From the mouth of babes; 21 going on horny

21: i dont wanna sound perverted or anything but maybe we can just be activity partners.......

Me: I don't know what is perverted about activity partners unless you mean it in a sexual way.

21: Yes i did mean it in a sexual way thats why i said not to be perverted.......

So there I was all concerned about 21's tender young man heart. Glad I clarified what he meant because I would have been inclined to go soft on this guy and agree to be "activity partners" not understanding what his definition was. Probably would have been a little awkward.

While I am writing this, I'm logged on to the site and I just got an instant message from some random guy telling me I'm cute and then asking me if I'm really a ninja. Actually seemed to be earnestly asking me that question like a child asks the mall Santa if he's the real one. I answered 'yep.' He responded, 'could be hot.' Thank you God for sending strange semi-literate men who tickle my funny bone by wanting to tickle much more.

Darn you, gratitude

So more bad news today. I didn't get a job I was really counting on. I called my mom to let her know and she said, "You're such a smart girl and I'm just so proud of you, I know whatever you do, you'll find something good."

A mother's praise is the fuel of champions.

I was just so grateful that she was alive and that I'm close to my parents. I really never considered myself close to them before recently. We really don't go out of our way to spend time together or do family things. I asked what they were doing for Easter and it never once occurred to them that I should drive down and we should celebrate. But we talk several times a week. Later my dad called with my mom in the background on speaker to check on me and tell me he was sorry I didn't get the job and also to caution me against hasty moves in an unstable job market. My mother is always cold and supplements the heat in the rooms she hangs out in with portable radiators. The rooms are insufferably hot and my father can only hang out so long before dehydrated and sweating, he seeks cooler climes. Tonight as he conceded to the room and told me he was leaving, he said my mom had on panda pants with one leg hiked up as a concession to the extreme heat in the room. They were pajamas with a panda print but calling them panda pants...you just had to be there. My dad is hilarious. We talked for an hour about nothing and everything and I realized while most women recognize at some point they are becoming their mother, I am becoming my father. And we both agree it's not a great thing. We talk through it sometimes, on how I'm dealing with being like him. He'll tell me not to be like him like I have a choice and then I tell him all the ways I'm trying to have a more balanced life than his. I'm enjoying this stage of our relationship. And though I'm all set to pout about this latest blow, I can't help but be grateful for them and grateful in general.

Also, it's not just young Indian guys into me now. It's really, really young black men. Like 21. Eek. They were 6 when I graduated from college. They are still tender hearted and all set to get their heart broken for the first time. I feel like someone just handed me a wiggly newborn puppy.

Fresh Air

So it's clear from the last series of posts that I'm going through a thing right now. Life physically hurts right now, like I'm inside out and everything reminds me of something that hurts-shoots straight through me like a psychic soul punch. So I'm hunkering in a bit and seeking perspective, working to acknowledge that I should be so lucky to have the 'problems' I have. While others go to the gym, go for a hike, drink, hook up with someone, sleep..., I found a welcome and surprising respite in a marathon of Extreme Forensics. It was a dose of much needed perspective. I'm navigating a medium to severe depressive episode but no one is tricking themselves into my home and choking me out with a telephone cord. Or bludgeoning me in my sleep and dismembering my body with a circular saw. Even writing it, the clouds part a little. Sure, we are all absolutely going to die but all things considered, I think most of us would prefer to NOT die at the hands of another. So far in what seems to be a largely pathetic experience, there is at least that in the plusses column.

I guess I'm getting worse at appearing normal because a co-worker kindly implored me 'as a friend' to take some vacation. I hadn't even said much more than hello. He was insistent that anything less than 2 weeks would not cut it. But you know, some people are just really bad at taking time off. 2 weeks is terrifying. It's probably worth adding to my things to get better at list but starting out the gate at 2 weeks is probably too lofty a goal.

Anyway...

