Everyone else leads such interesting lives

Hey sorry I know it's been a while, I just haven't had anything to say. My life has been pretty boring lately.

Last week started with me finishing off my hotness bracket, just in time for games to start on Thursday. Which lead to a weekend of me watching college basketball. I'm super excited that both Duke and Purdue made it to the Sweet 16 and will be facing off against each other on Friday night.

On another front I've been trying to decide the extent of my feelings for office crush. This crush has been going on for far too long and it hasn't really followed the pattern of previous crushes. Usually once I tell a friend about a crush it quickly dissipates and becomes a non-issue. This one has managed to stick around for much longer than I would have ever thought possible. So what's with the sudden need to define my feelings? Well it has to do with moving forward. Something someone said to me in the other day about how nothing good happens unless we take chances. Whether I'm willing to take that chance or not is yet to be seen.

I'd rather not know

I've discovered something about myself recently. This story is going to sound totally pathetic and it kind of is but at the same time totally revealing about some things in my life.

On Thursday night I was supposed to meet someone for dinner. I don't want to exactly call her a friend. We used to be friendly but then we both got busy and sort of fell apart. This was supposed to be our second meeting since the Facebook reconnect. I hadn't been feeling well all week and came close to cancelling a few times but didn't. Anyway I showed up to the Olive Garden where we were supposed to meet and an hour and two drinks and two bowls of soup later she still hadn't.

So what's one to make of this situation? My first thought was "well she must have got stuck in traffic". That lasted for about 15 minutes. After half an hour I figured I must have gotten the day wrong, but I was almost certain I hadn't because I double checked before I left. After an hour I figured she must have had some kind of emergency and there would be a call or an e-mail waiting for me when I got home. It's 4 days later and still no call or e-mail. So I sent her a Facebook message and tried really hard not to sound too pissed off.

Here's the thing though, at this point I'd rather not know what happened. At least if I don't know there is a chance that it was an emergency and she didn't just forget about me. I'll feel pretty bad if it was that she just didn't remember that we had plans and went ahead and did her own thing.

I also realized that there are other things that I don't want to know. For example ,I still harbor my office crush. Even though I haven't been at work for nearly a year and therefore haven't seen him I have attached certain events to him. So when I think about those things I think of him. Anyway I've decided that I'd rather not know if he likes me, than find out that he doesn't. Or if I would get accepted to my choice of graduate schools, right now I have the hope that I would, if I apply and don't get in I'd be upset.

Is there anything you'd rather not know for certain?

Think Happy Thoughts

I can just see this going wrong. I don't think anyone who reads this would be shocked that I have had more than one office crush at my current job. I've been here almost 2 years these things are bound to happen. But today I have to work with my very first office crush ever. You know that scene in Love, Actually where the boss calls the woman into the office and asks her how long she's been in love with the toque designer and it's like since the day she started? Yup that's pretty much how it is.

So you can see how this might be a little bit weird. Of course if I think it's going to be awkward then it definitely will be awkward so I just have to keep thinking happy thoughts.

Edit: you know what the easiest way to deal with above awkwardness is? Don't work with them. It's probably a long story that I shouldn't bother getting into.

Far, Far Away

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I don't know if that's true in my case. When I'm in the middle of a sports season I usually pick up a "boyfriend" for that sport. College basketball, college football, actual football... well you can see where this is going. But quickly after the season I tend to forget about them and move on. I mean I rarely mention Jay Cutler anymore.

Perhaps it's a good thing then that my office crush is taking some time off soon. Perhaps not being around him all the time will help me get over it. I'd really like to move on although the way things have been going in my dreams lately maybe I'm better to just stick with what I've got.

It's interview time

Alright so I'm running out of things to write about so when I saw that SA had done this interview thing and was looking for people who wanted to continue the tradition I jumped at the chance. Here's how it works if you're interested:

1. leave me a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I’ll email you five questions, of my determination not yours!
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Before we start the Q & A I'd like to say that these questions are incredible and incredibly difficult.

1. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? How different is it (if it is) to what you now are/want to be?

Well my kindergarten yearbook says that I wanted to be a farmer when I grew up. My parents have a farm and I grew up thinking there is nothing greater you can do with your life than provide food for the world. However like everything that is good for the soul it pays next to nothing. So by the time I had graduated from high school I was looking more at a career in the agriculture industry as opposed to primary production. At my current job I do talk to farmers every day, so I guess it's not so far off. I also own some cattle, but I don't make any sort of decisions about them. I leave that to my Dad.

