Friday, March 25, 2011

Man I Hate Being Right All The Time

T.E. ended things with me yesterday morning. It’s too fresh to give details – not sure if I’ll ever be able to do that. Enough to say he needed the freedom to live the life of the University student and having a relationship, let alone a long-distance one with an unemployed old lady, wasn’t so conducive. And as he so often was about most things, he was right about this too. So he’s gone. And I apologize for the tremendously dramatic following sentence, but honestly it’s the LEAST dramatic way I could find to describe me: I’m shattered. One million pieces is the tip of the iceberg.
Not sure what’s going to happen with this blog, folks. Right now it feels like anything I’d write would be so morose and self-pitying as to require the Smiths or the Cure or another band that starts with “the” to write the soundtrack. And I don’t want to be that blog. So I’m sure it will be quiet for a while. Take care of yourselves.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Turns Out They Weren't Kidding...

Hey, ya know what? The jobs – they are not out there.

I know you’ve probably heard something about this on the news or in passing or around the water cooler. At work. If you have a water cooler. Or a work. If you DON’T have a work then you know, like me, that these silly little reports of the lack of the jobs? Turns out they’re TRUE!

I spend some amount of time each day looking at the various job resources out there. The local paper, the lists of my friend Craig, specific companies in Hippyville that are the good ones wherefore you could work… I don’t use the Monsters and Careerbuilders because as it turns out the only people who hire from such resources want you to stand around at a kiosk at the mall and sell cell phones. And I’ll be signing up to do that about two steps after I jump off of a speeding train. (because I hear that the pay for jumping off a speeding train is much better. Still, you don’t get dental…)

Today I say this ad: “BUBBLY SIGN HOLDER WANTED” Instantly I knew the hell that this ad was soliciting for. Those sad, lost people who stand on the street corner with signs for cheap pizza or “if you lived at CONDO PLACE you’d be home right now!” and dance around, jolly and cheery and… well, I’ll say it: BUBBLY!!! I’ve passed these people before and thought to myself “oh come on now, was suicide really not an option before THIS seemed like a way to spend your days????” And now I’m reading these ads. I’m reading them because I don’t have something better than that.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d still check that “suicide” option first. I’ve lost my job, my home, my independence and a big chunk of my self esteem, but I have NOT lost my pride. Or my senses. (or my knowledge of quick and relatively painless ways to end it all.) And frankly I don’t have the qualifications. I. AM. SO. NOT. BUBBLY. You could pump 10 gallons of C02 into me and I’d still not bubble, not a bit. (however I’d belch like a sodden dock worker, which could be amusing!) Frankly I don’t know how people in those positions don’t just use those signs, so often arrow shaped anyway, and plunge them into the window of the nearest passing car. And heck, that might even make a job opening somewhere! Multi-tasking!! I know I’d never be strong enough to resist, so this is not a job I could even consider.

Still, it’s pretty depressing to see those ads at all. I have been feeling bad for every single person out there without work in this truly sucky, SUCKY time and I’m sorry to have had to join you guys. I hope some of you are having better luck than I’ve had so far! Keep your sense of humor, your pride, and for ALL THAT IS HOLY, do not become the bubbly people on the street corners flipping around signs! YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT!

Friday, March 18, 2011

A Matter of Trust. Or Possibly Proximity.

People will tell you all the various things which sucketh about long distance relationships: time difference, lack of contact, lack of sex… and these are all sucky things, to be sure! But these are numbers two through the rest for me – number one is the NOT KNOWING. Because here’s the bad math of the situation for me: it’s long distance + lack of self confidence + my guy is a total catch = wondering every minute of every day if he’s currently falling in love with someone who doesn’t require a DAY of travel to get a kiss. Or, you know… more than a kiss.

Please do not misunderstand my worry here: this is not a question of trusting T.E. I trust him. His dedication to honesty with me is just one of the various pieces that makes me trust him completely. And I completely believe that he loves me. But I just don’t understand WHY he loves me. I don’t get what the actual appeal is. He tells me that he feels the same, but my friends this is Kah-Rap. Well-meaning, sweetly intended and wonderfully British Kah-Rap. Both because I tell him ALL THE TIME of things that I specifically love about him, down to stupid little details like how loud he chews (the first time we met he chewed through a pile of Chicken McNuggets sounding like he was dynamiting a coal mine. Once I managed to close my mouth I totally swooned.) and his freakish flexibility and the way he loves to hold me personally responsible for the ways that my nation has butchered the language that his people generously allowed us to take with us when we ran away from home, and also because I can see how handsome and sexy and brilliant and funny and a million gallon bucket of other good things he is. And where as I’m old and done and pretty isolated he’s awesome and gorgeous and surrounded, UTTERLY SURROUNDED, by herds of free-range hotties with navel rings and sexy british accents and perky boobs and a much. Closer. Proximity.

In short: I’m not worried that T.E. will cheat on me. I’m afraid he’ll fall in love with someone else.

