07.31.08
The Urban Family
If you’re young and single this is a must have. We’ve seen it duplicated in some of the most popular TV shows of our time, and there’s a reason. Not only are they key to weekends (especially when you’re dateless), but they provide those rare and hilarious moments that make it worth getting through another day in the cubicle or another struggle of making the bed by yourself.
I’ve had several. I like to think of them as generations of urban families. There’s my high school group (the Usual Suspects, a crowd built on such love and shared experience that it’s almost a super group), and I had one at my last college, and one I built before I started dating my ex-husband. However, he was one of the founding members, and understandably though unfortunately, he got them in the divorce.
I’m trying to start a new one. My “brothers from other mothers” have always been a situational and built-in group, so trying to form one out of different situations is a bit more difficult than I thought. Do these people mix? Can they eat sushi and drink an insane amount of beer on a Tuesday together? Do they make flexible plans that I can bail on if I get a more sexual offer?
It seems lately that instead I’m hanging out with subsets. There’s the Urban Family Sunday Dinner group, which is a small foursome that occasionally gets together for greasy Portland food. There are my girlfriends, often seen on an individual basis involving my couch and so much conversation that my throat hurts the next day. There are those Usual Suspects who grace New England on an annual basis.
But I’m still looking for Urban Family 4.0.
Do they list this on Craigslist on the non-dirty section? Should I post that I’m looking for one?
Newly independent, occasionally witty blond seeks cohesive urban family for social fun. Must have limited amount of existing inside jokes and be committed to creating a lot of new ones. Ideally will not set dining budgets of over $20 a meal, including beverages (nice restaurants are for dates). Occasional weekend overnights required (as in, “hey, remember that time we all rented the beach house and you fell asleep in the chair on the porch and my dog drank all of the beer you left out? That was great”). Those interested in group activities that you couldn’t legally post on Facebook need not apply.
07.30.08
Ah, It’s You Again
Well, hello there moderate depression! It’s been quite a while since we’ve gotten together like this. I can’t say that I missed you terribly.
It was bound to happen. After this amount of change and stress and quite the plummeting of self-esteem I’m a bit depressed. Not suicidal depressed, but don’t-want-to-get-out-of-bed-for-any-reason-depressed. I’ve been napping like that’s my job, going to bed as early as possible, and turning down certain invitations from friends because I just can’t deal with the stimuli. I just feel down.
The therapist was not shocked by this news. In fact, she had more of a “Yeah, and?” reaction. She also had a good spin on it. Hell yes, you’re supposed to be depressed. You just got divorced and you have no idea what to do with your life career-wise, and you’re dating someone that’s completely and understandably consumed by their job. You’re living on your own for the first time, trying to make ends meet, going into debt, and drinking a lot.
Well, crap. I guess she’s right. That all sounds pretty depressing in list form even if it weren’t about me.
So her advice is to do things. Get up, go to work (even if you’d rather call in). Meet up with those friends, and figure your life out one step at a time. Be thankful for the time you get with the sometimes date, and not dependent.
I’m trying. Last night a friend showed up for gin and cheese. We may have skipped pilates to get together on the couch, but it was uplifting. We even took a girl date to the grocery store, one of my most hated single tasks.
And this morning I felt a bit better than I have all week.
07.29.08
Random Ten
After an emergency trip to the House of Awkward to collect the last of my belongings (under threat of them going to Goodwill, which is where many of them are ending up anyway) I found a box of things from high school.
This box hasn’t been opened since 2001. It’s been moved from apartment to apartment to house and now back to another apartment.
So this week’s Random Ten Monday (yes, I know it’s Tuesday already) will be a list of things I found in this time capsule.
10. Sesame Street figurines. I’m sure they meant something at some point…
9. 9 letters from my 8th grade boyfriend from his summer at camp.
8. 25 letters from my 8th grade boyfriend’s best friend, also from camp.
