Arrg

I don't like getting text messages at 1130 from guys who want to 'hang out.' It's like, hmmm, you know sounds good? Ava. Yea, that would really hit the spot. At least try to make reservations. I'm not a drive-thru.

3rd Street Money

This time last year loyal readers will recall I was sporting a kick-y black walking cast, buying dresses like they were truly going out of style, and randomly finding significant sums of cash on the sidewalk. About a month ago, I lost the same amount of cash (25 dollars) somewhere between my office and an appointment and felt it was a karmic return of the same happy windfall for another lucky person. Tonight while walking the dog, I found a ten dollar bill on the same street I found 25 dollars on last year. When things like that happen, I'm still paranoid I'm on 'What Would You Do' but I also feel lucky and I wonder what good fortune awaits. It feels neat. Maybe it will involve Dave who is very cute and kind. I'm pretty sure being attractive and nice is a job requirement if you are a bartender but maybe he lights up just a little more for me. He works at a pub on 3rd Street, the street I keep finding money on and tonight I want that to mean something. I want to think God is keeping me here because of him because it is as cosmically beautiful as continuing to find money on the street that broke my ankle.

I'm doing that thing again. It's sinking in that I have one year left here and I'm returning in my head to a place of anticipation for wonderful surprises. I would have left this summer with some regret for some places I didn't go or see but it still would have largely been a good thing in my mind to leave. I tried to leave but my escape attempts failed. So now I'm feeling like the sitcom girl whose friends all pretend to have plans on her birthday so they can surprise her. I'm over the dejected feeling and teeter-tottering between giddy expectation (oooh this is gonna be GOOD) and fear of crushing disappointment (yep, they did totally make plans on my birthday--fuckers).

So here's to Dave, sidewalk money, writing, career, siblings as roommates and everything else that I hope turns out exponentially better than I could have ever hoped or imagined.

Awesome! There is a SCHOOL for Ninja warriors

Back when I was coming up as a ninja, we didn't have this but it's awesome that thieves were actually chased by ninjas. Rock on, my people.

This dating life aka If you give a Moose a muffin

Something about a security guard often feels the need to ask me out. Much of it I think is demographically driven. The rest might be fueled by my reflexive midwestern ways; eye contact and friendly greetings. Can't get the time of day from cute guys I pine after from time to time with that schtick but politeness to a security guard, that will get a girl asked out. I know I sound snobby and if I don't sound snobby, I feel snobby but let's just talk brass tacks here. If you are a full time security guard and you aren't in college or working a second job after retiring from 20 years at your first one...I don't know. I mean, they have guns and all but still. A cop? Yea, Ava is open to that. A security guard? Just not doing it for me. And these aren't hot security guards. Not even kind of cute. But mostly they have all been really nice guys. My friend Maybe chided me with the 'nice guys finish last' line. That's not true. Nice, CUTE guys are good to go. But if you aren't good looking, you should probably be funny. Or play in a band. Or have an interesting/cool job. Or just be super confident-even if we can't figure out why.

We're so much easier than we're made out to be.

I've decided to take a break from the Black People Networks and other online venues so the stories probably won't be as funny for a while-there probably won't be any stories since I seemed to have packed all of 2010's dating into 12 hours last weekend. The hunt for an acceptable sports bra continues and crazy hair at the gym continues to be the bane of my vanity whilst otherwise looking worked over and drenched. A new gym crush has arrived but I'm trying not to let my boredom allow it to morph into a spastic mini-obsession. If he notices me at all it will be because, as my trainer so delightfully put it last night as struggled to maintain my form during squats, I look like I'm giving birth. If that does it for him then hot damn, I've met my soulmate. Odds are though, he's normal. And attached. Or gay.

Two Princes

The heart wants what the heart wants. I should want a guy who drives into the city on a bustling Saturday afternoon and buys me ice cream, gets Baloo an empty cone, walks with me, thinks I'm funny and beautiful, and thinks I was everything he hoped and more. I should want that. Weird slightly shady departure from the military aside, he was a total sweetheart. And I think we're going to be good friends and told him as much. He's still texting me to wish me a good morning and joking about whether he's welcome to still walk with Baloo and me now that I've written him a "Dear Drew" letter. I know he's attracted to me and there's a part of me that feels it unfair to allow him to pursue friendship when it is clear he wouldn't mind it being more. But his heart wants what it wants and I have been honest with him about my heart and the possibilities for 'us.'