What the hell does one do with this worry? I can’t make him promise not to find someone better – I’m sure he would but he can’t make that promise anyway. Also you can’t plan who you fall in love with; if anybody knows that it’s he and I. Also HOW STUPID DOES SOMEONE SOUND MAKING THAT REQUEST??? And to be really honest, if he met someone better it would be, by far, the very best thing for him. He so should not have to be dealing with the mess of all-day flights, of listening to me worry about finding work, of forcing himself to stay up so late just so we can talk. The part of me that wants the best for my sweet boy almost wishes he would meet someone because of how much better his life would be.

Then I think about losing him and I throw up in my mouth.

Right now I’m really struggling with this worry. I’m trying to do it without becoming this clingy, paranoid mess, though I’ve really perfected the art of FaceBook stalking every girl that he befriends and makes the mistake of mentioning to me. (it’s that honesty thing again. So much more dangerous than it looks on the outside of the box…) I’m trying to be this low-key, cool girlfriend who, when she hears that he’s got to crash early so that he can get up early to go meet a funny, hot, bright girl for coffee, responds with the blasé “oh, sure, cool, awesome baby. Hey, have a great time, seriously, have a blast. Totally. Awesome…” even if my head is echoing with unending choruses of “The Party’s Over…”

Gosh, maybe this is the good part about the long distance relationship. I seriously wonder, if we DID live in the same city would I be the crazy girlfriend in black trench coat and sunglasses parked in my car with binoculars and a bag of Doritos watching their coffee date from across the street? I own a trench coat. I enjoy Doritos. And I can totally parallel park my car.

Friday, March 11, 2011

What a (certain type of) Girl Wants...

This post is for all the smart-but-average-looking girls out there. I’d say “you know who you are” but sometimes you don’t. I’ve had friends who thought that they were part of this group, when they were OBVIOUSLY members of the similar yet different smart-but-also-totally-hot/gorgeous group, and that’s not an easy conversation to have.

“No, actually you’re NOT average looking.”

“Awww. That’s sweet, but I know I am.”

“But seriously, you’re definitely not. Believe me when I say this.”

“You’re just saying that…”

“No, I’m really not, because it kind of pisses off we actual members of this group when you hot girls try to horn in on our not-hot action! You’re hot! Deal with it!”

…see how that’s difficult? Sigh.

For those of you who ARE in the group it’s time for a little honesty. I know many of us have publicly claimed the stance that we’d rather be valued for our brains anyway. This sounds good; noble and strong and “you go, grrrrrl!” and stuff. But between you guys and me we know the actual truth, right?

It’s crap.

Being valued for your brains is great, especially when you’ve put a bunch of time and energy into making your brains all big and buffed. (I’m talking about college, higher learning, books and the like. Not, as I fear some of you may have thought, those yucky brain implants that make your head twice the size of a regular brain and with your brains showing and with entirely too much focus on your brains. “Hello??? My eyes are down HERE!” Yeesh…) I like it when my guy tells me that one of his favorite things about me is my smarts – makes me beam and such. But what I REALLY want is for him to think I’m hot! For me to have the looks that makes him and also other guys go “Woah!” when I’m rockin’ it.

Don’t misunderstand about my guy – he compliments the way I look often. But I’ve got mirrors. I know how I look, and I know that his love of me physically starts and goes most of the way based on his feelings for me. Again, this is awesome. Love-based-attraction – dig it! I’ve been there. I’ve had the friendship where you weren’t physically attracted to the other person what-so-ever and then there was that one dance on the boat going around the San Francisco Bay at the end of that summer where you worked at the Beach Boardwalk and you got sweaty and he got sweaty and suddenly you’re thinking “Hmmm. Has he always been cute like that and I just never noticed it? Perhaps I’m very stupid?” …or, you know, something like that but not exactly like that with so many unnecessary details…

But we average looking girls want to be hot! Actually hot! Imperically hot! The kind of ‘hot’ where bad clothing or stupid hair or that morning gunk in the corner of your eye cannot impair your hotness. Because you are that hot. We want that. We just do. And any average looking girl who tells you differently is full of average looking crap.

I cannot tell you how many times my guy has told me that he loves the way I look right now and doesn’t need me to change a thing. That it’s fine with him if I want to work out or whatever, but if I’m doing it for him I can stop right now because he doesn’t need it – he’s totally in love with the (average looking, but he doesn’t say that but I’m thinkin’ it anyway) way I look. I love that he says it, and honesty is HIS THING so I totally believe him. And yet I have a goal:

T.E. is landing here in July of this summer and when he does; when he comes up that escalator (or down those stairs or through that walkway – I have no idea what the international arrivals area of the airport here in Hippyville! It could be a frickin’ portal through time and space for all I know!) I want his ever-loving English jaw to goddamn BOUNCE from my hotness.

And THEN I want him to love me for my mind.