There's been some confusion about my beer tolerance, so let me spell it out in very scientific terms.

1 beer: Fine pretty much any time.

2 beers: Can be iffy on a work night when I don't get to sleep in - it can make me wake up in the middle of the night with a mildly icky feeling in my stomach. Doesn't progress to full-on sick, but can make for a poor night's sleep. 2 lighter beers might be fine, but last night's 2 Newcastles didn't agree with me.

3 beers: Probably fine on a weekend as long as I hydrate very well and then get to sleep in the next morning. Once again, 3 lighter beers would probably go over better than 3 darker beers.

4 beers: Disaster unless I hydrate extremely well - for instance when I went out for St. Patrick's Day I drank 2 liters of water throughout the night and was fine except for some very mild stomach unpleasantness that woke me up in the wee hours of the morning but was gone once I managed to get back to sleep for a few hours.

I hope that cleared everything up.

Boo, Facebook isn't loading. This is what I was going to say: I have learned this lesson before, but apparently not well enough. Two beers is too much for me on a worknight.

I'd like to thank everybody for the kind/hilarious comments about my dating profile. I didn't get a lot in the way of constructive criticism, but it was nice to hear that most of you thought it was pretty good. I figure that anybody I'd want to spend a lot of my time with would be somebody who would fit in well with my Freaky type friends anyway, so hopefully it will attract the right kind of person at some point. Until then, I am having a pretty good time being single, and even though I have my moments where I get whiny about it for the most part I'm happy with my life. I think that someday when I am settled into whatever my life ends up being, I will look back on these days of relatively carefree singledom with fondness and nostalgia. I don't want to just blow past this part of my life.

Hmm, my internet browser remembers pretty much every subject I've typed into the LJ subject box for the past who knows how long, and this is not the first time I have used that subject line. Shocking.

I was supposed to have a date with a new guy today, but I think he blew me off. We had the day and the place set, but not the time, and I didn't hear from him for a couple of days. Emailed today to see if we were still on and never heard back. Boo.

I went out with Point Reyes Guy four times. I was liking him and he seemed to be liking me, but apparently not enough to ever put any effort into contacting me or setting dates. I got sick of being the one to initiate stuff, and now I haven't heard from him in awhile. Boo.

Fortunately, I have been very busy and social lately, so I'm feeling pretty ok about not being successful on the dating front. Even tonight it was kind of a relief to have some time to myself and not have to go out (though I'm still annoyed with the guy). I have to be careful of keeping up a balance and giving myself time to myself, or I get too burned out on being social and don't want to do it anymore. I've gotten so busy lately, and been having so much fun in the meantime, that I'm almost tempted to just stop trying with the dating. I won't, because I already paid for the damn service and set the damn goal, so I might as well stick to it. A couple of dates per month isn't all that much. Now I just need to get somebody to actually follow through.

Five books so far in 2009! Below is my mini-review of my fifth book read, which will be pretty much meaningless to anyone who hasn't read the book.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Loved it. So many mysteries that I didn't even realize were mysteries got solved (or "solved") in the end, it was all making my head spin. Maybe I should have seen some of it coming (and I did have an inkling here and there), but I was too busy enjoying the book to take a step back and try to piece things together. I found Blue, the main character, very accessible and likeable, despite her intellectual snobbery. I think that was mostly because there was a sense that the snobbery was only borrowed from her father and that her heart wasn't quite in it. Even though her father was infuriating he was also kind of fascinating, and I could see why the June Bugs were so drawn to him, and why Blue couldn't help loving him.


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First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first half was entertaining enough, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the satire felt a little forced and stale, not nearly as fresh and enjoyable as I remember The Eyre Affair being. The plot picked up enough in the second half of the book that I didn't notice my issue anymore, and it ended with an intriguing enough cliffhanger that I'm looking forward to the next in the series.


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There are several things that I hope to do this year - build my book club back up so that we have more than three active members and start/stick to some kind of exercise program are two that come to mind. Progress has already been made on the book club thing, and I have a not yet fully formed plan for the second one. However, I only have two concrete goals that I am going to call resolutions.

1. I will read 50 books this year. I've seen this idea floating around on various sites for the past couple of years, and I'm finally going to join in on the fun. Any posts I make on the subject will likely be at the Goodreads community that I joined, but if I think of it then I may make some posts about what I'm reading here.

