Daredevil Dating

So, I closed down my eSmarmony account today. I have until midnight tonight to make a Hail Mary pass. But I think I'll keep to my ground game. Keep my head down and run out the timer. Let me be honest: I came into this venture with my eyes wide open and didn't expect much. Which is good, as I didn't get much. (E-Dating: keeping expectations low and hope thwarted since the dawn of the Internet!) Now in the past, I would be ambivalent at this point. "Maybe I should stick it out," I would think. "Nobody has ever gained anything by quitting," I'd reason. "What if Prince Charming joins eSmarmony today and I closed out my account because I'm tired of paying $29.99 to feel disappointed, dispirited, and a freak?!" I would panic. But this time? I have to admit, I feel relieved and slightly exhilarated that it's over. Also? I feel more hopeful and assured that I will meet someone in the real world...which I admit is completely silly and ridiculous as I've been offline most of my life and haven't been any more successful with that approach. But whatever. The psyche feels what it feels, right?

I have a confession, dear reader: I am a Rules girl. Not the book, The Rules. Yuck. No. But I do believe in playing by the rules of the all powerful They. As in: "They say that if you don't get a Bachelors, you will make $20,000 less a year!" And, "They say that if you love something, you should let it go...blahblahblah." I like the idea that there is a clear cut path to something. However, I fully acknowledge that there isn't a neat and orderly progression to anything. I mean, I've watched completely undeserving people succeed time and time again with nothing but a line of BS and a bag of bravado. And what am I if not the exception to the Rule? (Your father was a what? You never finished that? You were a cop?!) Luckily, however, I'm also adaptable. In fact, I'm pretty rational about a lot of things. Appropriately enough, eSmarmony's little 20+ dimensional compatibility test actually agreed with this assessment of my temperament. I scored "both" on a lot of things like emotional stability and conscientiousness. I'm even, go-with-the-flow, and able to acclimate. The problem with this kind of character is that I'm constantly at war with the two sides of my psyche. One side of me likes calm, order, and meticulous adherence to my beloved Rules. If you put all the pieces together according to the diagram you will get exactly what you paid for. Thank you. The other side of me likes romance, hope, and being a bit of a daredevil. Throw it up in the air and see what happens! Wee! eSmarmony appealed to the former, while cutting loose and running for the hills appeals to the latter. While I hoped for a little romance and hope within the confines of the sanitary e-site, I kinda knew I wasn't going to get it. After all, I had tried it before with the same dismal results: The kind of guys that I wouldn't allow to speak to me if we happened upon one another in a bar. But still, I felt like I had to try just to be able to say that, yes, I tried it...again. Now back off.

As a single girl in the waning years of her thirties, I get a lot of advice on how to date and who to date. I have one friend who literally prays for me daily. She's Jewish. She's also single. In return, I'm supposed to pray for her. We're trying to cover two major religions on this one. She's offering me prayers of a Chosen Person to the One True God while I've got Jesus on the line. Andie, on the other hand, is choosing visualization. "Think it, see it, and it will be." She's also declaring: "We will be pregnant by Christmas 2010!" That last one gave me nightmares for a week. In the meantime, the very married DD is playing Monday morning quarterback by asking me about Hugh post every weekend. Her: Did you go out with Hugh this weekend? Me: Um, yes. Her: What did you do? Me: (cringing) Uh, a movie and dinner? Her: Um-hm. Me: (silence.) So, why not Hugh? Well, because the two of us look at each other and think, "Yeeeaaah...no." I mean, I could sleep with him, I guess, but I have this weird feeling it would feel like sex with my third cousin. Perfectly legal, but not exactly right. (One could argue that I need to rethink this position, but as it would also require Hugh to rethink his position, it is a moot point, and we shall move on...). The odd thing is that most of the people I'm talking to now are not talking about e-dating. It's not the e-dating stigma (it's only for the desperate), but the fact that everyone has been desperate enough by this age to actually try it and failed to find The One. But, my friends are nothing but resilient. And romantic. And hopeful. Which is why we're friends.

So now what? I'm not sure. I'm going to try prayer and visualization and maybe not hang out with Hugh alone so much. But I'm also going to try to keep my eyes up off of the sidewalk and try to go to places where I might bump into people. Real, live people. Daring, I know.

