February 25th, 2010
Over the last several days, there’s been such a tremendous outpouring of warm fuzzy, that I would feel like a cranky old hag if I didn’t say something. I got caught up in the vitriol, and if I hadn’t put the kibosh on feeling sorry for myself, I could easily have missed out on the greatness of the last week.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments. For introducing yourselves. For being real and honest. Thank you for the emails of support. For reminding me why we wrap ourselves up in this interweb to begin with. And to those (don’t worry, I won’t call you out) who made PayPal donations to the “ring fund.” Seriously, how dear ARE you people? Answer: SO dear. I know you think it’s small, but it isn’t. Not in monetary terms (we’re inching our way there!) and not in emotional terms. Especially not in emotional terms. It is an absolutely overwhelming feeling to be buoyed up by you. It makes my heart feel too big for my chest sometimes.
So, you know, thanks. A lot.
February 25th, 2010
“I’m sorry to bother you, but are you Italian?”
I answered too quickly. “No. I mean, yes. A little bit here and there…”
The waitress laughed and shook her head. “I told them! My coworkers wanted me to come over here and get your autograph. They think you’re this singer…”
In that second, a name formed in my head, but I thought it can’t possibly! Maybe 3% of America knows who she is – an Italian pop singer whose Spanish albums I bought years ago in college to help learn the language.
“… Laura Pausini.”
The Dork Lord looked at me from across the table, perplexed, as I snorted a laugh. “I can’t believe you know Laura Pausini. But no, I’m not her.”
It didn’t seem to matter, though. The waitress made some more small talk and then disappeared into the kitchen. Dessert was free.
February 23rd, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, someone left a note in the comments section linking to a column that struck me as particularly poignant. I’ve lost the link, and by extension, the author’s name. But I emailed this paragraph to a friend,
“You have but to take a peek in the comments section below this column, any column, any article on this or any news site whatsoever, to see just how mean and nasty we have become. It does not matter what the piece might be about. Obama’s speech. High speed rail. Popular dog breeds. Your grandmother’s cookies. The anonymous comments section of any major media site or popular blog will be so crammed with bile and bickering, accusation and pule, hatred and sneer you can’t help but feel violently disappointed by the shocking lack of basic human kindness and respect, much less a sense of positivism or perspective.”
There’s been a lot of that here, lately. And it eats at me. Because, for the most part, it’s been in response to some pretty heartfelt stuff – the kind of stuff I started holding back because the internet can be a really nasty place. I’m not bringing this up as some Call for Entries from sycophants. I get that you may not value the same things. You may not agree with me. You may not even like me. I’m a big girl – I don’t need to be friends with everyone on the playground. But what has bothered me intensely is that the hated and lack of kindness or basic respect has gotten so personal. What’s more, people leave insulting, demeaning comments in the name of friendship or loyalty and yet do in total cowardice, behind the cloak of anonymity.
Anonymous henpecks all sorts of negativity into my comment section but the second I fire back, I’m… well, I’m all manner of things and none of them nice. And okay, yes, I should be above it. I shouldn’t care what strangers say. But guess what? I care. I care, among other things, that people talk to me like I’ve got the intelligence of a used Q-tip. I care that people call me names.
I can’t change what people do, but I can change what goes on here. So, in the future, if you’d like your comments to be published, I’d simply ask that you leave behind your name. You have mine. I’m not hiding behind anything. So, that’s it. If you’re going to sneer at me, please have the balls to own up to it.
February 19th, 2010
Oh, Universe, you contrary little snipe.
Today after work, we’re going to pick up the Boy’s car from the mechanic. It’s the transmission. And when I say that, you should automatically be translating each letter of that word into dollar signs. Transmissions on sports cars are – even under the best circumstances, with an honest mechanic (which we’re lucky to have) – asspensive. So when the Dork Lord called me at work yesterday afternoon to let me know they were also forced to replace the clutch and fly wheel (the mechanic offered to it it labor-free), I hung up the phone and started crying.
Twenty-two hundred dollars, all told. We were both so discouraged, we – us, who joke inappropriately through everything – lost our sense of humor about it.
See, today, I have an appointment with a jeweler to look at rings. Only, ha ha, now that we have zero dollars and six cents between us, that’s sure going to make buying one impossible. But I’ve decided I don’t care. I’m going anyway. We’ll make it work. The Dork Lord, after a long, honest conversation about how much it means to me, says it’s his priority to put a ring on my finger and I believe him. We’ll consider this a fact-finding mission. Besides, I’ve put my foot down about a few things – one being the financial burden of engagement falling to him. Our relationship. Our future. My ring. Why should he cough up all the cash? Phooey on Man Pride, I simply don’t believe in it.
This isn’t 1946. An engagement ring isn’t the price he pays to guard against the event he steals my virtue and runs off, leaving me without prospects. We all know my virtue’s been gone a long ole time. Ahem. We’re hardly what you’d call traditional, anyway. We’ve been shacked up since month three of our relationship. Again, virtue? What virtue? I’m tainted. Thank heavens.
