"You do have beautiful eyes, but I think my most favorite thing (or at least top 3) about spending time with you is the moment right after you start to tell me something and before you actually say whatever is on your mind. I realized it the second time I was at your house. You have a pattern - you start, then you pause and you think about it, then you say it. Every pause I got a flutter in my stomach and a mix of feeling like I wanted you to just-say-it-already and please-wait-another-moment, because the anticipation of whatever you were about to share with me was delicious. More delicious than coconut oil popcorn and the best brussel sprouts in the world.
I know we've only known each other a couple weeks, and have taken some quick and intense steps, and I think we're still within the time frame that either of us could just cut off the other one without too many hard feelings, and I can't say that I want this to go somewhere concrete - but, I know every time I drove to your house I felt really excited and really comfortable, almost relieved, like I was going home. And ever time I was there I didn't want to leave. And I don't want to be removed from your life."

There, now I've blogged about you.

I'm starting to think I'm not cut out for this online dating thing.  I like people too much.

Good Advice

Tommy:  "Why are you dating guys that are shorter than you?"
Me:  "Tommy, it's hard not to, I'm taller than the average male."
Tommy:  "Stop dating average men."

Wise words. 

Bad Boys, Bartenders, Boozers, Bruisers, and Bad Decisions

With those simple words my friends I basically summed up my love life over the last three years.  
Actually, more like five or six.

Those labels are by no means mutually exclusive.  And bruisers doesn't mean they beat me.  Just to be clear.

What Does Bottom Look Like?

Does it look like being drunk in more than one bar with less than 3 other people in each of them in one night?  (I'm not counting the dog.)

Does it look like texting your ex (from memory since you'd deleted his number more times than you can count) and then proceeding to text him meaner and meaner things until you find yourself having to text an apology the next day?  (Even though you had erased all evidence, other than a snapshot of some of the really nice things he was texting back to you.)

Does it look like texting your current very complicated crush at 3am his time that you 'need to talk'?

Does it look like seriously considering making out with a man whose girlfriend you had met not but one hour earlier, because he told his friend he thought your were hot?

Does it look like scolding the friend, who also is your friends boyfriend, for trying to hook you up with him, when in fact it was you who told him to do it?

Does it look like accepting a trip back to the bar to drive by to see if the attractive man that was sitting there when I left to chase taken tail was still sitting there?

Does it look like discovering about forty fuzzy photos on your phone of you trying to get a cute picture holding the puppy, and having no recollection of it?

Or maybe, does it look like all these things combined?


Just wondering.

All The Way Home and Back Again

A lot of things have been happening and I feel like I am having a hard time catching up...

Ted Kennedy died last week. One of my first memories of my father crying had something to do with Robert Kennedy. There are countless Kennedy books on my parents bookshelves, and I've stood at JFK's Eternal Flame with my father more than a couple times to pay our respects and shed our tears for could have been. I didn't read the articles the day Edward Kennedy died nor have I watched the President's eulogy, nor did I spring for the $10 Newsweek Special Commemorative Edition... it's all happened to fast and I want to give it due time and reflect properly but it's been a week and it's getting ahead of me.

I was in Wisconsin for almost 80 hours last weekend, Madison for most of it. I walked through my high school for the first time in almost a decade and was impressed with how clean it was yet how it had only seemed to change in insignificant surface ways. I walked through with my father to see an art show of my brothers work that he did as himself and as Solve, curated in by my mother and cousin in the gallery in the high school that he almost didn't graduate from.

It was unseasonably cold but sunny and beautiful all weekend. Friday night there was an unexpected thunderstorm that I got to feel start standing on my parents front porch with a glass of whiskey in my hand and the arms of a man around me.

I found out one of my oldest and best friends is having a baby, I cried when she told me and when I saw a photo of the sonogram.

I went to the farmers market with my sister and we bought coffee, cheese curds, tomatoes, and pastries full of carbohydrates because she said that was the only thing she really wanted.

