Someone used to say to me, after a particularly bad night finding me begging for a death that was far more preferable to the life I was living, that it wasn’t his fault, he had been painted into a corner.  As my journey in life takes me to new places, I find a bit of validity in those words.  With a minor edit; I have painted myself into a corner.

And so, here I am, in a different place now, or rather, preparing to be in a different place.  A bump in the road, perhaps, but a steep little bump at that.  The things I dreamed about, believed in, I realize are gone… again.  Today is where I exist; this place, this time.  With all the anticipation and dread that comes with it.

I find myself staring into a vast unknown, filled with more unease than I have felt in a great many years.  I’ve been through hell and back again, I’ve survived so much, and there are days when I am so tired.  But this latest adventure, if I can call it such, I have no one to blame but my own damn self.

I relaxed where I should not have, believed where there was nothing worthy of such faith, and allowed myself to get far too comfortable in a life that was never truly mine.  Again.

I’d say that I’ve learned my lesson, but the truth is, I haven’t.  I’ll do it again.  Over and over again.  I’ll believe in the happy ever after, because in this world, honestly, that belief is all I have left.  I’ll trust that the world won’t be so brutal, and when it is, I’ll sit quietly and lick my wounds and dream of better days.  And then I’ll get up and do it all over again.

I will giggle and laugh, I will find humor in the oddest places, and I will survive this newest change.  Perhaps I may not laugh as loud for awhile, and perhaps you might notice my eyes a little shinier than usual (it’s dust, I swear!), but I will land on my feet.

I will still believe in happy ever after when I come out of the other side of the rabbit hole.  There is nothing that will ever take that away from me; but for now, happy ever after seems so very far away.  Sometimes I resent the hell out of that, but this time, I did it to myself.

I’m walking into this thing with eyes wide open; maybe there’s a shimmer of belief left, maybe that shimmer just got up and walked away, but either way, I think I know exactly what I’m doing.  I think…

Several of my friends have expressed concern about the move I’m making, knowing me as they do and knowing how fragile that black little thing in my chest truly is, but I’ll remind them again of the promise I made to myself…

I’m going to love like I’ve never been hurt.

As mentioned previously, I’ve recently switched to AT&T because I fell in love with the sexy iPhone. As pretty much any of my friends can attest to, I’m firmly addicted to my phone. I’d rather text or email than talk, and much to my joy, I’ve found there’s an app for almost anything I can think of.

Imagine the look that crept across my face today as I opened my first bill and found that it was nearly $500. For one month. With over $300 in data charges. Yeah, I use it that much to access the interwebz, but OH HAI UNLIMITED DATA?!

Gathering myself up off the floor, I stared at it again and wondered what all the random charges were. Not being one to just pay a bill without questioning someone to hell and back first, I grabbed the house line and called AT&T.

After the last little incident - I still want that hour of my life back dammit - I was fully prepared to put my feet up and waste yet another hour of my life trying to get my bill straightened out.

Ah, but life does like to drop surprises in my lap from time to time, and sometimes good ones! Within a mere 15 minutes, half the charges on the phone were dropped, my account reviewed and adjusted accordingly for less minutes.

Apparently, even Mini-Me texts more than talking. Nearly 4000 text messages going through her phone, but under 400 minutes of talking time.

Now all I have to do is wait for the 3.0 software to come out and I can get back to sending quirky pictures to friends of the amusing things I run across in my daily life.

I’m still trying to get my heart to slow down, between the bill and the quick customer service, I’m still in a state of shock. A girl can only take so much in one day before losing her mind! And as we all know, mine is a little hinky to begin with.

Best solution: I’m off to have a Guinness!

As I woke up Sunday morning with the light streaming in through the windows, slowly rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, it occurred to me that it was awfully bright and would hopefully be a nice day. That’s when it hit me that something was very very wrong.

Light coming in through the windows. Sunlight. And my alarm was set for 5:30. I literally threw myself out of bed, grabbed my phone, looked at the time and went into panic mode. I had 20 minutes to get myself caffeinated, showered, dressed, packed, and get to my girlfriend’s house about seven miles away.

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Party time!

I went to bed Friday night feeling a bit of anticipation for the DC 101 Chili Cook-Off on Saturday. Slated for the day was good food, lousy beer, good friends, and good music. I opted out of my usual Friday carousing, and instead stayed in, had a beer or two, cleaned the house, and went to the store to get breakfast for the crew Saturday morning.

Last year’s Cook-Off was a clusterfuck of lines, lines, and more lines. Two hours standing in line just to get in. Another hour lost standing in line to get beer tickets. More time lost standing in the beer line. Absolute insanity. This year promised to be different, with fewer lines and more room to wander around. Remembering last year’s hassle with parking, I suggested we take the Metro in.

