the unsocialite

Wired

2005-08-20T18:44:00.000-04:00

Wired, September issue, page 70.

"...Glazer's collaboration with the music collective UNKLE on 'Rabbi in Your Headlights' wows with its trippy f/x."

Funny, funny stuff.

Interesting...

2005-08-19T23:30:00.000-04:00

Crazy day today. New Friend (from last week) asked me to go with her to get a pedicure, but unfortunately I had to decline due to a lack of funds. Also, I'm lame. Literally. Somehow I stretched a tendon in my hip, and walking is killer.

But I did go out to lunch with a bunch of coworkers, which is kind of a little-big step for me. I like them all, but everyone I work with is very outgoing, and I'm a little more reserved, at least at work. To be honest, they really intimidate me. Today was pretty good because New Friend was there, and I feel like I've started to loosen up a little bit around everyone; it was actually kind of good that it was a bigger group, because when there are just 3 or 4 people I feel more compelled to participate...when it's 7 or 8, I can just make a comment or ask a question when I feel like it, and it's not such a big deal if anyone answers or not. Don't really get that "all eyes on me" feeling as much. (It's strange, although probably not uncommon -- I feel very comfortable one-on-one with people, but very uncomfortable in social groups of 4+. I think it started back in college, with eating at the dining halls. Strange things.)

I was also dragged away from the office for an hour to help one of my coworkers buy new sheets and bookcases for her house. Oh, and they made me the project manager for our web site.

Most days, I love my job. :)

Saw "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" tonight as well. Funny, funny movie. Lots of "Ohmygod I can't believe I'm laughing at this, but it's hilarious!" moments.

True Tales

2005-08-18T12:49:00.000-04:00

The boy and I were both reading quietly last night when the following conversation started:

Me: So, wait. Butter is made out of milk?
Boy: Yeah. It's churned. I don't really know what that means, though.
Me: So butter is just, like, milk in solid form, and yellow?
Boy: Something like that. And salted.
Me: But when it melts, it's nothing like milk!
Boy: You're right.
Me: Wow. I never really thought about that before. Weird.

Back to reading.

Whew

2005-08-17T00:13:00.000-04:00

I've been crunching numbers for the past two hours, and I've figured out that if I exercise a some real discipline over the next 2 months, I should be able to pay off 4 bills and make significant progress on 3 others. With a little luck, I might even be able to pay off my credit card debt by the end of the year. Not being able to get coffee or a new pair of pants when I want to sucks. But seeing the light at the end of this tunnel just might be worth it.

Good News & Bad News

2005-08-16T18:35:00.000-04:00

The Good:
I made a new friend! Yay! *confetti, streamers, happy music, etc.*

Friday night I asked one of the women I work with (work for, actually), if she wanted to grab a drink, and she said yes, and we had a blast. I found out a lot about the impressions of me people I work with have (thankfully all positive), and was able to finally give some input on things of concern. I did get drunk -- first time getting drunk in a long time, and it was fun. Some sketchy guys at the bar bought us drinks and gave us their business cards, thankfully without actually requiring us to talk to them. Nice.

The Bad:
I've been excited that I would be moving into my own office at work...it's been rumored since I first started there almost two months ago, and today, in a whirlwind sort of way, I found out that I'll be moving tomorrow morning. The bad news? Recent hirings have left two of the most annoying guys in our office without a home, and -- lucky me!! -- one of them gets to room with me. Not cool. So not cool. (And since he's throwing a hissy fit about it, I don't even feel like I have the right to express my dismay. There isn't much that bothers me more than not being able to tell someone how I'm feeling when I get upset like this.)

Busy Weekend

2005-08-15T00:22:00.000-04:00

Much to tell...but now, sleep.

*yawn*

Kitty Problems

2005-08-11T00:38:00.000-04:00

Our kitty has taken to biting our toes in the middle of the night, ever since Sunday when I moved the bed. Actually it's more like wrestling with our legs. We're not fans of this kind of play. Although he's a year and a half and neutered, he's horribly bad...always biting and scratching at us. (Never scratches at the furniture.) Besides water bottles and loud noises, we have no idea how to train him out of this aggressive behavior, which appears to be getting worse. He's an indoor cat, and although I would NEVER advise declawing, I'm actually considering it, which shows the extent of my desperation. It's scary when you can't even walk around your house without fear of getting bloodied up. We're taking him to the vet tomorrow -- we're pretty sure he has a tapeworm -- and I'll talk to her about it then, but if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd certainly welcome them.

Thank you!

2005-08-10T23:12:00.000-04:00

Thank you to The Anonymous Blogger (aka TAB) for the linkage...I feel lucky to have him & his "crew" around here. Sweet. And thanks for your comments...I really appreciate all of the support. :) Y'all rock!

