You don’t need to throw me a soft pitch just because I’m a girl…

I often receive comments on this blog with which I disagree. They don’t bother me. I enjoy the array of perspectives. But sometimes, just sometimes, I feel the need to respond publicly, not because I’m pissed off or need to prove them wrong, but because sometimes you just need to educate the masses. It’s a civic duty really, and I take it pretty seriously.

A week or so ago I wrote a post on this blog about my discomfort with weddings, my hideous fear of marriage, and the psychological trauma this has caused me in the wake of my brother’s impending nuptials.

To which some highly astute anonymous individual replied:

Here's the thing, though. All these weddings don't have to be about you. Surely you can be in a moment and watch an event happen without it having anything to do with you personally. Of the 50% of marriages that fail, 50% succeed. Folks get married, have children, build houses, have interesting personal and professional lives; grow old and have huge holiday gatherings all the time without suffering any effects consistent with the death of one's soul.

I think part of it is not meeting the ying to your yang, but part of it is not being willing to entertain the idea that committing yourself to a lifetime of narissism [sic] and self-exploration might ultimately seem more like a prison than building a life together with someone else. For many, marriage isn't the end of their single existence so much as it is the beginning of something much more meaningful and profound. Your parents had you and you have gushed about how wonderful your relationship with them has been. Contrast that depth and meaning with an image of your mother's single alter ego, browning in the autumn son [sic] of her adulthood while she lives out of a hip urban apartment and looks forward to weekends of hitting on similarly greying [sic] divorcees at the local old peoples' bar, sans legacy, marriage or children burdening her. Could her choice to marry and have you come close to measuring up?

I also prefer dress #2. I hope your brother receives nothing but beeming [sic] support from his sister who is also wildly happy for him on his wedding day.

Dude, for reals? You’re really going to post that on this blog? I mean, have you not been reading?

Dear Anonymous,

Thanks for your insight and comments. We dig comments on this blog and encourage them, but well, let me just make a few remarks.

I am wildly happy for my brother. Some days I like his fiancé more than I like him. He’s a really lucky guy. His marriage (if you read both posts closely) has never been an issue. You say that I have turned this into something that is “all about me.” Well, here’s the deal. Imagine one of your greatest fears, be it skydiving, public speaking, running into a burning building, or accompanying a blog comment with actual identifying characteristics. Now imagine that someone you really love has asked you to do it because it’s *really* important to them.

On the one hand, you’re considering their feelings. On the other, you’re thinking, “Oh HOLY SHIT.” The main reason that I don’t want to be a bridesmaid at his wedding is that I’m thinking of him. I want the guests to be focusing on my brother and my sis-in-law and their love, not the fact that a bridesmaid has fainted during the ceremony only to be revived and start puking all over the officiant. I’d feel like such an asshole if that happened, and that it’s a possibility makes me all the more terrified of being in the wedding. So you see, it is expressly because I am thinking of my brother and sis (in-law) that this whole conflict has come about.

Again, we’re not talking about something I would just prefer not to do. We’re talking about a real and actual fear.

Second, you seem to make an assumption that my dislike of marriage somehow equates to not wanting a long-term relationship and/or children. Again, if you’d read this blog closely, you would know this is not the case. My issue is now and has always been with the concept of marriage itself. For the billionth time, I take issue with legally binding myself to another person, and as I’ve stated before, I feel (personally) as if it actually serves to CHEAPEN the relationship between two people. If someone I loved also loved me and wanted to spend their life with me long-term, I would hope that I would have enough trust and faith in that person and the relationship to not say, “Sounds good. Let’s put it in writing just to be on the safe side.”

Let’s look at two phrases from your comment for a moment.

“…part of it is not being willing to entertain the idea that committing yourself to a lifetime of narissism [sic] and self-exploration might ultimately seem more like a prison than building a life together with someone else…. Your parents had you and you have gushed about how wonderful your relationship with them has been."

Hopefully, seeing these two together in tandem, you can now see how they are conflicting statements. Yes, I have gushed about my relationship with my parents. I have also gushed about how much I adore my brother and my sister as well as how much I value my friends. And then there are the posts about caring for my grandparents during my twenties after both of them were diagnosed with terminal illnesses. I have stated (numerous times) that human connections are the most important things to be had in life.

Pray tell, how am I a narcissist? Forgive me, no one ever told me that rejection of marriage was the defining characteristic of a narcissist.

But now we’re getting to the best part, and here you’re really going to get slammed… because OHMYGOD, YOU DID NOT JUST INSULT MY MOTHER!

Let’s revisit your words for a moment, shall we?

“Contrast that depth and meaning with an image of your mother's single alter ego, browning in the autumn son [very telling sic] of her adulthood while she lives out of a hip urban apartment and looks forward to weekends of hitting on similarly greying [sic] divorcees at the local old peoples' bar, sans legacy, marriage or children burdening her. Could her choice to marry and have you come close to measuring up?”

Dude, are you some middle-aged white guy living in a completely isolated existence? As if to suggest that if my mother had not married or raised children her life would be less fulfilling or without the same value? And that if such had happened, she’d be spending her time sitting at a bar talking to someone like you?

Legacy? Some of the women who have left the greatest legacies in society never had children. They left us their writings, their paintings, their thoughts. They influenced, not a small brood, but the entire world.

I’m half-tempted to call my mother and ask a) her reaction to your comment and/or b) whether or not my existence or the existence of my siblings, marriage to my father, etc is what gives her her meaning in life. In response to the second question, I am nearly positive that she would laugh hysterically and then say, “No offense, Ana. I’m not saying that you weren’t a fascinating child or that you continue to fascinate me today, but my life and my identity…doesn’t center around you.”

For the first part, she’d make no comment – partially because she’s too “polite” and partially because she’s far too superior to even waste thirty seconds of typing on it.

My mother is an amazing person who deserves to be viewed as an individual rather than as a supporting actress.

And just for a moment, where do you think my vigor in all of this comes from? Have you ever thought for two seconds that part of my outlook might have come from, oh I don’t know, the greatest influences of my life? As in, my mother and father?

It’s interesting that in your whole assessment of an alternative world, you fail to address my father. Could he still live a fulfilling life without my existence? Do you simply name my mother because we have vaginas in common, and therefore I could more readily identify with her situation? Awesome. Not only do you insult my mother, but you somehow manage to degrade the relationship I have with my father.

As a final note, I will direct you to the people I link to and the people who comment most frequently on this blog. They are:

Magic Cookie
Butterlyfish
Lag Liv
PT-Law Mom

They are all married with children. I adore them. They seem to like me. We all chat offline. I respect and admire them. I consider them to be my friends in a manner of sorts, and when they comment, they are always supportive.

You cannot compare the life of a single person to a married person or a married-with-children person or a single with children person. It’s apples and oranges. One type does not have more value or a more fulfilling life than the other. I think the women above realize this. And for the sake of my sex/relationship life, I wish more people did in general.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to spend an unfulfilling evening with my unfulfilling friends watching an unfulfilled artist.

I remain affectionately yours,

Ana

And PS - My mother wouldn't live in a hip urban apartment. In her fantasy, it's a cute 1920's bungalow. I know because she tells me about it all the time. She feels comfortable sharing her dreams of if she'd never gotten married and had kids because she knows that I'm smart enough not to take it personally. I mean, her life? I'm part of it, but I'm not exclusively it.

Athletic Force Majeure...

So, I’m working on a project for North Africa, and the other day, I emailed my counterpart in Algeria to say:

Hey Dude,

What’s up? I still need that stuff we talked about last week in order to proceed.

Hugs & Kisses,

Ana


He emailed back:

Dude,

Really sorry about that. We’re currently in a national security crisis right now. Egypt and Algeria had a football match and all hell broke loose. We had to evacuate all of our Egyptian employees for personal safety reasons, and now we are seriously screwed in the manpower department.

Will get your stuff as soon as possible.

Peace Out & Go Algeria,
Mohamed

Goin' to the Chapel...

Did I scare you with that title? Did you think it was for me? Gah, no! NEVER! I promise you, I will never-ever-ever have some kind of fancy-schmancy wedding ceremony. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

But First!

Brother and Sis-in-Law are getting married in April, and the planning has started to heat up. If you remember, I wrote a post about it shortly after Christmas last year because they asked me to be a bridesmaid, and I was having an existential crisis over it all. In my thirty-four years, I’ve always managed to squirm my way out of being one, but this time I knew I couldn’t say, “Uh, no thanks.”

Anyhoo, the bridesmaid dresses have been announced. Well, sort of. We can pick out anything we want in the color champagne from David’s Bridal. When I first got the email, I cringed a little bit at the whole David’s Bridal thing, but given that the bridesmaids live in Houston, Seattle, and somewhere in North Carolina AND the wedding is in Oxnard, California, I figured that Sis-in-Law had picked the site to make it easier on all of us rather than pick a cute dress shop in L.A. where we’d all have to fly out ten times in order to get a dress.

Now, while we each supposedly get to pick a dress, the Bride did include in her email the one which she *thought* I would end up wearing. Here it is:

(Both photos are from davidsbridal.com)

Um…I can kinda see why they picked it out for me. I mean, it’s a classic cut, and it's pretty, but it varies from my taste in a few ways. First, I don’t like showing my legs unless I’m in tights. Seriously. I own like two pairs of shorts, and I never wear them. There’s nothing wrong with my legs. I just don’t like to show them for whatever reason. Second, I have a tiny waist – so the less Empire-waisted, the better. This dress has the potential to look like a sack on me. I mean, I’ll go the store and try it on. Who knows? My bro and sis-in-law might be right. It might be the most flattering one for me.

Here’s the one I’m leaning towards in the meantime:


Minus the come-hither stare and hair-flip, of course. This one works well because it a) covers my legs, b) is cinched at the waist, and c) I’m somewhat pear-shaped, and for a dress like this I’d only have to worry about sizing in the top. (I guess what I’m trying to say is on top I’m a size 0 and on the bottom, I’m a 1 or a 2, and sometimes this makes buying dresses difficult.) The other reason I think a long dress would be good – they’re getting married on the beach – which means no heels to elongate your legs. The Bride has given us the option of bare feet or flip-flops.

So there you go. At some point, I’ll have to go to the actual store to try these little numbers on. I keep thinking it will be fun and goofy, but I have a strange fear that it will end like that episode in S&TC where Carrie is standing in a dress and then all of the sudden starts breaking out into hives and screaming, “GET THIS OFF ME!!!!”

While I have invited everybody and their dog to the bachelor/bachelorette party in Vegas (because let’s be serious – my family is not the type to pull out the stupid veil, cover my SIL in condoms, or do anything remotely bachelorette-y – this is just going to be a group of kids goofing off in Vegas) I will not be taking anyone of remote romantic interest to the actual wedding.

You see, weddings and I have a little bit of history. Not only do I avoid being a bridal attendant like the plague, I avoid weddings in general. In my adult life, I have been to a grand total of THREE, and here’s what happened:

1) At one, I fainted when the two people signed their marriage license;
2) At another, I freaked out during some portion of the wedding when the pastor-person started saying things like, “From this day forward, they will only have one life, and neither will be known without the other…” So bothered was I by the one-ness statements that I actually got up in the middle of the wedding and tried to leave. A friend held me in a death grip and sat me back down on the pew while I whispered as quietly as possible, “I can’t breathe. I need to leave. I think I’m going to die.”
3) And that third wedding, well, I actually took my first and only date to that one. It seemed harmless enough. I mean, he wasn’t just my boyfriend – we were living together. The two of us flew in from the West Coast to Texas, and I made it through most of the ceremony just fine– although I sat without my boyfriend, perched aloft in the church with the organist (I sang in the wedding), my bird’s eye view allowing me to look over the scene as if I wasn’t really a part of it.

At the reception, I fluttered around with my old friends, doing anything to distract myself until my boyfriend pulled me aside and whined that he didn’t know anyone there, and I wasn’t attending to him properly. I looked him square in the face and said, “When I saw those two people get married today, I realized how in love they were, and I also realized that I don’t love you like that. Not only do I not love you in that way, but I know in my heart that I will never love you like that and now that’s it’s so clear to me, I don’t see any point in continuing this relationship. AT THE RECEPTION PEOPLE! IN ANOTHER STATE! He spent the rest of the evening in the motel by himself, and a few days later, I put him on a plane. My flight was supposed to leave an hour after his, but after I’d watched him walk through the gate, I ran down to the desk and extended my stay in Texas for another week, left a voicemail on our machine saying I wouldn’t be home for awhile, and then proceeded to party my ass off over the next few days. (And YES, my friends STILL talk about it.)

And it's not something I appear to be growing out of. Just a few weeks ago, one of my friends from law school was getting married, and the day of the event, I sat at brunch with Wine-Time-Girl slamming mimosas as if they were shots. I was a basket-case. I mean, I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to go, and WTG finally convinced me that I shouldn’t go. So instead we made up this story about how I, um, got lost on the way to the church and afraid of walking in late to the ceremony, just went straight to the reception.

The fear is profound, people. I can date. I can take the title of girlfriend (sometimes). I cannot handle the idea of legally binding myself to another person for FOREVER. One person? Forever? It goes against everything rational to me. It just freaks me out to no end. I mean, I’ve never been able to stay with a person for even a year. (By the way, this makes Boy #4’s flip-out a few weeks ago all the more ridiculous in context. I am planning to write an unedited post on my whole reaction to *that* situation, but a) I wanted to give him the chance to redeem/explain himself with a face to face meeting, or b) wait until I figured he’d stopped reading this blog. I think enough time has gone by now for both.)

