*sigh* My life.

I feel kinda bad for being snappy at people, or being short with them. Like, my mom has no idea that I'd be trying to nap in between work shifts, so I can't really be mad at her for calling me and waking me up -- just as I was starting to drift off. But, I still feel cheated out of my rest and kinda grouchy.

I've told D that he can't call me in the evenings, or he has to call earlier, and admittedly, he did do that. I know, I really ought to start turning off my cell (since he doesn't call my house anyhow ;)), or turning off both phones and just not answering... but I do want to talk to him, and I don't like ignoring phone calls. I so rarely get them, so it's nice to be able to chat with people.

I know that when I get my schedule finally normalized -- i.e., after tomorrow -- things'll be better. I'll go to work, come home and nap, go to the gym and eat dinner and hang out with people. I'll be able to go to bed at a semi-normal hour -- not 10:30 p.m., not 1:00 a.m. -- and I won't be so drained and narcoleptic and grumpy. But in the meantime, this just fucking sucks.

*sigh*

*grump*

Okay, I'm done. Of course, my limited amounts of sleep have given me much lower tolerance for people I don't know, or don't know well. I've also taken to grumping somewhat at friends -- last night it felt to me like I was getting interrupted constantly, so I made a slightly churlish comment to D. I still felt a little grouchy, but I let go of that grouchy, and grabbed on to another kind. I'm a world of grouchy.

I had a really nice conversation with Shawn the other day about relationships and the state of me and mine; not that it's entirely clear and I wouldn't even know where to begin detailing it here, but despite it not necessarily being the most 'positive' in tone of conversations, it still felt nice to have.

Anyhow, what else? Had a bit of a frustrating conversation with one of the new chicks at the bookstore yesterday. Despite her being physically my age, at times during the conversation (how many times can I use that word in this post?) I felt like I was so many years her senior. Her attitude towards men and relationships was frustrating to say the least.

I don't know, I've had a fair number of relationships, particularly in the last couple of years, and I feel like I've gained a lot of life and personal experience from them. I'm stupidly open-minded about people and relationships, and I'm willing to accept nearly any kind of dynamic so long as it's satisfying to the people involved. I also have a fairly decent understanding of human dynamics, group dynamics and interpersonal relationships -- thank you, communications degree and personal interest/geekiness -- and I like to observe people, learn, and retain what I've learned.

This means that when it comes to relationship conversations, I have a decent amount of personal experience and learned knowledge upon which to draw. I'm hardly qualifying myself as an expert -- I frequently tell people that with my world of failed relationships, I'm the last one to come to for advice (but privately I like when people do) -- but I like to think that I'm a good listener and maybe just a touch helpful to people who want to listen or are open to advice.

That all said and done, this chick was driving me nuts with her beliefs that all guys are the same, particularly when it comes to sex, and that various things with her current (sorta) relationship could all be explained by the fact that her boyfriend was new to relationships. She did all the sacrificing and he didn't do any, and she just felt that things would work out if, if, if...

*sigh* It was her prescriptive attitude about guys that was driving me nuts, and the mags kid that was working (he's 20, but he's a kid) wasn't helping, with his comments about how chicks don't have to be any good, and blah blah blah. Actually, I think what he said was that chicks didn't have to do anything to be good, or something to that effect. Whatever the particulars were, they had be somewhat cheesed, to say the least.

Every person is different. That's the mantra on the list to which I subscribe, and it's also my personal mantra. Yes, for guys if you touch the peenie, chances are you'll make him happy, but there's usually more to it than just that. Some guys say they've never had a bad orgasm, but I'd like to dispute that. Maybe there are differing levels of good and bad, but I've spoken to a lot of people, male and female, about all walks of sex, and I've had plenty of guys confess that they have indeed had bad orgasms.

This is where someone is going to chime in and say, "Not bad, just maybe not as good." However you want to qualify it, by all means. But let's be honest with ourselves -- there are the times that your partner fucked up the timing, took too long, didn't get it exactly right, where you were tired, drunk, hungover, asleep, whatever that led to an orgasm not being that great. I've had times where my body had an orgasm but I didn't feel a thing; I know of plenty of guys who ejaculate but don't orgasm, or orgasm and don't ejaculate and all of this feels frustrating, unfinished, and ... dare I say it? Bad?

Maybe I was just annoyed because she was talking incessantly and somewhat loudly, including when I was trying to answer the phone with customers, and it was only when I was talking -- with a low-pitched voice -- that other staff members were saying we ought to keep it down. Or I could've been annoyed by the fact that I barely had the chance to get a word in edgewise; despite there being other people in the conversation and her asking for advice/generally venting, it seemed that she really only wanted to hear herself speak.

I carried the conversation home to D, and he agreed with the boy from mags that girls don't really have to do anything to be good. I take this as permission to not bother doing anything particularly exciting the next time I'm with a guy -- all I have to do is be there, and I'm all set. (I can hear him sighing and rolling his eyes from here).

I've been with guys who were "pleasantly surprised" that I wasn't, in their words, a cold fish -- they then qualified it to say that they didn't expect that I would be one, just that many other girls they'd been with had been. Their description of a cold fish? Someone who just lies there, doesn't take the lead much, perhaps only gives head when requested, or at least doesn't seem especially interested in doing it... whatever. Fuck. Lost where else I was going with this.

There is an art to giving head. I've had guys talk of getting head where they hadn't a clue what the girl was doing, didn't feel anything, were bored, or flat-out didn't enjoy it for whatever reason (and no, teeth aren't always one of them). I've known guys who complained of girls being unadventurous, not wanting to do anything position-wise beyond missionary. I've known guys who feared suggesting anything new to their girlfriends because they "just knew" she'd freak out.

