March 15th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

OK here she be. The continuation-ay of the longest.soap opera.ever. Seriously. We’re only like, three months into the TWO YEAR SAGA. Mommy, hold me.

To catch up, go here, which has a link to the post that has all the links. Got that?

———————–

San Francisco was finally where things with Matt started to get . . . interesting.  I had brought one of my best girlfriends on the trip, and we were assigned to sleep in the guest bedroom at Matt’s parents house.  We were staying there for one night  before heading to the Russian River Valley.  The guest room had a full size bed for us to share.  Matt was assigned to sleep in his sister’s bedroom on the floor (and then Matt’s guest, who for purposes of this story we will call Stink Foot (trust me, he deserves that name and someday I’ll tell that story) was on the couch in the family room.)

We all went off to bed after our late night San Francisco sightseeing adventure.  At about 2 AM, my girlfriend and I awoke to the door squeaking open.  Matt asked if he could join us.  I wasn’t exactly going to say no (have I mentioned he was hot?) . . . so he hopped in the bed on my side and snuggled up next to me.  The THREE of us slept in the bed all night and Matt got TOTALLY busted by his Mom in the morning, seeing that he was in a bed with TWO girls and NOT in his assigned sleeping quarters.  Despite “sleeping together” that night, there had been no kissing.

That day we drove to the cabin, which was awesome.  It had a large bedroom in the back and then a sleeping porch that contained three queen size beds and then two twins.  Matt had invited his best friend who was married with a darling little boy.  They claimed the bedroom and the rest of us (there was quite a group of us at this point because more people just kept showing up) hauled our stuff to the sleeping porch.  We all claimed a bed of our own, since there were so many.  We were less than a block from the river and only a few miles from the nearest town.  We had meal plans and bathing suits and that was about it.

The first night we were there, we watched a movie and went to bed pretty late.  We all climbed in our own beds and turned off the lights.  I was in a queen and Matt was in one of the twins.  Within about half an hour, Matt scooted out of his bed and came to snuggle with me.  (Memo to all of you there were like TEN people all sharing this one room.)  that’s all that happened.  Cuddling, snuggling, hugging.  Nothing else.

The second night we were there . . . snuggling.  By this time Matt had abandoned his own bed and just started hanging out in mine.  I’m sure our parents would have been appalled, but again, TEN PEOPLE IN ONE ROOM.  What could really happen?

The third and final night, for some reason Matt and I were totally wired after everyone went to bed.  We were lying there laughing our heads off, covering our faces with pillows trying not to wake the other people in the room.  I can’t remember what was so freaking funny, but we were crying we were laughing so hard.  After about two hours, we calmed down enough to keep it to a giggle, and we were lying there facing each other, just giggling . . . and finally, it happened . . . Matt kissed me.  One single, tender kiss.  Then he hugged me tight, and we both started laughing again.

That was not only our first kiss . . . it was also our last.

March 1st, 2008 by Kateastrophe

It’s my first Soap Opera Sunday on my new blog! YAY! I’m very excited.

Thanks to Canadian Flake for hosting today. She’s one of my favoritist bloggers ever.

Linking to my story is getting very lengthy and annoying, so I’ll just send you here, which is last week’s story and all the links to the ones before. It’s very long and drawn and will continue to be so. Sorry ’bout that.

Oh and if you need rules and details of the awesome Soap Opera Sunday, Brillig has them all posted here.

———————–

I met Matt through an old friend named Kyle. They were roommates at the time. I was spending a lot of time at Kyle’s apartment because a friend of mine was dating Kyle and she had sort of taken me under her wing as her “newly single friend.”

Matt was different than any guy I’d ever dated. He really smart, in KILLER shape, working a great job, making more money than any guy I’d ever dated . . . oh and he was an inch shorter than me. He too had just ended a serious relationship and we were both just sort of . . . casually looking. Since I was at his apartment all the time, we hung out, talked about music, watched movies and found out we had a lot in common and a lot of fun together.

