Day 110: I Was That Slut Your Mother Warned You About

As a society, we love promiscuous characters on television almost as much as we judge promiscuous people in real life. They have an inverse relationship and I’ve never quite understood why. Do people judge those that are more freely sexual because of their own fear or jealousy? It would be one thing if we did so and railed against such characters on our favorite shows too, but this is not the case. We loved the characters of Jack and Karen in “Will and Grace.” We snickered at the references to Elaine’s loose behavior on “Seinfeld.” We laughed along with the other “Friends” during Joey’s antics. Hell, even the “Golden Girls” had a geriatric hoochie running around in the guise of Blanche.

So I don’t get it? What is this love/hate battle with and need to label those we view as sexually promiscuous? It’s none of our business for one thing. I certainly don’t want you poking your noses into my bedroom fun with the husband and I really have no curiosity about those activities of my close friends, so why would I care about strangers? I do not label women or men as sluts or whores. I never have, but I also don’t think a sitcom character sleeping their way through a zip code is funny either. I see it more as reality and when there is a funny joke that involves sleeping around, I laugh because I understand it.

By the time I met my husband at the age of 32, I had several long-term relationships in my past, but also many more short-term relationships. Well, to call six hours with someone a relationship is probably a bit of a stretch. Yes, I have had my fair share of sexual escapades and I never dodge that truth. It is as much a part of me as my brown hair and sarcastic wit. Just because my life is different now, does not mean I am ashamed to acknowledge my past. Committing at 32 means there are a lot of years beforehand for which one must account. There were a lot of lonely days that had the potential to become lonely nights if I didn’t act, so I did.

I have friends who are in their 30’s and have only slept with two people their entire lives and I have friends who only sleep with two people at a time. They are who they are because of their life experiences and I do not judge their chosen path in sexuality. Judging and labeling are too easily done in our society. We label to make ourselves feel more comfortable. We like to be able to put people into neat little boxes, and those that never quit fit get saddled with a judgment. So why do we love Joey, laugh at Karen and Jack, cheer on Blanche, and become fascinated with Elaine? They’re all sluts too, but no one wants to alienate them.

So what if we’re sluts, or prudes, or perverts, or missionary? We are attracted to the sexy man or woman at the party, but once we fall in love, that same sex appeal that you were sure made them irresistible, is now a character flaw. The people do not change so much as our perspective in judging one another. Sometimes the prude is freak show in the bedroom, and the girl you thought was fast in school turned out to be a virgin. None of our labels or opinions actually change who we are as people, so what’s the point? Unless I’m stealing your husband, or for that matter, your wife, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself and judge on personal interaction rather than suspected private behavior. I was that slut your Mother warned you about, but if I were a character on TV, Mom would be laughing right now.

Day 109: Do We Ever Really Grow Up?

Being an adult has its advantages. Sure, you also have to worry about careers, bill paying, healthcare, weight gain, hair loss, hair in weird places and all those other charming effects of aging, but you also have freedom. We get in our cars and drive anytime we want and we hardly think about it. Do you remember when the entire goal of your existence was to get your driver's license? I drive home and sometimes do not remember getting there . . . and I'm sober. I don't remember waiting for the red lights or stopping at the stop signs, but I'm sure I did. I take driving for granted because I've been doing it for so long.

So many things in our daily lives have their roots in childhood or adolescent fantasies. What we do with our money is simply a matter of choice. You can buy your lunch, a sweater, or even a beer. Money when we are young is something we have to be given, or else earn and even when you do earn it, it's not really yours. An allowance has some stipulations. For instance, it is understood that you will not spend your entire allowance on candy, even though you'd like to. Once you get a job you have some financial freedom, but even if the agreement states that if you earn the money you can buy the car, we knew back then there were still limitations. You could not, for instance, should your part-time gig at the movie theater and paper route pay off in a big way, buy a super fast or obscurely foreign car. Your parents will likely direct your automobile purchase towards a family approved option. Fords were big back in the day.

As adults, we simply live and that is often difficult enough, but as kids so much of our lives are dictated by others or inexperience. You eventually get your license and even a car, but you still have to pay attention to your surroundings when you drive. Every turn, every lane change, every parking situation requires attention to do properly. Once you get older, you drive for 20 years and suddenly realize you've driven on autopilot through downtown traffic because it’s just another day. What is normal to us now, was just a pipe-dream back then.

More than that, is the realization that despite the passage of time and the transition from childhood to adulthood, our lives are really about the same issues as when we were kids. We tend to think how different things are now that we’re grown up, but really isn’t still just all the same issues only viewed from a different perspective? We still struggle with love, money, toys, grooming. Where once we obsessed over when we’d finally get hair “down there” now we spend our time shaving it all off so we can look like we used to. We wanted a car and to drive and now it’s fighting over who has to be the designated drive. When you get right down to it, nothing has really changed.

