I might as well have been naked the past five days.
I was phoneless.
It's an isolated feeling to think that no one could get in touch with me in the rare moments when I wasn't connected to a computer monitor, which wasn't very often thanks to my work computer, laptop and home desk top.
But still, there were moments.
Moments like covering a city council meeting Friday night. While the council was in executive session, my sister's boyfriend urgently Facebooked me via my laptop that I needed to call my sister ASAP. Despite my urgent requests ("is this really serious?") he assured me it was and so I tracked down the cell phone of the city secretary and placed frantic phone calls to three family members before my sister finally called me back.
They wanted to know if I could grab a beer with them later.
I had to use a non-work land line for the first time last night to put my people in place to cover a fire. That was a first in a freakishly long time.
And then there was the problem of an alarm clock. I paced the floors trying to figure that one out. I thought of winging it, but that's never a good idea. So I googled alarms and actually found one online. It woke me up.
I typically average about 3,500 sent/received text messages a month. I received/sent not a one the past five days.
As disconnected as I might have felt, the silence was a nice break and made me think that when I got my phone back, perhaps I need to establish boundaries. Is it absolutely necessary that I receive email notifications from art guilds at 1 in the morning? Most likely not.
Of course, there's a nagging urge in the back of my mind, what if that one email you need while traveling down the road comes in and you don't get it until minutes/hours later, and by then it's too late?. If that wasn't a reality, I wouldn't be worried, but it's happened.
And so I invariably stay connected to my phone, my email, and cranked my laptop open this morning at 6:46 after my 6:45 alarm went off. What did I miss? What needs my attention?
But, does it always need my attention?
I probably need a rule. No electronic devices before 8. If something's blown up or burned down, someone can call me. I will answer. But getting sucked into the cyber world before I've brushed my teeth or put on my glasses is probably not the best lifestyle choice.
So yes, I felt naked without my phone. I feel like I have my pacifier back, but I'm going to adjust my usage.
Or should I say dosage?
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
old soul
I met an old man yesterday and he was surprised I was a city editor. I didn’t look old enough, he said. He mentioned it twice - once to me and then again when he introduced me to his wife and asked for my title again.
I was told the same thing today while I was registering my car. She looked at me quizzically and said, “I always imagined an editor to be old, much older than you, with her hair pulled back in a bun and wire-rimmed glasses.”
My glasses aren’t wire-rimmed but at times I do look over the rim at people, and sometimes I do have my hair whipped back. Give me a few years on the old part.
It’s certainly not the first time I’ve been told this, and I don’t mind it.
But don’t let my baby face belie the age of my soul.
It’s an old one.
I feel more comfortable toasting champagne with people twice my age than I do socializing at mixers aimed for "young" people. To be honest, I'd rather hang out at the bridge club or go play pinochile at the senior center than frequent "the places" you're supposed to go when you're supposed to "meet someone."
So why is that?
Because with people my senior, I'm still a young whippersnapper and am not expected to know everything or have the answers to myriads of questions.
And right now, I need to be alone, which means I'm not trying to find someone, which means that you will find me at the senior center a lot. It is, afterall, my "second home."
I was told the same thing today while I was registering my car. She looked at me quizzically and said, “I always imagined an editor to be old, much older than you, with her hair pulled back in a bun and wire-rimmed glasses.”
My glasses aren’t wire-rimmed but at times I do look over the rim at people, and sometimes I do have my hair whipped back. Give me a few years on the old part.
It’s certainly not the first time I’ve been told this, and I don’t mind it.
But don’t let my baby face belie the age of my soul.
It’s an old one.
I feel more comfortable toasting champagne with people twice my age than I do socializing at mixers aimed for "young" people. To be honest, I'd rather hang out at the bridge club or go play pinochile at the senior center than frequent "the places" you're supposed to go when you're supposed to "meet someone."
So why is that?
Because with people my senior, I'm still a young whippersnapper and am not expected to know everything or have the answers to myriads of questions.
And right now, I need to be alone, which means I'm not trying to find someone, which means that you will find me at the senior center a lot. It is, afterall, my "second home."
Saturday, August 27, 2011
my car
I drove my car yesterday for the first time in a year.
It's been in the shop for a year. I wrote an entire column about it - I'll post it here when I'm on the computer the document's on.
In the meantime, my car is back, I am glad, very thankful for my brother who made it happen, and everyone in my family who has worked out the Vehicle Situation for a year.
I'm blessed.
It's been in the shop for a year. I wrote an entire column about it - I'll post it here when I'm on the computer the document's on.
In the meantime, my car is back, I am glad, very thankful for my brother who made it happen, and everyone in my family who has worked out the Vehicle Situation for a year.
I'm blessed.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
good for my soul
Taking care of things is my thing.
What makes you happy?
Taking care of something.
Raising a litter of puppies. Taking my dog to the lake. Cooking dinner for the fam. Meticulously bleaching the white porcelain kitchen sinks. Sweeping the porch. Brushing the dogs. Scrubbing out horse troughs and dog dishes. Cracking an egg on top of the dog food. Laundry. Playing a game of Yahtzee.
It's good for my soul.
It's good for my soul for my German Shepherd to "nap" with me:
It's good for my soul to sling 50 pounds of horse feed over my shoulder at 6:30 a.m.
It's good for my soul.
What makes you happy?
Taking care of something.
Raising a litter of puppies. Taking my dog to the lake. Cooking dinner for the fam. Meticulously bleaching the white porcelain kitchen sinks. Sweeping the porch. Brushing the dogs. Scrubbing out horse troughs and dog dishes. Cracking an egg on top of the dog food. Laundry. Playing a game of Yahtzee.
It's good for my soul.
It's good for my soul for my German Shepherd to "nap" with me:
It's good for my soul to sling 50 pounds of horse feed over my shoulder at 6:30 a.m.
It's good for my soul.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
on days like this
My momma told me there’d be days like this…
The song’s been in my head all afternoon, but when I Googled the lyrics, I 1) didn’t understand them and then 2) realized they had nothing to do with my current mood.
Or maybe they do. Like I said, I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around them on days like this.
On days like this, I’m wishing for days like yesterday, and for days tomorrow and the next day when the object of my worries isn’t what’s plaguing me today because today feels insurmountable.
I am fighting Worry and Worry is fighting me and on days like this, I’m losing.
Losing steam, losing energy, losing sleep, losing peace, losing motivation.
So I curled up in my brother’s bed for 4.5 hours Sunday and slept.
I feel so fragile right now. And raw, I told a friend.
And then, somewhere in my soul, much like in many women’s souls, grit gets restless on days like this.
It starts deep before surfacing. Gentle breaths of hope collide with the ice around my core until finally its warmth has dissipated negativity and my heart wants to explode with new energy.
