every Monday the company calls

My trip to Philadelphia/New Jersey went well - I gained a lot of confidence teaching my class by myself for the first time. And without notes. I got a lot of nice compliments and I feel better heading into two more classes at our largest offices in the next two months. It's amazing how well I set myself up for failure and how surprised I am when things turn out alright in the end.

I managed to come back in one piece despite a HORRIBLE delay in the Philly airport (complete with bad weather and a security scare) and the beginnings of a headcold. Spending Saturday in bed was just what the doctor ordered - and a nice win over LSU didn't hurt, either.

I had a date with N last night. I was already worried about a height difference because I noticed that he listed himself as 5'4" - about an inch/inch-and-a-half shorter than me - but I had to STOOP to hug him goodnight. Call me shallow, but I CANNOT deal with that much of a height difference. And that wasn't the only thing - he seems to live his life in a way to correct mistakes he's made in his past rather than a sense of internal drive. For instance, he attended Valdosta State and regrets not going to a bigger school, so he's taking MBA classes with Georgia State now. That's the reason that he's going to school. He doesn't like his job, but he's staying with it because he can do his job from home two days a week and has Mondays off. It's just a lack of self-motivation for something better, something more fulfilling that bothers me. So, I spent the night wanting to talk to the guy sitting to my other side at the bar than N. And the guy was talking to me - about what I ordered, about the baseball game - intermittently. Some much-older ladies sat down next to him and were overtly flirting with him. When N went to the bathroom, I asked the guy if the women were hitting on him and he said that he guessed so, even though one of the ladies had to be in her 60s - so I reminded him that there really isn't an upper age limit for cougars.

After I BENT OVER to hug my date goodnight and we went to our separate parking lots, I made a call to Biz about wanting to give my number to the other guy, but being way too shy about it. After her pep talk, I stood there in the parking lot realizing that I would regret NOT doing it - and that I really didn't care if anything ever came of it. It was the ACT itself that mattered, the getting out of my comfort zone, the putting myself out there and taking a chance.

So I got out a business card, wrote my cell phone number on the back, walked back into the restaurant and up to the guy, put my hand on his shoulder, handed him my card and said that, if things didn't work out with the cougars, to give me a call.

It felt really good.