C-Man and I share a computer. Sometimes he leaves himself logged in to del.icio.us, which I don't discover until I'm trying to tag something for my own del.icio.us.
So sometimes I have a look around in his account.
Here's what my husband has tagged as "female" in his del.icio.us.
On my first New Year's Eve with C-Man, I went way overboard in the romance department. I'd only been dating him for two months. If it hadn't worked out, I would have been so embarrassed to have once again thrown myself at someone who I barely knew. Lucky me. We established several things which were to become tradition for our New Year's Eves: Italian for dinner, visit two Amy's Ice Cream locations in order to find the right flavors, take a picture in the photo booth, watch The Fifth Element, have mochi on New Year's Day.
Our second NYE together, we chased a dog down Burnet Road in our evening wear on the way to dinner. It was holding a big piece of pizza in its mouth and didn't want anything to do with us, but we didn't want it to get hit. When it took off into the neighborhood, we figured at least we'd driven it into safer territory. We did the dinner and the Amy's and the photo. All night, I was expecting a ring. So much so, that the only thing I could think during dinner was "where's my ring?" Ha, joke's on me, it was in the pocket of his jacket, which I had borrowed when I got cold in the restaurant. When he got down on one knee and proposed right after midnight, I'm damn lucky I said "yes please" and not "fine, whatever, now gimme that!" The next day, we did movie and mochi, so everything was good.
Our third NYE, last year, I was feeling mysteriously ill... gee, wonder what that was. We got some dinner at Central Market instead of going out, but we did make it to the two Amy's. We didn't dress up, and I was feeling bummed that the evening was going to be rather dull. Then the Amy's employees who shall remain nameless set a scoop of ice cream on fire and threw it across the street like a baseball during a lull in traffic. Problem solved. We finished up at a friend's house for a party. Movie and mochi on New Year's Day, check. Well done.
This year, we thought we would skip dinner out but take the baby with us to Amy's early on NYE. We sent C-Man's mom home. Not 45 minutes later, the baby fell asleep for the night. Dammit. I sure wasn't going to wake him up by hauling him around in the car and then be up past midnight trying to get him back to sleep. We had ice cream in the freezer, but it wasn't the same, and I went to bed at 8. At 11:45 I woke up and heard fireworks, but since I didn't know what time C-Man went to bed I didn't wake him up for a kiss. (Please see yesterday's post for the rest of my sleep experience that night. Then send pity.)
On New Year's Day, we did take the baby with us to one Amy's and did a photo booth picture, which turned out well. We went to BookPeople and bought him some books. We stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some mochi. Then it became obvious that neither C-Man nor his progeny were feeling all that well, so we came home and did virtually nothing for the rest of the day. I ended up trying to entertain the baby for quite a while for myself upstairs, alone, as C-Man tried to manage his pain. Then I picked up after the dogs in the yard. Whee! I'd like to say "In the end it was being together that mattered," but honestly I'm still disappointed.
I also think the disruption of a pattern is why I feel like 2008 hasn't really gotten going yet. I'm tempted to reschedule New Year's Day for this weekend and try again. The mochi is now thawed. The Fifth Element DVD is on the shelf. And I can always eat more ice cream.
The wedding photos are finally done, yes!! If you haven't already been told where they are, but you want to see them, it's the same rules as the baby's blog - just comment or email me and I'll send you the link.
Since I last posted, I got married.
That sounds simple, but it involved a large number of events, and those events were followed by a 3-day honeymoon, which was followed immediately by a 70 hour work week to punish me for taking time off for a major life event.
When that was done, we had generated many loads of laundry, and many dirty dishes, and the wedding gift-giving generated many, many boxes and much packing material. C-Man also officially moved into this apartment, which means we now have boxes of books and DVDs and video games stacked around the living room.
So yeah. Married. Worked a lot. Stuff everywhere. Spent a lot of time cleaning up, still not done. Spent a lot of time writing thank you notes, still not done.
But hello out there!
p.s. If you gave us barbecue skewers and some wonderful bamboo kitchen utensils, thank you and we look forward to many grilled mushrooms in our future! We'd write you a real paper thank-you note if we knew who you were. We know you bought them at 4:31 in Austin on the Friday before the wedding, but that's about it.
The wedding is Sunday. With the number of people arriving from out of town today and tomorrow, I doubt I will have much more time to blog until we get done with it all. This morning, though, I am doing laundry. What better accompaniment than a wedding poll related to the home? So vote early and often in this poll, and also remember to vote (only once) in the actual elections that are taking place right now.
First, I know we're all very concerned about making sure that we're using the correct plates for serving various foods. That's why it's so handy to have plates shaped like the food you're serving. Here is Asparagus.
Santa is supposed to be a jolly round guy, but not this round. Does the world really need a Santa Ball?
Your decor is obviously behind the times if it does not include a plate that could also double as... never mind, I don't have any idea what this could double as, but it's Hard to Look At.
If your guests are disoriented from looking at the plates, you may want to warn them away from this centerpiece bowl. Someone Could Lose An Eye.
Another area of potential danger would be these napkin rings. Can you say Geiger Counter? And I'm not sure if they will maintain their solid state at room temperature.
I have No Comments on this next one. Words are not up to the challenge.
It is essential for every well-appointed home to have these. If you're a squirrel. Because if you remember the strategy used for Asparagus above, you can clearly see that these are for acorns.
I know! Let's make something that looks like leaves, except ugly, and then we'll float them in water, and then we'll set them On Fire!
While I admit I often have trouble remembering the date, I rarely think it's The Seventies again.
