I've gotten several favorable responses to my ad. I'm going to keep e-mailing people and see what pans out. There's one guy who wants to take me out this coming weekend and Jim also wants to take me out again. We were supposed to go out last Sunday before I left, but I was just too stressed and told him I had too much to do. I really get the sense this time that I'm meeting a much better class of men. I think I was just in the "right" place when I wrote my ad and it's coming off as very authentic and clear enough about what I'm looking for that most of the people who are responded are of the same mindset. I have gotten a few responses where all they can say is "Hi, I like your smile" or "You are sexy"� the ones where they say I'm sexy, unless they look really interesting, I'm not going to respond to them at all. If they can't comment on my personality or SOMETHING that I wrote about myself, then either they didn't READ my profile or they are only looking for something physical. Neither one of those is acceptable to me. If they said, I like your smile, then it may be they just think that's a good way to open things up, but my suspicion is they are just interested in the physical. These, I would give a chance to see what the truth is. In chatting on line, I've gotten a lot more aggressive about not talking to people who just want to talk about sex. I tell them straightforward no thanks and close the IM. End of story. Before this, I would have talked with them HOPING things would eventually move beyond the physical. It never did but I would always be hopeful. I was just coming from desperation and now I'm not. I don't have time or energy for that kind of crap. Now if I can just get those men in faraway countries to leave me alone. They may be nice enough, or not, but they are half a world away. I actually had one guy from France question me for a long time about why I won't start a relationship with someone in another country. Dude, I don't have time. And unless the conversation is really stimulating, I don't even want to be friends.
San Antonio has been cool. We didn't get in until almost 7 Texas time on Monday. We went to dinner then back to the hotel. Unfortunately, I stupidly had a ginormous coke at dinner (with a refill) and the caffeine (plus the fact that my body thought it was 2 hours earlier) kept me up all night. I fell asleep about 3:30 AM Texas time, slept for about 45 minutes and then fell asleep for another 45 minutes. We had to be at the office at 7:30 AM, so we met for breakfast (in the hotel) at 6:30 AM so I had to get up at 5:30 AM. I actually get up okay on a few hours of sleep, then I crash in the afternoon for a while. I crashed in the middle of my afternoon training but quickly revived. I still had a few problems falling asleep last night, as I tend to do when I'm traveling, but got to sleep until 7 this morning. I intended to work out while I'm here, but I've given up on that whole idea, as I'm also now starting to get a cold. I'll catch up with my workouts when I get home. No biggie.
There are a gazillion restaurants here. Apparently, in this town, no one cooks at home. They either go out to eat, or they get take-out. No joke. And steakhouses, barbecue joints and mexican restaurants abound. I'm having a good time, my co-worker Allen is a blast and we are having fun together. It's kind of weird being here with my boss. He's really a different kind of guy, someone who has kept his private life separate for so long. It's weird to interact with him. We go to dinner together at night and spend a lot more time together than normal so we can't talk about work the whole time.
There are a few employees here who moved from California, so I went out with a couple of them last night and 2 of them for lunch today. It's great to see some familiar faces. I'm having a good time, relaxing and enjoying myself. It's just easier to deal with life when you are out of town because I can literally tell myself all my problems are in another state! My car is about 6 months overdue for registration and my mom is going to borrow it on Saturday, so when I get home I need to take it to get it registered. I casually mentioned to my parents that if they had time would they take it in and get it smogged. My mom said she didn't think they'd have time but she'd give it a try. My car has been making a noise for a while and Brian had said it's probably a belt of some kind. Fearing an expensive repair, I've been ignoring it! (so like me!) So my parents called and said they were going to go ahead and get it smogged and if it didn't pass, what was my pain threshold for repairs. I said $200, and if it was more it'd have to wait until I got home. Well, it passed the smog and the guy said that the belt repair would be about $100 so my parents told them to go ahead and do it. SWEET! So when I get home, the noise that scares me when I drive will be gone, my car will be smogged and I can go get it registered on Friday. So now when I get in my car, I won't have to worry about break downs, or getting pulled over for expired tags. Driving will be so much easier. Oh, PLUS, I cleaned out my car before I left so I don't look like I'm living in it anymore. If I can get the air conditioning fixed, I might be able to tolerate my car again. (on the car clean out, while I did actually clean some of the car, a lot of it was just moving everything into the trunk!).
My plane lands at 10:10 on Friday morning, so, though I'll be tired, I'll actually have most of my day to run errands and get stuff done. We have to leave our hotel at about 5 AM (3 AM California time) to get to the airport so I'll need to get up at about 4 AM that day (2 AM California time). I imagine I'll be going to be pretty early that night.
I've been catching a cold or some such thing. What's weird is it usually starts in my nose and travels down but this one is in my throat and chest. I hope it doesn't bother me too much on the plane ride.
We're about to clear out of the office here. My boss already left this morning so it's just me and my co-worker Allen left. He's a lot of fun and we've really had a good time together. We're going to head out into the city to explore a little bit. We'll go see the Alamo and get a picture in front of it, then walk around the RiverWalk and then we're going to a place called Rudy's for dinner, which is apparently known for their barbecue. Tomorrow, we'll get on a plane and head back to town, back to life, back to reality.
