One of my bestest friends here in Atlanta is leaving. :( She and her husband are new parents, and as such, life has really changed for them. Certain things move up the list of importance and ‘adult’ matters like life insurance and safety seats and settling down. Their family lives in South Florida, and that’s where they’re moving back to. I’m really happy that they’ll be back among family and such. Sad that they’re leaving me. Pooo.

This makes me feel all… magenta. I’m trying hard not to feel like everyone around me is getting married and having kids and growing up and leaving.  Here I am on the cusp of my late 30′s doing not a whole lot of anything. And not even trying to. I’ve been lecturing myself lately on things I want that I am not going after. I don’t know how I expect things to come to me if I don’t beckon them and how I expect things to fall into my lap if I don’t take my lap somewhere. My same old excuses pop up:  I want to lose some weight first. I don’t have any money. I’m tired/busy/shy.

Bleh.

Thing is… I don’t really want to have any children. I don’t even want a pet. Let’s face it, I can’t remember to feed myself, let alone an animal. I am too selfish for children. I can’t commit to a plant right now. I don’t want to move away. I am probably about as settled as I am going to get, at the moment. I have the bills of a fully grown adult– Sallie Mae, Wells Fargo Auto Loans, rent, utilities, cell phone. I live alone, on my own. In my own zip code (my dad says you’re not grown until you have your own place in a zip code that is not the same as his–because when I turned 18 I declared myself an adult and he corrected me, harshly) I pay all my bills every month on my own, without outside assistance. I make donations and have fun plans with friends and read books and write things and travel when I can.

Why is it that I feel like I am not a grownup, doing grownup things? Because I am not married with a mortgage? Because there is no we, just a me? There is no us? There is no ‘our’?

I hate my mind, sometimes. It’s such a dangerous place to be.

I can always tell when Girly Time is imminent. I get all emotional about things I usually don’t think about. And I spend an immense amount of time looking at other people’s lives and measuring mine against them.

At the top of this post on the right hand side you’ll see  a directory of sorts. All posts in this series will be tied together. You can view other posts in this series by clicking on the link in the directory.

This is a long entry, I apologize. I was going to cut it but decided to let it be. It’ll be here if you get tired of reading and want to come back later! ;)

*

The whole nerd, mousy thing did not go away when I went to college. I was social with my roommate, the students I worked with, co workers. I was never into the college party scene. I wasn’t a drinker or a smoker or a dater. My friends tended to be nerdy, quiet people. I was just happy to be out of the house and away from home– I wasn’t really thinking about going wild. I had moved out and then moved back when it turned out that I wasn’t allowed to stay in the apartment my friends had, and was moving out again. In an odd show of closeness, my parents drove me to the University and dropped me off.  I was supposed to go off to school and become a teacher. One of the best teaching programs in the nation is at a University not far from my hometown. My college town was only about 25 miles away. I wasn’t going far.

A few days after I moved into my dorm room, met my roommate, had my experience with group feeding, otherwise known as The Commons (where, by the way, I could eat cereal for dinner, if I wanted. HEAVEN), I noticed a guy kind of hanging around up on the main floor. He seemed to be waiting for me when I came upstairs to check my mail. He was on the maintenance crew; I think he wore overalls with the University logo on them. I managed to chat with him off and on and he was friendly. He was from Africa. I know some of you know where this is going.

In my experience, Africans have a different method of approaching women and relating to them. They are aggressive and straightforward. I found them to be pushy and brash and overly eager. I am sure they have sentiments about black American women. The similar skin color gives a false sense of familiarity and closeness. The cultural difference creates a giant crevasse.

He lived in an apartment off campus but since he worked for the University, he was around a lot. One evening, he was hanging around the dorms and stopped by to see me. I would never let him in my room, mostly because I had a roommate, and because I didn’t want to be trapped in a room with a man. We talked in the hall, and after awhile, I begged off because I had to study. There was an interior door, a stairwell, and then the exterior door. He cornered me in the stairwell, between the two doors, leaned into kiss me and palmed both of my breasts. And squeezed.

I have always had a pretty rockin’ rack but no one had ever touched me there. All of a sudden everything my mom ever told me and everything I had ever been afraid of popped up in my mind. I was pretty sure I was about to be attacked or something. He scared me so bad I punched him and ran. He didn’t even know me and he put his hands on me. The groan that came out of him was… ugh. I wanted to throw up and I felt like I had done something wrong.

Weeks later at a campus dance, he sidled up beside me. All smiles and laughs and grabby hands. There was alcohol on his breath. I was disgusted. I pulled away from him and tried to walk away. He grabbed my arm roughly, tightly.  I pulled harder, yelling over the music, and he let go. I left him standing in the middle of the gathering room-cum-dance hall, left the dance and ran back to my room. I never saw him again. That was the last campus dance that I attended except for a Homecoming dance that I would attend much later.

The next four years were full of classes and work and friends, movies and papers and campus activities, ski trips and working with English language programs. I had friends, even some guy friends. A few guy friends I liked as more than a friend, but the feeling was never mutual. That was when I started hearing the phrase that stars in my nightmares: I just like you as a friend. If I never hear that phrase ever again, it will be too soon. I do anything and everything to avoid hearing it. You don’t have to say it. I already know.

I got through my entire college experience, the post-college crap jobs, the tiny apartment,  the beat up car, the “searching for the meaning of life” phases without so much as a hormone-ridden backseat make out session. I had never been kissed. I had never had sex. A man had never seen my body. I had never seen a fully grown nude male. I was so, so behind, but at around age 24, I’d say, I was catching up.

I finally got pretty.

I’m not saying that to be vain. I’m just saying that I knew, growing up, that I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t even cute. I am legally blind and I have to wear glasses to correct my vision. There were no such thing as thin lenses when I was growing up. I wore big pink coke bottle glasses that were entirely too huge for my face.  I had buck teeth and an overbite and scoliosis, so everything hung off of my body in a weird way. I was always sort of in my own mind, so I never had any idea about fashion or trends. I couldn’t buy those clothes anyway, so there was no sense in paying attention to them. I wore donated clothes from people who had grown out of their stuff and were buying new things. All through high school I wore what was called a ‘Care Free Curl’ which was like a jheri curl but wasn’t drippy and wet. What it really amounted to was an afro me because I didn’t really know how to manage it.  I alternated between a Curly hairdo and braids. I have a Tyra Banks FiveHead © (a forehead so big it’s really a fivehead), so I just had an altogether weird face, odd shape, lost and nerdy look about me. I was never surprised that boys didn’t like me.

It took me until I was in my 20′s to grow into my head (though I still have a Fivehead, I just don’t care, lol or I cover it with bangs)  and my buck teeth and my big ass and big boobs and hourglass shape. I learned how to do my hair. I got new glasses that fit my face. I started wearing makeup (I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup when I lived at home and at college I just never found the time to learn how). I had braces my last two years of high school, which helped considerably with the buck teeth. I had a great job and I was having fun, which helped immensely with confidence. When I looked in the mirror, I was starting to like what I saw staring back at me.

I was 25 when I experienced my first kiss. He was almost twice my age. I had NO business messing with him.

I was working for a group of AM/FM radio stations, owned by a TV station. MB worked in the creative department—if I remember right, he made all of the graphics that are used on-air during a broadcast. He was well into his 40’s. White guy. Kind of short. Thin. Funny. He and I would talk at station gatherings. He must have sensed my naiveté, because as soon as he found an opportunity, he pounced.

What I didn’t know was that MB had recently spent some time away from work, at a treatment center for drugs and alcohol. He was a big time talent in New York, had been married, and had a great home, nice car, bright future. Life would have been great, except he snorted it all away. His marriage, his family, his home, all gone thanks to his cocaine habit. He was back in Podunk, WA, living with his parents in his childhood home, working for this small time TV station.

