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.

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.”

“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. 

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.

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.