We close our poll with an item that saves money and time. I know you don't normally think of saving money when you think of Crate and Barrel. But maybe you like to have parties but can't afford to buy a bunch of food every time. Or maybe you just don't want to spend all that time cooking. You're in luck! Check out Reusable Food. Eddie Izzard says it's 70% how you look, and I don't see why this can't apply to food.
That's it for now. Have a lovely weekend!
I am proud to announce, quite belatedly, that the winner of Wedding Poll #2: The Dresses was Bad Fung Shui. With four votes, it outscored the come-from-behind runner up Ties.
Our next poll is rings. This was more difficult to create than the dress poll, which only required one trip to The Knot and a search for the most expensive dresses they list. This strategy failed for the ring poll. Many very expensive wedding rings are quite nice. But I persevered.
First up is Accident Waiting to Happen. Yes, I've built an amazingly powerful technology out of a metal coil, which is only controlled by this completely exposed crystal... and we all know how well that worked out in Spider-Man 2.
Marital life grating on you? Feel like you need to build a wall to get some privacy around here? Try Brick.
Those who cannot let go of high school are doomed to repeat it. Class of 88 is below.
I have no idea if this ring, apparently designed to recall the Sydney Opera House, is actually this ugly. But if not, someone should really take another picture of Not Photogenic before they try to sell it.
For a look that says "I rule the galaxy and I will kill you if you disobey me," try Ice Queen. I almost expect a small fleet of fighter ships to launch out of one side.
Does your accessory need an accessory? This is called a "solitaire enhancer." I deem it Push Up. I realize that it is not technically a ring, but I still think it deserves to be included in this poll just for the sheer ridiculousness.
Just in case someone's about to make a fashion mistake, we will call this ring Does Not Go With Plaid.
Arts and crafts? Macrame and Basket say yes!
I used to live with a friend who had three cats. One day, when she was cleaning the litter box, her cat Lolita peed on the carpet in the exact spot where the litter box belonged. My friend said she didn't want to punish Lolita for using that patch of carpet as a bathroom, since that was the right place to be 99% of the time. All she could say to the cat was "Good kitty...kinda." In honor of this event, I have christened the following ring Pretty Flowers Kinda. Such a potentially good idea, such a mess to clean up.
If I were going to trick out my car, I would make it match this ring. Especially the little gold bit. I give you Chrome.
I don't know if this is an ugly ring or a great secret agent tool, but either way it's Double Barreled.
I know you're supposed to put a stone in this one, but imagine if you didn't. Bugs would love Antennae.
For the RenFest devotee in your life, Chain Mail should do the trick.
And finally, one of the most expensive rings I found in my quest: Hedgehog.
Because we all know that once you get married, you don't want anyone touching you. Wearing this, you should be able to fend them off.
Voting begins now. As with the dress poll, I realize that some people may end up liking some of these, and that's fine too.
All right, here's the second wedding poll. But first, I have selected the winner of the first poll on worst gifts. Congratulations to Grace for her winning submission:
My mom and stepdad received a ceramic man pulling down his pants plant pot, complete with cactus where his penis would be.
Honorable mention for bizarro gifts, though it wasn't a wedding gift, goes to senior Russian finance ministry officials:
At this weekend’s meeting of finance ministers in St. Petersburg, senior Russian finance ministry officials give their Group of Eight colleagues military-look wooden crates containing glass AK-47 assault rifles – filled with vodka.
Moving along, I present a poll on worst wedding dresses. I was going to put your options below the cut, but this is too much fun to hide.
First, I present THE LINGERIE:
Next, THE URN:
Third in our parade is THE CHICKEN:
THE TAUNTING seems designed to make any woman anywhere look bad unless she is wearing a rigid plastic corset:
The following is known as THE JAWS OF LIFE because you don't so much wear it as get trapped in it, and a rescue effort is required:
GILT seems to be dress after dress after dress combined:
COLOR ME BAD is, well, pretty damn bad:
POUF seems to have some structural defect that does not allow the wearer to stand upright:
The model wearing LAYER (NOT) CAKE will probably kill you:
The recommended one-bow limit is defied in TIES:
And finally, BAD FUNG SHUI proves that red can indeed be an unlucky color.
Submit your votes!
I promised several of my friends that I would get a wedding blog together and allow them to vote on things like bad dresses. After much thought, I realized that we do need a wedding website, but we need it to be family-friendly. So no voting, because I don't think my grandmother would be happy if she followed a link and ended up looking at Reem Accra dresses.
So the polls will live here. The dress poll isn't yet ready, but here is the first poll.
Read Worst Wedding Gifts Ever. Then come back here and vote for your favorite by leaving it in the comments. OR you can attempt to one-up these gifts by listing a new one, but only if you have direct personal knowledge of the gift in question. None of this "my sister told me about this guy who went to high school with this girl" stuff.
Wedding Planning by The Weather Channel
If only the site wasn't slow as the proverbial molasses, I could conceivably get the typical weather for my wedding date and find out how to time a sunset ceremony. Ah well.
Update: Hey, I got in, and it's remarkably useful! Typical weather for the month, records for the particular day, data from the last three years on that day including hour-by-hour data, and it will email me every day for the 10 days leading up to the event with the forecast. Plus, weather related tips on planning for each stage in the "countdown" format everyone likes to use.
I'm digging this...
Elisa Camahort writes a column called Silicon Valley Veggie. The latest installment is Party Meatless, and it struck a chord given the recent bout of wedding planning around here:
But would they be able to accept if I threw some catered event and didn't provide any meat dishes? I actually don't know. I suppose it could be argued that my CSO [Carnivorous Significant Other] would be partially paying for any such event, and that his portion could be allocated to the meat dishes. Luckily the CSO is very supportive of my vegetarianism, and I don't think he would consider such a solution necessary.