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Okay, I’m coming clean. I have a bad habit of texting while driving. I don’t do it all the time, because it’s a little difficult to keep your car going in a straight line when you are fumbling with your iPhone trying to hit the right letter.

I was hanging out with some of my girlfriends last night, and the subject of my other bad habit, speeding, came up. And I was chastised to hell and back about my speeding habits. Scolded and reminded that I’m somebody’s mother and should be thinking of them, especially my daughter who is still at home with me.

On my way home, I heard this awesome remake of Blondie’s Call Me and wanted to tell pseudo-hubby so I wouldn’t forget it. You have no idea how much I forget these days. Like forgetting that I could, oh, I don’t know, tag the damn song with my iPhone. The blonde is strong with me these days.

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I keep holding my finger over the publish button on my match.com profile. To activate or keep de-activated, that is the question. On the one hand, I’m paying for it, you know? On the other hand, is it even worth the time?

Thus far from my adventures on Match, I’ve received one thoroughly broken (as in shattered, destroyed) heart, two really good friends, and a couple of acquaintances that I enjoy talking to from time to time. The friends and acquaintances? Good. Broken heart? Yeah, you can keep that.

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Recently I purchased a spiffy new iPhone that I’m head over heels in love with.  So in love with it that when I go out to the local pub to meet up with friends for drinks, I’m often yelled at to put the crack phone away.  Yeah, I love it that much.

When I purchased it, I knew that it does not currently support MMS messages, but the software update is expected sometime this summer.  Having seen friends’ phones in action, I expected to be getting text notifications with a link in the event someone tried to send me a picture or whatnot.  Since I rarely get pictures sent to me anyway, I didn’t think about it much.

In a conversation with a friend yesterday, he mentioned having sent me a text message the night before.  I stared at my phone and assured him I had not received one.  He insisted he had sent one.  Being a stickler for always being right, I logged into my AT&T account and checked.  Not a single text message from him.  A few I had sent to him, but none from him.  He has an obnoxious tendency to not reply to texts, so it never occurred to me that there was a problem.

Well, see, Mr. Smarty Pants sends all of his messages to me in MMS format.  Always.  Highly annoying, but will he fix this little “feature” on his phone?  Nooooo, of course he won’t.  Realizing that the format of his messages was the problem, I contacted AT&T to find out why I wasn’t getting the notification at least.

The first person I talked to was a nice young man who checked my account, told me he didn’t understand what the problem was, and did some strange reset that required me to turn off my phone for a minute and then turn it back on.  I had a co-worker and another friend send me pictures via text to see if I got the notification, but alas, no such notification appeared.  After roughly fifteen minutes of going back and forth and testing, the customer service rep gave up and told me he would transfer me to iPhone support.

The second person I talked to was another very nice young man who did some brief trouble shooting and said he couldn’t help me, because the problem was in the service itself, not the phone.  Apparently, while he’s iPhone support, he has nothing to do with AT&T.  Why the first person transferred me to him is still a mystery.  And with that, after another fifteen minutes gone, he transferred me to yet a third person.

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I am a bit of a stubborn creature who tends to believe she can do anything she puts her mind to. I very rarely ask anyone for help, usually for two reasons. I’ve found that either people will help you and then later hold it over your head, or they will say they will help you and then simply don’t. So, you know, I’ve developed this whole “I can do it by myself” motto.

It’s frustrated more than a few friends, and plenty of boyfriends, but I just smile and say, “I am not a kitten stuck up in tree!” However, in an attempt to be more reasonable, I’ve been practicing asking for help, to a degree.

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As I begin contemplating dating again, I’m arming myself with a small, but growing, list of things that are said on dating profiles - and what they really mean.  Based solely upon my own experience, natch.

So let’s take a look at Sabre’s List O’ Profile Warnings, shall we?

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With several million souls residing in the Metro DC area, one would think that after several years, a single woman would meet a decent guy in this joint.  Or, more appropriately, a guy I am sufficiently interested in that is sufficiently interested in me.

This is not to say I haven’t met decent guys, I have.  The problem that I’ve run into is that I always meet them at the wrong time.  Usually right about the time I’m escaping from one bad relationship or another.  Needless to say, that tends to be disastrous.  I’m still licking my wounds and they are wanting to go on long walks on the beach.  Hi, licking my wounds over here, lemme alone!  And the good ones, they go on their way, knowing you aren’t ready, while the bad ones pursue you, hoping your lack of clear sight will make their path into your bed easier.

I have had, for the most part of my adult life, a bad tendency to go from one relationship to another, with no time in between to truly heal from the pain and the loss of what I thought was love - hell, the blog archives will testify to that little factoid right there.  And as the new relationship begins to take on aspects of the old relationship, I chastise myself for having gotten involved again too soon.  Apparently, after chastising myself and beating myself soundly about the head and heart, I finally got the message.

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