Kyle was off to some foreign country for the summer and after he left . . . I just sort of kept hanging out with Matt. We soon were into a routine. We got off work, went to the gym, (I was in the best shape of my LIFE having just lost 18 pounds accidentally, AND I was working out every day. Oh how I miss that body), went tanning and then got together to go to dinner and a movie (either at the theatre or at his house.). Very soon we were getting more and more affectionate and I started to think of him as my boyfriend, except we hadn’t kissed. And we never really even got close. We just sort of . . . snuggled.

Matt was awesome. I loved everything about him — except his ex-girlfriend. SHE WAS CRAZY!!! She happened to be a solid 5 inches taller than him AND was half Samoan and she was not happy that they weren’t together anymore. She’d come over to his house and BREAK HIS BEDROOM DOOR DOWN. At one point she threw his PDA across a parking lot and kicked the side of his car. OH and they WORKED TOGETHER. I’d never met her but I was seriously scared of Crazy Girl. After run-ins with her Matt would be moody and need space for a few days. It was annoying but she wasn’t really around enough to cause TOO many problems.  I think Matt was her first love and she was having a hard time moving on . . . that did scare me just a little.

About three months into our “relationship” we decided to get a bunch of friends together and go to his family’s cabin near the Russian River in Northern California. We would be spending four glorious days there. I would meet his Northern California friends, we would have great food and it would be romantic. On this trip, I was determined that Matt and I would FINALLY kiss and would be official at last.

Oh, and I should probably mention . . . Richard was still calling me every once in a while. You know . . . just to chat. And because I was a total dolt, I was still taking his calls.

February 26th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

It’s not often that I am moved and deeply touched by a blog post, but I think all of you should go read the Soap Opera Sunday post by Abish. She hosted Soap Opera Sunday this week and she really exposed herself and shared something she’d never shared before. It’s truly amazing.

Go now darlings. Read. Tell her what you think.

February 24th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Ahhh Soap Opera Sunday. Thanks so much to Abish for hosting this week! Want to know more about SOS? Click here for a description and rules! Brillig and I would love to have you play along if you’ve got any Soapy tales you’d like to share!

My story is a very long one, so if you need to play catch up, you’ll need an hour and the following links:

Ready for more??
———————-

I should have seen it coming. I should have listened to all the stories about how many times he got together and broke up with the mother of his son (even when she was ENGAGED TO SOMEONE ELSE!). I should have listened to stories of all the other girlfriends he’d had and how it was impossible for him to commit and be faithful. I thought I was different. I thought we were meant to be.

The fact that it was TIFFANY’s voice on that message made it all the harder because I had decided to hate her with all my soul already. Had it been another girl it would have sucked, but thinking that he chose Tiffany over me made me want to run both of them over with my car.

I can’t remember the exact conversation I had with Richard, but I remember asking him if he was, in fact, going to marry her. He said something along the cop-out lines of she sort of thought so and he was going along with it. I told him not to call me anymore. He didn’t even apologize.

I lost another 10-15 pounds in just a few weeks. I would wake up every morning and for a brief second, I’d be happy to face my day, and then the reality of what had happened to me would backhand me in the face and I’d start crying all over again. The depression of the previous break-up was nothing compared to this. I’d let myself hope again and the result had been even worse for me. I was depressed. I didn’t know who I was. My normal, bubbly personality was gone. I was quiet, resigned, anorexic looking and went about my days like a robot performing it’s programmed tasks. It got to the point that my Mom suggested I get a prescription for an anti-depressant. I was hesitant because I didn’t want to walk around medicated, but I knew I had to do something. I was absolutely miserable. So I went to a doctor and got me some pills.

Within two days, the clouds parted and the sunshine seemed to appear again. I started to feel HUMAN again. I was able to eat, smile, laugh and find joy in my life. I was a senior in college, halfway through my FINAL semester and I was finally back to being excited to graduate, to finish school and possibly go to New York and audition for Broadway or find whatever path my life needed to be on. I was finally excited to be alive again. And naturally, in my life, when you felt normal, you wanted BOYS. So, I went looking and in no time at all, I met a boy named Matt.

To be continued . . .

