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The H-bomb returns (and other stories about girls)

It's been a while since I've blogged here, and there were some things goin on in my personal life that I wanted to work out with those involved before airing it out here.

Before I get into this whole thing let me first explain my whole "ex-girlfriend thing"

I think I get it. I understand that most people can't take a "step backwards" with the people they become intimate with. You set up certain rules with people, and I can see how it would be strange or even impossible to try and change those rules once they are established.

Furthermore, I understand that couples establish deep and binding ties that do damage when they are ripped apart. Often times permanent damage. While I can see how this happens. I can see how people meet, fall in love, fall out of love, break up, and never talk to each other again. That's just not for me though. I invest too much time and energy in these things to let them completely die away. I like to think that my romances are founded on friendship. I don't see why that friendship can't survive a break-up.

So far, my ex's and I have managed to foster some pretty great relationships since our break-ups. They are relationships that actually give meaning to that tired phrase, "we can still be friends".

As you'll recall I broke up with my girlfriend a couple months ago. Good ol' H-bomb. Since that day I've had no contact with her. Last weekend was her birthday though, and I had naturally been thinking about her and wondering how she was doing. So I figured it was probably a good time to start slowly reestablishing contact. I left her a small birthday gift at her doorstep, and a couple days later we spoke on the phone and arranged to have lunch today.

I'm not sure what it was, but something in the back of my mind told me to prepare for the strong possibility that she would have moved on by now, and be dating someone new. It turns out my instincts were correct. Now I could go all Alanis Morrisette on you here. You might be wondering if it was, indeed, a "slap in the face, how quickly I was replaced".

The truth of the matter is that of course there was a hefty stab of pain that came along with that news. I also know that it's my own pride holding the knife. I'm always going to be at least a little jealous when an ex finds herself a new man. Certainly the less time that has passed, more upset I'm gonna be.

I told Heather as much while we ate lunch today. However I'm not angry. How could I be? It's a little trite to bust out the "All I ever want is for you to be happy" phrase, but it's all I got for you. It's part of being a good friend to someone. All that can keep me from being that, is that same son-uva-bitch "Pride"...The guy with the knife in my heart.

So I just keep pride from getting the best of me. If I can do that, well then I get the benefit of keeping someone really special in my life. That's the sort of thing that's important to me.

Now...I can't pretend to be completely above petty and spite. As I said, I was pretty sure that Heather had started dating someone new. Before we met I told myself I wouldn't let myself do something...But in a moment of weakness I did it anyway.

The deal is this: I'm not currently seeing anyone, but I did have a pretty nice date a few weeks back. The date went really well and I had a good time, but in the days that followed, Something just didn't feel right and I just didn't feel comfortable getting involved with someone so soon. So at our next meeting I told this new girl I didn't want to continue anything "romantic". I may have even busted our the old "Platonic" phrase. Always a good one.

When Heather asked about my dating life these days I did in fact say something like, "It was just too soon for me" or "_I_ just couldn't get involved with someone so soon after". I'm confident it was subtle...But (while being pretty accurate) it was still kinda a jerk thing to say since the unspoken message is basically, "I was being a good guy by trying to be sensitive to your feelings, and your being mean".

It's not what I actually believe. Heather's doing nothing wrong by dating other people (that was in fact the basic reason for breaking up afterall). But it was just too hard to keep my defense mechanisms from kicking in.

While the encounter leaves me (obviously) a bit distraught, it WAS really fun to see her again. The positives of just hanging out and catching up with someone I care about far outweighed the small (albeit potent) kick in the pants that came along with it. She was naturally pretty curious about all that was going on with my brother and his pregnant girlfriend. Her job sounds like it's going really well, and she seems to be on the right track with her health problems. I'm looking forward to talking to her again sometime in the future.

-B

Labels: girls, H-Bomb

 
The day the music died.

I'm officially abandoning my policy of using random song lyrics as my post titles (after this post). Too many other people are doing it and it feels less fun. Given the popularity of blogging in general...I should probably just give this journal up all together. Nah...I won't be that much of a non-conformist.

First of all. Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post, dealing with my recent break-up. It's been a really strange week without H-bomb in my life, but your comments, and the companionship of my good friends and family have been very comforting.

So there has been a lot of sadness and happiness over the past week. I still have all sorts of pictures of H-Bomb around my desk at work, and my apartment. Every once in a while I'll take a long look at those photos and hope I did the right thing. If I sit and really think about it, I always feel like I did.