One of your comments prompted me to think about my history in the blogosphere; I was a blogger back in 2000-01, and I was actually at a pretty similar situation at that point in my life. I was 20 years old, home from college, working in the town where I grew up -- where I had lost most of my friends due to circumstances beyond my control -- and I didn't have anyone to talk to or hang out with outside of work. In such a small town, I really didn't have any way to meet anyone, but at least the folks I worked with were a fun crowd and we were having a great time riding the dot-com wave.

At that point in my life, I spent unspeakable hours of my personal time online, where I'd made a ton of friends. I don't remember regretting it, although I know that I went through a very intense depression during that period. Having friends online was a relief from all of the crazy pressure I was on as a very young, female professional in a volatile all-male start-up. Perhaps that's the kind of relief I'm looking for again (although the point of all of this is really to get out of the house.) :)

I think I have a fun website idea, which would be a sweet project. Just hope nobody steals my idea first.

I found out a few weeks ago that there are a lot more alum from my school in this area than I would every have thought. All of them have addresses & phone numbers on the alumni website, but I don't think they opted to have that info posted (you have to register to get to it/modify it). One person has an email address listed, but I tried emailing her and she never got back to me.

Question for you: If someone from your university was to contact you about getting together for an 'alumni event' in your area, would you respond? Would you rather be contacted by mail or phone? I'm thinking about putting something together and mailing invitations, but I'm interested what you might think.

(Isn't it annoying when one of your keys sticks? My comma key is quite sticky. Stupid laptop.)

I have more things I'd like to post about, but it's time to get back to the grind. And my ice cream. Yum!

Weekend's Over, Folks

2005-08-08T01:14:00.000-04:00

So it's the official end of my weekend...time to jump in bed...but I have one more thought. The boy's coming back tomorrow; most of me is really glad he's coming back, but there's another part that's a bit reluctant to join in on the joy parade. I feel like I got a lot done this weekend -- not only did I get out of the house significantly more than usual, I also got caught up on some things at home I'd been putting off and started some new projects. I'm worried that having him here will prevent me from continuing the trend; I'm starting to think that maybe I isolate myself when he's here. I count on him being around, even when I know he has work to do, and often will hang out at home rather than go out if there's a chance he'll be here because our time together really is limited by our work schedules.

I'm coming to realize that this may not be the best thing for either of us. I often get disappointed when he can't spend time with me, and have a bad habit of saying things like "I wish you didn't have to work tonight," which he hates. Ultimately, I live with him; I'm going to see him. There are only so many opportunities in this town to get out and take advantage of the goings-on, and perhaps I needn't be so quick in passing those opportunities up.

Yeah, maybe I'd meet some more people if I wouldn't just hang out in my house waiting for the boy to come home. *cringe* I know that sounds really obvious, but that's one of the reasons writing's good, right? Putting your thoughts on paper can really make you realize just how ridiculous (in this case, ridiculously obvious) they can be.

Like I said, just a thought.

Gettin' Down, Keepin' Busy

2005-08-07T21:09:00.000-04:00

I've officially met my social interaction with new people quota for the day! It could've been better quality, but we're all about quantity here.

Last weekend I emailed a gentleman who runs a consulting company and a few other start-ups in Hilton Head (approx. 45 minutes away). Although my experience with technology-oriented companies down here has been minimal -- they just don't exist -- and those that are here are generally awful, I was interested to hear about this guy's deal.

He turned out to be super-cool. He's had some great experiences, and is currently working with a very neat company in Florida right now with huge potential. It was so exciting talking with him about the possibilities of the technology they've developed; a big part of my frustration with the area is the lack of things like that to get excited about. In any case, as we parted he said that he would be in contact later this week and maybe I could help him on a freelance basis. Rock on!!

Tonight I went to open mic at the Sentient Bean for a little while; one of the guys who played was abso-fucking amazing. I actually got misty. Great songwriting and amazing voice. I stayed through one more performance before I had to get home, but I really wanted to talk to him before I left. There were a lot of things that I could envision myself saying; as I waited, I actually started to shake from nerves...and all I was doing was telling this guy he did good! Grr. I did manage to tell him that his songs were amazing, but I practically ran out afterwards. So frustrating! Does that happen to other people? How do you get over it? And how are you supposed to get to know anyone when you literally get intimidated to the point of shaking (especially by a freakin' high school kid)??

Operation: Coastal Coffee

2005-08-06T17:29:00.000-04:00

I visited Coastal Coffee on Victory Dr. today for the first time (they're web-site-less at this point). From the outside, it looks pretty uncomfortable and uninhabited, so I was surprised to find big, comfy chairs & sofas, as well as at least 10 other people there this afternoon. Their hours aren't the greatest -- 7-7 -- but it's a nice place with wireless internet, which is always a good thing. Unfortunately, the only person I talked to while I was there was the owner, Bob. I've been thinking about getting a weekend coffeeshop job to supplement the meager income and hopefully meet some new people, and the place is hiring...could be an option.

