The Countdown Begins

Just 10 days. Merely 10 days separate me from my meeting with NED. A paltry 10 days. That is all. Barely more than a week.

Tonight we talked for FIVE HOURS. And the only reason the conversation ended was because I said, "You have to go to school tomorrow, young man!" in my most authoritative voice. "Yes ma'am," he dutifully replied. And then we talked for at least another 15 minutes. I think this is more than smit. I think this is almost an addiction at this point.

Guys... he's seen Rob Zombie in concert. He listens to Cake on long roadtrips. He's a July birthday, though. Not good. Doesn't fit in with the family's needs (I was supposed to find September). He's 35. And, God help me, I just can't stop talking to him! You know what we're doing for our first date? He's driving down to Cin-city the day after Thanksgiving to go Christmas shopping with me! No, seriously! He volunteered! He said he's great at shopping for kids' toys! We're going to spend the whole day together, it seems; driving around, listening to Christmas music, shopping, being part of the holiday hustle and bustle, getting in the spirit, acting like two big kids, stopping for lunch or a snack or hot chocolate or something... Has there ever been a more perfect first date conceived of for Wingal???

I'm shaking right now. Shaking with excitement and anticipation and joy and nerves.... like I used to shake in my bed as a kid when I tried to go to sleep the night before Christmas. And I'm crying just a little... because I'm happy and scared at the same time.

Oh dear. What am I going to WEAR?!

The Smit Deepens

Well. Yesterday began with Wingal all giddy again, made so by a NEDssage in her email Inbox. The fact that it began by saying, "Good Saturday morning lovely Wingal" sent her into a veritable tizzy. Three more pictures of NED were attached, two showing him on safari in South Africa and one showing him with friends in Themiddleofnowhere, Utah. In the NEDssage, NED informed me that he is, in fact, every bit as tall as Mrs. Way had indicated. And that he's built like an offensive lineman. This makes Wingal very, very happy... thus, the smit deepens.

And deepened further still upon receipt of a phone call this afternoon! A brief time-out from family visiting to check in on lovely Wingal. He's so easy to talk to... I find myself telling him things about myself that, though time would eventually reveal them, just don't need to be confessed to this early on. Like my penchant for driving too quickly, singing loudly in the car, and cussing out every incompetent driver on the road... to myself. Surely there's a rule somewhere that you're not supposed to tell prospective suitors that you talk to yourself; it's written down somewhere, I'm sure of it. And I broke it, broke it, broke it!

Is it a bad sign, do you think, that he spends a great deal of our phone conversations laughing at the things I say? Granted, I laugh at him quite a bit, too, but the laughter is pretty heavily skewed in my direction. Am I that funny? Or do you think I'm probably making a total idiot of myself? Someone needs to tell me, because I just can't tell. However, I can't be too ridiculous, because I believe the ante has been upped. It's looking like we're moving into the wonderful world of DAILY COMMUNICATION. The every other day stuff has officially gone out the window. I got a NEDssage yesterday, a phone call today, and he promised to call me tomorrow, "as soon as I get back to Ohio; will you be available?"

Yeah. I'll be here. Sitting on a big ol' pile of Smit.

*sigh*

My Raging Narcissism

Because this made me laugh. And reminded me of me... a little.

Phenomenal

Oh, *sigh*. I don't know why I post on here for you people. The only person who ever comments or shows any real interest in discussing my love life is Larry... and THANK YOU, Larry! You're officially my new best girlfriend. Take THAT, bitches!

Things continue well with NED. Photos have been exchanged. He referred to one of mine as being "phenomenal." And I'll take that as a positive critique... but let's milk it, shall we?

Phenomenal. If we go to the OED (clearly, this post is preaching to the interests of my devout audience of one... I love you Larry!) and search for phenomenal and its adjectival definitions, we find the following:

PHENOMENAL, adj.