So yeah, I’m thinking that if I take a date to my brother’s wedding, it will probably be fairy-god-brother, as he seems the most well-equipped to talk me down from the ceiling when I am curled up in the fetal position right outside the reception hall. Yet another reason to wear a long dress – so I don’t accidentally moon someone during the experience.

My brother’s getting married! Oh joy.

Ana Can Haz Internetz...

Growing up, I think my mother thought that chicks got screwed in a lot of life. Because of that she trained her daughters to be independent, assertive, and self-reliant.

Today, I am kick-ass at a lot of things, but two areas plague me. I have difficulty reaching objects in high places, and I suck at technology.

The first drawback makes sense given my midget status, but the second failure always draws a blank for me. I love taking things apart and putting them back together. I know how to change a tire, change a car battery, and at one point, knew how to change the oil, but gadgets? Ick, it takes me forever to adopt them and love them.

Take for example:
My (first and only) stereo – it was given to me by my father in 1991;
My (first and only) TV – purchased by my father in 1997 after my boyfriend always wanted to watch movies at his stinky apartment where he lived with several roommates;
My (first and only) VCR – inherited in 1998 during the division of items when the boyfriend (by now a live-in) and I broke up;
My (first and only) DVD player – given to me by my brother for Xmas in approximately 2000…after he gave me a DVD in 1999 and I failed to purchase a player for it;
My (first and only) Computer/laptop – given to me by my mother in 2004…because I was writing my law school applications at work. (Sadly, my Stinkpad has now passed on. A moment of silence, please.)
My (first and only) ipod – won in a drawing in 2008.
My (first and only) blackberry – forced on me by work in 2009 after receiving my promotion. I still don’t know how to use it except to check college football scores on ESPN during the weekends.

There is absolutely no excuse for any of this. During childhood, we were the first people on the block to own a VCR (1977?), a Pong (1979), a personal computer (1981), and every other technological whiz-bang that my dad paid three times as much for as the person who bought it the next year.

To add insult to injury, my father worked at IBM for thirty years of my life, and my little sister works at that “little” software company in Seattle that starts with an M.

About the only technological thing I have ever been good at is the internet. Back when the information highway was just a babe and Mosaic was the browser of choice, I petitioned the Graduate School of Library Sciences to take an internet class because it was the only department in all of UTexas that offered a course. One of my first jobs out of college was sitting at a computer all day collecting information about people from online sources. To this day, it’s amazing what I can dig up on someone in fifteen minutes or less. This is why there’s only one site on the internet that carries my real name. I mean sure, there are other sites with *my* name, but that’s another person. You’ll only find the real me at austinchronicle.com.

I love the internet. I have trouble functioning without it, and why the move to my new apartment has been so difficult. The internet SUCKed here. And every day, I swear it got worse, until a few days ago when I couldn't even load my gmail. I did everything to try and figure out what was wrong. When I finally tested my internet speed do you know what it told me? After several failed attempts where the darn thing timed out, I learned that my download speed was somewhere between 37-150 kbps. Now I may be technologically retarded, but I do know the unit system, and my wireless router (given to me by my father in 2005 when he purchased a new one) could handle transfers of 11 mbps, and why in the heck would you need that much for....okay, I'm too tired to work out the decimals here, but you know what I mean. .037 mbps? .150 mbps? Is that right?

Sad. So sad. So I gave up, gave in, and finally called my Internet Service Provider. (Actually, I contacted them online via chat while at work so I wouldn’t actually have to talk to anyone.) After about an hour’s worth of baloney, they finally decided that *I* was not the problem, and today a technician came out to check the line.

A few whirs and clicks later, and voila, a speed test revealed a download rate of 22,000 kbps. I know. That still probably sucks, but I think it's awesome. I mean, I can load my email now.

I vaguely considered asking the technician if he wanted to make out because, for a solid sixty seconds I was actually in love with the guy, but I needed to get back to work.

I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. It's like when you haven't dated anybody for ages and finally get laid.

Love it!

So I’m not sick anymore…or who knows, maybe I am insofar as my boss just came into my office and asked if I needed to go home. I have a nasty cough and the sniffles, but I don’t want to leave because, dork-o-rama, I love my job and am so happy to be back after missing three days.

Why do I love it? I dunno. It could be because I work with great people or the work is interesting or whatever, but I think a lot of it is just pure silliness. I mean, I love working everyday with people who live in countries that I can barely pronounce. Everyone travels for their job, and I swear, the out-of-office replies make me smile.

The latest one I received today?

“I am on travel in Siberia…”

Siberia! That’s so cool. I want to go! I know. I’m probably the only person in the world who wants to visit Siberia, but seriously…Siberia!

Hmm, I wonder if I can get the attorney in Moscow to send me one of those cool little fur hats...and maybe the long wool coat...and army boots!

And I might wear purple too!

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been sick these past few days, or maybe I’m just completely worn out from everything, but this morning, as I was walking the dog and feeling sicker with each step, I passed a little old lady and was surprised when the thought passed my mind, “I want to be old!”

At first glance it makes no sense. Aren’t all of us in our own way trying to run from death in one form or fashion? Even those of us who have accepted our mortality don’t exactly want to accelerate the process and wouldn’t that be what I was doing if I suddenly jumped ahead 20-30 years?

No, I’m not ready to die, but this morning I found things to look forward to later on. I imagined myself alone in a little cottage by the sea or maybe by a lake or maybe a cabin in the Ozarks. Scratch that. I imagined a cabin on the lake in the Ozarks or other acceptable mountain range. In the mornings (when my body was up for it) I would walk the trails with my dogs, not tiny terriers (no offense, Martha), but really-really big dogs like a Bernese Mountain dog and a St. Bernard.

The afternoons would be spent sitting on the dock with either a sketchpad or a notebook and a glass of hot tea or cold lemonade depending on the season. I could write my memoirs or my observations on becoming older or perhaps even revive the long lost art of correspondence. There of course would be a town a few miles away and once a week or so, I load the dogs into the back of the pick-up truck and head down there for groceries.

It’s a charming little town that’s not much more than a square with a courthouse in the middle. The courthouse isn’t a courthouse anymore since the town’s become so small, and everyone drives to a larger city thirty miles away when they need to litigate. It does however still house a clerk’s office for deeds and licenses and whatnot. The rest of the building is used for other town services. There’s a welcome center (that is mostly frequented by locals due to the free coffee served between the hours of 6 and 10 am), a few meeting rooms (where the city council meets once a month), and the courthouse itself has been converted into a library.

I get into town around 9:45 am and head straight for the visitor center hoping to take advantage of the free coffee.

“Fred, the pot needs refilling,” I yell holding up the empty glass canister for him to see.

Fred has lived in this town all his life, and even though I’ve been here for the last fifteen years, he still considers me an outsider. His world is one of rules and obeisance.

“Ana, you know if I make a pot now, there’s no way the whole thing will be drunk by ten. Plus, that coffee’s for the visitors.”

In the corner, Rick and Cathy are ensconced in a game of chess, and I glance over at them rolling my eyes. They smile back because all of us know it’s been years since a stranger walked through these doors.

“Just for me, Fred?” I plead. “I’ll pay ya.”

Fred gives me a look of consternation, as if I’d just asked him to help me hide a body, and shakes his head no. I shrug to Rick and Cathy, then walk out the door calling, “Nice seeing ya, Fred,” and head for the library.

Oh god, Lucinda. Lucinda works at the library Mondays and Wednesdays. Though she’s lived in the town for less than five years, she knows every detail about every person in it, and isn’t afraid to talk about it or add a little extra to the story for the sake of color. She’s barely ten years younger than me, but still spends about an hour a day on hair, make-up, and dress, as if she expects her prince charming to come sauntering into our little library one day. If it happens she wants to be ready. Personally, I can’t stand her. By Lucinda’s telling, she was the wife of a prominent surgeon for many years until he ran off with a young and nimble nurse. It’s one of those sad, but true clichés, and I might feel sorry for her if she wasn’t such a dim-witted busybody.

“Mornin’,” I try to say in my least insincere voice as I walk up to the counter to retrieve the book I’d put on hold.

“Well hello there!” she exclaims with excitement, already reaching for the book as if she was waiting for my arrival.

Damn, she must have some dirt on me or else she wouldn’t look so happy. I briefly scroll through the rolodex of my memory trying to figure out what I’ve done in the past week that could possibly be construed as scandalous, but then give up, knowing that Lucinda is bound to reveal it in the next thirty seconds or less.

“So,” she says holding the book firmly in her heavily-lotioned hands with thickly polished nails that are just a little bit long for my taste, “I hear Frank was up at your place last week.”

Frank, not Fred. I would just like to clarify this. Fred was most certainly not at the cabin last week. Ah yes, I should have seen this coming. Frank raises about as much gossip in town as I do, though for a different reason. He minds his own business, keeps to himself, speaks in short, simple phrases. No one knows much about him, including myself. However, he is a lover of nature, and knows his way around a forest. He can repair and fix nearly any household item. The others don’t know this, but I do, and at moments Frank is as close to handyman as I’ve found in this town. Do I have romantic notions? I suppose. Dark, mysterious, complex, closed-off. What’s not to like?

“Um yeah, he came over to check and see how my cucumbers were coming along,” I tell Lucinda flatly.

Did I mention that I have a little victory garden in the back of the cabin?

“Oh, I bet he did,” giggles Lucinda as if she holds some nugget of erotic information.

God, this woman is two-dimensional, as two-dimensional as a cardboard cut-out character in a piece of poorly written fiction. And yet, she can sense that I’m hiding something, which I am, but not what she thinks. It is true, Frank did come over to survey the vegetable garden, but he stayed for a glass or two of wine, and by the early hours of the morning we found ourselves reading passages of William Blake to each other, BUT NOT in the way you’re thinking. It was a silly, dramatic, mocking version of reading, and the only thing remotely rapacious was our laughter. We eventually fell asleep by the fire in the den, I on the couch, and him in the big leather chair. By the time the dogs woke me the next morning he was gone, but I’ll be damned if I try to explain any of this to Lucinda.

“My book?” I ask her, knowing that my silence on Frank will later be retold on the street as an acknowledgment of my moral turpitude.

Lucinda frowns, passes over the Sontag, and I am off to the grocery.

No need to describe my shopping. I get the regular items – flour, granola, you know. Jenna, the owner, rings me up, and her son Eric helps me haul it out to the pick-up. He’s seventeen and will be starting college in the fall, but for some reason, he’s always shy and nervous around me. I tell myself that it’s because I’m still hot at sixty-something. In reality, it’s more likely because he doesn’t know how to take the harmless flirting of an old woman.

“Have you picked a major yet,” I ask as we load the bags into the cab.

“Um, yeah,” he says “World planning.”

“World Planning?” I repeat with curiosity, “whatever happened to good ol’ math and science and history and literature?”

“It’s all interdisciplinary now,” Eric explains earnestly. “The major incorporates all of the traditional fields you mentioned and adds practical application.”

I look at Eric like he’s speaking Greek. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Short of aspiring to become the next dictator or president, I am not sure why one would major in something as esoteric as ‘World Planning.’ He’s lingering by the car out of politeness, but he’s desperate to get back inside the grocery. In fact, he’s desperate to leave this town altogether. Who can blame him? These days it’s filled mostly with old codgers like me. I try to remember what is was like, back in high school when I thought the world was my oyster. And then my twenties where I was afraid to make any movement for fear that pursuing one opportunity would deny me another. And my thirties where I discovered that closing one door merely opened another no matter how many doors I shut in an attempt to draw a clear bright-lined path of life, all the way up until now where I am not so much waiting to die as I am happy to live a simple, unfettered life on a slowly depleting savings. I hand Eric twenty bucks and head back to the cabin.

I’m half-way through unloading the goods when the phone rings, and I run for it because I know that it’s Wine-Time-Girl. After spending most of her life married to a tortured genius who caused many ups and downs in her world, she met the nicest guy on the planet around the age of fifty. As it turns out, he was also devastatingly handsome and richer than sin. WTG now lives in a swanky part of Florida which, by the way, has been completely redeveloped and is not nearly as tacky as you might think Florida would be in the year 2040. I visit several times a year and always return looking like a lobster. These days her life is filled with shopping, writing the intermittent book review, speaking before Congress on immigration issues, and charity projects, of which I think I might be her main one. Throughout the years, WTG and I have kept in touch and now she regularly calls after her morning aerobics/calisthenics/yoga/whatever the heck it is. This morning I am especially excited to hear her voice because for the last few weeks she’s been traveling.

“SO!” I ask, “HOW WAS MONACO!”

“Oh, I got the cutest purse? Did you get the email with the picture?”

“Yes-yes,” I answer, “Very cute.”

“It’s a SuzyChooSashimi. I actually got one for you too and mailed it, but apparently it’s stuck in customs.”

“I take it that’s a name brand?”

“Yep, they’re really rare. I think you’ll like it though.”

“Cool. Is it waterproof?”

“No?” she answers.

“Oh, well, I’m sure I’ll like it,” I say.

Truth be told, I’ve been needing a sack to store the dog toys.

“Anymore thoughts about moving down to Florida? There’s plenty of space in the house, you know!”