Thankfully there was some good distractions for me this holiday weekend with the arrival of several good friends of mine. The occasion? This year's fantasy football draft. For the first time all ten players in my "primary league" were in town at the same time. Amongst those players were Mike and Marc, two of my very best friends from high school. It's very rare for the three of us to be together in the same place these days, so them being around made Saturday (draft day) priceless.

Throw in some flag football before the draft, some pool volleyball and NHL 94 after the draft, along with beautiful weather, and great food....you pretty much have one of the best days ever.

The draft itself was a little rocky for me. Being the league champ I was drafting last in the rotation. On top of that each "coach" is permitted to keep two players from their team last year and my keeper prospects weren't all that sweet (Okay so I got to keep Priest Holmes...but still).

I felt pretty confident about my early picks, but those middle rounds always kill me. But who knows...I had a pretty terrible team last year and still coached myself to a championship title. Why not do it again!


.


-E

Labels: girls, H-Bomb

 
You'd have me down on my knees now wouldn't ya Barracuda ?


With football season gearing up, the excitement over my Madden league at work has reached a fever pitch. My office is generally the center of pre-season frenzy making it difficult to sit down and get this serious blog entry done. But here it is:

On Sunday I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years. As discussed earlier in this blog, we had several discussions about what our relationship was and where it was going. Ultimately we felt it was best to take some time off from each other.

So sunday morning Heather walked me to my car and we shared a short but tearful goodbye. It was really difficult for both of us to come to that place. I experienced quite a few moments of doubt as the time to actually go through with what we both thought was best.

I know there are some lonely times ahead, and I don't really look forward to that. But as sad as I feel, and as much as I care for Heather, I still feel (at least for now) that this was the right thing to do. I'm not interested in rushing into marriage, despite the sort of "peer pressure" that is certainly present in my circle of friends.

I guess than I'll be back in the hunt, hitting the single scene...or more likely the internet single scene. For now though I just want to be mellow, take some time to "process" this last relationship.

...Man....It's really distracting in here right now. I don't know how this is coming out, or if it's even making sense. The more I try and concentrate the louder people seem to be talking

...Anyway. Everyone I've talked to about it have been very supportive while still sharing my high opinion of Heather which is important to me. I do have a great support network of friends and family to fall back on in the sadder times. For that I am grateful.

-B

Labels: girls, H-Bomb

 
I would do anything for love....but I won't do that.

It's been a tumultuous couple of days in my relationship with H-bomb.

A couple nights ago we abruptly resumed the conversation we started in our "big talk" a few months ago. The question of whether or not we were "marriage-bound" was once again central to the discussion. Once again we seemed to agree that we were both happy with what our relationship is, but not with what it will likely become.

We both seemed to feel that the differences in our personalities didn't seem to bode well for the long term, and that our relationship had sorta "stalled out". The phrase "going nowhere" seemed to come up a lot.

I left her house yesterday morning basically feeling as if we had broken up but - due to the existence of a pair of airline tickets and hotel reservations - we hadn't yet decided on when to do it. Our planned trip to Hawaii in August would have been an easy thing to deal with had one of us simply said, "I don't really like you anymore". But that not being the case we weren't really sure what to do.

We talked more about it last night. We had been in agreement so much during these discussions we both said that if we were to break up we wanted it to be able to agree that it was the right thing for us to do.

Which left a lot of long, tearful, silences. Neither one of us really ready to "pull the trigger".

So we came up with what is either a solution, or maybe just putting off the inevitable. Either way it seemed to satisfy both of us.

We decided to stay together through August at least. We would not break our travel plans, and we would enjoy these summer months together.

Come the end of August we expect that...feeling much as we do now about the prospect of a possible marriage between us...our relationship (as it is now) will likely come to some sort of an end. I'm sort of thinking of it like one of us will be moving to another country or something. We can both sort of point to the circumstances of our relationship rather than ourselves when the time comes to part ways (if that makes any sense).

I'm not saying this "plan" is fool-proof by any means. There's nothing that says that in 5 or 6 weeks we don't come to the point where we thought we would break-up and decide to put it off once more...or put it off indefinitely. It's obviously much easier to stay in a relationship that's comfortable (but may not be right) than to go through the pain caused by a break-up.

Maybe it's just folly to think we can "schedule" this sort of thing and it will make it easier for some reason. On the other hand it's hard to think of any right or wrong way to go about doing it. So I guess we'll just keep on trying to sort this stuff our together and to do it fairly and as "right" as we can.