2. If you got to live in any city in the world where you live? Why?

I always thought I wanted to live in Paris. Back in my high school days I loved french class and languages in general. I now live what is considered the french quarter of Winnipeg but don't speak a lick of French. I'd still like to visit Paris and Prague and London but I'm not really a city girl at all.

3. What food have you never eaten that you've always wanted to try?

Another difficult question. I've eaten a lot of weird foods, bears ear, chicken feet, muskrat, beaver tail. But I've never had escargot. The idea of eating snails is not particularly appealing but still something I think I should probably try at some point.

4. You get 10 minutes alone with any one person in the world (currently living). Who is it and what happens during this 10 minutes?

This one is probably the most interesting and toughest question of the lot. This could easily turn smutty rather quickly but I'd like to think that there are other, better things I could do with this question. So I think I'd like to talk to Stephen Harper for 10 minutes, conduct some sort of quick interview. I don't think anyone should be too surprised by this, I'm generally a Conservative supporter but some of the stuff they've done in the past year is kind of questionable. So trying to figure out that political strategy in some of the moves they've made would be very interesting and since it's said that he doesn't allow his cabinet to make any decisions one can only assume that he had some sort of reason to do the things he did.

5. What's one thing you want to do before you die?

I've actually thought about this question a lot during my lifetime and I really don't have an answer to this question. For example, if I was diagnosed with cancer and given a 3 month prognosis today there is nothing that I would say I need to do in the next three months in order to make my life complete. Quit my job and I'd spend the time with my family. I probably should admit to office crush that I have a crush on him but you don't do that to someone when you know you're dying.

And there you go, that's my interview.

My real life as described in movies

So you know that scene in Love, Actually where Hugh Grant is the Prime Minister and he's just met his staff for the first time and he closes the door behind him and says "that's unfortunate"? Well I think I had that moment today. 

I was in a meeting today with my boss's boss's boss along with a group of my co-workers to discuss new corporate strategy so as you can imagine it was a little dry. So I started looking out the glass windows of the meeting room that look out onto the rest of the floor when I see this headless body walk by. Okay not entirely headless but there's this frosted decal about 3/4 of the way up so it seemed like he was headless. Anyways headless body was clearly male and looked pretty good. Until I got out of the meeting and realized who it was. 

Without going into too much detail let's just say it was a bad sign, especially given all of the weird dreams I've been having. Can some body please help me? Maybe something like Chinese water torture or needles in the eye? Partial lobotomy? Full lobotomy? I'll take anything at this point. 

Is there such a thing as harmless flirting?

I'm no dating expert. But I was having a discussion with a co-worker yesterday about my office crush situation, which turned into a discussion about some harmless water cooler flirting that happens around here. Which got me thinking is there really such a thing as harmless flirting?

I suspect that if you've got really good self control you could consider it harmless. But really the thing is there is generally some sort of underlying emotion behind it. Just because you're flirting doesn't mean that anything has to come out of it. But if you're not careful it could.

Nope, that wasn't awkward at all

There is clearly something wrong with me. I am generally a serial crusher. They usually come and go and I get over it. This last one though has been sticking around forever. Every time I think that I'm almost over it, or when something happens that reminds me why I haven't made a move to this point. Seriously we're even past the flirting stage of the relationship. There is nothing there and yet sometimes I find myself thinking "what if...?"

I don't even have my fall back athlete hottie since at the moment everything is on pause. Okay I could get into hockey again. I did enjoy the World Junior's after all. But I think I've outgrown that phase. College basketball, maybe? Yeah that might work if I make sure I'm sticking to juniors and seniors otherwise it's just wrong.

Yup, it's love

Anyone remember the days when I was in love with Eli Manning? When he would be absolutely terrible and I'd shrug it off and say "it's just one game". You know back before he was Superbowl MVP. Well you know how I was developing a big crush on Jay Cutler? . Yeah well my reaction to his play on Sunday where he threw more interceptions than touchdowns and did pretty much nothing for my fantasy team was "it's okay, I still love you". Dammit, what's wrong with me.

