She Lives!

OK, I’ll apologize again for the uber-dramatic last post. It’s very not my style to be so emo, and I spent close to a week living the emo life: I ate the emo foods, listened to the emo songs, dreamed the terrible emo dreams. (except that’s all a lie: full disclosure I didn’t sleep or hardly at all eat for the time, and, to quote a friend of mine from HER bad, bad time, “all music was broken.” But you know what I was going for.)

The other thing I did, after the initial wave of “emo” washed through my big, dumb brain, was a lot of thinking. I would go for these epically long bike rides (often in the rain – big shout out to the weather for totally backing my state of mind all of those days. Holla!) and I kept putting two and two together and getting spatula. What I knew for sure was I hurt. I loved him. He loved me. And I really, really hurt. Nothing else was anywhere near as clear.

So I did the thing that every strong, independent, bossy, control-freak of a woman would do in that situation: I went crawling after him. (OK, I’m gonna give my womyn and grrrrl readers a minute to FREAK THE F*CK OUT. Please send your incensed email reactions to the email address that’s somewhere on this dang blog.) I told him the truth of my feelings: being apart had given me an entirely new definition of “pain” and I now knew I could live with some compromises that he’d asked for that had seemed, before, out of the question. I just couldn’t make sense of the fact that we were apart given that the single biggest message from our last conversation had been how much we loved each other.

The other thing I did during that time apart was I went back to the beginning. I read every email conversation we’d had, starting with the ones right in the very beginning. I read the transcripts for all of our online chats that I could. I read all of our skype chats in the last 3 months. And that’s where I saw it.

I watched myself dissolve, right before my eyes.

As I think I’ve said before, one of the things that T.E. has always said he appreciated about me was my strength and stability. I’m someone who prides herself on handling her life stuff and having been able to take care of matters all by myself. Then life kind of went “KABLOOEY” a couple of months ago. And right about then my slide began. Strong went to sketchy to wobbly to “I’m sad! Fix everything! Waaah!!!” I leaned on T.E. more and more because I couldn’t show the cracks in my armor to anybody else. And to his credit he tried, but realistically I did not make it easy for him, and there was a big limit to what he could even do! He tried to get me to talk to people in town, but I can even remember thinking that no, that was what he was there for and I would just lean even more on him.

HARD.

And frankly I think I just overwhelmed the entire thing. I pushed him out the door, straight into other opportunities that were new and fresh and exciting and easy – all things I definitely wasn’t for him anymore.

Well, long story short (everybody together: too late!!!) we talked, we negotiated, we snuggled (there’s a way to do it on skype, trust me) and finally we got back together. This was actually a couple of weeks ago and I would have posted sooner, but for the first many days it all felt very fragile. Several times per day I’d decide this would never work. Then I’d change my mind and be desperate for us to talk. Then I’d be sure he was regretting the decision and about to drop the hammer. It all felt totally impossible.

But we stayed with it. And we talked. And talked. And TALKED. Man oh man, did we talk. Like talking was going out of business we talked. More than that, we did the thing that I think makes us really impressive: we talked honestly. And each long, heartfelt conversation built us back better and better. I’m proud to say that right now I feel closer and stronger and more right with this man than the day he had to fly away from me. We’re making plans for his trip home to me this summer. And the music is fixed again.

I promise, good people who were actually willing to wait for this additional drop of shoe, that I won’t let the emo stuff get all over this blog again unless there’s an actual death. Or maybe I break a nail. You know – the big stuff. Pinky swears!

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.

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!

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.

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.

Slight Delay

Did I say give me two weeks? Because apparently I meant a month – give me a month. Sigh.

So it was about two weeks until I got moved, and the overly, ridiculously, crazy-like-a-monkey-wearing-a-bra side of my brain thought things would go like this: 1) move. 2) immediately do the things I like to do, like blogging. Which, as you can obviously already tell, was bra-wearing-monkey crazy. The first week after I moved was all about “how to cram an entire life into a single room plus bathroom.” This was not unlike a life-size version of those puzzles with 8 blocks all being slid around in 9 spaces to make a picture. In this instance a picture of a VERY CRAMMED LITTLE ROOM PLUS BATHROOM.

Oh, and there was also that little thing of finding a new job which, as absolutely everybody in the entire world will tell you (all clever-like), is its own full-time job. Its clever because its true, people: job-hunting is hard, crappy, depressing work. But it’s totally required to actually GET a job – turns out they won’t just give you one.

But even that stuff and the other half dozen little things I’m not whining about would have only tied me up for an extra week or so. The rest of the delay is all about my Dad. My poor, bummed Dad. My Dad who, when I first arrived home, was achy but walking and talking and getting around, albeit slowly and with the occasional “oof!” My Dad who is NOW stuck in bed, in agony despite the HIGH level of brain-melty pain meds coursing through his system, along with almost a dozen other forms of shiny, shiny drugs.

Here’s the highlight reel: He had back pain. He was told “you need to have spinal fusion surgery for two vertebra.” and so he did. He was recovering amazingly well for the first two weeks. Then he had PT and he’s been doomed ever since. It’s inflammation. No, wait – it’s a muscle spasm. Wait, sorry, it’s sciatica. Or possibly, for all we know for sure, it’s gremlins dancing on his spine in stiletto heels. Whatever it is it hurts like a m*therf*cker. The medical geniuses also have him doped up on Valium, so for the first time in my life I have a pretty good idea of what my Dad would have been like if he’d been a heavy, sloppy drunk. (I’m telling you now, I missed NOTHING.)

After over a week of helplessness and misery and frustration and anger I’ve boiled things down to a thick, bubbly bitterness. I have reached the well-informed conclusion that all Doctors are bastards and snake oil salesmen. I’ve forsaken all hope in preference of cynicism and peanut butter sammiches. I’ve even threatened a poor, helpless nurse with handcuffs and a classic Shirley McLaine meltdown. But hey, at least none of it has done any good and we’re all still where we started, so there’s that!