Everyone else? I'm not so sure. I'll just hope they can deal, for one day, with an "alternative" meal plan.
I would just as soon not have any meat at our reception, but my strategy was to have the wedding at a time of day that would allow us to not serve dinner. I figured we could get away with vegetarian for buffet appetizers, but not for a sit-down dinner. C-Man felt very strongly that the carnivores among our guests could just deal with it, since they get their way so often in the world. And since I did feel like I was sacrificing some of what I wanted by having the wedding at another time of day, we finally decided to have a sit-down dinner.
I know who will complain. It will not be anyone my age. I know very few people in my generation who reject food just because it doesn't have any meat in it. But older generations...
But Elisa also mentioned something that had never occurred to me:
So, I can accept that I will likely never host a family holiday meal. We'll get to a ripe old age, and my family will be well-used to my vegetarianism, but it will never mean that they'll want to come to my house for Thanksgiving tofu pot pie or Christmas veggie casserole.
It's not like we currently have a house where we could entertain, but we hope to. Given that the purchasing of said house is still so far away, I hadn't even gotten to the imagining holidays yet. But my father would not exist in my house for even two days without eating meat. Neither would my brother-in-law. I don't bar meat from my current home, and I probably won't when I have a house, because my friends who sometimes bring their food here are very considerate and even use disposable plates and silverware if I ask them to.
So would my family members run down the street to McDonald's every few hours, or would they not even come? Would it be spoken, or would it always just happen to be more convenient for the event to be held at someone else's house?
It would get me off the hook with all the cooking and cleanup, though...
I'm not saying this to insult anyone, but I don't understand the practice of giving wedding guests seeds or trees as favors.
Are there really flowers or trees that grow properly in all regions of the U.S.? What if your guests are from all over? Especially since this stuff is usually marketed as a "green" choice. How green is it to give non-adapted plants to your friends and family?
Does everyone who comes to these weddings have a yard that can fit an additional tree just because someone gave it to them at a wedding? Heck, does everyone at those weddings even have a yard?
My incomprehension does not apply to paper invitations that you can plant. With those, one has the choice of keeping the invite to treasure or planting it if one has space available and one is interested in growing flowers.
My good friend C. and I went wedding dress shopping on Thursday, since I had the day off for Confederate Heroes Day. (Yes, we have that here in Texas. I apologize on behalf of my entire state.)
We went to David's Bridal first, since my general theory about the wedding is to first look at the cheapest version of the thing I want and see if I can stand it. We were greeted cheerfully but not aggressively by a young woman seated at a table. She asked if anyone was helping us. We said no, we were just going to look around. She told us that we had to register in order to try anything on. I figured that meant they had some kind of guest book.
So we looked at a lot of very ugly dresses, found a few we actually liked and pulled them out, then went looking for someone to let us into a dressing room.
"If you'll just fill this out," the young woman said, "And there's about a 20 minute wait currently for a bridal consultant."
The form asked for not only my name, but my address, phone numbers, and email address. C. had warned me that the wedding industry's main mode of operation was to play on cultural programming in order to suck all the money you have out of your wallet (cash) and/or undermine your future financial security (credit). But I didn't realize they also wanted to keep me under surveillance.
The form giver must have seen something on my face, because she kindly explained that this allowed them to create a file for me in their central computer and store any gowns I might be interested in, so I could go to any David's Bridal and they would be able to help me.
Not reassured.
I don't know of any other retail experience that works like this. You have identified a product you might be interested in knowing more about, but you are required to reveal and allow them to store personally identifying information before you are allowed to examine it? I suppose giving your driver's license to the car dealership to take a test drive might count, but that's a product that is incredibly expensive and highly mobile. I'll be damned if I could get any of those dresses into my purse and walk out the front door.
So I did the only thing I could do. I lied. My apologies to whoever has the street address 2 digits off mine and the domain name I made up to go with my fictitious first and lat names.
It does present an interesting social situation, though, since it turns out I am potentially interested in one of those dresses. How do I phrase it when I go back to check on the dress again? I want the salesperson who helped us to get her commission, so I want to go back to her, but I don't think Emily Post has anything for that initial conversation. I think what I did was an appropriate defense of my personal privacy. But how exactly do you say "I thought your business practice was unethical and invasive, so I faked the information I gave you last time. Would you please sell me a dress?"
It's difficult to find a bagpiper to play a wedding in Austin.
On October 30, 2004, I emailed C-Man this photograph:
He must have appreciated it, because on January 1, 2006, at approximately midnight and one minute, he asked me to marry him.
To no one's shock or amazement, I said yes.
CNN, about the Mercedes CLS: Sexy, but a little weird
If I had a nickel for every ex-boyfriend I could use that phrase to describe...I could probably buy that Mercedes.
I was in Buffalo Exchange this week using up a store credit before it expired, and the woman who rang up my shirt (47 cents out of pocket) was wearing a shirt that said DITCH HIM.
I said "If only you'd been around wearing that shirt when I was in my early 20's, it would have saved me a lot of grief."
She said, laughing, "You know, every woman who sees me wearing this shirt says something like that..."
There was additional desultory conversation, during which I felt the need to state that I am now over 30, probably because I feel so out of place in Buffalo Exchange that I'm compelled to broadcast that I am not trying and failing to fit in, I'm JUST SHOPPING.
However, it didn't occur to me until now how boring she must find that conversation after the first five times it happened. Shame on me for making that joke!