I saw my cousin get married on Saturday with almost my whole family and it was a fabulous party, complete with a wardrobe malfunction (mine), a drunk best man that quoted Macbeth and called me a bitch in the same breath (which he was quite proud of), a speech from the father-of-the-groom that brought everyone to tears, first in laughter then not, and a bad ass first dance.
Most of us drank a little too much but as always we had not nearly enough time together, and it made me want to do it all over again next weekend, and not just for the generous open bar. My family is just... well, they are amazing. Everyone thinks so. And now they've started placing bets on who will be the next cousin to get hitched.

Sunday I went to a movie. It was totally unplanned and not a movie I would have seen by myself but I was invited and I went and it actually felt like a proper and wonderful date. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon and then we met my family to eat food from the festival that happens every year in the park across the street from my parents house.

My sister slept off the fever she'd had for a day and a half by Monday morning, and we bought coffee and t-shirts from the closest coffee shop to my parents house, then walked the mile and a half downtown to see the show in honor of my brother downtown. My Dad bought us some of my favorite sandwiches on the way to my airport.

Before I knew it I was back in California. I had a scratchy throat and I cried to my sister on my two hour drive from the airport to home about not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. Then I got home and my aunt and uncle were happy to see me and I felt like I was home, and the dogs wagged their tails.

Yesterday I worked for around ten hours and today my throat's still scratchy. I have not yet blocked off time to read about Ted Kennedy, although I did manage to unpack my over packed carry-on suitcase.

This Game

One of the themes of my summer has been dating. I couldn't explain why or why now. One of my friends is on a dating website and has multiple dates a week ("shopping for men"), another started a hilarious first-date-story blog, and I find myself actually open to dating again.

And, since I've felt open again, things have sort of been happening. I think for a long time I have said I don't want to be set up and I am not interested because in reality, I have been terrified of letting anyone in to my crazy little mind enough that I could trust them. Dating is after all "scoping out potential for relationships"(thank you Laundry Girl).

I have not done enough scoping - I have a history of taking things too seriously too quickly. Hey, we like each other, we're attracted to each other, let's get together and call it love and you can meet my whole family and maybe we should move across the country for each other and maybe in the same house and maybe let's just crush each others souls while we're at it.
(On a side note - DO NOT bring someone to your family reunion in the first six months of a relationship, or even a year. I will be more specific at a later date but for now just take my word for it and Don't Do It.)

So I'm trying it a little different these days. Yes, I am letting myself be set up with people - what's the worst that can happen? Yes, I might give someone my number at a bar if they ask politely. Yes, I may be trading texts and calls with more than one person at a time. Yes, I am toying with the idea of joining a dating website myself. No, I am not sleeping with anyone. Yet. (This is not my favorite part.)

Inevitably I find myself drawn to the ones that my social work sister can diagnose in an instant as something I'll need to think about ('have similair traumatic experiences' is one example) but, since I'm walking through this, I'm ok with that. My sister has given me one piece of advice more than anything and that is "please don't make any big life-altering decisions based on a 20 hour conversation/good sex/intense connection/etc." She can say that because, as I've mentioned, she's seen me do it. And guess what - the first time is a love story, the second is questioned, and the third is just a sad pattern.

So dating here we go. I'll learn to love you, but I'm not going to rush into it.

Forever My Friend

A Love Story...

I am a strong enough woman to admit I needed help putting myself back together after I had been left in pieces by a destructive relationship. (Actually - really the other person in the relationship was destructive. I just wasn't very good at being tape.) I didn't just need the help of friends, strong women friends, which I was fortunate enough to have been surrounded by at the time. I needed the help of a man, who would love me strong enough to fix some wounds in a short enough time then send me on my way. I was lucky enough to find that. (We kind of f*$&ed up the 'sending me on my way' part, but that's an entirely different story.)

During said destructive, and eventually (thankfully) failed relationship, I was in the strange position of having my pick of many many men, which at some other point I will delve into. (To summarize - I was a never-married childless woman with a bachelor's degree and all her teeth who didn't cheat nor had ever been a stripper, bartending at a not sleazy bar in one of the bigger military towns. I am sadly not exaggerating when I say I was a rare item.) But the point is that I didn't take my pick - I met the man I'm about to tell you about days after I finally broke up with my former.