But, on days like this, my mind doesn’t want to.
“Tenacity is when you follow your heart – when the whole world is screaming to get back into your head.”
The gentle breaths are becoming more forceful.
The song’s been in my head all afternoon, but when I Googled the lyrics, I 1) didn’t understand them and then 2) realized they had nothing to do with my current mood.
Or maybe they do. Like I said, I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around them on days like this.
On days like this, I’m wishing for days like yesterday, and for days tomorrow and the next day when the object of my worries isn’t what’s plaguing me today because today feels insurmountable.
I am fighting Worry and Worry is fighting me and on days like this, I’m losing.
Losing steam, losing energy, losing sleep, losing peace, losing motivation.
So I curled up in my brother’s bed for 4.5 hours Sunday and slept.
I feel so fragile right now. And raw, I told a friend.
And then, somewhere in my soul, much like in many women’s souls, grit gets restless on days like this.
It starts deep before surfacing. Gentle breaths of hope collide with the ice around my core until finally its warmth has dissipated negativity and my heart wants to explode with new energy.
But, on days like this, my mind doesn’t want to.
“Tenacity is when you follow your heart – when the whole world is screaming to get back into your head.”
The gentle breaths are becoming more forceful.
Friday, August 19, 2011
I need medicine
I needed Ibuprofen today and I had to ask a coworker for it. I'm out.
It seems I'm out of a lot of things recently and my optimism is cracking a little, teetering.
"It'll work out," is something I say a lot. To my family, friends, coworkers, and I believe it and it does.
But sometimes I doubt it.
Tonight I doubt it.
Yesterday I doubted it.
This week I've doubted it.
Today I wished for the problems of only yesterday because today they were compounded.
If only I knew how small that was to worry about compared to this.
Ah, worry. I do that a lot, you know. I've obsessed over solutions and mulled over options until they were mush in my throbbing head, and then very simply solved. And then, on to the next worry. The next mountain, the next mole hill, it doesn't matter. Let me solve it, let me fix it.
There's a silly notion floating around out there that maybe I can't fix it. Maybe I don't have what it takes to make it all better.
Or maybe in my tired head are answers waiting to be found. Who knows.
What I do know is that today I needed Ibuprofen and I asked for it. Tonight and tomorrow and the next day I need soul medicine. And I'm not so good at asking for that.
It seems I'm out of a lot of things recently and my optimism is cracking a little, teetering.
"It'll work out," is something I say a lot. To my family, friends, coworkers, and I believe it and it does.
But sometimes I doubt it.
Tonight I doubt it.
Yesterday I doubted it.
This week I've doubted it.
Today I wished for the problems of only yesterday because today they were compounded.
If only I knew how small that was to worry about compared to this.
Ah, worry. I do that a lot, you know. I've obsessed over solutions and mulled over options until they were mush in my throbbing head, and then very simply solved. And then, on to the next worry. The next mountain, the next mole hill, it doesn't matter. Let me solve it, let me fix it.
There's a silly notion floating around out there that maybe I can't fix it. Maybe I don't have what it takes to make it all better.
Or maybe in my tired head are answers waiting to be found. Who knows.
What I do know is that today I needed Ibuprofen and I asked for it. Tonight and tomorrow and the next day I need soul medicine. And I'm not so good at asking for that.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
I love Jesus but I drink a little.* Alone.
Once upon a time I had a complex about drinking alone.
What a sad thing to do, to sit by ones self and pour a glass of wine. It means you have no friends and why would you waste alcohol alone?
If only I could go back in time and pat my sweet little self on the head. How precious.
I have no such complex now. Or shame, which could mean one of two things: 1) I have arrived at a state of such deplorable loneliness that the only way to mask it is drinking a bottle of wine in my bed. Or 2) I've realized the medicinal purposes of alcohol.
pssst. It's #2.
It's not so much about getting drunk and being somebody as it is about sleeping. It's also a salve for frayed nerves, it removes gray hairs and elicits conversation that has nothing to do with deadlines, copy editing or assigning stories.
For the concerned among you, I don't drink alone every day and I don't drink for breakfast.
But hands off my gas station wine and burrito. That's what's for dinner.
*I didn't say it. Gladys did.
What a sad thing to do, to sit by ones self and pour a glass of wine. It means you have no friends and why would you waste alcohol alone?
If only I could go back in time and pat my sweet little self on the head. How precious.
I have no such complex now. Or shame, which could mean one of two things: 1) I have arrived at a state of such deplorable loneliness that the only way to mask it is drinking a bottle of wine in my bed. Or 2) I've realized the medicinal purposes of alcohol.
pssst. It's #2.
It's not so much about getting drunk and being somebody as it is about sleeping. It's also a salve for frayed nerves, it removes gray hairs and elicits conversation that has nothing to do with deadlines, copy editing or assigning stories.
For the concerned among you, I don't drink alone every day and I don't drink for breakfast.
But hands off my gas station wine and burrito. That's what's for dinner.
*I didn't say it. Gladys did.
Monday, August 15, 2011
My conversation with Donald Miller's "How to Live a Great Love Story, Vol. 1"
It's funny how the Internet works. One blog led me to Donald Miller's blog last week, and I obediently followed the link because I like the guy. Read his books, I think he's generally well-spoken. And the title of the article piqued my interest:
"How to Live a Great Love Story, Vol. 1," which if you try to Google it, it's hard to find because he deleted it along with the second volume addressed to men. Instead, you'll find this article in which he apologizes for and explains his haste in writing the two previous volumes.
News of my intense dissatisfaction over his writings spread quickly amongst friends and family mostly because I can't keep my mouth shut. My overriding question was: do people actually still believe this shit in the 21st century? Much less perpetrate it?
Well, naive soul, the answer is yes.
My friends have asked if I accept his apology, and I do. I even commented on his blog and said I was humbled by his attempt at smoothing things over because his misguided posts caused quite a splash in the religious blogosphere, which I don't pay any attention to at all unless people are fighting. Nothing is more funny than Christians fighting on the Internet. Pop the popcorn, pull up a seat, it's about to get remove-the-log-out-of-your-own-eye-crazy.
Anyway.
I'm a blogger, a writer, blah, blah, blah, and as such I have a lot of things to say especially when it comes to things I feel passionate about.
As it turns out, my love story is one of those things. To sum it up, dude tried to dictate my love story and I didn't like his version. So I hammered out my reply on a keyboard and thanks to popular demand, you get to read it:
I became disinterested in the current issue of Woman’s Day after an article about defining the type of get-the-kids-off-to-school morning routine woman I am. This was before stress-proofing your marriage. There just wasn’t a whole lot there for this woman in her day, and I left my magazine-reading-bath-session feeling a little cheated and that I’d have been better served reading Sports Illustrated.
