Nobody likes me, everybody hates me...

So why is the solution to eat worms? At least you aren't pulling a Columbine or Virginia Tech, by the way that school has got some problems. I hear someone recently got decapitated there. Yesh! Anyway, its been a while since I have ventured to describe my life in a verbose and pithy way to those who deem it necessary to keep up on such things and I suppose it would only be cordial to do so now.


I am currently residing in Champaign, IL and have been since the end of September last year. My roommate went to math camp with me, and we both ended up at Stanford. When he heard my sob story of a life last summer, he offered me a room rent free, bus ticket, and no bills as long as I agreed to work and save basically all my money in order to return to Stanford. Since then, I have worked a total of 2 weeks through temp agencies but unfortunately have not saved much.

My husband decided that the bipolar was too much and during last year's annual clusterf*k withdrew from our lease and called it quits. I lived alone for the duration of the six month lease and managed to stay out of mental wards but still accumulated a few thousand in medical bills. I tried a few times to get him to reconcile, but lately, as in the past two months, he has been awol so I can take the hint. He's just not that into me.


Which brings me to the next aspect of my current life. During the winter holiday, the first away from home in life, I was alone and sad and decided to find friends online via craigslist. When I first got here to Champaign, I met two guys: one at a bar called the Blind Pig who spent the entire time talking with his female co-worker, and another hard working guy who took me to Steak n Shake and a midnight showing of Kill Bill V. 1. I thought I was going to go home in Nov so I deleted their nums, txts, and emails and didn't think two cents about it. After December, responses came in to meet and go out. I met an older gentleman, retired, who has taken me out to a Chinese buffet place and an African drums performance. He works at the community radio station dj-ing world music. There was a med student who gave me quarters for laundry and tried to do me in the laundry room. Then I never heard from him again. When I was looking to work at CVS I asked a guy behind the counter about their photo lab position. He ended up responding to one of my ads and we went to the movies. He got me an air mattress with his discount, and also bought me some oh so hard to find fritos flavor twists. We have gone driving around, he turned out to be bi and is more gay than straight. He is also a bit blunt, kind of mean, and likes to put ppl down. But he gave me a ride home one night when the bus didn't show and since I know he's not gonna try to sleep with me, mostly bc his roommates are racist, I consider him a friend.

And then there was a certain someone. Now, up to this point, I really did consider myself just being out there, having fun, getting a few meals and some free movies, but one guy changed all that. He responded to an ad one Saturday and we meet at the library. We went to the movies, he asked if I was hungry, and he decided to take me to a place near his apartment. It turned out to be an Italian restaurant called Biaggi's. Yeah. He got me two glasses of Bricco Riella while we waited for our table. We shared a beet salad and I had lobster and black fettuchinni while he had veal parmasean. The waitress, Jess, served our water in a pitcher I hadn't seen before and I asked her what kind it was. He responds, "Oh, that's a carafe." She and I both looked at him, eyebrows raised, and she says, "Ooh, he's a keeper. That's right." Up to this point, he had been funny, clearly intelligent, and seemed to be enjoying himself. After the meal, he still wanted to hang out and it wasn't late, so we watched movies and british comedy shows on his laptop at his apartment.

Now, what happened next was one of the sweetest things that has ever happened to me, so unexpected, and I won't soon forget it. Since I was cold, he gave me a quilt his grandmother had made and kind of cuddled to keep me warm. After two shows, he whispers in my ear, "Can I kiss you?" I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the line of, "Do you really think youhave to ask?"

Okay, before I go on, I know what you may be thinking. Yes, though Stephen and I are separated according to the state of Texas we are still legally married. There is no such thing as legal separation in Texas and Stephen hasn't been able to afford a divorce, thus, we are "broken up" but not legally so. I was aware of all those things as I looked him in the eye and gave him my lips.

We made out, PG stuff, and he was actually the one that decided to slow things down. I thought, what a gentleman, how novel of him, then he asks what I want to do. I give him the old, "I don't know, what do you wanna do?" and he suggests a shower. Yeah! Now, it took my husband months to get me comfortable enough to see me naked with lights on. I clung to the towel and jumped quickly into the shower trying to cover myself as best as I could while also maintaining eye contact. I am not big on seeing a guy naked, even when Stephen and I showered, but we did take a shower together. So random.