WTG has been working this angle for years without success, but because she’s WTG, she mentions it at least once a week…just in case.

“I like it here,” I tell here.

It’s true. I do.

“I know,” she says, “I just worry about you being all by yourself. There aren’t any medical facilities nearby and the decent ones require traveling over ice and hills and snow and…”

“Yeah, that’s true,” I reply, “but who needs to waste a bunch of money on intense medical care at this age? And honestly, I can’t afford it anyway.” I chuckle and continue, “Hey remember when the government tried to pull off health care reform? Anyway, if I die, the dogs have been trained. They are to drag my body out back so that it can be eaten by the bears.”

“Oh, that’s horrible,” she says, “I don’t even want you to joke about that.”

I’m not joking. It’s cost-effective and environmentally sound. I like it.

“Well, do what you want,” WTG accedes.

And then suddenly a thought crosses my head, and I can’t stop laughing because of course while WTG may let me have my way in this matter, I am sure that there is no way that she won’t insist on some type of memorial service after my passing. I stare off into the future and can see it. There she is, in her living room with a group of other women, all dressed in some Lilly Pulitzer-type fashion. They’re eating tea and cakes while WTG tells them all about me. Though they’ve met me once or twice, none of them can quite place me, but they’re here for her more than me. Sitting on the coffee table is a canister which everyone assumes are my ashes. Little do they know that it’s an urn full of bear turd.

Somewhere in the ether I’m loving every minute of it.

Stream of Not-So-Consciousness…

I’m sick. No-no-no, not that kind of sick. Not sick in the head sick. More like sick, I have a fever, sick. Is this making any sense? Hello, hello? Is this thing on?

Do you know how I know? That I have a fever, I mean? Well, it’s not because I woke up with a sore throat this morning, and it’s not because I felt “weird” all day. I mean, yes. Those things did occur. And no, I have not taken my temperature. That’s cheating.

Giggle-giggle-giggle.

Ok, I’ll tell you a story. That's how I'll tell you.

When I was little my mother always knew when I was sick. I’d come downstairs dressed for school, and she’d ask some completely normal question, and I would respond with utter nonsense.

Well, maybe not total nonsense. I mean, I always spoke in complete sentences. But yes, she’d ask me about my lunchbox, and I’d start chatting with her about the ozone. And isn’t the ozone like the fog? Only maybe sort of the opposite because you can’t see the ozone whereas with fog, you can see that, but not anything else, and speaking of fog, do you really think fog lights are that effective because even though they may not reflect back on you like regular lights, they don’t exactly cut through the fog, so really what’s the point if you can’t see that you’re about to hit something?

With this my mother would slap her hand on my forehead and announce, “Back upstairs, you have a fever.”

I have a fever? Are you sure? I don’t feel sick. I mean, I feel a little bad, but not *that* bad. It’s kind of pleasant actually. OH! I hope I don’t throw up. I hate throwing up. And you know the worst throwing up? When you get to the end and it tastes so-so-so bad and it’s yellow. Why is it that everything that comes out of you is always yellow? Or brown, I guess.

What do you mean, Ana?

I mean, we eat green grapes and purple grapes and red apples and oranges, but in the end, it’s all yellow and brown. Where do the other colors go?

Uh, well your body digests food and breaks it down.

But if that’s true, wouldn’t you go to the bathroom (or throw up) in primary colors?

Well no, not exactly.

OH WAIT! I get it. No. 1 is yellow, right?

Uh-huh.

And blood is red!

Yep.

Except when it’s under your skin. Then blood is blue. Ok, it all makes sense now. Except for No. 2. Why is No. 2 brown?

Around this time, I’d be heading down the hallway, meandering like a drunkard, and my mother would notice something suspicious like a glob of toothpaste in my hair.

Ana?

Yeah?

How did you manage to put a button-down shirt on backwards?

I look down.

Oh, wow. Look at that. I guess it was just that kind of day, you know?

Yeah, put your pjs on and get in bed, okay?

No socks, though. I don’t want socks. Socks are too hot.

Ok, I’m going to run downstairs and get you something to drink. Do you want some Coke?

This was a big deal because I NEVER got Coke.

NO! NO! NO! Ginger Ale, please.

I don’t know if I have any.

I’d just feel a lot better if it came out the same color it went in, you know? I’m kind of worried about where it all goes.

Ginger Ale. I’ll find some.

A few minutes later she’d appear magically with the Schwepp’s and some Tylenol, and I’d be staring at the ceiling.

Have you ever noticed this before?

What?

The ceiling. There’s like this crazy design on the ceiling. It’s like the remains of a little alien colony, only it’s frozen in time, like you know how when you walk on the moon it just stays there and doesn’t go away because there’s no wind or anything?

Actually Ana, when people build houses they make those designs on the ceiling with a flat spatula-like thing. It’s for decoration.

People decorate their ceilings to look like alien colonies! That’s COOL!

Um no, just for decoration, not anything specific.

I lower my head from the ceiling and gaze at her.

Mother, that doesn’t make any sense. You aren’t making any sense. They design something to look like nothing? Oh wow, you’re glowing!

What?

Yeah, like an alien. Only not really. Your hair. It’s so yellow. It’s glowing, like the sun. (Ana stands up on the bed and raises her arms into the air.) I feel a gravitational pull. I’m a planet, and I can’t help but circle you!

She smiles, walks over to the bed, and provides the hug that I’d been requesting. Because she just knows. Because she’s my mom.

Ok, Ana, go to sleep now.

Ok. Mom?

Yeah?

Thanks for the ginger ale.

You're welcome. Now go to sleep!
…

So yeah, I'm feeling a little delirious this evening. Hence the fever awareness. But can I just tell you, the sky tonight? It’s really neat looking. Also, I wish my mom was here.

Barf-o-rama...

So, do y'all remember Boy #1 from my little sweepstakes?

His email said:
That's some background. Wanna get together and compare and contrast our experiences?

You responses overwhelmingly stated, "That dude just wants to get in your pants."

(Little did we know, right? Perhaps it's in epidemic over there on the dating sites.)

But anyway, you guys thought he was a sleaze, and I thought he was boring.

Well, two days ago, he emailed me again, and again, it was the same type of trash:

If we went on a date, would you be as provocative as your intro line?

My headline said this:
Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

It's a quote by Camus (shocking!) from The Rebel.

Provocative?

Before I read Boy #1's email I was already in a sour mood. He didn't help matters by trying to turn my expression of a desire for social justice into a porno. And, not only that, but here we have a guy who wrote jack-crap in his first email and despite my lack of response, contacted me a week later to say nothing more substantial.

So I hit reply and said,
Please do not email me again. Thanks.

Yes, it was kind of harsh, but the dude was starting to remind me of the truck driver from Thelma & Louise.

So today I open my email, and what is there but a message from Boy #1:
Wow. I don't know whether to be impressed with your matter of factness or hurt. Either way, you got it.

...

...

...

Perhaps I should remove that line from my profile where I say that at times people have referred to me as "caustic."

Apparently there's a group of guys out there who go for bitchy the same way other men develop a fetish for feet.

Ick.

Romance...

TUESDAY

Text from Wine-Time-Girl: Eating Mexican by myself on the River Walk in San Antonio, wishing you were here.

Text back from Ana: Oh, how appropriate. I am also thinking of you while walking to the grocery store to pick up a bottle of wine which I will drink by myself since you are not here.

Phone Rings.

Ana: Hello?

WTG: Are you okay?

Ana: Yeah, why?

WTG: Because you’re walking to get wine and you don’t usually bring wine into your house on worknights.

Ana: Oh yeah, well, long day at work. Thought I’d curl up with a glass and read the detective novel you gave me. It’ll be fine. I’m not expecting company or anything.

And when I got home, I did pour the glass of wine, set some soup on the stove to simmer because I hadn’t eaten all day, and sat down to write a few emails. A little while later, a friend called, and next thing you know, I’d had two glasses, but the soup was still on the stove. No longer feeling hungry, I turned off the stove to let the soup cool. On the third glass, Boy #4 started up a chat…..

Boy #4: I'm listening to Bright Eyes.
Do you know?

me: Oh man, are we playing this game again?
I think the blog readers have decided that you're too cool for me.

Boy #4: In their minds or mine?
I haven't even posted a comment.
I think the pressure is too much for me.

me: Awww, you shouldn't feel that way.
Are you being serious?

Boy #4: A little...
Hi, this is boy #4. You may recognize me from my popular Online Dating Enthusiast articles “Bluegrass and Brain Science: Using a musical hobby to offset your pretentious job description”, and “I’m Not That Kind of Boy: The five-day rule for responding to blog postings.”

me: See, that's totally cute.

Boy #4: That's as far as I got. I think I'm just gonna play silent frog for the moment if it's ok.
I know...I mean I didn't say I couldn't do cute.

me: Silent frog is fine. Don't want you to feel uncomfortable.
I might rip off your line though, and show them the rough draft.
Just kidding
Sort of.

Boy #4: That'd be ok.

me: No pressure.

Boy #4: K.

me: How was your weekend?

Boy #4: It was good to be home.
And seriously...fall is hard-wired in me.
was good.
You do anything fun?

me: Book club Saturday night.
WTG slept over. High school sleep over - yay!

Boy #4: You talked about boys I presume?

me: Oh, you want to know that angle, huh?

Boy #4: Whatevah

me: We talked about boys a little.

Boy #4: I just thought that's what girls did at sleepovers.

me: What?
Not always. We totally have lives beyond dudes.

Boy #4: No! :)

me: It is a little bit of a love affair, me and her. Don't be jealous.

Boy #4: S'ok. You know my type.

me: Well, not *that* kind of love affair.
It's more romantic.

Boy #4: girls.
always with the romance.

me: Actually WTG is painfully pragmatic at times. I'm the romantic one.
which is why she dates, and I sit at home chatting online with random dudes.

Boy #4: ha!

me: What?

Boy #4: I just couldn't tell if that was sarcasm or if it worked in some way that I couldn't figure out.

me: It was nothing personal - more of a jab at myself.
What are you doing?
Personal jab being - I tend to like words more than reality.

Boy #4: Nothin. I just ate a Crispy Spicy Chicken and drank a High Life.

me: Gross.

Boy #4: Got it.

me: I should have eaten
I walked to Fiesta and bought a bottle of wine.
Two glasses in.
But I haven't brought wine home in awhile.
So.
Vaguely tipsy.

Boy #4: Ah, Fiesta.
Wine.
Do you want to invite me over for a glass of wine?
It would be a step up from my High Life.

me: I dunno. Do I?

Boy #4: Hmm... I dunno.

me: You might need to hurry before I drink it all.

Boy #4: I could stop and get another high life.

me: I think you just want my cigarettes.

Boy #4: oooooh.
I didn't think about the cigarettes...

me: Sure-sure.

Boy #4: yay. You have the swiffer out for me to dust?

me: I ran out of the swiffer wipes!

Boy #4: I'll throw pebbles at your window then?

me: Or you can call when you get here. Whatever's easier.

Boy #4: okay then. see ya in a bit!

me: Okay. :-)


WEDNESDAY

On the phone with WTG…

WTG: Ok, so a) are you okay? And b) tell me all about it because the emails just don’t do it justice. What happened?

Ana: Besides drinking an entire bottle of wine after not eating a solid meal for three days?

WTG: Yeah-yeah-yeah.

Ana: Just setting the stage here.

WTG: Go on.

Ana: Okay, so I’m blathering on incoherently about all kinds of junk that was apparently making him feel grossly uncomfortable, and all of the sudden, he flips out. Starts in on this whole thing about how he just moved to town and isn’t looking for anything serious, and I’m way to into the whole thing and that he just can’t take the pressure and starts listing off a zillion examples like, I called my sister-in-law and made him talk to her and she told him what a great girl I was and then after I got off the phone I mentioned that bro-and-sis-in-law have a bachelor party in Vegas in a few months and that if he and I are still dating then, he’s more than welcome to come, and that the whole blog thing is just overwhelming for him because I’m saying all of these nice things about him and I have this group of people cheering me on in the love department, and how the other night when he im’d me on the dating site, I gave him a hard time about being on there. I mean, hello? Did he not realize that was a joke insofar as I was on there at the *exact* same time checking other people out? And the bachelor party? I mean, I don’t even remember asking him, but of course after sitting there talking about it, I didn’t want to be rude. And the blog? It’s just for fun. Really, just fun!

WTG: Why are you defending yourself? Seriously, don’t bother. The spew sounds like it was something that had been building up way before he even made it to your house. This is *his* shit, not yours. I mean think about it, especially in the context of all the other things that he’s told you prior to that night.

Ana: Eh, I guess. I can see how it would be overwhelming though, but you know me. I’m just generally enthusiastic about new things. And a bottle of wine, I mean, who knows what I was saying?

WTG: Yeah, until they’re not new, which is why in the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never dated anyone for longer than three months.

Ana: They just start to get on your nerves after awhile, you know? I mean, I just start imagining waking up to that person every day and having to put up with all the things I can’t stand about them on a daily basis. And it just builds and builds and builds until their voice, their laugh, their whining all sounds just like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Oh, and saying nice stuff on the blog? I mean, I’m trying to make a good impression here. What am I supposed to write? “He came across as one of those guys who cried easily as a child and whom the teachers like to refer to as ‘sensitive’.” I mean, my god, I could already tell by talking with him that he was a little intimidated. And he’s in this new town with no friends and feeling inadequate at work and blah-blah-blah. I was trying to make it easier on him. Peh.