Amanda at Pandagon made a few interesting comments in a discussion of e-Harmony, the online dating site. I didn't know this until recently, but e-Harmony has a historical connection with Christian communities and organizations. So it turns out that the majority of its users are pretty Christian.
The company doesn't have to be upfront about its interest in "family values" type Christianity in order to attract almost nothing but that demographic. The fact that the TV commercials emphasize marriage as the end goal of the people who join up is enough to ensure that's the result.
With all these fundies running around talking up the institution of marriage a value in and of itself, a right and responsibility of those lucky enough to be straight, an obligation that we need to take on in order to fit in, and the only right way to have a family, is it any wonder that dating services like this are filling up with people who are trying to slap a ring on as fast as humanly possible?
[...] most non-religious people want to marry someday, but the official reason that you give for dating is to have some fun and get laid. If love and marriage happens, it's a happy accident.
She then goes on to posit that Christians who see their "need" to get married and have children as a religious obligation wouldn't be that good at the dissembling required for successful dating, and so they very well might benefit from a service to connect with others who want to "dispense with the bullshit and get to the wedding." She contrasts these folks with the presumably non-religious types who only have marriage as "a vague goal in the distant future" while dating.
I couldn't help but laugh. A chuckle, not a mean laugh. Her post is called "Who makes marriage the end goal?" Well, that would be me. But we'll note that it's 2005 and I'm still not married (again), so I'm obviously not just running straight to that end goal regardless of the cost.
I'm not quite sure how to articulate the rest of my thoughts on this, but it struck me as strange that she was identifying people who have marriage as a strongly articulated goal only as people "dispense with the bullshit and get to the wedding" and "slap a ring on as fast as humanly possible."
SCENE 1
Setting: C-Man and I are lounging on the couch watching Farscape. One disc ends, and he turns to The Dog - who is skulking about, lamenting the bad luck that brought her, 8 years ago, to a home with free food, clean water, medical care, toys, and treats.
C-Man: Dog, change the DVD!
The Princess: If you can teach her to do that, I'll make my parents give you a dowry.
C-Man: Cool. (pause) But hey, is the dowry going to be a cow?
SCENE 2
Setting: C-Man and I are lounging (which we apparently do a lot judging from this writeup).
C-Man, with a serious look: I need to tell you something important.
The Princess: What?
C-Man: I love you.
The Princess: Oh. Good.
C-Man: What?
The Princess: You looked so serious. I thought you were going to say something scary.
C-Man: Like I've been lying to you all this time and I'm actually a high seas pirate?
I have now lived in this apartment for just over two years. I'm surprised that I didn't mark the occasion of moving in here with a blog post - instead, it looks like I didn't blog at all for May and June of 2003. I can see why that might have happened. I was exhausted from grad school and finally ending a relationship that should have ended long before.
The move into my first "alone" living situation was absolutely bewildering. I couldn't figure out what to buy at the grocery store. I remember being on the phone with my ex-husband at midnight saying "I don't know when to go to bed!" His response, gently: "Well, are you tired?"
I have now figured out when to go to bed (after I should) and what to buy at the store (not the Whole Food whole wheat tortillas, because although delicious they are only 6 to a package.) And surprisingly, I am also in love.
The Princess: Thanks for not being evil.
C-Man: I figure if it works for Google, it can work for me.
The Princess: Yeah, Google gets all the hot redhead chicks.
It's going to be a very good year.
The term Sensitve New Age Player (SNAP) was introduced into the Flooded Lizard Kingdom's dictionary by the Marquis de Sod. SNAPs meet you, shower you with affection and attention for several weeks, and say everything you want to hear. You like them, and you believe that they like you back. However, they never show up emotionally. They have practiced lines, but no heart. They disappear after a short while, rarely to be heard from again.
In early 2004 I was positively beset by SNAPs. My good friend Jped suggested that I reword my online personal ads to discourage the pesky critters. I found his suggestion again during the first stage of the Great Email/RSS/Blog/Bookmark Cleanout, so I am sharing it with you.
"I'm really a great person, but DON'T WASTE MY FUCKING TIME ASSHOLE!". I realize it is a little subtle, but I trust the all caps address that shortcoming somewhat.
Or perhaps what is needed here is a little Confuscian ... er ... thinger.
Drench a plant for [only] 3 weeks, and you will have a homicidally angry (but still damned attractive!) plant around. Water the plant frequently but not overwhelmingly for a lifetime, and you will have a friend forever. If, you know, you like plants.
I trust this didn't help at all....my work here is done.
World O'Crap recently translated some christian advice column responses for the rest of us - the sortie into Dear Susie land motivated by Pete and Dr. Seb No being rejected by a Christian dating service (click on "yesterday" for the beginning of the sad tale).
It's probably just as well, given the straight-out scariness of God's Design for Scriptural Romance, Part VII:
Doesn't biblical courtship take romance out of the relationship? No, not at all. Actually, the biblical approach to relationships puts romance in its proper place, and its proper place is not during courtship. By romance, of course, we refer to the emotional and physical affection between a couple in love with each other. Emotional romance, God says, is to be reserved for the betrothal stage of a relationship after a binding commitment to marry has been made, preventing the broken-heart syndrome. This is why we urge that no romantic words, gifts, or private communication occur during courtship. [...] Similarly, physical romance is to be withheld until the wedding where the chaste couple experience their first embrace and kiss. [...]
Year after year the in-laws, aunts, and uncles will be giving the new family suggestions, recommendations, and advice. Will it concur or conflict with your own counsel? If their worldview, beliefs, and lifestyle are considerably different than your own, then their influence may take the form of bias, distortion, and indoctrination!
