So not a romantic comedy....

It’s been a hard week, and an interesting day. Besides some crazy work stuff, I’ve been stressing and agonizing all week over a situation in my personal life. Finally last night I made a decision and then carried it out. I felt so relieved! And then, this morning, I promptly woke up with a stress release migraine. Sadly this is how my brain works; I got a migraine the morning after exam period ended every semester in high school. Nice to know my love life is about as pleasant as an exam period, right?

Anyway, during this migraine I had the weirdest dream. I was standing outside, waiting for this kid I had a crush on in high school (name undisclosed in case anyone who knows us ever reads this) to walk by, and was trying to put on a sports bra. Yep, that’s it, the whole dream. Me struggling to put on a sports bra. I couldn’t do it!! My arms kept going in the wrong holes or getting twisted, and I was so confused and frustrated! And then I woke up. What on earth does it mean??? Other than maybe I need to go to the gym more often?? Haha.

Then because I had already planned to and because my muscles were still all tense from the migraine, I went and got a massage. And I had a very attractive male masseuse. Normally male masseuses are flamboyantly gay, big beefy men in their late 50’s, or tiny 12-year-old skater boys who smell like weed. Since none of these are my type of guy, I normally can play it cool with the “there’s-a-guy-rubbing-my-naked-back” thing. But this guy? Soooo cute!!!!! And straight. And nice. Pretty much instant crush-ville, . Which is not necessarily a problem, but when he’s massaging the tension out of your palms (sounds weird, but one of my favorite parts of full-body massages) and you’re thinking, “hmm, kind of wish you wanted to hold my hand in real life,” it’s a bit distracting. I’m already trying to decide if the cuteness is a reason to go back or a reason to stay away.

But anyway, the guy last night and the masseuse today made me think more about a list I’ve been mentally composing, the list of why my life is definitely NOT a romantic comedy. Don’t worry, this isn’t a list of complaints. I don’t really want to live in a romantic comedy, they seem unnecessarily melodramatic to me. But every so often, it’s funny to remember the difference between reality and what I’m tol should be my fantasy. So here it is, part of my list of how I know I’m not a romantic comedy heroine.


1. I don’t “meet cute”, I “meet awkward”. Take the male masseuse hottie. I met him with a pounding head, wearing scrubs and no make-up, and solely for the reason that I have very knotty rhomboids. Kind of awkward to have the first thing a guy knows about you be the state of your neck muscles. And take one of my most recent first dates. The guy walked up while I was texting. Unfortunate for that alone, but then, in an attempt to make myself not seem rude, I explained who and what I was texting. When my friend had been in town to visit me, I had tripped while we were walking down a street and fallen flat on my face. Well, on my way to meet this guy, I had walked down the SAME street and tripped AGAIN. So I was texting her to tell her that story. Which ended up being the same story I told him. Smooooooooth. The date ended up going well, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t meet the romantic comedy scene criteria.

2. Related: I am living in the wrong places. In a romantic comedy, you’re supposed to live somewhere trendy, hip, and/or scenic—Los Angeles (the good parts) or New York (Manhattan and sometimes Brooklyn). I may have missed this memo. As a girl at my high school reunion said, “I moved to Detroit cause I wanted to corner the market on urban depressed areas!” And I said, “Hey, I live in Baltimore!!!” Baltimore is actually really growing on me, but let’s be honest…tv shows like The Wire are set here. Not movies starring Katherine Heigl. (yes, there was a movie with John Travolta in drag set here, but that is not trendy.) Also, in romantic comedies all the front and center AND background people are unnaturally gorgeous and/or wholesome looking. The kids I work with are friggin’ adorable, and my friends of course are lovely, but the majority of the guys I pass on the street would not make the extra call-back list for most romantic comedies.

3. My wardrobe is all wrong. You know I love giving myself a good shopping montage, but let’s face it, when was the last time a movie character looked at her closet and said, “Mmm, I think I need more khakis”? The movie version of shopping is a cute boutique and bright trendy sexy things. My version is usually Old Navy and sweaters, which, in a shocking development, I wear more than once. And sorry to Manolo Blahnik, but the most expensive pair of shoes I’ve ever bought were my Danskos.

4. Related to the shopping comment, I run too many errands. One of the things I’ve always liked about Seinfeld (other than the pure animal magnetism of Jason Alexander….ha!!) was that it showed the characters doing everyday, normal people things, like wandering a shopping mall parking garage or going to the drugstore. You never see romantic comedy heroines wandering a Giant or making sure to pick up some cat litter on the way home. I know it’s not exciting, but it does have to happen, and frankly I would appreciate it if the movies glamorized it every now and again.