WTG: So this conversation occurred before or after you slept with him?

Ana: Before.

WTG: Heh-heh-heh. I can’t say that I blame you for that one. You found him half-way attractive and your earlier scouting expedition indicated that it probably wouldn’t be bad. Might as well get it while you can. I probably would have done it too. Wait, the conversation occurred before both of the times that you had sex?

Ana: Yeah. That was nice actually. It’s been a while since I’ve been with someone who could bat again so quickly. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, I think we took a shower in between.

WTG: Ok, now you’re bragging.

Ana: Dude, the rest of the evening was CRAP. I thought his head was going to explode, and I’m trying to figure out how to contain it through my thick burgundy haze which, by the way, was making me MORE emotional and girly. Poor kid. I totally scared the heck out of him. Seriously, it was like a Sex & the City version of Three Stooges skit.

WTG: So you gave him a lobotomy.

Ana: Yep, pretty much. And I was pretty sure that's why he wanted come over. And I was also pretty sure he needed it. Plus, I knew that I’d hate him the next morning if I did.

WTG: How so?

Ana: Because. He knew that I was blitzed. When he said he wasn’t looking for anything serious, I responded by saying that I WAS looking for something serious in the near future, but hadn’t come to any conclusions about him in particular since we’d only recently met. And then he tries to sleep with me and actually goes through with it?

WTG: I love how they think that they’re being the “good” guy by telling you that they’re not into you upfront, as if it somehow makes it better or removes the responsibility on their part.

Ana: When in reality, a “good” guy would say that stuff and then NOT sleep with the girl. Yeah, it’s sleazy.

WTG: More like cowardly. So you’re okay?

Ana: I mean, I’ve only met him a few times. It’s not like I was in looove or anything.

WTG: Props to both of you for that one. To him for coming clean before it moved along, and to you, who probably intuitively recognized it, thereby getting wasted and forcing it out of him with your wonderfully annoying little drunken ways.

Ana: Yeah, the irony is kind of awesome. He freaks out because he thinks I’m super into him and 24 hours later I’m sitting here cracking jokes about it.

WTG: So has he called or checked in or anything like that?

Ana: No, I don’t think he will.

WTG: Oh, I bet he texts you very casually in 10 days or so hoping for something more. No actual phone call though. Wouldn't want to give you the wrong impression by doing that.

Ana: I dunno. I played the whole “don’t leave” card when he left.

WTG: And he did anyway? Harsh!

Ana: Not as harsh as it would have been the next morning when I woke up to the sight of his face and the memory of the evening.

WTG: This is true. You gonna return the text if he does?

Ana: Eh, the FB position is kind of reserved for the exceptionally amazing. You know, like the 22 year old gymnast.

WTG: Oh yeah. The guy you figured that you could never have enough in common with to even consider dating and whom you fell for after six months of FB status.

Ana: Again, oh, irony!

WTG: Ah, mindless sex without the pains of a relationship sounds very appealing right now.

Ana: I could give you his number.

WTG: Um, I would probably berate and attack him at this point.

Ana: Actually, I think he's into that.

WTG: You sure you’re okay?

Ana: Yep.

WTG: Well, if I get stuck here, you should drive over this weekend and stay with me.

Ana: Ooh, hotel bar. Dirty. I like it. But try to come home; I miss you!

WTG: I know, I miss you too.

Ana: Ok, love you.

WTG: Love you too. Bye.
Ana: Bye.

First Date...

Do you feel as if I left you waiting in the lurch? Did you come here to see how my “date” went on Friday? Voyeurs! Voyeurs, all of you!

Still reading? Why am I not surprised? Can I tell you how awkward it feels to write this post knowing that Boy #4 will likely be reading it as well? I mean, it’s not as if he has some parallel blog where I can go check out his assessment of the evening. It’s almost unfair, you know?

The Short Version:

Wine-Time-Girl: Sooooo, how was your date?
Me: Good.
WTG: What did you do?
Me: Dinner and the theatre…and then drinks at PG.
WTG: Ok, so did you kiss him?
Me: Yeah.
WTG: Did you sleep with him?
Me: No.
WTG: Well, wait what? You didn’t? Wow, Ana! Good for you. I’m so proud of you!
Me: Shut. Up.

I have to say, I was somewhat offended by WTG’s surprise, but when I thought back over the last few years, I could see how she might easily come to such a conclusion. Believe it or not, I have at certain points of my life, gone through very long periods of abstaining – most of my twenties in fact. I guess you could say it was semi-intentional. The course went something like this: every once in a blue moon, a guy would come along that I actually found attractive. I would wait to see if it developed into anything, and inevitably it would fizzle out within a few weeks or a few months. After six years of this, I found myself exiting these situations thinking, “Geez, if I’d slept with the person at least I would have gotten *something* out of it.”

So I guess around age thirty, give or take a few years, I reversed the behavior. Because I totally expected the situation to go no where, I’d sleep with the person as soon as possible. But the really annoying thing I found out about this avenue, is that both people stay together longer than necessary, either because they enjoy getting laid regularly, or more likely, because I swear there is something about sex that renders you unable to see a person clearly, as if a little hormone is released in your body that disables your ability to process red flags. When you finally come up for air a few months later, you’re shocked to realize that not only do you have nothing in common with this person, you don’t even *like* them that much.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, my date. Apparently I’m avoiding the subject. Okay, okay, okay – here is the long version, or at least a few of the highlights.

So he read the last post, but didn’t comment! When I asked him about it, he referred me to this old cartoon with the singing frog that wouldn’t sing whenever the old guy took him around to show. If that makes no sense, please see the Wikipedia entry here.

Are you guys disappointed? If so, express yourself! I mean, there were three other options. Perhaps the Florida readers are dyslexic. Maybe a recount on the votes is needed, huh?

Moving on…

Boy #4 decided that each of us should take responsibility for one portion of the date. I totally dug the whole joint-venture aspect of it all. I was placed in charge of food selection while he got to choose the entertainment. Actually, I immediately grabbed for the food option and wished him good luck in the entertainment alley. (Boy #4, if you’re reading and if by some bizarre chance this turns into a long-term thing, I would like to right now call ‘not-it’ on cleaning the bathroom.) Anyhoo, my only caveat was no event involving roller skating and his only nix was Tex-Mex.

Wh-what? No Tex-Mex?!? I mean, after red wine, it’s my second major food group. I considered calling the whole thing off right then and there, but instead red-flagged the comment for later perusal and moved on. An hour or so later, he im’d me about a little playhouse on the east side of town. Of course my response was, “It’s too bad; there’s a great Tex-Mex place right down the street from there,” and what do you know, he agreed to give it a try. Flexibility. Check.

The actual date:
Boy #4 showed up on time. Check. In a Prius. The guy has wheels; check. (You think this is a given, but believe me, I’ve gone out with guys who didn’t.) On the way to the restaurant he chose the music, and we nearly got in a wreck as he labored over what music to pick off of his ipod, terrified that I would turn to him and say, “Egad, you like *this* band?”

It was totally cute in a ‘see your life flash before you’ kind of way. He chose Arcade Fire, and I admitted that I was unfamiliar with them, and then thanked him for not judging me for it.

“Actually,” he said, “I am kinda surprised you haven’t heard of them.”

To which I replied, “Hey, even without a car wreck this can still be a short date.”

Boy #4 laughed. Sense of humor and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Check. Then again, I think we knew this already.

So, Boy #4 not only liked the Tex-Mex, but he out-ordered me, and then was gracious enough to give me one of his shrimp-wrapped-in-bacon tacos when my chicken ones paled in comparison.

Good at sharing. Check.

The play was three hours long and didn’t have an intermission. I barely made it outside of the theatre before bursting into inappropriate laughing over the content. I hope Boy #4 doesn’t dock me points for that one. I actually dug the whole idea of the fledgling art group in a random part of town. I just thought the storyline was ridiculous and the characters clichéd, right down to the angsty writer who couldn’t get laid and fell for broken individuals who weren’t interested in him. (Dude, I thought I’d cornered the market on that one.)

Afterwards we stopped for a drink at the ol’ PG bar. (By the way, I know I’ve mentioned the PG Bar for years on this blog as it is my regular bar. Just so you know, it does exist.) Boy #4 and I talked about our pasts and got to know each other a little better while I drank too much wine. Before getting the PhD at Chicago he worked both as a bartender and a bike messenger. Non-traditional job history before finally settling down into something your parents can approve of. Check. And he made a music mention of a song I actually knew. (When I Was a Boy – by Dar Williams. Thank goodness for that Human Sexuality class I took in college. A class which, unsurprisingly, I almost failed, and had 69 average going into the final. The professor did not find this tidbit nearly as amusing as I did.) Oh also, Boy #4 likes to cook. CHECK!

So yeah, when the drinks were done, he took me back home, and as we sat there chatting in my car he said, “Are you inviting me in?”

“Uh, I guess so. Yeah.”

Five minutes later…

“Wait, did you really invite me upstairs because you needed someone to change your light bulbs?”

Snicker. Boy #4 at 6’4” is over a foot taller than me, and damn if I didn’t have two light bulbs out in one room that were causing me to go blind. I was a little disappointed with his response as asking him to change the bulbs was a big deal for me. I was asking him to do something that I couldn’t do. I was admitting a certain vulnerability that compromised my complete independence persona. I metaphorically stating that I needed people. No check!

When Boy #4 left, he asked me if he could give the blog address to a few of his friends. Sigh. Really, Boy #4? Really? I told him that was alright, but I couldn't make any promises. While I was saying nice things about him today, there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t be singing a different tune in the future. He said he was okay with that.

The next day I sent him a text message and briefly debated the wording. I wanted to say that I’d had fun, but I’d already used the word 'fun' in the message and didn't want to repeat my words. I thought saying that I’d had a ‘good’ time sounded kinda lame, but I thought ‘great’ sounded over-eager. In the end, I went with great and told myself that he was probably not analyzing my word usage.

He responded a few minutes later to say that he'd had fun (that was supposed to be my word!) and that he’d call me when he got back into town. (Boy #4 went home for the weekend.) What he’ll say when he calls, I have no idea, but tonight as I was sorting through some things in the dining room, one of the lights burned out. I smiled and took it as a sign.

And the winner is...

Votes are tallied. The results are in! And guess what?

I’d already picked a guy and met him before I asked for your opinions. (I know; I’m so sneaky.)

Here’s a little bit more information about “the boys”:

Boy #1 was about four years older than me and practiced family law. A boring profile along with a non-descriptive email sent him packing.

Boy #2:
Ok, I think I agreed with Weef the most on this one. It was way too much and over the top, but the little part at the end (you know, where he says that I must be brilliant and fun) kind of made me want to give him a second look. But then I got to his profile which contained words like ‘puissant’, ‘callipygous’, and ‘persiflage’…and that was just in his headline. Further adding to the discomfort was the mention of VP at JP Morgan and an affection for Brooks Brothers.

Um, I’m more the type who’s smart on the inside given that I prefer to use the vernacular of surfers, half of my law school class was convinced that I was a stoner, and hate admitting in public that I'm a lawyer. Someone I met in conversation the other day assumed that I was an administrative assistant because I was hanging out with one from work along with another girl who cleans pools for a living. I was amused, but I wonder if this type of guy would be offended if he were mistaken for such. To me, it looked like a potentially rough pairing.

Boy #3:
…was fifty-something years old. That’s all the more I know because I didn’t even bother to look at his profile.

Boy #4:
With his mention of Pynchon and Camus in the opening line, Boy #4 was commenting on the recent reads listed in my profile. So you see, he wasn’t the stuffy douchebag. Yeah, that would be me.

I was a little bit concerned about the scientist part because sometimes they are a little *too* concrete for me, but I was almost definitely going to give him a reply based on the fiddle playing in a bluegrass band. Yeah, that line in the email evoked a mini-swoon. Via private chat, Magic Cookie assured me it was worth a shot. Said she: The "too concrete" guys are the ones who work with money, not the ones who search for knowledge. Not only do I know lots of scientists who are also artists or musicians, but scientists are often fun and creative AND smart at the same time. If that's not enough for you, sometimes they even look like musicians -- check out the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists.

Um, I think Magic Cookie could have a lucrative career working as the PR rep for the Scientists Who Want to Get Laid Club.

So I went to check out Boy #4's profile and in one picture he had a beard with wide sideburns. In another, no facial hair, but the stuff on his head was dyed manic-panic red. And then one more where something about him reminded me of the lead singer from Gogol Bordello…or maybe the movie Dodgeball. I’m not sure.

And in the midst of perusing his profile, he took advantage of the site IM feature and dropped me a line. My most pertinent question was whether or not he still had the beard to which he answered no, and I expressed a tiny bit of dissatisfaction, letting him know that among my friends, the joke was that I preferred men who looked like they were homeless. Boy #4 assured me that despite being beardless, his hair was completely unkempt, and he was quite adept at pulling off the look. So, after getting his name and doing a surreptitious search on Facebook only to discover that we had mutual friends, I agreed to meet him at the PG bar which was within walking distance of our apartments.

And sure enough, he looks kinda homeless! The date (was it a date?) went fine, very easy going and casual. He was a little shy and self-effacing in a cute way, but also nice, interesting, and he felt very real and honest. After finishing two glasses of wine, we called it a night, and he walked me home. So…we both decided we’d like to hang out again and have plans to meet up on Friday.