Speaking of… once, at BYU, my sister and I were sitting in church, irreverently mocking the sermon as we were known to do, and whoever was at the podium started in on that verse of scripture about a virtuous woman. You know, whose worth is above that of rubies or someshit? With an eye roll, I scribbled on a piece of paper and passed the note to my sister. Just the other day, I found it in a pile of mementos and laughed.
Who can find a virtuous woman?
For she is boring as hell
and I don’t want her for a roommate.
That explains so much about me.
February 16th, 2010
Remember how I was going to try new things this year?
On Saturday afternoon, Boot Camp Friend Amanda, the Dork Lord and I went rock climbing at a nearby indoor gym. I’m relatively fit (for me) at the moment and so I anticipated that the climbing would be challenging, but not entirely debilitating. I mean, I do man push-ups now. I do. Three or four whole man push-ups IN A ROW. Yes, siree. So, up the fabricated climbing surfaces we went, zipping down on ropes, and after an hour, worn out, we called it a day. And like I said, I expected a little strain here and there, but nothing too intense. And I was right. All my climbing muscles are tight, but otherwise fine. But the forearm muscle – the one responsible for holding up my loved ones while I was on belay, the one that also helps me do things like, I dunno, hold a pen – is broken.
Being two forearms short of a whole person made our Valentine’s Day activities a little complicated. An no, I don’t mean that. I mean, while the Boy weatherstripped the windows (if you don’t think that’s romantic, you are not a cold person living in a drafty apartment. Weatherstripping is love) I fixed a nice dinner. While the wine took some deep cleansing breaths on the kitchen counter and the filet was happily searing, I tossed some greens with mandarin oranges and dried cranberries and went to grate some cheese. Guess which muscle you use to hold a block of Parmesan cheese and run it over what amounts to dull, metal blades. Guess. Oh, yeah. The Belay Muscle. I totally cheese gratered my own thumb and ended up eating dinner with a paper towel wrapped tightly around to stop the bleeding. Ah, a picture perfect Valentine’s meal. At least I was warm
Getting old is so lame. You heard it here first.
February 10th, 2010
The walls of my cubicle kinda depress me. So does this fragile industry – doing my job well does not necessarily mean success in times like these. In fact, it almost never does. But that’s okay. Because I have a plan.
The most freeing thing ever is realizing you have choices. I can choose to stay in a gray-walled cube for the rest of my life, because the job is predictable and the pay, somewhat reliable. Because I’m scared to act. OR! Or I can figure out what makes me happy and then do that, working out the money bit when I get there. Which is what I’ve decided to do. Not right away, but eventually.
I didn’t even have to finish the question, “What makes me happy?” before I knew the answer. Yoga makes me happy. I feel my strongest, most beautiful and most capable when I’m pushing past the imaginary boundaries I’d set for my mind and my body, discovering new abilities and most of all, peace. A few weeks ago, I read on Facebook that my old boss (from way back Boston days),had been accepted to a yoga teaching program and I was thrilled forher. After discovering hot yoga back in 2002, I went on and on to herabout it and looky, here she is several years later, becoming ateacher. Serious warm fuzzies. After e-high-fiving her, I realized – that’s what I want. So, I’m going to teach. Not right away, like I said, but eventually. I have some goals I’d like to reach, pre-requisites to achieve, some money to save, yadda, yadda and then, it’s game on.
Sometimes I lie awake in bed at night with little anticipation butterflies in my stomach – the way I used to feel at the start of a new semester. So much possibility! The Dork Lord is sided firmly on Team Yoga Teacher, which couldn’t make me happier. It’s nice to have someone in your camp, who wants your ultimate happiness more than anything – especially when that person shares your concerns about finances and you know, having a roof overhead.
I’ve always known people who love what they do. Or rather, made the choices and sacrifices to do what they love. My sister quit the rat race, went back to school and became an elephant trainer. She now works at the San Diego Zoo saving elephants. My brother ditched a job in software to go to school nights and weekends so he could be a cop. He loves to tase, what can I say? I’m a little disappointed with myself that it took a big forehead slap to realize I found my passion a long time ago and didn’t make a go of it, but mostly, I’m just pleased that I found it at all.
February 8th, 2010
I was putzing around on Facebook the other day and discovered that my old running buddy, Bob, got engaged last month. And I will not lie, I was totally crestfallen. On my Feelings Meter (where one end is labeled with glittery gold lettering, “Happy for Bob! Yay!” and the other with, “Crazy Jealous Like a Pathetic Stereotypical Chick Lit Cat Lady”), the indicator is decidedly right of center, and fluttering wildly.
Engagement is a sensitive topic in our household. See, I don’t give a rat’s ass about tradition and I don’t really care for the whole formal proposal with three months salary riding on my ring finger bit. We’ve made the decision to get married. We’ve even marked the five year calendar with when we’re going to start adding kids to this whole chaotic mess. We have a joint savings account. In short, we make every decision together. But this one? This one, because tradition says so, is entirely up to him. And he couldn’t be in any less of a hurry to make it.