It was humiliating for him to be back working local news after working for a major station in NYC. He was unhappy. He was in recovery. He was looking for someone to hang onto, I guess. Use up some time and energy. Everyone else at the station seemed to be hip to his game. I was the only one, apparently, who didn’t know. I love how no one said anything until after it was over. I was so, so naïve.

The details of how I came to be spending time with him are jumbled in my mind. This happened over ten years ago. Some things I remember like it happened yesterday. Some things I can’t seem to remember no matter how hard I try. I remember we were extra friendly right before the company Christmas party. He was making the video that they showed at the end of the party every year and I stopped in to watch it. We sat really close on the couch in his office. He laid a hand on my thigh and I thought my heart was going to explode, it was beating so fast. It took everything in me not to get up and run out. I probably should have.

After the annual party, I’d stop in and see him in his office if I happened to be walking by. His office was on the way to the front desk and I had to go to the front desk 10-12 times a day to deliver prizes to radio contest winners. I don’t remember if we talked on the phone first or… what… but he ended up at my house one night. We sat and talked and watched TV. Casual

He tried to kiss me. I pulled away. He tried again. I pulled away. He asked me what was wrong. I said I didn’t know how to kiss. He laughed and laughed and then realized that I was serious. I know it’s not rocket surgery, and it’s mostly instinct but still, I didn’t know how. He tried to talk me into it, said it was natural and easy and I’d like it. Press, press, press. I don’t do pressure. The more you try to press me into doing something, the less likely I am to do it. He was pushing so hard that I was completely turned off and I made him leave.

I rolled into bed that night feeling really stupid and amateur and immature. I felt about 12 yrs old. I was 25 and had never been kissed and some guy wanted to kiss me and I wouldn’t let him.

The next night, or a few nights later, he was back. This time, I let him kiss me. It was okay. Really, just okay. Some lips on mine. Alright. I felt nothing. Probably should have been some kind of sign? And then I let him really kiss me, tongue and all. And that was okay, too. I’ve been told that I’ve never really been kissed if I don’t enjoy it, but I think I have been kissed enough to know that I just don’t like it. I have issues, and I am averse to saliva (even my own) and most of the time, guys can’t kiss. It’s just a fact, jack. When I meet someone new, I have to brace myself for the kissing. Oh my GOD, I am weird. Well, we made out for awhile and then his hands started to wander and against my better judgment, I let him creep up under my shirt.

Over the next week or so, I saw a lot of him. And I don’t mean that we had a lot of dates. :/ I had never seen an erect penis before. He happily showed me his. I remember asking if it hurt. *shrug* He laughed at me! I do remember that after this guy, I stopped asking questions and started doing my own research. I guess it was pretty weird for a woman in her mid twenties to ask such a juvenile question. I just… didn’t know. Anyway, he also saw some of me, but only the top half. The bottom always stays covered.

The things happened with MB were all about him. It was about him getting what he wanted and he wasn’t, at all, concerned about me. I was basically just some titillation for him.

One of the statistics that the Sextistics special talked about, that I really wanted to see was the section on the effect of an orgasm on the brain. Drug addicts are known to develop rampant and sometimes deviant sexual behaviors after or during recovery. I watched this happen with a friend of mine. The list of her sexual partners tops 100. I’m not sure if it’s still climbing, but man or woman, married or single, she’s done them. This person now claims to be a sex addict. I don’t know about all of that, I just know that sex seems to become a huge deal to an addict because an orgasm affects the same part of the brain that a cocaine high would. When MB pleasured himself, it fed the same part of his brain that cocaine fed. The high would not be as intense, but it would be the release he was looking for.

MB was fiending. He needed me to get off, to get his high. It was like he was using, all over again. He was using me. I was none the wiser.

After awhile though, I got tired of him. He was unavailable until he decided he needed to come over. We couldn’t be ‘out’ at work and he wasn’t all that affectionate. He wasn’t particularly interested in me or my life or the details thereof. It was really all about him. He would come over, talk me out of my top and bra, and masturbate. I got nothing out of it at all, just some bad kissing. Not even an orgasm. He didn’t even touch me, just looked. Then had the nerve to call and ask if I would ‘dress up’ for him. LOL WHUT?

I was frustrated, since I had an idea that there should be much, much more to this. We stopped seeing each other in early 1999. It was relatively painless, but he avoided me most of the time after that.

One Saturday morning in May of that same year I got a call from my Supervisor. MB had collapsed that morning and was unable to be revived. We suspect he had been dabbling in cocaine again in the previous months. Maybe drinking again, too. After being clean for awhile, going back to it must have been an intense, incredible high. His already damaged heart couldn’t take it. I attended my first Catholic funeral. It was surreal, watching that casket roll by.

I certainly felt sad for him but, I can’t say that I felt guilty or anything. I had long since figured that there was nothing I could have done for him. I got no joy out of what we did. In my mind it was pretty much good riddance. I saw him every day after we stopped seeing each other and felt nothing.

That experience awakened something in me, though. If that guy could want to be with me, surely there were others.  I would locate these ‘others’ and have experiences!  I didn’t enjoy the kissing much, but I liked being kissed, if that made sense. I liked the expectation of feelings coming and I liked being close to someone. And while MB was relatively harmless anyway, I had gone through, albeit short, an evolution of a relationship and come out unscathed. I was primed to try it again. It was exciting to me, deciding that I could set aside so much of what I thought and believed about men.

I started dating, after that. Since I was quiet and shy, I tried the online dating thing. It would allow me to get to know men before I had to meet them and talk to them. The problem was that my hometown is kind of a small town that is spread out. There really aren’t a lot of men to choose from, and few of those are black. Few of those black men wanted to date black women. If the woman was black, she had to be thin, athletic, bubbly personality– even if he was 5’2, had one leg shorter than the other, a  dried up jheri curl, three missing teeth, a lazy eye and a job as a security guard. I kid you not– the sense of entitlement among ugly men is astounding.

The hardest part about dating, for me, was… the dating. I didn’t know how to have fun with a guy. I didn’t know how to talk to them- what kinds of things was I supposed to say? I didn’t know how to be charming and mysterious. I had no clue how to flirt. I spent every date with my mental dukes up, waiting to fight him off. I was just always wary that he was going to try to have sex with me. And oh my God, that is an awful thing, isn’t it, for a man to want that? For a long time, I was absolutely offended that a man wanted to have sex with me.

I realized, years later, that it wasn’t about the sex. It was that I didn’t feel special. He didn’t know me and he wanted me to lay down with him and let him violate me. And then? Nothing. It would mean nothing and be about nothing. He would pick up his clothes and tiptoe out and I’d never hear from him again and there I’d be with my slightly used virginity hangin’ out.  To me, that was a waste of my time and affection. At that point I couldn’t just go to bed with someone. I had to know and trust him enough to even want to be alone with him. And maybe that wasn’t fair to him, but that’s how it was, for me. Maybe it wasn’t fair to me for anyone to expect me to lay back and spread my legs without knowing anything about me. I’m not a machine.

I knew what they wanted by how fast they ran away. I met person after person after person, each who immediately fell off of the edge of the planet the minute they found out I was a virgin. By this point, I was too old to toss it away on some horny ass who wouldn’t remember my name the next week. I wasn’t hard up for sex at all, so I wasn’t giving it up just to have it.

I didn’t want anyone wasting my time, but I wanted to at least get a few dates in before he ran away. Maybe he could just get to know me and decide I was worth the wait, or something. I varied the approach I would take in revealing my “situation”. Sometimes I’d wait a few dates to tell him. Sometimes I’d tell him up front. Sometimes I’d wait awhile. No matter. The second he found out, the shoulders sagged, the eyes closed, the chest heaved a sigh, and I got the gentle hand pat and the words that are supposed to be warm and comforting, but amount to nothing. Platitudes that are supposed to make me feel better. Something about how I will meet a man who will really appreciate that, someday. Awesome. What you’re saying, without saying it, is that you’re not that man.