5. Last but not least, and I take this one kind of personally, taking off your glasses and straightening your hair does not make a crazy surge of hotness happen. As a naturally curly-haired girl who couldn’t wear contacts until she was 21, I was always very offended by the makeover montage. Want your longlost granddaughter to look like a suitable princess? Contacts and a hair-straightener!! (The Princess Diaries). Need to convince Freddie Prinze Jr you can be a prom queen? You guessed it, contacts! (She’s All That). I don’t wear my glasses very often, but not because I think they’re unattractive, more because I have poor depth-perception and tend to knock them against doorways (true story). And I only take the really long amount of time to straighten my hair about 50% of the time, because, sorry Hollywood, but I like my curls. If all it took to rope Harrison Ford AND Greg Kinnear (Sabrina) was to do these two things, it would have happened to me many years ago, and I am kind of resentful of the myth.

I actually have more items, but I’ll save them. After a week like mine, it’s hard to not wish my life was more Hollywood script-writer-approved, but in general, I think it’s pretty good. Hope you all are happy with your own, and happy Sunday!!

Much love.

(Not Even Getting to the Point of) Kissing Frogs

Update from dating disaster land!!!

So I've mentioned I'm re-trying online dating. Tonight, I actually went on a date from it. Or tried to. Let me explain.

This guy, G, messaged me a few weeks ago with an email that started by saying "I'm finding it hard to believe you're still single." I'm susceptible to this kind of flattery, and he looked really cute, so I figured we could talk. We had a few messages back and forth, and he seemed fine--he had some trouble spelling, which is a pet peeve for me, and it wasn't exactly fireworks in written form (no Nicholas Sparks-worthy letters here), but hey, what do you expect? My first kind of "errrrmm" came when he asked from my phone number so he could text me, and I had to ask him what his name was--it just seemed weird to give my number to someone who hadn't even asked for my name. Well, we exchanged names and then numbers, and we texted for a while.

First thing: texting sucks. Ok, I love texting, especially when I'm drinking (shout-out to my drunk-text-buddy Laurel!!), but it is no way to get to know somebody. And when we're talking about "wooing" somebody, texting seems kind of lazy. If you want to impress us, guys, pick up the phone.

But so anyway, he asks me out and I say yes. He suggests the time and the place and we confirm it several times. Tonight, at 7, at a bar in downtown. At 6:30, he texts me and says, "I'll be running 15 minutes late." This was kind of annoying, but since he'd given me some notice, I text back, "ok, see you at 7:15!" He texts back, "Ok cool."

Cut to 7:05. I've showered, primped, and am about 5 minutes away from the bar. I get a text from G: "Let's make it 7:30. I'm leaving my house now."

It's a good thing I'm driving and can't text back right away, cause my first compositions were pretty passive aggressive and annoyed. I pull over to text my friends with indignation and let out some steam. At this point, G calls me. His explanation: "I got out of work late, then you know, I had to like take a shower. Normally I'm never late, but like I said I got out of work late. I apologize, where are you?"

I tell him I was there already. His response: "Oh, how's parking? It can be crazy."

Let's recap here. One half-hearted apology. Despite getting really frustrated, I said ok relatively pleasantly, and signed off.

At that point, all I wanted was to be curled up in my pjs on the couch watching Mythbusters. Yes, I am aware that some of the reason I'm single is that my default mode is curling up on the couch and watching Mythbusters: if there is a choice, I tend towards solitude and lumpitude rather than going out to meet new people. On the other hand, I thought about the two people I found out today had gotten engaged (Mazel Tov guys!) and about how truly ready I am to have my special guy be curled up WITH ME on a couch to watch Mythbusters. (Sidenote, watching Mythbusters is not a deal breaker for dating me, but it is helpful.) And so I stayed.

My friend calls me while I'm waiting and I get to express myself. She gives me some suggestions of how to tell him I'm feeling disrespected and annoyed without ruining the date. Then G texts that he is parking, and I head out of my car to the restaurant to meet him.

He walks up and my view of him is instantly more positive. Call me shallow, but oooh-ee, but he's a good-looking man! To quote Bridesmaids, I wanted to climb him like a tree. After a suitable dating period, of course. Besides, he gives me a hug and another apology so I tell myself he is worth a second chance.