Perhaps they should have tried the London Review of Books, as described by Catherine Keenan:
...no one was quite prepared for the first ad, which read: "67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur, jacked-up on Viagra and looking for a contortionist trumpeter." A cult phenomenon was born.
Today, the back page of this learned journal is a compulsive read, a bizarre and often hilarious competition in wit and intellect and flat-out perversity. For some, it is the main - indeed only - reason to read the LRB. Recent offerings include: "Tap-dancing Classics lecturer. Chilling isn't it? (M, 38)." And: "Some chances are once in a lifetime. Not this one, I've been in the last 12 issues. Either I strike gold this time or I become a lesbian. Man, 43." [...]
Find the 10th coefficient in the expansion of the binomial (1+x) to the 20th power. Then love me some more. Mathematical Ms, Cambridge.
In true British fashion, it is generally regarded as bad form to mention one's qualifications or looks, except to talk them down. Terms such as troll-like, crab-faced and pock-marked are acceptable; gorgeous, sexy, and alluring are not. "Public school failure. Insipid, directionless, probably poor in bed. Looking for M or F reason to take life seriously" is an example.
If they need help writing their ads, they could look to some of the more scintillating responses I've received...
Like Upstairs Downstairs, except not a British television show.
Eating Dinner Out of a Measuring Cup (4C, Pyrex)
Upside: Know exactly how much macaroni and cheese was consumed (2C).
Downside: Makes it difficult to maintain pretense that hiding dirty dishes in non-functional dishwasher is elegant solution, no matter what B. said on the phone last night.
Using Ice Cream Scoop to Remove Macaroni and Cheese From Cooking Pot
Upside: Fun.
Downside: See Above.
Dating Humans of Either Gender
Upside: Fun, mostly. Kissing and stuff.
Downside: They suck, and I whine about it constantly to my friends, thus alienating them. Plus, expensive to eat out this much.
I-Tunes
Upside: IT TOTALLY ROCKS!!!!!
Downside: None. Nada. Unless there is a product identical to ITunes that reports out statistics like "Artist With Most Songs Marked With Five Stars." 'Cause I thought it would be Soul Coughing, but now I'm not sure, and I don't want to count by hand. I want ITunes crossbred with SAS.
Five women in my social circle having babies this year wasn't enough.
Now there are six.
(whimper)
Do I need another dog?
[Update, 12:18 pm: The more I think about how tired I am today and how much I would like to get done between now and Friday, the less this is bothering me. And I so do not need another dog, unless I build an addition onto my apartment.]
[Update, 2:35 pm: Or I could get a trained monkey to walk the dogs while I'm gone. Or a trained miniature pony. That would be awesome. I'd probably still need the addition, though.]
Popular culture is very fond of describing marriage with the metaphor of "work"---it's something you work at every day, you have to put in the effort to make it work, so on and so forth. Maybe I am just terminally slack or secretly anti-capitalist, but I hate that idea. It sounds like no fun at all. It sounds like marriage is one long tally sheet, where you put in the work and you expect to get paid.
I am much more drawn to slightly fanciful, magical metaphors to describe marriage. Nine years ago, LT and I (metaphorically) drew a circle in the sand, stood inside it, and agreed that it existed and would always exist, agreed to move it out of the reach of the tide if necessary, and agreed to throw really kick-ass bonfires inside of it. Now our circle is overlapped, Venn-diagram-style, by another one, and Nora is in there wearing a cute sun hat and pointing out the blah (dead crabs, seaweed, medical waste) on the beach, and the party continues.
But what about the baloney?
Click on the link above to read the rest.
From 1160 miles away yesterday, a friend told me that he was lonely.
I could feel that.
I feel it most around this time of night, when I'm fighting my bedtime like a toddler and finding creative ways to justify avoiding the bedroom. Tonight, my idea is that I'll go when I finish importing this stack of CDs into the blessed ITunes... Of course, I've just gone to get another stack.
"I'm lonely" sounds odd to me, stilted. Same with "I'm sad." My ears hear "I'm pissed off" or "I'm happy" just fine. Do we not express the first two?
In the past six months and change, I have made email contact with 20 men who met the basic criteria of literate and vegetarian (or workably close). I have met 13 of them in person, gone on 38 dates, seen movies and plays, attended concerts, eaten sushi and tex-mex and thai and creme brulee, dressed up, undressed a few times, cried on several occasions, given one poor soul an undeserved smackdown, been stood up twice, had my breath taken away exactly once, and laughed and talked and held hands and kissed.
To my surprise, this has made me less lonely.
I had thought enduring connections with some quality of emotional intimacy were necessary for solace. Turns out, not so. Traffic can do it, especially if it involves lots of good conversation and appreciative comments about my legs.
But I'm waning in my enthusiasm for connect-lose, connect-lose, connect-lose - and in my tolerance for finding interesting people, starting to learn their lives, and having that disappear again a few weeks later. Even when I'm the one who pushes my chair back from the table. Granted, the positive stuff is a value add, whatever the outcome, and I have been having a hell of a lot of fun. But the departures do take something out of me. And I'm tired. Tired of the girl instincts that kick in when behavior changes trip the switch that says he's backing away, the dread and simultaneous attempt to disengage so it won't sting so much when it's done.
Then again, I'm just as tired of sleeping alone - or more correctly, tired of waking up alone.
If I just wanted to fill that side of the bed, though, I could have done it by now.
But like Dar, I want somebody who sees me, and who wants to see the world with me. Not with someone/anyone. With me. Someone who can accept that I'm human, and easily hurt, and full of fear and doubt, and also love it that I'm full of joy and wonder and amazement at the world and a burning drive to make it better.