What amazed me, I think, was how sex has become some sort of ritual in dating. It’s up there with the first kiss, now. You meet someone, exchange numbers, talk, meet for a drink, have sex. There is nothing in between. There is no getting to know me, there is no making sure I am comfortable with you, there is no span of time for us to become close enough to share a bed. I used to say I wasn’t having sex until marriage. Then I said I wasn’t having sex until I loved him.

Now? I don’t know. I’m not having sex until I’m ready. But for my first time, I am most definitely not hopping into bed with someone after only knowing them for 13 hours. This situation complicates dating like you wouldn’t believe… and it led to my decision to stop dating altogether.

But that will come later. It took a lot of experiences to get to that point and make that decision.

Post September 11, the economy anywhere, everywhere, but especially in my small town were so many companies had moved their headquarters because the Inland Northwest was cheap, was dismal and dropping. People were being laid off left and right. The company I was working for was slowly going under. I couldn’t compete in the market. And I couldn’t find a damn MAN. So I decided to bring my behind on down to Georgia.

I had a million reasons to move to Georgia. The sun and warmth was the biggest, because I suffer from S.A.D and I needed longer days and warm weather. It starts getting dark at 3:30 in the winter back home. By 4:30 it is pitch black outside. I could not spend another winter in a corner of the closet sobbing my head off. I had to leave or I was going to kill myself.

I was immediately giddy about my choice. I was encouraged by the possibility of starting over with a Big Sexy New Life, far and away from my family. I could wipe the slate clean. I could live a diferent life and be a different person and be vibrant and successful. I really wanted that. I really wanted to shed the former me.

The other reason was that black men here date black women. This is not to say that I am against interracial dating. While I do have some issues with the reasoning behind a person exclusively dating outside their race, I am not against it at all. I have done it and if I met a man who was not black that I liked and got along with, would happily do it again. I think my only issue was the same with the African men that I met– the cultural differences can create such a divide. Unless there is openness and understanding and a willingness to accept and learn, these things can drive people apart. I’ve seen many a successful interracial couple, and– confession– my heart smiles when I see a black woman with a white man. You go girl, it says to her. We hear so much about a) how black men don’t want black women and b) how white men are afraid of black women, that seeing that combination out destroying myths and stereotypes gives me hope.

There’s something about a black man, though. I can’t and won’t apologize for being attracted to and wanting a man of my own race. If I listen to ABC news and every other survey/self help book/Oprah broadcast, the chances of me finding my Chocolate Nerd, and him wanting to marry me and stay faithful to me for the rest of our lives is slim. Even slimmer is the chance that he’ll have hair, teeth, any kind of relationship with his mother/father but those are other subjects…. In the words of one of my new favorite blogs, though… Hope Dies Last. I choose to hope. I’m holding out for my Chocolate Nerd. I’d take a Vanilla one, though, if he comes first. I’m just saying.

I thought, when I moved to Georgia and I had established my Big Sexy New Life, that things would change for me. I would have more opportunities and more dates and I would be able to grow and flourish. For the most part, in every area but where men are concerned, I have. I drove to Georgia this same week 7 years ago. I am a completely different person than I was in ’03.

I’m still changing and growing, but that feels good, at least.

Coming soon: Getting Down To The Nitty Gritty

This is post 1 of a series of posts, simply so that people don’t have to read a thesis on my life– and neither do I, when I read back. There’s a bit of “about me” stuff floating around the Diary already but I have provided some background for better understanding. If I don’t know where I’ve come from, I won’t be able to guage where I am or where I am going.

Edit: My mom sent me an email tonight to tell me that my dad is in town. Until the 10th. >insert blank stare here< I decided to go ahead and post this so that I can appropriately freak out tomorrow and people will have more of an idea of why I am freaking out.

Also a note: many of the  things I am going to write about, I know others have experienced. If you’re like me, you like knowing that you’re not alone, and it’s comforting to recognize yourself and your experiences staring back at you through someone else’s words. If you don’t want to reply in the comments, I LOVE email. Please drop me a line at curvyjones [at]diaryofcurvyjones(.com)or mocahgirl[at]gmail(.com) if you want to comment or speak privately.

So, the beginning. I was born on an Air Force Base in Oklahoma in March of 1974. I have two siblings, whom I refer to as BigMike and Joe. BigMike is a year younger than I am. Joe was 11 years younger.

This seems to be an anthem among people I know lately, but we were poor, growing up. From what I remember, my mom had quite the shopping habit. She spent hundreds of dollars at a time and then would apologize and dad would pay it off and then there were these shoes she had to have. I think that she did what I do, now—overcompensate in adulthood for what she didn’t have in childhood. My dad did it, too. His stepmother would hide the food from her stepchildren, for some strange reason. They would go hungry, night after night, for reasons never explained to them. So when he had children, he made sure there was always food available. If you go to my parent’s house, you will still find the shelves, the pantry, the deep freezer stuffed with food.  When my parents hear of a family that is going without, they load up some bags and deliver it. I guess because they know what it’s like, to not know where your next meal is coming from. In that respect I am a lot like my parents. I hate the feeling of going without, it hurts my heart. I like to be generous where I am able to.  Spending money makes me feel terribly guilty. It took me forever to decide to buy my car. I could afford it, I just felt really guilty about spending the money.

Dad is an avid sportsman. He hunts in the winter and fishes in the summer—now for pleasure, but back then it was for food. He would buy meat when it went on sale and stock up but we mostly ate fish and game. We always had deer or rabbit or some kind of fish in the freezer. Yup, I can scale and gut a fish, skin a rabbit and cook them both up for supper. SOMEBODY needs to put a ring on it!

There was always a lot of tension about money in our house and they were just barely making it. The Armed Services doesn’t pay much if you’re not an officer. My mother dropped out and wouldn’t get her GED until I was in High School. The most she could do was work menial, labor jobs. We regularly ate government issued food (the stuff in the white box with black lettering that just says PASTA).  We really did eat government cheese—it came in long blocks and we’d cut them into chunks and freeze them or they would go bad. Thank goodness for Joe, because we could get WIC (Women, Infants and Children program provides dairy and essentials for children under a certain age). That got us all the milk, peanut butter, etc we could eat. Have you ever had frozen milk? We froze milk all the time. Butter, too. That allowed us to stock up on that, too.

My dad regularly gave blood, worked part time jobs, clipped coupons and bargain shopped to make ends meet. My mom worked one, then two jobs. The stress was palpable. Life sucked. My dad also had an anger problem and took it out on us, though he never hit my mom. And for the most part my mom was not abusive.  I got slapped across the face here and there but she wasn’t much of a disciplinarian. She just let it happen.  There was a lot of  ”discipline” in ways that I haven’t opened my mouth to describe in a very long time. Not being dramatic but the memories are painful. None of us really talked about it. It’s just another one of those things that I’ve shoved way down. My parents and I have talked and talked and talked and supposedly I forgave them. That’s what I said, anyway. And now that I am an adult, we have a different relationship, but the memories stick around. And I have a hard time telling my parents that they were good parents when we were younger– I just can’t bring myself to say that. Having an okay relationship now doesn’t negate the first 18 yrs of my life.  All three of us ended escaping before we even graduated from high school.

Sometimes I see people who have great relationships with their parents and I am terribly, horribly jealous of them. My parents have no idea who I am. They have never known me.

I needed an escape or I was going to lose my mind, likely. That’s when I started reading and writing. I could escape to worlds created by other people or I could create them myself. Either way, I didn’t want to live in the world I was stuck in. I spent a lot of time alone. I was very, very quiet. Mousy. I still love corners. I find one and sit in it and watch. Take everything in. I never look like I am enjoying myself but I am in my mind having a ball.