The waiter leads us to a table. It's a nice restaurant, by the way. On the way to sit down, G asks me if I lived in the city. Seeing as he's asked this twice in our texts already, I'm a bit confused, but I answer. We sit down and look at the menu briefly. He suggests the hummus and tells me where on the menu drinks were located. The waiter comes to pour us some ice water, and G asks the waiter where the men's room was. The waiter tells him, and G stands up, without saying a word to me, and walks away.

Five minutes later, the waiter comes back. He introduces himself and says that when G comes back, he'll come take our drinks orders.

Five minutes later, he checks in again. No G.

Five minutes later, he asks me if I want a drink while I wait. You guessed it, still no G.

Five minutes later, I'm done. I have no idea what was going on in that bathroom. If it was taking that long (20 minutes), I probably didn't want to be around when it was done. And by now I am so mad I know that even if G came back, I'll be too riled up to give him a decent chance and the date would be a disaster. Ok, MORE of a disaster. I beckon the waiter over. "Look," I tell him, trying not to cry with embarrassment and frustration. "This guy was 45 minutes later and now he's been in the bathroom for 20 minutes. I don't know what's going on, but I think I'm just going to leave."

"Ok," the waiter says. "Well, you take that drink downstairs to the bar, that one's on me."

"Thank you," I reply, "but I just want to go home. Thank you again for being so nice."

And I run away. Back down the stairs, down the street, into my car, and all the way back to my near-suburb home.

Look, I know I'm picky. I know sometimes I don't give guys enough of a chance. And I'm trying really hard to change that about myself. But, seriously? SERIOUSLY???? You're super late, then you immediately abandon me, and you show no realization of how this is not ok? Dealbreaker, dealbreaker, dealbreaker. Especially since it was a first date. Dude, first dates are for IMPRESSING your date, not showing them how very little you are actually interested in spending time with them.

It's called respect. It's called courtesy. It's called consideration. It's called common sense, for pete's sake. I cannot tell you how ready I am to be in a romantic relationship again, but I refuse to be treated like that. No matter how hot you are (moment of silence for the hotness that has been lost....sigh....). Who on earth has this guy been out with that has put up with this????

So, that was my date. I haven't heard from G yet--I have no idea what to say if I do!! But hey, you know, it still wasn't the worst date I've been on! Lol. And I made it home in time to watch Mythbusters. Thank heavens for small favors.

Hope your nights were more productive :) Thanks for letting me rant, and much love.

Clearly I haven't had enough candy...

It's Halloween and I'm not spazzed out of my mind on sugar. This demands a lifestyle reevaluation, I think.

So anyway, this weekend in the airport I was looking for a new book to read. I picked up one called the Happiness Project. When I read the back, it told me it was about a woman who realized she had “everything” but was still not happy. And so she set out to spend a year working on understanding why that was and how she could change it.

I didn’t buy it—I suspected I’d have the same trouble with it I did with Eat Pray Love, which was that by about page 200 I wanted to throw the book at Elizabeth Gilbert and scream, “STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR FRIGGIN’ SELF!!! GET A FRIGGIN’ LIFE!!!” That was about the page when she spent a paragraph describing how her new lover described how she was during their first time having sex. In the first place, EWWWW. In the second place, I’m all for self-empowerment and self-discovery, and clearly I don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to the public displays of navel-gazing, but it all does make me really uncomfortable. I often think we have way too much time to think. And to then get so wrapped up in existential stuff that we lose track of all sense of perspective.

Don’t worry, I’m not complaining about having time to think. Being able to sit alone in my comfortable living room and work through existential philosophical thoughts in my blog or my fiction (which who knows, someone may someday get to see) is one of my favorite things. I just worry that having all this luxury of contemplation of the higher plane can have negative consequences—namely, the forgetting of the fact that it is luxury.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, humans are incapable of worrying about things like philosophy until they have their basic requirements for survival met—air, water, food, shelter. If this is true, and I feel it is in at least some ways, then those of us who are around to worry about whether or not we are being our “best selves” or “living our best truths” or whatever else self-help will tell you to fixate on are already very lucky. Take the author of the Happiness Project. She was an employed married mother living above the poverty line. Again, I didn’t read the book, so I won’t use her as an example, but she represents many of the people we interact with everyday. We are fundamentally lucky people.