February 17th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

—————————
After Richard’s message, I turned into one of THOSE girls. The weak, sniveling, lame girl who lets a guy get away with murder as long as he apologizes and says he’ll try to be better. Except I was worse. I didn’t make Richard apologize, I didn’t call him out on how horrible he’d been — none of it. I simply tried to make things go back to how they’d been before New York.

Shockingly, things never went back. I was making all the effort. I was driving to Salt Lake two or three times a week to see him and he stopped coming down to Provo. I was arranging dates and showing up to support him at his numerous sporting events. I was being SO stupid.

The one thing he actually did was call me every night before he went to bed and I think that kept me hanging on. No matter how late he got in, he’d call. If I’d just left his house, he’d call. Those late night conversations were (and in memory continue to be) the best part about our relationship. No pretenses, no acting cool in front of others, just talking about our days, our plans . . . everything. But as any dumb idiot (except me) could see, late night phone calls were not enough, yet I tried and tried to make them be. I was hanging on by a thread.

For Valentine’s Day that year I got him a small present and planned a night for us to go out to dinner. I called him after I got off of work to arrange to meet and he didn’t answer. He didn’t call me back for four hours. We’d obviously missed our reservation and couldn’t do anything. He’d been playing basketball at the church and thought that was much more important. I was already in Salt Lake so I went to his house to give him his present, holding my breath thinking he might have purchased something for me. Nope. Nothing. I handed him his present and said “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

He looked at me frowning and said “I didn’t think we were Valentine’s Kate.”

That should have been my que to run away, right? Slap him in the face and get out. No, of course not. That, in my head, was my que to try HARDER. Go to his sports events MORE often. Get him more little presents. I had to give it my ALL to show him how awesome I was!

This was the year that Salt Lake City was hosting the Olympics, so I had a week off of school to attend the festivities, so I was in Salt Lake a lot more. Richard and I met up a few times to go to the tents set up downtown to hang out and had a good time. The night of the closing ceremonies we had talked about meeting up to go watch the fireworks, so I arrived at his house with coats, hot chocolate and blankets. He had, of course, decided he didn’t want to go anymore and that we should watch on TV. Desperate once again to spend time with him, I agreed.

We watched the show and it was great, though through the window I could hear the booming of the fireworks that we should have been OUTSIDE watching. Then we made out. Because, well, why not? I remember Richard’s phone was ringing quite a bit throughout the night, but he ignored it since I was there (a step in the right direction maybe??). After the show was over, we were sitting next to each other on the couch and Richard made what would be a fatal mistake. He went to check his voicemail and while typing his passcode, said it out loud.

I immediately started chewing my lip, wishing I could forget what had just happened. I knew myself and I knew that I would NEVER EVER be able to resist using that passcode when we weren’t together. I was far too nosy for my own good.

I lasted about three days before the itching inside took over. I will never forgt the first time I used that passcode to check his messages. I was sitting in my office at work with the door shut so no one would bother me. I picked up the phone, dialed his number, waited for his voicemail to pick up, pushed pound and then nervously dialled the four digit code. SUCCESS! I was in! He had no new messages and one saved message. Ha. Press 1 to hear saved messages. I was so going to listen to whatever it was.

What I heard was NOT what I expected. A female voice “Hi Richard! It’s Tiff! Why aren’t you picking up your phone? Why are you ingonring your fiance? I just wanted to tell you how excited I am to be your wife. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. I was watching the fireworks of the closing ceremonies tonight and thinking about how much better it would have been to be watching with you. Hope you had a good night. Love you”

I started shaking and dropped the phone. My vision suddenly blurred and I felt faint. I put my head between my knees in an attempt not to pass out and stayed there with tears streaming down my face. As soon as I had gained some sort of composure I told my boss I needed to leave for the day and I drove home sobbing hysterically. Somewhere in there I called my best friend Sheila who raced over to my house to be with me so I wasn’t alone and she held me for hours while I cried, and cried, and cried.

Don’t be shocked by what I’m about to say . . .

To Be Continued . . .

