heading back to california!

On my flight back to SF. I had a pretty fun week in New York - it always goes by wayyy too quickly and also solidifies the fact that I live in California now and that's my home. It's a weird feeling, but I enjoy it. I'm excited to get back to my clean (omg shocking!) apartment and going to have my last supper. I'm going on the mother of all diets in anticipation of my trip to the DR. This means I want a large burrito from Taqueria Cancun and several stiff drinks tonight as a farewell to food and liquor for the next 30 days or so. Wish me luck!

I'm really hoping my date for Monday flakes out so that I can go shopping for an outfit and get my nails done for my Tuesday date. It's been about 5 months since I've had a real date with a new person - I'm not sure how to act anymore! I want to look cute, but not like I'm trying too hard. I also need to do my hair and brush up on my conversation skills. Let's hope this all goes smoothly.

I have an event next week and a presentation for sex ed this weekend and I am totally fucked for both of them. God help me. I really can't wait until December 9th, when I'll be able to chill out for a few weeks and enjoy not running around like crazy. I love sex ed, but I'm happy we only have one more weekend of it, so I can get some semblance of my life back. I'm also looking forward to going to The Mint with everyone in the class on Sunday and the big party on the 17th! I really hope it's some kind of scandalous sex orgy because that sounds like a lot of fun to me right now. If not, then I hope someone wildly inappropriate hits on me. I'll take either.

Okay, time to get some more shit done before we land!

back on the horse!

Yeah, yeah, I know I didn't blog every day this week. Sue me! Haha - Happy Thanksgiving, readers! Hope you enjoyed the holiday and are relaxing this weekend. I'm still at home on Long Island, laid up in my bed since I decided to be anti-social tonight due to a somewhat embarrassing medical issue. No, I don't want to talk about it. Maybe later.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I have decided to stop doing that whole celibacy thing and instead plunge full-force into dating. In the past, when I've done the celibacy thing (okay, I guess I never really did it since I was still sleeping with TG - BUT I did swear off any *new* men, so it counts for me), it made me feel better and really allowed me to focus on other things. I decided to move to SF while celibate, I started looking for new jobs, and I focused on my friendships. This time, I just felt miserable, horny, and alone. Not pleasant feelings at all. Plus, I know me - it takes another dude to make me forget about the previous one. Since ending things with POP totally fucked me up, it really is going to take a new person and new men in my life to really make me feel attractive and desirable again. I wish I could be all empowered and say that I can validate myself, but I can't. I've learned to live with it.

I put my profile back up on OKC last weekend in a flurry of late-night activity and it's been getting a lot of views, messages, and positive feedback. I'm happy! Maybe a boy will one day want to bone me again. Maybe. Right now, I'm talking to two guys and I have dates set up for Monday and Tuesday of this week. I'm hoping they both actually happen. The first dude is a film-maker and artist (which I know I should stay away from), but he is 6'5" - SIX FREAKIN FIVE! I'm sorry, I can't say no to that. He also has amazing curly hair and we all know I have a weakness for flowing locks of curly hair. I don't think we're good long term potential. I mean, homeboy is a vegan and lives in the Mission - SO NOT MY TYPE. But, I'll go out with him if he wants to go out. If only just to be able to look up at my date for the first time ever. Plus, my male friends are telling me I should circulate more. I agree with them.

The second guy I'm a lot more excited about. He's 30, Indian (new age and race alert!), works in healthcare policy and lives in Berkeley. He gave me his phone number the other day and asked me to call him. I, being the traditional lady that I am, wrote him back and gave him *my* number telling him that if he wants to chat, he should call me because I'm a girl and I don't call boys. Okay, I didn't say it like that, but I've decided that I'm going to let him take the reins on this one. Fuck chasing men and calling them and texting them. If he wants this, he'll come and get it. He called me the other night and we had a nice 45 minute chat. He's easy to talk to, super knowledgeable about the Bay Area (he grew up there), made me laugh, AND laughed at all my jokes. He seems really mature and asked me out for Tuesday night. I like that he's older and I like that he's showing some initiative. We're both really into dorky non-fiction and intellectual conversations. I'm pretty excited about the date. No clue what we're doing yet - he's going to call me on Monday (can we just take a second and discuss how nice it is to deal with a man that knows how to use a telephone to call and not text you. Praise be to {insert deity here}! I'm looking forward to a good date with good conversation. From my lips, to God's ears!