I’m sure there will be more nasty, ill-tempered, growly posts brimming with self pity and loathing – I don’t want to use it all up here! But at least I can say this: I’m back and I’ll be writing. Look for it here!

ka-BOOM...

Ummm… yeah. Goals… Goals are good, don’t get me wrong, but…

I’m not saying I’m throwing out the goal. I’m not. I’m not throwing out any of my goals for 2011, of which I currently have three:

• 1250 pages this year
• Lose a pound a week before T.E. comes back in July
• Try to get the phrase "Loose Beans" into common usage, at least in the USA

However, life has recently become really… complicated.

Now here’s the thing: I really hate telling you guys when big, dramatic, bad stuff happens. I don’t like writing about them, and it’s not really what I want this space to be about. I want Unlikely In Love to be about “cool!” and “Wow!” and “crazy!” and “tee hee, snicker snicker, giggle snort (and possibly pee)!” Not “Oh no!” and “horrible!” and “Wail, sob, gnash teeth!” So I’m not going to spend a lot of time explaining HOW things have changed. But they’ve changed, and now they look like this:

1. I’m moving back to Hippyville.
2. In two weeks
3. Because my very cool job blew up on me
4. I don’t THINK it’s because of this blog, but honestly I can’t be sure about that.
5. Yes, that would suck.

I got about 18 pages written in the first week of the goal. I truly think I could have written the extra 7 if life hadn’t gone “Kablooey!”, but given the recent events I’m going to… table the goal. However since I don’t have a job anymore I’m expecting that I’ll have a nice, big chunk of free time to do some catching up once I’m back in Hippyville.

I’m bummed that the job burned me, but I’m not bummed about going home. I’m not bummed about going back to having one life in one place. I’m not bummed about dialing back the crazy levels of stress that this life brought to me. And if I can be one of the very lucky few and get a NEW, hopefully LESS crazy-stressful job pretty quickly this might just be a “win” in the end. Give me the next two weeks to get the big changes made, and then I’ll be back, making crapade out of the crap life has recently dealt me and telling you guys all about it. And who knows – I might actually be back even sooner!

Not Paying the Dews...

OK, so I already mentioned that there needs to be a plan. There was a time that I would have said I’m a very good planner. However I’ve learned recently that I’m a pretty good planner, but that I lose sight of the OBJECTIVES all too often. So for this plan we need to state again the objective, and you guys need to remind me when I get lost and start aiming for “learn how to speak Latin in French” or “solve for cold fusion.” Not that those would not be cool things to do. Actually, hmmm... maybe I should...

NO! GOAL! OBJECTIVE! STAY ON TARGET!!!

So as I said before, I have a job right now. And rest assured that I recognize it to be a VERY GOOD job! It has many things that I have missed other places, like challenges and opportunities to make an impact and learning new things, not to mention a healthy paycheck and some very cool people to work with. Honestly if my job were a crappy job it would make life easier: my goal would be “get a better job.” Because now I have to solve the fact that I’m not really where I want to be even though I have a really good job!

The question is this: other than having a job, what do I want to do with my life? And the answer is: figure out what I WANT to do with my life. And do it. While still working my very good job. And not losing my mind.

Of all of the options I know of, and know how to do, and know what I like to do, my answer is this: writing. I like to write. I personally think I’m pretty good at writing. (feel free to agree with me! Unless you’re thinking “really? Writing? You? I don’t know, don’t you find your writing pretty pedantic? Pedestrian? Um… lame?” In which case you can feel free to SHUT IT.) I have this fantasy in my head where I get up on a Monday at about 8:30 or 9:00 am. I pull on my slippers, make a cup of coffee and go to work in my office, where I sit down at the computer and create awesome things that people love to read. And someone pays me for these things. And sure, I may work more than 8 hours that day – heck, I could write for hours and hours and HOURS! But since it’s something I love to do and something I take pride in and something… that just sounds COOL to me… I think I’d love this life. So that’s the image I’m chasing. That’s the objective, folks. That’s the goal.

Now, how to get there? Well, as I’ve mentioned I’m too old to “pay my dues.” Because “pay my dues” is really just another way of saying “be totally poor, live in your parent’s basement, eat Ramen and Domino’s Pizza and try to work your way up from the total bottom.” At the age of ‘really, I’m THIS OLD already?” I’m not doing any of those things. Except the last one. But I’m doing that from the comfort of my own apartment, in front of my own computer, drinking my own expensive beverage and eating a frickin’ steak, people! Possibly also fancy fries! (and here you should picture me thumping my chest like King Kong, all he-man like. With fancy fries crushed in my massive, macho mit! Because ILLITERATION IS BOSS!!!)

With these rules in mind I’m going to continue to kick butt at my current good job while setting myself goals to actually try to write. Write a LOT. And not just to you guys, though you know I love you and all. I’m setting myself a goal that for the year 2011 I’m going to write 25 pages each week. I took off this first week of the year (for swooning over my sweetie and then packing up my sweetie and then, this weekend, moping over the lack of my sweetie – you know, the classics) and I’m sure I’ll be totally unproductive the last week of the year, but I’m going to try to write this 25-page amount for 50 weeks this year. That means a total of 1250 pages. That’s a book, people! Heck, that could be a few books depending on how small the font, how big the spacing and how many pages are actually worth reading by the end of the year!

Don’t worry – I’m not kidding myself here. I know that writing 1250 pages does not an author make me. But it DOES show me that I can set a goal for writing and achieve it. And let’s face it: if I can’t do THAT it means that my fantasy of being a writer is only that: fantasy. So that’s the goal, folks: do the writing. Do the work. Do the Dew. (Except no Dew doing. I hate Dew.) I’ll keep you guys posted.

The BIG Question

Is It Worth It?

