Day 48: A Girl Friend Wouldn't Let Me Look Like a Stripper

Sometimes when you make a mistake, you don't realize it until after the fact. So if, for instance, I painted my nails gold after seeing the color at Sephora and thinking it was fun and different, I may not realize that in actuality I look like a stripper until it's too late. This type of mistake is born from my bad choices on my part certainly, but also because I have always had guy friends and not too many female friends. Guys don't tell you if you look like a stripper, in fact, they kinda like it. No female friend, however, would have ever let me leave the house with gold nail polish. So it is through something so small as nail color that I realize, finally, the importance of female friends.

Guy friends have their benefits. Unlike women, men don't like drama, they don't say things they don't mean, and they always appreciate it when you look nice. Women are masters of duplicity. We talk behind our friends' backs, we judge what each other wear, we're even secretly pissed if we don't look as cute as our friend when we go out. Women are complex and navigating the tricky waters of female friendship often requires a combination of diplomacy and cattiness that I simply do not possess. I am a tell it like it is girl and it's lost me some friends, but men usually appreciate that about me.

I don't really get women and never have. I know what people think about women who don't have female friends and it's not really the case with me. I've had female friends, just not a lot of them and I find they are harder to make than guy friends. I would love to know more women, but women tend not to like me and I'm not sure why. I think I make them uncomfortable. I don't apologize for being a strong personality; I don't apologize for having a big mouth; I don't apologize (anymore) for having tits. I have been told I can be intimidating and while sometimes I do it on purpose, most of the time I don't realize it and I don't mean it.

Maybe the problem is that I grew up a tomboy and as an adult I love sports, I drink whiskey, I swear like a truck driver and I think chicks are hot. Hell, I even call them chicks. So I am comfortable with my guy friends, but I need female companionship to save me from myself. Girls will go shopping with you and tell you the truth. Girls will help you get ready and give you advice on your hair and your shoes and they will tell you when your nail color makes you look like a stripper. Guys on the other hand, will either ignore or not notice these things and then ask you if you can hook them up with the hot blond at the bar. They are two different worlds.

I'm not sure if knowing that I need more girl friends is going to actually aid in my ability to make them, but I guess it can't hurt. The other problem with being a woman my age in search of friends is that all the other women have families and tend not to socialize as much. I can't tell you the last time I went to a movie with a female friend or had a drink. They have to make dinner, put the kids to bed, and do whatever else Moms do. Guys, even when they have families still make time to go out. They prioritize a little differently and feel having time with their friends is as important as time with the family, and why is that so bad?

Then again, a guy friend won't always go shopping with you or just chill with a bottle of wine while listening to you bitch about your life. Women may have different priorities, but their friendship is more about caring, than bar-hopping. So if I'm out with a guy friend and mention that I just realized I look like a stripper, he is as likely to help me onto the bar while encouraging me to do a dance than he is to reassure me. A good female friend will not only try to make me feel better, but she will whip out a lovely shade of pink polish from her purse, for a quick touch-up. Men might accept me as I am, but it's probably because they don't really care as long as you're up for another round.

Day 47: Basketcase and Douchebag, a Love Story

We all know men and women communicate differently. In close relationships, this difference tends not to be such a big deal because we learn how to compensate. A wife for instance realizes early on that her husband never listens to her and so begins acting as she wishes and claiming later "I told you about this last week, don't you remember"? Of course the guy's way of communicating involves just agreeing, "Oh, yeah. I must have forgotten. Sorry" because he'd rather suck it up, then to actually have to have a discussion about it. They may not be communicating in the way couples are expected to, but they develop a method that works for them and no one gets divorced or shot. But what happens when you do not know the other person well and issues of communication create a huge problem? Do you face it and try to work it out or bail? And whose fault is it, anyway?

Tonight I went out with a friend who brought along a collection of his own friends. Among them was his female roommate and a guy they both knew years ago from their hometown. We'll call the girl "Basketcase" (BC) and the guy "Douchebag" (DB). It seems that years ago BC and DB had a thing, but haven't really talked in years, until they recently reconnected and decided that DB should come for a weekend visit. At this point, BC thought they were making a love connection while DB thought hey, a free weekend somewhere new, what the hell. Somewhere along the line these two idiots never had an actual conversation about what such a weekend would mean, which of course, led to a nightmare evening for the rest of us.