Of course, if I was mousy and nerdy and withdrawn, I didn’t have many friends, I wasn’t that popular, I was not cute in the least (very late bloomer and I knew that I wasn’t pretty because everyone always told me how smart I was, not how pretty I was), and I was socially awkward because I never talked to anyone.  We were never allowed to go anywhere– we always had housework to do.  When I did get around people, the pendulum swung wildly—I either didn’t know what to say so I clammed up, or I tried too hard and it was uncomfortable.  I still do that, sometimes. The day you wake up and realize that you’re ‘that girl that tries too hard’, you want to crawl under a rock six feet under ground. I pretty much stay quiet to keep from being that girl that people whisper about later.

There was no sexual abuse at all—don’t get me wrong, there. I was very afraid of my father, though. That translated into being afraid of boys. That translated into being afraid of men. And maybe watching my brothers fight with my dad helped with that? I’m not sure.  I mean, I love men, I just… don’t know what to do with them.

My dad tells me that when I was in high school, they worried about me.  He said that I was so quiet that they didn’t know what I was really doing. He wanted me on birth control. My mom said no. Actually, what my mom said to ME was that sex before marriage is a sin, only hussies lay down with boys, so control myself and don’t even form my lips to ask for birth control. Keep my legs closed and don’t show up on her doorstep pregnant because she wasn’t raising no grand babies. You should see her spoiling her grandsons born out of wedlock. If I knew then what I know now.

I am literal. If you tell me something, I take it at face value. I took her words at exactly that.  In my mind, I guess I equated that fear of getting pregnant or going to hell, or catching something with boys. Boys scared the living snot out of me.  SEX scared the snot out of me. I was never taught about love or emotions or all the things that surround sex and relationships. I wasn’t witnessing the best relationship, and I wasn’t being taught what a healthy relationship was. I also wasn’t made to feel like I could make my own damn decision about it. I was told what I would be doing and I did it. I avoided all boys and regarded them like they were going to infect me with the bubonic plague. Today, it’s still hard for me to relax around men in a setting that’s not ‘friends’. I am on guard at all times. ‘No’ comes naturally to me. I shy away and shrink from men that try to talk to me. I already know what he wants.  He can’t want to get to know me, he has to want something else. He isn’t getting it.

Some things I attribute to how my parents were raised. We do the best we can with what we know and when we know differently, we doo differently. Still, I feel like things could have been… better.

I was not nurtured as a girl, turning into a woman. I learned about my cycle at school, not from my mom. My dad got mad one day and yelled at my mom about my underarms and legs. She reluctantly showed me how to shave them. I can’t even talk about… femmescaping… but I didn’t know that women went bare (my friends call it installing hardwoods) until a few years ago.  I developed early and filled out quickly. I didn’t have bras that fit. I was a C-D cup in a training bra, in hand-me-down clothing that was too big, so boys were staring down my shirt when I bent over. Looking back, I blush at myself and I’m embarrassed at the young, budding me who had no idea whatsoever what was going on.

When I turned 16, I got a job that didn’t involve watching other people’s children. YAY for not having to be at home. School was an escape, too. I LOVED going to school. I got to leave the house. Work gave me another excuse to not be home to hear my parents fight, to hear my dad stomp around the house, to not get in trouble over ridiculous things like not putting the lid on the garbage cans. The things we ‘got it’ for just astounds me.

What also came with that job was so much food I didn’t have to pay for. Even after my parents bought their house, times were still so tight. Even tighter, I guess, since there was a mortgage and insurance and what-not. My dad was the King of making a big pot of something and that’s what we ate all week. I really don’t eat leftovers, as an adult. I just… I can’t eat the same thing more than twice. When I went to work, I could have anything I wanted, pretty much. Fresh food, ‘expired’ food (food that had been sitting out too long, desserts stocked past the freshness date’, a stray 2 piece and a biscuit, some chicken littles, a hot wing and 4 french fries here and there) was all there for the taking. Taking I did. I went from a curvy 115 lbs to a whopping 150 lbs, size 16. I had huge thighs. My dad called me Thunder Thighs for years.

The freshman 15 turned into the freshman 30 and so on and so on. I was over 200 lbs when I graduated from college. I’m well over that, now. I’d love to say that I’ve been on every diet known to man but I haven’t really. I like food. I like good food.  When you don’t talk much and keep to yourself and there’s so much going on inside and outside and in your world, food becomes medicine. I use food like someone might use alcohol or drugs. To bring me up, to bring me down, to celebrate, to make me feel better.  I would eat blindly, subconciously, without even realize I was eating. I would eat way past full, because I wasn’t eating out of hunger. I was eating out of feeling and trying to fix something. I became a binge eater– not a purger– and I have spent the last few years working on those behaviors.

And now I can’t get myself to eat three meals a day or eat often enough that I don’t get a hunger headache. Hilarity. I’m so black and white, right or left. The pendulum with me swings so drastically.

I guess that’s just me.

Coming up: The College Years and Beyond

Borrowed from the Internet. Thanks!

• In review: I still hate the Olympics and socks. I still really don’t like Mr. Mayer.
• Ever since I fell down a flight of stairs last year, I’m kind of afraid of stairs and I avoid them like the plague. Curbs too. I just see myself hurling over the edge. I confess that I’ve turned into a wuss and that bugs me.
• Sometimes, especially in the winter, I will come home on Friday, get into bed and not get back out of it until Sunday. I confess I really look forward to that, some weeks.
• I confess that I have never had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day. I’ve never had a date on Valentine’s Day.  I confess that kind of makes me sad, every year, as much as it shouldn’t really matter because it’s a Hallmark Holiday and  we should show romantic love everyday, not just on Feb 14th.  The first time I actually have a Valentine on Valentine’s Day??? That poor, poor man.
• I’ve been dieting. I’ve lost about 10 lbs. I confess I think I gained it back, this week. I tried to take a day off for the SuperBowl. It’s turned into an off week.
• Last week I made a decision to stop doing something that was doing more harm than good, as least from my perspective. I confess that although it leaves some people in a bind, I feel relief.
• I had something in this spot that I was going to confess. It was sex and toys related but… I’m glad I saved this as a draft because I decided not to post it. I confess I’m a coward and I’m scared people will think I’m stupid and immature. Holy cow and thank God for being skittish.
• Sometimes I read warnings on bottles and wonder what the hell happened that made them put that warning on that label. Like who’s dumb enough to do some of this stuff? Then I figure it must have happened, so now they specifically warn people not to do it. It must be why they also have warnings at the beginning of JACKASS.
• Sometimes I feel like I’m about 60 years old. And sometimes I feel like I’m about 13.
• My mom sent me an e-card yesterday. She’s never done that before. It really warmed my heart. I confess I almost didn’t send a card back to her. I don’t do well with touchy feely emotiony kinds of things.  I usually just eat. I did, though.
• I’m addicted to my blog stats. I look, all the time, several times a day, to see what people are looking at on my blog. I never thought I was all that interesting. Some days, you guys agree. :/
• I confess my biggest fears begin with F: Falling, Flying, Failing… ****ing.

This meme is from Sunday Stealing. Its called the Pretentious Blogger Meme, lol.
1. How long have you been blogging?

Counts…. well, regularly here since August.  I’ve tried, in some form or another, to have a blog in the past but I never found myself interesting enough to write about. I’m trying, now, to have more of a diary type thing than a popular blog where I postulate and pretend to know a lot of things about stuff. I just want to blog about life and things.

2. What made you start?

I found I had things to say, stuff I wanted to talk about. The Diary was born.

3. Who inspired you?

I’ll do the PC answer… I follow a lot of bloggers because I’m inspired by real people telling their life stories, a post at a time. People who are open and funny and real. I’d say, if your blog shows up on my blog roll or my reader, you inspire me.

4. About how many hours a week would you estimate you spend on your blog?

Depends on the week. Some weeks, less than 1. Some weeks I spend hours a day here.

