Is There an App for That?

You guys I seriously need to get a life.  This weekend I rented one, and it was awesome.  I don’t want to give it back.

I do have several of the components of a life.  I have not just a job, but a career.   Well a couple of them actually.  And I enjoy them both.  I have great friends.  I have The Boy who is hilarious and sweet and loves his mom and will grow into a really good man just as soon as he pulls his head out of his ass.  But there is something missing.  I think it might be….fun??

This weekend I spent some time with a very nice gentleman who is new to my life.  I hope to spend much more with him.  We had lunch and wandered hand in hand in the mall.  We laughed and had stimulating conversation and I felt like less like a lumberjack than I have in a long time.   I also had some much needed girl time.  Giggly, alcohol-buzzed, yelling-over-the-band, laughing-at-each-other-and-ourselves-girl-time.  I really don’t have enough of that.  I need to seriously find a way to get more.   I kind of forgot how great it can be.  I have been pretty focused on filling the gap where I think male companionship belongs, but I haven’t put the conscious effort that I should into filling my girl time quota.  I realized a while back that my prince charming is not going to show up on his own, to my office or my front door or Aldi's, since those are the only three places I typically go.  I’m going to have to go find him.  Well after that realization what makes me think rich, fun, girly relationships are going to happen naturally?  They also need to be cultivated.

Is there an app for that?  Must research.

Today’s lunch….Avocados are Awesome!!!  I may never buy mayonnaise again.  Take a can or two of tuna (I recommend two, but this stuff doesn’t keep well so do have company), an avocado (or half of one if you only have one can of tuna) and a fork.  Mash away.  Add salt & pepper to taste.  Dump the glop on top of whatever fresh veggies you have in your fridge.  Enjoy.  

Edit.....about the boy being hilarious.  He just chose to demonstrate this with a blood curdling scream, in the middle of the back yard, as he was mowing the lawn.  The scream initially brought images of an amputated foot, followed by the thought that the dogs, one of which is deaf and the other is stupid, are outside and could easily get run over by ADHD boy not paying attention.  I ran to the back door, screamed "WHAT????" and he replied "I'm out of gas".  I will let him live until he is done mowing.  No guarantees beyond that.

Double Cheeseburgers, Crack and Puppies

Sunday I did yoga.  Les Mills Flow to be exact.  It felt good.  Yesterday I lifted.  In a very different way it also felt good.

Yesterday I ate no refined sugar.  Today I have been dealing with what I believe to be an ugly downward mood swing due to sugar withdrawal.  Or, yaknow, it could be because it sort of sucks to be me right now.  Or a combination of both.  But 48-ish hours in I feel the sugar craving subsiding.  That feels good.

Sugar is the devil you guys.  Seriously.

Today, on my way to work, I sang.  I belted out a really loud and very bad rendition of One and Only.  But it felt...you guessed it.  Good.

In my head I sound EXACTLY like this:

In reality I sound more like this:

After work I took The Puppy for a two mile walk on this lovely 60 degree early April Ohio day.  It felt really, really good.

Sunday I wrote.  It felt good.  Yesterday I didn't write.  It did not feel good.  So today, right now, when I should be focusing on what would be the 11th hour of my work day, I am writing.  The work isn't going anywhere.  There it sits.  Mocking me.

Neener neener neener....you hear it right?

So I just left the work on the kitchen table to mock the empty room, and moved my happy ass and my laptop to my deck to write and watch the sun set.  It feels good.

And you know what?  None of that cost me one red cent.  And none of it will add an ounce to my midsection, raise my cholesterol or my blood pressure or hurt another living soul.

So I have to wonder...why do we eat ice cream, and buy things we don't really need and gossip and fight and do drugs and smoke and drink until we feel like crap the next day when there are good things in the world like Diet Coke, and springtime, and first kisses and naps and puppies?

Can anyone explain this to me?

I read somewhere a theory that poor people are, on average, fatter than wealthy people not because healthy food is so expensive (which it is) but because we are programmed to pursue a certain amount of pleasure in our lives.  Wealthy people can fill their pleasure bucket with things like massages and vacations and fine wine and time to relax and us poor folks can only afford double cheeseburgers and crack.  I have to say I kind of buy that theory, but it doesn't have to be.  Money doesn't buy happiness.  Money buys puppies, and that's the same thing, but I got off track.  Wait they have puppies at the pound so again, my theory is valid.

So do me a favor.  As soon as you're done reading this, shut down the computer, get up and go do something that feels good, doesn't cost anything, and doesn't bring any harm to you or anyone else.  Then leave me a comment and let me know what you did.  I can't wait to hear.

Today's lunch:  Salad.  It was good.

A fish who actually needs a bicycle.

You guys I'm a bad blogger.  I know this.  And yet you keep coming back.  I love you for that.

I've been blocked.  Wait that makes me sound constipated.  I haven't been able to figure out what to write about.  Yaknow, the old fear of oversharing.  I'm not one to just yammer on (stop laughing and let me finish my sentence) about things that mean nothing to me.   But it is not always appropriate to yammer on about the things that do.

