In consideration of the fake boyfriend

Dear Fake Boyfriend,

I don't know why it took me over 30 years to meet you but now that you are here giving me a graceful excuse to refuse the movie and dinner invitations from men older than my father, I'm not sure how I got along without you. My imagination loves fleshing you out to strangers, pretending that you live out of town or that you are ambivalent about dogs which is why I'm always walking alone. Today I hinted you might be making me an honest woman any day now and that we were really happy together. You are so much fun, thanks getting me out of jam once again.

Ava

How in the heck will I wash my neck

Man oh man. I just had an awesome experience. It was so much fun and so amazing I'm still smiling about it. I had been upstairs having a little happy hour with some girlfriends who were getting warmed up for a night of dancing. When we left, it was raining so I ran to my place to get an umbrella for them to use since I wasn't going out with them and didn't care if I got wet. When I went back for the umbrella, I decided to grab the dog so she could catch a little potty break. The girlfriends decided to go out another way where they would get less wet and the dog and I walked out the door into the rain which was a little heavier than I expected but wasn't too bad. What I didn't realize was the balcony above was shielding me from the biblical part of the rain.

Wow.

I was solid soaked, gasping for air between the wind and shock of the cold rain before I could even get through the gate of the complex. The dog was nothing short of hilarious. It was the very first time ever, EVER, that she turned back toward the house and absolutely wanted no parts of being outside. We've been caught in pretty intense storms and walked in torrential downpours, totally epic, the stuff of stories. She's actually been out during a hurricane and she wanted no parts of this downpour. When we got inside, I had to strip at the door. I was soaked through to my underwear in less than a minute. Awesome I tell you. I could not stop laughing. When we got inside, I took these pictures of my pissed off little dog. The camera phone did not do her killer glare justice in the second pic (one on the right). I think she's convinced that I'm insane.

Blech

Yep, I was right. The act of observing something does change it. If I were all alone in the space I would again lament whatever it is inside me that wants/needs an invitation to participate in life. It's coming up on a year here and I've been thinking that I need to mix it up a bit. I got a link from an aquaintance which sent me to a site about the dangers of cameras and sex and I thought, 'yea, I need to branch out.' Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows a website will not be the revelation or warning I need to realize that hooking up with random men and allowing them to tape us having sex is not a good idea. This year reminds me of the 8th grade. In the 7th grade, I thought sleeping together literally meant two people sleeping. In the 8th grade, in a class of 20 kids, people were having sex and pregnancy scares. I couldn't believe any of us were having sex and as an adult, thinking about that time, I'm even more horrified but that's neither here nor there. The point is, this last year, I got to meet a lot of people who have made this my 8th grade. I've never gone out with a bunch of girls who literally swivel around to check out guys and make bedroom preferences common knowledge among the group. I've never met real women who are so active yet so recognizably miserable in the same way about their unrequited search for whatever it is we are all looking for. I don't get any ribbons for sitting in my underwear on a Friday night typing about being lonely but they don't get any ribbons for being hyper-sexual as a saccharine substitute for the real sweetness we both crave.

What kicked this off (I think) or at least kicked me over the edge was walking past a gallery tonight while walking the dog and seeing a bunch of people mingling and talking. A group of black people. I was so excited to see so many in one place in this part of the city and I actually wondered where they all were going when they left. I'm outside all the time and never see any of these people. I told myself I should go back after our walk but I knew I wouldn't go back. It wasn't that it was far away, I was just nervous that nothing good would happen. I knew I would be nervous, I would be warm and probably sweat a lot but it's likely it would go unnoticed. I'm nervous a lot so I think I'm pretty good now at not appearing nervous or terrified of people. We all pick some facet of our personality to put out front and we are never as simple as those fronts suggest we are. Truth is though, I usually can't wait for most social interactions to be over. But like a good workout, it makes me stronger and I'm always glad I did it. I'll either meet someone nice or meet someone really weird and either way it's completely worth it.

But I chose underwear on couch, lonely sad girl instead. I AM sleepy, maybe it was just a better night to go to bed early.