I had the same feeling when I finished Donald Miller’s How to Live a Great Love Story Vol. 1.
First of all, any article that claims inadvertently in its title that it is the how-to guide on a nebulous thing like love is gravely mistaken. As it turns out, there is no how-to guide, and the how-to-ness of a guide means one thing: condemnation and guilt when my love story doesn’t follow the preceding guidelines. It’s as haughty as its own presumption that the guide to love is contained within the following thousands of words.
To commiserate then for thousands of words and inconsistencies is offensive to the people who took the time to read it, including myself. Below you'll find my differing opinions under his boldened ones.
How do we live a great love story? Here are some suggestions:
1. Don’t hook up: Girls shouldn’t make it too easy on the guy. Don’t hook up, in other words…if he thought of her with respect, he’d sit and ask questions about her life and her family…In other words, guys don’t hook up with girls they would marry.
Regardless of if he’s thinking “I’m going to marry her and have sex with her” or “I just want to have sex with her,” sex is going to be a thought. Just because a guy asks questions about life and family does not mean they’re not looking for the “hook up girl” - the kind you’ve told us (twice in three sentences) not to be.
…And when your husband finds out you were the “hook up” girl he’s going to have to have a lot of grace, which is fine, it just puts you in the category of “charity” in his mind and not “equal” or “partner.”
Time out. Hold the phone. So a guy has married the hook up girl and then realized she was that girl? THE hook up girl? If the guy who has married the hook up girl, married the hook up girl because he saw something in her he wanted to pursue, than perhaps her hook up days are over? Forgiven? Under the blood, as common Christian liturgy would refer to it as? And if it’s a relationship worth having, wouldn’t he know before he tied the big fat wedding knot? How do you suppose he’d ’find out’? Rummaging around in her closet of skeletons only to find “Oh honey, you were THE hook up girl? I’m devastated.” Why would a torrid past place anyone in the “charity” category (I’m not even sure I know what that is) and is his past perfect that it would also eliminate him from such a subordinate position in her mind? Maybe that will be addressed in part two.
…Unless you get over it and move on and do a period of time where you put it all behind you, he will and honestly should lose respect for you.
While I’m adhering to a list of requirements to get back in his good graces, what else can I do? Climb stairs on my bare knees while whipping myself with a hand-picked switch? The author wants to belabor the damage of being the hook up girl, but seeks to relegate its consequential fix into a mere sentence - get over it, move on, do a period of time (whatever that means), put it behind you. And as a bonus, you might get his respect back! Oh, when can we start?
2. Make him work for it: When a guy is made to fight for a girl, he esteems her much more highly. She becomes more attractive in his eyes, and for that matter she becomes more attractive to other men, too. That said, most of the time this will backfire because lots of guys are just looking for cheap and slutty sex and for her to get lost afterward.
How can I say this? I vomited in my mouth and laughed at the same time. I’m envisioning this in my head as a football huddle. Third down. Ball’s in the end zone, or on the 50-yard line, doesn’t really matter for the sake of this analogy because as your coach is wrapping up calling the next play, he finishes the mesmerizing speal by declaring, “It won’t matter, actually. You’re going to lose either way.” Nice! Inspiration epic fail. So ladies, what I’m gathering here is: make him work for it but *pssst* it’s going to backfire. Wait. He just said that.
3. Weed them out: …By weeding them out you definitely end up with a smaller pool of guys to choose from. It’s unfortunate and that is truly bad news. But there’s good news, too. There are fewer girls with the strength to not have one night stands, and those girls become much, much more attractive to men…
In other words, it’s a great strategy to be more attractive to a smaller group than cheap and easy to a larger group.
I feel like this is matter of mathematics now and subsequently way over my head. But this is my hang-up (not hook up! I am so not that girl): statements such as that presume that I want to be attractive to anyone. And that’s the problem with how-to guides to love stories, and in this case living a great love story. You’re grossly unaware of the fact that I’m walking my journey for myself. I’m not holding myself back from being the hook up girl for a smaller pool of bastards who want to have sex with me as much as their impure counterparts. Is strategy really the best advantage you could think of to holding ones self back from being the hook up girl? Is that the incentive you’re using? So girls can wait and find the best husband who will make the best babies and be the best partner in raising a family?
4. Be willing to suffer: What this means for you is that your love story needs to have a lot of lonely crying in it.
No, no it doesn’t. There is one constant in your love story and that’s you. And you don’t have to suffer, you weren’t made to suffer. Your love story starts at the center, the core of who you are, and if lonely crying isn’t there, don’t cry. If lonely crying is there, by all means wail it out. But then get a hobby. Don’t keep crying. Don’t keep suffering. Get a dog. There’s a reason why I raise puppies - I have to nurture something. Babies aren’t in the big picture for me right now, but it doesn’t make me cry. It makes me look within myself for a way to satisfy that longing. As a result, I’ve been the best babysitter, best puppy raiser, best nanny, best bring-muffins-to-work woman ever.
Believe it or not, there will come a day when a man will fall madly in love with you....
Will he? Again, there’s a reoccurring assumption here that my vagina automatically needs a friend. It’s like furniture stores and liquidation sales - where there’s one, there’s another. But maybe not in this case. So you’ve directed me to have lots of lonely crying in my love story with the guarantee that a man will fall madly in love with me. I say bullshit. You’re laying a stack of cards claiming they’re aces, and I call bullshit. The only thing you can be sure of is that I am involved in my love story. I/me am the common denominator and as such the only thing I can guarantee is that my love story journey begins and ends in my heart.
...and you will have the honor of sitting down with him one special night to explain that, while you weren’t perfect, you turned down plenty of guys and cried yourself to sleep hoping somebody would come around and treat you with respect.
If I said that to any guy I was interested in, I would hope for two things: 1) that he would start laughing, or 2) run away.
If he doesn’t have the same story, he will feel intensely convicted and unworthy.
You still don’t get it, do you? Every person has a story, no two are the same. And I’m not looking for someone with the same story. We all have our own journey to walk and we’ve all made choices to get to this point in our lives, whatever this point is for every one. Our stories will never be the same.
And like all great how-to guides, the disclaimer:
You’re love story may not work, it’s true. Plenty of them don’t. But the chances of your love story succeeding are greatly increased when, on race day, you can actually run.
So, what do you do if you’ve completely screwed this up: (because chances are, you have.)
1. Be honest about it…You shouldn’t share a bunch of details, but you should definitely share you went through a slutty season and have very few, if any, excuses. Be honest, but not too honest.
Is the author going to be there when I have this conversation so I can know exactly what I need to say? What’s a “bunch of details”? How will I know? Instead of silencing the voice within us by pretentious step-by-step guides, what about equipping that voice to speak for us? Our hearts are more powerful than you think.