I thought of this again today at work. I run three art classes a week to work on fine motor skills. Today in one of them I was helping a 12-year-old boy named R. R has very severe quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He can’t talk or control his bladder. He has very low muscle tone—if you support his body weight in upright he can bring his legs forward to walk, but he cannot do anything as simple as sit up independently. His arm movements typically look like flails, even when they are voluntary, which they aren’t, always. He needs someone to do basically everything for him. The extra sad part is, he is aware. He’s very smart—he’s got an intellectually functioning brain in a physically dysfunctional body.

--Side note—I always really wish I could spend some time in the brain of each one of my kids—how do they see the world? What does life seem like to them? Some of them aren’t totally aware, so it’d be interesting to see what they did process—I’d be fascinated to feel what sensory defensiveness feels like. Or if they are “with it,” what kind of emotions do they have? To what extent are they bitter, or happy, or resigned? I mean, heck, I’d like time in ANYONE’s brain, everyone’s so different, but it’s my students who I really wish I had the chance to see. Anyhoo, back to the main point—

So R loves to paint. Thinking of him, I’d organized a craft where we would fingerpaint paper plates and cut construction paper legs to make a Halloween spider (it was really cute, trust me). One of the classroom aides held R’s plate for him so he wouldn’t knock it away, and I held his hand so he could bring it to the paper. My God, you guys. If you could have seen him. He was so focused. The look of intent on his face as he fought to keep his arm from flailing, the determination and patience he had to try to move his hand in the way he wanted to make his marks on his paper—that kind of moment is both uplifting and haunting. How, I wondered as I tried to strike the balance between holding him steady and holding him back, could I—so far up on Maslow’s hierarchy—watch him paint and then walk away and start wondering how I could make myself “happier?”

It’d be nice, wouldn’t it? If gratitude was the sole key to happiness. If all we had to do to be completely fulfilled was to remember what we could have, or not have, if listing all the ways we were blessed automatically made us complete. But it doesn’t work that way. For one thing, it is almost impossible to make that feeling last. When that woman almost hit me by cutting me off in traffic and making me miss a light (grrr commuting), do you think I thought, oh, that’s fine, my hands work well enough for me to drive, I can afford to buy gas, and I’m at peace? Hell no. I thought, and said, cause I talk to myself in the car, GodDAMMIT this is annoying, people SUCK, I want to go home, etc etc. Maybe I’m just a whiner, and I know I have some road rage issues, but I don’t think most of us find it possible to walk around our lives and react to every annoyance with a calm sense of gratitude for what we’re NOT dealing with. For another thing, we are simply programmed to want more. Our brains are capable of complicated thoughts and the drive to go further, to do more, to know more, etc etc, is innate. It’s a fundamental piece of human nature to not just rest on what is but to wonder—and work towards—what could be.

So I guess I feel that books like the Happiness Project are just a natural extension of what human nature can be when we’re fundamentally blessed. I just think that, as the author very well may say, a huge part of “happiness” is remembering those blessings. And despite the individualistic bent of our culture (using this line of thought, one could argue Jersey Shore is a natural extension of human nature, and isn’t THAT a terrifying concept), I don’t think that navel-gazing is equivalent to happiness. I don’t think it’s all about self, in fact, when we focus too much on our own selves, it’s a bad thing. It’s so easy to lose perspective, but it’s so important not to.

Ok, preaching over. Hope your Monday made you happy! Candy helps with that... Lol. Much love.

Deep Thoughts from Driving

So I’ve been thinking a lot about human nature….

No, seriously. And specifically, about commuting and animal rights.

I swear they’re related.

I spend a lot of time in my car—5 hours alone yesterday, which is where I had time to mentally blog. I drive about 45 minutes each way for my work commute. This is nothing compared to what a lot of people do (I have one friend who drives over an hour each way) but it’s city driving, and I find it very stressful. Put a ton of people in giant metal vehicles in streets not really designed for that kind of volume (and, I swear, outfitted with streetlights preset to all go off at the precisely wrong moment), tell them they have to go somewhere they don’t really want to (aka work) at a very certain time which happens to be the exact same time everyone else needs to go somewhere right next door to them, and it gets ugly. I find that as a rule, when under stress, commuters regress to their lowest possible selves. That car trying to merge simply can’t be allowed in front of you, because it will slow you down, and that is just unbearable. The people on the other side of the intersection can wait and miss their turn because it is much more important that you go on ahead, despite the fact that you can clearly see you won’t make it all the way out of the intersection before the light changes. I had a coworker tell me she followed me home the previous day and I pre-emptively apologized in case I’d done something bitchy, since commuting brings out the worst in me. On the road, when you feel so invulnerable in your big vehicle and where everyone else becomes an impersonal “it” in another car in your way, it’s shockingly easy to be a narcissistic, impatient scrooge.