This night is the part of my new life that I most hate. I put my guy on a plane about 4 hours ago, and now he’s somewhere over Hudson Bay, Canada. By the time his tragically long flight is over he’ll have spent more than 12 hours in the cosmic garbage grinder that is the travel system; he’ll be stiff from sitting in a tiny plane seat for over 9 hours and he’ll be completely exhausted. I’ve asked him to call me just so I can know he’s home, safe and sound, and to hear his voice – even though it will be about 4am for me, I want to hear him because we probably won’t connect again for most of the weekend.

And we won’t be together again until July.

I’m not a crier, as you guys know, but I admit that this day at the end of each of our visits together gets to me. A lot. It starts the evening before, when I start thinking “this is the last time we’ll eat dinner together for months.”, “this is the last time we’ll crime into bed together for months.”, “this is the last time he’ll stick his icy-cold feet on my ass for months.” (ok, some things don’t seem so sad, I admit.) I get blue about two days prior to him leaving and I get ‘great, big, deep breaths’ about a day prior. And the last night we climb into bed together I start getting weepy.

This time around I finally figured out that I should always take off from work the first day after he arrives and the day he leaves. The fact that it took me this many visits to figure it out is one of those things that proves it’s amazing I can tie my shoes. (the bunny goes around the tree, the bunny goes down the hole, the bunny mocks me, mocks me, stupid bunny!... sorry, where were we?) I loved being able to wake up with him this morning, wrap my arms around him, eat breakfast with him, lose yet another couple of games to him. But the pressure of making the most of EVERY SINGLE MINUTE was even worse than previous days. And so were the tears. And at a certain point you just have to ask yourself the question you know your family and friends and all those damned strangers wandering around the airport are asking: Is this really WORTH that many tears?

Hells Yes.

(As the kids are saying these days)

Please don’t misunderstand: this long-distance thing sucks. I feel like a complete cliché as I stand there on my side of the stretchy rope wall, watching him fill white, plastic bins with his stuff and waving at me from further and further distances as goddamned tears slide down my cheeks. Because remember: I’m NOT a crier! NAHHHHHT! You can poke me right in the eye and won’t get your finger even slightly damp. I could watch Field of Dreams and The Notebook back to back, followed by that stupid “Christmas Shoes” song and nary a tear. NARY! So to have a day where I get gulpy because I catch sight of his passport, or sniffly thinking about eating breakfast alone tomorrow… This is so not me it’s like I’ve suddenly got a penis and green eyes. (probably could have left off the thing about green eyes.)

So keep doing this? Really? Are you sure?

There’s no question. Every gulpy moment is more than balanced by the times when big, warm hands massage my head to calm me down; by songs we sing together and movies we quote to each other; by the amazing silver pendant hanging around my neck; by each time he leans down, nuzzles my neck and whispers in my ear three words every person longs to hear, me probably more than most. I don’t need to give you the words – you already know what they are. (no, not those three. No, not those either. Seriously? Those words? OK, now you’re just trying to piss me off…)

I’m sitting on my couch, kitties pinning me down on either side. I’ve been drowning my single-life sorrows in tater tots and Frosted Flakes since I got home from the airport. I’m taking solace in Criminal Minds reruns because “Hey, at least my sweetie isn’t a crazed serial killer!!” (it’s the little things that really matter, right?) I am supposed to be taking down the Christmas tree, on the theory that since I’m already incredibly blue it’s a good time to do other things that make me blue, but my melancholy has sucked up all my initiative. (and besides, it’s not like I’ll be chipper tomorrow. I’ve got an entire weekend to be blue and do depressing things! Sunday I’m gonna check my bank balance and step on the scale! Shudder…) I just checked my iPhone ‘where is your sweetie’s plane NOW?’ app for the 10th time (“if you look out the right side of the plane you’ll see Air Force Island and other totally imaginary places in Canada.”) and I keep doing the math for when he’ll land. When he’ll call.

And all of this crap is totally, TOTALLY worth it for the big, dopey grin this boy gives me during the four or five months a year that we are together. So tomorrow I’m gonna buy a new webcam and headset and get ready for the next many months of online life until July, when T.E. comes back to me. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

First Step: The PLAN

Remember before when I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up? Ha ha ha ha ha… Good times. Memories – don’tcha love them? Yeah. Love them. Memories and stuff. Ha ha hahaha… (yeah, no I still don’t know. Sigh.)

Here’s the stuff I’ve realized which, at least, bring me just that bitty-bit closer to some kind of answer or plan:

1. I have a job.
2. I pretty much always just have a job. No matter how hard or influential or stressful, etc., a job is a job is a job.
3. My job is stressful. Like “three times this year I wondered if I’d given myself an ulcer” stressful.
4. I am totally up for stress, as long as it’s from something I WANT to do. I’ll take that stress out to dinner! An EXPENSIVE dinner, with candles on the table and a separate wine menu! I’ll babysit that stress’ 17 young, bratty children! On HALLOWEEN! I’ll soak my feet in that stress, and then my head, and then my great, big, stressed-out butt! BRING ON THAT STRESS!
5. However for just a job the stress just stresses me out. About which I can only say: Boo. And possibly also Hiss. But I’m sure about Boo. I stand behind that for sure. Boo.
6. Oh, and also I’m not willing to be poor. About being poor I also say “Boo.” And I currently define “poor” as “I have to decide between a decent dinner and buying a new mop, as I currently have a huge mess on my floor. And also hunger.”

…with these totally groundbreaking and mind blowing and “Wow, she has put a LOT of thought into this!” epiphanies I come to a conclusion: I need to figure out what it is that I really, REALLY want to do. And then start doing that. While still doing what I’m doing now.

In other words, I need to add about 2 hours to each day.