After we were back in his room, we fell asleep to one of his bad movies and the next morning he took me to breakfast at a local diner I had heard about but never been to. I knew at this point that I wouldn't see him again for at least 2 weeks since his job was sending him to TX for a project. I had an opportunity to tell him about my current relationship status, but when he chose to hear the story about the mental ward over the story about my last name, I didn't offer the information again.

The two weeks he was away, we txt/talked on the phone nearly every day. We also emailed. The entire time, I was trying to get ahold of Stephen to explain to him what was going on and let him know that I was willing to drop the reconciliation schtick and move on to documents and legal fees and such. Phone tag, except he isn't taggin me. Only txtng that he will call only to not call at all. So when this guy comes back into town in happens to be Valentine's Day weekend.

We spent the weekend moving him out of his apartment into a new one. A coworker was getting married and needed someone to take over the lease while she moved in with a fiance. We had to stop by his job and I got to meet her. She said he gave all the girls in the office a daisy. I got a bouquet. My first bouquet of flowers. We did go see "He's Just Not That Into You" and went to Sonic for dinner, Subway for lunch, and Perkins for breakfast. I cooked him baked potatoes, brussel sprouts in butter sauce and bbq chicken legs for dinner Friday. We played boggle, watched youtube videos, listened to smooth jazz, and put together a futon we got at Walmart. I finally told him Saturday night when we were showing each other pictures online.

The next day, he said he needed time to do some moving on his own, so after breakfast he dropped me off. I didn't think I would hear from him again, so when he called later that night I was surprised. He didn't, however, invite me back to his apartment and I figured something was up. So I txtd him and found out that he didn't like the fact that I waited so long to tell him about being separated. Disloyalty had torn his family apart and there was nothing more to read into so he wished me good luck.

I had never tried to call the suicide hotline before, so I figured the first time I should pay attention in case I needed to again in the future and could zip through any rigamarole. Well, after I bypassed the automated message, the phone cut off before I could say hello to the volunteer taking my call. Thankfully, a good friend from high school was up at the time and we talked. Lately, I have been experiencing boughts of depression and fighting the desire to self-medicate, self-mutilate, and suicidal ideation. I have since then started trying to go outside to the park more often, finally got a plastic storage dresser for my clothes so they aren't strewn about the floor on a regular basis, and have my air mattress with the sleeping bag and throw on top.

I apologized to him, he has since accepted my apology and we are sort of talking about it. It snowed today. I am waiting to start my part time job at Cracker Barrel next week and tomorrow I have a one day data entry job through one of my temp agencies. My friend from Stanford Lisa Smith and I are thinking of moving in together in Palo Alto come June. Its something to hope for and look forward to. She is a great friend and I don't have too many of those left over after these past few years. My room is full of Nicholas Sparks romance novels and classics like Catch 22 and Animal Farm. I have been attending a non-denominational church with a girl who I sat next to during the week I worked at the Muscular Dystrophy Association cold calling people to get them to sign up for a fundrasier in which they were supposed to come up with $1,000. That was the first job I had here back in November. About a month ago, I saw her in the library and we have been hanging out or I have been babysitting for her and its good that I saw her again. I like the pastor at the church I am attending, but I am afraid to get too involved for fear that it will feed into my mania.

I am due for a crazy storm starting next month. I can feel it coming sure as old ppl can feel rain miles away. There are some mental health centers in town that I want to look into because I think group sessions will be beneficial for me. I have started doing a little research into bipolar and reading books written by bipolar women. One interesting tidbit that kept coming up was feeling more attractive or having more promiscuous tendencies during manic phases. That explains a few poor decisions I have made in the past.

I believe that is everything going on at the moment. I still haven't heard from Stephen and if I could I would file for divorce myself. I used to think that no other guy would want me, that I would be that young divorcee, crazy no less, and would spend my years alone. If I have learned one thing during these past few weeks its that there are guys out there who find me attractive and recognize my intelligence and admire my quirks. There is hope for me. I no longer want to keep talking Stephen into staying with me. If he doesn't want it, then I don't want it. I do, however, need to get some things settled with him before I can move on. And I feel now that I can move on and it can be better and I pray that it will.