I am the type of person that believes in seizing an opportunity. If someone invites you for a weekend away and you have no reason not to go, then I say jump on it. When that someone is an ex or slightly melodramatic and possibly crazy, however, you might want to slow your roll and think it through. In this case, BC is the type of girl who, after having lived in a new town all of six weeks claims to be disappointed that she "hasn't found someone yet." Found someone for what? Housecleaning? Massage therapy? Hide and seek? The whole concept of it taking only six weeks or less to find someone significant enough to not just be casually bumping, but in an actual relationship is absurd to me. Sure it happens, but not when you're looking for it. Was this girl never 16? You can't desperately hunt down love, that is one prey that needs to come to you when it's ready and confident that you're not a crazy, melodramatic love sniper.

Anywho, so DB comes to visit and within the first hour they hook up, which he later blames on her. Apparently she seduced him and he just couldn't resist. Total Douchebag. Later that same evening finds me out with this lovely non-couple and some friends. This is the first evening I have met either and yet, within two hours I have BC telling me that two days ago DB proposed and now he's ignoring her entirely, then DB tells me completely different story. Now, I'm all for a good story now and again, but I am a stranger, why are you people telling me all your personal shit the first night I meet you. Not to mention, it's Friday at 10:30pm , this is way too much drama for so early into the weekend. Oh, and by the way, what's your name again "Mr. and Mrs. I've know you for all of five effing minutes"?

Why do we do this to ourselves? How do we create a scenario in our heads that is so far from the truth. Clearly both stories these two vomited forth cannot be true, but I'm not even sure one or both is even lying on purpose. After listening to them both for much longer than I wanted to and watching them sit at the same table and text each other rather than speak out loud, I'm pretty sure it's all about the communication. So then I must ask, how you get to a point that you're not just misinterpreting what someone is saying to you, it's more like you speak an entirely new language. In this case, the languages are "I'm desperate for a man to love me, even if it's only for a weekend" and "Everyone thinks I'm gay, but I'm not, so I will use you for a weekend to prove it."

Yeah, my night pretty much sucked, but for a rousing karaoke rendition of Ray Charles's "I've Got a Woman" sung by my friend. The rest of the time it was War of the Roses except these two thorns in my side were not only not married, they hadn't dated for years. Still, BC claims DB popped the question two days ago. A claim I might find impossible to believe if DB himself hadn't told me repeatedly, that it's not his fault, he doesn't operate that way and he's not going to lose sleep over what she thinks. WTF? That's not how he operates? Because communicating your intentions clearly and not taking advantage of someone's feelings is pointless? I don't know who proposed what to whom, but I do know that these two couldn't have an open and honest conversation under any circumstances.

The reason why such a conversation isn't possible, however, is no longer because they will not stop ignoring one another long enough to do so, it's because they genuinely each think that their own side of the story is the correct one. She says: "You should come check out my town for a weekend and hang out with me and my roommate." He hears, "hey come use my place as a hotel and sleep with me for kicks while you're here." Whereas, he says: "I'd love to visit and may even consider moving there in a year when my job changes. I've heard it's a fun town." What she actually hears, however, is: "I think we made a mistake, I want to be with you and think maybe this is worth me moving here to be with you."

Are we just all stupid or so desperate to infer what we want to hear from others, that somehow we actually manipulate our brains into thinking that is what was said? I don't know what really went down with these two, but after watching them ignore one another for an entire evening, except for when they were texting across the table, I don't care. They did prove to me that in some way, we are all able to both completely misinterpret the intentions of another, while simultaneously allowing ourselves to believe what we want. In the end, BC booked DB on a flight out first thing the next morning and so he will spend less than 24 hours of a planned 72 in town. The best part, is that since neither ever discussed what really happened, they will each go on believing that they are right and the other is crazy. Maybe it's no one's fault, but perception and reality are not the same thing, just as hearing and listening aren't either.

Day 46: My Best Little Whorehouse is a Movie Theater

It’s confession time. I am a well traveled, educated, and fairly cultured woman who lived in New York City for seven years. The city is famous for things such as hot dogs, New Year’s Eve, Times Square, Little Italy, but the one thing that seems to hold almost universal appeal for men and women is the one thing I hate: the theater. Trust me, I know what you’re thinking, who doesn’t love the experience of going to see a play or musical on Broadway? Well, I can assure you that the answer is me.

