Different Than Expected

I really did expect to be over my goddamn cold by now. Thing is, everyone, fucking everyone, that I know has a slightly different version of the same cold. So if I didn't get it from the bad air circulation at work, I got it from making out, and if I didn't get it from making out, I probably got it from sharing a cup or dishes with someone at some point. Or touching a grocery cart and then touching my face. According to my mother, grocery carts are dirtier than pay phones.

At any rate, my nose is raw, and if I lie down for more than a half hour, I can't breathe through my nose. My left sinus is so plugged, I can't even tell if it's dripping or not. You know where that puts me? In dangerous proximity to the Things That Cause Coldsores: mouth breathing, depressed immune system, bad sleeps. I feel disgusting.

The big upside of starting to date someone in February is that come summertime, my paramour isn't going to know what the fuck hit him. Because I will not be snuffly and sniffly, I won't be dripping snot, my skin won't be scaly, and my lips won't be constantly covered in blisters and/or scabs. It's a miracle he's still dating me, quite frankly.

Speaking of my paramour, I have made a blogging decision. I've never been particularly fond of the term "my paramour" as a code word for him. It's fine as a descriptor, and paramour is a great word, but really he's not actually my possession. The consistent use of a possessive pronoun attached to a word meant to represent him was making me a little uneasy.

I did think of "the paramour." But even though I'm in that stage of dating where I sometimes find it hard to believe that other people exist, I do recognize that the world contains other paramours. Nickname nixed due to a definite article.

But I haven't been able to come up with a good acronym either. I briefly thought of a whole bunch of different acronyms. But none of them fit.

What's left, you ask? In a radical move, I shall start referring to him by his real name.

Eric.

I figure that his friends who read this and my friends who read this already knew that "my paramour"="eric." And the rest of you, well, there are any number of Erics in Ottawa. He could be any one of them.

But lucky for me he's not. He is the Eric who participated in a day that ended up being radically different than planned.

Shelley, Steve, Mitch and I were supposed to meet our friends Jacquie and Chris at a cottage somewhere today. Shelley is an excellent planner, so I was just sort of going along for the ride and for the first while the trip was planned, I'd no idea where it really was, and only a vague idea of what it was going to be like once we got there. Thing is, with Shelley planning, you know you're going to get somewhere good. So I didn't worry. I just decided I would get in the car when it showed up and have fun. And it was supposed to show up at 2:15.

But the weather here was a little nutty, so no showing today.

Instead, the 2 hour date I had planned with Eric turned into a 9 hour date. It started with [fun] and ended with [fun] and we managed to fit some other [fun] in too. We ate lunch at 6 pm.

Tomorrow, the car is definitely showing up at 8:30 in the am and we're headed off to the cottage, which I now know is somewhere near Picton. I expect there will be good food eating, nice wine drinking, a good deal of laughter and maybe some snowshoeing.

Though I suppose that could turn out different than expected too. There just might be Guinness instead of wine.