Now

I read a quotation; "Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100 percent mortality rate." It's terminal, it won't be much longer until I'm gone, and I can do whatever I'd like, courageously fight, gracefully accept; either way, it ends the same. Tonight, I better understand 'now.' Now is all that matters. Now I do not have a significant other. Now I do not like my job. Now is how it ends for me at any given moment. There is no potential, there is no would have. I would not have been a great mother or a wonderful wife. A recognized artist of any ilk. I am everything I am ever going to be right now.

Suicide is often called a permanent solution to a temporary problem but that quotation can probably be attributed to an optimist, someone who doesn't understand now. Someone expecting happiness around every corner, precious metals in every heavy cloud. They always stake their argument for sticking around on uncertain outcomes. They can't assure you that one day you won't feel so low, that you'll have that thing you want from life or find something else. They want you to hold out just in case life doesn't plan to continue shitting on you. That is not a particularly compelling argument especially since it ends the same no matter how you play the hand you're dealt. I want to believe this all matters but it is hard for me to look at my life with any degree of objectivity and feel it is terribly important that I am here. I am just treading water waiting for something to happen. And nothing is happening. At this point, I might gag if something did. It would be too kitschy. I'm certain I would gag.

Yes, I have friends but they have lives that do not revolve around me, nor should they. They have significant others, their own families, I'm grateful to even be a part of those constellations. But it's just a part. My point, however crass, is that people would get over it. They have to. Life demands it. I would not fold my own hand-- primarily because it would hurt my parents immensely and I wouldn't want that for Baloo. Not because she's so into me (she isn't) but because I'm not sure where she would go and the thought of her not being taken care of hurts my heart. So I'm stuck here. And it sucks. And as of now (and then), there is no reason to suspect it will ever be better and platitudes to the contrary are insulting. You don't know if anything good lies ahead but I know for sure what has already happened so hope quietly to yourself for better but please don't ever say it will be better.

Sometime between now and tomorrow, I endeavor to find a well of resolve to make nice with life until it does me in. Hope I'm getting close to fuck everyone and everything. It would be such a relief not to care.

Please just indulge me

I'm in a funk. When I'm in a funk, I want to point out all that is wrong with my life, what I don't have, what I do have that sucks, what other people have that frustrates me for its inexplicability...I just want to be ungrateful. It sounds childish because it is. Do I choose depression? No. I do feel like it kind of descends at times like a thin veil of smoke in a room where you can't figure out if it's smoky or if your eyes are blurry. But once I recognize it's smoke, sometimes I don't bother to ventilate the room, I just sit there and lament the smoke. This is one of those times. And I feel like it's going around. We blame whatever stage of the menstrual cycle we happen to be on (oh, I'm ovulating, oh, I'm PMS'ing, oh, I'm actually on my period, oh I'm post-PMS'ing), but I do wonder sometimes about the mystery of a cluster of women all kind of suspended in this grimy energy. I don't see them on a regular basis, I don't talk to them every day or even every week and then we come together and discover we've all been doing battle with the same demons. It's strange to me.

So the story of my life as it concerns dating is a near pathological ability to be strongly attracted to the kind of people least likely to be attracted to me. I don't know how I do it but I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm very good at it. So good I'd be willing to bet my paycheck on it. It's uncanny, curious, and really frustrating. I truly can not trust my instinct with men. I am blind to their interest when it's there and a total teenager when it isn't, culling clues from innocuous interactions and trying to interpret them like tea leaves. And don't even get me started on how I go out of my way to blend in and not be noticed so I don't even look interesting to the kind of interesting people I want to be around. You know how most people describe me? Nice. You know I'm not nice, readers. I'm agreeable but I'm not really nice. And you know what nice is? SOOO boring. So intimidating. So blah. Nice guys may eventually have a shot with the girls but guys...I don't think they want a nice girl. It's too much pressure. It's why Jake (The Bachelor) chose Vienna. She's a hot mess, he's a hot mess. I didn't even like the other girl. Too perfect, too correct, too nice-no one is that good. I'm sure he felt like he would never be the man she deserved and he wasn't really himself with her.