Day 108: A Silent, Dark Corner of the World

Ah, I thought I would not be able to blog tonight due to a power outage. I tried at first by using my iPhone, but it will not let me enter real text, just the title which is strange. After pondering my first day of non-blogging however I went mobile to find a location that I could pirate free wifi from my soon to be dead laptop. Luckily, I found a signal and it's allowing me to stay on track.

I remember as a child and young adult how much I enjoyed power outages. I love candles and for whatever reason, the world just seems so much more quiet without electricity. It forces us to slow down. Before the outage, I was sitting on my sofa blogging about something else while the TV ran in the background, the dishwasher and air conditioner both ran with softly buzzing efficiency. All is quiet now. I have candles and whiskey and the steady hum of crickets, the latter coming back to me as a companion from my past.

Growing up we did not have air conditioning and while Summers could get very sticky in my room, I loved the feel of breezes coming through the window and the oddly comforting chorus of crickets and cicadas throughout the night. Every now and again I could hear the high pitched whine of a crotch rocket and the sexy, reassurance of a Harley in the distance, but the rest of the world seemed to fade away. After so many years in New York I have become accustomed to the white noise of city living, but the midwest girl still lives in me and nothing soothes my soul more than a dark night sky full of stars and the winds capturing the sound of nature and distant life.

The power went out because of some traffic accident not far from my place and the whole neighborhood is dark. It's very peaceful as no one seems to be out. This is partly due to it being Wednesday night I'm sure, with all the working world quietly tucked into bed, but I think it also might be the power outage. People tend to get quiet without electricity. Have you ever noticed that? As long as we have TV's and phones, lights, radios, etc., we're buzzing about talking and doing, but take away the electricity and people just . . . settle. It's nice and just what I needed without having consciously recognized it.

My life is more complicated now than when I was child and so I do need the power to come back on, if for no other reason than I will soon run out of matches to light candles. Right now, however, I'll take the darkness, the silence, the candles, and yes, my whiskey and I will exist in the moment. It startles me a little now to realize just how many moments I let pass me by because of all the noise of the world. I am feeling this one, every second, every minute that passes is lived. Shortly life will be back to it's normal buzzing, noisy self, I just hope that I manage to remember the importance of taking that moment to truly settle and feel all that passes us by on a normal day.

Day 107: If No Was My First Word, Why Do I Want to Say Yes So Much?

Experience holds different value for different people. Do you travel to exotic locations with your extra cash or invest it? Does having a house with nice furniture and two expensive cars in the driveway make you salivate or do you prefer to live a little leaner so you can eat and drink your way through the four stars of your town? Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with my own propensity for experience over possessions. There is never a time when I am at a friend’s home appreciating what they have that I don’t doubt my love of travel, wine, sports, and good food. I spend a lot of money on things that leave no real trace beyond my memories.

Life experience holds a high value for me, too high in some ways. I suppose my quest for trying new things and my inability to say no to opportunities has led me down some questionable paths. I could have taken the high school to college to career track, I could have taken the dating to married to parent track, but I like to meander a bit. Opportunities are around every corner and when confronted with the chance to go somewhere, do something, or move someplace I almost always say yes. Pretty funny for a woman who tried my entire young adult life to teach my own Mother how to say no to people.

I’m no doormat, I can say no, as anyone who has met me will likely testify. Still, when given the choice to jet off for the weekend to someplace new it rarely occurs to me that I should stop and consider. Of course these choices do not always gel with relationships, employment, and other commitments and I have felt the heat my decisions have brought many times. It’s hard to explain to a boyfriend that you want to go whitewater rafting with someone you just met and 17 of his friends because they have an open spot.

One of the most difficult aspects of being in a committed relationship for me, is the fact that it limits my ability to say yes to things I otherwise might want to do. No potential opportunity holds greater value than my marriage, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about it. This is not a philosophy that makes my husband happy and I’m sure I will hear about it once he reads this blog. Even so, it’s truth and it’s me. So yes, a part of me would love a yard, a dog, a big nest egg and maybe even a child. Then again, a part of me would love to be a porn star, a biker babe, or a relief worker in a third world country. Like all things, enjoying new experiences is a careful balance and you have to pick and choose the ones that hold the most value for you.

In the end, I can’t say I regret, though there are definitely days when having a house or stability might be nice. Then again, it’s hard to take a spur of the moment road trip or decide to do a single malt taste on a Wednesday afternoon when you’ve got a job and kids. I live the way I have always lived, by the seat of my pants and I like it that way. Luckily, I found a man and made a life for myself that tolerates my wanderlust, for the most part. There are still those days when my intentions meet the raised eyebrow of my partner, but it never takes more than a “Really, Esterline?” before I readjust my game plan or at least modify it a bit.