I worry that, when human beings get challenged, we tend to react with our lower selves. The part of us that is self above all others, and “winning” (no matter how it’s defined—in commuting, as getting through an intersection or to work on time) over kindness.

The story about the Chinese toddler that’s been in the news feeds this worry. I haven’t watched the video (and yes, if you have, I’m judging…why the hell does anyone need to watch a child be fatally injured? What kind of sick voyeurism is that? I don’t even believe it needs to be publically available) but I’ve read about it. The people walking by on the street—the “passer-by’s”—either didn’t notice what was happening or in that second decided something else was more important than stopping to help. Both options have pretty horrible implications—either way, it seems, it’s a case of complete and total self-absorption. And it’s terrifying.

And I see the same thing when I think about how we treat animals. The news story about the wild animals hunted down in Ohio was deeply disturbing. (Maybe I should just stop watching the news…. ) Obviously, innocent people needed to be protected. But let’s be honest here—in the battle of man vs animal, we have decisively won. It’s not even a contest. Sure, your random person/statistic may get stung by a bee or bitten by a shark, but in reaction to the ancient feelings of vulnerability, we have developed weapons that have rendered us completely in control of the animal world. So now it’s become a question of how we use our power. And more often than not we use it thoughtlessly or cruelly.

Think about it. The man who owned the animals released them to their certain death rather than simply leave them in their cages while he took his own life. The majority of people tracking down the animals in Ohio grabbed shotguns instead of tranquilizer guns.

And it is true on a more general level as well. We have achieved mastery over the animal kingdom, and we’re very clearly dictators. The main school of thought is “control” rather than “coexistence.” I mean, it’s fine if there are wild animals in a box in the zoo, or if dangerous creatures live on a refuge in the middle of a country on the other side of the world. But if comes closer to home, our priorities are the priorty, with little concern for animal environments or lives.

Don’t get me wrong. We know how much I love me a good shopping mall that most likely is built in the middle of what used to be an open field with lots of cute cuddlies wandering through it. And I am no where near a vegetarian. I’m not trying to be a hypocrite, and I’m not sitting here saying human endeavors need to take a backseat to animals’. I’m just saying that, while survival of the fittest is just a dandy concept, guess what, we’ve survived. So why can’t we focus on other dandy concepts like, oh, “conscience” or “compassion.” Since we have the upper hand, we ought not to abuse it by being thoughtless or cruel to those creatures we control.

The way we treat the majority of our animals bred for food is appalling. The idea that we test cosmetics on animals is horrendous—let’s keep a monkey in a cage and make sure it doesn’t go blind so that we know our mascara will really make our lashes look voluminous. The sheer number of domestic animals abandoned or abused on a daily basis should make any being with a brain sick to their stomach. And yet, this stuff happens. Partly because we have some pretty big issues that take up more of our allotted national consciousness, true. But also because there are no consequences. Because we are invulnerable, and they are impersonal. Because even if we’re not out there scaling trees to avoid creatures with larger and stronger bodies, we’re still at war—now, having enough land and food for our species is the battle we’re trying to win, and apparently, kindness can be damned.

I know, my heart is bleeding its liberal blood all over the place. So I’ll stop. I just think it’s worth thinking about. I don’t think human nature is inherently evil, and again, there are definitely bigger issues to worry about. But we reveal ourselves most truly when we feel we are in power, and there are places where we just fall short. It never hurts to be kinder than you actually have to be, and it’s never a bad thing to show mercy and compassion to the beings sharing our space, especially when they’re weaker than us.


So let’s end where we began—me!! If you take nothing else from this block take this message—when you see me driving next to you, let me merge into your lane. It’ll make us all much happier ☺

Much love!

Least Complicated: 10-Year-Reunion

This weekend I went to my ten-year high school reunion.

Pause. Holy crap, I am old.

Ok, we’re back. Anyway, so, yes, it was my ten-year reunion. And it was…anticlimactic. In a really good way.

Let me explain. For months I’d been getting encouraging invitations and reminders from the wonderful classmates organizing the party, and one of my best friends, Xenia, had been mentioning it casually to try to get me to say I was going. And for months, I resisted all these invitations.

Why? Not to be high maintenance, but because I was really REALLY scared to go.