There is no way to what I want but through this: meeting new people, no matter how I find them. Telling almost-strangers increasingly important things about myself, so they can start to know me and I can find out who they are. Feeling excitement and wondering if this time the emails and ticket stubs and inside jokes will mean as much in a year, then cleaning out my inbox a few weeks later and letting it fade.
Maybe I'll take a break soon.
Probably not.
I want a new nickname too much. And someone to know my days and which are my favorite pajamas. In return, I'll pick out their exact favorite snack at the grocery store, and remember they have a stressful meeting on Tuesday. And sew buttons back on.
And I guess I don't mind having quite a bit more fun while I'm waiting, since time will pass whether I do or not. I'll just continue to develop my skills in rolling with the disappointments without discounting the good.
(Every time I write something like this here, I feel the need to undercut myself at the beginning or the end with a self-deprecating comment or two. Perhaps this time I'll just let it sit.)
The mating dance merely has a more intricate and elaborate beat now. It's just that much more complicated and silly as nowadays you gotta have a decent spam filter and a bitchin' animated buddy icon and a Motorola m3000 VideoPhone and a color-coordinated 40GB iPod loaded with just the right party mixes downloaded from just the right RIAA-condemned music servers, or you ain't down.
Out of three guys currently chatting me up in email, not ONE of them has a name I've encountered before. Compare to these, all from this round of internet dating:
I probably started it all by dating four guys named Brian, 3 in high school and 1 in college. The universe then assumed I liked my men in sets.
Surely there exists a grantmaking foundation that would fund work with expectant parents about the dangers of pedestrian names. Protect your future daughters-in-law! Get a book, cross out every name in the top 100! For the love of god, find something rare or unique!
This evening I received an email message from my ex-husband:
Happy 4/20!
After a second I realized that it's April, just after mid-April, and that means it's probably one of our anniversaries.
I pulled out the marriage certificate, read the date: October. Right, I forgot. We got married twice. Once for real, once for show. Neither particularly well thought out.
But I know that we started dating in April, and I know our fake church wedding was almost two years to the day from when we got together, and I left him just over one year later to commence a long string of not being good to anyone in relationships, and being worse to the poor suckers who entered into them with me than I was to myself, which is to say that I was very, very bad.
I emailed him to confirm that this anniversary, of hooking up 10 years ago and of having a church wedding 8 years ago, was the intent of his email.
Waiting to hear back, I stared at the corner of the marriage certificate that The Dog had chewed off (I'd say it was a sign except that she also ate through a wooden chair leg), and I thought about what I wanted to be different next time. Since I attended Slam tonight, I started writing some intensely bad non-poetry about it (don't worry, I always destroy it the morning after). I ate some chips.
I thought about the conversation I had with my friend M. on the way home from Slam. I told her that it was finally dawning on me that I could just take a trip if I wanted to. Just buy a plane ticket, get a hotel room, and go. Stop waiting to get married again, instead act like I do now in the video rental store and just do what I want, get what I want. Stop waiting.
The answer arrived:
No, I think that woulda been the 16th. 4:20 is some sort of pot reference, though its origins are unknown to me. It was sorta a joke to say it to you, of course. You can find out who might be a partaker by glancing at your watch at about 4:20 and saying, "its 4:20!". Anyone who looks at you and grins probably smokes. :)
I just have no idea what to say to that.
I have several fabulous ideas about Real Blog Entries discussing Important Topics, but this week has pretty much been about hurting.
(And fury, as you could see from Thursday's post - but if I have only learned one thing in therapy it's that when I'm really, really mad and it's not about Republicans, it means that I'm actually hurting.)
So this is what I have realized: lately, I have become aware, on an emotional level, of the infinite number of possible relationships I could be in that would not result in marriage and children. Having taken statistics, I am suddenly excruciatingly aware that probabilities are not with me if marriage/children is my goal.
It's like this. Place 100 slips of paper in a box, each labeled with one number, from 1 to 100. Draw numbers. If you're wanting to draw an even number or an odd number, your odds are obviously better than if you're wanting to draw the number 4. I want to draw the number 4, except that I now realize that there are about 10,000 slips in the box - whereas before I felt as though there were about 120 or 150.
Dear 26-31 year old vegetarian guys in the Austin area,
I know what I want: all talk and no walk.
Did you check on your profile that you were open to "dating/long-term relationship" - but have no ability or even desire to get attached to anyone?
Do you want attention right this minute, but otherwise fully aware that you're in a selfish stage?
Do you think I'm incredible but know you're terrified of having anything that might vaguely resemble the potential for a relationship at some point in the distant future if we decide we actually get along and continue to live in the same city and I don't get hit by a bus?
Then come on down!
Kisses,
The Princess
Definite: My hair requires brushing more than once per day.
Definite: When coming home after dark on days when it has rained, I am going to step on snails no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
Possible: People you like don't always like you back, and you don't always get to know why.
So I had a lovely date last night with a charming, droll fellow who made me laugh and think and remember what the "ooh" feeling can be all about.
When you meet someone online through a matchmaking-type service, it is considered acceptable to quiz them on aspects of their online profile. So I asked him, lightly and jokingly, "Hey, you didn't fill in the checkboxes for have kids and want kids, anything I should know?"
His response: "Hmm, I thought I had filled those out. Well, kids yay, and I swear I would know if I had any (laugh)...but y'know, I'm 31, and I am nowhere near ready to have kids."