I’m working out the flux capacitor and other sciency-sounding words, as well as waiting for the delivery of my magicy pendant from an old guy in a wizard’s hat, all of which will be the key to turning back or stopping the clock for these 2 hours each day. Once I’m sure what I want to spend those 2 hours doing. There’s a plan! A happy life is right around the corner!

Happy New... Everything?

Hi ho! So I know, I’ve been a VERY bad blogger these last few months. It’s not you guys – it’s me! Ever since moving up to the Big City my life has consisted of pretty much three things: Work, T.E. and maintaining as much of my life back in Hippyville as I can from far away. All of these things are good and important and valuable. And they’re all full-time jobs. So there are a lot of things that I love to do that I struggle to find time for. I miss my camera; miss going out and finding amazing things to capture and show to folks, especially you guys. I miss free time, even for things as silly as watching uber-dorky television stuff or to read my beloved graphic novels. And I miss writing. I miss all kinds of writing, starting with writing here.

In about 7 hours we’re starting a brand new year – apparently we’re calling this one “2011”. (tangent: sometimes I wish we could be more creative with the naming of years, like we are with cars or heavenly bodies or cosmetic colors. Wouldn’t it be cool to say “I was born in the year Chromotoawesome – you?” Or “our wedding anniversary is October 23rd, Rocktubular” Rocktubular would, of course, be a leap year. End tangent.) As I’ve told you guys before, I’m not one for the New Years resolution as it tends to be yet another way to feel like you’ve failed something. However I don’t know how you avoid looking back on the previous year and reflecting. And while you’re reflecting how do you avoid having the odd regret? And if you’ve got that odd regret, how do you avoid making goals to do it different, or even better, in the new year?

I won’t make promises because I’ve read way too many blogs who falter, promise to be better and falter even worse. But I’ll tell you this: I’m calling this year “Undecitastic” and in the year Undecitastic I’m going to try, TRY LIKE CRAZY, to write more. Anybody got any goals to shoot for in THEIR year Undecitastic?

Oh, and HAPPY DANG NEW YEAR, MY PEOPLES!!!

Of Course You Realize This Means War...

I write you from my bed where I’m spending all my time these days. Not because I’m sick (although I was – I got the flu! I never get the flu!) or hurt (actually there’s this whole thing about my toe… I’ll write that post soon, I promise!). I’m at war, my friends. AT WAR!

You know I’ve got kitties, and I love them kitties ever so. But kitties who go outside sometimes bring friends back in with them. Little, bitey friends who are not actually friends but instead terrible creatures which, if there were any justice in the world, would burst into flames the second they came into being! Some people also call them “fleas”. Kitties pretty much always have these flea friends, and normally I’m fine with the occasional bitey visitor. The price of kitty haveness. But there’s a limit, people. Oh there is very definitely a limit.

For me, this limit is when I wake up with 18 bites on my own personal body. LIMIT!

I’m not sure when the tide turned – when I blinked just long enough for the enemy to get a foothold in the house. One day the flea comb was suddenly covered! Suddenly I’d look down and find a black thing jumping on my lap! And the bites. THE BITES! The itchy, red, bumpy, itchy BITES! I can only guess that my chemical warfare just plain failed one month, and now we’re hunkered down in the house with many flanks of attack. We’ve implemented a strict vacuuming regimen. Renewed the chemical attacks. Things have been scattered into carpets, and every flat ‘walk on’ surface got a hot, friendly bleach washing.

Now I’m moving to high tech attack. I was going to basically take off and nuke them from outer space (aka THE FLEA BOMB) but frankly I hate to do those things. Despite all the “totally safe! Non toxic! Seriously, you could let your kid play with us! SMILEY FACE AND HEARTS, Y’ALL!” claims I still spend the next week feeling like I’m walking through death and everything tastes of poison and death and there’s just a lot of death. (don’t get me wrong – I’m in favor of flea death. But this is more just general, all-purpose death) Anyway, I went online to google “seriously, how much general death is there in a flea bomb?” and discovered an exciting sci fi option: FLEA TRAP.

FLEA TRAP! This is something on Amazon that many, many people have tried and raved about. It’s got many appealing aspects, such as: reusable (as opposed to flea bombs which, like real bombs, are pretty much toast once you set them off), inexpensive, non-toxic, non-gassy… And HIGH TECH! Wheee! So this is my solution for the FINAL, EPIC BATTLE! My super-weapon of ultimate killness is winging it’s way to me right now. Then I will set it up and watch the wave after wave of flea death. And will I laugh? Will I laugh as I watch them all die?

Oh yes. I will laugh.

Secrets and Sighs

When T.E. and I first started we were each other’s deep, dark secret; we each had a person or two we’d confessed it to, but everyone else was in the dark. Was that part of the fun? Maybe. Certainly keeping a secret from my family and friends was a very new experience. To be honest I sucked at it – my people figured out there was something I was keeping to myself pretty damned quick, but they let me keep the “what” to myself for a pretty long time. For him it’s much easier – he keeps great gobs of his life pretty secret. Frankly he couldn’t fathom why this was so hard for me – the idea of such a level of sharing with one’s parents was covered in a thick coat of crazy to him!

For me the thrill of being a secret faded pretty quick. How do you not feel somehow like a bad idea when your person fears what would happen if the world found out? And slowly but surely the seal on my secret of him began to break too. Still I was amazed when he told his parents first! Brick by brick we brought down our secret walls and eventually he flew here and met the entire Hippyville family clan! His parents actually paid for the ticket to bring him here for the summer! Everything pretty much came out of the closet and oozed all over the place. And I realized how much I preferred it this unclosety, oozy way. Even when his more dorky, immature high school friends tried like hell to make a connection with me on Facebook (something he put a stop to right quick – my hero!!) I still liked that better than feeling like he was embarrassed by or ashamed of me.

Then he started at University.

