they're not using the tools or coping skills that they're learning. I would understand if a person had used all the coping skills I gave them, and it didn't work. I'd help them come up with something else to help them-- but the point is also, that they need to give a good try. Seriously tired of that-- it's why I like engineers-- if I explain the benefits, they tend to see the light and get into what they need to do-- and they do SO WELL!
I even turned down an offer to teach kids to use an art journal because it was only going to be $20, which is way below what I'm worth and I'd be embarrassed if my clients found out that I was doing something for  such a low cost. If I did the class on my own, I'd be getting up to $56 per person-- that's more of my speed. I'll even do $20 per person per 90 minutes. But $20 for a fucking hour. NO. And I don't like working with kids. I work well with some kids but I have to weed out people. And I finally feel that I can do that. 

I also realized the other day that I do know lots of what's going on in the office-- whether it's with the fixtures, my colleagues or other stuff, I know it. EMTs came to the office the other day-- no one needed them luckily, but no one else would come out of their office to tell them they had the wrong suite. I hope they found the right suite-- which was a floor above us-- or so is what the EMT said.

I love smoking hookah. I feel like lots of people get high off of marijuana or get plastered. I enjoy wine or absinthe but I don't overdo it unless I'm at home. I get migraines from marijuana or I don't feel high and do something stupid. It's not my thing. But hookah is what I imagine feeling high would be like. It feels nice, relaxing. I get a BM every time I do it. I feel at peace, I feel calm, I feel like energy leaves my muscles, I relax. When I thought about why the weight is still on, it's because sometimes I still worry about money. Once I get to the point where I don't have to, I'd feel miles better and probably do better at the gym. Also, my body looks different a lot of the time-- but sometimes I still feel fat or notice that I'm not where I want to be with my weight or muscles. It feels like such a slow process. Also, I'm continuing with the heating pad at night and in the morning. It also helps me feel relaxed.
I worked at the group home the other day and one of the coworkers looked frazzled and I looked refreshed after our shifts. But she's trying to be everything to everyone and fix everything even though she hasn't been there for months-- while I'm just trying to manage the residents. I even had to shoo the girl away when she was loitering.

My friend John. UGH. He was commenting annoyingly on everything I posted on Facebook. And no one felt that we could disagree, he always had the last word. I had to restrict him. After I did that, he posted a note to my wall telling me about some things my friend was doing. He could have messaged me. Instead, he went this roundabout way to do it and I just was done. I felt trapped every time he left a comment and it was on everything, always using exclamation points. He was texting me twice a day-- saying how he slept and telling me he was going to bed. If I responded, it was a long conversation with annoying questions and assumptions that weren't true. He also wanted info about a kid I'm working with and HIPPA says it's a need to know basis and he doesn't need to know. It was overwhelming and I felt guilty that I didn't like how he was going about things, that he would tell the same stories about his ex, his cats, where he lived in the past, etc. I'm so done. He's on the nonprofit board and I canceled a meeting because I didn't want to see him and also our agenda was light, no use in making food when it will take 2 seconds to talk about things.
He saw me after no one showed up for a talk-- and I know he wanted to talk more about how no one came to the talk, like why no one came to the talk, even though I wouldn't know that. I didn't want to go over all the possible fucking reasons why no one came. I also didn't want him to hug me one time when I said something that was upsetting. He wanted to hug me when he wasn't feeling good about something I told him-- mainly to stop talking about his fucking ex wife-- he was only married for one year, 15 fucking years ago. Just fucking stop. I'm tired. I can't be a pretend lover, teacher, therapist, etc. It's fucking gross. He was also annoying after he had a massage from one of my friends. I almost felt badly when he felt badly after he ate. I told him to talk to the massage therapist since I didn't want to hear or postulate why he felt so fucking badly. She might know-- ask her or talk to her. And you know, she was really awesome and called him to talk and reassure him.

W posted something to my wall about guys putting girls in the girlfriend zone-- something which W and John are guilty with doing with me. John mentioned it, which I was glad he read it-- but I don't think he made the connection that he was doing it to me. W made the connection. He realized that with going to New Haven and being offended that I flirted with others. It shouldn't have mattered. I'm single and can act single. I don't like it when people become "protective" of me-- it's not their fucking job.

I miss my friendship with Tony. He has to babysit often or at least he uses that as an excuse. I sometimes hope that the sex is worth it. But we did have a good talk the other day about him buying a house and not actually having the house to himself since it would be his girlfriend's house and her kid's house-- the artwork he wants to put up is too creepy for the woman he dates. He even slightly talked about breaking up with her. I was surprised. He called it a bad track record with dating. He doesn't have my track record, he'll do fine.

Better go.