I had a guy like that. Felt that with me, he was the man he wanted to be instead of the man he was. Not sure who he thought I was but he saw me as that kind of perfect (I know, right?). It's an emotional perpetual motion machine; I'm attracted to guys who aren't attracted to me which reinforces that I'm not attractive to anyone (but homeless men, old black men, and black men of any age on age-inappropriate bicycles), which impacts my self-esteem, which discourages me from marketing or packaging myself like something of worth. I feel rejection in the air. I feel like I'm nowhere anyone (of the opposite sex) appreciates me. I'm tired of writing guys who don't write me back. I'm tired of boys in the their mid-20's hitting me up on dating sites. I'm not Mrs. Robinson, I won't be your cougar experience, paying for our dates and the only one of us with the trappings of adulthood. They're not even mature 20-somethings. They can't spell, they can't write, they have nothing to say but 'sup or hello, or hey there. My dating life has always been a fucking famine. I'm tired of trying. Hope is so exhausting. I've spent the better part of the last two weeks on my knees, just trying to scratch by in terrible pain from my back, shivering on the couch when my body all-out revolted from the pain and meds and the stress. I thought, this is 35, what will this look like at 50? 60? How long do I even want to live if I'm going to be alone?

God, truly and seriously, why am I alone and will it always be this way?

The Fixer

As long as I can remember, I've been a fixer. The core thing I like about almost any task is in relating it to how it helps people. I don't really jump to do, I jump to help others do. And for whatever in me that satisfies, it's good for society too. I've been wondering lately though if there is something behind that desire worth examining. I believe for the most part that most of our actions and reactions revolve around retaining what we have or gaining something we want. So what am I protecting and what am I gaining?

These things I know

A black man on a bicycle will tell me I am pretty. I don't know what it is but a man who does not appear to be holding a lot of winning cards is so often willing to try to ask out a girl on the street. I literally walked past a guy last week who just looked at me and said, 'can I get your number?' Not 'Hello, Good Morning, Nice weather we're having..' Just straight to the point. I can't remember if I resurrected the fake boyfriend of just said no but I love it.

No one looks cool mouthing along the words to whatever they are listening to on their iPod. No one.

I may be afraid of my own power and I may be afraid of learning what my limitations are by exercising power.

My favorite pick up line will probably always be, 'Is your dog friendly? (Yes) Are you?' My girlfriend likes, 'Is he treating you right?' because it kills two birds with one stone; are you single and if you aren't, are you happy?

I should probably stop talking to the television about how stupid its commercials are. I don't have to watch.

I should probably look around before deciding to have a conversation with myself in the park at night to be sure I am alone. The homeless man didn't seem to be bothered by my soliloquy but I probably would not have grunted so loud and would have used my library voice to narrate how arduous it was to pick up Baloo's poop with my trick back.

And you definitely should speak of cupping as Chinese cupping massage and even then you need to rush to explain what it is to (especially) guys before their eyebrows arch. Or maybe you shouldn't talk about it at all at work. That would probably work too.

Cupping

Sounds lewd and lascivious, right? But I had a therapist try that on me yesterday and while the jury is out on how effective it is, I've never felt that way during a massage before. I have a couple of perfectly round hickeys on my back and was absolutely dead tired yesterday. But I also went to bed late so not sure I can give cupping credit for that. So cupping, for those not in the know like I was about 30 seconds before she started placing them on my back, is something Ava should NOT have asked every guy she saw today if they have tried. It means something completely different than what I was talking about to most guys and the looks I got today were nothing short of priceless. Even more priceless that I really didn't get what I was asking until the end of the day when I asked Maybe what it meant to him.

There was an old lady...