He’s in a new place with new people and trying to really make a place for himself and I think this is all very, very good. I WANT him to make friends (though if they could be less hot, young girl things that would be nice!!!) and have a healthy, happy social experience. But some part of that demanded that our relationship go back to being a secret.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t understand that. First of all, what studly young dude wants to talk about his middle-aged girlfriend? NOBODY will find this hot, my friends. And to be honest, I still keep him a secret from my co-workers as I worry about how my boytoy might impact their opinions of me as well. I always hope he doesn’t feel bad about that; doesn’t feel like there’s any part of me that’s ashamed of him. Frankly I’m more embarrassed of my co-workers than of him, but I understand the challenges that this relationship could pose for me at work and the same, at LEAST, must be said about having a mom-aged babe in college.

But with all this mature, worldly understanding and getting-of-it I still don’t like it.

So here’s the plan: I’m going to become THE hottest cougar girlfriend a smokin’ young dude could possible brag about. I’m absing it up (totally a word) all week long and trying to work out all the time and investing in hot shoes and tight pants and I can do all of this stuff because I’m a grown-up with a job that allows me to make the money. And purchase the things. And pay for the gym. Oh yeah, I’m going to BE BRAG-WORTHY.

…just as soon as I get over the case of arthritis in my toe. Because now my old-person foot ailment is keeping me from cardio. And has me wearing sensible shoes. I’m now officially old, starting at the feet. Sigh.

To Halloween or not to Halloween

First, a few truths:
1) Halloween is for kids. There is no costume that is out of bounds for little kids. They’re cute in all of them. And then there’s the candy.
2) Halloween is for hot people. The ONLY exception to the costume rule for kids is the classic “slutty BLANK”. Hot girls are why grown-ups continue to celebrate this holiday at all. And when two hot costumed people hook up, at say a costume party or the local watering hole’s Halloween freak-out? It’s a wonder they don’t just burst into flames.
3) Halloween is for the sentimental. Raise your hand if you don’t get excited by the annual showing of “The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and I’ll slap you upside the head with a pumpkin pie

…now, with these truths established let’s talk Halloweening for the REST of us. Because I’m no longer a kid, I’ve never been “hot” and though I’m sentimental that starts and stops with classic Halloween tv. So, for instance, what to do when my work decides to do a big Halloween celebration? Do I dress or not? What about any other Halloween parties to which I got invited – go? Don’t go? How to spend the holiday itself – home or out rambling from Halloween Happy Hour to Halloween Happy Hour in cape and short-shorts?

First, the work party. I dressed, but only just barely. I’d considered ambitious costume ideas, but my problems with that goal were three-fold: 1) I only moved some of my stuff when I relocated up to my new life and my rather silly-but-ambitious stash of costumey things didn’t make the cut. Pirate? Sure, except that I brought the puffy shirt and hoop earrings, but not the sword or the corset. Nor did I bring all the pieces for the black cat, the space cowboy or the Amazon Warrior (do NOT ask). 2) I’ve been sick this week, not enough to keep from going to the office but enough for me to want to be at all ambitious when home. (in this moment “ambitious” is being defined as “doing anything beyond sleeping). So on Thursday night, when I had to do this thinking stuff, I was about up to “I want Jello. If only it weren’t so damned hard to make…”-level of ambitious. Making a costume is nowhere near this. 3) The people at my work place don’t know the truths listed above, or don’t care. Either way, for many of them this “dressing up” thing is at epic proportions. So you really gotta decide how much you want to compete when you come in. ½-way is kind of the worst option you’ve got.

With all of this in mind I dressed all in black and topped it off with my trusty Batman t-shirt. You can decide what the actual costume was: Batman? Hopeless Nerd? Michael Keaton? Yes. All of these things.

Next I had actually been invited to a collection of possible Halloween parties for Saturday night, so the question was to go to any, and if that question came up a “yes” then the follow-up question: which one? I opted for the easiest of the three, both in terms of “setting the bar” costume-wise and also comfort –level while there; it was a fete thrown by some friends of mine in their house way up on a hill. “house way up on a hill” is ALREADY satisfying the spook-requirement, and I figured the guest list there would include parents of kids and other items that tone down the ambitions for costumes. And I was right! The other options either had a level of costumery ambition I was completely intimidated by or would be chock-a-block FULL of sexy hot-n-tots.

So then the costume question again. I poured through my closet and the costume stuff I DID have up here and finally landed on a workable option: 1930’s cocktail dress (THE best piece of clothing I own) plus vintage hat (no idea how that got moved either. Possibly I thought they’d come back into style?) plus garter belt and stockings (I’d claim authenticity, but it was honestly the only forms of leg covering I had in the house!), pearls and a dot over the lip ala Marilyn and you had it. 1930’s starlet? Possibly. I preferred to think of myself as the original Lois Lane, ready to break the next big story, Chief!

Next year: Amazon Space Pirate Cat. With heels.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... What? Too soon?

Yes, my friends, you may be trying to figure out whether you want to be the slutty nurse, slutty cat or slutty sewage waste treatment technician for Halloween, but I’m already firmly focused on Christmas. Why? For a few reasons, all of them awesome:

1. I am anti credit card. However I am pro “give everybody you’ve ever met a gift.” This means I start my Christmas shopping in July. No joke – my first gifts are always purchased at this summertime art festival in Hippyville.
2. T.E. comes home to me in December. Sigh.
3. I have so many people I like to shop for, but if you cram them all into the month of December the fun of gifting becomes “Gah! Stress! Crowds! Money! Stress! Gah! Christmas BAD!!!” And that’s a terrible thing to do to Christmas…
4. I’ll have someone to help me wrap presents this year because T.E. will be here. Yay!
5. I have this very ambitious plan this year that involves having all gifts that need to be shipped already bought and wrapped in November, and shipped off by Thanksgiving. Go ahead and hate me!
6. Did I mention the hot, young Englishman? I did? Good. Because he’s awesome.