In random news, OK Cupid does all these tests about the best states/countries for you to find a mate based on your answers to their questions. Guess what my #1 country was? Israel. HAHA. Love it.

Promise to update on the dates this week!

it's been a long week!

Hi, friends! I have rededicated myself to blogging every single day after taking a week off. Last week was insanity and to be honest, I don't even know where to start this entry. Spent two days in Albany for an event where I did nothing (oops! oh well... at least I got to see a different kind of event). Then I came back for Friendsgiving at L&S' and a trip to see the musical Hair. This weekend was spent in sex ed training, 8 hours each day. Since I like lists and bullets, here's what's new with me!

• I gave up on my celibacy pact. This doesn't mean I had sex (aw, shucks!), but it does mean that I decided not to stop dating and looking for partners. I don't know what the fuck was wrong with me, but giving up sex and men is not what I wanted to do and I think I realized that once it started making me unhappy. Instead, I've put my dating profile back online and I'm actively putting myself out there in real life as well. Men of San Francisco (or New York... I'll be there all next week), come and get it! Padlock is off! =)
• I got really excited about sex education. I am so fucking passionate about this field. Three weeks of training and I'm smitten! I'm rocking all the exercises, I'm exploring my boundaries, and I'm firming up my plans to start an Ask Cleo type website for folks (hopefully young minorities) to ask me their sex questions and get informative answers. I also can't wait to volunteer on the switchboard for the organization I'm studying with and really getting some hands-on sex ed experience. Any burning sex questions - if you know me IRL, you know where to go! If not, email me at pillowtalkisextra at gmail dot com. <3
• I'm freaking out about work. I got handed two events and they were supposed to be super fucking easy. Instead they are a royal nightmare and I want to kill someone. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, event planning is so hard!
• I fell in love with Jen Friel's blog, Talk Nerdy to me Lover. I don't know why - I just love reading about her life and dating escapades and all the guest posters and contributors she has. I must've spent like 3 hours this weekend reading it. I wish my life were as epic as hers, but I would probably die of exhaustion if it was.
• I booked tickets for my New Years Eve getaway! I am going to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with my NYC work girls! I'm so excited - I can't wait to get out of the country and have a nice, relaxing girls weekend with the friends I never get to see since we're 3000 miles apart. It is going to be amazing and now I no longer have to worry about what I'm going to do on NYE. Sweet!

Promise to update each day this week! =)

i only made it to albany by the grace of god...

Honestly, I make poor life decisions. I did no cleaning or packing last night and instead slept the whole day, except for the two hours where I went out with JazzGirl to get supplies for her party and food for my apartment. Then, at said party, I got absolutely shitfaced and probably said a lot of really inappropriate awful things. Then I ate pizza and passed out in my bed. While drunk, I was smart enough to drunk text my mom to call me the next morning and thank God she did because I ignored all of my alarms for my 7am flight. I got up at 5, shoved some random shit in a bag, left my apartment looking like a slumlord's den and peaced out. Made my flight, though!

I barely remember yesterday -  only all the margaritas I consumed. I also remember playing the "I know people who went to your school" and the person in question was a dude I'd slept with. Awesome! Kept going on and on about my new celibacy thing. I think everyone at Escape from New York Pizza knows that my vagina is closed for business. Also discussed my newfound leather fetish and had 3 separate people tell me they wanted to set me up with someone. Oh and two of these setups are women - my friends really want me to be a lesbian. I'm not going to lie, one of the girls was pretty cute... lol, even though I think I'm like 0 or a 1 on the Kinsey scale, which means I'm extremely heterosexual, but I'm kind of bored so, ya never know! The third setup is a boy who is moving to SF in the near future. Interesting.

Now I'm in Albany, in my hotel room, and I have to be up at 5am tomorrow. Fuck me. Wait, I'm not doing that anymore. Anyway, I'm still on west coast time, so this is going to be interesting. I also don't know what I'm doing at this event. TOTAL SHITSHOW.

preparations.