I was bartending on a weeknight, it was slow and comfortable as usual, and I was in full on I-don't-give-a-shit mode - I had a baseball cap on, dirty hair underneath, and not special jeans and t-shirt. Late-ish in the night a pair of guys walked in who hadn't been there before (which didn't happen all the time on a weeknight - we had a pretty loyal group of regulars), one tall with dark hair and broad shoulders, and an open, happy, and striking face. The other a little shorter, a little bulkier, and a little more roughhouse. That one had a sandwich in his hand which I immediately yelled at him that he couldn't have (we were a restaurant, you couldn't carry food in), to which point he said ok but ate faster. I yelled at him again, he yelled back OK and shoved the rest into his mouth. Classy start for these guys.

These two, we'll call them Tom (tall, dark, happy) and George (sandwich), sat at the bar and I asked to see their ID's. ID's were something we took really seriously at that bar and so when Tom started making a joke about which one did I want to see because he had all these fake ones from work (and remember - I'm in the no-bullshit mood) I told him that wasn't funny and he could either show me his real ID or not get anything to drink, or leave. He said something like geeeeeez, ok, here it is. At which point they both got a beer and the disagreeable part of the relationship came to an end.

I don't remember a lot more about that evening other than I sat and talked to Tom for a lot longer than I probably should have. It dawned on me during the course of the evening that not only was I flirting - but that it was ok. After a year and a half of being painstakingly careful about how my behavior might appear too flirty or too suggestive (it's a weird environment this military town), this was unbelievably liberating.

At the end of the night, Tom paid the tab with a credit card, left me a nice tip, and after a long conversation about the game "Scene It" also left me his phone number saying we should really see who's better.

Now the next part is a little fuzzy, but I tried calling the number at some point in the next week, it turned out to not be the right number, and the next time I saw him was more than a week later at my bar, on a Friday, when I was dressed in a tight black miniskirt, an off the shoulder hot pink t-shirt, and a side ponytail for my friends '80s-themed birthday party. He walked in the bar, again with George, and it was crowded and busy this time, but in my mind he had this light around him - I immediately saw him and felt those telling butterflies.

At some point I told him that I had called, he looked alarmed, we checked the numbers, confirmed I had misread, so, in the middle of the night, busy busy busy, as I was writing on someone else's tab, I wrote my phone number down and slipped it to him discreetly as I was my way around the bar. As discreet as I was, was as indiscreet as he was as he pulled out his phone immediately, was extremely and loudly grateful, and called my number. Thankfully my phone was put away. They left at some point, and I pulled out of the bar at around 3 am to a voicemail saying wonderful things. So, I thought f*$# it, I'll call him. I did, he actually answered, and we stayed on the phone for about an hour. We covered all the basics (family, home, history, kids, education, plans) and said maybe we'd see each other over the weekend.

The next day, a Saturday, I bopped around the house with my roommate all day, dyed my hair, cleaned, drank a beer in the sun, and texted with Tom. At a certain point, I texted him something like "You're waffling. Ask me out." So he said "Sushi at 7:30?" and that was our date. Which will go down in history as one of the best first dates ever start to finish, which was 36 hours later.

Now, obviously, one must sleep in 36 hours. And we did. Just that. Twice. Very innocently and blissfully. Woke up to coffee and breakfast prepared by him - twice. He cooked dinner for me and my roommate the next night, at his house, and we watched the Sopranos. The date officially ended when he had to go check in at work Monday morning. At which point I sat and drank more coffee and watched his Tivo til he came home for lunch.

This went on for almost two months. For almost two months, I didn't spend one more night (when he was in town) at home (well, at my roommates home). If I was working he'd come by, and when I got done I would let myself into his house and slip myself into bed next to his cozy sleeping body. For the first time in my life I was truly and completely taken care of, and I know part of that was me allowing it to happen - for some reason I immediately and completely trusted him. I never doubted in that time that we understood each other, that he wanted to be around me and take me out and then take me home, and he truly desired me. He told me about his kids and talked to me for hours on his drive up north to see them, and I loved it. I wanted to meet them.