And it stings. Mightily.
I hear his reasons for waiting – he doesn’t like where he is financially at all and his Man Pride won’t let him bend that knee until he feels better about it. He wants to pay cash for the ring. And while I hear his reasons – and understand them in their universality slightly better after talking to my similarly-minded brother (there is, apparently, a very insightful Little House on the Prairie episode in which Almanzo temporarily cancels his engagement to Laura over money issues) – they do nothing to quiet the discontent I feel over the matter. I’m broke and in debt, too. But what’s that to do with love? I don’t need to be provided for – I’ve been doing a damn good job of that all by myself.
When we initially talked about moving in together, I said I’d like to be engaged first. Not as a rule, but as a preference. He had other ideas. Namely, that he thought we’d live together for six months or so and then get engaged. That didn’t seem unreasonable to me at all. So now here it is, one year later, and I’m keeping house and making dinners and picking up step-dog poop and folding laundry and helping with homework – playing the housewife without the title. I do all of these things gladly, but the lack of forward motion in our relationship makes me feel like a bunch of old ladies are sitting around somewhere tsk-ing about how he’s gettin’ the milk for free. He’s not moving forward because he has very little incentive to.
Except, you know, for being in love and excited about our future and wanting to.
The part of me that doesn’t fully understand Man Pride has been unable to help feeling that if he were as excited about us as he used to be, money wouldn’t matter. I don’t want a diamond ring. I don’t. Period. Because that’s not where our priorities should be right now, or really any time within the next five years. He’s in school. We’re in debt. But what I want is for our plans to be official and public. And, yes, I suppose I do care that we look legitimate to the rest of the world. He doesn’t, but I do. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.
Also – and I’m fully aware of how selfish this sounds – I’d like a little something for me. Something to be excited about. Our lives right now revolve, with minor interruptions, around dog excrement and school work. Investing in my beloved’s future is an investment in our future and so I’m happy to revisit fractions, edit English compositions and research Mt. Rushmore, but some days it feels like, in playing the supporting role, I have very little to look forward to for myself.
He loves me. Unquestionably. I know how much I matter to him. We’re happy together. And in my brain, I know that’s more important – that’s most important. But there’s another part – the heart part of me – that doesn’t know anything except that there used to be something so exquisitely special in feeling like we were terribly in love and couldn’t wait to spend forever together. And the more he hesitates, the less special I feel.
Like I said, it stings. Mightily.
February 6th, 2010
Sometimes I miss waking up in New York. Especially on the weekends when I want to do something and nothing all at the same time. The City is good for sublime adventures in nothingness. An iced coffee and a meander in Central Park. The man behind the bodega counter always seemed a bit relieved to see me, maybe because my presence meant that the pot of room-temperature joe wouldn’t go to waste on winter days when the sky was sulking. A dollar twenty-five beginning to an afternoon of bliss. And when you’ve got $4.28 in your checking account, even that feels a little like decadence.
I miss New York today. Broke and bored in Dallas, Texas is a terrible cocktail.
February 1st, 2010
I had a fitful night’s sleep, finally waking five minutes after my alarm should have gone off (helps if you set it, I guess). Deliriously tired, I headed downstairs to let Jillian Michaels give me a good ass-kicking before work and when we got to the punching part I felt this funny little jolt of optimism. Like, “Oh, yeah, this is going to feel good.” I’m never just punching air — it’s usually some imaginary offender. Like, that lady who has absolutely no idea what a yield sign means. Or that ex-coworker of mine. The one who could not shut up. Ever. This morning, though, I wasn’t in need of vindication so much as eleveteen more hours of sleep so I punched with little enthusiasm. And then I remembered.
Today is Sarah Brown day! If there was any perking up to be had, it was from knowing that this afternoon, I get to road-trip it up to Tulsa, Oklahoma and deliver a hug that’s two-and-a-half years in the making. We’re probably going to paint each other’s nails and watch Meet Me in St. Louis and eat things which are bad for us. And talk about boys.
Sarah and I went through some relationship doozies in New York. In fact, I met Sarah the same night I met one of the biggest relationship mistakes of my life. We were bonded from that very moment. But the same week that I met the Dork Lord, Sarah met her own love, moved to far, far away London to be with him and await a fiance visa (me, I’m just awaiting the fiance (ba-dump-bum!)) so there is much catching up to do.
So blah, blah, I’m excited about seeing Sarah but can we for one second talk about how BAD Taylor Swift’s performance was last night? Is that, you know, like a regular thing for her – the whole, not being able to sing thing? It was terrible. And up until that point, I have to admit I was pretty enamored of her. Gosh, she’s so cute. And nice. And ohmygod, totally tone deaf. I felt like I was watching a talent show at church and it felt really, really awkward.
Discuss.
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About Writer. Mother. Hiker. Yogi.
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