That's secondary to my main rant, though. Maybe some of the males reading this have been fortunate enough to have never been disappointed in their sexual experiences. Maybe they don't care if their partner is having a good time or not and are only concerned with their pleasure, making it a positive experience for them regardless of how "good" she is or not. Maybe their idea of a great time is pleasing their partner, so if she has a great time, they consider it to be a great time. Maybe there are all kinds of explanations for everything in the world (can you tell I'm tired and have to leave soon?). But don't try to tell me that a girl doesn't have to be good, because I've had too many guys tell me that they've been with girls who were bad or boring.

And I've had a few guys tell me that I'm fantastic, great, or the best they've ever been with. ;)

*big sigh* I think I got that off my chest. Now for the ICQ-rant. My ICQ nick is Aphrodite; ever since I can remember I've always thought she was awesome, and it seemed time to change from the nick I was using before (which is incorporated into this page, if you can puzzle out how). Ever since I moved, I've had an average of 2-3 strangers every 2-3 days sending me messages. These conversations annoy me because they don't go anywhere. Now, this most recent conversation annoyed me because of the way it spelled out.

I came home to see that I had a few ICQ messages. One of them was from Glorg or Shawn (don't recall), so when I opened up the screen to read "BJ? *LMAO*" I thought they were referring to something about a friend of theirs, and so I sent back "BJ?".

Then I looked at who the message was from -- a complete stranger -- and so I replied, as I do with all ICQ spam, "Fuck off."

Here's the rest of that conversation:
Him: i was just sayin' that cuz of your name on here...no hard feeling :-/
Me: Aphrodite = blowjob to you?
Him: damn girl...did i catch you on a bad night? *S*
Me: You just seem to have a really interesting way of getting to know new people. Not entirely sure how I'm supposed to react to that.
Him: sorry i just felt like goofin' around...let's start over....hi...i'm [edited]...and you are?
Me: Going to bed. And Jen.

We sent about two or three more messages after that point, but seriously, how the fuck is someone supposed to react to that? And then his "Did I catch you on a bad night?" crap -- why not just accuse me of PMSing and being unable to take a joke? It's R's "Do you ever worry about STDs?" crap all over again.

So I set this post aside for a bit to go into work at the bookstore. Decent enough shift; I really didn't care what I was doing, or getting in trouble, so I spent a lot of time on the floor shelving books and chatting with my coworkers. One new guy who works in videos, DW, happens to have a nice sense of humour and he's decent to chat with, so I do. Well, he told me later in the evening that one of the other employees took him aside and warned him that I was "the bookstore something" (DW didn't say what the "something" was, but I can guess), so he should just be aware of that. DW said, "What, we're just talking," and he was warned again. Or something.

*sigh* That shit just fucking pisses me off. The fact that I dated two guys at the same time is so fucking incomprehensible to some people as being a possible lifestyle choice that would work for someone ... and so therefore, I'm a slut. Heaven forbid I laugh and joke with a coworker -- elsewise, I must be fucking him.

Now, there are two ways that this employee could have gotten that impression of me, because he and I haven't spoken more than about five sentences to one another. One, the chick he's dating, who was anti-me to begin with, could have informed him of my horrid actions, or two, the fact that J from work and I happened to pass by the group one night after work may have led him to believe that I was doing my best to make my rounds of the staff.

Never mind that it was the boys at the store who hit on me when I first started there -- C, who invited me out to a party and movie, D, who humped me at the cash line, and E, who told me he was pregnant with my baby, asked if we were dating, and asked if he could kiss me. Then, we move forward in time, and J from work is telling me he's going to write me love poems in order to convince me to date him, and K has offered to "take care of my problem" if I can "guarantee discretion." OBVIOUSLY, I am the whore here.

Fuck. I ranted about it to DW somewhat, and it really annoyed me in that it's a note I hate to leave the bookstore on; but at the same time, it ensures that I'm really not going to miss the place, or at least not the clique-ish-ness of the older staff that's been around. D has said that he's looking forward to coming back and saying hi to everyone at Thanksgiving, seeing who's around; personally, I can think of about six or seven people I might care enough to say hi in when I'm in to shop. Out of a staff of 30+?, that's not that many.

Okay, so that's partially unfair. There's really only a half-dozen die-hard cliquey types that I wouldn't mind if I never saw again. It's a bit of a shame that my working there has kinda spoiled that place for me as an actual bookstore, but whatever. Whether they happened to approve or not, I got a really amazing relationship out of the deal, and I wouldn't have given that up for anything.

So after work, I got together with OFK, S, and JW for the bondage workshop. Fun times, good group of people. Nice to be around a crew of like-minded people, and although I didn't feel that I necessarily learned anything new, I still had fun. It was nice to do something different, although it might've been nicer had I been there with someone that I could've gone and tried everything out with. As much fun as it is to learn about knots and tying people up, well, it's a bit less interesting when you're the one who's being tied up -- or prefers to be, I should say.

From there, we went to a restaurant for dessert. Of the four of us, S was really the only one who had dessert, although I did pick at it afterwards. I enjoyed yet another round of quesadillas, OFK had some breakfast, and JW only had his milkshake. We shared some conversation and then it was off home.

And here I be home. I just wanted to finish this up before I went and passed out. Sleeping until ten is going to be an absolute luxury, and I've even shut off my cell phone so I can avoid that jarring wake-up, should anyone happen to call. Sucka! :) For now, however, my bed beckons. And I think this post is long enough. ;)