Today's weather is amazing. It is sunny, it is just the right amount of breezy, it's not so hot that I can't wear jeans and a tank top, it's pretty fantastic. Know what I'm doing? I'm sitting inside with a blanket on my shoulders and an ice pack on my lower back. I spent the morning getting to a point of reduced pain and enough mobility to allow me to take my dog for a walk. Being like this makes me feel old and vulnerable. It also makes me miss my chiropractor in Virginia.

Naturally, I joined a gym today. Nothing makes a person who has trouble working through the mechanics of using the restroom and getting out bed feel better than throwing away their money. And for free I get a fitness assessment where a tiny spandex-clad blond named Ashley measures and weighs me and talks about my fitness goals. I don't understand why gym people do this. If I don't ask you for your recommendations, why do you insist on providing them? And why through the portal of a person I'm most likely to have a visceral reaction against? Does my chubby black ass want to have a conversation with Ashley about my fitness goals? No, I want to sit on Ashley. That's what I want to do. Sit on her while eating something outside the meal plan she is likely to recommend. I don't want to talk to Ashley about what I do eat or what I should eat. I just want to fucking go to the gym. Christ almighty, it makes me want to eat a sleeve of girl scout cookies. In front of them.

So my plans for the day are kind of shot. I want to sit in the park with my dog and read a book but sitting is an issue and getting up is an even bigger one. I had my lunch and some Motrin so I may put on some sweats and go to my new gym, which is literally 2 steps from my front door. Seriously. Two steps and my hand is on their doorknob. Before they can discourage me with their talk of "clean eating" and supplement recommendations, I can at least exercise on my own terms. I have a feeling my conversation with Ashley will provide plenty of blog fodder so I look forward to it for that reason alone. I'm paying the money here so I don't have to put up with stuff I don't like. I don't have weight loss goals, size goals, clothing goals (other than staying in the ones I have). I just want to be stronger. I want the gym to support my lifestyle, not become my lifestyle. I want stronger abs not because I want to display them to the world (which is tacky to me) but because it will help stabilize my back. I want a stronger back because I don't want to have to get low to pick up dog poop and I don't want a trip to the bathroom to be so involved and potentially catastrophic. I want stronger thighs and calves to support my genetically bad knees and clearly malicious ankles.

In pictures from college and my 20's when I was in the gym 5-6 days a week, I looked great but I didn't appreciate that body at all. That body was bangin for real and I didn't do it justice and was never satisfied with it. Knowing that about myself, it's important for me to approach fitness pragmatically. Will there be less of me to love as I work to get strong to support my weak areas? Absolutely. But if I approach with goals focused on dress sizes, smaller this or bigger that, I will be unhappy no matter what I do and I will get frustrated and quit. So wish me luck with Ashley or better, wish her luck because I'm going to make it clear that I'm not interested in having the kind of discussion with her that she has with everyone else. I'm not going to talk about what I eat for breakfast, how I take my coffee. I'm not going to purchase her supplements or approach working out like I'm a professional athlete obsessed about "performance" and "recovery" and other nonsense. I'm a 35 year old woman who wants to feel good and wants her body to run like a dependable car. I don't need to pour all my energy and time into being able to smoke anyone at stop lights. I just need it to take me where I want to go without breaking down.