I attended the same school from first to twelfth grade, and for much of the latter part of that time period I was miserable. From about sixth grade on (the Awkward Growth Spurt and then the prolonged Recovery Period), I felt like a social leper, so lonely and isolated I could barely stand it. I’ve come to realize this is much more of a universal experience than I could have believed when I was going through it, and there are positives to not having high school be the best time of your life. For one, at least I know I didn’t peak then! And for another, the real friendships that were created and have lasted since high school are very precious to me. Finally, it was one of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had. I would not be who I am today if I didn’t have those memories to grow from.

Still, it was traumatic for a hyper-sensitive person like myself, and ever since I’ve had kind of a Pavlovian response to reminders of high school. Obviously I didn’t hold any real grudges against my classmates—no one was ever “out to get me” and it was certainly not their fault that my nature was so poorly equipped for the whole situation—but whenever I would run into someone who knew me back then, I would be swarmed with all those old feelings of inadequacy. So not pleasant. I went to the five-year-reunion and felt so shy and “lame” that the idea of repeating the experience was not exactly appealing.

But the convincers were…convincing. And as often happens when I get so worried about something, I got mad. At myself. I was being a ninny. I’m in a really good place in life. Sure, there are aspects of where I am that are not what I’d like, but overall, I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been, and as a result I’m the most confident I’ve ever been as well. So what the heck was my problem? Why was I letting myself be scared of a friggin’ party?

Fine, I thought. I’ll go to the stupid party. Always so gracious, aren’t I? Lol.

So I’ve been getting myself mentally prepared. I’m so in my head all the time that if there’s something I’m struggling with I have my standard arsenal of coping mechanisms. I bought a new top I knew I’d feel good in. I came up with my little mantras of self-worth that I won’t be repeating here, thank you very much. I even made a “reunion playlist” on my Itunes filled with my favorite “you go girl” and “relax your neuroticness for just a second” songs (Indigo Girls feature strongly on these kind of playlists). It was like bootcamp for the ego.

Then the day itself arrived. And I got a little nervous as I started walking in. But then, once we were inside, something weird happened. Nothing. No panic, no waves of “I’m back in high school……waaaaahhhh….” I was totally calm. And I actually really enjoyed myself.

Somehow, the fact that these people were reminders of that bad time of my life didn’t matter at all. They were just people, not triggers. And for the record, they’re awesome people! Friendly and welcoming, all very accomplished and smart and really great to talk to. I’m sure they’ve always been that way and I was just too wrapped up in my personal narrative to notice. And now that I was no longer so trapped, I was able to enjoy the situation for what it was—an opportunity to see how great everyone has turned out.

So here’s my moral—yes, as you know, as a former Religion and Literature geek, I can’t rest until I find the meaning in things, but this one I think is valid. How many of our insecurities are self-created? Yes, there are actual events that I can point to that made me so unhappy back in the day, but the whole Ghost of High School Issues Past that’s been haunting me for years is entirely my own creation, a fact I can realize now that I’ve seen it be so easily vanquished. Obviously not everything can be so nicely solved, but sometimes what we find so defining and confining is actually completely in our control. Now I’m getting kind of self-help-y so I’ll stop, but this weekend reminded me to always be aware of whether my baggage is legitimate or just stuff that is solely the result of my own over-thinki-ness.

PS, thus the title of this post. Indigo Girls classic: “the hardest to learn was the least complicated.”

Anyway, so, yes, I survived my 10-year-reunion. I have to admit no one did anything regrettable. No dancing on the bar or falling off stools. I had one glass of wine too many (read: two glasses of wine—I think I need to drink more—there, two morals in one post!!) which was kind of dumb. When I have two glasses of wine, I tend to be ill-advisedly and completely unintentionally flirty. Xenia tells me I wasn’t bad, but I really hope I didn’t accidentally proposition someone—or embarrass someone! It’s happened before, but never with someone I’ve known since before puberty. Also, my verbal filter completely disappears—it’s never really all that good a filter ANYWAY but still—so if anyone reading this was embarrassed or weirded out, I apologize. But seriously, that was the only poor decision I saw! Apparently interesting things happened at the preparty the night before, but I missed that. Sigh.

Oh well. It was fun and I’m so glad I went ☺. Thanks to the people who organized and to my classmates for being wonderful. I wish you all well, and really liked seeing you. Take care!!!

Much love.