2. The whole dating thing. I decided that an average of two first dates per month is a good goal. Realistic, not too exhausting, and will get me out with a good variety of guys. Of course if I totally fall for somebody then I will stop going on dates with other people, but I am pretty determined to only do that if I meet someone who really knocks my socks off, and not just settle in with someone when it seems easy and comfortable to do so. 24 first dates, one year. Those I will be chronicling here, so stay tuned!

I was having a pretty boring New Year's Eve. I wasn't really sad about it or anything - in fact earlier tonight I took myself out for sushi and a glass of wine and I was feeling pretty good. But then the video that I got from the library that I had wanted to watch wasn't working so I was a little disappointed, and the wine made me sleepy, so after watching my second-choice video I was about to go to bed, even though it was only 11:30. I was just heading into the bathroom to brush my teeth when I got this text from a very dear friend:

"Just proposed. engaged now! sorry to surprise you but just got ring and didn't have a chance to talk. ps happy new year!"

The identity of the texter is beneath the cut! FFF people should know the face.

( Read more... )

I know that I said I wasn't going to start the online dating initiative until after the first of the year, but once I make a decision to do something I don't like waiting to carry it out. I had my first date on Sunday. It went pretty well, so I don't have a good nickname for him - usually the good nicknames come from the bad dates. For example, before this I went on a handful of dates, maybe three or four, since I became single in February, and it's a shame that I didn't blog about them, because they had good nickname potential (Woman Voice, Conspiracy Guy and Way-Too-Old-For-Me - hmm, the first one's a little mean). I'll call this one Airplane Guy, because he works with airplanes (on the ground, he doesn't fly them or anything). Maybe I'll come up with something better after our second date this weekend - sounds like we're going to a museum. This weekend I also have a tentative coffee date with a guy who works as a trainer for some kind of serious martial art type of fighting. Yes, I'm trying to branch out from my usual nerd type. I'm starting to think that what I thought was my type is maybe not actually my type - I love computer nerds, but am beginning to suspect they might be better as friends for me. I'm not ruling them out completely or anything - the only types that I'm ruling out completely are chain smokers, religious nuts, and ultra conservatives. I think I'm going to try dating around a little bit, instead of just settling in with the first guy who I like well enough, as I did the last time around.

I'm also very proud of myself, because I went to a party tonight, actually initiated conversation with a cute guy, and managed to come off as friendly and confident instead of spastic (I'm pretty sure, at least). The party was for a mentor program I volunteer for, so there were a lot of kids there with their mentors. I ended up across a big table from a cute guy and the kid he mentors, and I went over and introduced myself and we chatted for a bit a couple of times throughout the evening. That's it, that's the end of the story, no love connection was made or anything. I'm just proud of myself for going up to him and being friendly like that - baby steps!

I'm mostly posting this because I'm curious about how it will look posted into my journal. Now you all get to see what I felt about reading Middlemarch. I'm going through such a Masterpiece Theater addict phase right now, it's ridiculous. Now I'm off to watch episode 3 of Wives and Daughters, based on an unfinished novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. Fine, I didn't actually know who she was before I started watching this. These Masterpiece Theater type costume dramas are so much fun, and not just for the costume drama aspect of it. I get to see British actors that I've seen in other stuff pop up in all kinds of unexpected places. The first episode of this one had Jeff from Coupling!

That got a little bit tangential. Anyways, below is my mini-review of Middlemarch by George Eliot from my Goodreads page.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had a hard time deciding what to rate this book. The last third of it I would give a solid 4 stars, or even 4 and a half if that was an option. The first two thirds of it varied between two and three stars. There was a lot of stuff about small town politics in England in the early 19th century that I found pretty tough to get through. To be perfectly honest, I was in it for the gossip and scandals. Any of the parts that focused on characters, and interaction between characters I loved. I slogged through the political stuff because I thought it was going to be important later, but it hardly came up at all in the last third of the book, and there was never any payoff for suffering through it. I guess it was important to set the scene, because the book is a picture of an entire town, but it all kind of went over my head.



I'm excited about watching the BBC miniseries now, even if Rufus Sewell wasn't really how I was picturing Ladislaw as I was reading.


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