Just for laughs-Mitch Hedberg

Mitch Hedberg "Just For Laughs" - watch more funny videos

I'm out

I'd like to think I'm a long suffering person, a steady co-worker and friend, the kind of person who is in it for the long haul. But you know what? I'm not sure I'm that person. Today might have been the day. The day I mentally packed up and quietly left this job. I've tossed and turned, wondered if I would have a career, what I should do, how competitive I would be with everyone with their advanced degrees, and then settled down, collected my paycheck and lived to grouse and grumble another day. But in today's theater of absurdity and insult, I felt something give way and now I'm exploring options. I've already shot off my first e-mail inquiring about jobs. It feels good but one thing troubles me. I'm concerned I might be running away. Because I think that might be what I do. Not running away afraid, turning away and rejecting. I did that with my first job. I knew within a year I wouldn't be there for 20 but I kicked in for 3 more years just to be sure, looking for a way I could contribute in a way that interested me. I had all sorts of complaints and concerns along the way but when I wasn't accepted for a program I should have been picked up for, that was it. Peace out, kiss my ass. When I interviewed for the job I have now, they asked me how I would feel if I wasn't selected and I told them I would be fine because if they had any doubt about whether it was going to be a good fit, I hoped they wouldn't hire me. And here I am almost 7 years later and I think today might have been the day that I stopped wondering whether I would stay and started planning how I would go. I'd like to think I'm courageously pulling up root to make my way to where I belong but I might just be jumping at the empty promise of greener pastures.

Trading the crazy trophy

Do you ever feel like you are trading the crazy trophy with your girlfriends? Like each of you gets a turn to completely break down, make sweeping negative generalizations about themselves, the world, men, and the other gets to be rational and calm?

Vignettes

Ringtones and old people

For comedic purposes, old people will be everyone over 50. When I'm sitting in a meeting and an adult white male cleanly in the yearly colonoscopy category has "Apologize" by Timbaland as his ringtone, I laugh, I cringe, I philosophize on the universal nature of music. But mostly I laugh. It just cracks me up. What you want to hear in the car and what you want to have ringing during a meeting are usually different. Not as funny as an old white guy with hip hop ringtones but probably just as potentially embarrassing was a David Guetta/Akon's "Sexy Bitch" as the ringtone a peer had which, of course went off during a meeting. Club music during the staff meeting with lyrics? Yeah! Let's do this thing!

Ava's unfortunate event

Because it makes me feel better about my overall stability, I'm going to blame a new medication I started taking last week for the strange and slightly worrisome affect and thoughts that crowded my brain for a few days. I had next to no interest in seeing how the story ended and thought it might be a good time to end it on my own. Not in a tearful terribly emotional way, just kind of matter-of-fact. Like one considers discarding a worn out pair of underwear-it's just time. I'm no stranger to introspection and depression but this was different in a way that had me feeling quite outside myself and curious about how much further I could continue without being tempted to just do it. I felt my parents would be disappointed but didn't even consider my friends-it was really weird. I talked to my wake-up buddy Sunday morning and she was horrified and requested I stop taking the new stuff immediately. There's some kind of warning about suicide risk or something on the medication but I really didn't take it seriously, after all, it's allergy medication. I really can't imagine taking my own life so a part of me wants to experiment, somehow do a double-blind study to see if it really did have me thinking crazy or if I'm more suggestible than I'd like to admit.

Ava and the meaning of life

I'd like to be able to have a shitty day at work without carrying it home with me and using it as a reason to retreat into a place where I'm only stockpiling my dread for the next day instead of blowing off some steam, exercising or accomplishing something real in my life outside of work. I get paid pretty well to be unhappy sometimes. A smart version of me would have more fun with it.

Ava doesn't get it when you talk around having a crush on her

A friend I've mentioned before who makes me feel like the most optimistic, well-adjusted person in any room we share came over the other night. I'm not sure, but I think he likes me. And he might have been trying to tell me but I really have a blind spot for stuff like that. Until after. Then I wonder how in the world could I miss all the signs. If he made me close my eyes and then rubbed my cheek with a scarf he bought me, does that mean he likes me? If he joked about how my hips were killing him too when I complained about my hip actually hurting, does that mean he likes me? When he blurted out that I would be a wonderful mother (seriously were not talking about anything remotely related to kids), did that mean he likes me? When he talked about not being able to figure out what to do about a girl he knew here, was that me? Well friend, I don't know. But I do know if a guy likes me, he has to actually make a move or I am not going to know what is going on.