3. Start training for the freaking marathon. Marriage is the hardest job you’ll ever have. It works nothing like a hookup.
This is actually good information, because in my head, marriage and hook-up were the exact same thing.
If you’re used to one off sex acts where you’re having crazy experiences, you’re (your) husband is never going to be able to match up because, well, he’s got to stick around and do the laundry and argue with you about the electricity (electric) bill.
If I were to poll all of my married friends right now, I could promise that him sticking around to do laundry is not part of their love story. And that if it were, it’d probably make for a little crazy sex experience in the laundry room that he might “match up” to.
…It feels boring in the moment, but twenty years in you’ll be crying your eyes out over this man who stuck with you through the thick and thin and who honestly didn’t care that you got fat!
Wow. So many things going on in this sentence. First of all, I’m not sure the kinds of women you hang/hung out with, but they sure are some weepers. You’ve got us crying a.lot. Secondly, in the hallucinogenic love story you’ve created for me, please don’t make me fat!
The world needs some great love stories, but few people are willing to do what it takes to tell them.
With a list like this, it’s little wonder the line isn’t pulsating. What I would rather invest my emotional, spiritual and mental health and energy in is living my love story (my unique-to-me story shared by no one else) that starts with me and ends with me. If it happens to include a life partner, how wonderful. (Seriously, wonderful.) But if it doesn’t, the love story I started with myself will continue. My journey won’t end just because someone in the fractionized pool wasn’t attracted to me. My journey is powerful because I’m the one living it. It’s my love story being told every day.
"How to Live a Great Love Story, Vol. 1," which if you try to Google it, it's hard to find because he deleted it along with the second volume addressed to men. Instead, you'll find this article in which he apologizes for and explains his haste in writing the two previous volumes.
News of my intense dissatisfaction over his writings spread quickly amongst friends and family mostly because I can't keep my mouth shut. My overriding question was: do people actually still believe this shit in the 21st century? Much less perpetrate it?
Well, naive soul, the answer is yes.
My friends have asked if I accept his apology, and I do. I even commented on his blog and said I was humbled by his attempt at smoothing things over because his misguided posts caused quite a splash in the religious blogosphere, which I don't pay any attention to at all unless people are fighting. Nothing is more funny than Christians fighting on the Internet. Pop the popcorn, pull up a seat, it's about to get remove-the-log-out-of-your-own-eye-crazy.
Anyway.
I'm a blogger, a writer, blah, blah, blah, and as such I have a lot of things to say especially when it comes to things I feel passionate about.
As it turns out, my love story is one of those things. To sum it up, dude tried to dictate my love story and I didn't like his version. So I hammered out my reply on a keyboard and thanks to popular demand, you get to read it:
I became disinterested in the current issue of Woman’s Day after an article about defining the type of get-the-kids-off-to-school morning routine woman I am. This was before stress-proofing your marriage. There just wasn’t a whole lot there for this woman in her day, and I left my magazine-reading-bath-session feeling a little cheated and that I’d have been better served reading Sports Illustrated.
I had the same feeling when I finished Donald Miller’s How to Live a Great Love Story Vol. 1.
First of all, any article that claims inadvertently in its title that it is the how-to guide on a nebulous thing like love is gravely mistaken. As it turns out, there is no how-to guide, and the how-to-ness of a guide means one thing: condemnation and guilt when my love story doesn’t follow the preceding guidelines. It’s as haughty as its own presumption that the guide to love is contained within the following thousands of words.
To commiserate then for thousands of words and inconsistencies is offensive to the people who took the time to read it, including myself. Below you'll find my differing opinions under his boldened ones.
How do we live a great love story? Here are some suggestions:
1. Don’t hook up: Girls shouldn’t make it too easy on the guy. Don’t hook up, in other words…if he thought of her with respect, he’d sit and ask questions about her life and her family…In other words, guys don’t hook up with girls they would marry.
Regardless of if he’s thinking “I’m going to marry her and have sex with her” or “I just want to have sex with her,” sex is going to be a thought. Just because a guy asks questions about life and family does not mean they’re not looking for the “hook up girl” - the kind you’ve told us (twice in three sentences) not to be.
…And when your husband finds out you were the “hook up” girl he’s going to have to have a lot of grace, which is fine, it just puts you in the category of “charity” in his mind and not “equal” or “partner.”
Time out. Hold the phone. So a guy has married the hook up girl and then realized she was that girl? THE hook up girl? If the guy who has married the hook up girl, married the hook up girl because he saw something in her he wanted to pursue, than perhaps her hook up days are over? Forgiven? Under the blood, as common Christian liturgy would refer to it as? And if it’s a relationship worth having, wouldn’t he know before he tied the big fat wedding knot? How do you suppose he’d ’find out’? Rummaging around in her closet of skeletons only to find “Oh honey, you were THE hook up girl? I’m devastated.” Why would a torrid past place anyone in the “charity” category (I’m not even sure I know what that is) and is his past perfect that it would also eliminate him from such a subordinate position in her mind? Maybe that will be addressed in part two.
…Unless you get over it and move on and do a period of time where you put it all behind you, he will and honestly should lose respect for you.
While I’m adhering to a list of requirements to get back in his good graces, what else can I do? Climb stairs on my bare knees while whipping myself with a hand-picked switch? The author wants to belabor the damage of being the hook up girl, but seeks to relegate its consequential fix into a mere sentence - get over it, move on, do a period of time (whatever that means), put it behind you. And as a bonus, you might get his respect back! Oh, when can we start?
2. Make him work for it: When a guy is made to fight for a girl, he esteems her much more highly. She becomes more attractive in his eyes, and for that matter she becomes more attractive to other men, too. That said, most of the time this will backfire because lots of guys are just looking for cheap and slutty sex and for her to get lost afterward.
How can I say this? I vomited in my mouth and laughed at the same time. I’m envisioning this in my head as a football huddle. Third down. Ball’s in the end zone, or on the 50-yard line, doesn’t really matter for the sake of this analogy because as your coach is wrapping up calling the next play, he finishes the mesmerizing speal by declaring, “It won’t matter, actually. You’re going to lose either way.” Nice! Inspiration epic fail. So ladies, what I’m gathering here is: make him work for it but *pssst* it’s going to backfire. Wait. He just said that.
3. Weed them out: …By weeding them out you definitely end up with a smaller pool of guys to choose from. It’s unfortunate and that is truly bad news. But there’s good news, too. There are fewer girls with the strength to not have one night stands, and those girls become much, much more attractive to men…
In other words, it’s a great strategy to be more attractive to a smaller group than cheap and easy to a larger group.