You guys have been with me through this whole manhunt dating adventure in more ways than you probably know.  I enjoy filling you in to the extent that I am able without offending anyone or violating restraining orders.  It's a nice outlet for my frustrations. And oy have there been frustrations!  And you have all been kind enough to refrain from calling me a wackadoodle (to my face anyway) even on the days when I am sure I came off as one.  But also I have this running monologue going on in the back of my head.  It sort of evaluates how, if I were to write about the adventure of the day, I would do so.  Maybe this is typical of everyone who is a writer at heart but not always in practice, in the same way that the actress who is waiting tables thinks of each encounter as a potential "scene".  Most experiences are sorted in my head into one of two categories.  Something I can write about or something I can not.  And the "can's" are then sorted into subcategories of 'blogworthy' or 'file it away for the book'.

Cheeyah right, like I could focus for that long.

Where was I?

Oh yeah....I love you guys.

So this whole dating thing is definitely an adventure.  Inside the span of three months I've gone from "I'm never dating again!" to "Let's just take a looksee at who's out there" to "Well it can't hurt to put my profile out there" to "Well I suppose I should probably at least participate and contact someone" to "GodDAMMIT I know there has to be at least one sane, responsible, employed, independent, articulate man within a 50 mile radius".

I've dealt with the weirdos who contact me (and probably every other woman) with such engaging lines as "I make good man for you". I've dealt with the guys who LITERALLY live in their mother's basement.  I've gone out with the nice, sweet, sexy, guy with a job who has no time (so he says, but I'm oh-so-aware of the possibility that he actually just has no desire) to return a text message much less go out on a date.  I've met the guy whose profile picture was taken ten years and 30 pounds ago.   I've spent time with the perfectly nice, respectable, responsible guy with whom I have about as much chemistry as I do with my push mower.  I've passed up the foot fetishists, the guys with the profile pictures that looked like they just rolled out of bed and stumbled to their toothpaste encrusted bathroom mirror to snap a pic.  I've passed up the guys who didn't BOTHER getting out of bed for their picture.

I figure once I've weeded all of that out there are about four guys left.  Two of them are married and one has a boyfriend.  But at this point it's a matter of principal. He's out there and by gosh I'm gonna find him.

I'm either unreasonably optimistic or a little delusional.  Or both.

And lest you think I actually have TIME for this search, throughout the entire adventure I have managed to work The Day Job a bit more than full time, The Night Job not as much as I should, kept The Boy fed, clothed, sheltered and (thus far) un-incarcerated.  I've dealt with the unceremonious and hasty resignation of my assistant, begun the process of interviewing a replacement, visited The Boy's school where I met with the Vice Principal AND a very nice police officer, kept my house just clean enough that the health department remains uninterested, mowed my lawn twice (in MARCH for crap sake), worked out roughly 4 times a week (I'm a bad, bad coach) and still managed to shower and brush my teeth.

So it will not come as a surprise that more than once during this process I stopped and looked in the mirror and asked myself why I am doing this.  Obviously there is very little about my relationship history that would lead a sane person (let's not point out the obvious here, we're better than that) to believe that Happily Ever After is at the end of this line.  Why not just be happy with The Boy and The Jobs and The Dogs and The Friends?  A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle...or something.

But here's the thing....I truly believe, if you boil down the whole 'why am I here?' issue....I think it all comes down to relationships.  The work and the art and the things and the stuff and all of that is ancillary. We are here to connect with other human beings.  And only those who are deeply connected to their higher power (I'm thinking monks here) or those who have been deeply wounded by another human being are able to go long periods happily without that connection.  There have been times when I thought I fit into the latter category...but now we're back to 'unreasonably optimistic or a little delusional'.

I'm tired of feeling that I have somehow failed as a modern woman or as a mother because I want to be in a relationship with a man.  Do I respect the single, working mothers who take care of their homes and go to work and come home and make dinner and get up the next day and do it again and again until they end up living alone in stoic abstinence, looking forward to a future of waiting for their children and grandchildren to visit?  Sure.  I respect them for, presumably, doing what they want to do, and for their independence.  But I don't especially enjoy being alone and I'm not enough of a martyr to insist that I need to continue to do it because I've been hurt.  I don't dislike my own company enough to want to be with the wrong person, but get just bored enough with the sound of my own voice to want to find the right one.

Yet here I sit.  Just me and the dogs.  The boy is with his dad.  It's been a wonderful weekend.  It started with a very nice date with a very nice gentleman who I really do hope to see again.  After that I did some exercising, some cleaning, some working, some playing, some relaxing.  I went to a movie with one of my favorite people, I walked my dogs, and now I'm going to pay my bills (I know...the exciting life of a single woman).

This is, after all, an adventure. Any adventure will be wrought with a certain amount of peril at some point.  But I have hope for a happy ending.

Today's lunch....popcorn.  At the movies.  Yes, I'm a bad bad coach.  Didn't we already cover that?