I haven't found the euphemistic language I want to apply to the second prince but suffice it to say this is not a guy who would buy me ice cream but he got far further in his advances because neither of us cared. I think it's doing my head in a bit because these guys were literally hours apart in what is otherwise a pretty barren social landscape. That and it was such a significant deviation from situation normal for Ava. But it is what it is. Part of why yoga is so good for my mind is it reminds me that I can't be anywhere else but the present. That I'm fighting the universe by insisting on hanging out in the past or straining to divine the future. Yoga is honestly a little hard on my back but I love the way I feel about my body and everyone else's body in that space.

In other news I got a random call from my Dad on Sunday who left a message that he was thinking about the way my smile lights up the room. Wow. Sometimes he really throws down the gauntlet for any guy I might seriously consider being with. What a guy.

On friends and phone calls

When I was in college my birthday twin and I briefly flirted with actually being friends instead of metaphysically connected acquaintances. Part of the reason that experiment failed was I could never reach her. I felt always like I was chasing her and there was limited room in her life for me. That is still the case, she rarely picks up when I call and averages 6 months to a year on returning any calls. I'm largely over the tangential orbit I occupy in her life but something passive aggressive rises up in me from time to time. Like her text message yesterday regarding my lack of RSVP for her wedding. Haven't answered it, not sure when I will, not yet sure I am even attending the wedding. This will of course return to me in spades when/if I get married but it's not at all about the RSVP. It's about feeling like I'm carrying what little relationship we have, that I serve at her pleasure. Everyone knows someone that calls them more than they want to talk to them. I bristle if I suspect someone is screening their calls and I don't make the cut. This doesn't bother me with most people, just some and usually only if it become a consistent thing where we can't seem to link up and their attention is usually divided when we talk. Then I get moody and wonder why we are friends if I have to be squeezed in like a walk-in appointment. Then I don't want to talk to them at all. Don't do me any favors.

I'm a little moody today.

Quiet Mind

I'm going to yoga tonight. My mind is so noisy I've kind of lost my appetite. Sometimes something happens that is so ordinary yet so significant it just takes some time to process. And so I'm going to practice the moment, being in it, concentrating on it to the exclusion of everything else. I am going to breathe deeply and exhale obnoxiously. I am going to quiet this monkey mind. And sometime soon maybe I'll try to find the words for the way I want to understand how this girl makes choices. I think everyone experiences a sharp break with the person they normally are at least once in their life. That happened this weekend and while it was something many people don't think twice about, it was different for me and thus kind of unsettling and strange. It's not guilt as much as it feels like I'm considering something I can't define. Or something that seems to fit someone else.

Oh, and it looks like my sister is coming to live with me.

Life bunches up doesn't it?

I'm still gazing down at the first trimester of my would-be pregnancy stomach but after a few weeks working with my trainer, I still feel good. I feel stronger and I'm happy both for the accountability and the lack of thinking I have to do when I show up. I just do what she tells me to do. She even counts for me. I continue to be distressed over my inability to be even presentable at the gym. Something insane is always happening with my hair or my boobs or both. Still I smile broadly and continue to greet hot guys at the gym. I will not listen to my own good advice on this matter.

Seven days and counting left on the blackpeople-r-us site. Still pulling some decent numbers for a 30 day trial but the thrill is gone. It was nice to get some positive male attention but I'm kind of over it. I'm especially over the guy with the foot fetish who has this picture on his profile.



Oh. And this one.



So yea, that guy kind of freaked me out a little. Maybe even a little more than the fun Polish guy with a bat.

In other news, I'm grateful for girlfriends. I have the best time every time I hang out with these two women. You know when you laugh so much that your throat is all phlegm-y? If she is reading this right now, she's objecting to the word phlegm-y for sure. It just makes me smile to think about them. Makes me feel incredibly lucky. We drank awesome margaritas and ate an obscene amount of chips and salsa and I had a ball. Then my soul twin and I headed to the humor section of the Barnes and Noble and laughed like teenagers for an hour. Our favorite? A book of postcards called breaking bad news with baby animals; e.g. a cute baby duck in a flower bed with the caption "It's syphilis." Had us on the floor.