I brought this up to A. this morning, because she is wise, and she flinched when I told her. Her response to his response: "What's sad is that feeling that way is so not an option for women that age who want to have kids." [in context, "have kids" meant "biological kids"]
So I set about mentally ignoring the quasi-red flag, in order to retain the shiny feeling a bit longer, and even told someone about my date and claimed there weren't any red flags.
Then I saw this, posted at Compound Interest in response to a book that Mary felt was proposing bad things:
[it is grossly false that] ...we have any control over whether our menfolk want to settle down and raise children....who [is it] that we're supposed to be marrying in our early to mid-twenties[?] Surely not men in that age range, who from my own experiences in the dating world, are empathically NOT interested in getting married and making babies any time soon. My male peers realize they have decades to postpone reproduction. One young man I used to date told me he was interested in having children "some day."
"When would that be?" I asked.
"In my forties," he replied.
Obviously he didn't intend to have them with a woman his own age.
Serves me right for attempted denial. I'm not claiming to actually know his mind from one casual comment, but ignoring evidence serves me not.
Damn reality.
...but apparently not today. ;)
Hello Baby,
I went to your profile and am interested in knowing you better.Well,let me introduce me little importancy about me..Am a guy of repute..who want to talk about Love,Bcos I Love to be Loved..I give all my love..Love and affection is what I want and is what I want to give with all of my Heart..
I just graduated from a technical school as a mechanical engineer,seeking for job at the moment.Am in Nigeria trying to fix one or two things together..Am interested in you,I don't know if you feel the same...
I hope you don't mind reply me lets talk more..Here is my Email address *******@msn.com incase you want to chat with me.Stay cool and have some kisses and hugs..
While I wait for your reply.
Much Love..
I need to share this text from an online personal ad.
Hello, ladies. My sense of humor is bizarre, and can be offputting if you're not a freaky freak like me. But if you like to be zany, wacky, or full of pizzazz, I'm your boogie man. ... I like to get crazy. One time I drove to Peru without a passport. I've been skydiving eight times, and I have a stable of exotic animals, including three fancy rats named Twinkles, Sugar, and Moustache. You might say I like to live it up. I'm looking for a good time with any beautiful, sexy ladies in the Austin area. Give me a buzz, all you beauties out there. Later.
We see why I'm distressed about the no prospects thing, right?
There are now five women in my immediate circle having babies in 2004. Not even their first babies - for all but one it's the second, for K. it's her fourth.
I turn 30 in September, and I don't even have a prospect for a boyfriend or girlfriend, let alone someone who I would consider partnering with for life and embarking on the task of producing a well-nurtured and well-adjusted child.
Some may consider the rest of this post merely an extended dance remix whine, so I'll hide it in the "more" section and you can consume if you so choose...
My boss is encouraging me to volunteer on the Lloyd Doggett campaign in the next few weeks because "there will probably be some neat people over there..." I wonder if I should wear the sparkly pink heart necklace she gave me?
5 Reasons I Never Followed Up On Your Answer to My Online Personal Ad
Now make that nice for yourself and go away.
Saturday night I heard part of the song Father Figure for the first time in several years. Smell is supposed to be the sense most linked to memory, but for me it's music that can do the trick of zapping my brain from wherever it is now to a very specific feeling in time then.
In this case, it's junior high, when I was acutely aware of how much I was not preferred by the boys in my school. I never realized how horrifying the lyrics were, or if I did realize it I made sure to bury that knowledge so I could succumb to the fantasy of having someone appear to take care of me and make it all perfect.
Now that I'm finally learning this isn't how it works, the song punched the buttons for both nostalgia and loss. I don't much appreciate having Alanis Morissette narrate a chunk of my current personal developmental struggle, but she accurately identifies the overwhelming power of the stories we tell ourselves - and in my case, reinforce with a soundtrack.
So let's look at a couple of interesting articles:
Imagine, if you will, trying to buy a food processor without a Best Buy, or a Macy's, or a Williams-Sonoma. Imagine if you had to go to crowded parties and other tedious functions and search the crowd for someone with an old Cuisinart at home that they might be willing to sell you. Furthermore, imagine if it were considered rude to bring up the Cuisinart straight off the bat - instead, you were expected to ask people about themselves, maybe buy them a drink, and feign interest in their rambling, self-involved banter, until finally, at the end of the night, loosened up by a few drinks, you could say what had been on your mind for hours:
"Um. I hope this doesn't sound too forward, but do you ... process food?"
And despite all that effort, imagine that the person's face drops, and he or she replies politely, but in a clipped, uncomfortable tone, "No, I'm not really into that kind of thing," and then exits the party without even asking for your number in case he or she ever does get the urge to process.
To Salon.com, online personals are evidence of the shameless commodificiation of dating, in which people are turning themselves into their own personal brands. Heather Havrilesky writes on Salon, "In keeping with recent advertising trends, today's online singles market themselves not by highlighting their best traits, but by creating an imaginary self that's impressively snarky and carefree."
OK, but when we meet people at parties or through friends, what does Havrilesky think we do, exactly? Project an earnest, authentic self, completely snark-free and honest?
I am often advised to be less picky about my explicit criteria for who I will date. (I am advised to be more picky about who I actually date, but that's a different story.) The theory is that if you're too choosy, you may never find someone. I don't much care for that theory. It has a gaping hole in it, which is that if I compromise away some of my baselines (like vegetarian, solvent, keeps promises), I'll end up worse off than I am if I hang out with just me. So I remain steadfast in my criteria, and only hope that I have gotten smart enough to remember them when I see a pretty face.
Until I get sick, and then it all goes to hell.
So here it is, universe: I'll take a messy packrat carnivore who is always late and smokes like California on fire if he or she will just get over here and walk The Dog and put clean sheets on my bed and be the one who watches to make sure the frozen pizza doesn't burn.