-B

Labels: girls, H-Bomb

 
Look at all these rumors surroundinÂ? me every day I just need some time, some time to get away.

sorry for the lag between updates but I have something fun for you today (hopefully). Some of you have been asking for this for a while, so without further ado:

BACHELORS --





So...I hope that was neat-o enough.

The weather has been kicking into summer-time overdrive recently. With my knee almost at 100% I've managed to take advantage of it. It's been great to get outdoors and do stuff like swim at the beach, mountain bike, and kick the soccer ball around a bit.

Last weekend I was up in the bay area for a wedding. The celebrations took place in the Pleasanton / San Ramon area and were for a friend of H-bomb's. She was actually in the wedding party so I ended up having a lot of time to myself.

Taking advantage - I had called up a couple friends who live in the area and managed to spend some quality time with them. The wedding itself was also a lot of fun. It was especially enjoyable to hang out with Heather in thisenvironmentt.

When she's with her old college friends she seems to be a little more at ease than normal. Plus she had a few drinks. The end result was one wild and crazy lady havin a blast. I had a great time watching her have such a great time.

On the flight home Heather slept and I didn't feel like reading. I noticed that the 13-year old kid next to me had a "PC Gamer" magazine and I thought to myself, "Here's someone I should be able to impress". I asked if I could take a look at his magazine. He asked me if I liked games, and I told him that I actually make games.

Bingo...I had a new best friend. Pretty funny.

-B

Labels: H-Bomb, Travel

 
Put me in coach

How many people are afraid to poop in public? I don't mean in the middle of a park somewhere, I mean in a public restroom. I talked to two people (who shall remain nameless...but they were both girls) who told me that they hated dumping in public restrooms because they were afraid that other people would know what they were doing.

"Even if your quiet about it, they people in the stalls next to you can hear if you take more than one piece of toilet paper! One piece = goin pee, anymore than that and they _know_"

*

My knee has been troubling me for the past month or so. I've been seeing a sports medicine doc and along with some anti-inflammatory pills he prescribed some physical therapy. I've never been to a physical therapist before and it was kinda neat. I always like it when a doctor can tell you with certainty what's goin wrong and how to fix it.

My PT was very good. She showed me what a normal knee looks like, what me knee was doing in comparison and explained how we were gonna fix it. Huzzah. Luckily it doesn't seem like a big deal. Basically she told me that my knee cap naturally "rides high". It's also apparently a little outta alignment compared to a normal knee. All that causes it to "swim around" a lil. Her solution is to do some strengthening of my quad muscles to keep that kneecap in line. Hopefully it will work...I'd like to be able to play soccer again soon.

*

I built a sauna this week. Well sort of. H-bomb ordered this "pre-fab" sauna to aid in her Lyme treatment. It came in about 10 pieces with poorly written instructions that left us scratching our heads for a lot of the process. It was strange to me that such an expensive piece of equipment would come with such horrible directions -- directions completely devoid of illustrations. But we figured it all out in the end and now there's a sauna in her garage. Knowing that I was instrumental in it's construction made me extremely concerned for H-bomb's safety while she actually used it. Apparently it works fine...but I don't think I'm ready to go in it yet.

*

A big golf tournament took place last week. It was a match-play competition that featured many of the top players. Since my dad's house is right on the course...the game basically took place in his backyard. I had dinner with him (and other family members) last night. He told me that he was hanging out outside for much of the semi-finals and had the television broadcast of the event piped out to the exterior speakers. This was partially so that he could be outdoors and hear it...but also so that the course rangers and tournament staff (those who were stationed at the hole close by) could listen in as well.

Since it was late-round match-play there wasn't much activity on the course and he left the broadcast blasting on (for the aforementioned reasons) and went inside to putz around. Lost in his other tasks he suddenly remembered what he had done sometime later and turned to one of the TV's inside to see that the tournament had made it's way to the hole just beyond his yard. The announcers were saying something like, "Davis Love is clearly distracted right now by one of the near-bye residents who's television is blaring out onto the golf course".

My dad bolted outside and he said the entire audiences attention followed him as he ran across the backyard to the remote control where he finally turned the volume down.

Love's opponent had not yet taken his tee shot yet but Love did. After my dad turned the sound down he turned back towards the course to see the other golfer's caddy surreptitiously give him the thumbs up.

*

-B

Labels: H-Bomb, people are strange, sports

 
Isn't she pretty in pink?