Cute, right? Just wait. I can't let life be *too* easy. There’s more.

Last night we were gchatting, and I decided to do something bold.

I told him all about posting the emails on the blog. Just spit it right out, and while he was searching for a response, and I was wondering what the heck I’d just done I told him, “Don’t worry. It’s all cool. You’re totally winning.”

I think he replied back, "You're a piece of work!"

And one by one, I sent him all of your comments which were met with, “W00T!” “I love it” “that guy obviously doesn’t know about your attraction to toadish males” and “you have no idea how disturbingly gratifying this is.”

But here’s the real shocker. After all of this, I told him that he now had enough info to find my blog, and that he could if he wanted to.

I know. It hurt for me too, but I felt like I had to try it. And of course, I logged onto the site immediately thereafter and began to groan at every little word, the frozen-egg freakout with the therapist which really was, I promise, some strange temporary culmination of my focusing on all of the things I hadn’t yet done in life, the rambling neuroses over my break-up with Musician Boy, whining about my job. Dear lord, it’s one thing if you know me and you read this blog. It’s one thing if you don’t know me at all and read this blog. It’s totally another thing if you’ve met me once and get handed a plate of, “Here are all of my momentary insecurities from random points in my life. Trust me when I tell you this isn't the whole story. ENJOY!”

When I checked the stats this afternoon and realized that he had made a visit or two, I wanted hide…except I really didn’t have anywhere to go. I could have hidden certain posts, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to. I want to maintain the blog “integrity” if you can call it that. However, I did check in with him - if only to see if he would still respond. He did and acted pretty cool about the whole thing (although he may be quietly packing his things and leaving the state as I type this).

So, we shall see, and dear readers, I promise to let you know what happens. I will say, Boy #4 is a very funny writer (I'd give you a link to something that he wrote, but it has his name on it), and perhaps, perhaps, if we become friends I might be able to talk him into a guest commentary or two.

And Boy #4 – if you’re reading, feel free to introduce yourself in the comments, and I look forward to seeing you Friday!

Who would you go out with?

Remember how I said I signed up for the online dating site because I wanted to meet people to go to shows with? Remember how I said it was a complete and total bust? Yeah, well, I never removed my profile (I mean, I'd paid for it and all) and so, in the sense of entertainment (of sorts), I give you the emails I've received in the last 24 hours. Rate them if you want, yay or nay, but really - without knowing anything else about these guys and judging them purely on words alone - who would you consider going out with? Or maybe I should ask, which one do you think *I* should go out with and why?

Boy #1
That's some background. Wanna get together and compare and contrast our experiences?

Boy #2
I have always enjoyed integrating education with experience. Whether learning the history of a place before you visit, or taking a sailing class, knowing and doing combine for a richer experience.

Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band is playing in New Orleans tomorrow. Hailing from Indiana, their musical foundation is built on the delta blues. Arguably most modern music we listen to is as well, but theirs is a direct extension, not just the odd cover, but the rhythm, the style and the raw intensity. I first saw their show before I was introduced to Ted Gioia's "Delta Blues" which is the best non-fiction I've read this year. Reading the book gave me a greater appreciation for the band's music, and I proceeded to buy each cd and listen to every song until my ears found nothing new. I will say that YouTube does little justice to their live show, which creates an energy in the crowd I haven't experienced before.

I had planned the New Or leans trip for tomorrow, and scheduled work related events to justify the firm paying for it. Life is quirky though, and new priorities displace lesser ones. So I'm not going to New Orleans tomorrow to see Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, but I will see them another day, hopefully near an area I can justify as a work-related trip (actual vacation time is too scarce to use for domestic travel that doesn't involve family).

Why did I write this? Because you create an impression of an intellectually curious and fun-loving/fun-generating person, and such people are wonderful to know. I've been away from Houston for almost five years and returned last month. I have a few friends that I go out with, but none yet that enjoy Texas Country. If you're up for an email exchange, then one day we could meet for coffee, and later on down the road, who knows, maybe we'll both be free when Ray Wylie Hubbard is in town.

Ask me anything.

Regards,
Boy #2

Boy #3
Hello, my name is Boy #3 and I really like your pictures and your profile :) When I am not working my favorite things to do are stay in shape and travel all around the world and meeting new people :) I also enjoy reading and listening to music. Please drop me a line when you get a chance.......Boy #3 :)

Boy #4
[Neighborhood bar], [Neighborhood cafe'], Pynchon, Camus...these are a few of my favorite things. Ok, maybe not Pynchon. I struggled through V a long time ago and haven't looked back. Camus is a different story. Is that where your headline comes from? I'd take the Myth of Sisyphus over the Plague though. It's probably my most underlined, circled, and starred book of all time. Not the most read though. That's gotta be one from my childhood - "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George. Also acoustic music, I likey. I play violin/fiddle and miss the bluegrassish group I was playing with in Chicago a whole lot. I just moved down here three weeks ago to start a neuroscience post-doc at the med center.

Ok, enough - hope to hear from ya.

Boy #4

P.S. Don't mind my weird profile description - that's my own little act of rebellion. I'm curious about why they rejected your last profile. Seems like the Queen's English to me.

Am I evil for doing this?

Maybe a teensy bit, BUT here's my justification: if you've ever wondered what type of responses you get for online dating, here's a clue, indication, etc, OR if you've ever been on one and wondered what other type of responses people receive...

Lazy Saturday...

Oh, Saturday.

I have a list of things to do which includes paying my rent and picking up groceries, but it’s overcast outside, I’m a teensy bit tired, and all I want to do is lie in bed and read. This is how I spend my morning, finishing up the latest Thomas Py*nchon novel about a PI in the late 1960’s who lives on the beach and just happens to be a stoner prone to periods of blackout. I remember reading the reviews saying that this book was just a more high-brow version of Cheech & Chong jokes. I guess that appeals to me, as I found myself giggling throughout the book, never worrying about the main character as he wandered mindlessly into scenes of danger. Hmm, mindlessly isn’t the right word, more like his mind was somewhere else.

I think the great thing about stoners is, they say the most absurd things, and yet stupid offhand remarks do sometimes have the ability to cause your thoughts to drift off into unfamiliar areas. When the book is finished, I look up and realize that it’s nearly noon. No wonder the dog has been staring me down for the last hour. Alarm clocks may wake me up, but the thought of Martha whizzing all over my floor actually gets me out of bed.

When we’ve walked around our neighborhood block, I decide to fake productivity by throwing a load of clothes in the washer and taking out the trash while the coffee is brewing. I feel very wistful when I dump the last of the can into the filter.

Though I am now officially out of bed, I still don’t feel quite ready to bound into the day. I pause and consider taking a shower only to remember that I took one just before going to sleep, strange because I feel like I haven’t showered in days. The thought of brushing my teeth comes to mind, but just in passing, and so I head out with my coffee to sit on my back stoop and smoke a cigarette.

My neighbor with whom I share the deck is outside grading composition papers for a class he’s teaching at the local city college. My neighbor has red hair, is covered in tattoos, and is currently finishing a PhD in creative writing. Because of that and the fact that he always greets me when we cross paths on the fourplex, I’ve always liked him. Plus, he’s married which removes any uncomfortable edge that sometimes occurs in male-female conversation.

After a brief inquiry about the house repairs related to the break-in we discuss our other neighbors and he tells me that the last tenants of my apartment were a couple.

“So they decided to get married and get a house, huh?” I ask, ever the romantic optimist.

“No, actually,” he replies, “they broke up. Seemed very amicable though.”

This causes me to lament my inadvertent stumbling upon a house that must be filled with a broken home vibe. Though, I ponder aloud, it couldn’t have been that much of a love to begin with if the break-up was friendly. I oscillate back and forth about how break-ups should evolve when real love is involved. Part of me thinks, if you really love someone, you’ll work to make it as easy as possible because you don’t want to hurt the other person at all. The other part of me thinks that if love IS involved, all hell breaks loose because that’s kind of how love is, even when it’s good – emotional, passionate, unpredictable.

The discussion of housing leads us to our former abodes, and I smile when my neighbor mentions that he used to live on West Main.

Long before I moved to Houston I read a series of books by Larry Mc*Murtry, the ones on which the movie Terms of Endearment is based. All of them took place in Houston during the 60’s and though the main characters are women, there is a major group of male characters pursuing a Master’s in writing at Rice (much like Mc*Murtry himself was doing during that time). One of the married couples, Emma and Flip, lived in an old run-down apartment on West Main, dirt poor and waiting for a faculty assignment in what turns out to be Iowa.

It was so strange to move here and realize that West Main exists, shitty apartments and all, now further run down by an additional forty years of wear. Not only that, but the park on Dunlavy where the women used to take their children, the little garage apartments in Southampton. Everything is still here except for the soda shop on Bissonnet, which surely must have stood at some point. They’re all within walking distance of my house, and it feels surreal at moments to pass by them, as if it is not that I am walking by areas of inspiration, but rather have imagined myself into the setting of the novels forty years later, all of the characters still here, but now living in McMansions in West University.

I ask my neighbor how he met his wife, and sure enough, it is one of those whirlwind story-book romances that ends up with an elopement in the hill country six months later, further convincing me that my life is in fact the product of a writer’s imagination.

“Yeah, I wasn’t looking for it and it just happened,” he says, “so see, it could happen to you too.”

And I turn to him making an odd face because I hadn’t asked the question in an attempt to bolster my own hopes, but then again, maybe I had. The subconscious really can be a bitch sometimes. You spend your whole life seeking self-awareness, and yet there is this part of you that you cannot access, but strangers pick up on with ease.

I put out my cigarette, shrug in a ‘who knows?’ type fashion and walk back into the house to realize it is one o’clock.

My friend gets off of work at four, and around that time we are supposed to walk over to the Greek Festival and shove our faces with dolmas before catching a show later by the Greencards. I still have plenty of time to do my errands if I desire. I enter the bathroom and pick up the toothbrush, only to put it back down and wash my face instead.

Outside it is beginning to rain. Perhaps today I’ll finally finish the Zelda Fitzgerald biography that’s been sitting on my nightstand for weeks.

Hi there...

Oh dear-dear-dear readers, I must apologize. A few weeks ago, I posted a piece discussing my ambivalence about this blog, and you responded. And I wanted to say something back to you, but LIFE got in the way, and I became very busy, and I will tell you all about it in the next few paragraphs, but dear-dear-dear readers…

Thank you so very much.

Thank you for all of your kind words. You definitely think more of me than I do of myself, and it was so-so-so nice to hear from you. I did in fact read every single comment, and each one warmed my heart. (Does that sound too cheesy?) I mean, I knew people were reading, but I didn’t know you liked it! I feel like Sally Fie*ld that night at the Oscars. I feel like I have my own personal cheering section. Your words meant so much to me!

So, I can’t say enough.

Again, thanks.

BUT – why did I wait so long?

Oh readers, destiny is a silly thing, I suppose. We never know what is lurking right around the corner just as we are beginning to lose faith in everything we always felt so assured of.

A few short days after my post I found out that I was promoted.

I have a new title.

I have a new boss.

After going from sharing an office to being down-sized to a cubicle, I now have my *own* office.

I got a staggering raise.

(Ohmigod, I can pay off my loans now! Hallelujah!)

And my new focus is now internal investigations for issues outside of the U.S.

And while yes, I’ve worked hard for it, and I’ve taken risks to get to this point, I feel extremely blessed (in a non-religious way) because:

The economy sucks;
My office has undergone several management changes since I arrived;
The department has been upended and I was the only person to receive a promotion while several others have new titles that definitely smell of de-motion; and
I so freaking LOVE the new material that I am working on.

But my absence?

Well, I still have all of my old responsibilities in addition to the new ones…and I’m bringing work home every night now.

But I don’t care because I am SO happy for the time being. Not just okay, but happy, and for some reason all of the tension that I’ve felt since the Spring of 2008 has melted away. This whole law school gamble has finally worked out. And the job gamble has worked out. And the turning down the position in another department and staying in my own has worked out.

RELIEF!

Last night, Wine-Time-Girl and I visited a new psychic and she said to me, “You’re in a stage of transition right now, but you’re about to emerge from your cocoon as a butterfly."

I looked at her and said, “Lady, if you only knew how many cocoons I’ve fought my way out of in the last sixteen years!”

To everyone who’s sent me an email in the past three weeks, I will write you back, I promise! I have five or six to do. I haven’t forgotten you! And I have read them! I apologize!

Want a cute story?

WTG gave me a gift last week for my promotion. (Aww, so sweet.) She took it out her bag, unwrapped, and handed it to me saying, “I got you a perfume. You probably haven’t heard of the company. It’s a little French place…”

And I sat there staring agape at the box because the words at the bottom said LANVIN.

A long time ago, like in the early 40’s, Lanvin made four perfumes.

Just four.

The most famous one was called Arpege.

It was also, coincidentally, my grandmother’s FAVORITE perfume, but it was very hard to find in the States, and whenever anyone traveled abroad, they would have to pick her up a bottle.

She only wore it on special occasions because she never knew when she would get another bottle.

And there was WTG, sitting across from me at brunch saying, “I just thought you would like this perfume when I smelled it.”