7. A childhood picture of my ex-best friend. The request of her address for its safe return may have sparked a truce. Which, honestly, I might really need right now.
6. My high school sweetheart’s phone number. Written on a Viagra sticky note. Which is still funny.
5. Christmas and birthday cards from high school friends, full of inside jokes I’m not sure I remember.
4. Tags from the “Valentine’s Day Carnation Sale”. Freshmen year I got six. Sophomore year? Zero.
3. Brochures from a road trip to PEI with my mom when I thought I wanted to go to college in Canada. Actually, I’m not really sure I ever wanted to go to college in Canada, but it was apparently going to cost my parents about 25% of what it would here, so I’m sure that was a factor.
2. A lot of barrettes. When did I wear barrettes?
1. Three homemade devices for smoking illegal substances. Which were certainly brick in form.
07.25.08
Apparently
If you ignore a phone call from a sometimes date for three hours, and they claim to have also called you six hours before that, they will not be impressed that you’re playing hard to get and really want to see you.
They will be annoyed. Uber annoyed.
But, sometimes date, make some plans and I wouldn’t have to play the mind games. I don’t even know the rules. As made clear by the incident above.
07.24.08
Economized
A month ago the sometimes date and I began making a text-messaged list of all the words that had been overused in our day. The first day, my word was “economy”. After sitting through eight hours of meetings in regards to annual business plans, I’d heard or said the word “economy” about fifteen million times.
Yes, I read the news. Yes, sales are down at my publication, and the value of the home I used to co-own plummeted while I was leaving it. I understand that these are trying times, and that families across the country are strapped and making the choice between groceries and utilities.
But the slowing economy and the job market haven’t affected me personally that much. My experience with a decrease in funds has been directly tied to my newly single status. DM (during marriage) I enjoyed a comfortable (though not extravagant) lifestyle, which basically meant most of our incomes went towards getting out of debt and none of them went towards doing anything fun, but we could buy as many groceries as we damn well felt like.
Now, I’m living on about 50% of my (our) previous cash.
And my monthly expenses have gone up. Waaaay up. Between rent and single dog parenting and needing to buy a couch and counting on money coming from the divorce that never came, things in the quarterandchange house are very tight. In fact, they’re indebted. Again.
This situation has already had me on the edge of breakdown more than once.
And today, my company laid off half of the sales staff of another publication because of a down turned print economy. This does not bode well for someone in the most precarious economic situation of her life. Two months of salary in a savings account? Ahahahaha. I’m hanging on until payday as it is just to make rent.
These are the kinds of times that make me wonder, can I really do this on my own?
07.23.08
I’m going to start wearing bigger pants
And not just because of the beer/wine/gin/cheese bloat that I’ve been working on for the past three months.
Today’s topic? One that I’ve been mentally (or, um, physically) working on for quite a while.
Men that shouldn’t yell “Nice Ass”, or whistle, or almost run into a pedestrian while you’re navigating the sidewalk:
1. Ambulance drivers leaving the hospital parking lot. Frankly, I didn’t even know that the windows in those things rolled down. Please, please, bald paramedic with the sunglasses, don’t be the one called to any emergency I may have.
2. Middle-aged men in Subaru wagons. Listen, I see the car seats, ok? You’re driving a lesbaru. You’re married, and you’ve got a thing for safe and reliable vehicles. Don’t try to reclaim your youth by yelling at me while I’m jogging.
3. Teenagers. On skateboards, foot, in Dad’s Volvo, ever. I could technically be your mother, and I guarantee I babysat for you or one of your friends at some point.
4. Old guys in pick-up trucks. It just feels dirty.
5. Ice Cream Man. I’m not kidding.
As a disclaimer, no matter how attractive the guy is or how nice his car looks, catcalling does not make my bra magically fall off.
Have I missed any other offenders?