This is probably old news, but I found this little song extremely amusing. You can find many others like it over at "deangoesnuts.com" but that one I linked to here is my favorite.

It was a rainy stormy weekend, and with my knee being all messed up I did a lot of hangin out. Went to dinner with friends, spent time with H-bomb, played games. Stuff like that.

I also helped H-bomb out with a little landscaping project. The task involved spreading out a bunch of small beach-stones around the walkway in her side-yard. What struck me as kinda funny about the whole thing was that she had to pay a landscaping store a couple hundred dollars for all those stones. The same stones that you can pick up for free at the beach....about a 2 minute walk across the tracks from her place.

Of course it would take quite a lot of time to collect that many rocks from the beach so I'm sure it's worth the cost. It just struck me as kinda funny.

-B

Labels: H-Bomb

 
That's me in the corner

After about a year and half of dating Heather decided to initiate "the big talk" last night. Not that she's anxious to get married, but she was wanting to know "where we were headed". It was a subject I had been thinking about myself for a while so I was glad to address it. We talked for a little while about how we felt about were things were going. We seemed to have a very similar outlook on our relationship.

It seems that on the one hand: we are both comfortable and happy with how things are now.

On the other hand: We both harbor doubts that make us uncertain about the prospect of being married to each other. Despite our feelings for one another, neither of us want to meander too long in a relationship that isn't destined for something more meaningful.

We also used this time to discuss some of the specific issues that we felt could be "matrimonial deal-breakers".

Possible obstacles from her point of view: Our sleep schedules are too different. I play too many video games, I dine out too often, I am not physically active enough ( I take issue with this last one, but I suppose there's no getting around the fact that the perception exists...And I suppose I have been on the lazy side over the last couple months).

Possible obstacles from my point of view: Her tendency in group situations (especially amongst my peers), a large gap in terms of our interests outside of surfing, and my inability to successfully share many of my hobbies/passions with her.

So we both agreed that while we weren't interested in any hard and fast time limits, that we would pay close attention to our feelings in this respect over the next few months and try and decide if we think we have a future together.

-E

Labels: H-Bomb

 
Take me home tonight

Woo HOO!!!! I just got a new computer! I also have the best girlfriend in the world. H-Bomb waited at my apartment today so she could accept and sign for my FedEx package and she EVEN drove it to my work so I could get started on putting it together right away! Huzzah!

FedEx did a strange thing though. I was told that someone had to be present at my apartment to sign for the package. But Heather said someone had just knocked on the door and bailed....leaving some very expensive stuff just hangin out on my doorstep.

It's been a long time since I've had a brand new machine so I'm very excited.

Usually though it seems like these things often dont go according to plan...so I have to reserve some of my excitement for when everything is all set up in my room and running a new game. Who knows if I'll have to ship a part back or something like that.

-B

Labels: H-Bomb, video games

 
Your love's got me lookin got me lookin so crazy in love.

I ate pizza for lunch today and now I'm regretting it.

My weekend ended up being pretty solid. Civ on Friday night. I went for a great bike ride on Saturday, headed over to my dads place and visited with him for a bit. That evening Heather and Mike G and I went to the Belly Up to check out the B-side players which was pretty fun. The best part of the evening was watching Mike G get sauced and work his game with some of the ladies we ran into at the club. It was awsome.

Sunday Heather and I went for short bike ride and picnicked at the beach. The weather didn't quite hold up as the fog rolled in right around the same time we rolled out. But still it was a nice lil excursion.

The week was also a fantastic week to be a NFL fan. How much fun have these playoffs been? With few exceptions in the wild-card round all the games have been nail bitters! A couple things:

1) The Rams have me so conflicted. I like rooting for Marshall Faulk...I hate rooting for Mike Martz. That guy is such a jackass.
2) I, along with the rest of the world, wanted to see Farve pull it off against the Eagles - but when your defense gives up a clutch 4th and 26 you deserve to lose
3) I love it when games play out just like their supposed to like a low scoring trench fight between the Titans and the Pats, or the high flying shootout between
K.C and Indi

awesome.

Heather and I were talking this weekend about the sort of games kids make up, and how random they are. I remember my brother and I one night while on vacation somewhere, came up with this random game that involved rolling billiard balls across pool tables, at high velocity, towards each other. That one ended in tears.

Another one that ended in tears was one H-Bomb told me about. She and her friends called it, "Truth" and it was basically a circle of girls sitting around and being brutally frank about their opinions of each other. Every time they played it, it always ended with everyone bawling.