**Disclaimer: Stupid Blogger turned off their spell check, so please forgive any spelling errors. I didn’t know until right now it was turned off and I don’t have Word on this computer. From now on I promise to spell check and all that stuff. PROMISE.

February 3rd, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Welcome back to Soap Opera Sunday! Thanks to Shellie of Little But Loud for hosting this week! We love, love , love you guys for hosting for us! For the details and rules of SOS, check out this post!

Now, my story has been going for quite a while now, so if you need to catch up (prepare yourselves) you need to go
here
here
here
here
here
here
then finally here for the whole story.

PHEW. All caught up? Ok let’s continue . . .
——————-

Pretty much the rest of the trip to New York sucked for me. I won’t go into the gory details, but as you can tell, Richard spent a lot of time on the phone, presumably with SHE who shall not be named (at this moment at least!), a lot more time watching sports and ignoring me. I spent a lot of time trying not to cry as I lost the boy I thought was my future.

On the plane ride home we talked and I tried to calmly beg him to give me another chance. He was having none of it. It was too fast (UM who’s fault was THAT?), it was too much, he wasn’t ready, blah blah blah.

His family was at the airport to pick him up when we landed. We waved good-bye and I hopped in the car with Rhonda and her boyfriend (who had picked us up) and held in my tears until I walked in the door of my house.

Then the gates of hell were opened. Right in our front entry, I dropped my suitcase, fell into a massive heap on the floor and started to sob. I had never in my life, despite being dumped more times than I care to count, felt this kind of emptiness and despair. I felt hollow and broken. I cried and cried and cried until I couldn’t speak and there were no more tears. I fell asleep sobbing and woke up every hour through the night and began sobbing again.

I couldn’t get out of bed the next morning. My Mom had to drag me from under the covers and force me into the shower. It was my first day of my final semester in college and there was no way I could miss it. My usual half and hour morning routine took me two hours. My skin was ashen, my eyes were lifeless and my hair was limp.

I went to school but I wasn’t there. I went to work but I wasn’t there either. I don’t know where I was. I was like a robot, going from place to place with no real concept of what was going on around me.

Adrienne was furious when I told her what had happened. She too had thought Richard and I were meant to be together. She had known Richard since the beginning of high school and couldn’t believe he would treat anyone the way I had been treated the last week.

My other friends, who already hated Richard, I’m sure had to bite their tongues to hold back the “told you so” and they were so wonderful. They were with me every day, trying to make sure I was eating and functioning.

Within four days all of my clothes were too big. My already skinny body began to look emaciated and hollows began to form around my once shining eyes. I was in a deep dark depression and felt like I was never going to get out.

Then, exactly one week from the day we returned from New York I got a message from Richard on my cell phone.

“Hey bud! I miss you! Where have you been and why haven’t you been calling me? I still owe you a romantic birthday dinner, just the two of us. Call me back and we’ll make plans. Wherever you want, whatever you want. Seriously, I miss you. Call me back.”

January 27th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

So, um, I’m sort of lazy and pretty much a cheapskate. They didn’t have wireless internet at my sister’s house and I was having way too much fun to blog (gasp! I know!) and then wireless wasn’t free at the airport. Sooooo, you’re getting an incredibly late version of Soap Opera Sunday. Again. But at least on Sunday this time, right?

To catch up on my super long saga, you can go here, here, here, here, here and here. And don’t even worry, we haven’t even covered the first month of Richard’s and my relationship yet!

Well, last week when we left off I had just been dumped on my birthday and Richard was being a douche AND we were on our way to my scary Dad’s house.

I rented the car and we headed out to drive the two-ish hours to Lancaster, PA. Since the car was in my name, Richard wasn’t supposed to drive it, I had to drive the whole time, and like the kind ex-boyfriend he was turning out to be, he slept the whole time. Oh and I got HORRIBLY lost. So our two hour drive turned into a four hour drive and I had no companion the entire time because he was snoring. Stellar.

When we arrived, my Dad was cooking dinner and before even saying hi he turns from the stove and shouts “Hey honey! Happy Birthday! Did you get drunk?”

“No Dad. Still Mormon. Still no drinking.”

“Well did you get laid?”