Flux

I'm in flux right now. I've been working toward it for quite sometime. Therapy for three years, working out, and staying put have all attributed to a change in my mental and even physical state. Mostly for the best, but sometimes...well, sometimes I'm not doing too well. The problem with being in flux is that you're not stable mentally or emotionally. In those moments, I want to post some comment on FB that reveals my inner turmoil, but the problem with FB is that it's a Social Networking Site and no one really wants to hear about your low spirits. Kinda like when you ask someone, "How are you?" to be be polite and they really answer you back. "Not well; my mom has cancer." So, I figured I'd blog a bit about it as you're a captured audience who willfully comes here to check in on me.

Today, I woke up a little depressed. Friday night, I went out with Andie to watch a romantic comedy which usually puts me into high spirits. Instead, I watched the whole movie and swallowed lumps in my throat. This weird feeling of knowing came over me. This absolute knowledge that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. I've had this feeling before, and it's never good. It makes me forgetful and foggy. I start feeling like a heavy rock. So, Saturday, I decided that I was going to do a little Retail Therapy and headed out to Macy's with my Christmas gift cards. Get myself something pretty and feminine. Something that made me feel like a pretty girl and a lady. As luck would have it, a guy I've been emailing through an e-dating site texted me. We went back and forth for two hours and it became glaringly obvious that he didn't remember anything we had exchanged in emails before. He repeated all the same questions: What do you do? Where are you from? Which neighborhood do you live in in L.A.? Then he revealed he has two teenage daughters. When we started texting I was in the lingerie aisle I was looking at frilly, lacy pieces of fluff. By the end of it, I had bought conservative, "foundation" wear that was well constructed, made to last, and on sale, and an electric shaver to help with my unwanted body hair. I came home, ate some soup, and took a little nap. Then I went out with Hugh for our usual weekend dinner and a movie hoping that it would shake me out of my head. A Guy Ritchie auctioneer cannot be taken seriously and neither can Hugh. So, I went with a little bit of hope. This was a mistake. Sometimes Hugh's light banter and teasing makes me feel better. Sometimes it doesn't. Last night, it didn't. Instead, I felt the rut that my life has worn into and wanted something more. I wanted OUT...and to throw a very heavy spoon at Hugh's head as he had now come to represent all mankind to me.

Have you ever felt like there's something just on the other side? That if you can just get through this moment, something will happen? Something you've waited for? Something you've earned? I keep trying to believe that the next thing that arrives will be positive. But sometimes, life needs to remind you of how good you've got it by taking something away. While I want to run away from this doomsday scenario and "manifest my own destiny," I'm mentally standing still. Mainly, because I am in flux. I am changing. And change is coming. Wherever it spits me out, I have to believe its going to be in a better place. Hopefully at the other end of an aisle.

The Big Blue Bin

It is Thursday already, and I realized that if I didn't write something in the next 72 hours, I would have already broken First Resolution, 2010. So I hurried over here to post a blog. The problem with a resolution like this is that one has to come up with something. Something that means something. Something that says something. Something that communicates something. Of course, what all those somethings are is completely relative to the moment. So what do I want to say and communicate in this moment? Damned if I know. So I figure, I would share a something instead. A recent memory that contains lots of other, older memories -- for me and my sisters -- and are all kept in a big blue bin.

The big blue bin resides, most appropriately, in my old bedroom at my parents' house in Connecticut. As most of you know, I've led a somewhat transient existence, and my old bedroom has become the receptacle of all these sojourns. (My stepfather started to call the house "a storage unit" as all my sisters have left numerous mementos there over the years.) There's the box that contains my high school diploma and decorated mortarboard as well as my diploma and my basketball uniform from St. Joseph grammar school. My pom-pons (correct spelling!) from all six years of cheerleading. Six boxes of books which I've blogged about before (see library). My futon, my rocking chair, not to mention some of my police gear that I should have handed in when I left the force, but didn't. (Ahem.) There's my collage board from New York and my hope chest filled with my linens from Manchester. There used to be a wicker footlocker that I bought from Pier One sometime around my move to Newington, but my sister recently asked for it and took it over the holiday break. The general rule is -- aside from my sister's wedding gifts that have taken up residence in her old bedroom until she buys her house -- anything that has been left in the house is up for grabs. Even what's in the big blue bin.