I've decided it's about time to start preparing for the New Year. I'm incredibly excited about 2012 - I don't know why. Probably just the promise of something new. I also like to think I'm getting closer and closer to getting everything I've always wanted. I'm hoping that 2012 brings me good things. 2011 has been a pretty sweet year, although there have been some emotional bumps and hiccups, but life is going pretty well. In my preparations for 2012, I'm doing a few things.

1. I'm giving up men. I'm tired of thinking about men. I haven't had sex since my birthday and I think my pikachu is dying and/or shriveled up. Instead of lamenting that fact, I've just decided to close up shop. That's right, ya'll - chastity belt is on. I'm going to pretend it's by choice. I've deleted all of my online dating profiles (well, except for the one that I use to stalk people... that one is never going away) and I have compartmentalized my thoughts on men into a little box and hidden it away where I don't have to think about it until 2012. In January, I'll reevaluate.
2. I'm going away. For New Years, I'm taking a trip somewhere to the Caribbean. I'm trying to convince two of my co-workers to go with me. I think I have one on board! Gremlin, if you are reading, you know you want to come with us! =) I just figure getting out of the country, away from my life, whether solo or with friends will be good for me. I just want to lounge on a beach and drink lots of alcohol.
3. I'm working out like I'm training for the army. Partly to get my body right for my trip and partly because I'm a masochist, I've been gymming like nobody's business. 90 minute sessions, trainer, cardio - I'm beating the shit out of my body and it feels great. I don't even feel sore today. I mean, there's a little discomfort, but I think I've finally trained my body to get used to constant exercise.
4. I'm working like a dog. I'm a Virgo - work is what we do. We live for it and even when we're complaining about it, the thought of not doing is absurd. My whole life, school and work were the only two things where I felt completely in control and on top of everything. Even with my moments of doubt in my current job, I know I can get shit done. I always get shit done, even if it's a sprint at the last minute. I have two events I'm in charge of, in addition to a few that I'm supporting, so I'm plenty busy. I like it - it's keeping me focused. I got the title change I wanted this year and I'm hoping this time next year I get another title change. I am on my grind. The only shitty thing is that between the work and the working out, I collapse every night as soon as I get home. Oh well, when I'm hot and making lots of money, I'm sure I won't mind =P

So that's my plan for the rest of the year. This is what I'm focusing on and nothing else. Can't wait for the New Year!

family drama.

I try not to write too much about my family on this space, but some shit just happened (well, last week) that I've been struggling to deal with but haven't so I figure I should write about it. On Halloween night, I got a text from my mom at 1am Eastern. Needless to say, I was super concerned because my parents go to bed at like 7pm. I knew no one was dead or anything (I think death warrants a phone call), but I wanted to check in with her. I call my mom and what she tells me makes me literally sick to my stomach.

She tells me that my middle brother was in a car accident. Don't worry, he's totally fine, but when he got home, my parents wanted to talk to him about his driving habits. The car is going to have to be totaled and their insurance is going to go up like whoa (my other brother had a car accident like a year ago so that was another insurance ding). They sit down with him and tell him that he can't drive recklessly and needs to give himself enough time to get to where he's going. Instead of being a normal human being about it, he blows up. He starts cursing at my parents, calling them all kinds of names. He then proceeds to tell them that they are AWFUL parents and have never ever supported him throughout his whole life. After he goes through all of that, he physically attacks my father - starts hitting and punching him - and then they get into a huge fistfight. My mother kept trying to pull my brother off my dad, and even had to get my oldest brother to step in to help pull him off. She pulled a muscle in her chest while doing so and it took so long to break it up that she thought she was going to have to call the police. After that, my brother pretty much told them 'fuck you' and packed up all of his stuff and called a friend. His friend came and my brother left to stay with him.

I'm still floored by this whole thing. I didn't grow up in a family where you cursed your parents out and then physically assaulted one of them. That's not how my parents taught me to behave and that kind of behavior was never modeled for us. I guess I always thought that shit happened to other people, not my family, where I have two loving parents who've been married for 33 years and where we went to summer camp and had every luxury we ever wanted.