I've also noticed that he looks a little stoned, pretty much all the time. Much like my fantasy team I can only see this ending badly. Hopefully this was the result of a bye week for most of my favorite teams and will pass quickly.

In other news I'm back to a previous office crush. I'm hoping that this is just a residual feeling from the growing love of Jay Cutler. But I had a strange dream about him the other night. I very rarely remember my dreams so this is kind of strange.

Did I just eat birthday cake for dinner and other random thoughts

The answer the the birthday cake query is YES! It's left over from the family thing and it's been sitting in my fridge for 2 days already. I was trying to hold out until my actual birthday tomorrow but it was calling to me.

Moving right along, I've downgraded (or upgraded perhaps) my most recent office crush to office hotness. You see old office hotness left us a couple of weeks ago for some other job and I hadn't replaced him. Also I think I've found a way to define office crush vs. office hotness. I think that an office crush would be someone who I could actually picture dating, whereas office hotness is someone who is incredibly attractive but I don't think I could actually talk to without turning to mush. Except to apologize for almost running into them coming around a corner, which actually happened.

I had a meeting with someone from the HR department at work. Sounds like there may be some things opening up so we'll see. I've also been doing further grad school research. I've settled on U of M (Minnesota) or U of M (Manitoba) with one other target school yet to be decided.

It must be some kind of illness

Who doesn't need a new office crush? That would be me. And yet a new one is developing. Not good. You would think after a while I would run out of people to have crushes on but apparently not. It's just a good thing I don't have to see him all the time because I always act a little bit silly around my crushes, especially in the beginning stages.

Back to my new Olympic crush on Fabian Hambuechen, besides being too young (21 in October) and too short (5'5) for me is also kind of pouty. I got up early this morning to watch the High Bar final in which he was the top qualifier. He was the first to compete and from the time he got off the bar he didn't look too happy. Kind of like in this picture which I borrowed from what could possibly be my new favorite blog (even though it is on hold at the moment), but with more pout.

Anyway he didn't fall off the bar this time so that's a good thing. He also ended up with the bronze medal so that's not so bad given his other 4th place finishes so far.

At least I'm in training for the next two days

So you know how I'm constantly dealing with new work crushes even though the last one lasted pretty much a year? Well anyway, there is a new one. Actually I think I've probably mentioned this before. But anyone that I can convince to watch Shark Week deserves some crushing. Still unclear on his personal details but really that's not important.

But really this post in not about new office crush but old office crush. Yeah, yeah I know that's confusing too given that new office crush is actually 3rd office crush and old office crush could be used for either of the previous to the current office crush. And yes I'm babbling to avoid actually describing the dream I had about old office crush.

Right, so I had this strange dream about my workplace. For some reason we had a pool in our office, which doesn't sound so strange until you know that it's a swimming pool. There is definitely not a swimming pool in my work place. But anyways so for some reason old office crush and I were dating or something but hiding it, probably because at work relationships are usually a bad idea. But we weren't hiding it very well. Very strange dream. Especially since it was on a Saturday night which is usually my "there is no way I'm thinking about work tonight" night.

I am glad that I'm in training for the next couple of days which will help me to get over the internal awkwardness.

Things I thought today

There is no way to coherently write a post about the things that I'm going to say here and probably at this point I should just pack it in for the night but it seems way to early to go to bed. So I'm going to try to write this anyway.

Today was a ridiculous day at work. Why does everyone wait until the last minute to do everything? It's just weird timing for me I guess because I'm kind of between jobs at the moment. So there is lots of work to wrap up what I have been doing and lots of work to get caught up to where I need to be when I go back to my old job. a

I was thinking about something that H-Dot said to me last year when I was going through first office crush. She asked me what color his eyes were and at the time I couldn't tell her. I know now but I was applying that question to my current crush and again found that I couldn't answer. What does that say about me? Am I just not observant so I somehow missed it? Is it that I'm so into him that I have trouble looking him in the eye? Could you actually have a relationship with someone who I can't look at? Do I just not care about people's eyes? I'm thinking it's probably this last one.

The last thought I had was that I'm possibly the best sister ever. Tonight I had OB2 over for dinner and I made pie for desert. I made lasagna (though with ready to cook noodles and canned sauce). All after I got home from my rotten day at work. So I sent a bunch of food home with him.