5. What kind of experience or background do you have with writing?

Until recently, no professional experience. I feel like I write well, but I don’t focus a lot on proper grammar rules and editorial aspects of writing. I’m more of a fiction writer– I prefer to make things up. Non fiction (and my life is pretty much non fiction) is hard for me, but I wanted to press myself to do some things that weren’t easy and expand my repertoire.

6. Talk about how you come up with blog topics. Where do you get your ideas?

Usually it’s something sparked from conversation on twitter, message boards, or real life. Sometimes from TV or music. Sometimes ‘ripped from the headlines’. Recently I’ve been trying to gather a list of ‘things to talk about’ because I get a little dry and boring.

7. What or who inspires you and your blog?

Is it me or did I already answer this?

8. Where and/or how do your brainstorming for your blog?

I don’t really. Perhaps that’s an issue? If it doesn’t come from my life (and frankly if I don’t have the energy to blog it) it doesn’t get blogged.

9. Do you have any blogging rules or guidelines you follow?

Not really. Just blog. Try not to get spammed.

10. Is there anything you will not blog about?

Politics, probably. Religion, maybe. I feel like those are really personal and I don’t really care what people think about my choices.

11. Do you have any sort of a publishing schedule in terms of day of week or topic?

Not really, but thinking of developing one.

12. How many drafts of potential blog posts do you have right now?

None.

13. In what medium do you draft your posts?

Sometimes email, especially if I’m at work.

14. How often do you completely scratch or delete drafts or blog post ideas?

All the time. If I’m in the middle of writing it and I don’t care or I’m yawning, I might stop, mid-sentence, and send it to trash.

15. If you had to leave your blog in your will to another blogger, who would you choose?

No one. It’s about me. I’d hope KF would delete it.

16. Are there other blogs that you feel are similar to yours in content, style, or voice?

No, I am unique. Just like everyone else!

17. Has anything surprised you since you started blogging?

People actually read this stuff…..

18. What are your goals or plans for your blog going forward?

Do more of it? Maybe, you know… become more popular. Or whatever. I dunno. I don’t have huge plans.

19. Do you make any money from your blog? (optional) about how much a month?

None.

20. What blogging system do you use?

WordPress, self hosted, because I am a control freak.

21. How did you come up your blog name?

Gonna shout out MissShellie. :D She told me she liked to read about my adventures and that I should start a blog, sort of Bridget Jones-ish but with my flavor. It took awhile to get it up and running, but it’s here finally.

22. How many blogs do you have? What was your peak?

2. I had three but the third I just didn’t really care about and I’m looking to replace it with just a static page, since it’s the home page/CMS for a forum. Actually… I have a blog strictly for my *NSYNC fangirling and crazyness. I don’t post in it often. I also help run stillnsync, which uses WP as a CMS.

23. Are you having as much fun as when you started?

Even more.

24. Where do you find other bloggers like you?

Twitter mostly. WordPress.com does a great job of grouping bloggers by topic. I wish WP.org had the same thing. Google is great as well. Lastly, I cruise blogrolls of bloggers I love, looking for the blogs THEY love.

25. What’s your one wish when it comes to blogging?

More readers. Lots of comments. Lots of interaction. Tons of fun. Oh, that’s more than one, huh?

Anyone who’s known me for longer than five minutes will tell you that I’m a big fan of two bands: Bon Jovi and Dave Matthews Band. I’ve been a fan of Bon Jovi since I was about……God, I don’t know, TWELVE?!? New Jersey and Slippery When Wet were the anthem of my Jr High and High School years. Just the beginning strains of ‘Never Say Goodbye’ is enough to make me GO BUY a Bic Lighter so I could flip my bic and sway and sing/cry along. Gah. I love them! And Bon Jovi has just gotten so much better with age, evolving and changing with the times. LOVE their new rocky, gravelly, southern sound…grrrooowwwllll…. NUM.

DMB, on the other hand, was an acquired taste. I didn’t like them, at first. At all. Too mellow, too sleepy, I can’t understand a word that one cute guy up front says, he mumbles too much and that guy is playing an electric fiddle. COME ON. So they were a big fat NO, until I got a job working with a guy that… now when I say LOVES, that’s probably a major understatement… but he LOVES DMB. Owns everything they’ve ever thought of recording, goes to every show he can attend, and has for years. A real true-blue honest to goodness fan. One year, our company sent him, me, and one other guy (one of his besties, coincidentally) to a conference in Orlando. MOST fun I’ve ever had at a work conference. The days sucked, cause it’s just traveling from one booth to another, looking at boring things I have no intention of buying or even research when I get back to the office, but the nights? Awesome.

It was in Orlando in the spring, so it was warm. They rented a convertible and since I don’t drink much, I was nominated the Designated Driver. No big, I got to drive a convertible around Orlando and sit with these guys who put the FUN in funny. I was told I am the funnest non-drinker ever. At some point over the weekend, I was inducted into the DMB fandom. Love those guys.

‘kay, but I kind of… one of them in particular, we will call Biff. I used to like Biff. A lot. There were a lot of things keeping me from really saying/doing anything about it. I didn’t really need to… once, I admitted it to my supervisor and she said ‘no shit, Curvy.’ So. And, pretty importantly, he did not feel the same. He also lived across the state. And I’ve never really been very good at dating so I admit to not even really trying. I was sure I would get shot down and it’s my personal goal in life to never hear the words ‘I like you as a friend‘ ever again. Those words will send me into a blind rage.

So, we stayed friends. Good friends. I don’t know if this is sad or not, but he probably has treated me the best anyone ever has, friends or not. He always seemed pretty protective of me (he didn’t like people to pick on me) and was always encouraging even if I made a mistake that he had to spend time correcting. He was genuinely happy when I was promoted and always seems really happy to see me when I come through. [Sidebar: You know what's sad? This guy has NO romantic feeling for me whatsoever and yet I get so much better treatment from him than any man that has ever claimed to be interested in being my man. I find that weird. Why would I date and have a guy let a door close in my face and argue with me about who's paying, when I can just keep my platonic male friends and get treated like a lady? Something is WRONG with some members of the male gender out there. I digress. End Sidebar] So, if that’s what being friends is about, then friends I can handle.

I left that company (and the state) in 2003. We still keep in touch and whenever I travel up that way, I have to see him. Don’t tell my friends in Seattle but I really look forward to seeing him the most. I think they suspect this, though, so I’m not in huge trouble. Maybe. Anyway. I was up there last year to visit the folks and as usual I swung through Seattle. I was SO excited to see him. He took me to dinner and we talked and laughed and had a really nice time. I like him lots, as my friend. He’s wicked smart and super funny and I’m proud of where he’s taken himself in life.

Anyway, Biff tells me that since I’ve been up that way a few times, it’s his turn to make a trip. This makes me happy, because Atlanta is entirely easier to get around in than Seattle, and because he’s never come down to see me. He said to pick a music festival — because ATL is just FULL of those… wtf– and he’d come down for a few days and let me play tour guide. I would DIE if he came down here! Now, just telling myself (mostly) that Biff is a tad bit of a flake. Well, to be more clear and precise, Biff can be a HUGE flake when it’s something he doesn’t want to do. If he had to come here for work, he’d extend a trip a few days. Spend money to come here? On purpose? And not have part of it expensed? Does not fall into a Biff-approved plan.

So, I’m about to email him that DMB is coming to town next July (bringing my intro and the real reason for this post full circle) and see if he’ll come down. Nevermind that Dave is also doing his usual show at the Gorge and Biff will probably go to that. Also nevermind that I’m NEVER able to get tickets to DMB, because they sell out in 12.2 seconds. Don’t bother being realistic. I want to keep an open mind that Biff actually MEANS that he’ll come down here. Even if we don’t go to the show, we could hang out and stuff. Explore Atlanta. All that good stuff.

Am I counting on him coming down here in July? Don’t be silly. Do I need an excuse to email him? You betcha! : )

I’ll keep ya posted,

Curvy Jones

BTW, Bon Jovi will be here in April. I know that. But a) April is too soon and b) he doesn’t LOVE Bon Jovi.