1. a. Chiefly Philos. and Psychol. Of the nature of a phenomenon; consisting of or belonging to the realm of phenomena or appearances; capable of being known empirically, esp. through the senses or through immediate experience, perceptible; of, designating, or relating to a phenomenon as directly perceived, sensed, or experienced (esp. as compared with its objective reality). Freq. opposed to real and, in philosophical use, to noumenal. (courtesy of the OED online)

Huh. Well. I think that, it some sense that I don't want to get into, I AM capable of being known "empirically, esp. through the senses or through immediate experience." Um, yeeeeah! But that can't be the way NED is using the term because he's looking at a picture and can't experience me with the senses through an image on a computer screen.

Oh. Wait. Yeah, boobarella, don't go there... I went there, too, and we can't think of him that way. Yet.

Next:

b. Of, relating to, or concerned with the description of phenomena, esp. the phenomena of a particular science; descriptive, classificatory.

You lost me at "science."

Next:

2. Of the nature of a phenomenon (PHENOMENON n. 4); very notable or remarkable; prodigious, exceptional; (colloq.) that exceeds all expectations; marvellous, extraordinary, fantastic.

AHA! That's the one!

~"Notable"... yes, yes... very good.

~"Remarkable"... oh honey, you can remark on me all day long.

~"Prodigious, exceptional"... yes, they are, aren't they? I mean, they don't compare to boobarella's (as I've said before, hers are the Queens of boobage; mine are merely the kitchen staff by comparison), but they really are quite nice.

~"That exceeds all expectations"... well, how high were the expectations? Really high? High? Low to medium? Let's say the expectations were high. Damn right, I exceed all expectations! I'm smokin'. Don't touch me, baby; you'll be incinerated.

~"Marvellous, extraordinary, fantastic"... huh. Yeah.

And so, in conclusion, not only was my picture phenomenal, but I am a raging narcissist.

Wingal out.

Queasy

My stomach hates me today. I don't know what I did to deserve this misery, but it's mine and I'm bearing it as best as I can. All was well until about 1:00 a.m. I've been ill ever since.

However...

Before the illness kicked in, I got to talk to NED again! Last night. He called from Reno, as promised. We spoke for a mere 144 minutes this time (a paltry 2 hours and 24 minutes)... I hope this doesn't mean that we're already on the downward slide. Actually, I think we were both exhausted from busy work days. And apparently I was just a few short hours from coming down with a stomach bug. Presumably it's okay, then, that we only talked for 2.5 hours?

Once again, I learned of a slew of things we have in common; once again, I spent a great deal of time laughing. But a realization is quickly setting in; namely, that this can't go anywhere until we've met and that the timeline for meeting is completely uncertain. So now I start the fretting. It's low-key fretting at this point... hasn't even reached nail-biting levels yet... but it's definitely fretting. And that probably isn't helping my stomach condition, come to think of it... Hmm.

*************************
ADDENDUM:
*************************
Today I got EMAIL from NED. (Yay!) Fretting has ceased... livin' in the moment now!

This Is a Giddy I've Never Known

I talked to NED again tonight.

*sigh*



This... this is all new to me. I think I may be losing my mind. I can't seem to stop smiling, which is actually annoying as I am precisely the age at which it is important to cease smiling too much because of the laugh-line consequences. But I can't help it. And even I think I'm disgusting.

NED called last night while I was seeing Henry Rollins (who, by the way, I talked to... he shook my hand... he thanked me "for doing what [I] do," namely, teaching English... my life will never be the same), so I returned home to a message on my machine that will very likely remain there for many, many days to come and be played over and over again. He'd just finished his doctoral exam and wanted to see how things were going here and celebrate the relief of being done.

All day today I was thinking, "Gotta get through this, gotta get through this... then I get to go home and call NED!" Y'know, I can honestly say that I have never looked forward to calling a boy before. I dreaded it and there was always this intensely uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach when I had to do it; an awful knotting and an impulse just not to go through with it. But this time? I would have called him at midnight last night when I got home (if it had been appropriate)! I would have called him the second I got home today after class! Actually, the only thing that prevented me from doing just that was trying to predict the best possible time to call without potentially inconveniencing him and to allow for the maximum amount of phone time.