The big blue bin is a Rubbermaid storage box that my mother bought for me one birthday when I was trying to condense all my property into items I wanted to keep "for the future" and those that should and inevitably would make their way to the Salvation Army. As human beings, we tend to be pack rats; we tend to store things away for someday, only to realize that someday might not come. Every time I go home, I try to get a handle on this stuff. And every time I succeed and fail in equal parts. One year, the year I was leaving for California, I went through all my clothes and put my cast offs into a big blue bin to be deposited at the Salvation Army. However, my mother said that she'd like to go through it before I did so, as I was getting rid of a lot of sweaters (that I erroneously thought I wouldn't need in sunny SoCal -- haha). She said that she would drop the big blue bin off at the Salvation Army herself. I love my mother, but she's a bit forgetful, and one year later, I returned back to Connecticut and my old bedroom, and the big blue bin was still there...with more clothes in it. The situation was this:

After I left, my mother did some laundry and found items that were foreign to her. Thinking that they were mine, she put them into my old bedroom. On top of the big blue bin. But I'm not the only person who stays at my parents' house or does her laundry there. My sister Kate and Julie do --and, at that time, did -- also. (And possibly Beth and Sara. Who really knows?) And since all us girls are relatively the same size, fluctuating up and down by a size or two, my mother never really knows whose is whose. So, the big blue bin became the place where spare clothes ended up. And whenever someone was missing something and asked about it, she would be directed to the big blue bin. By the time I arrived that next Christmas, the big blue bin was filled with bras, underwear, a couple pairs of shoes, some old t-shirts, sweatpants, and my old sweaters. Which! Ended up coming in handy as I was back in Connecticut in December and needed warmer outer-wear. Brilliant! The big blue bin was here to stay. Cut to Christmas 2009.

My sister, Kate, and I stay at my parents' house on Christmas Eve. Since 2005, Kate's husband has also stayed, and this year, their newborn daughter was in residence, too. (Even though I was kicked out of my bedroom and had to take the little room -- the one packed with Kate's wedding gifts -- I didn't mind. There's something about waking up Christmas morning with a baby in the house. Especially when its the baby's first Christmas.) Christmas Eve, Kate asked me if there were any of my old pants in the big blue bin as she was still working off her pregnancy weight. Having completely forgotten about the big blue bin (as I am now becoming my mother with every dying brain cell), I told her I didn't know, but it would be worth a look. She did, and there wasn't, but I was glad to be reminded of the big blue bin as I didn't bring any workout wear past a couple of sports bras and my running sneakers. Two days later, when I was ready to resume my normally scheduled cardio program, I popped off the top of the big blue bin hoping for some ratty old t-shirts and something to throw over it like a misshapen cotton sweater or an old college sweatshirt, or even a baja poncho from someone's spring break trip to Cancun.

On top there were some sweaters. There's the Calvin Klein one with the American flag on the front (bought in NYC at Filene's Basement; I don't know what I was thinking). There's the Irish knit cardigan (bought at Marshalls in Manchester when I needed something for a St. Patrick's day ensemble). There were some old bras (which might have been mine, but then again might not). The Nike running sneakers, size 9 (something to remember for next year; I hate packing shoes). A couple pairs of Victoria Secrets pjs (Christmas gift from when my mother was still buying us Christmas pajamas). There was my sister's 1996 parks and rec t-shirt (thank you, Kate), and... OH MY GOD! MY POLICE ACADEMY HOODIE! (Squealing in abundant joy!) I pulled on my yoga pants, the parks and rec t-shirt, and the hoodie, scrapped my hair into a ponytail and bounded down the stairs feeling like a sixteen-year old. I entered the kitchen and bellowed to my mother, "Mom, LOOK! It's my police academy sweatshirt!" My mother was not as happy as I was, but she was happy enough in that fake mom-way to appease me.

Wearing the sweatshirt made me feel young. I felt tough and strong. "Don't screw with me," the sweatshirt said, "I was a cop!" It reminded me of the 25-year old I used to be. The one that loved working at the PD. The one that didn't think much past the moment she was living in and the only plans she made was for drinks that night. The one that felt invincible. The one who didn't have a care in the world because the future was still far away. I wore it for four days and enjoyed not feeling like California Me, but Manchester Me. It was a nice reprieve.