It was Rumeur, not Arpege, and it has been reformulated in recent years and reissued in the U.S., but still was only available at Saks when it first came out. And sadly, it might disappear because no one else seems to like it, but I dabbed it on and reformulated or not, a company is bound to have similarities between its perfumes, and for a moment I felt transported to my grandmother’s master bathroom in San Antonio, staring up at the cosmetic rack and sounding out the word Arpege.

I’ve sprayed it all over the house. I love it, and if you’re thinking of trying it, WTG offers the advice of, “You need to let it adjust to your skin for a little bit because it stinks when you first put it on.”

But to me, it smells like the updated Anastasia version (perhaps because the base is patchouli) of my grandmother’s old perfume with a wink towards the past and a sharp eye on the future.

The whole thing, it was just so uncanny, so special.

So the blog. Will I continue it?

Well, I found out after I wrote the post that my mother has been reading it – under the auspices of “checking to make sure that I’m alive.” Now, this news came not from my mother, but a third party, and apparently my mother isn’t just checking the dates of the posts, but reading them as well. Mother, if you’re reading now, please know that if you are worried about my existence, you can always call me. I am not too busy. I will not be annoyed. I would, in fact, love to receive a phone call. Kiss-kiss!

So yes, that takes the privacy aspect away now, doesn’t it?

But, if she’s reading, she’s reading.

I think, after much consideration, I will not post as often, but rather just when the mood strikes. Hopefully, that will make the posts more legit.

So this blog isn’t dead…quite yet. (Ha, watch this turn out to be my last one ever.)

And in closing, I give you a picture of the best dog in the world. Oh Martha, how I love thee.

Vicious, I tell you. Vicious! Don't mess with this chick!

I would just like to say...

I have two degrees...

...from two different schools...

...and BOTH of them are in the Top 25 for college football.


If you're not jealous, you should be.



PS - In regards to the last post, yes, I called the police immediately. 911 in fact. Between my neighbors, friends, and co-workers offering me places to stay, friends calling every day to make sure that I'm still alive, and my own mother calling me (not my dad, but my mom!), I would almost call it a positive experience. Martha is the little celebrity of the four-plex. Oh, I sooo love that dog!

Peace to all who enter here...

That's what my back door looked like at 8:45 pm tonight. Normally, the glass sheets cover the entire door, and normally, the screen is not cut.

Want to know what makes it even better?

I was home. I was here. I was sitting on my living room couch doing document review while a strange unknown man entered my kitchen.

Did I have a clue? No, but you know who did? MARTHA THE WONDER DOG! She kicked his ASS, and when I finally realized all the commotion and ran back to the kitchen, the dude high-tailed it out of there.

Nothing was stolen. I was not raped or killed.

Martha deserves a freakin' medal of honor.

Is it time to call it quits?

I haven’t enjoyed writing the blog lately.

I feel like my writing is forced. I feel like it’s disingenuous, and I feel like it just isn’t that funny (even when I’m trying to be).

I started writing this blog in law school, partially as an outlet, and partially as an attempt to discuss the absurdity of it all.

I can’t tell you about the absurdities of my job. I had drinks with a co-worker tonight and left thinking, “Did I say too much? Does she know that I’m just venting?”

I can’t make the people at my office into caricatures the same way I did with my professors. Professors (whether they think so or not) did not affect my career. People at my job could.

Boys? Well, the inanities of dating don’t seem so funny anymore. In our twenties, we’re still trying to figure out who we are. In our thirties, it just seems like insecurities that we can’t let go of and often fail to acknowledge. At some point it changes from bumbling through life to intentional ignorance.

My friends? Most don’t mind the expression, but it’s not exactly exciting to see their likeness in print like it was a few years ago.

And me? Well, I’m kind of boring now, and making myself out to be more unstable than I am is kind of embarrassing.

Truth be told…

I’m okay with my mom and family.

I like my job most days.

...

…
…
…

I still think most of my potential romantic interests are kinda dumb.

[As an aside, Patrick Swayze’s death is the number one story on my local news. This is what’s important in America today. Awesome.

OMG! In watching the news, I just found out that he went to the same high school as Musician Boy. Such illustrious alumni!]

Okay, sorry, that threw me for a minute.

So what do I do?

I think the blog either needs to be retired or otherwise take a turn with pieces similar to the past popping up here and there.

So readers, old and new, I’m asking you.

Do I kill it? Do I 'retire' it? Do I just let it go for awhile and write when the moment strikes me?

Why do you like reading this blog, and what would you like to see?

And if you don’t say anything, then it really might be time to go!

Is that my cell phone?

My first year in law school I went out for drinks with a classmate around my age and was horribly surprised when he said, “People are afraid of you. You have this uncanny ability to immediately see their weaknesses and insecurities, and then you strike.”

This horrified me. I mean, technically it’s true, but I never realized that was how people interpreted it. I just want to know who people are and what makes them tick. The easiest way to figure that out is to ask them the hard questions.

Friday I was out with Wine-Time-Girl. We went to dinner, but ultimately decided that we should hit the bar scene. In case you haven’t realized, I hate the bar scene. I feel like most of the people I meet there are wholly without substance and rather focused on money and materialism.

Case in point: Within minutes of arriving at the bar, a guy approached the two of us for conversation.

His introduction?

“I work as an auditor for Ernst and Young, but it crushes my soul and I hope to one day start my own non-profit.”

WTG and I smirked. Because I was bored, I asked additional questions about his future plans while WTG sat there looking dour.

He blew his own cover when two minutes into the conversation he seized on WTG’s purse.

“Is that a Burberry?!?!?!” he asked.

WTG immediately grabbed the purse, threw it under the table, and told the boy that if he continued the conversation I would annihilate him.

For the record, yes, it is Burberry, but no, verbal combat was not necessary. The guy blathered on about her purse for three minutes until he finally had the wherewithal to check our facial expressions and realized that he was screwed. Pretending to take a phone call, he promptly fled our table.

The description above remained the bulk of our evening until we spied two men (boys?) spying us. They appeared to be foreign, not by skin color or dress, but there was something about the way they did there hair (greased back) and their mannerisms (flying hands) that indicated they were from somewhere other than this country. At some point, their eye contact became so overwhelming that WTG and I switched places so that I could absorb their leering gaze while she settled upon a nice blank wall.

I feel as if I should at this point mention something about the physical appearance of both WTG and myself. As a reader, you have no idea, and when people see us together they are often confused as to our commonality. To be brief, WTG is your all-American, classically attractive girl, which is to say that she has blonde hair, blue eyes, and big boobs. I am more of a WASP swathed in corduroy with little make-up, my long hair usually pulled back and up at the nape of my neck. My hair is brown; my eyes are green; my boobs are nil.

To be certain, she looks as if she just walked off the set of Desperate Housewives while I am more of fresh off the pages of an REI catalog. We get along not due to our complementary styles, but a strange meeting of the minds. This little blond coquette (I say that sarcastically, because she really is quite dry in an awesome way) from a Baptist school background is, interestingly enough, the only person I’ve ever met who truly understands me, and not only that, calls me on a regular basis out of fear that I have offed myself. I can tell her anything, no matter how bizarre or disturbing, and not only does she nod in comprehension, but she typically adds to my account with a further analysis that I myself had not yet realized. After three years of friendship I am horribly worried that I have made myself so vulnerable that her absence will one day cause my downfall.

But enough about that love fest. There were boys.

When we switched seats, this confounded them greatly, so much so that they finally had the courage to come over and speak to us directly.

Ok, I have to pause because suddenly I’m bored, and by suddenly, I mean I got up from this piece two hours ago, came back, and am like, “Eh, do I want to finish it?”

I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve done this with. I start, words flow, flow, flow, and then all of the sudden, “Eh.”

So I guess I’ll leave it as it is…and maybe tomorrow or the next day, I’ll tell you about the guys.

Ok, wait. I’ll say this.

The guy I talked to was funny, cute, smarter than most, and cute. (I know I said it twice. What can I say? I’m superficial.)

I gave him crap for never reading The Plague. He gave me crap for never reading Candide.

Sounds like a match made in heaven, right?

EXCEPT!

He was from the Middle East and he wants to return there one day in the not so distant future.

And by the way, have I mentioned that I've *already* gone down the dating a Muslim from the other side of the globe dating road?

So of course I gave him my number when he asked for it.

WHAT? I told you he was cute!

And can I just tell you, the guy has been texting me ALL DAY!

What is it with texts?

I find it highly annoying!

Seriously, I think I’ve blown through my limit in the last three hours.

And ohmigod, I’m so bored with him!

What is the point?

If you want to ask me out, ask me out. If you don’t, don’t. If you want to be friends, probably even better. If you want to stroke your ego…texts? Really?

So, anyway. I figured it out after about twenty texts and stopped returning them.

Sorry, I’m Gen-X. This whole technology thing is new to me. And give me some credit, I'm trying to be open to new people.

Oh, and the beginning paragraph? Well, originally I was going somewhere else with it...because I busted out with the religious debate on around the fifth text or so, and he wouldn't make any kind of comment...except to say that Is*rael was not really a country. I asked him if he wanted to come to Break the Fast after Yom Kippur and debate this with my friends. He replied that he was about to go jogging and would text me later. When the texting resumed, guess what was missing from the conversation?

Bullet points of life...

Lots of stuff going on…not a lot of commentary that I want to provide.

1. First there was sadness. Then there was apathy. Next there was ANGER. I’ve had a few blow-outs with people. Others have been quietly de-friended on Facebook. Have you ever woken up one day and wondered WHY certain people are still a part of your life when they not only do nothing to contribute to your happiness, but also detract from it in some way? I had a few. I got rid of them. People who make you feel bad about yourself are not worth the energy.

2. In response to this, I've made a concerted effort to spend time with the people in my life who are actually nice to me. WHAT A CONCEPT!

3. I think the whole idea of going online to find people to go to shows with was a bad idea. I am returning to my original thought that the people who do this stuff ARE in fact desperate and strange…and I haven’t even gone out with anyone. I can’t even bring myself to return their bizarre emails.

4. However, after repeating the whole story to several people, my friends are now LINING UP to accompany me to music shows. Friends are awesome.

5. I haven’t brought alcohol into my house for FOUR WHOLE WEEKS! Whoo-hoo!

6. I am sleeping LIKE A BABY!

7. Unfortunately, I now have the TOLERANCE OF A GNAT…and I learned this the hard way.

8. Whoever thought that I would have to watch HOW MUCH I DRANK when I was out? What a pain!

9. Wine-Time-Girl is back in the H-town after a nearly four month hiatus. Brunches and dinners have resumed. And icing on the cake, she’s finally moving into her own apartment…not too far from me. Oh how I love her. I SO MISSED MY BFF.

10. I have TWO crushes, neither of which I have any intention of pursuing. One is way too young. The other I know nothing about, but it’s so fun to smile at someone from afar in a completely innocent way.

11. Let’s hear it for reuniting with COLLEGE FRIENDS over the past year and spending the holiday weekend with them. Yay for old friends who knew you when.

12. Supposedly the CONTRACTOR is coming tomorrow to finish work on the apartment. FINALLY! So happy. AND all the pictures have been hung!

13. I DUMPED MY THERAPIST! Rotting eggs be damned.

14. I went out with a *new* friend this week who I met through another friend. New friends! :-)

15. Still chasing the golden carrot at work while MANAGEMENT and the department structure continues to resemble a WHIRLING DERVISH. Things are tense to say the least, and I’m just trying to work hard and pretend I’m SWITZERLAND. In the meantime, I lost my office and am now in a CUBE. It doesn’t bother me really except that I can’t use the speaker phone for conference calls anymore. Plus, I have to make sure all the merger/acquisition-related crap is locked up at the end of the day. I remain hopeful though – because what else can I do?

16. For the first time in forever, my parents actually CALLED ME. (Hell hath frozen over.) I nearly passed out when I saw their number on my caller id.

17. A friend of mine from law school who (sadly for me) moved to NYC last month called me tonight to catch up and told me how much she missed our late night conversations over coffee and pho. Awww! Come back, R! Tell NYU to suck it!

18. I guess what I’m saying is, LIFE IS GOOD and hopefully getting better.

Hello Douche-bag Neighbor!

It's 6:45 pm on a Wednesday night.

I have a downstairs neighbor. He's a PhD student (so he has to be up really early most mornings, right?)

He just knocked on my door to complain about my music.

Apparently he's not a fan of the Black Crowes.

SUCKS TO BE HIM!

I'm entitled to be pissed off about this given the situation, right? 6:45 pm? Dude, get your own house if you don't dig community living. And um, just to remind him - we live in MONTROSE! Move to Pearland already.

Does anyone else feel like dancing right now?

Home sick...

I'm home sick today.

I'm wearing flip-flops, a tank top, and knit gaucho pants.

The dog is at my feet.

I'm reading blogs.

It's an ugly day and pouring down rain outside.

And yet, I am immensely happy...until another email from work rolls in.

Now, I know it's just a phase because work has been pretty CRAPPY the past few weeks, but don't you think it's sad when you'd rather be *sick* than be at work?

I rock at first impressions...

A few days ago I was listening to my ipod at work, and when a song came on that I really liked, I checked to see who the artist was.

I have to do this all the time because I only buy one album a year. It’s a compilation CD put out by an Austin radio station that includes about 30 acoustic sets by rockers, folk singers, and various forms of Americana.

Upon learning the name of the artist, I checked my ipod again and determined there were several good songs by this guy. Hmmmm. I punched the artist’s name into Google and found out that he would be playing in Houston in November…at the Mucky Duck…which is about three miles from where I live.