I got all settled in on my futon, I put on my earpiece (hoping that I had another long conversation ahead of me), and I called that number. Usually (I'm embarrassed to say), as the phone rings, my internal mantra in such situations is, "Don't be home, don't be home, don't be home; I'll just leave a message; don't be home."

But tonight? "Pick up, pick up... pick up Goddammit, pick up!" He did, on the third ring, with a boisterous and laughing, "Hiiiii!! How's it goin'?!"

And then we talked for 261 minutes (that's 4 hours and 21 minutes, Math Majors!), until my phone began to die. I said, "Oh my God, you killed my phone!" and he said, "I aim to please!" I was not happy to end the conversation, but it was nearly 11:00 p.m. in Ohio and he has to catch a flight to Reno, NV tomorrow for a conference this weekend. I grudgingly admitted that I was going to have to go before my phone completely died, but I said, "Well... this has been another excellent conversation!" NED said, "Yes it has, I really enjoy talking to you, Wingal." And I said, "Presumably we will be able to do this again some time?" And he said, "Of course! Absolutely!" And I said, "Well, have a safe trip to Reno and a successful conference and you can call me again whenever you want or have a chance."

And he said, "Oh, I'll probably just go ahead and call you while I'm in Reno!"

That's right... he's only there for three days, but he's gonna call me. Because THIS? THIS does not happen every day. Oh no. It's not possible that THIS happens every day. I don't see how it can. We have so very much in common that there's never a pause in the conversation and most of the time we're laughing or saying, "Oh my God, that's exactly like me!" And CAKE is one of his favorite bands. Need I say more?!

In the words of Mike Meyers in So I Married an Axe Murderer : "I am smitten. I am in deep smit."

*swoon*

The 100th Post!!!! Or, Introducing NED.

I've put off writing for awhile because I wanted Post #100 to be something special. And it's gonna be, as you'll see... I just need you to cast your minds back... Remember how my High School friend's mother (we call Mrs. Way) was trying to set me up with somebody and ran into my mother at the grocery store and lamented that I hadn't called? Remember? Well...



After I called Mrs. Way and assured her that I did not feel pressured into this (much), she said she would pass my number along to the dude in question and would have him call me. Saturday morning, he did. And we talked for three hours. It was an exceptionally successful conversation... in fact, there were no awkward pauses; it was like we'd known each other for years and we were just picking up where we left off the last time we spoke.

The facts are these:

1. He's 6'4"
2. His voice would melt butter
3. He was in the Navy for 6 years prior to getting
--a B.A. in Chemical Engineering at Ohio State University
--an M.A. in Nuclear Engineering at Ohio State University
--a job as a risk assessment analyst at a nuclear facility in Albuquerque, NM for three years, where they encouraged him to go for
--a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering (which he's working on now) at Ohio State University
4. He has my truly bizarre sense of humor and gets all of my equally bizarre pop culture references
5. He is the first in his family to go to college
6. He loves and is very close to his family... he has 9 nieces and nephews
7. He loves football and baseball

And, actually, it would take entirely too long to cover all of the strange similarities and crazy coincidences revealed in that three-hour phone call.

He's taking the first half of his doctoral written exams on Wednesday; the second half on Thursday (so cross your fingers for him). Indeed, I was the one to point out that we had been on the phone for three hours and that he really needed to get back to studying. As the conversation closed out, he said, "Well, I'd really like to call you again--after my exams, probably Thursday--if that'd be okay?" Obviously, I said no.

Wait, no... Obviously I said YES (in fact, it was all I could do to refrain from screaming, "HELL YEAH!" into the phone). And then he said that he was really glad that our mutual friend had set this up. I agreed. Whole-heartedly. Oh, and we here on the blog are calling him NED. That's NED, all caps... an acronym; you must go through the super-secret channels to discover his real name. I've also realized there's a very real possibility that he's related to my college roommate, Shelly... perhaps cousins or something. Which would mean that it is, in fact, a small world after all.

Huh... I guess maybe there could be something to Persian arranged marriages... even for white people!