Don’t think I haven’t tried. I have been to Broadway shows, off-Broadway shows, off-off-Broadway shows and pretty much just a random group of bad actors gathered in an alley, I hated them all. Part of my problem with the beloved theater experience might have to do with the fact that for almost $100 I get the privilege of sitting somewhere between 800 rows away and Brooklyn. The stage is tiny, it’s dark, I’m straining to see and then it happens, they sing a ballad and I am out like a light. I can’t even sleep in a bed, but if you plop me down in a upper level seat at Chicago, Cabaret, Phantom of the Opera or any of those stupid Disney ass-fests, I become a narcoleptic.

I cannot tell you the number of people who have told me over the years how lucky I was to get to go see a show anytime I wanted. Luckier still in my mind, is that I never wanted. What is this fascination we have with paying $100 to watch people sing and dance? Hell, I can watch a movie for $9.50, download my favorite songs for 99 cents, or read a book for free. Maybe I am too much a child of pop culture and the 80’s and 90’s, but I love movies. The theater maybe real and raw in a way a movie never can be, but you also have much better seats and the scenery isn’t made of plywood.

I’m not a big fan of plays, but I will definitely take them over musicals. Don’t get me wrong, I like musicals as long as they are the movie version. Chorus Line with Michael Douglas is one of my favorites, Grease is pure perfection, and I absolutely cannot get enough of the Hollywood production movies of the 40’s and 50’s. I watch all kinds of movie musicals. In fact, just tonight I caught “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I know the dancing numbers are gay (and I do not use that phrase lightly). The Sharks and the Jets, The T-Birds, any guys high-stepping in tights and no shirts (I mean, come on), these are a bit over the top and honestly in real life no straight girl would waste her time, no matter how hot they look without their shirts. Musicals operate on their own set of rules for what’s cool and masculine and I can buy it, as long as it’s on a movie screen. In person, it’s just somebody prancing around while I squint from the nosebleeds wondering why anyone thought it was normal to put that much makeup on a guy.

I support your right to spend a car payment to see a guy run around stage with an ornate and gaudy fake lion’s head acting out what was a cartoon movie initially. I don’t know, The Lion King just seems like one of those movies that should have stayed a movie, the premise is kind of thin for a Broadway production, but hey, I bet it’s great on ice. We all have things we like and dislike, but I’ve learned that Broadway is something that almost everyone else loves and it’s mind-numbingly boring to me. Mama Mia, for instance? Jesus, they sang everything. I’m surprised there wasn’t a song dedicated to their morning toilet ritual, and I’m referring to the movie version. The live musical would likely have induced a coma or possibly a homicidal rampage on my part.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas might have begun as a stage production, but it wasn’t until Dolly Parton got her hands on the lead role in the movie version that a little song called “I Will Always Love You” made its first movie debut. Theater actors may have more solid acting chops, but Broadway would never have given us Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds, and their duet of Parton’s other song for the movie, “Sneakin’ Around” made that one totally worth it for me. You don’t have to be serious and artsy to love movies, you just need a ten-spot and a couple of hours.

Day 45: Sometimes Life and Death is a Real Pisser

Today, my cat had a seizure, pissed on me and died. It kind of sucked. In his honor, I smuggled half a bottle of wine into the movies then went out drinking. Nothing says I'm grieving like shots of whatever the bartender is pouring. Jeremy was an awful cat. He was defensive, cantankerous, he pissed all over the house, in general he was a huge pain and I loved him from the time he was four weeks old and could barely get around till he was 15 and collapsed. I loved that cat beyond reason. He has been my closest and longest lasting relationship over the years. Jeremy, or Jaybird as we'd recently taken to calling him after Jeff screwed up the lyrics to a rap song, was a hard cat to love, but I never gave up on him.

I'm not going to write much today, but I wanted to pay tribute to a wonderful spirit, who came into the world fighting and left it the same way. I hope he knew I loved him. So here's to you, Jaybirdy, Mama will miss your bite marks.

Day 44: I've Got a Few Bills You Can Pay . . .