Sweet!

So then I clicked onto the Mucky Duck website, and wouldn’t you know, there’s about six different bands playing the next few months that I’d like to see, including the Greencards in October whom I love, love, love. (This is if I don't end up in Austin for ACL that weekend.)

Sigh.

Although roughly 60% of the Austin population shares my taste in music, very little of Houston does, and as I mentally ran down my list of friends, I couldn’t think of a single person who might attend a show with me.

Again, sigh.

If only I knew someone…. And then I got this silly little thought. Wine-Time-Girl is always trying to get me to sign up for online dating. Personally, I think online dating is a little strange. Yes, you’re casting a wide net, but with the wide net you’re pulling in a lot of junk. I’m uncomfortable meeting people for whom I have no reference, and I’m suspicious that a large percentage of the people who sign up are desperate, lonely, or otherwise have some type of fatal flaw that prevents them from finding companionship in their everyday life.

But what if I didn’t want a love interest? What if I just wanted an activity buddy of sorts to go to shows with? Certainly, there was someone on one of the sites suitable for such?

So that night, I went home all happy and started to create a profile online. As it turns out, I already had a login for one of them. Several years ago, someone I’d known had created a profile and wanted to me to proofread it and give them my opinion. In order to get on the site to see it, I had to create a login and a profile at the time.

The darn site had forced me through about ten pages of questions, making me fill out all kinds of information and requiring a minimum number of characters. As I found this highly annoying, I wrote things like, “Online dating is for weirdos. Have I reached 200 characters yet? My dog is part pit-bull and will chew your face off.”

After I was done, I hid my profile, checked out my friend's, and forgot about the whole thing.

The profile was still there when I logged on a few days ago, and this time I honestly entered the information, uploaded my photos, and handed over my credit card information. I figured that I’d hone the description over Labor Day weekend and go live sometime next week.

The next day at work I got an email from the site telling me that the new profile had been rejected because it wasn’t completely in English. I had no idea what the site was talking about insofar as English is my only language, but I figured that I’d worry about it later since I hadn’t received an email saying that my pictures had been accepted and the profile was still hidden.

Here’s what I didn’t know.

Any time you update your profile on the site, it automatically makes your profile public – BEFORE it accepts your new one.

So when I finally did log on, what did I see? My old profile had been up for a few days, this time with pictures, announcing to everyone that I thought online dating was for losers. AND, during that time, no less than a hundred different men had viewed my profile.

And that, my friends, marks Ana’s auspicious entry to online ‘dating.’

Thank goodness I’m only looking for an activity buddy.

That being said, the online community must be quick to forgive. In the 48 hours since the new profile went up a little more than twenty people have contacted me to express interest – which is to say I’ve spent bits and pieces of the weekend writing notes like, “Thanks for saying I’m pretty and witty and such, but I have to admit I’m not really into dating right now. By any chance though, do you like folk music?”

And oh yeah, would anyone be up for seeing Slaid Cleaves at the Mucky Duck on November 20?

Darn it...

I was the most accessed "blawg" on the ABA (American Bar Association) Journal website today.

Why?

I don't know! I didn't give them my address. And geez, it took me forever to fall out of their all time highest reads or whatever they call it.

Yes, I'm technically a lawyer.

No, it's not a law blog.

I apologize that the ABA directed you here. Take it up with them!

Not a law blog! Just a whiny-ish fiction-ish writer who never was!

But in reality it's just stuff...

The dog and I have done almost nothing today.

This morning, closer to this afternoon actually, she received a walk, but an extremely short one given that it is nearly 100 degrees outside. She’s been begging ever since to return to the great outdoors, and now as we approach her dinner hour, she is becoming even more antsy.

Besides that, a few odds and ends found a home in the apartment today. Not necessarily good homes, but really, where does one put extra hangers when the bars in the closet are completely full of clothes? I’d already put all the wire hangers in the car for recycling the next time I visited the dry cleaners and in addition, pulled out the old hangers that were definitely on their last legs, but you never know when you might need an extra hanger, and it seemed silly to throw them out when space was available. Of course, I will never use them given my policy that as soon as one new clothing item comes through the door, an old clothing item must venture out. In fact, despite this, I feel as if there are still a few clothing items I could find in the closet and toss into the donation pile that is in habitual existence at my home.

I have this strange disgust at me and my things. Every time I open a closet or a drawer I think, “I never use that. I should throw it out.” This rarely actually happens, and my stuff continues to sit on shelves and multiply in the night. The more I do throw away, the more I seem to have. The presence of all of it makes me feel heavy, weighed down. I don’t know how I got so many things. I look around and it feels like I have purchased almost none of it, rather gathered and pack-ratted cast-off items along the course of life.

My pencil holder once held a floral arrangement at a wedding I attended. My pencil sharpener was given to me some time around the age of seven. It’s Hello Kitty riding in a choo-choo, and it still works like a dream. My desk is an old kitchen table. My notepads were made from letterhead that became recycled when the officers at one of my jobs were no longer officers.

I pull out the pens from the little clay pot. They too were merely acquired, not bought.

The first one has the name of a student organization from my law school. The second says, Rennie’s Landing, a bar in Eugene, Oregon where my sister and I drank after I finished the LSAT (which was taken the same weekend as her college graduation). Camp Longhorn, The Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Radisson Inn (location uknown), UC Irvine (I was accepted there for undergrad) with little dancing anteaters, Balcones Springs Retreat, Volkswagen…. I manage to find fifteen pens and pencils that I can toss. When I am done, the remainders still refuse to fit into one pot. Whatever, fifteen is something, right? I toss them in the trash and return to the hodge-podge. Suddenly fifteen is not good enough. No, I must continue tossing until every last little pencil fits. Thirty-five writing instruments later, it is done. I have cleared a whole three inches on my workspace.

I feel emboldened. Perhaps I can pare down my VHS collection. Yes, you heard that right. I have probably sixty VHS tapes. Do I ever watch them? Sometimes. I dig through the bottom shelf of my bookcase and go for it:
To Catch a Thief
Billy Madison
Uncle Buck
True Romance
Care Bears Movie II (Where did I get this?)
St. Elmo’s Fire
Cool Hand Luke
The Natural
Stepmom
Three yoga tapes.

ALL gone now and in the donation pile. Will they take them? Who knows? Again, twelve tapes removed from the shelf, and when I’m done rearranging, I can’t even tell I’ve removed any. I think of how gratifying it would be to throw out the VCR, and by proxy have the need to get rid of all of the tapes. (Did I use proxy correctly in that sentence? I don't think so.) Secretly, I say a small prayer hoping that my VCR breaks.

Books? Let’s give it a try.

After five minutes, all I’ve done is pulled down a small book on Chicago architecture and given a novel by Bellow some serious consideration. Tapering books, not my strong suit.

I walk back into the extra bedroom and toss a beanie baby into the pile. There are still fifteen stuffed animals sitting on the bed, fourteen of which were given to me by someone else. (Hey, I got rid of five or six others right before I moved.)

I’m not a natural accumulator, I realize as I go through the items. Rather, I have done this to myself by design. The more I own, the more difficult it is for me to hop from place to place, loading the dog and a few clean pair of underpants into the car with nothing but the highway in front of us, an asphalt yellow brick road of sorts. But the silly thing about your travels is that they always lead you home again. I spent my early childhood in Texas and moved away. Came back for college and moved away again. And yet, here I am, thirty-four years old, living in Texas. I no longer feel the need to tie myself down with heavy artifacts. I don’t need to surround myself with memories of the past to make myself feel at home because I’ve discovered that I AM HOME. And I want to be here. And since this realization, now I just feel like my house is full of needless stuff.

Opening the closet, I emerge with three pairs of shoes:
A beautiful pair of heels that I never wear because they are too big;
A beautiful pair of dress shoes that I never wear because they are too big and also give me blisters;
A pair of black boots that I never wear because I have another pair of black boots that I always choose over this pair.

Boom, into the donation pile. And the closet is still bursting at the seams.

In the bathroom, I find a yellow washcloth that can go.

I figure I’ll just keep doing this until the place starts to look normal. Perhaps in the next few months, in a daring moment, I will reward myself and throw out the VCR.

Today...if I twittered

I hit the snooze button this morning thinking I’d sleep in for a little bit.

I woke up at 11:30.

For some reason, I feel tired all the time recently.

I took some moving boxes downstairs to the garage.

There are still moving boxes to be taken down.

I took the trash out – including three empty wine cubes.

There is no longer any alcohol in my house.

I don’t think I’ll buy any next week.

This is probably because I realized that I went to bed drunk every night this week except for Tuesday.

Part of this is due to that I’m having trouble falling asleep at night even though I’m always tired.

Part of this is because I’m bored and too lazy to find something stimulating to do. Most days it’s just easier to knock yourself out.

Had a set-up date this week.

He was a decent guy, but not my type.

I must have not conveyed such sentiment though because he spent at least five minutes at the end of the date telling me how cool I was, but that he didn’t dig smokers.

I lit one up during this speech.

Sadly, he was an interesting guy, and I was tempted to ask him if he had any friends ten years younger with a little more hair who took themselves less seriously.

On the way out, he insisted on driving me home because the neighborhood was sketchy, and I, being small and female, was particularly vulnerable.

I’m okay with people who don’t dig smokers, but there’s no need to insult me, my gender, and my neighborhood.

Despite returning to smoking two months ago, I have not lost any of the weight I gained when I quit. Now I feel chunky and stinky.

After being gone for two months, my BFF is coming home on Tuesday. So happy!

On Wednesday my boss gets a new boss. This could be stressful.

Finally hung a ton stuff up on the wall today. I bet the neighbors love me.

Especially since there is still stuff that needs to be hung up.

I’m feeling just a dip below okay these days which I think is ten times more annoying than actual depression.

I’m really glad I washed that damn shirt.

Earlier this week, I also took Musician Boy’s number out of my phone so that I wouldn’t be tempted to call or text, but I wrote it down just in case I ever needed it.

I’m pretty sure that in the process of writing it down I inadvertently committed it to memory. Awesome.

Realized that I don't miss the guy after Musician Boy at all, and this, for some reason, makes me feel bad about myself.

I changed the head on my razor today. That was worth the effort.

And I showered, also worth the effort.

I'm listening to the soundtrack from Hope Floats right now. Don't tell anyone.

I can’t believe that after a month, there is still stuff in this house that needs to be done. And I feel like I’m doing a few things every day.

This reminds me that I need to call the contractor to do some (more) work.

All I've had to eat today is four cups of coffee and ten Hershey's kisses. I have food; I'm just too lazy to make it. To tell you truth, even the wrapper on the kisses was a little bit of an effort.

I got dressed some time after 6 pm today.

Tomorrow, I’m buying something off of Craigslist in an attempt to help wth the boredom, laziness, and boy memories. If I end up following through with the whole process, I’ll tell you about it in a few weeks.

Have a nice weekend.

The Second Gift...

Last night I met a friend from college at our neighborhood bar - I think you already know that. But what you don't know is that she also brought me a gift.

For years she's had a dress of her mother's hanging in her closet that she loved, but which didn't fit her properly. Yesterday she came across it and wondered, "Now who do I know who would want a cotton batik dress from the 70's?"

Who else?
Thanks S! It was so sweet of you to think of me. I love it!


Those boots in the background? My grandfather's boots from when he was in the Corp at Texas A&M. Yes, my grandfather was an Aggie! Where else would you go for a Chemical Engineering degree in those days? Guess who also has the framed diploma? Really, I have so much of their stuff - it's insane!!!!

Quick-quick Note...

Thank you to everyone who wrote a comment or email in regards to my note on Privacy. I appreciate your input, and part of the enjoyment of the blog-writing experience is the ability to get unbiased feedback from others. Otherwise, I’d just put this crap in a journal.

One thing I should say, I am not offended when people link, favorite, or put me on a blogroll. Readers come and go, and that’s how one gets them. I try to write with just enough honesty/off-kilterness to where the blog will appeal to a select (yes, I called you ‘select’) crowd, but not enough so that it serves as a moving train wreck for the masses. Blog fame is not something I aspire to, but the ability to be slightly entertaining for some, yes. So, I apologize to any one who felt as if they’d done something I found offensive. You did not.

As always, thank you for reading. As long as you keep doing that, I will keep writing.

I remain affectionately yours,
Ana

Why Moving is Such a Mess...

I’m sure you’re asking, “Hey Ana, if you’re all non-materialistic and never buy things then why do you keep whining about the move?”

Good question.

Despite my desire to be free of encumbering objects, I do have this little disease.

It’s called sentimentality.

“Oh Ana! You’re so sentimental,” my mother will often say to me, as if it’s an endearing flaw.

Growing up, I spent the summers of my early childhood at my maternal grandparents’ house in San Antonio, and when I was eighteen, I moved back to Texas to attend college. While my relationship with my grandparents was always a complex one, I loved their house, not because it was filled with beautiful artifacts, but because somewhere around 1970 my grandparents decided that they liked their house just the way it was…and they never really changed anything in it after that. My grandparents’ house was the one place I could go where things were always the same. If I left a piece a paper sitting on a desk there was a good chance it would still be there on my next visit. For some reason, I derived a great comfort from such.