Oh, and also Christmas = piles of yay!

In order to facilitate this level of manic, almost obsessive holiday adoration I have to have it all organized. Almost to the point of needing a psychoanalysis. And/or Prozac. To that end (the organization end, not the shrinking/drugs end) I have created this elaborate, nay even color-codified spreadsheet.

It shows names! Gifts! Budgets!
It tells me who’s finished and who’s not yet finished!
It tells me who’s naughty! Who’s… wait, no. That’s someone else’s list… (and I bet HIS list doesn’t include “months to shop in” color coding!)

But still, totally an awesome list, people!

Armed with my list and my astounding selection of Christmas-themed wrapping paper (over twenty different patterns! Snowmen and Santas! Sparkly and shiny and sparkly!) I now head into this coming holiday season not just prepared – I’m OVER PREPARED! I’m a quarter finished! I’ve got things lined up to purchase at each paycheck! For some people I don’t just have an idea of what to get them, I’ve got a BUNCH of ideas! I’ve actually got to go through a list and pick just one thing – I might even be able to give other people ideas for gifts since I have too many!

Oh yes, I’m ready my friends. Bring it on, Old Man Winter! Come on, tidings of comfort and joy! I’ve got your fa la la la la right here! I am SO READY for my Happy Holidays!

Valuable Yet Conflicting Commodities

I know what’s gonna kill us, T.E. and I. It’s not the age difference. It’s not the time apart. It’s not the challenges of being monogamous from far away.

It’s the time zones.

Frankly the people who put the places where they went couldn’t have put our two places – west-coast US and London – in worse places. We’re exactly 8 hours apart. In other words, I’m going to bed about just as he’s getting up. I’m getting off of work right as he’s crashing. And the 16 hours where he’s up and doing stuff and awake and cognizant and not sleeping and available for a lovely conversation and UP? I’m sleeping. Or working. Sleeping and working. Neither of these things are conducive to lovely conversation. They’re conducive… well, mostly to sleeping. Or possibly working. And not conversating.

For the first year I would come home from work and T.E. would be there, waiting for me. Often it would be past 1am for him, but he would stay up just to talk to me, sometimes for hours! At the beginning he told me that he’s always been a late-night kind of guy, he’d be up anyway, it was cool, etc., and I totally believed him and didn’t think much of it. He had less time commitments, being out of school for that time, so he could sleep in if he needed to and I let that be the rationale that we had a totally workable situation.

Jump ahead to the summer after he left here, headed back to London to get ready for starting at the University. He took advantage of wicked-nasty jetlag to switch around the schedule. He started getting up at 7am for us to talk, thinking that he’d need to adjust his timing for classes. He figured once he got to Uni the world would expect him to be at specific places. At specific times. Specifically non-noon times, and so day after day, even though he still didn’t need to, he went to bed relatively early and got up at 7am. We’d talk for about 90 minutes, then I’d hit the sack and he’d go on with his day. I was sort of amazed how well he stuck to this timing, especially since he really hates mornings just like I do.

I, on the other hand, struggled to stay up and alert night after night, except for all of those times when I fell asleep. Nothing says “you’re important to me, and all those nights when you stayed up way, WAY later than this to talk to me really mean a lot.” like a long, resounding snore. I realized at that point that I’d never given him the credit he deserves for sacrificing so this crazy relationship could keep going.

Finally he started at University and got those dreaded early-morning class schedules he had been preparing for. And get this, people: they have scheduled him for classes as early as 11AM! What are they, BARBARIANS? LUTHERANS EVEN? (or was it Presbyterians – what’s the religion that says “thou shalt get up before noon, but only just barely…”?) All his prep for having to get up so early was for naught, and within a week the stress on his system from the early mornings was showing itself pretty clearly.

So THEN we tried the afternoons again, but that didn’t work much better. Seems no matter what time we can connect it’s always a time where he’s tired, either because he’s getting up or settling down. And I hate to be that thing that makes him tired, know what I mean?

We’re trying something new tomorrow: I’m going to wake up at 4:30am so we can talk about 12:30pm for him. The Queen immediately saw the flaw in this plan – she asked me “and you’re going to bed at 10:30pm?” I found it so cute that she would give me such undeserved credit; I think we all know the odds of me getting to sleep earlier than my normal time of roughly midnight are pretty slim. Or possibly none. So tomorrow it’s going to be my turn to be tired.

I have faith in us and our desire to make it work. We’ve just finished mapping out the dates for his trip here for the holidays – we clearly know how to dedicate ourselves to this. But I’m also very aware of the problem we have before us: how to keep our connection and our sanity. For the record, if I have to pick from those two I pick us. Here’s hoping he does too.

Earning My Grownups

I have schedules for the things that I gotta do. The biggest schedule-based thing for me right now is working out. In just over 2 months T.E. comes back to me for the holidays (more on that at a later date when the idea of writing about the upcoming holidays won’t be as likely to get me shot by readers who are all still in the “No! The “Holidays” are months away! Leave me alone!” continuum) and when he comes up that escalator I want his one thought to be this: “She was totally worth the last 10 hours on that f*cking plane.” For such a thing to be possible, at least in my head, I either need to lose another 15-20 lbs, as well as flattening my tummy and giving me almost Madonna-arms/boobs, or I need to be standing at the top of the escalator covered in chocolate and money. And I don’t have enough money for that, so I gotta work out. GOTTA.

And therefore we have scheduleness. It looks like this:

SATURDAY: full cardio plus abs
SUNDAY: full cardio plus push-ups
MONDAY: full cardio plus abs
TUESDAY: full cardio plus push-ups
WEDNESDAY: full cardio plus abs
THURSDAY: full cardio plus push-ups
FRIDAY: ice cream and carbs for dinner and falling asleep on the couch and maybe more ice cream!
SATURDAY: …what, didn’t we already cover this? Did you have a coma since the last Saturday?...