Stand and Protect: 9/11 Reflection

On my first day of orientation at Healthsouth, we had a “fire safety” talk. The gist of the talk was that the as employees, should there be an emergency such as a fire, our duty was to “stand and protect” the patients. They were our first priority, and in an emergency, we’d be the last ones out of the building. This was a change from the previous policy, which was, the safety officer told us, “run like hell.” “Run like hell” was still the policy for the building next door, with which we shared a lobby and a fire alarm system but, in another recent change, we were no longer required to go into THEIR building to attempt to evacuate their patients. It seemed like common sense to me at the time; the idea of running into a building in which the actual employees were running out to “save” people seemed absurd.

I was thinking about this conversation that morning as I was reading 9/11 stories in the paper. One story told of a NYC firefighter. He was on his day off, and driving into New Jersey when he heard about the towers on the radio. He turned his car around and drove back into the city. When he encountered the traffic stop, he got out of his car and ran the rest of the way, joining his company at Ground Zero. He died there a few hours later.

It occurred to me that this man had run like hell in order to stand to protect. Yes, it was logically absurd that he would make so much effort to run into the buildings, but the bravery and selflessness of the act make logic obsolete. There’s a lot of hyperbole floating around today, but it is not an overstatement to say that bravery and selflessness are what makes this country great. I’m a huge fan of common sense but people are at their best when they abandon their own self-interest, and there is no greater example of that then the seemingly illogical idea of the responders running INTO a collapsing inferno.

There’s a lot of talk about what’s wrong with today’s generation. I’m not convinced it’s not the same thing that’s been wrong with EVERY generation, just focused into different toys and channels, but one thing I often pinpoint is who kids choose as their heroes. The pro athletes, the singers, the politicians. Of course the hard work those people do is worth celebrating, but I think we miss an opportunity when we allow a child to have Justin Bieber or Donovan McNabb as their number-one hero. Do we really want kids growing up convinced that they have to be super attractive and/or super wealthy? Certainly not, but that is the message they get from a lot from the common heroes.

One thing about 9/11 is that it reminds us what we should really celebrate. You can be an everyday Joe, you can live a mundane, unspectacular life, but if you respond the right way—whether running like hell or standing to protect or both, you become a hero. The quality of selflessness, and the unity that comes when people find that selflessness, that’s the version of the American dream we should celebrate, and teach the next generation to celebrate, and we should remember that every day of the year, not just on this anniversary. And we should hope we never have another day that teaches us those lessons in such a horrific way.

Much love.

Online Dating: The Spanx of the Romantic World.

If you’re not familiar with Spanx, they’re a kind of undergarments designed to support and flatter your figure. They tuck, tighten, eliminate panty lines, and make you look fabulous under your clothes. They are also expensive, pretty uncomfortable, and very unsexy. Still, you sometimes decide they’re worth it, cause, they offer the promise of good things, like fitting into your skinny jeans.

I think this is a good analogy for online dating.

There are some hard truths about being single as you approach 30. Most everyone meets their significant others in school or at work. If that story is not your story, it can kind of feel like you’ve missed your chances. I mean, if, say, you attend a woman’s college, an basically all-female grad program, and work at places like a school that has exactly one—ONE—male employee, and he’s a flamboyant Olivia Newton-John fan who talks all the time about his “friend” Jerry, you will quickly learn that you probably have missed some sort of Coupledom boat.

But, as everyone says, that does not have to be the case! You can meet people at any stage of your life, through any means!! (The more punctuation marks, the more sincere the self-help author!!) Single people meet other single people at communal places such as baseball games or bars, through social activities like kickball, and, as you may have inferred from the title, from online dating.

I have at least two friends who have met their significant others online, and they have great relationships. Clearly the process can work. To be honest, though, I hate it. HATE it. I’ve dabbled in the process off and on, and have yet to get over my hatred. For various reasons. I know you’re fascinated to hear why…here, let me explain.

For one thing, there’s the awkward factor. If someone sees your granny panties Spanx, it’s kind of awkward, right? Well, I once had a man wink at me on a site and I recognized him from work (clearly this wasn’t the job with Mr. Newton-John.) Since he just winked at me, and didn’t send a message, I had no idea if he recognized me—we’d never formally met, and while he was pretty distinctive looking, I am not always the most memorable—and I felt like it made a big difference if he knew who I was or not. If he did, why didn’t he just talk to me at work? And if he did, what if I didn’t respond and then we ran into each other in the halls and it was super awkward because I rejected a wink? And if he didn’t recognize me, then my feelings were hurt—memorable or not, c’mon!! (Yes, I am someone who fulfills the “wtf do women want?!?!?” stereotype). After a few hours of agonizing, I responded with a message…”Thanks for winking at me. Don’t I recognize you from work?” I figured that covered all the bases, giving him an opportunity to answer whichever way he wanted and try to avoid the awkwardness. And guess what. HE NEVER WROTE BACK!!!