When my grandmother died my Senior year, and my grandfather was moved to a nursing home, my brother, mother, and I took on the task of preparing their house for sale. Neither my brother nor my mother wanted very many things out of the house, and frankly, thought a lot of it was junk, but for me, there was a story in almost every piece. Not only that, but they had a lot of functional pieces that I could use at some point in life. So I took as much as I could, which was probably less than a quarter of their things, but what, as it turns out, was still quite a bit.

Let’s start with the china. Here it is:



(Yes, I know I put bread plate and the soup bowl (and for that matter, the fruit bowl) in the wrong spot for a place setting, but when I put the soup bowl in the proper place, you couldn’t see the salad plate.)

My grandmother’s house had an Asian/rattan/bamboo motif. If you look closely at the china, you’ll see that those are little bamboo sprigs. And if you look at the flatware, you’ll see that the handles are made to look like bamboo. I loved this set because it has the simplicity of white with a touch of color, and the bamboo seemed so much more interesting/modern to me than the type of graphic you’d normally see on china or a piece of toile. (Placemats are courtesy of my mother, circa 2001.)

The china is from Japan, and I can only assume that my grandmother purchased it while visiting her parents at some point. Either that, or my great-grandmother may have given it to her. If you’ll notice, it’s a seven piece set: dinner plate, salad plate, soup bowl, bread plate, fruit/dessert bowl, teacup, and saucer. Already there are more pieces than the 5-piece set that is becoming more of a standard today.

Now guess how many sets my grandmother had.

Six?

Eight?

Ten?

Try TWELVE! And while it is unlikely that I will ever have a house big enough to accommodate twelve people for dinner, I can’t throw any of it out. What if I accidentally break, oh I dunno, like half the set?!?! It’s kind of ridiculous, I realize, but I can’t exactly replace it, so I keep it all.

So yeah, 84 pieces of china – well, not exactly because I also have the gravy boat, the cream and sugar pot, three serving platters, and some kind of large serving bowl that no longer has a lid.

And really, I practiced restraint because my grandmother had THREE sets of china – her everyday, her ‘special’ china, and her mother’s china.

And if you think that’s nuts? There’s a whole set of stemware that went with it.


Aren’t the little bamboo etchings cute? Guess how many I have of each of those. (Not quite twelve – only because I have broken a TON.) I’m not even sure what the use is for all of those glasses: beer stein, water goblet, ????, red wine, white wine, sherry?, port, aperitif…. If anyone knows the correct name and order, leave it in the comments!

Everyone who visits when I’m entertaining always compliments me on these pieces (below). I think they must think that they are crystal. They’re actually just cut glass (as far as I know) but I love them and they come in so handy much of the time.





Oh, you might notice those ice blue bowls in the back. There’s a story behind those too – only this one is my own. Back in 2001, I became appreciably thin, (as in people I’d never met would walk up to me on the street and ask me if I had a food issue) and my mother was highly alarmed by it. However, these are not the types of things that we discuss in my family, and so she said nothing. Instead, every few weeks a collection of kitchen items from Williams Sonoma would arrive in a box at my apartment. Let’s just say, that if I ever get married, a registry will be wholly unnecessary. My family members are exceptionally gifted at many things, but one area where we excel as a unit is denial.

Moving on, I couldn’t part with this cute set of demitasse that my grandmother purchased while living in Germany. Somewhere I lost the sugar bowl which makes me horribly sad – purely ridiculous given that I still have…



…the set with the china…


…and the set from the cut glass.


And did you notice, there’s soup bowls, too?



Complete with soup tureen (thanks to LPC for the spelling).



Let’s not forget the true memory pieces.

The Hamm’s beer glasses (eight) out of which my grandfather drank his nightly beer with the news and were probably purchased at a gas station for 5 cents, if that.


Smooth and Mellow, it says!

The mushroom glasses (six) that I always found so fascinating…



The mixmaster with which my grandmother and I always used to make cookies…and it which we failed miserably. She called them ‘flophouse’ as opposed to tollhouse.


It still works, but now sits as a display in my living room. Why? Well, my mother bought me this sweet little puppy in 2001.

Then there’s just the ‘fun’ stuff…

The four sundae glasses and twelve sherbet glasses. Who even knew that they MADE sherbet glasses!


The kitschy food dish, complete with instructions…



You can't find casserole dishes like this one anymore...

But it's not just kitchen items, the funky mid-century modern furniture keeps with the theme!

Here's the living room set my great-grandparents bought while living in Japan…


Don't feel bad if you saw this and felt compelled to sing the Golden Girls theme song. I do.
For years I've wanted to get those couches recovered. For years I've found a legitimate reason to put it off. I thought of getting it done as my law school graduation present, but my mother noted that I might want to wait until I owned a house and knew my decorating scheme. Given that I've recently started to rethink whether or not I want a house at any point in the near future, that gives me quite awhile!

And I love-love-love this bar my grandfather got in Hong Kong on his way back from living in Thailand, replete with a first edition of Trader Vic cocktail recipes that I also found while scrounging around my gp's house.





There's more, but you get the point. There’s a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that requires care to pack and brings back memories while you pack them. In a way my stuff is more than just my stuff. At times, it’s a physical manifestation of emotional baggage, or an expression of love for my family, or my attempt to show people who I am and where I come from. Sometimes the breakable items turn out to be the things that break me. Sometimes they offer me a strange support, as if my family is always right here with me, but most importantly, wherever I go, whatever I am doing in life and whoever I meet, I can always come home to find things exactly they same as they have been all my life.

What can I say? I'm sentimental, and I accept that about myself.

Privacy...

People write blogs for various reasons. Some people want to work on their writing skills. Others want to document the growth of their children for various relatives. Some have a message they are trying to get across. And some of us just use them as a place to file our thoughts.

With the exception of a few people I knew in law school, the readers of this blog are squarely divided into two groups:

• People who don’t really know me from Adam; and
• Five or six friends who would likely hear the stories first hand (and often do hear the more in-depth version of events).

My real name is not associated with the blog in any way. I don’t link to it on my Facebook account or networking websites. I don’t toss it out at parties or when people learn of it and ask for the address. In fact, I rarely even tell most people that I have one.

When I write stories that include other people, I don’t provide enough of a description to identify the person in question. No one knows who they are – except of course, that handful of friends who have probably already heard the story. Though this blog is public, their privacy is protected.

I’ve never claimed that anything written on this blog is fact – in fact I’ve quite often alluded to the opposite. I’ve never claimed that anything written on this blog is the whole story. It’s not. I’ve never claimed that the viewpoint on this blog represents anything other than what I am feeling at the moment my fingers hit the keyboard.

Think Like a Woman is a form of my private journal. Sometimes it’s stories and sometimes it’s musings, but sometimes it’s just my little way to vent and get out my feelings without saying something that would be meaninglessly hurtful to the person who’s frustrating me.

There are generally two groups of people who drive me to exasperation where I feel the need to go storm off and fume on here occasionally: my family and the boys I date. Because of this, I don’t give them the web address because a) I would lose the emotional outlet I have with this blog and b) my writing would lose a lot of its authenticity. Hesitation would fill each keystroke.

So no, I don’t give out the address to the above people. As I said, it would cause hurt feelings without reason. However, I don’t want to be completely deceptive so I do usually say something about the existence of this blog and then mention that I’m uncomfortable with people I know looking at it. This blog is my little safe place where I can come and be prissy or immature or whatever the hell I want to be that day. And I know some people think that is quite an unfair thing to ask, but here’s the deal.

A lot of people keep their journal in a dresser drawer and people close to them know it’s there, but they don’t go digging for it the moment the writer steps out of the room or is away from the house. They don’t pick it up as soon as the person they’re dating steps into the shower (at least no one I would want to date would). And along those same lines, just as you wouldn’t steal someone’s journal and go make copies of it for your friends, you also shouldn’t be firing off my url to those around you via email.

And yeah, I suppose in some ways telling my loved ones about the blog is a little bit of a test. It’s a way to find out if you’ll respect my wishes, and if you are someone I can truly trust. I figure if you ignore that and find yourself reading something you don’t like, it’s your own damn fault.

For the record, eight people have been given the, “I write a blog, but I don’t want you to read it” speech. Three people have respected those wishes:
My brother, the film editor;
His fiancé, the web designer; and
My ex, the musician.

Interestingly each one of them has had a further discussion with me about the blog and how they understand that it’s “my thing.”

My ex had his “thing” too when we were dating. When I pissed him off, he wrote nasty songs about me and yes, he might have played them for other people. (OMG!)

That email from him I mentioned the other day? He said that he’d written some songs about us that he wanted me to listen to at some point, but he also assured me, “Don't worry, they're pretty much casting me in a bad light and not any type of carrie underwood destroy your pickup truck type songs :)”

I’ve heard one of the angry songs before, and yes, it was mean, but at the same time, you could tell it was borne out of pure emotional anger rather than anything else. And NO, I haven’t made it over to his place to hear the songs.

You might wonder how I can tell when someone’s reading the blog. Well, there are a few things. Their demeanor towards me changes when I write something they don’t like. (For example, my mother suddenly stops sending me emails.) Or they inadvertently mention something in casual conversation that has never been discussed, but is documented here. Or they ask questions like, “Is there anything else you want to tell me? Is there anything else you’re upset about?”

That’s one way. The other?

Every good blogger takes advantage of the free statistic keeping programs available for blogs. What do these things tell us?

You IP address;
Your internet provider – which if not a home system like Time Warner or Comcast is usually the name of the company where you work;
Your city;
Your state;
The browser you use;
The operating system you use;
Your screen resolution;
The number of returning visits (returning visits are clicks occurring three hours apart);
The time you accessed this blog;
Details of the last thirty or so times you’ve clicked on the blog from that IP address;
What page you entered on;
What page you were on when you left; and
What page referred you to this site.

So yeah, if you click on this site TWENTY TIMES in one day, I know that. If someone leaves a comment, I can match up your statistics to the time the comment was left. If you found this link in an email on yahoo or by accessing Google reader, I know that. If you found this link on Facebook, not only do I know that, but I can tell if you accessed it from your feed or a message in your inbox.

Now I don’t check my stats all the time. Maybe once a week or the day after I’ve written something that I think is kinda personal. I look for aberrations rather than details. Someone who’s been on the site A LOT of times or someone who’s on for two minutes, clicks off, and is right back a few minutes later. I also check for certain cities, business names, etc.

I know a lot of who's on here. For example, there’s I guy I knew in law school who now lives in Dallas. He likes to read me in the midmorning and then check in again before he leaves work. (Hi! How are you?) And my sister gave this address to her ex-boyfriend…who apparently gave it to someone else at his old PR firm (or maybe he still works there, I dunno).

And if you find it, but don’t say anything to me about it, well, I’m not going to say anything either. Hell, I just keep writing, and maybe accidentally ramp it up a notch (unless your my mother). Why? Because I’m angry, and this is my outlet.

A few days ago, I wrote a post about dreamers and my respect for them. Lots of people commented, mostly recent readers or people I’d otherwise never heard of. I kept waiting for one of my long-time readers to chime in or maybe Alex or Wine-Time-Girl and correct them, but no one ever did.

So here's the news flash. Here's where I break it down piece by piece.

That essay wasn’t about the guy I was dating or the guys I might want to date. That post was about self-respect, my self-respect.

*I* am the dreamer.

Anyone who’s been here for the last five years can tell you that in my twelve years as an adult I have lived in four different cities, had ten different jobs (non of which had the same title or used the same skill set), eight different apartments, dated numbers of boys for mere weeks at a time, and had a darn near nervous breakdown when I got my dog because of the responsibility that I knew she would require.

Sure I have a job right now, but need I remind you, I’ve been there less than a year. Yes, I made it through three years of law school, but at the same time, who’s going to pass up three years of acceptable unemployment in exchange for very little effort (because it was very little relative to other things in life)?

You want to know why I have debt related to law school? Because when I asked my mother for the money, she told me that she wasn't going to pay for it when she knew that I'd only practice for a few years and then move onto something else, if I even chose to practice at all. You know why she said that? Because she knew that I would actually practice for awhile - just to prove her wrong.

Why didn't I take the promotion at work? Because $50-70k more a year just wasn't worth the additional responsibility that the job would require.

So you see, anonymous commenter, that type of person you find so nauseating is actually me. You just chose not to see me that way, or otherwise overlooked it.

This blog? It's about me. Just me. There are a few bit players who help to tell the stories, but they're not the focus. It's about my struggle to define what being a grown-up means to me. I think if you look through the posts, you'll see that - whether I'm talking about my mother or my boyfriends or whoever else. Yes, even this one.

Think Like a Man, Act Like a Lady?

No, search engine-users, you are not going to find that book here. This is not Oprah’s Book club. In fact, if you notice, this blog has the opposite name.

I once picked up a “working woman’s” magazine in a waiting room and read an article on the best advice that female executives had ever received from their fathers. One woman said her father had always told her to, “Think like a man, Act like a woman.” Like a man she was to be smart, decisive, and fair in her business pursuits, but always maintain the grace, dignity, and gentility of a woman.

I found the whole thing pretty gender offensive.

There are smart men, and there are smart women. There are also stupid men and women. Intelligence does not occur at higher rates among men or women. One sex is not more skillful in business than the other. And women, as far as professional social skills go, should not be held to any type of higher or different standard than men. Both men and women cry and both men and women curse. (Or at least they should.)

So I got all contrarian, and flipped the phrase when I started this blog.

Please do not use gender-neutral words to describe genders. It hurts all of us.