UPDATE: He answered. Said July would be a stretch but he’d keep it in mind. I emailed back, said I didn’t fully expect it but I needed an excuse to email. I may be too honest for my own good, lol! I’m happy w/ my response though.

One of my Real Life Friends (as opposed to my friends hat only live inside the computer) runs a blog called Journey to Blissville and goes by the name of Tex. Cause… she lives in Texas. Clever, huh. We do so love Tex and her penchant for foods I cannot pronounce, her happy-go-lucky-and-excited-about-every-damn-thing nature… even if she s annoyingly cheerful.  Tex created the phrases I repeat often, like “Damn Hondurans” (she’s Honduran, that’s not random), “living in Dick Cheney’s America” (it’s hard, according to Tex), and “Al Gore’s Internets” (which isn’t new but I didn’t start saying it till she did). Tex is one of the three bandits… KFlo and Tex and I run Houston ragged.  I hear you laughing, blog. We went to a strip club once. It sucked, but we went.

AN-T-WAY. This blog isn’t even about Tex. It’s about her blogroll. She’s such a vibrant person that any friend (or blog)  of  Tex is a friend (or blog) I want to meet (or read). I sauntered down her blogroll one day and came to a GREAT blog called He Loves Me Not, the story of Sarah and her journey from broken and broken hearted to a major personal success story.

I’d been reading bits and pieces, here and there as new posts came up in my Google Reader, but I became more and more confused because I didn’t know the history behind some of the current posts. So this weekend, I took it alllllllllllll the way back. To 2005.  And oh.

I felt creepy, really creepy but it was there, all out in the open. It was like reading a book, the story of her life. So many things that Sarah had to say about life and love and men and people, I felt the same! I wanted the same things! I felt the same way! I had the same fears and haven’t had nearly the relationship troubles that she’s gone through.

I often feel really really alone. I know that I’m not, but sometimes I’m really self centered and I really think that I am the only one that feels what I feel and knows what  go through. It’s such a quiet, lonely place to be and sometimes I just need to know that other people have felt the same way.  That in some parts and pieces of my life, I am actually normal. Imagine that. Me? NORMAL! WOO!

So, I wanted to post a thank you. Not sure if she’ll ever see it but I’m linking the hell out of this post, and I know she’s up on looking up stats and stuff, so I’ll just wave ‘hi’ and keep pushing. And thank her for opening up at least part of her life, even if the blog was more therepeutic than rambling entertainment.  I don’t doubt that it has helped more people than you realize. You should be VERY proud of yourself. You’ve come a long, long way.

That’s it.

We’re revamping our website at work and our web guru dude insists on writing. He can’t write. But it’s easier to edit than to make it up, so in some ways I’m grateful. Anyway, I have a lot of writing to do, so I’m off!

Have a super day!

Curvy Jones

Reposted from my Livejournal:

Writer’s Block Question:

Have you ever said something to an online friend that you would never say in person? Do you think it’s easier to discount real feelings when a relationship takes place largely online? Can the emotional disconnect become habit-forming?

I try really, really hard to be genuine. To be the same offline as I am online– to an extent.

For me, if I know you and know you well, when we hang out IRL as opposed to online I am the same person- sometimes turned up, sometimes turned down, but I’m me. I pride myself on my witty, sarcastic humor and sometimes deadpan delivery. Most of my friends are utterly foolish and hilarious. I love this about them! That’s why I keep them around. :) I’m a straightforward person, online and offline, and I think that is what my friends admire about me the most. I really do tell it like it is, whether it benefits you or not.

I have a problem, though. With people I don’t know, I’m painfully shy, to the point of being completely mute. Chances are that I would not be as genuine as I’d like to be, but I’m a little bit incapable of bullshit. If you ask me a question, I am going to tell you what I think, honestly, but with tact. Honesty without tact is just being an asshole. In that sense, online or off, I’d probably say the same thing. It’s just that if I know you well, I’m probably going to just come out and say it, as opposed to being asked to say it.

So, have I said something online that I’d never say in person? Probably. But not often. I’m not one to hide behind an online persona. I am who I am, whether it’s turned up or turned down.

As someone who’s been online for… gosh… years, I’ve developed real friendships with the people inside my computer. I think you have to purpose to discount people’s feelings… I don’t think that comes naturally, or with ease, which is why people get so addicted to the internet. It becomes more than words on a page, a picture and a paragraph. To me, some people are as real as if they are sitting next to me.

For others, especially on bulletin boards, eBullies and eGangstas seem to run rampant. It’s like people get a lot of joy out of being as mean and crass as possible, hiding behind an anonymous name. I’d venture a guess that 99% of eBullies wouldn’t say the things they say if they were standing right in front of me. I’ve never had someone actually meet me in person and then pop off online with some bullshit. It’s grandstanding, performing for the people reading and watching.

Like anyone else, I have enemies. People my age and older who’ve had really ‘not nice’ things to say about me. Just once, I’d like to meet one of these people and ask them to repeat the mean shit they’ve said. Bet they can’t do it.

(This post is long and mostly for me, so if you don’t want to read it, I’m not bothered by it. *sniff* So… just… skip over it to something happy. *glances over shoulder to see if you’re watching*)

MEH. That’s about how I’m feeling, right now. I was doing pretty good, until a few days ago, and now I’m all MEH.

Short story long, here’s what had happened:

As has been customary for RIM (Blackberry manufacturer) and perhaps TMobile, there was a nationwide outage. In unrelated news, I recently changed my phone number. These two events converged to drive my parents absolutely INSANE. For some ODD reason (because my parents rarely call, let alone my father) my dad tried to call me. During the outage. To my old number. They HAVE the new number, I promise you they do. They’ve called me on the new number.

Unbeknownst ( and yes, I use words like unbeknownst and subterfuge, deal with it) to me, people are freaking out, in Spokane, Wa. No one can reach me. They’re either getting a ‘this number has been disconnected’ message, or it’s going straight to voicemail. All of a sudden I’ve been kidnapped and am in the trunk of a car headed across state lines with some kind of serial killer. Or I’ve fallen and hit my head and am bleeding to death. Or I’m ignoring them. Whichever option sounds good to a vivid imagination.

So the outage is over and I’m on my merry way, at work. It’s a few days before Christmas and I’m looking forward to calling my parents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then calling my brother and talking to my nephew, then maybe trying to track down Joe’s girlfriend and seeing how the Peanut is doing. He just turned two.  So imagine my surprise when I get an email from one of my mom’s besties: PLEASE CALL YOUR PARENTS IMMEDIATELY!

Seriously? When you’ve had a sibling and a family member die suddenly, pointed emails such as these are not good. Do these people realize WTF that does to a person? When I get an email, in caps, in the middle of the day, to call my parents, I pass out, first. And then when Ipick myself up off the floor, I force myself to dial the phone and face whatever bad news is coming, because when my mom wants to talk to me, she’ll call or text. Since she couldn’t I was already mid-nightmare about what might have happened. I cannot take another death close to me. I’ll go nuts. Really.

So I call my mom’s cell. She picks up. So she’s fine. I begin to breathe, again. And she starts yelling at me that she can’t get a hold of me. And I start yelling back that I’ve been sitting there with the phone right next to me and it hasn’t rang. And she yells back that my number is saying its disconnected. And I yell back that she’s dialing the wrong number, my number has been changed for about a month. And also there was a service outage the day before that did not correct itself until that morning.

‘Oh.’  OH? You nearly KILL ME and your response is ‘Oh’? SIGH.