Thank you. We now return to your regularly scheduled program of not whining quite as much as we did in this post.
I retrieved my "in case of fire" box from my dad last weekend, and I am cleaning it out so I can send it back packed with all the data I would need to replace if my apartment burned down and took my computer and photo albums with it. CDs, negatives, photocopies of my credit cards and i.d., inventory for the renters' insurance people, etc.
Yes, I have a morbid fear of house fires. Yes, I have too much time on my hands. No, it didn't make me feel all that much better when K. and I discovered that The Dog would, in fact, bark loudly and persistently if a fire started in the house.
Any more questions? No? Good.
Included in this box, as I had hoped, was the backup of some data that I either accidentally or stupidly deleted - the text of the personal ads I posted online in two separate incidents (1998? and 2000) and the cascade of ridiculous and/or belligerent responses I received, as well as a selection of many enticing and well-crafted ads I saw while browsing during those episodes. So I'll be putting those back up soon, much to the delight of a couple key individuals who have been requesting this entertainment. I'm sure it's a flagrant violation of copyright, but if Way Too Personal can get away with it, then so can I.
In the meantime, I'd like to share with you some of my recent favorites from Yahoo Personals and other sources.
(But Princess, you may ask, why are you cruising the personal ads right now? Aren't you doing the single chick thing? Yes, I would answer, but do you have any idea how much of my brain energy had been devoted to dating and relationships for the past decade or more? If I let it all just sit idle, it's liable to get me in trouble with the first guy over 6'0" who has Winger playing on his car stereo at the stoplight.)
Somewhere in this great big world, isn't there a boy or girl who will court me by making tantalizing mix CDs with awful-but-sexy songs like "I Wanna Be Your Man" by L.A. Guns and "Butterfly" by Crazy Town - but who will not expect me to drink whiskey and get a bunch of tattoos?
Is that even how you spell whiskey? Is it whisky? The things I don't know...I am so underqualified for the soundtrack that inspires me. Perhaps at least "FNT" by Semisonic wouldn't require a radical shift in my lifestyle, except for funkier shoes. I could handle that.
Universe, get with it!
I have learned much from living alone for the past five months. I create less trash than I thought. Being in a vegetarian-only space is more important to my sense of well-being than I knew. I like hitting snooze several times on the radio-alarm clock and waking up slowly in the morning. I hate being the only one who ever walks The Dog.
And interestingly (to those of you who know me well), I don't feel compelled to be such a neat freak. When I lived with other people, it felt like leaving one plate in the sink was an invitation to disaster because Someone Else would come along and decide they never had to clean the kitchen again. I couldn't ever relax. The same emotional pattern seems to apply about money. I now feel comfortable buying a book or ordering pizza when I want to, because I'm not afraid that Someone Else will take that as a signal to spend all the rent money in a three-day blur of CDs, clothes, computer games, and takeout.
My fears don't seem that unrealistic when I review my experience in several past relationships - so knowing what I feel like when I can let the fear go has taught me something about what kind of people I can allow myself to share a home or budget with in the future. I had no idea that I'd spent so much time being afraid. Not afraid of bodily injury, but afraid of always having to work so hard to get my basic "household" needs met: cleanliness, financial security, consonance with my basic values of environmental responsibility and vegetarianism. A safe and pleasant place to live.
Do I want to live alone forever? No. I have learned that I need people around to chat with as much as I need big blocks of time to myself to work on projects. But month by month I feel like I'm getting more sane. It feels more like living and less like (what I hear) defensive driving (feels like). I like it.
Now if I can just get the lizards to walk The Dog...
I know, I said I would be single for a while. But how can I resist anyone who engages in Extreme Ironing? Surely there will be a personal ads section on this site soon...
As I was deciding in May to discontinue my current relationship, I suddenly became aware of the tiny empty eggshells all over my old neighborhood. I never saw the new birds, but they had left me encouragements. Then I moved to my new apartment and on the second night I was here, the courtyard was full of fireflies. My mother said she hadn't seen any in Texas for decades. And after it rains here, we get big round snails that crawl across the sidewalks and into the flowerbeds and scare The Dog silly by moving their antennae.
I appreciate the universe going out of its way to reassure me that everything is just as it should be.
It doesn't feel like that yet, but I am keeping firmly in mind that since I got back here in July 2000 I have only been single for three months, and I have never ever lived alone before. So the disoriented and somewhat sinking feeling I get when returning to the just-me-and-the-dog apartment is not a sign of impending apocalypse. It's just adjustment.
I feel like I'm going to get caught sneaking out of something, as if there's a life I'm supposed to be in that doesn't involve going to the grocery store alone or turning 29 in September with no ring, no house, and no kids. I remember looking at my friends in Boston, who were around 30 and single with no "prospects" on the horizon, and thinking "How curious." It never occurred to me that I could be there. But I'm not going to wake up and be where I thought I would, since that would require retroactively getting married and having children. That would most likely produce the feeling of "I've been in a coma for six years, look how everything's changed, and now I'm in a made for Lifetime TV movie." I'll pass. Many of my friends seem to think I need a pep talk when I say I'm lonely right now, but I'm pretty sure I just need to sit with it.
The lack of children thing does bother me, though, because I need at least one to take down to the Texas Legislature. It's obvious from their decisions that they've never actually met a child, or they would know something about what children need. If I had one to lend (in a carefully supervised setting, of course), it could do a lot for public policy.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Flooded Lizard Kingdom in the Love and Romance category. The newest entry is at the top.
Kid(s) is the previous category.