Open Letters

Dear Route 48 bus,

Would it kill you to be even slightly more consistent with the schedule? Last week three Route 57 buses, two Route 5, and two Route 17 buses came and went before you arrived. I could have walked the few blocks to work several times over but it was hot 48. It was real hot. And I just wanted to arrive at work fresh, without sweat pooling at the small of my back and brimming on my upper lip. I just wanted a nice, cool, quick ride to work. It's not like you take me places for free. I'm totally going to hook you up with my token. Sometimes you're there as I round the corner, stopped at the light like you are waiting just for me. I love those mornings. I consider it a miracle that everything in my morning could have come together to find you at the corner as I arrive, especially since your actual schedule is a complete mystery. But that day 48, you just wouldn't come. You left me outside in the hot sun with a stout talkative blond woman who volunteered that she was going through menopause. She had a book with her but she didn't crack it open to pass the time in silence. She instead kept stepping out into the middle of the street and providing me breaking news on the non-48 vehicles approaching us. I was baking in my clothes, rivulets of sweat running down my back, black pants heating my ass. It was a delight 48. But seriously, plus or minus 2-5 minutes from the published schedule would be a staggering improvement. It would mean so much to me.

Ava

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Dear creepy Italian guy at the panini place,

I love the chicken sandwiches you guys make there. Wanna know why I haven't brought any of my friends and don't come around that often? You're freaking creepy. You stand outside the door like a bouncer at a bar and hover over the people eating outside like they are furniture shopping. Relax. No one wants you to be part of their meal. We just want to eat. There are 10 tables in this place; 5 when the weather is bad. No one is suffering from lack of service or attention. We are not guests at your house. Please go in the back and balance the books or something. Seriously.

Ava

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Dear whiny-ass guy at work,

Shut the fuck up. I had a dream last night that I arm-barred you across the neck and then left you handcuffed in the middle of our office floor. It was an awesome dream. I'm tired of your failure to accept responsibility for circumstances of your own invention. I'm tired of hearing your negativity. I'm tired of hearing you talk about everyone else when you haven't done shit. I'm tired of you deflecting attention from your own lack of performance by talking about others. I'm tired of hearing anecdotal accounts of former awesomeness and all the kick-ass stuff you plan to do. You can't back that up my friend and 99.99999% of people who tell stories like that about themselves are full of poo. Real kick-ass people are too busy kicking ass to tell stories about it. I'm tired of you telling me you want to help me with things like taking out the recycling. Don't tell me what you want to do bitch. Just do it. And it's not my job. You aren't helping me, you're just taking out the trash.

If you're wondering where this is coming from, you were irritating from Day 1. But because I was probably irritating when I first arrived, I willfully suspended judgement. When I started, I didn't know which end was up and asked a lot of questions and took a lot of other's time. I wanted to pay that kindness and understanding forward. I still kind of do, even though you are turning out to be a total douche. I think it might help with my black heart that longs for you to fail. It's going to get better because I'm going to be better about handling you. I'm going to start carrying my cuffs though, just in case I dream the future now. It would so be worth it to put a knee in your back and tweak that wrist to cuff you. You'd be my only mark on an otherwise pristine record. I might even get some time off and some free counseling. I probably need to stop mentally rehearsing how to quickly and safely take you down to cuff you.

Seriously man, please don't force me to tell you about yourself. If I have to make that much of an emotional investment in you, I will be off in your ass with both feet. Oh, and friend, know your audience. I know a lot of people. If you're going to talk about me behind my back like a 15 year old girl, you should probably figure out if I know any of those people. Chances are, if they do, they totally love me and not only will they now not like you, they are going to tell me. We're all too old for crap like that. Grow the fuck up.

Ava

A long December

So I'm talking with a friend, a guy who I haven't known long but is always some kind of depressed about something. So much so that I feel like the lighthearted, carefree, and confident person in the relationship and I'm not usually that person. It kind of annoys me because he reminds me of me in a way(s) I'm not yet able to articulate. I also think he might be gay, not that there's anything wrong with that. I've just been the lady confidant for enough gay men warming up to accepting their sexuality and telling people. I'm kind of over it. Either way, something else is going on here and I'm a big enough person (and apparently a modest enough one too) to admit it might just be with me.