The idea that we would charge the family for a funeral is nonsensical." This is a quote from Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the recent efforts of LA to set up a web site and ask for donations to help pay for the seemingly never-ending memorial service and funeral for Michael Jackson. To this, I have only one thing to say: REALLY?!? Since when is it over the line to expect the family to pay for a funeral? I don’t recall the mayor of Fort Wayne, IN stepping in to pay for my Mother’s funeral, then again, I couldn’t even get her husband to pay for her funeral (but he’s a dirtbag so that was expected).

I understand that this was no ordinary funeral. Given the fact that the service was public a certain amount of chaos was to be expected. Certainly, the family could not pay for extra traffic control, police presence, etc., but ordinarily the family would be responsible for the service and burial costs. It was not necessary to put on a Hollywood production that lasted for what felt like eight days to memorialize MJ. I’m really happy all his friends got to come together to show how awesome their respective talents are – I mean, pay tribute to MJ by showing how awesome their respective talents are – but it stills seem pretty excessive to me.

Making his funeral a worldwide event was a choice, not a necessity and that choice is the responsibility of both his family and the production company. Since this qualified more as a tribute than a funeral, shouldn’t it be handled the way all tributes are paid for, by those that produce them? So who was the executive producer of Mike’s celebrity showdown, I mean funeral? AEG Live is the owner of LA’s Staple Center, where the funeral extravaganza was held. I’m not sure whose idea it was to put on such a grand show, but I’m venturing what I feel is pretty accurate guess that the Staples Center honchos played a big part in pulling it together. Great publicity for them and no cost it seem now.

When you die, your funeral expenses, be they an incinerator and plastic baggie or three-day funeral will be paid either by your family or your estate. So why not make Mikey pay for it himself. The estate could pick up the tab with a little help from his large and famous family. All I know is that when you get to the point where you find yourself printing up tickets for a damn funeral, there is a good chance that shit is out of control.

I do realize that because I am not a fan of MJ, nor was I shocked at his death, my reactions might be a little less reverenced than others. Even so, putting on a 1.4 million dollar memorial service complete with some of the top celebrities in music and acting seems like overkill. Did they not think someone would have to pay for that? If I didn’t think there were limits or that someone else would pick up the tab for my activities, I would always order the lobster, shop at the most expensive stores, and keep a stable of fast cars and motorcycles. The reality, however, is that ultimately my choices are my responsibility and if I spend a little too much and go on a shopping spree instead of a shopping trip I don’t expect the mall to pick up the tab.

So while my sympathies go out to the Jackson family and his children, I gotta side with the city council on this one and think that maybe they shouldn’t be the ones to foot the bill for an event that at any other time would have charged an admission at the door. And if you want to know just how far I’m willing to go with this, ask me if I think some of the performers might have been paid for their “heartfelt” tributes. Go ahead, just ask me.

Day 43: Promises, Promises

Today I had a lot of difficulty deciding what to blog about. In fact, I started three other blogs and tried to refresh a couple of others I have on hold, all to no avail. Some days there just isn’t anything I feel that strongly about. So that got to me thinking. How much of what we say on a daily basis is worthwhile and how much is just mindless chatter? If forced to write, I could put down 20 pages on no notice about any given topic. When I blog, however, I like to wait for inspiration to strike. When you feel inspired, your task somehow seems easier and less like work. With my blog, the work is self-assigned, the only commitment I have is to myself and yet I feel it more important than ever to follow through.

We make promises to people all the time. You promise your boss you’ll meet a deadline, your parents that you’ll call, your boyfriend that you’ll love him forever and yet we break promises all the time. Are the commitments we make to ourselves any more important than those we make to others and can you even quantify such a thing? Maybe in a world in which it seems easier and easier to disappoint someone the only person we can every really please is ourselves. You may cheat on your diet, but you feel lousy about it right? It is somehow expecting that we will not be able to fulfill all of our obligations to others, so when you bail on a friend’s party with an excuse you may not actually feel that bad about it.