I feel like this is matter of mathematics now and subsequently way over my head. But this is my hang-up (not hook up! I am so not that girl): statements such as that presume that I want to be attractive to anyone. And that’s the problem with how-to guides to love stories, and in this case living a great love story. You’re grossly unaware of the fact that I’m walking my journey for myself. I’m not holding myself back from being the hook up girl for a smaller pool of bastards who want to have sex with me as much as their impure counterparts. Is strategy really the best advantage you could think of to holding ones self back from being the hook up girl? Is that the incentive you’re using? So girls can wait and find the best husband who will make the best babies and be the best partner in raising a family?
4. Be willing to suffer: What this means for you is that your love story needs to have a lot of lonely crying in it.
No, no it doesn’t. There is one constant in your love story and that’s you. And you don’t have to suffer, you weren’t made to suffer. Your love story starts at the center, the core of who you are, and if lonely crying isn’t there, don’t cry. If lonely crying is there, by all means wail it out. But then get a hobby. Don’t keep crying. Don’t keep suffering. Get a dog. There’s a reason why I raise puppies - I have to nurture something. Babies aren’t in the big picture for me right now, but it doesn’t make me cry. It makes me look within myself for a way to satisfy that longing. As a result, I’ve been the best babysitter, best puppy raiser, best nanny, best bring-muffins-to-work woman ever.
Believe it or not, there will come a day when a man will fall madly in love with you....
Will he? Again, there’s a reoccurring assumption here that my vagina automatically needs a friend. It’s like furniture stores and liquidation sales - where there’s one, there’s another. But maybe not in this case. So you’ve directed me to have lots of lonely crying in my love story with the guarantee that a man will fall madly in love with me. I say bullshit. You’re laying a stack of cards claiming they’re aces, and I call bullshit. The only thing you can be sure of is that I am involved in my love story. I/me am the common denominator and as such the only thing I can guarantee is that my love story journey begins and ends in my heart.
...and you will have the honor of sitting down with him one special night to explain that, while you weren’t perfect, you turned down plenty of guys and cried yourself to sleep hoping somebody would come around and treat you with respect.
If I said that to any guy I was interested in, I would hope for two things: 1) that he would start laughing, or 2) run away.
If he doesn’t have the same story, he will feel intensely convicted and unworthy.
You still don’t get it, do you? Every person has a story, no two are the same. And I’m not looking for someone with the same story. We all have our own journey to walk and we’ve all made choices to get to this point in our lives, whatever this point is for every one. Our stories will never be the same.
And like all great how-to guides, the disclaimer:
You’re love story may not work, it’s true. Plenty of them don’t. But the chances of your love story succeeding are greatly increased when, on race day, you can actually run.
So, what do you do if you’ve completely screwed this up: (because chances are, you have.)
1. Be honest about it…You shouldn’t share a bunch of details, but you should definitely share you went through a slutty season and have very few, if any, excuses. Be honest, but not too honest.
Is the author going to be there when I have this conversation so I can know exactly what I need to say? What’s a “bunch of details”? How will I know? Instead of silencing the voice within us by pretentious step-by-step guides, what about equipping that voice to speak for us? Our hearts are more powerful than you think.
3. Start training for the freaking marathon. Marriage is the hardest job you’ll ever have. It works nothing like a hookup.
This is actually good information, because in my head, marriage and hook-up were the exact same thing.
If you’re used to one off sex acts where you’re having crazy experiences, you’re (your) husband is never going to be able to match up because, well, he’s got to stick around and do the laundry and argue with you about the electricity (electric) bill.
If I were to poll all of my married friends right now, I could promise that him sticking around to do laundry is not part of their love story. And that if it were, it’d probably make for a little crazy sex experience in the laundry room that he might “match up” to.
…It feels boring in the moment, but twenty years in you’ll be crying your eyes out over this man who stuck with you through the thick and thin and who honestly didn’t care that you got fat!
Wow. So many things going on in this sentence. First of all, I’m not sure the kinds of women you hang/hung out with, but they sure are some weepers. You’ve got us crying a.lot. Secondly, in the hallucinogenic love story you’ve created for me, please don’t make me fat!
The world needs some great love stories, but few people are willing to do what it takes to tell them.
With a list like this, it’s little wonder the line isn’t pulsating. What I would rather invest my emotional, spiritual and mental health and energy in is living my love story (my unique-to-me story shared by no one else) that starts with me and ends with me. If it happens to include a life partner, how wonderful. (Seriously, wonderful.) But if it doesn’t, the love story I started with myself will continue. My journey won’t end just because someone in the fractionized pool wasn’t attracted to me. My journey is powerful because I’m the one living it. It’s my love story being told every day.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
cave tour
My family was fractioned off this weekend and I got the kiddo part. I consider myself lucky.
A week in advance, I reserved my not-so-kiddo little brother for Saturday and we convened in the afternoon for a nearby cave tour.
First stop was an observation tower where, at the top, there was little circulation and we all sweated considerably.
It was so comfortable to just be together. We were a family unit of five with a picnic lunch, a kid in a stroller, and wild senses of humor. Yet, the quote of the day was not intentionally funny and was made by me.
We were walking along in the cave and there was a low spot, on which I hit my head for the third time on the tour.
I said: "Wow, I just hit my head."
Daniel said: "I heard it."
I replied: "I hit it so hard I saw black."
*drum roll*
Micah said: "Yeah, we all did."
How was I supposed to know that at the exact moment I knocked my noggin, the lights would flash off and then on?
And then there are the very random cave conversations you overhear when you're crowded 14 stories down with 25 strangers. True to form, I took notes. The most notable was on our way out. A father was carrying his little girl as we passed a little drop-off.
"How 'bout we jump down there?"
Good idea, dad.
There was the family with a camel pack and a lifetime supply of Birkenstock sandals. The dad wore a T-shirt that said, "I love my wife." Seeing them so prepared made me feel like we were about to embark on an Indiana Jones-like adventure in which I would die. I would die because I was so unprepared I was wearing flip-flops.
There was a rock formation in the shape of a Rottweiler that we were supposed to believe was formed by dripping water and not tools. I called bullshit. The thing was totally carved.
Sarcasm aside, the tour was awesome and the company I had was better.
Best reservation I ever made.
A week in advance, I reserved my not-so-kiddo little brother for Saturday and we convened in the afternoon for a nearby cave tour.
First stop was an observation tower where, at the top, there was little circulation and we all sweated considerably.
It was so comfortable to just be together. We were a family unit of five with a picnic lunch, a kid in a stroller, and wild senses of humor. Yet, the quote of the day was not intentionally funny and was made by me.
We were walking along in the cave and there was a low spot, on which I hit my head for the third time on the tour.
I said: "Wow, I just hit my head."
Daniel said: "I heard it."
I replied: "I hit it so hard I saw black."
*drum roll*
Micah said: "Yeah, we all did."