Kate was driving me back to JFK for my flight back to Los Angeles. By the time I was preparing to leave Connecticut, I was more than ready to go. The morning I left my parents' house, I was busy breaking down my old bedroom for whoever stayed over next, re-packing my clothes, and double checking that I had my boarding pass. I threw my used linens down the basement stairs where all the dirty laundry from the occupants of the house lands. And I threw the sweatshirt down there also, knowing that Mom will clean it...and put it back into the big blue bin.

A New Year

Happy New Year, dear reader! I noticed today that I posted only forty times in 2009 as opposed to ninety-three times in 2008. I would say that's a 53% reduction in output, but I was never good at math and can't figure out that percentile (and I'm pretty sure just subtracting the smaller number from the bigger one is the wrong algorithm). But that was a poor showing in any event and needs to be remedied. I need to improve that number. Or...make a resolution to do better. So, in honor of the grand tradition of New Year Resolutions, let me declare myself now!

First Resolution, 2010: More blog posts! I know, you're excited. I can feel your anticipation pulsing over the wi-fi and into my fingers. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your validation, love, and adoration means everything to me (as I don't get nearly enough of it in my day-to-day life so I must seek it out from anonymous people on the Web). My goal is to write once a week which would be, at the very least, fifty-two posts. (Unless I'm confusing the number of weeks in a year with the number of cards in a deck, which does happen to me sometimes. I've luckily stopped confusing the number of cards in a deck with the number of states in my country. *Ahem.*) And as fortune would have it, my first resolution ties very nicely into my second resolution which is:

Second Resolution, 2010: Write more! As my unpaid therapist/life coach, Andie, put it to me recently, "I hate to break it to you, you're going to have to write if you want to be a writer." You see, I'm a perfectionist who stupidly thought that if she got involved in the editing process she would perfect her writing process. This did not happen. What did happen, however, was she became really good at critiquing her own writing...while she was writing. This is not good. (1) Because writers don't -- nor should they -- have an editor standing over their shoulders while they create. It kills the buzz, man. "Is that the word you're going to use?" "I don't think that action makes sense relative to the character you've developed." "What are you trying to achieve in this scene?" BAH! Shut up! (2) Because editors see all grades of writing quality. Sometimes this is good. As when a ridiculously redundant, un-paced, flat piece of writing comes through...and it gets bought. "Criminy, if that can get sold...." the writer thinks. But sometimes, it can be bad. Like when a manuscript comes in and it sweeps the editor into a another realm and can basically be published with just a light copyedit. The writer then thinks that she's a charlatan that has no business writing -- ever! -- and debates whether she should call the Library of Congress and get back the few books she did publish because -- really -- her books should not be stored anywhere near this stunning paragon of literature. (3) Because her ego and self worth are tied up in her writing and what if another editor (especially one that is a friend and former work colleague) gets his/her hands on it and knows the truth. "She's an idiot! But she speaks so well!" As my paid therapist tells me, "You know that's not true. You're too modest." Um, no, I'm just a really good fraud who can talk a good game. "That's not true either." Yeah? Prove it. Well, there's only one way to know for sure, right? And that's for me to write something and submit it. (Now go back and read one through three again. It's a loop, I tell ya.) Which brings me to:

Third Resolution, 2010: Believe in my self. This is hooky and completely new age-y in that Oprah Winfrey/bourgeoisie/The Secret-way. And I sigh in heavy defeat just writing it. But if I'm to be forthright, self doubt has crippled me in numerous ways from the time I was a small girl. (Honestly? I secretly have always believed that people don't like me. That they think I'm loud, crass, and obnoxious. I know, right?! Who doesn't love me? And yet...) But this "modesty" has stopped me from a lot of things. Like writing that book. Or finishing that screenplay. Or even going for that guy who is really cute, charming, smart, but maybe five years younger than me or too cute, charming or smart to want to be with loud, crass, obnoxious me. So, no more of that! I banish you, self doubt, to 2009 where you may wither and die along with my 401K and MySpace.

Fourth Resolution, 2010: Re-learn percentiles. As I know from past resolutions one or two of them will never occur, and as I would like one through three to happen, I figure if I throw in one that I should want, but am fairly certain I won't accomplish, then I'm padding the chances that the others will. However, if you come back to this blog in 2011, and I'm posting pie charts and using advance calculus equations to illustrate my writing productivity, you can safely assume that I did not finish the screenplay.

So. To 2010. And resolution for all of us.

Cheers!