“Nope. Still Mormon. Still no sex.”

“What a f***ing waste of time!”

“Uhhh, Dad, this is Richard. Richard, my father in all his glory.”

Things just went downhill from there (just when you think it can’t get worse, right?). My stepmother wasn’t home yet and Dad just set out to grill Richard. Why didn’t he see his son? Was he going to church? Why didn’t he go to church? Didn’t he know that the girl he was dating took church very seriously? It went on and on and on and was making both Richard and I very uncomfortable. Especially considering our extremely recent break-up that I hadn’t told anyone about yet.

Yikes.

We had an awkward family dinner and went downstairs to watch football, which was turning out to be the only thing Richard wanted to do. He, of course, left the room to talk on the phone several times, but we spent the rest of the day watching all the games. I was pretty tired and headed to bed, asking him to come talk to me for a while. I was going to get to the bottom of the recent dumping and find out what the crap was going on.

Our conversation was actually going really well until at some point in the conversation I asked him a question about his family. I don’t remember what his response was exactly, but I remember he looked at me and called me Tiffany.

Tiffany was the Ex. The really recent Ex who I had just found out apparently had a problem with Richard and I being set up. The Ex who had sought out Adrienne (who had set us up) and asked her why she thought it was OK to set up HER boyfriend Richard with someone else. The boyfriend she had dumped. The Ex I already hated for trying to force Richard into going back to church before he was ready and who just seemed lame and pushy all the way around. And now he was apparently mistaking me for her. Then, within about fifteen minutes, he called me Tiff four or five times.

My feelings were very hurt. Once I could understand but FIVE TIMES? I was sort of at the end of my rope. With tears streaming down my face I asked him to leave the room and let me go to bed. We had a long drive back to New York the next day and were going to see The Lion King the next night. I needed to sleep and be away from him for a while.

The drive back sucked. We hardly said a word to each other and he made it very, very clear that he was mad that we were going to a musical when he just wanted to watch the College Football National Championship on TV. Too bad, said me, we had tickets and we were going. Final word on the issue.

Before the show, we were shopping near Rockefellar Plaza, I believe in the Banana Republic. I was across the room from Richard and he was on the phone with someone . . . and I had a feeling it was a girl because of the way he was talking. In my gut I knew who it was . . . I just KNEW, but I was hoping I was wrong.

Then, he did the most horrible, mean, stupid thing a guy has ever done to me.

He shouts, across the room “Hey Kate! What’s your last name? Tiff wants to know, I guess she had a cousin who went to high school with you.”

A. He didn’t even remember MY LAST NAME
B. TIFF?????? ON THE PHONE WITH HIM? WHILE WE WERE ON VACATION IN NEW YORK TOGETHER??
C. Bastard

Ever notice how when the guy you like has some sort of “thing” with another girl you stupidly decide to hate the girl rather than the retard you’re dating? Yeah, I did that. At that moment I decided I hated Tiffany with every last fiber of my being. HATED. HER. And would continue to do so for the next two years of my life.

That’s right folks, you heard me. TWO. YEARS.

Told you this saga lasts forever.

January 22nd, 2008 by Kateastrophe

See!? I promised you an early Soap Opera Sunday and HERE IT IS! Woo hoo!!
———————————– I wish I could say my last experience with New York was as awesome as all the others, however, I was not so lucky.

The day after Christmas Rhonda and I were going to visit another friend of ours who had moved to New York to be closer to her fiance, and Richard was going to join us there on the 30^th of December, which was the day before my 21^st birthday. Our friends lived in Stamford, about half an hour outside of the city and there were going to be five of us crammed in their tiny apartment but we were so excited to be there that we didn’t care. The first few days before Richard arrived were glorious. We shopped and ate delicious food and played in the city to our hearts content. I was so excited for Richard to join us and to let my friends get to know who he really was. Alas, this was not to be.