Seriously. No contact. He never said anything to me, online or at work, ever again, and I spent the next few weeks literally ducking into rooms to hide from him until he was transferred. Pretty much the worst case scenario (other than something like the guy pulling a gun on you)—we didn’t even get to do the fun stuff that normally leads to the awkwardness! I would say that this sort of awkward encounter is not something you’d have to worry about in a big city, but in fact my friend in Boston is now scared to go to her church meetings because the guy she went on a terrible date with after meeting him online is now dating another parishioner. So it happens. And it’s got high potential for embarrassment.

Also, despite some incessant facebooking and blogging, I am always nervous about online interactions. To paraphrase a fantastic movie, I don’t even like to order my SHOES online, and they only go on my feet!! (Clueless reference, just fyi.) But seriously, I always get nervous about buying things on the net. There are some security issues, for one (I’ve had my credit car number compromised on the web), and for another, you really never quite know what you’re going to get. If you’re on a dating website, you have to sell yourself. You pick your most flattering pictures, you try to focus on the interesting parts of your story, and you work hard to hide the crazy. There’s nothing wrong with that, really; even animals do the flirt and attract thing. But just as Spanx can give a false impression of your figure, so can an online profile lead you to have false impressions. This bothers me a lot, I think because I’m a real believer in my perceptions. I can form a judgment about someone about ten seconds after I meet them in person—it’s a gift and a curse. (Sidenote: I often try to NOT judge, but everytime I do that, I meet someone who proves my judgment correct!! Clearly, if I’m not supposed to judge, I’d be proven wrong more often. Besides, I never treat someone differently or worse because of my judgments. So it just keeps happening.) But online it is much harder to do that, and not having my judgment to fall back on makes me super nervous.

This stuff has been on my mind because guess who finally went back online. I’ve been off for a while. There are some nice guys online in Charlottesville, but the majority of them have screen names like “BigHuckin’72” and write profiles that misspell words like “woman” and “business.” “I own my own bisness and just need a good womon for the weekends.” Scary stuff. Plus, I got emotionally invested in two guys who I knew in face-to-face life, one after the other, and was too wrapped up pining and all that rot to spare any more romantic energy. Well, big surprise, those situations didn’t work out, and with the move to a big city where I need to find the cool bars, it seemed like a good time to put on my grown-up Spanx panties and deal with it.

So far, nothing has happened to reverse my hatred. I did get asked out, but I have mixed feelings. First of all, I only responded in the first place cause I promised myself to be less picky (“You see how picky I am about my shoes”….sorry, Clueless relapse) since his whole profile was a quiz for potential girls to take to find out for themselves if they’re “worthy” of him. For the record, I did not keep track of my points, so I don’t even know if I am worthy. Second of all, after the whole message-back-and-forth-dance (be grateful if you are not familiar with this), he finally did the required ask-out. We’d been talking about how I haven’t explored the city so much, and he wrote:

“Well, I could probably be enticed to show you around Federal Hill (Bmore neighborhood) sometime this week since I’ll already be down there a lot running errands. Give me some days you’re around and I’ll see if they work for me.”

Does it make me a bitch that this made me really annoyed? Like, my first reaction was, “well, gee, don’t strain yourself.” Isn’t that a really half-hearted, full-of-himself way to ask someone out? But, here’s the thing. Maybe he’s just bad at emails and/or writing profiles and/or expressing himself through words. Maybe he’s just socially awkward instead of dickish. But I don’t know. I have no way of knowing until/if I actually meet him in person—something I am not so eager to do right this second. But remember missing the boat? Can you really afford to be so picky you don’t even give someone the chance of a first meeting (unless you’re convinced they’re a serial killer)?

So this is my dilemma. Any advice is welcome. I’ve come to learn that even bad first dates can be good in terms of stories (remind me to tell you about the time I was so tired of the date I couldn’t bear the idea of him accompanying me home and lied that I lived around the corner, walking out of sight and hiding until he left…good times) and since I’m trying to be less picky, it seems like I have to go. Still, makes me wish I had the kind of body that didn’t really need Spanx, and the kind of dating life that wouldn’t need online adventures. Maybe someday?

Hope your “bisnesses” are going well!! Much love.