Day 106: Biker Babe or Army Wife, I'm Still Walking the Line

I cannot stop watching Sons of Anarchy on FX. More worrisome than an addiction to a TV show is the strong desire to be a character within that show. Like my favorite author, Ernest Hemingway, SoA embodies qualities I personally disagree with and even despise. Racism, sexism, guns, drugs, excessive drinking, violence – these are not ways I live my life and yet there is clearly something within me that craves the darker side of humanity. Even my most recent Facebook quiz confirmed that I love the rebel.

However true this is, and knowing myself rather well I’d say it’s pretty spot on, the reality is that I choose to spend my time with those that are less rebel and more Justice League. I try to make the smart choices because I know my tendency leans to self-destructive. Do I want to be in a motorcycle club? Hell yes, I want the leather vest, the chaps, the tats, the loose morals, the drinking, the questionable hygiene – except when it comes to my teeth – I am fascinated with that life. Trouble is, we only get the one life and should I make those choices, when will I find time to debate politics at a mixer at the embassy or volunteer at a friend’s nonprofit? Does SoA mix with martinis? I’m thinking not, so it’s probably good that I chose the path I did.

My husband does not have my dark side and yet in his job he has been forced to do darker things than I will ever experience or likely witness. The fantasy is often better than the reality, a truth we often discover in life. Do I want life on the open road with raw sex and the tinge of violence lurking both in the speed of the bike and the roughness of the lifestyle? Yes, but so do I want the cocktail party, political rally, writing seminar, and wine tasting. I guess I do want it all and I believe in many ways I have that, or at least the potential for that.

My struggle now is to bridge that gap between our civilized life and my dark side. There exists also the question of how to provoke that darkness in another without losing them to it. It is a dangerous and possibly imprudent desire, but if every instinct in you tells you it’s what you need and what you want, how do you turn away and still feel fulfilled? And more to the point, if Facebook is telling me it’s so then it must be true.

Day 105: Confessions of a Professional Spectator (Part I)

Ah, football Sunday, my altar of worship. There is no time of the year that gets me more excited than the start of the NFL season. I like all sports, though some more than others and while I can even watch NASCAR, it’s only if nothing else is on. Thing is, I don’t remember when I first started watching. I never played anything and aside from intramural floor hockey and softball in fifth grade and there was one particularly good flag football game in Central Park a couple years back, but aside from that I am the eternal spectator. So why the love of sports? And why, when I was asked tonight about my earliest football memory could I not come up with anything at all?

I remember baseball. I grew up a Red’s fan in the days when double headers in the afternoon still existed. We’d drive to Cincinnati and spend all day at the ballpark . Back then baseball was different. You’d watch seven hours of ball and leave the stadium having watched two games with scores like 1-0 and 2-1. The jumbo-tron distractions didn’t exist, every batter didn’t have his own music as he walked to the plate, and no one tried to make it more exciting by turning a game into a home run derby. Baseball was more 1950’s Americana then, innocent, relaxing, and cheap enough that you could afford to take your family. I don’t remember my first double header, but my Mother told me I was two and after the national anthem of the first game I asked if it was over yet. Not a promising start, but my love affair with sports did begin there.

These days, it is football that I watch for hours on end, rapt with anticipation for the next snap, and guessing out loud at the penalty before the ref calls it. Football has my heart and soul and yet I cannot remember my first dance with it. I am still loyal the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team I grew up loving because it was my Pop’s team. Turns out, I was loyal and he was just on the 70’s dynasty team bandwagon, which is okay, I still love him. Football was made for Sundays or Sundays for it, I’m not sure, but there is definitely something special about a day watching the games with friends, drinking pints and having pub food, yelling at the TV, stat tracking your fantasy players, and high-fiving strangers. A great day of watching football is better than Christmas.

The smells, the sounds, the communal feeling of watching a game is what I love. We had Sunday Ticket on DirectTV one year and decided we did not like it. Watching in your living room just doesn’t have the same energy as being down at the pub with a group of cheering fans. Not that I don’t relish those lazy Sunday afternoons when your team is the featured game. Curled up on the couch with your loved one and ordering take-out is somehow comforting. Football, and sports in general to a certain degree, makes me feel – at least for a while—that life is okay. I can forget all the things I need to do, the turmoil in other nations around the globe, the poverty, the homeless, my own joblessness, the dirty apartment, the extra five pounds I put on. You can forget it all, because for those few hours you watch the game that is your world. That team is your team and every score is a part of you. That’s my running back! Oh hell yeah, that’s my receiver snagging that one-handed catch!

I think I started watching to be able to spend time with Pop, but as an adult sports has become a gateway to conversations with countless people. The night I met my husband we talked about football, a conversation he still sites as part of the reason he fell in love with me. It’s not just a game, it’s a feeling as well as a bridge to building a spirit of community. Every Sunday I go to the same pub and I know who will be there. I know where they like to sit, what kind of beer they drink and who they root for. I may not remember their name, but for those three plus months they are my friends and we’re in this together.