How was I supposed to know that at the exact moment I knocked my noggin, the lights would flash off and then on?
And then there are the very random cave conversations you overhear when you're crowded 14 stories down with 25 strangers. True to form, I took notes. The most notable was on our way out. A father was carrying his little girl as we passed a little drop-off.
"How 'bout we jump down there?"
Good idea, dad.
There was the family with a camel pack and a lifetime supply of Birkenstock sandals. The dad wore a T-shirt that said, "I love my wife." Seeing them so prepared made me feel like we were about to embark on an Indiana Jones-like adventure in which I would die. I would die because I was so unprepared I was wearing flip-flops.
There was a rock formation in the shape of a Rottweiler that we were supposed to believe was formed by dripping water and not tools. I called bullshit. The thing was totally carved.
Sarcasm aside, the tour was awesome and the company I had was better.
Best reservation I ever made.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
I forgot to put it on
There's no easy way for me to say this, and maybe it's one of those things I shouldn't admit to.
...
Nah. Where's the fun in that?
I forgot to put my bra on Wednesday morning.
Yup.
This crazy chick who might look like I have it all together actually forgot a key element (besides coffee) to my day.
What's worse is that I didn't realize it until I was fully (sans bra) dressed and reaching into the closet for my shoes.
And I saw my bra.
It was an awkward moment.
There was a sinking "maybe this is really happening" feeling in the pit of my stomach followed by a "nuh-huh, this can't be true."
A quick TSA-like pat down revealed it was true.
Who knows what the appropriate response is when you realize you were getting ready to walk into the world without a vital undergarment.
I put it on.
And then later when a friend emailed and asked how my day was, I used it as an example to show how mentally unavailable I am to myself right now.
This is how effing tired I am when I wake up in the morning!!
...
Nah. Where's the fun in that?
I forgot to put my bra on Wednesday morning.
Yup.
This crazy chick who might look like I have it all together actually forgot a key element (besides coffee) to my day.
What's worse is that I didn't realize it until I was fully (sans bra) dressed and reaching into the closet for my shoes.
And I saw my bra.
It was an awkward moment.
There was a sinking "maybe this is really happening" feeling in the pit of my stomach followed by a "nuh-huh, this can't be true."
A quick TSA-like pat down revealed it was true.
Who knows what the appropriate response is when you realize you were getting ready to walk into the world without a vital undergarment.
I put it on.
And then later when a friend emailed and asked how my day was, I used it as an example to show how mentally unavailable I am to myself right now.
This is how effing tired I am when I wake up in the morning!!
Monday, August 8, 2011
it was bound to happen
It felt like whiplash that I'd kinda, sorta been expecting, but was hoping to avoid. I didn't entirely and I'm hopeful that last night's little, eh, episode will be the end of that.
That.
If you haven't been reading here for awhile or have ignored my pages at the top of my home page, this will be the first time you learn I have chronic Lyme disease and while most days I manage it, some days it kicks my ass.
Last night? My ass was totally kicked.
This was a kick-me-back-to-summer-of-2009 kick in the ass.
While the recovery of the actual oral surgery has been effortless, my biggest concern was how my body would react to an overhaul such as this. It's not just pain meds, it's muscle relaxers that served to relax my impoverished joints and muscles and then whipping them back to reality when I started not taking them to get ready for work Monday.
Revolt.
Chills and pain. Pain and chills. I laid in the fetal position in my bed and cried. And then self-guided through a pain management technique I learned a couple years ago - recognizing and compartmentalizing the pain away from my body. I did that a lot in the summer of 2009, and most nights was the only way I could sleep.
My little sister brought me my heating pad, which is heaven to my joints.
Once I got my legs cleared, I felt like I was having a heart attack. My heart rate was 85 laying still, and the pain was reverbrating across my chest, back, arms and neck. By now, it was nearly 1 a.m. and I was tired. Thankfully I have enough medical knowledge in my background to know that heart attack symptoms for women mirror indigestion. Of course, we had no TUMS but thankfully my mom is a home remedy whiz. Baking soda and water it was, and I collapsed back in bed where indigestion went away and my heart did not explode.
Unfortunately, and for whatever reason, dental work incites the Lyme bacteria, so this could be a rough next four to six weeks. Or, optimistically, it could not be. It's always hard to tell with a spirochete.
That.
If you haven't been reading here for awhile or have ignored my pages at the top of my home page, this will be the first time you learn I have chronic Lyme disease and while most days I manage it, some days it kicks my ass.
Last night? My ass was totally kicked.
This was a kick-me-back-to-summer-of-2009 kick in the ass.
While the recovery of the actual oral surgery has been effortless, my biggest concern was how my body would react to an overhaul such as this. It's not just pain meds, it's muscle relaxers that served to relax my impoverished joints and muscles and then whipping them back to reality when I started not taking them to get ready for work Monday.
Revolt.
Chills and pain. Pain and chills. I laid in the fetal position in my bed and cried. And then self-guided through a pain management technique I learned a couple years ago - recognizing and compartmentalizing the pain away from my body. I did that a lot in the summer of 2009, and most nights was the only way I could sleep.
My little sister brought me my heating pad, which is heaven to my joints.
Once I got my legs cleared, I felt like I was having a heart attack. My heart rate was 85 laying still, and the pain was reverbrating across my chest, back, arms and neck. By now, it was nearly 1 a.m. and I was tired. Thankfully I have enough medical knowledge in my background to know that heart attack symptoms for women mirror indigestion. Of course, we had no TUMS but thankfully my mom is a home remedy whiz. Baking soda and water it was, and I collapsed back in bed where indigestion went away and my heart did not explode.
Unfortunately, and for whatever reason, dental work incites the Lyme bacteria, so this could be a rough next four to six weeks. Or, optimistically, it could not be. It's always hard to tell with a spirochete.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
she loves me
I fell in love with her at first sight when her picture was transmitted onto my cell phone, and I had to figure out a way to get her from Kentucky to New Mexico, which I did.
That was 2 1/2 years and many miles ago. Come to think of it, many, many miles.
So, I fell in love at first sight, but I think it's taken her longer. And our trust has been longer in forming. She's spent more time not listening to me than obeying (it seems like), she's killed things and chased more. She's run away and left me crying. She would rather pace obsessively over a cat on the back deck then snuggle with me on the couch.
And yet in her own way she worships the ground I walk on. It's just taken us longer to get there and we've not fully arrived. But do you ever really?
Right now, she's laying under the table at my feet. People can get up and go; she stays. I get up, she follows. While I'm puttering (as I often do) she gets tired of following me from room-to-room so she has a general location where she can lay and watch. She obeys. She listens to me. It's (more so of) a yin-yang.