So my dad gets on the phone and he’s quite upset. The death of Joseph has hit hm so, so, so hard. Talking to him makes me sad. Really. I feel bad for even saying it, and he yells at me for not calling often enough but the truth is that I don’t call because they make me sad. They make me miss Joe. They remind me of what HELL they are still going through, because Joe lived there, not here. I’m so far away that it’s easy for me to forget. I’m a compartmentalizer– you can see it in the 182 blogs I keep. I need to keep things separate, in my life (which is another thing that came up in recent conversation, how I used to not be able to let my food touch. Now my blogs don’t touch. HA). So I’ve compartmentalized my grief about Joe. I’ve done my best to move on and to heal, because mourning doesn’t bring him back. Tomorrow comes. Everyday. Until it doesn’t.

Anyway, he yells and cries and gets off the phone. I give all the necessary information to my mom to reach me whenever, wherever, all the dang time. And I tell them I’ll call them on Christmas.

On Christmas, I call. I talk to my mom for a few minutes. It is the same stilted conversation as always. I’m a hermit: I do nothing but go to work and come home and hang out. I have everything I need right here, especially in the winter. On occaision, I meet a friend for dinner. See a movie. Go hang out with someone. I think my parents expect me to live a life I just have no desire to live. And I think my lack of desire (okay, let’s call it energy and interest) makes them sad and worries them. They worry about how much time I spend alone and they all think they’re going to get a call some day when someone figures out they haven’t seen me in ages. Morbid people!

Anyway. My dad gets on the phone and it’s like he doesn’t want to ever hang up. He asks all sorts of questions about things he never cared about before. How many friends do I have? Where did I meet them? Why do I meet people from the internet? Do I go out to eat alone? When I do that, what do I usually do?  UGH. What?

Then he digs into the personal. Am I dating? Why don’t I date? What am I looking for? And it’s then that I dip into ‘meh’ mode.

I inform dad that I’m not dating. I don’t have interest or intention of dating (again, let’s call it energy and willingness to forgo who I am for what ‘he’ wants). My sister in law is pregnant again, so that makes grandbaby number 3 for them. They’re doing good on grandchildren, they don’t need me for that. It’s not happening.

This, again, makes him sad. Yeah, well join the club. Sort of. Again, it’s one of those things where I’ve put it away. I don’t think about dating. I don’t think about men or relationships or sex or love until someone brings it up and makes me sound crazy for not wanting what they have. Then I start to think about it and then I start to want it.

I start to want things I can’t have because I don’t know how to maintain it. I start to want things I can’t have because I don’t do it well…. the dating thing. If I could meet a guy and get married and then get to know him later, that would be ideal. That limbo, in between, ‘does he like me, I mean really like me, I mean really really like me enough to not want to be without me’ feeling drives. me. insane. I HATE that step, and I know everyone has to go through it, even those who make dating easy, who are pretty without effort and always enjoy the attention of men. It’s hard, even for them. So imagine how hard it is for me?

I suffer no delusion about how I look and who I am. I have to try hard, to look  ‘okay’. Me au naturale is not a pretty sight. I just… don’t care. I’m sarcastic and funny, but also bitter and negative where men are concerned. I try not to be but it seems like every man I meet reinforces how I feel. I recently told my dad that dating is not the same today as it was when he was dating. These boys out here are not taught like he was, not raised like he was. I’ve never met a more selfish, twisted, backwards minded generation of people– and that’s ALL of us, because men wouldn’t be the way they are unless women let them. Throw race in there and I’m quoting Whitney all day ‘Hell to the NAW!”

Anyway. I guess I am saying all that to say I was fine until a few days ago and now I’m all ‘meh’. I’m wating for the ‘meh’ to pass. But while I’m sitting here in ‘meh’ I am contemplating things like what it would take to get me to a point where I felt like I could date. Where I felt like I could be open to a simple friendship with a man. Where I could be proud of me and who I am and what I look like. I think it would take some work. Okay, a lot of work. And I don’t know that I’m up to it.

I don’t know that I’ve reached that point where I’m tired of being alone… maybe because I know that even when I was there, and ready and happy and open, it didn’t work. It wasn’t there, for me. It was a rough day when I woke up and realized that no one out there (that is sane and has teeth and hair and a job and a home and knows what he wants and is ready to go there) is looking for me. The good thing about being quirky is that there are few people like you. The bad thing about being quirky is that you’re nothing like everyone else.

Quirky people are work. Most people are looking for easy. And something that reminds them of themselves. Most people are looking for someone like everyone else.

Here’s to hoping the ‘Meh’ wears off soon.  It’s annoying. I want to get back to that Happy, ‘not thinking about any of that stuff I don’t have’ Compartment.

used without permission from flickr.com

Oh, Blog. I am home.

I am home from Holiday Partay Number One. I……………..did not want to go.

I really debated with myself as to if I was actually going to go. Around 3:00 I laid down for a nap, so I could be awake and alert. At 6:00 I woke up and did. not. want. to. leave. the house! I sat here till about 7:00 and made myself get up and get dressed. I have a sheer, frilly Apple Bottoms blouse that I wore awhile back when some friends were here. Put it on and a tank under it, some dark jeans and heeled boots. Then I happened to be checking my hair in the mirror, and it turns out that blouse has a huge rip in it.

WOW. I was so close to not noticing it and embarrassing myself.

So I changed. And did my hair and my makeup and found my earrings and got in the car and got to the party. It’s an annual thing, all of boss’s friends, Our CIO, CFO, and the infamous VP of Sales as well as the CEO of one of our subsidiaries. Everyone’s in black… I’m in like.. maroon. Everyone’s wearing slacks and dresses. I’m in jeans.

I don’t really give a rip. Lol.

I had been there about an hour, schmoozing and nursing a diet coke (YAY they had soda, and this yummy funkychunky popcorn drizzled with chocolate and mixed with nuts stuff… OMG. CRACK.) and they start handing out assignments for the 12 Days of Christmas. What’s funny about this is most people have been there since 7. There’s food and drink and music. Executives + Open bar = drunk by 9. So the 12 Days of Christmas with drunk people is actually kind of funny. They hand out each verse to the song so whoever has, you know… however many maids a milking (I’m too lazy to ask Al Gore’s Internet) gets to sing that part. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive Golden Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings!

Then one of the partygoers and I got into a chat about last year’s party. She and a friend got a lil tipsy and decided to find out which floor Elton John lived on. So they pressed every button in the elevator until they found it. Walked around up there (there’s a vestibule before you get to the actual front door). He has a lot of art and it’s painted a weird grayish color. Those Brits. ;)

So it was fun. Not a rager, but I’m glad I ventured out, if only for a few hours. Now I am home and warm and in bed, munching on some Cheetos and having a Sunkist, waiting to watch my favorite show right now, Criminal Minds. Have you see this show? UGH! If you’re into CSI and the like, check it out. Faaaaaavorite and yes that is Thomas Gibson from Darma and Greg! He does a fabulous job as Hotch. I also enjoy Shemar Moore as Morgan and Matthew Gubler as Reid and Mandy Patinkin as Jason Gideon. I miss him. Joe Mantegna does nothing for me.

Okay, I’m done rambling. You’d think I had a drink or something.

Before I go, I’ve decided that in order to make myself blog, I am going to make a list of 10 of my favorite things and write about them. That oughta be FUN, huh? Yeah.

I’m here! I’ve been recovering from the Month of Writing Dangerously, aka NaNoWriMo. You know, sleeping, showering, eating, doing anything BUT writing. It’s been good and fun. Funny thing is, I’m kind of itching to get back to writing. I just sort of don’t want to look at my manuscript right now.

I am suddenly a social butterfly, it would seem. Odd. I’m kind of a loner. I have invites to two parties and my friend Kary is coming to visit in a couple of weeks. I’ve actually never met Kary, I only know her online. We’ve talked for a long time and share a love of the same band. Plus she is supercool supergood people and lots of fun, so I’m REALLY excited to be meeting her.