I'm disgusted with my brother. I haven't talked to him and I have no desire to. Even writing about it now makes me want to cry. My mom offered to let him back into the house and I don't agree with her. Violence is never okay. Especially not towards the two people who raised you. What if he's crazy and next time he has a knife or a weapon? What if he attacks someone else? He beat up my youngest brother a little while back. I just don't trust him at all. I kind of hate him a little bit.

I guess I have a really strong attachment to my parents because I'm adopted (the brother in question is not adopted). I know that so many children, including myself, are born to unfit parents. He had the luck to have amazing birth parents who gave him anything he could ever want and he just spits in their face. I just don't condone that at all. It's not acceptable. I only really have two words for my brother right now (I'm sure you can guess what they are), so I'm just not going to say anything and compartmentalize all this in my brain so I don't have to think about it. Because I'm not ready to really think about what all this means.

it's so hard to blog again when you haven't for a while.

What a profound title, I know! I just got home from the second consecutive day of 8 hour sex ed training. It's actually really draining and you don't realize it until you get home because the topics are so engaging and it's so fascinating that the time flies by quickly. I feel so inspired by everything we've learned and the community that exists in the Bay Area. It's making me want to explore my sexuality more. I'm pretty sure that at the end of the day I'm going to be the heterosexual, monogamous, vanilla kind of chick I've always been, but I'm also only 26 years old. I have no marital prospects and I've been feeling kind of shitty about myself and my life lately. So why not mix it up a bit? Try something different. I'm not going to elaborate since I'm crazy shy about trying new out of the box things, but I've been considering exploring my boundaries a little bit more. Maybe I'll learn something and gain some confidence in myself during the process. Who knows?

Today was an especially interesting day at Sex Ed Camp. We talked about birth control and I had to learn to leave my personal biases at the door when counseling clients. I'm still incredibly angry about what happened to me (the whole blood clot from birth control thing) and I hate that doctors and clinics hand out birth control like candy and don't tell women that this shit is a DRUG. It does shit to your body and can change your life. Sitting through the class, everything just came flooding back to me. Birth control ruined my life in a lot of ways, even if it was only temporary. I think my sickness led to my dissatisfaction in SF and my move to New York. I just remember going home every night paralyzed with fear of dying and death. I literally thought I was going to die every single day, that a clot would form again and this time lodge itself in my brain and not my lungs. I still have residual fear around that. But, I can't let that dissuade me from presenting the facts, clear and simple. Our job as sex educators is to present information, not advocate one way or the other.

The second half of the day was STD talk and the panel that they assembled made me cry. To hear people (some of them people we know) talk about their experiences with STDs and how it affects their lives really put a human face to the data and statistics we learned about. It was really amazing, informative, and touching. People like to make jokes about STDs or talk about those who have them in derogatory ways, but at the end of the day there's a person behind the infection. I think it also showed me that even as sex-positive and armed with information as we all are, sometimes we take risks and sometimes we trust the wrong people. It made me feel better about some of the sketchier sexual practices and relationships I've been involved with.

It was a good day. I'm still loving learning about sex education in all of its forms and I'm getting even more excited about what possessing this knowledge will mean for my personal life and the lives of the folks I want to reach out to. I'm excited!

more quickies!

Man, I am tired. This events life is no joke. Random thoughts for the day:

• My face is all gross from this rash, but I'm hoping it goes away before tomorrow. I'm extremely vain about my face and hate when it's fucked up. My skin is normally so nice. Sigh.
• The party tonight was so much fun! God, I love the developer world. I can't wait until I lose my shy shell and really feel like I know what's going on. So far, though, everyone has been amazing to work with. Also met a hottie who looks just like the dude I kicked in the face, but like a foot taller, so he's super hot.
• My new boss is awesome. We get along so well and I'm happy to actually feel comfortable enough to be 100% myself with my manager. She's also super knowledgeable and so well-connected!
• Agreed to have "a muffin" (is that what people are doing now?) with The Blexican tomorrow. I don't know why. I don't want to screw him. But I guess, you can hang out with a guy and not want to screw him. I do it all the time. They're usually just not dudes I used to screw. Oh well.
• I'm reading Julie Klausner's "I Don't Care About Your Band" - golden. I want to write a book someday about all of my misguided attempts at dating.
• Mindy Kaling's book is out!!!! Run and get it! I love her =)
• Antibiotics are making me groggy, so goodnight!