What Am I Doing?

I realized I owe anyone who is actually interested an update on Cohen. By the time I took him to his vet appointment on Thursday his paw seemed to be better, and the vet said that he couldn't see or feel anything that should be causing him pain. I'm thinking it was just the dog equivalent of a twisted ankle, something that hurt for a couple of days but then healed on its own. I still haven't taken him on any long walks to be on the safe side, but it seems completely better. As for the mouth thing, the initial news seems to be good. The vet checked it out and said he thinks it's just a papilloma, which in a dog is a harmless virus, so that would be good. He still wants to remove it and have it sent to the lab and tested just to be on the safe side, though, and I agree. Much better to be safe than sorry. So on the 18th Cohen will be going back to the vet to have the surgery to have it removed. I'm still worried about him, but at least the vet's initial reaction was to assume it's nothing major.

In other news, I got a job yesterday!! Since my last paycheck from my school job was June 1st and I won't get another one until October 1st, and since I don't get my scholarship money until late August/early September, I really needed something to get me through the next couple of months. Honestly, I think I have just enough money in my account to get by until fall, but why struggle to get by on "just enough" when I can actually earn enough money to not have to stress if emergency expenses come up? Plus I may end up keeping this job through the school year, which would be great since it will let me save up some money (Which is important, considering I'm being completely pessimistic right now and currently anticipating No Employment No Options come next May). I may not end up being able to keep the job once school starts since it depends on how flexible they will be with me, and I'll almost certainly have to quit come December since I'll need three weeks off for all the Katy's wedding/Cassie's wedding/general holiday madness and I can't really see anyone being flexible enough to give me that much time off unless I end up being a really amazing employee between now and then (ha!) but for the time being at least I am employed at.....

Applebees.

Thrilling, I know. But it's a three minute drive from my apartment, it's also really close to campus, there are 24 servers so it seems like they'll be able to be pretty flexible about working around my school schedule and my other job once school starts, I should only have to work three to five shifts a week during the summer which is what I was hoping for, and even though I can't say that I love waiting tables I can say that I like having cash tips and I still think I'd rather wait tables than work retail. I have my first training shift a week from Tuesday, so we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, tomorrow I am going home to El Paso for a week. I hope this doesn't end up being a terrible, horrible idea. Right before I left to England Mike broke up with Jenny (which I'm sure you inferred from my cryptic entry, but I can talk about it for real now since it's a done deal). Two weeks after that he moved into a new apartment with his friend Matt. I'm really excited for him and glad that he has his own place since I know it's something he has been wanting for a really long time.
Anyway, Mike and I immediately began flirting again. I'm not sure why he wanted it to start up again or why I let it start up again except that even though logically I know I shouldn't do it and can think of about a dozen compelling, logical reasons not to, I just can't seem to convince myself that any of those reasons not to are good enough reasons.
And then Mike told me that Matt was going out of town for two weeks and he had his apartment to himself, and I jokingly asked him if he was telling me that so that I could come stay with him and he said, "Well, you definitely could," and I asked him if he really wanted me to and he said he did and so I said okay, I'd come visit him.
And at first I was really excited. I'm sort of viewing this as damage control. More than anything I'd like to pretend the months from February to June didn't exist in terms of our friendship and I want to make sure that all the damage we did to each other can be repaired. And I figure the best way to do that is to actually spend time together and make sure it's all still okay. A sort of friendship intensive boot camp, if you will (yes, yes, calling it "friendship" is misleading as it is obviously a friendship that includes a lot of sex, but calling it a "relationship" is equally misleading. There is absolutely no good description for us).
But now I'm wondering if this whole thing is a terrible idea. He was all about me again a couple of weeks ago, but he's gotten distant in the past week and I know it's because he's starting to date someone else already. Not seriously or anything (YET) but he's definitely spending time with this girl. (I can always tell when he's interested in a new girl, always. He's so transparent about stuff like that).
And you know, that in and of itself is okay. I told him that when we talked on the phone this morning. As much as I would love for us to go back to the way things were in December, that's not going to happen. It's just not. I have to stop believing that Mike and I have any sort of romantic future together. (In bold, so maybe I'll actually listen to myself) For that to happen he'd have to fundamentally change all the life philosophies he's functioning on right now. Secretly (or not so secretly, I guess, since I'm typing it here), I still believe he will change his mind. I still believe that one day he'll wake up and realize-as Cassie put it when we had lunch together the other day while she was in town-that he doesn't want to be the fifty year old single guy that everyone shuffles around at holidays because they feel sorry for him. I think he'll especially realize this once his friends all start settling down. It seems like most guys eventually have the revelation that bachelorhood at 40 just isn't the thrilling thing it was at 24. But I don't have time to wait around for that to happen. I try to flatter myself that I have better things to do and will eventually meet someone else that connects with me in terms of goals for the future as well as physically and emotionally. 'Cause let's face it, you need all three of those things. All the emotional and physical connection in the world means nothing if the two of you don't want the same basic things out of life. Alternately, having the same sort of goals doesn't matter if you don't feel that emotional connection and physical spark. Right now Mike and I are only gelling on two of the three. And like I said, although I like to think that he's going to change his mind some day, I have no real reason to believe he will. I absolutely know that I'm not going to change my mind about wanting a family, so why should I believe that he's not equally adamant about NOT wanting a family?
Anyway, I know logically that it's stupid to pretend any longer that Mike and I have a relationship that will eventually go somewhere. He doesn't want it to go anywhere, so it won't. But I also don't see anything wrong with us doing what we'd been doing before: maintaing a sort of friends-with-privileges thing. As long as both of us are not in a position where there's someone else we want to get serious about, I figure we might as well. And now that I've been through him having a girlfriend, I know how I'd handle things differently next time around, that's for damn sure! I want to believe that we can maintain a casual relationship. The thing is, and I told him this this morning: if I'm gonna be a part of the rotation of women you're with, make me a part of the damn rotation!
I'm not opposed to that. It may sound bad, but I'm seriously not. The relationship I maintained for three years in college was like that the entire time: he was someone I slept with regularly, but we were not committed in any way, and we both dated and slept with other people while we were together but regardless of what else was going on in our lives we maintained our casual relationship. Yes, I eventually got tired of that relationship, but that was more getting tired of him and feeling like I was outgrowing him as a person than feeling like I was outgrowing that particular relationship format.
So to have that with Mike would be fine, good even. What doesn't work is him making me feel like I'm just an after thought, like I'm the last person he calls and he only does it because it's convenient to call me whenever there's not something more exciting going on in El Paso. I want to be given just as much respect as anyone that happens to live in the same city. I don't think that's too much to ask, all things considered.
He tells me not to worry about it, that I'm clearly not just a matter of convenience since I live 600 miles away and there's nothing convenient about that. And that I mean more to him than that, and he's not just using me. Just this morning he told me to stop questioning my value to him. And I want to believe that, that he values me still, but it's hard sometimes.

Mainly I just want to stop being weird and crazy about all this. That's one of the things he loved about me and one of the things I love most about myself: that I'm not one of those girls that gets all worked up and makes mountains out of molehills in relationships and friendships. So I really need to stop doing that right now.

Also, I really, really need to stop being a hypocrite. Because, honest truth? Were the tables turned, I'm not sure I'd be able to treat him with the sort of respect I demand for myself. So I really need to stop pretending that I'd be better than him because truthfully, I'm not sure I would.

I'm just afraid to hope that this could possibly be good, though, because look what happened last time I got hopeful.

Anyway, I need to go pack. Here's hoping that this actually ends up being as fun as I originally anticipated it would be and not a total disaster.