So, -this Saturday is Holiday Party #1- My boss’ Annual Holiday Bash. I don’t want to go. But I am making myself go. I know I will have fun once I get there. His wife is a delightful woman, I really enjoy her. So I’ll go and stay a few hours at least. My boss lives in the same building that Janet Jackson and Elton John have condos in. So, yeah slightly upscale.

Party #2 is not until the 13th and should be less fancy.  I mean, kids will be in the basement. It is my CFO’s Annual Party. I have been promised good food. Looking forward to THAT!

I often find that it isn’t that I’m anti-social… it’s that I party differently than others. I don’t really drink much, because I’m always driving. Party Hosts often assume everyone is drinking and rarely have juice or diet soda available. Which leaves me to bring my own. How lame do I look, walking around with a six pack of diet cherry Pepsi? Hmmm. I think both parties will turn out fine.

Not to mention, I am kind of shy. I KNOW! You’d never guess, huh? I’m socially awkward, I was never really taught how to be sociable. A good time for me is hanging out in the corner, watching people, waiting until I feel like I ‘know’ some people before jumping in. I like for people to ‘get to know me’ before meeting me. It takes the pressure off and I can be myself.  This is why I LOVED online dating. Until I met every freak, weirdo, scam artist and pansy who didn’t know what he wanted so he thought he’d drag me along for the ride while he figured it out.

OY.

Also in my world, I haven’t done any Christmas shopping. And I’m starting to stress out about it! It’s not that I don’t have the money, I just don’t want to shop. I’m not quite in the spirit yet. I’m going to see if I can drum some up over the weekend. I have Secret Santas and nephews to get gifts for. And MYSELF! MYSELF needs a gift!

This year I am hoping to get me a big-dang-TV and surround sound system. We’ll see. It’s a lot of money that I’m kind of not willing to spend on myself. But I know I will enjoy it once I have it. So I should just bite the bullet and do it. Huh?

Meh.

Is it vacation time, yet?

Lefou, I’m afraid I’ve been thinking. A dangerous pasttime, I know.

I’m one of those people that likes new, shiny things. New? I want it. I don’t even know what Google Wave is but I wanted an account with one and now I have it and I have not one clue what I am supposed to do with. But I have it and I love it. Whatever it is.

When Twitter and Facebook popped up, I decided I wanted to be one of the cool kids and jumped all on the bandwagon. Then jumped off. Then jumped back on and I’m pretty much hanging on, for now. Twitter is pretty darn fun– I don’t use it to proselytize or to sell or to spam or to preach or wax political. Basically, twitter exists for me to have real time chat with the silly people in my life I call my friends. And some celebrities.  I figure, if you don’t want to be talked to, lock your account so I can’t talk to you, or get off of twitter. *shrugs* Sometimes I can’t control my mouth, and I “talk “to whoever is around to “listen”. It’s also allowed me to meet some great people and chat about things I’d never find people to talk with me about in real life. It’s a big giant check mark in the WIN column for me.

Facebook, for me, is an entirely different animal. A lot of people use Facebook to network and collect friends. Or play games.  I keep a tight group of people on my Facebook list o’ friends. I don’t add everyone I’ve ever known. I don’t add anyone I work with. I don’t add anyone who might feel the need to ask my parents ‘what’s up with your daughter’s Facebook statuses?’ because frankly my parents can just barely check email. They have no idea what Facebook is.  I like to keep it that way. My mom went through a brief obsession with Instant Messaging. I curse the person who taught her how to use IM.

So, no my Facebook is not a hodgepodge of people I barely know and don’t talk to. Most of the people there are old friends  from back home in Spokane. Some are in LA. Some are in Florida, and Colorado and New York and Seattle. And some are in Atlanta. Mostly people I wouldn’t even have a connection with anymore, had it not been for Facebook.

Something weird is happening, with Facebook, though. People are starting to come out of the woodwork. People I haven’t talked to in years, for reasons we both know. About issues we’re both aware of– wanting to rekindle friendships and relationships and uhm……… I’m not into it.

It’s not that I’m not a forgiving person. There’s nothing to forgive. At some point in my life, though I developed an attitude where I put the past behind me, because the past was toxic. It clung to me like sewer waste. It was dark and depressing and I hated the old me and her life and the people she chose to be around. It wasn’t anyone particular or specific, it was… a time and a place.  I had to get away from it and start over and create a whole new ‘me’. And for the most part, the new me is awesome and I like her and her new positive not toxic time and place and influences.

I believe I have discovered the downside to Social Media. The people you want to hide from, the people you don’t want to find you, the friendships you don’t want to rekindle, the noses you don’t want in your business creep back into your life, nearly imperceptibly. One by one. Little by little. Until one day you wake up and you’re surrounded by something that looks and smells familiar. And you can’t remember how it got there.

It’s a terrible feeling. Even more terrible, when you’re the only one in control of what happens, and you’re the one that’s been happily approving and smiling and laughing and approving and being joyful and changed and approving and approving and approving and then you stop and slap yourself and say WHOA. What are YOUUUUUUUU doing??????

You know what all of this reminds me, though? About how I haven’t let go of the past. I haven’t put it behind me, and healed and become a new person. I’m the same old me, who put some stuff out of sight (because for me, out of sight, out of mind. And even if you’re in sight, I’m probably not paying attention unless I want to). I still feel the same amount of heavy heart and pain and misunderstanding and dejectedness that I felt before I let people go. That was the REASON I let them go. Why in the stuff did I let them back in?

I’m reminding myself of something I preach all the time– I control my own life and its course. Yeah yeah destiny and fate and stuff, but who I keep around me is in my complete control. I can’t complain about things I’m not willing to change, right?

Well. I want my right to complain. The choice becomes do I a) try to mend broken fences? Fences I don’t want mended, in particular, but just do it, cause I should? or b) put it out of sight again and move on.

*SIGH*

Call me a coward but ‘B’ sounds like a great option. I just don’t have the energy… or really the will or desire for ‘A’, right now.  There are people I just don’t want back in my life, right now. Maybe not ever.

Is that bad? Is it evil to not want to mend things? To want to just walk away and leave the past in the past? Or is that evidence of some baggage I don’t want to deal with and should?

I don’t honestly know. I wish I did. For now, I’m just leaving things where they sit.

So today we went shopping for some cute duds to wear out, tonight. I got a lot of food for thought, and mentioned to one friend that sometimes I look at people, like their body shape, and try to determine what I;m going to look like when I’m thinner. When I’m thinner. Not IF I hit my goal, but when I’m thinner.

My mom and I are almost exactly the same– we look alike, we sound alike, we have almost the same body. A few years ago, she had gastric bypass and now she’s about a 10, on a good day. A 12 on a bad one. I look at her body and can’t see myself that thin. She is much smaller in the chest, the hips and belly than I am, so I can’t even really compare myself to her– because I’m always going to have chest and  uhmmm… junk in my trunk.So in conversation with my friends, we’ve decided that my shape will probably still be hourglass, just smaller. I really hope I loose some chest. Not a whole lot, but I’m not about to be rocking a triple size cup in a size 10. And I’m not fond of the idea of going under the knife.

A few other things I’m sticking in my back pocket.

- I’ll be able to wear really cute clothes. Off the rack, and not in the special section.

- More of the clothes I wear will be available when I go to buy it.

- My feet won’t hurt, and I’ll probably be steadier.

- I CAN WEAR REALLY CUTE SHOES!!!!

Alright blog, I’m on my way out the door. I might need to hit Starbucks. Curvy is not really a socialite!

Tonight’s gonna be a good, good nite!

A Yep. All the time. I take a good book and enjoy myself.

It’s usually great, but the waitstaff must think that person eating by themselvevs = lonely so they talk to me nonstop, asking every 32 seconds if the meal is good, if everything is fine. LEAVE ME ALONE, I’m trying to eat!

Certain places are social situations, but for the most part, I can go anywhere alone and eat. I had to get over that, very quickly, if I wanted to do anything outside of my house, since most of my friends don’t live here.