He offered to help or not help with my ex and moving me out of the house (I was already living elsewhere, but out of a suitcase.) He helped - just enough, not too much to intrude. His roommate (George) and I had nicknames for each other and I helped him pick out, and pick on, girls at the bar. George and Tom helped clean out most of the heavy and army stuff when my ex finally left town. When I would be ready to go out somewhere, Tom would stare at me in amazement and tell me how beautiful I was, and then at bedtime when I washed all the make up off he'd tell me how beautiful I was, and that he hoped I knew that I really didn't ever need make up.

When we walked into anywhere together people noticed us. More than one friend remarked, "My you are a good looking couple." We could capture everyone's attention with a perfectly shared spotlight. Within the first weekend people were guessing we had been together for months if not years.

We had plans one night that I happened to have a surprisingly upsetting doctor's appointment earlier in the day. Although I offered to drive to meet him at the restaurant (which quickly became 'ours') or his house, because they were minutes away from each other, he came to where I was living (which was around 35 minutes out of the way) to pick me up. Upon arriving at the restaurant he came around to my side of the truck to let me out, but decided to just carry me the whole way instead. They didn't mind that we showed up so late because we were friendly and happy and polite, and left a big tip. He carried me back to his truck and we went home and sat on his porch and drank wine til way past bedtime.

That night, on the way to the restaurant, he finally said out loud what we were both ignoring - that he was leaving. Soon, within months. So was I, but I didn't know when or where yet for sure.
As we were sitting at the table and had just opened a bottle of wine, I don't remember what we were talking about, but I was overwhelmed by something and I found tears in my eyes and I didn't hear what he was saying for a moment because all I could hear were the words in my head saying "I love you."

We had inside jokes. I still remember them all. We had nicknames. I still miss them. He left before I did and I cried for a solid day. I remember thinking, I will never have anything like this again.

He moved one state west so I saw him a few weeks later for a few days on my way to California. He was my first stop with my car all packed up full of my life. We had, as we knew we would, a perfect three days in Tennessee. It was different from before - it was a little sad. We knew there were things we couldn't say, or shouldn't say, so we didn't. I left in the middle of a morning and as I pulled out of that parking lot I couldn't look back.

He told me later that he kept waiting for me to look back, that all he wanted and needed was for me to look back, and I told him the truth about why I didn't. I told him that if I would have looked back, I never would have been able to leave.

Two years later I am still grateful and I still wonder, and I still know I couldn't have looked back.

Honeymoon

I think the beginning of something is so exciting.

It's the time when you might know all the other person's nicknames, but not their last name. When you know exactly how much taller (or shorter) than you they are, but don't yet know their shoe size. You know the sound of their laugh but not whether or not they snore. You are familiar with the size of their hand in relation to yours and if they prefer to hold hands with the fingers interlaced or wrapped, but you don't know yet if they are right or left-handed.

You know that the longer you know this person, the secrets and mysteries will eventually dry up and if they do snore it probably won't be as cute as it might be right now. If you stick together long enough you'll eventually know all the sizes and shapes and sounds and preferences.

This is the moment when anything could happen. You might end up not even liking this person much, or maybe you will for just a short time. But whether it burns out tomorrow or lasts sixty years, today you don't know. Today is butterflies and hope, excitement and desire.

The Laundry Is Damp

My hilarious friend just started a blog dedicated to first date stories:
http://thelaundryisdamp.blogspot.com/

I met her in a bathtub our sophomore year in high school, and up until just before that had thought she was a student teacher who liked to talk to the cute boys in our school. She went pee, I found us a joint, and the rest is history.

Reading her blog came at a great time for me as I am in a moment of thinking of Relationships and Dating and just the circus of it all. In fact last night as I was feeling really alone I realized I should write a book entitled, "Everything You Need To Know About Long Distance Relationships (Or Why Long Distance Relationships are almost always a Bad Idea.)"

Another alternative title could be "Why The Hell Do I Keep Making The Same Mistake" but I digress. I did choose to live in a dead-zone (not my words) for dating, so I guess I have to deal with the consequences. Which appear to be habitually getting emotionally involved with men that live more than 500 miles away, biting my fingernails, and wearing out batteries.

Once Bitten

Trust is such a fickle thing.

