I’m running on too much caffeine and not enough sleep, for no good reason. I could join the Facebook group “I’m Always Tired Because I Stay Up Too Late for No Reason.” I click mindlessly around the internet and have been known to hit “reload” on my email, even at 1:30 in the morning.

I drink a cup of coffee, and then pick up another on my way to a therapy appointment, even though that’s all I have to do today. Half of a large iced coffee remains on the table next to me. My hands are a little shaky from too much caffeine and not enough to eat. Pause to eat half a sandwich. Better now.

My neck and shoulders are cramped and sore from too many hours hunched over at a desk or laptop. I am grateful for the relief of the weekend (I spent nine hours on Friday formatting contracts) but impatient with the way it interrupts the job search – there are no new job postings on the weekend.

My therapist gently bridged the subject that eventually, I’m going to have to date again. I brushed that off, saying I’m not interested in dating now, and what’s the point of it, given that I’m trying to move to DC sooner rather than later.

His point, of course, was that I’m not going to meet any boys spending my time as I’ve been spending it. Abstractly, he’s right. Day to day, I’m not interested in doing that, not now. My desire to go on polite dates is in the range of zero to negative 10.

I have an application to craft, for THE organization I want to work for. The chances of me getting so much as an email rejection are practically non-existent. But, as with every application I submit, even to the less than perfect jobs, I can’t help the wishful thinking. I can’t help but start to do the mental financial planning on how I would survive in DC on about half of what I’m making right now.

So it’s been a really long time since I’ve been on a date (or even done some making out. There is a definite lack of making out in my life) and I don’t see that changing in the near future. And I’ve only been at the search for a career change for a few weeks, really. It’s far too early to get frustrated because I haven’t submitted enough applications to be a contender in the number games.

Besides, all my personal experience shows that job offers, like boys you want to make out with, come along when you are least expecting it, when you’re at the rock bottom of frustrations and shattered expectations, and when you can’t picture how things are ever going to go right.

That’s when you get the phone call. That’s when you realize he’s deliberately sitting closer to you than he needs to.

Last night, I was re-reading (okay, lets be honest, reading) some articles that I saved from my National Security Policy class from grad school. I was taking some notes, because my crazy brain has decided that if I brush up on International Relations, I’ll have a better shot at Libertarian Fellowship. Anyway, as I said to Keithers “I’m watching Degrassi and color coding my international relations notes. Now what man would not want a girl who color codes her international relation notes?”

This is why I haven’t had a date in about a year. And the “dates” I had were not really dates, properly speaking. On one hand, this means the disaster with O-L-B last Thanksgiving was almost a year ago, as was the mini-debacle with Peace. Apparently the mini-debacle with Peace was so cringeworthy I never wrote about it, but the CliffNotes is, I got drunk and made out with a (Libertarian) Muslim who had never kissed a girl before, because anything other than holding hands before marriage is against his religion. The fact that I’m Jewish probably made it even more of a sin against God.

It’s too bad you can spell “Disaster” without “B-O-Y-S.” Anyway, the point is, except for the one time I went out with The Writer in February, the last time I had anything resembling a date was…way too long ago.

If you were taking notes on the four main approaches to U.S. Foreign Policy (neo-isolationism, selective engagement, cooperative security, & primacy) wouldn’t you use four different colored pens too? For example, I used purple for primacy, because purple = royalty, and primacy is basically a desire to be king of the world.

It annoys me that the phrase “king of the world” still reminds me of that cringeworthy scene in Titanic where Leonardo DiCaprio shouts the phrase from the bow (stern?) of the ship. Yes, that movie made me cry (I was 14, but it had nothing to do with Leonardo DiCaprio, who I never found hot) but I always thought that scene was embarrassingly awful.

I’m sure I should do something like laundry today, or figure out how to prepare for my second phone interview, but the former probably won’t happen, and the latter, I really don’t know what I can do.

The Writer asked me to a poetry reading on Saturday. He emailed saying “it’s cool if you already have plans, but it’d be cool if you want to come along.”

I waited 12+ hours before writing back, saying I’d go, and included a little story about what happened at work the day before regarding an IT thing, since it related to what we had been talking about last time we got together.

He replied “Great! See you Saturday then. P.S. – Your IT guy probably thanks you for being so nice”

No, I don’t think it’s a date, by any means. But definitely not “professional” correct?

Better now.

Last week wasn’t all doom and gloom as one may have judged from Thursday’s entry. A Grylliade member was in town on Wednesday night, so the New York contingent took him out. Although that led to what I guess qualified as a fight with O-L-B. Which I think is ok now.

Saturday I scored Billy Joel tickets, which brings me way more joy than it possibly should, because there are few things on earth that make me more joyful than Billy Joel live.

Sunday was Xina’s engagement party (and I will write more on this later) and other good things.

So this is just the public version, in which I check in, and vow to have something more interesting to say soon.

Well, it was a completely unproductive week at work, because with Important Boss out things tend to fall to the wayside anyway, and because my entire department has been ridiculously sick. I had an ear infection and cold earlier in the week, and Thursday I’ve been diagnosed with the strep throat that’s been going around the department.

I am still being anti-social. I am okay with this except that it’s not a healthy anti-social, due to the amount of time I have spent lying on my bed/thinking too much/waiting for the phone to ring.

Which brings me the boy situation. Okay, I need a moniker. There was Nice-Libertarian-Boy. There was Hot-Libertarian-Boy. There was Unfortunately-Gay-Libertarian-Boy. So I dub this one Older-Libertarian-Boy. OLB for short, because when I dubbed HWSNBN originally, I used to write the whole thing out, and that just got tiresome. Anyway, Things are about the same. We saw a movie together last Saturday, but I was actually really irritated with the way planning with. we don’t talk on the phone, because neither of us are phone people, but for making plans one would think a 10 minute phone call would not be too much to ask. I basically threw my phone across the room in frustration when I got a text message Saturday afternoon.

But of course, I still went out with him, and of course, I still stayed over, and of course, we spent the morning being all couple-y. But we went out for breakfast and then for a walk before I had to take the subway home, and he’s just so quiet around me, and it makes me lapse into quiet, and while it isn’t awkward, it’s frustrating.

Jill told me very blatantly that I’m letting him have all the benefits of having a girlfriend type figure without him having to do any of the work, and how do I know he’s not seeing other people too, since there’s been no talk of exclusiveness, and JIll, as usual is probably right.

Bleh.

And my throat feels like I’m swallowing razorblades.

Something is going to give soon.

Meh.

So there’s nothing wrong with a summer fling, right?

If it goes well tonight I’ll report on why I made this exception. (Spoiler: He’s a Libertarian! C’mon people, am I honestly expected to resist a Libertarian?)