Advice on giving advice

Maybe called yesterday. He and the girlfriend are having the big moving in discussion. He's a bit freaked out about losing the sanctuary of his home to her to the point he wants to designate a room just for him. That's not terribly unusual and some might even say it's healthy. The issue is after considering all 4 bedrooms, two stories, rambling basement, and deck, he chose the master bedroom. He wanted her to move into her own bedroom. I know. W.T.F.

After a couple of hours of talking this through, I advised him to propose they both move into one of the other bedrooms and make it 'their' space. The master suite would still be his retreat (on this point he would not budge) but he would not sleep there so it would cease to be a bedroom in the inflammatory sense it had become when he didn't want her moving in it. He liked the idea so we'll have to see what she thinks. I'm sure anyone reading this is thinking, if you aren't ready to share the bedroom, should you even be living together but this is Maybe we're talking about. He thrives on being unconventional and does wonder why this girl wants to date him sometimes. I wonder too. That would be a deal breaker for me. We might end up in separate bedrooms when we're 90 but to start there-just not something I think I'd be into. So what do you think? What advice would you have given?

The Surly Barista

I've been waking up early for about 3 months now and seem to have less time than I ever did. The first few weeks were a revelation and I imagined what wonderful things would fill these found hours, how much more together my life would be, how much more space I was creating for creating, writing, exercise, grooming. I don't know what homey adage is most appropriate now; the one about leading horses to water or any of the ones about people never really changing. Either way, today I'm seeking contentment in my current space since it is the only one I can actually do anything about.

In other news, I'm starting to consider not continuing my education in psychology. Right now I consider myself strange in mostly quirky ways with relatable flaws. Every single person I've met with a PhD is really strange and gloriously flawed. I met a forensic psychologist last Friday night. Really smart, closing in on 40, married and kept wanting his friend to have us all over to his friend's place to smoke. Wife (who wasn't there) is also a psychologist who works for Department of Justice and not a big fan of the pot smoking on account of the zero-tolerance policy of her employer. We kept telling him that neither of us (I was with a girlfriend) had any interest in smoking anything at all. Had a burn on his neck from his bong. Naturally, we hit it off. And we really did. I've often joked about my uncanny ability to find the least available man in any room but it's true, I really can and do find these men. The other guy in the group was someone I talked to for hours a year and a half ago. We ended up sitting down with them because he recognized me from our chat the day before Thanksgiving, 2008. He also has a girlfriend that he's been with so long, they would common-law married in most other states. We played pool with them, talked about our families, relationships, the psychologist's belief that he might be mildly autistic...it was quite a night. But the moral of the story is Ava should not get an advanced degree in psychology and Ava seriously needs to figure out how to spend her Friday nights with single men.

And the same day I realized I got a scheduled raise, my big boss waxed eloquent about how great I was doing but (isn't there always a fucking but) I really needed to do more of this work or that work. Kind of made me think, yea, whatever asshole. Looks like they'll keep paying me no matter what so kiss my ass. He's one of those guys who likes to see 'pace' even if you are treading water and I refuse to waste my time appearing responsive. I told him I understood what needed to be done and like everything else I've accomplished to date, eventually my efforts will yield results. He asked me what folks in Washington might think when looking at our metrics about individual officers and I told him folks in Washington don't have that kind of time and the volume of information coming across the desk on any given day doesn't lend itself to wondering what Ava is up to. What I wished I had mentioned was at the end of the day, no one cares about anything but results. They don't care if I went to 50 meetings or 5. I worked really hard at it so I do hope he read the 'kiss my ass' subtext loud and clear. I need more than anything for him to leave me the fuck alone. He had the gall to try to mooch credit for one of my projects. Something he hasn't done anything to support or guide. Some people...

New Strange Phenomenon(s)

Young Indian men are sweating yours truly on this stupid dating site. They initiate conversations, instant message me...I seriously don't get it. And they are 24-25 years old. What the hell?