What can I possibly write about trust that hasn't been written? The question of whether you DO or DON'T trust somebody is one we've all asked ourselves countless times.

What I struggle with is whether it's possible to trust someone once it's been broken. There are probably as many different ways to trust someone as there are people in this world - that is to say, we all have our own unique rules and qualifications and ways of trusting.

A friend reminded me yesterday of what I have believed to be a simple fact - when trying trying to build a relationship, at a certain point it's necessary to just "let go"... Let doubt and uncertainty and mistrust go. These things will kill a relationship before it even starts.

As I know I have made bad decisions before, I am having a really hard time trusting my own instincts. I worry that they may very well be clouded by attraction, desire, and maybe even loneliness.

I guess the first step for me is to trust myself. If I can be secure following my instincts, then I should be able to just "let go" for someone else.

And if I end up twice bitten? I bet I will have had some fun and maybe even learned something, and therefore will have gained more than lost.

A Short Flick of My Wrist

Someone who I respect and admire immensely sent me a message a few weeks ago, and it made so much sense I wanted to share. I hope she doesn't mind. She is an adopted member of my family, a beautiful, funny, kind woman, and a ridiculously talented writer.

She wrote, in response to something I had written about an ex-boyfriends drunken insights,

"... it's very hard to find men confident and
self-assured enough to be one half of a
relationship with a very strong woman.
(Probably because they've all been improperly
socialized, but I digress.) Do as I do and say to
men, "I'm a lot of woman" up front and if they
cower, even ever so slightly, bat them away
with a short flick of your wrist."

This is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received in my life, and rings so true because doing that (flicking them away with my wrist, that is) has always proved to be a challenge for me. Which is probably why I have a history of being involved with men that while good intentioned (for the most part), quite frankly were not up to the challenge that is being in a relationship with me.

Let me just repeat: "...say to men, "I'm a lot of woman" up front and if they cower, even ever so slightly, bat them away with a short flick of your wrist."
This rings so true I wanted to forward it to every women I have ever know that has dated someone that fell far short of standards she would have held for anyone a girlfriend was dating (and our numbers are many). I will start with posting it here and in the meantime I'll see if I can convince her to publish an advice guide.

Hiatus

After a series of unsatisfying, frustrating, and at times hurtful encounters with men, I've decided to take some time off.

I realize that for some of you that know me well enough, there are any number of jokes that could be inserted here. No, time off does not mean just until next weekend, and no, it does not mean I'm going to date women instead. (Not that the idea isn't appealing in a lot of ways, but that is a subject for an entirely different blog, if not essay.) I have been thinking a solid six months is a good start, but I'm not setting anything in stone. It could easily be longer, and if it's a shorter hiatus I'm not going to beat myself up too much. In the meantime I am finding more constructive uses of my time - I've started this blog, am taking up needlepoint, have sent out a lot of thank-you cards, and will most likely be drinking more heavily in the coming months.

In addition to being able to stitch a nice pillow cover, however, I do have a somewhat more serious motivation behind this decision.

I need to let go of the instant gratification mindset and the "If-I-don't-seize-it-now-it'll-be-gone-forever" feeling, because I have learned that the things that are worth it, worth me, don't tend to fade away quickly. I realize that many of my past disappointments could have been avoided by taking even just a night (or better a week, but who wants to ponder for a whole week?) to think about them.

Now, not all my moments of expedited judgment have been mistakes - on the contrary. My decisions to go with what feels right, or good, at that moment, have ultimately brought me to where I am today, and for the most part I'm working with a pretty solid foundation. Most of what I know about my strengths, weaknesses, and habits I've learned by bouncing off other people. And, I have had a lot of fun.

I am in a place in my life where distraction is a relief, and men (and all the degrees of relationships one can have with men) have become a focus that hasn't been this prominent since puberty. I am ready to admit that I have been avoiding doing what I need to, which is, in the most cliche sense, 'work on me'.

I know I'm still grieving, I know that's a road that I don't see the end of, but I feel ripe for a foundational change within me, and I don't want to waste it.

In the meantime, you can find me debating the merits of a thimble over my fifth glass of wine. Cheers.