He asked me today when my last serious relationship was. His question kind of came out of nowhere and exercising the gay hypothesis, maybe he was trying to determine if my general obliviousness as it concerned men was evidence of my lack of interest in them. Answering the question surfaced 2 things; one, I tell the story of this guy like a guilty person describes a murder, very little emotion or inflection, kind of clinical. I'm not even sure it should count as a serious relationship but I don't know the governing body who validates the scale of relationships so until I get a letter or phone call telling me I can't count him, he's the story I'm going to trot out. The second thing that came out of answering that question is that it has been a LONG, LONG, time since Ava has participated in anything resembling a relationship. If it were an alumni group, we would be ramping up for our first reunion. Reunions usually don't start before 10 years. It's pretty bad.

I'm not sure how much of this is my own rain to make and how much of it you can't possibly contrive. I'd like to think that God's ability to connect me to someone I'm meant to spend my life with isn't limited by my choices but perhaps He's not really consumed with my relationship status. It's possible He's got bigger things going on. Before I moved here, a dear friend of mine told me she had a dream that I would meet my husband here and that she saw him in her dream wearing a brown sweater. When I first arrived here, I would literally consider men like a quality assurance inspector and if they weren't wearing a brown sweater, I just stopped looking at them. I did this reflexively, revealing I might be more susceptible to suggestion than I previously considered. Separately, her mother told her she had a very strong feeling that I would meet my husband that fall or in the fall. So I spent my first fall here scanning for brown sweaters and annoyed every single time I caught myself sorting guys into brown sweater-no brown sweater bins. By the way, brown sweaters aren't really that popular with guys and I'm honestly okay with that. I told my friend her suggestive psychic manipulation was really messing up my head. She insisted that in Spanish, "brown sweater" means pulse, personality, and penis. That widened the field considerably but so far only Batman and one initially promising lead that weirded me out quickly with his authorship of chick lit. Seeing the other side of dating through the girlfriends I have here (stories that truly deserve their own post) though leaves me content to remain receptive but not aggressive.

Summertime blues

I miss my old blog sometimes. I love having company but it ouches a little to discover a couple people have un-followed my blog.

Whatever haters.

I keed, I keed. At least two people seriously left though.

The summer has come and gone even faster than the one before. This time last year, I was already sleeping on an air mattress and frantically trying to get ready to move here. I was blogging about my pitiful attempt to throw a party and validation of my previous suspicion that having a party by Ava, even when you are literally letting people rummage through your property and take food, wine, and extra bookcases, does not pull a big crowd. Exactly four people were there and two of them were my mom and her friend. And they had not come for the party.

In a little over a week, I will have been here a year. My best friend's kids will turn 1 before the end of the year and I've never met them. I need to get my rear in gear, someone is holding the fast forward button on my life.

Karma

I'm pretty sure I've addressed my theory on poo karma at some point in this highly intellectual blog. But for those who are new or simply have not committed my blog posts to memory (please work on that), poo karma is my theory that those who do not pick up their poop are destined to step in it. Because I have a persnickety dog, who won't go just anywhere, I am daily walking through the mine fields of grass and in all our years of walking, at least twice a day, everyday for 7 years, have rarely ruined a shoe. Yay for me but hardly the point.

I got a lovely card from my former neighbor and sometimes friend for my birthday that said we were indeed blessed to have stumbled upon eachother and then referred to karma, letting me know she was not referring to the poo kind. Which made me think perhaps it was karma. The reason I call her my former neighbor and sometimes friend is that she will completely dip out for months at a time. She won't return phone calls, respond to e-mails or text messages. You'll be dead to her. It hurts my feelings and kind of pisses me off. She used to do this when I still lived there too but because we could literally see eachother come and go if we were so inclined, the freeze outs would not last any longer than 3-4 weeks. The irony is that I've lived around her and had a chance to know her in person longer than any other friend I've had in my entire life. And she's done some tremendous things for me. But there's just something in her that is always avoiding me getting to know who she actually is.

Which brings me back to karma. Her card got me thinking about where I fit in the constellation of my friend's other friends. She's my bad friend; the one whose actions are not always congruent with how they say they feel about me. To gush about how much you miss me and how sad you are that I'm gone but still manage to average 3 months to return a phone call does not compute for me. Perhaps in the same way I can miss my best friend and honestly desire to see her and meet her children but have not yet done it. So perhaps it is karma, getting back some of the stuff others have put with from me. Either way, her card provoked me to consider how her friendship makes me feel sometimes and how I might be more sensitive to how I communicate with both my actions and words about how important my friends are are to me.