Failing yourself stings a little more not because we are selfish and uncaring about letting down someone else, but because when that someone is you, rationalizations and excuses cannot cover the fact that you failed. Denial is easy in a lot of ways, but no matter how firm your uh-uh stance might be, lurking just beneath the surface is the truth and you know it. Everyday I wake up or come home and see that I still haven’t cleaned it is a reminder that I am lazy. I don’t sleep at night because I lay there and think about all the things I still need to do and didn’t get around to yet. As long as I am busy, I avoid reality, but when things quiet down it’s just me and my failures.

Writing this blog represents the one thing that I do each and every day simply because I said I would. Who knows, if I only made that promise to myself and not on Facebook and to friends, maybe I would have stopped at day two, but putting it out there for everyone to know keeps me from going back on my word. True, the only person I would let down is myself, but I couldn’t hide from it and it would be just another personal failure. The scary part is that I am only on day 42 of 365, and already I am struggling for topics, but I made a promise to myself and I’m going to see it through. Even if that means a few days aren’t exactly my best effort. So stay with me people, it gets better. The takeaway, is that I came through even when I wasn’t sure I could and being true to myself was the whole reason I started this blog.

Day 42: Greener Grass or a Happier Path?

The grass is always greener. How many times have you heard that phrase, or used it yourself? This is such a familiar concept that we no longer think there is anything wrong with it, in fact, it almost seems strange if you don’t in some way envy the way of life of another person. We use it to describe career vs. leisure, kids vs. no kids, relationship vs. single. Do we feel this way simply to describe a curiosity or is it because we are unfulfilled? If it is the former there is nothing to be done, but if it is the latter then you must ask yourself why you are unfulfilled and what can be done about it.

At what point in life do we learn that it is okay to settle, to compromise our personal happiness? As children we all start out greedy, we want what we want and simply take it when within an arm’s reach. Later, we learn to share. This is an important lesson, but does not devalue our desires. Somewhere between sharing and adulthood we stop reaching for what we want and decide that what we have is enough. What happens, however, when enough really isn’t?

Desire gets a bad rap. The very word has connotations of something dirty or even sinister. We think of desire not in terms of what we need to make us happy, but as an urge to attain something that is somehow more than or over the top. We have phrases we use to disparage those that seek more, such as “wanting your cake and eating it too” or “having it all.” Why is it wrong to reach for more? The assistant that wants to be an executive, the stay-at-home Mom that wants to go back to college, the teenager who wants to move to the big city, are we so wrong for desiring something we see as better? For that matter, if we judge it as better why does that have to mean that we think less of others?

Desire is a personal concept. What one person wants is unique to their personal journey. Parents take it personally when a child does not want to go into the family business, high school best friends feel slighted when the plan to go to the same college falls apart, couples drift when love and marriage turn out not to be the golden ticket to happiness. According to our relationship lore, love is doomed lest it be your “soul mate.” So what happens when you don’t believe in a soul mate. Maybe you think love for love’s sake is actually an okay concept. Are you expected to give up your spouse because she’s not your soul mate, despite loving her? Conversely, what if a soul mate is not a practical option. No matter how romantic love can be, reality must enter into at some point. How will you support yourselves, do you have topics in common, do you even like one another?

It is easy in times of hardship or confusion to look at another’s life and think how nice it would be to trade places, but that is meant to just be fantasy. A busy and ragged wife and mother might think about the freedom of her single friends who travel, drink, and love freely, but would she actually give up her children for such a life? Let’s hope not. Life is hard work and every aspect of it proves to be a little bit of a struggle regardless of how easy it might start out. The distinction, is in finding a path that is worth the effort, but not so hard that it becomes invaluable. When I was in my youthful relationship with Dave, I used to say that love is work, but there is a limit to how hard it should be. Likewise, it shouldn’t be too easy, because those relationships are more often than not built on superficial pleasures.

So if the grass is always greener and it is in our nature to seek out the easy pleasure, how do we distinguish between what is necessary for our happiness and what is just gluttonous? Can we ever be sure that the path we are on will yield true fulfillment rather than momentary satisfaction? Being unemployed for far longer than I would like to admit generated the unfortunate moment of self-discovery. I always said that what was holding me back from learning the guitar or volunteering more was a lack of time, but now that I have nothing but time, I am still falling far short of my goals. Don’t even get me started on ho much time I have not spent in the gym, because it is significant. Those long, lean girls look fantastic when I see them jogging past, but I’m still on the couch learning to re-love daytime TV.