Being laid up for the past few days has made her more aware of me. She's not used to me being in one place for very long so at first she was confused over my stationary behavior yet she had an awareness that something was wrong. She parked herself by the side of my bed and slept when I slept. Then she alternated between jumping on my bed and laying next to me/on me, or just saying hi.
It's another pivotal moment in our relationship. Pivotal to and from what I'm not really sure. But it's another step in our forward journey of getting acquainted, me falling in love and her falling in love with me.
Welcome to an entire post (complete with pictures) about my dog, Skye.
That was 2 1/2 years and many miles ago. Come to think of it, many, many miles.
So, I fell in love at first sight, but I think it's taken her longer. And our trust has been longer in forming. She's spent more time not listening to me than obeying (it seems like), she's killed things and chased more. She's run away and left me crying. She would rather pace obsessively over a cat on the back deck then snuggle with me on the couch.
And yet in her own way she worships the ground I walk on. It's just taken us longer to get there and we've not fully arrived. But do you ever really?
Right now, she's laying under the table at my feet. People can get up and go; she stays. I get up, she follows. While I'm puttering (as I often do) she gets tired of following me from room-to-room so she has a general location where she can lay and watch. She obeys. She listens to me. It's (more so of) a yin-yang.
Being laid up for the past few days has made her more aware of me. She's not used to me being in one place for very long so at first she was confused over my stationary behavior yet she had an awareness that something was wrong. She parked herself by the side of my bed and slept when I slept. Then she alternated between jumping on my bed and laying next to me/on me, or just saying hi.
It's another pivotal moment in our relationship. Pivotal to and from what I'm not really sure. But it's another step in our forward journey of getting acquainted, me falling in love and her falling in love with me.
Welcome to an entire post (complete with pictures) about my dog, Skye.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
it could've been the adventure you wanted
I had enough clarity at the age of 24 to know that the lonely adventure I was living at the base of the Black Range Mountains in Silver City, New Mexico was one I would miss.
And I was right.
So although I grew despondent and fought moments of depression and loneliness, I reveled in the adventure I was livingn in my old adobe house.
That's the beauty of living in the moment. It's your moment to live in now. For all its angst and sadness and stress and celebration, the little moments add up to big adventures and before you know it, they're gone.
One adventure done and the threads of another being woven.
I miss my New Mexico adventure just like I miss my Kentucky adventure, my Texas adventure and the myriads of adventures in other places.
But the moments I'm living now will add up to a grand adventure that I will surely miss one day.
So I'm living it up, this crazy moment-by-moment life that equals one helluva ride.
And I was right.
So although I grew despondent and fought moments of depression and loneliness, I reveled in the adventure I was livingn in my old adobe house.
That's the beauty of living in the moment. It's your moment to live in now. For all its angst and sadness and stress and celebration, the little moments add up to big adventures and before you know it, they're gone.
One adventure done and the threads of another being woven.
I miss my New Mexico adventure just like I miss my Kentucky adventure, my Texas adventure and the myriads of adventures in other places.
But the moments I'm living now will add up to a grand adventure that I will surely miss one day.
So I'm living it up, this crazy moment-by-moment life that equals one helluva ride.
Friday, August 5, 2011
some (oral surgery) words strung together
Forty-eight hours later - still no pain! A little headache every once in awhile and a bruised sensation on my face, but no pain.
I think I might have taken one too many pain pills last night when I got confused on the time. I woke up at 7-something thinking it was 10, but it wasn't and I'd just taken a pain pill at 6. That caused a couple hours of sleeping disorientation and some crazy dreams. Crazy. I have emailed the appropriate people who the dreams were about. They were almost too good to pass up.
Monsters, Inc. ran on repeat last night. I think it played four times.
I'm a teeny bit swollen, but not black and blue. I've been able to speak coherently since the gauze came out Wednesday night.
Hungry? Yes. I'm afraid when this is over I won't want to speak the words "mashed potatoes" ever again, much less eat them. I tried to eat chicken noodleless soup last night with soggy crackers, but then my sister told me I didn't want form of food getting stuck in the holes where teeth once were. So I fed that to the dogs and ate chicken noodleless/crackerless soup.
Speaking of, it's MP time and maybe some frozen yogurt.
I think I might have taken one too many pain pills last night when I got confused on the time. I woke up at 7-something thinking it was 10, but it wasn't and I'd just taken a pain pill at 6. That caused a couple hours of sleeping disorientation and some crazy dreams. Crazy. I have emailed the appropriate people who the dreams were about. They were almost too good to pass up.
Monsters, Inc. ran on repeat last night. I think it played four times.
I'm a teeny bit swollen, but not black and blue. I've been able to speak coherently since the gauze came out Wednesday night.
Hungry? Yes. I'm afraid when this is over I won't want to speak the words "mashed potatoes" ever again, much less eat them. I tried to eat chicken noodleless soup last night with soggy crackers, but then my sister told me I didn't want form of food getting stuck in the holes where teeth once were. So I fed that to the dogs and ate chicken noodleless/crackerless soup.
Speaking of, it's MP time and maybe some frozen yogurt.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
so far so good
It took 55 minutes and my teeth were gone.
I was awake for the whole thing, but couldn't feel anything aside from pressure. The IV sedation wasn't knock-you-out sedation, apparently. I didn't mind it. Not that I really had a choice.
I'm glad I shaved my legs. The overseeing doctor rubbed my leg a couple times.
I remember the ride home and remember sleeping a little bit.
I'm just resting now and have about a three-minute limit for how long I can be up before I feel extremely nauseasous and like I'm about to pass about. I haven't eaten anything since last night but I'm not hungry. And I'm a little scared to eat and send my sensitive mouth into a hellish bout of irritation. Right now, it's pretty peaceful.
My family is awesome. My mom is bringing me drugs and liquid. My little brother set me up with a TV and DVD player. My sisters have visited in shifts. My dog hasn't left the bedroom without me except to drink out of the toilet a couple times. My friends are texting and a little disappointed I'm as coherent as I am. :)
I'm glad I'm awake enough to enjoy the fact that I'm resting.
I was awake for the whole thing, but couldn't feel anything aside from pressure. The IV sedation wasn't knock-you-out sedation, apparently. I didn't mind it. Not that I really had a choice.
I'm glad I shaved my legs. The overseeing doctor rubbed my leg a couple times.
I remember the ride home and remember sleeping a little bit.
I'm just resting now and have about a three-minute limit for how long I can be up before I feel extremely nauseasous and like I'm about to pass about. I haven't eaten anything since last night but I'm not hungry. And I'm a little scared to eat and send my sensitive mouth into a hellish bout of irritation. Right now, it's pretty peaceful.