Today was the Big Reveal

As most of you know by now I have a secret office crush. The fact of the matter is that it's not all that secret but I've not said too much by way of identity to any of my other co-workers. However today I went for lunch with one of my co-workers and we had a nice little discussion about why I'm not willing to tell people that I like them. This of course meant that I had to tell her who it was in order for her to truly understand why I need to keep my mouth shut.

I've always believed that it's better to say what you're feeling than to keep it bottled up. Additionally as soon as I tell someone about my crushes they start to fade (it's a wonderful pattern). So why don't I feel better now that it's all out in the open?

I believe that the first reason is that she didn't seem over enthusiastic about the idea. Not to read too much into it or anything but I can't help but wonder if she doesn't have him kind of marked for herself. It would explain some things. Secondly now I've said it and we've discussed it I realize that there was really no reason for me to believe that he would ever feel anything for me anyway.

I'm actually more worried about the whole thing now that I've talked to her than I was when no one knew anything.

The New Crush

I would like to believe that at some point in the five years it took me to escape from university with my degree I had grown up just a little. Perhaps in some ways I have. I’ve learned a lot more about who I am and what I feel passionately about. However I do have this one terrible pattern that keeps repeating.

My first year of university I went through five crushes, not to mention my numerous crushes on celebrities. Second year I did a little better, there were only three. I would like to tell you that I had outgrown this pattern but sadly not. I just hope that now I’m a little better at hiding it. But maybe not that either.

Until last week I probably would have said that I’m too old to be having crushes but I think that as we get older we just expand our vocabulary and call it something else, or maybe we want to believe that our feelings are either something more or something less.

Okay wow talk about be a little wordy this is really getting away from me. Here’s the deal, you already know about my first two office crushes, which really could be expanded to four if you count office hotness (which I don’t) and my fleeting interest in someone who now makes me cringe every time I think about it. Anyway I’ve moved on to a third. Details are still not quite clear to me, and it’s probably yet another case of me over analyzing a situation. But I’ll keeping you posted as things continue to develop.

I knew I shouldn't have given this URL to people

People always bug me about how no one reads my blog. So of course in an effort to increase readership (to more than one) I give the URL to people that I know who might want to hear what I have to say. Everytime I do it, I start to feel like I have to censor what I plan to say so as not to offend anyone or to do harm to whatever sort of career it is that I have.

The fact of the matter is that the thing that I've spent more time thinking about lately than anything else is something that I would have no problem telling an absolute stranger but something that I can't tell people that I consider friends.

Just so no one feels upset or left out here let me just say it has to deal with new office crush. And by new I mean new, new. It's not that I've necessarily given up on old office crush it's just that I have exactly no attention span so when something new comes up I get really excited about it and leave the old stuff. This easily explains things like the seasonal athlete boyfriends. Out of sight out of mind. Actually I think I tend to overanalyze stuff until it gets to the point where I almost have to leave it alone otherwise it gets far too awkward. Focus is a good thing. Becoming obsessed on a singular focus probably not so much of a good thing.

Anyway I just wanted to get that off my chest and hopefully it explains some of why I haven't posted anything lately. I'm not trying to say don't read my blog. I'm just trying to shed some light on why I probably shouldn't have a blog in the first place.

Playing favorites

Office politics are a funny thing. It can make or break your career. Sometimes office politics is completely subconscious. You don't even realize that you're playing the game most of the time. But I realized today that even in our interactions with other departments in our company we all have our favorites.

There are people who's questions you don't mind interupting whatever you're working on to answer and there are people who you wish would just ask someone else. Each of us has someone who is most likely to ask something of us more than any other person in the department. Oddly enough my person is not office crush. Even though I do get a little giddy when he asks for my help on something.

Why are all the hot guys so young.

In case you somehow missed it I kind of have a crush on Novak Djokovic. However this age this is getting to me. I could live with a year or two. This is how I've justified other athlete crushes such as Sidney Crosby or Rafael Nadal. But anything more than that is kind of pushing it. I would like to point out though that he doesn't look like he's 20, so maybe I can justify it that way. As much as I like to bug H-dot about her thing for creepy old men I have to admit that I'm not really one to talk as far as having a thing for older guys. By older I mean somewhere between late 30s and early 40s not like Octogenarian, 'cause there's a line and that's definatly over it.

So I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that I really need to be looking for more age appropriate men, and preferably ones that I don't work with because this office crush stuff is killing me.