Life is rarely what we expect, though there are always those privileged few who seem to get everything a little easier than the rest of us. They grow up rich, their parents pay for college, find a career that pays them well without sucking out their soul and on it goes. I have friends that fit this mold and I am glad for them, but find the answer to envy is the knowledge that they are still somehow missing out. Sure, they have no college debt, live in a big house, drive a nice car, and are gainfully employed, but something tells me that they may not be truly living. So much in life is meant to be a road that veers off the highway, taking you to unexpected places. It is from these detours that you not only experience, but learn and yet they are almost always the paths seemingly at odds with everything else in your life.

What do you give up for the sake of experience. Can Carpe Diem replace the comforting thought of knowing you have someone to grow old with and a family to be there when you take your final breaths? I guess this is all dependent on how you define fulfillment. Normalcy has never been my thing, but neither do I want to burn hot and fast only to discover that I am alone and miserable in my later years. I love my life for the most part, but the question of what constitutes as settling and what is actually happiness continues to plague me. I want to live a good life and be a good person to those I share my journey with, but I am also ever cognizant of the fact that at some point each of us has our own path and I don’t want to die a martyr, I want to die happy.

Day 41: Did I Write This Already, I Can't Remember

I took a drive in the country today. As much as I love to drive fast on the highway, the pace of the less traveled road is slower, but also more fulfilling. You have time to watch the passing scenery, notice people’s well-maintained lawns, interesting trees, funny signs for local joints, and any number of other colorful roadside items. It started me thinking about all that I have forgotten or missed in my life because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I live, but I have a bad habit of focusing too much on the past or the future, allowing myself to miss much of my life as it happens.

There are entire chunks of my life that I seem not to remember. Much of high school is gone. A few years in my subsequent seven year relationship with David, though I remember lots of fighting. The years after when I was single and had a string of meaningless or potentially meaningful, but dropped relationships. How could I forget taking someone I cared about to the emergency room for example, but remember the first night we met or simply driving in his truck together? I remember every moment from great vacations with Jeff and the years in New York, but as he will tell you I missed a lot of the in-between.

Oddly enough, I have an excellent long-term memory and can remember back when I was a baby. I remember my crib and the sideways view of my elephant lamp through the bars as I lay there in the low light or my Father changing my diaper. I remember lots of things from childhood, including the day, when I was five that my Father asked for a divorce just as we were about to leave for church. I have happy and unhappy memories, but I seem to remember the worst more so than the best. The rest, is just kind of a haze. So why do we do it? Why do we get caught up in what was or what could be and miss what we have?

I am guilty of this a lot. I am, in fact, guilty of this as I write. I have a pretty great life and a fantastic husband. Unfortunately, I also have the bad habit of taking both for granted. I’m not unusual in that little faux pas I am certain, but it doesn’t make it any easier for those in my life. Friends contact me through Facebook and more often than not, I have no idea who they are. Not because they are older and look differently, but because I do not remember ever knowing them, even after seeing high school photos. As a woman who has lived in five different cities, held nearly 50 jobs, and a half dozen significant relationships, I have a lot of memories I should be holding on to.

Making memories, or rather doing something memorable, seems not to be an issue for me. No, my problem is actually letting myself feel and experience my life rather than focusing on anything other than the present. I am coming to realize that it is nearly impossible to appreciate the life you have and who you are as a person, without first learning to live in the moment. Each day should be savored, every meal, every drive in the country, every date, every everything. It turns out that surviving is the easy part, living is what’s tough. Until I learn to focus on the moment, I will never be able to fully live my life.

Part of living life involves both taking advantage of opportunities as they present themselves and stopping to smell the proverbial roses. Miss one of the steps and you end up bouncing through life, one event at a time, but not cutting a true path. I feel that between the ages of 15 and now I have clinging to each experience until the next presents itself, much like a Tarzan figure swings through the jungle, vine by vine. What slows us down? Is it marriage? Kids? Careers? Whatever it is I haven’t quite found it. I talk fast, think fast, walk fast, and drive fast. Today I drove more slowly and realized that there is a lot to see if you slow down and pay attention. I don’t even remember my own wedding anniversary. It is either the 20^th or 22^nd of December, you’d have to ask my husband to find out for sure.