Thanks Mom

For thinking that I'm funny, that I'm smart, that I'm pretty. For even now in my mid 30's, playing with my hair (even though you said it felt soft but looked dry). Thank you picking up the phone when I call even if Judge Judy or a good Lifetime movie is on. Thanks for hanging in there when you were 21 with a newborn and away from home for the first time with a husband who left for work on Monday morning and returned Friday evening. Thanks for eating tuna and pizza crusts so I could enjoy my fill of Simulac and expensive special shoes for my weird baby feet. Thanks for hanging in there when 'just 4 years' became raising your kids overseas, learning how to drive on the other side of the road, and living somewhere you didn't speak the language. You've always been stronger, smarter, and funnier than I think you appreciate.

Vote for Rich

So he's kind of my hero because he's out there writing his plays, blogging, making videos and just making the funny. He's entered a contest and after watching the videos of his competition, he's clearly got the best video of the 3. So read his post, and then visit the contest page and cast your vote. You have until May 10th to vote. Good luck Rich!*


*I hand out endorsements sparingly Rich so you should be honored that all 4 of my readers may see this before the 10th. I know, you're welcome.

Random Letter(s)

Dear Me,

You are NOT allowed to talk to hot guys at the gym. No matter how kick ass and confident you feel following that work out, your hair is completely insane and you should not speak to anyone, nevermind the hot guy. I'm sorry I had to be so hard on you but your hair looked like a muppet tonight and that was not the time to finally have a mini-conversation with the hot guy you've noticed since before you moved here. That is why he did not respond when you said in a friendly non-commital fashion that the two of you should talk more about your former military careers sometime. Either that or that's a really boring thing to talk about. Or he was distracted by the lithe blond he was training who he was literally having leap up and down as an exercise. Either way, keep your head down, brow wiped, and mouth shut. Talk to hot guys, yes. Talk to hot guys at the gym, uh-uh.

Dear Champion,

I was so excited to get your sports bra in the mail today. So glad you make an awesome POWERBACK underwire sports bra. But you're totally fired because it took me 10 minutes to get off and 5 to get on and that was dry, not sweat-slicked and sticky like I would be after a work out. WHY would you make a bra made of elasticized concrete that I have to pull over my head instead of the tried and true hook and spin? Why? This bra made me sad because it's the kind of bra you need a boyfriend to help you get on and off. It's the kind of bra I could not wear in my 70's for fear of passing out while trying to remove it. Why is it so hard to find a decent sports bra? Is it that physics defying? Why does being athletic and endowed mean you have to look lumpy and badly shaped at the gym?

I suspect this will not be my last letter to bra makers.

Another gem

My latest would-be boyfriend:

A little about me...
I live in Miami Beach. Drop the UK part. I welcome anyone and everyone to contact me no matter what your race, ethnicity, age, etc. are. I would love to get to know you much more intimately and share our love for each other while talking sexually explicity on the phone. I am very busy traveling to London and Paris for business. I am interested in the arts and music and like to visit art museums, go to live theater, watch films, and attend opera and symphony performances. I like to exercise and run, swim, walk on the beach, hike in the mountains and play sports. Thanks for all the flirts but I am interested in hearing directly from you. If I view you, that means I am interested in hearing from you. If I view you more than once, that means I really, really, really want to hear from you. So, dont be shy in contacting me. Just relax and have fun with each other in a comfortable environment. Please get in touch with me directly if you want to share our passions while talking erotically on the phone. You can act out and experience your fantasies while talking with me.

This stuff just writes itself. He's only viewed me once so I think I'm safe.

Real Quick

Internets guys,

Get a tripod or a pal to take pictures of you for dating sites. It is SO gay to have 15 pictures of you holding your cellphone in a mirror. Also, background is just as important as foreground. It IS weird if one of your cell phone pictures is in a public restroom with a baby changing station visible over your shoulder. Eww.