Richard’s arrival really shook things up. He immediately (though accidentally) insulted our host and hostess and must have been on edge because he was being SO annoying. He turned up his normal attitude and just rubbed everyone, including me, the wrong way. I couldn’t believe this was the same man. He seemed insecure and rude and pushy and NOT the Richard of the past month. To top it all off, he seemed to be avoiding me. He spent a lot of time outside talking on his cell phone. Now, granted, he was a total mama’s boy who had never traveled this far from his home and family (at least without one of them present.) so I was trying to cut him some slack. Then, the other shoe that I’d been watching for, dropped.

On his first night there, just the two of us were up late, ringing in my birthday with a funny conversation and then it all of a sudden got serious and Richard said “I’m not sure we should date exclusively anymore. It’s just too much too soon.”

Record scratching, ears ringing, que the tears. I. WAS. DEVASTATED. Luckily we were in the dark, so Richard couldn’t see the tears pouring down my face. I don’t even remember how the rest of the conversation went. All I could think about was that my entire week was ruined. Did I send him home? Did I keep him in New York and try to convince him that we SHOULD date exclusively? And ON MY BIRTHDAY? HE DUMPS ME ON MY BIRTHDAY??? I think I went through all the stages of grieving in about fifteen minutes.

Then, after he had just dumped me, on my birthday, on a trip to New York, for the first time in over a month, he tried to make out with me.

Being the stupid, idiotic, retarded, just dumped birthday girl that I was . . . I let him.

I also decided to let him stay in New York. Because I’m dumb. Really dumb.

I woke up the next morning feeling like a total idiot and then tried to secretly explain to my girlfriends what had happened the night before. I spent the day in a fog, trying to be happy and have a good time. We were going to spend New Year’s in Times Square watching the ball drop. This was just after September 11^th and security was CRAZY, but we found an ingenious way to get all the way to the center of Times Square at 11:30 so we didn’t have to wait for hours in the freezing cold. I was so excited to be IN Times Square for New Year’s Eve and all Richard could do was complain about how cold it was. As we counted down to midnight, and everyone around us were kissing in the New Year, I looked expectantly at Richard for a midnight kiss, and he LOOKED THE OTHER WAY.

The next morning we had rented a car to drive the two hours to my Dad’s house in Pennsylvania. Originally, I had planned on Richard and my Dad meeting, falling in love and the wedding going forward. Now I had a very bad feeling about what would happen when Richard met my Dad. Very, very, very bad. And as horrible as I imagined it, I’m pretty sure what really happened was worse.

January 21st, 2008 by Kateastrophe

So check me and my crappy weekend out.

Saturday morning, I woke up energized and happy. I went and worked out, got some stuff done around the house and then went to the mall with Matt. At the mall I started coughing up crap out of NOWHERE. Then, as the day moved on, I deteriorated and by the end of the night I was curled up in a miserable ball of achy, feverish chills and have remained that way ever since.

That’s why I didn’t write part 800 of my Soap Opera and I’m SO sorry. Dragging my butt upstairs to write this was about all the energy I had in me. Oh and I leave tomorrow morning for Orlando. I’m so excited. See my excited face. Nope, dreading the flight. HOWEVER, I am upgraded to first class, so at least I’ll be miserable in some sort of comfort on the plane.

I owe you guys a SOS post, so I promise to write it this week from my hotel room and not make you wait until Sunday. Deal?

OK off to bed with me. Kisses!

January 19th, 2008 by Kateastrophe

Hola. Welcome back to Soap Opera Sunday. Brilly-pooh and I decided it was my turn to host this week and I’m SUPER excited?? My story won’t be up for a little while but I wanted to make sure you guys could start entering your names in the Mr. Linky for your stories!

I have quite a few new readers (HI! Love you guys!) so if you’re confused and wonder what the crap Soap Opera Sunday is, go here to find the details and the rules! The more the merrier! We love hearing all your soapy tales! Make sure to leave a comment after your link and go read the stories! They are always SO great!

We also have an anonymous blog for Soap Opera Sunday just in case you want to share a story that you’re not as comfortable sharing on your own blog!

While I work on writing the NEXT part of my saga, you can catch up on the drama
here
here
here
here
aaaand here

All caught up? Good. Now you have to wait for the next part, but not much longer!!!