"So what you guys played this in like Junior High?" I asked through some chuckles.
"No like in 11th grade" She responded.

Girls are sometimes very different from boys. I can't picture anything like that taking place between Mike, Marc, and I. Now back-pack battles....now there's a game!

I finished up a few of my thank-you notes for this last holiday season. Here are some of the images I made for them. Check em out!

-B

Labels: girls, H-Bomb, sports

 
Once there was this kiiiid who got into an accident and couldn't come to school.

I had a graaaaand weekend.

A couple of parties. Good friends. Another round or Return of the King. Good stuff.

Friday Heather and I went to Liz's "Margarita party" where she and her sisters / cousin get extremely hammered. Always a good time. Here's a picture:









The following night Heather and her sister threw their super cool holiday party. For which I made a flyer. Check it out!

They party was a lot of fun, and H-bomb was really in her element. It was awesome to see her really cut lose. The band was fun as always, but a lot of people seemed to leave before they were finished performing which really sucked. Hopefully they still had a good time performing. One of Heather's high school friends, Kelly, was also at the party. Heather and Kelly don't see eachother much (Kelly lives outta town), and I've only met her twice now. She works for ILM and always has some interesting stuff to say about her work. So that was cool too.

Sunday I took Heather to the movies where we met the Spraggs and family along with Heather's friend Coral to see Return of the King. I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. Heather liked it but not nearly as much as I did. Which is okay...She's come a long way from "I hated Fellowship of the Ring" to at least telling me that she likes the series. I then spent the rest of the evening peppering our general conversation with statements like, "You know what else I liked in that movie", or asking questions like, "Which character do you like the best in LOTR?"

:)

Tonight marks the final game of football that has relevance to this seasons fantasy football adventures. My team has an opportunity to win the whole thing. My opponent Marc and I are pretty close with the lead in his grasp going into tonight's game where we have dueling Packers receivers set to go at it. I really hope I win!!!

-E

Labels: H-Bomb, pop and/or culture, sports

 
Two trailer-park girls go 'round the outside.

I was talking to my girlfriend (who almost never reads this blog by the way) yesterday and during our casual conversation about the days events this came up.

***************

me: So I saw the Paris Hilton video yestrday

H-Bomb: Whats that?

me: Ummmm....do you know who Paris Hilton is?

H-Bomb: I don't think so.

me: She's one of the daughters of the very wealthy Hotel owners...

H-Bomb: ...

me: She's in a new reality show about living on a farm...

H-Bomb: I think I might have heard something about that...maybe.

***************

So suddenly the conversation had changed from:

"I saw that thing that everyone is talking about"

to telling my girlfriend:

"I watched some pornography yesterday!"

kinda awkward :)

-B

Labels: H-Bomb, pop and/or culture

 
Wow...what a crazy firestorm this has been.

A few days ago some dumbass hunter got lost (I know I know..."dumbass" and "hunter" in the same sentance is usually pretty redundant) set off a flare in the middle of the dry-brush and pretty much burned down east san diego county. "oops" he might be heard to say.

I head someone on the radio this morning complain that this tragedy also highlights how unprepared the county is for this sort of thing and not to blame the hunter...but I imagine that if my house burned down, or someone close to me died in the fire...it would be pretty hard for me to not blame the hunter.

The air quality even way out bt the coast is awful, and everything has a strange alien-oarange tint to it. There is ash everywhere. It's really pretty serious. So far I am not directly linked to anyone who has lost a home (though I suspect there are a few people from my work who are at risk).

One of the less tragic consequences of this whole fire is that the first monday night football game in San Diego in years...has been moved. I have to tell you that I am pretty dissapointed about this. Don't get me wrong...I have the proper sense of perspective and all...but I had tickets to the game, and I was really looking forward to it. I have been to plenty of football games before but never to a monday night game. Oh well...maybe in two years...because the chargers certainly wont get one next year with the way they're playing.

In other news, my girlfriend just got a new kitten so that their other young cat has someone to play with. At the moment the plan is not working out too well since the old-school cat seems to hate the new-school one. But the new kitten sure is cute (as you might expect). The lil guy is about the size of my fist and belts out the most pathetic lil "mews"...ahh kittens...so much fun.

That's that. No work today so I'm gonna go back and play some more video games. I would like to go out and ride my bike or surf or something, but the air is so disgusting right now that it's actually probably healthier for me to be inside, eat junk food, and play games!

-E

Labels: H-Bomb, San Diego, sports