I originally planned to work out EVERY SINGLE DAY, but had to add my important Friday plan for two reasons: The first is that if I don’t give myself some bit of a break I eventually get bitter and self-pity-ey, and I end up taking a Friday, or a Thursday, or possible a Wednesday-through-November off from working out because “didn’t you see how good I was for like two weeks? I’ve earned this. Now give me more bon-bons.” The second is that I couldn’t work out the pattern for the two extra things (abs and push-ups) and having it fold back around in this unpredictable way, where “who KNOWS what I’ll be doing on that Tuesday! AHHHH!” was just way too much pressure for me. Break it into a 6-day pattern with a break makes Femtastic’s brain “AHHHH!” just that much less. Better for everyone.

So this last Friday I had things all scheduled, like a hair cut and a games night and such, and so having the night off from the workout was not just good, it was necessary. From the scheduling. I had a nice time and came home feeling no guilt whatsoever because hello, it’s Friday! But then Saturday I was going to do those things that Friday is not obligated to do. I fully intended to work out, I did! I was to cardio, listening to my new, woodsy audio book and then reading my totally insightful and epiphaniostic workbook and both improving my body as well as growing my soul and improving my brain. (yes, all of that in just an hour. Shut up.)

But more than that, I was going to CLEAN! LAUNDRY! COOK! There was to be BLOG POSTS! And creativity on EPIC SCALES! When I went to bed on Saturday night I was going to be tired, sure, but it was going to be that satisfied, accomplished kind of tired where you nuzzle down into your soft, clean sheets actually smiling, and your dreams all have you running marathons or winning Nobel prizes or curing fatness (in a way that involves no working out or diets but doesn’t make you a lazy piece of crap either. It’s coming – science is on it.) I was all about this day plan.

So the question has to be this: how is it that when I finally did go to sleep Sunday morning at about 1am I had accomplished a total of “I totally suck” and felt like I was not only the President of the “Slackers club for men and also women” but also a client? It was like I needed a day off in addition to my sanctioned day off because on my sanctioned day off I didn’t do any of the “need to” things, but I did so many “get to” things that I was still winded; nay pooped! Possibly all the way to knackered out! This day off was NOT approved by the “days off” approval board, and even as I type this I just KNOW that there’s a strongly worded memo or letter coming my way to condemn me for unauthorized days offing. These things cannot be done spontaneously – they need planning! Scheduling! A rigorous checks-and-balances to make sure they’re not done willielily, let alone nillielily!

So today has to be better. It has to. And yet, here it is 3:45 and this blog post is the sum total of what I’ve accomplished. I’ve got time to do some catching up – but do I have the moxie? The where-withall? Here’s hoping, gentle readers. Fingers? They be crossed!

The Thing...

So there’s this thing about T.E.

OK, that’s a silly thing to say – there are several things about T.E. and you guys already know a bunch of them, like that he’s in London and that there’s this big time difference and that we never expected our silly, online flirtations to go anywhere over a year ago, and…

But there’s this thing about him that you guys don't know. It’s kind of a significant thing, or a big thing (but not a big thing) or a tricky thing. It’s definitely a thing – that much I know. And I mostly figured I wouldn’t say it, but there are other things that I sometimes want to vent about here with you guys that I can’t when you don’t know about the thing so I’ve decided to tell you about the thing.

So here’s the thing:

T.E. is younger. A bit younger. Quite a bit younger.

He’s kind of a whole person younger.

Another way to put it would be this: he’s half my age. One could also say it this way: I’m twice his age. You could do it mathematically: my age divided by two equals his age. But no matter how you slice it the bottom line is this: Call me Cougar, people, because I’m in love with a twenty year old, and I haven’t been twenty in twenty years.

Meow.

When he first told me his age I think I blacked out for a few minutes - there might have been a quick aneurism. He assures me that my reaction was very suave, and mostly consisted of saying “NINETEEN??????” over and over in ever-escalating volume and pitch. A proud moment for me. After that I know that I tried to figure out if there was any way I could go forward and not feel insane, and the answer was, of course, no. But I went forward anyway, because what the hell? We’re just fooling around, nobody even knows about him and in two weeks this will just be the crazy thing I did that one time on the internet. Doesn’t everybody need a crazy internet thing story? So mine is the fling with the hot, sweet, sexy, brilliant, funny, twenty year old English guy. It could be MUCH worse than that! So I went forward. Short term. Temporarily. No big deal.

For over a year.

After he came to the U.S. and we spent an amazing four days together it became absurdly obvious to me that I’d been kidding myself about this being a fling – it had been three months of flinging and we were no less anxious to be around each other than we’d been in the first place. Officially we were still just hanging out or fooling around or whatever but I knew in my heart of hearts that I was smitten and it was going to be at least impossible to walk away clean. But even still I was embarrassed enough by my Cougarising to keep him a deep, dark secret – only her majesty The Queen knew he was even coming here.

And then words starting with “L” got said by both parties (that's right -- I said "Lasagna" and he said "La Crosse". It was magical) and we were well and officially screwed. And through all of this he had the nerve to stay twenty years my junior. But even though I’ll say with all honesty that I wish he were older, or I were younger (except no, I don’t want to be younger, I just wish he were older) it couldn’t change my level of smitten or how we just kept moving forward more and more. To the point where I just had to tell my people that there was a guy (“Hooray! Femtastic FINALLY has a guy!”). And that the guy lived in London (“Ooh! How cosmopolitan!”). And that the guy was twenty (“....”)

It’s been just over 15 months. He’s spent a total of 12 weeks here with me. He’s met my family; my friends, and they all think he’s lovely. They like that he cares for me, and about me. That he makes me laugh, and makes me blush. They like that he likes me, and he loves me, and though I’m sure they ALSO wish he were older… well, he isn’t. And there’s nothing to be done about that.