07.22.08
She said it better than I ever could…
War Out of Peace– song and lyrics by Tristan Prettyman
When you should stay, when you should go
But you don’t
Rehearse the lines in your head
You know what needs to be said
But it all comes out bad
And if it’s space that you need
If time is falling at your feet
Walking away empty
Love is a crazy dream
Is it what you want
Is it what you need
We go back and forth
Making war out of peace
And you won’t let go
And I won’t give up
We go round and round
But is it ever enough
Is it ever enough
Lately I’m falling away
Growing more quiet by the day
Not really sure
Why I feel this way
I guess I got a little scared
Someone could actually care
This time, just might be something there
And if it’s change that you need
A little more mystery
Some kind of deeper meaning
Love is a crazy dream
Is it what you want
Is it what you need
We go back and forth
Making war out of peace
And you won’t let go
And I won’t give up
We go round and round
But is it ever enough
Is it ever enough
I’m sure I’ll mess it all up
I’m sure I’ll try to convince myself
That I just need to be
But what I want to be is
Something else, someone else
So why did we cross the line
Mess it all up with the time
And in the end just assume it’ll be alright
Is it what you want
Is it what you need
We go back and forth
Making war out of peace
And you won’t let go
And I won’t give up
We go round and round
But is it ever enough…
07.21.08
Random Ten
Yes, I realize I missed posting last Monday (and each day after that), but yours truly has been on vacation and has no idea how to type a paragraph from the touchpad of the iPhone I was lucky to inherit. We’ll start with the ten, and hopefully I’ll be able to update more fully in a little bit.
Let’s try a random “theme” ten for today. Cheating? Maybe. But I’m jetlagged.
Random Ten Man Facts:
10. My first real kiss was during a seventh grade dance. During Stairway to Heaven. Cliche much?
9. I should have learned by this point that if I don’t like the way the back of a man looks, it’s probably not going to work out.
8. If you ask a man “what are you thinking?” you’re just asking for him to come up with a creative lie.
7. I traditionally date below my level. Or at least that’s what my friends say. When I do find a man that might actually be more an equal than a given I tend to screw it up with the first few months.
6. I’m the definition of serial monogomist.
5. If someone were to send me flowers for absolutely no reason I’d probably fall in love with him.
4. If someone were to send me a letter for absolutely no reason I’d probably break my “never get married again vow”.
3. Sometimes faking it doesn’t hurt.
2. Male tank tops are never acceptable. EVER.
1. When a guy stops courting me, I’ll find another to climb out of the relationship on.
07.11.08
Perfection
My wonderful friend Skye had an amazing title suggestion for my autobiography today.
Sex and Pearls
Yup, that pretty much sums it up…
07.08.08
Disappointments
While I was married I got pretty used to disappointment. Disappointment in a lack of attention, affection, and excitement. I became so immune to it that I rarely even thought about how I was starving in the relationship, and I became complacent to such an extent that it would take a conversation with my happily married friends to realize “hey, this is pretty messed up”.
I decided that you can only ask a person to change behaviors, and you can’t ask them to completely change themselves. As long as I stayed with my ex-husband I was going to be disappointed– most of all, in myself. I took responsibility for making the wrong choice and not listening to my gut, and then I got the hell out.
So now that I’m back to the dating world (uuuuggggghhhh) I’m faced with a series of new, and potentially more daunting situations. Was it annoying that I was living in a house where I was basically married to a roommate? Yes. Was it emotionally exhausting in the way I’m finding the behavior of the man I’m dating now? Not really. The old issues, while frustrating and completely not worth it, were at least familiar.
So while I’ve found this person to be incredibly attractive, occasionally attentive, and fascinating, I’ve been deterred by his occasional emotional seperation and a new lack of interest in our “relationship”. It’s sort of a see-saw game while I wait to find out what happens next. The potential for him to flake out at any moment (including on our upcoming vacation) is high, and it makes it difficult to let my guard down.
But at the end of the day, I’m still positive in my choice. I’d rather be sleeping starfish in my new bed, in my new apartment, than sharing my old one.