My family is awesome. My mom is bringing me drugs and liquid. My little brother set me up with a TV and DVD player. My sisters have visited in shifts. My dog hasn't left the bedroom without me except to drink out of the toilet a couple times. My friends are texting and a little disappointed I'm as coherent as I am. :)
I'm glad I'm awake enough to enjoy the fact that I'm resting.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
how I would handle sticky teen situations
I was taking a bath tonight to shave my legs. If, in some twist of fate, my pants have to be ripped off in an emergency during oral surgery tomorrow, I would like for my legs to be clean-shaven.
So I was shaving and reading a woman's magazine. A section called for answers to handling "tricky teen situations", which somehow when I first read that, my mind saw "sticky." Anyway. As I was reading the questions, I had my own answers (I have an opinion about everything) and thought I'd share.
"My 13-year-old wants a Facebook acount. But I don't think he's old enough."
Then, no. If you don't think the kid is old enough, he's not. Go with your gut. He's also probably not old enough to drive a car or shave.
"My 14-year-old daughter wants to start dating. Is that too young?"
Hell, yes. Until you're old enough for a date to occur in a location other than the school cafeteria, you're too young. It's a negative. She'll get over it.
"My son posted a video of himself on YouTube. Should I worry?"
Depends on what 'himself' consists of. Flexing his muscles in the mirror? Not so much worry. A Weineresque photo/video? Yeah, I'd worry. And then I'd take it down and beat his ass.
"I found a sext message on my teen's cell phone. What should I do?"
Strip them of any electronic priveleges including but not limited to, cell phones, pagers, beepers, television remote, garage door opener...and then send them to a towerless undisclosed location. Yes. I'm telling you to overreact.
So I was shaving and reading a woman's magazine. A section called for answers to handling "tricky teen situations", which somehow when I first read that, my mind saw "sticky." Anyway. As I was reading the questions, I had my own answers (I have an opinion about everything) and thought I'd share.
"My 13-year-old wants a Facebook acount. But I don't think he's old enough."
Then, no. If you don't think the kid is old enough, he's not. Go with your gut. He's also probably not old enough to drive a car or shave.
"My 14-year-old daughter wants to start dating. Is that too young?"
Hell, yes. Until you're old enough for a date to occur in a location other than the school cafeteria, you're too young. It's a negative. She'll get over it.
"My son posted a video of himself on YouTube. Should I worry?"
Depends on what 'himself' consists of. Flexing his muscles in the mirror? Not so much worry. A Weineresque photo/video? Yeah, I'd worry. And then I'd take it down and beat his ass.
"I found a sext message on my teen's cell phone. What should I do?"
Strip them of any electronic priveleges including but not limited to, cell phones, pagers, beepers, television remote, garage door opener...and then send them to a towerless undisclosed location. Yes. I'm telling you to overreact.
Monday, August 1, 2011
be the bigger douche-bag (in this case)
I am an expert douche-bag spotter.
And that's why it's easy to recognize when I'm being a total douche.
Sometimes I shame myself.
So.
M@tch.com claims that one in every five relationship forms online. In my "uh-huh, oh yeah?" frame of mind, I jump on the little thing we call the Internet and I cruise. I cruise my M@tch.com profile, because what's a single chick without a M@tch.com profile? She's like french fries without ketchup, peanut butter and no jelly, bread sans butter.
So I'm on M@tch. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm paired up with this guy and M@tch tells me the following:
1) you both fancy felines
2) like you, he's not a smoker
3) like you, he likes weight lifting.
I hate cats and I've never weight lifted.
Okay, maybe 'hate' and 'never' are too strong. But out of all the things on my profile (a profile that doesn't even mention cats or weight lifting) those are the things my online algorithym decides to capitalize on? M@tch don't know me.
And then I move on.
Next guy. Attractive. 17 pictures. 17 pictures can mean one thing (maybe two). Conceited and arrogant. But I look anyway, and I start chuckling because the first 10were self-poses attempting to be casual. I was mocking him. Inside, I was definitely laughing.
What a douche.
And then I read his profile.
Dude runs a foster care home for displaced teenage boys and is opening a home for pregnant teenagers.
Who's the douche-bag now?
And that's why it's easy to recognize when I'm being a total douche.
Sometimes I shame myself.
So.
M@tch.com claims that one in every five relationship forms online. In my "uh-huh, oh yeah?" frame of mind, I jump on the little thing we call the Internet and I cruise. I cruise my M@tch.com profile, because what's a single chick without a M@tch.com profile? She's like french fries without ketchup, peanut butter and no jelly, bread sans butter.
So I'm on M@tch. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm paired up with this guy and M@tch tells me the following:
1) you both fancy felines
2) like you, he's not a smoker
3) like you, he likes weight lifting.
I hate cats and I've never weight lifted.
Okay, maybe 'hate' and 'never' are too strong. But out of all the things on my profile (a profile that doesn't even mention cats or weight lifting) those are the things my online algorithym decides to capitalize on? M@tch don't know me.
And then I move on.
Next guy. Attractive. 17 pictures. 17 pictures can mean one thing (maybe two). Conceited and arrogant. But I look anyway, and I start chuckling because the first 10were self-poses attempting to be casual. I was mocking him. Inside, I was definitely laughing.
What a douche.
And then I read his profile.
Dude runs a foster care home for displaced teenage boys and is opening a home for pregnant teenagers.
Who's the douche-bag now?
the perils of oral surgery aren't that perilous
I guess I’ve always had a flare for the dramatic, but when I say I could die Wednesday, it’s not a joke.
One out of 350,000 patients sedated for dentistry die each year.
And aside from that terrifying number, there are really no other statistics to raise concern.
Boring.
I’m approaching Wednesday as if I’m taking an overseas five-day hiatus. That’s how excited I am to have five teeth removed and spend five days alternating between the couch and bed with my gauze-stuffed mouth.
Don’t be misled.
I know there will be pain involved. But where there is pain, there are good drugs and where there are good drugs there is surely sleep.
And so, while there are bound to be elements of cry-babiness going on, because I’m dramatic like that sometimes, I’m relishing in the thought of the moments after the pain and good drugs and sleep.
You know, when my teeth won’t break off on soggy Wheat Thins.
One out of 350,000 patients sedated for dentistry die each year.
And aside from that terrifying number, there are really no other statistics to raise concern.
Boring.
I’m approaching Wednesday as if I’m taking an overseas five-day hiatus. That’s how excited I am to have five teeth removed and spend five days alternating between the couch and bed with my gauze-stuffed mouth.
Don’t be misled.
I know there will be pain involved. But where there is pain, there are good drugs and where there are good drugs there is surely sleep.
And so, while there are bound to be elements of cry-babiness going on, because I’m dramatic like that sometimes, I’m relishing in the thought of the moments after the pain and good drugs and sleep.
You know, when my teeth won’t break off on soggy Wheat Thins.
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