So that’s the thing. You guys can make it as big or little as you want. There was a time when I would have thought it the biggest thing in the world. Now the big stuff to me is the lovely and the caring and the laughing and the loving. That he can be so amazing and fantastic to me and for me at the age of twenty just makes him that much more impressive. That I get to be the focus of his attention at the age of forty?... Just makes me lucky.

Intervention

I think my loved ones did an intervention for me. I just don’t think they invited me to it. It’s like a big, weird, secret intervention which they decided would go over much more smoothly if they didn’t have to deal with any of ME there. (In all honesty I’d have to agree with them because I’m a troublemaker and also I can get cranky sometimes and stuff.)

And what are they interventioning? (Interventionizing? Interventioneswaaaahhh?...) About what do they believe I need an intervention? One word: sleeping.

My people are very sure that I don’t get enough sleep.

For the last forever+ a year I’ve been very sure to get 6 hours of sleep a night. Six. It is the right number of hours for me, and I know this from weeks of trial and error. I used to get eight hours of sleep, and then I always, always, seriously ALWAYS woke up exhausted. So then I got more than eight hours and woke no less exhausted (which, I’m sure you already know, was the desired result.) Then one night I got six hours of sleep. Just six – two less than the eight that everybody thinks you need to get and Eureka! I woke up less sleepy!

(important note: there is no amount of sleep that will allow me to wake up in the morning with a spring in my step and a song in my heart, unless that song was Don’t Fear the Reaper or possibly something that would go by the name of “please, kill me now…” I hate the mornings, always do, hate them bunches and bunches and avoid them when the universe lets me do it. The best I can hope for EVER is “less sleepy”, which is where we left our hero…)

Six hours and I felt pretty decent! I got six hours for days and kept waking up pretty decent for days – I made a connection right there. “six hours = works good for me!” To VERIFY my scientific discovery I got eight hours a night for a few days and lo and behold: “PLEASE kill me now!” in three-part harmony. So I went back to six hours and went back to decent and there I’ve stayed: SIX HOURS EACH NIGHT. I HAVE SPOKEN.

But there’s this thing: my friends keep arranging for me to sleep in.

If I stay at my parent’s house and I say “hey, wake me up when you get up!” they don’t. They wake up, but they don’t wake me up.

My friend stayed here over the weekend and both nights we arranged for when to do the waking up thing, always capped with “and if you wake up before that just wake me up.” But then I’d wake up and come out and she’d be all awake and reading, and yet nobody woke me up.

My sweety and I often have weekends where we talk as I’m going to sleep and he’s starting his day, and we plan for him to wake me up the next morning. Always I say “wake me up in six hours.” Always he wakes me in eight hours, and when I ask where the two hours went he tells me with great emphasis that I need more sleep than that.

I’m not a paranoid enough person, so it took me this long to figure it out, but finally I understand it: interventiony goodness. They all got together and agreed that I was not to be trusted with my own sleep schedule. I’m insane, probably from lack of sleep of course, and they are going to save me from my sleep-deprived self. “We will make for her the sleeps!” they said. “We will arrange, through sneakiness and slyness and other skills often perfected by spies and ninjas and paparazzi, for her to get many more hours of sleep, thereby lengthening her life and lowering her blood pressure and making her blond and tall and about 23 years old! We will stuff and shove two more hours of sleep into her six-hour window even if we have to drug her to do it. Because we love her.”

So, I’m feeling the love of course. My people love me, even if they believe that I’m less able to make reasonable judgments about my own health and body than a woman with a serious head trauma and a multiple personality disorder. They love me and they want me to be healthy and happy and awesome. And apparently the sleep-police have assured them that it’s not at all possible for me to be any of these things if I don’t get a full, solid eight hours of sleep. And so from me they are bound and determined to save myself.

So here’s MY plan: I’m going to go commando and get my six hours, to protect my sanity and not kill some innocent bystander at a morning bus stop due to being cranky from too much sleep. I’m going rogue. Going under the radar. Going underground. I’m going to set alarms and read in bed and find other ways to chip away at the very generous but crazy-making extra hours of sleep that my people are bound and determined to heap upon me.

Oh yes. It is on.

Square One, Mark Two...

Have you ever had a friend that you love but is far away or really busy or something like that, and you want to keep in touch, but you lose touch because far away or really busy or something like that, right? So then time passes, probably a lot of it (far away, busy, something like that…), and when you want to catch up there’s all this STUFF. The trip you took and the club you joined and that thing that happened with the guy and the deal and all the bits of you know, and it’s going to take you SO LONG to catch them up you can’t finish the email. Or find time for the call.

And then so MORE time passes. Which is mostly good, but also makes things even more tricky because with the “more time” also comes more STUFF, which is even harder to cram into the letter/email/smoke signals/interpretive dance of catch-up you keep wanting to do. So more time leads to more stuff which leads to… do you see where this is going?

Well you, my beloved readers, are my far away, really busy friend. (or I’m yours. On this detail I am not clear.) We’ve lost touch, and I keep trying to write you these long blog posts about the trip and the club and the guy with the deal and the bits, but these posts never get finished. Or written. OK, I honestly mostly just think about writing you these posts. But they’re sure as hell not getting written, which means nothing is getting written. Which is less stuff than I’d like to have written. By, like, 100%. At least.

So what’s the solution? Well, when it’s friends that I can’t keep in touch with I normally have them killed. (it sounds way worse than it is, I swear!) But at last count there was just over too many of you guys to really manage that. After all, I’m busy. And you’re all so far away. So I’m just gonna start from here. From right now. We’re going to move forward, and we’re just going to hope that the stuff I never got around to posting in the last few months just won’t come up. (except the thing with the iguana and the peanut butter and the Diana Ross wig and fake boobs. There’s no way that doesn’t come up one way or another. Not with the way you guys love peanut butter.)