The question of the day (or the year, in this case): if you were in my situation, how would you go about meeting people? Taking into consideration the lack of cash (not total, but definitely significant), lack of activities in the area, etc., what would you recommend for someone like me who desperately needs to meet some new folks with friend potential?

A Few More Things

2005-08-06T13:51:00.000-04:00

Just a few more things about me you should know as we embark:

(1) I don't like it when plans change. I'm a planner by nature. I can plan my life out years into the future. I've even worked as a project planner (a sweet job, in my book). So I don't deal well when plans suddenly change.

For example, I had a plan for today. As part of the mission, I think it would be good to start associating myself with one or more local coffeeshops, as in the past I've met a lot of cool people in this environment. So the plan was to take my laptop, trek to Coastal Coffee, a relatively new place in town, and go through the Adobe CS Total Training CD a co-worker had loaned me. But first, I thought I'd install CS and start the training so I could see how it would work.

Well, that plan's out the window now. Adobe CS says my computer's too slow (*gasp* outrage!), so I can't install it. And I tried to run the training CD without it, which isn't a big deal, but for some reason the CD jumps and skips like crazy (I think it's my drive's fault). No way I want to listen to that for 20 hours, and the closed captioning for the disc isn't available yet. So now I'm all in a tizzy. I think one of the reason I'm so opposed to a change of plan like that is that there's simply nothing to do in this town (thus the "averting boredom" part of the mission). Literally nothing. Which brings us to my second point.

(2) I don't know what my hobbies are. People have advised me to follow my hobbies; with any luck, some of them will lead to activities here. That's a little bit problematic, because I don't really view my hobbies as social activities. I like to cook & eat; I "work" on my computer a lot (meaning, mostly, that I read online a lot); I read books & magazines; I watch TV & movies. Maybe there are ways to make those things social, somehow, but I just don't know how to go about it...at least without spending a lot of money.

(3) I'm broke. Like, really, really broke. I have some minor (read: not debilitating, but still quite painful) medical problems, so pretty often any money that's left over after paying bills goes to paying doctors and pharmacies. There are a number of things that I'd like to do in the way of cooking classes, continuing education, yoga, etc., but there's just no money in the budget for them. Obviously this hinders the whole meeting people thing, and is part of the reason for this site.

(4) But I'm not complaining. I don't want you to get me wrong; this site is not a forum for me to complain about my problems. This site is part of the solution. Those were just a few notes to get out of the way before proceeding.

The boy's out of town this weekend (he's back in Pittsburgh, our hometown), so I'm on my own. I think it's finally time for some coffee.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed, I really (really) like parentheses.

The Mission

2005-08-06T12:22:00.000-04:00

So here's the deal. I moved to Savannah, GA on August 1, 2004. As of this week, I've officially lived here for one year.

I moved to Savannah because the boy was starting graduate school here at SCAD, and I felt like I needed a new start. I'd had a bit of a crazy life in Pittsburgh, where I'd finished my undergrad and graduate degrees, and really felt like I needed to start over in a new town before my transformation from crazy, drunken undergrad to seasoned professional would be complete. I didn't necessarily have job prospects here, but I didn't really feel like my prospects would be any better or worse here than anywhere else. I certainly didn't know anyone.

And that's the problem. To this day, I still don't know anyone.

I've met a few people; the boy and I hang out with a group of 6, all couples, all SCAD students, but that group has fractured for the summer and I've come to realize just how pathetic my social life is. It's nonexistent. I have one friend of my own here -- and she's the fiance of a friend of the boy's, so it's not even as though I met her myself. Since she's planning a wedding and is frequently out of town and the boy works crazy 70-hour weeks during the term, I find myself spending a lot of time alone. Now, time to myself is fine and all, but I'm a pretty social person. Well, maybe I should reword that. I'm not necessarily outgoing; I can actually be pretty shy, and past incidents have made me a bit squeamish about going out on the town by myself. But when I'm alone, I crave people. I want my phone to ring; I want to be invited; essentially, I would love it if there were people here who wanted my company as much as I want theirs.

So this is a mission. The boy will be doing both a thesis project and an out-of-town internship over the next year, so I can't rely on him for company. (Until September 15 or so he should be around to a certain extent, but after that, I won't be seeing too much of him.) We've got a year and a half left in this town, and I really don't want to look back on this time of my life as "the bad years." I'd like to find something good in them. So I'll be trying my best to get out of the house, find hobbies, learn new things, and, above all, meet some people. My journey will be documented here, and it's my hope that you all will contribute your thoughts & ideas along the way.

Welcome aboard!