i'm secretly upset when celebs i adore get married.

I have for a while been an admirer of Brandy’s The Secret Project (and all things Brandy, if we’re being honest, because who else can make me feel in good company with my love of overindulging and Meg Ryan?). I have, to tell the truth, so many times intended to send Brandy a secret of my very own. But then I’d get to reading it and think OH GOD. SOMEBODY SENT IN MY SECRET FOR ME. HOLY MACKEREL. And then I realize that really, whew!, it wasn’t exactly my own secret. It was someone else’s. And OMG I AM NOT ALONE.

And it’s awesome. Truly awesome, I tell you.

Then reading yesterday got me thinking. I have some secrets I wouldn’t mind owning up to. Some secrets some people might get. Some secrets some people might judge, but who says there’s something wrong with weeding out the judgy folk?

1. I made my high school’s versity tennis team in 7th grade. But in the 6 years I lettered I was never the best. I was a pretty good figure skater but I never could beat my best friend in competition. I swam on the swim team but I was never what you’d call fast. I made all the magnet programs but I was never the smartest. I’ve let the feeling that I’ve never been and I’ll never be good enough hold me back my entire life.

2. Some days, like this past Friday, I’m pretty sure that I know who I’ll end up spending the rest of my life with. The kicker is that I’m going to have to be the one making the grand gesture. And part of that means laying off the tequila and the vodka and the curse words.

3. I really really really like Bojangles chicken supreme combos. Like, really. It’s my feel good (get fat) meal. And I eat it and dispose of it in private.

4. Writing number 3 actually made me feel good. Like, regular m&ms and a Diet Dr. Pepper good.

5. I am worried that my mother won’t be here next year. Or the year after that. And I’m worried that I don’t show her enough love and respect while she is.

6. I hide from people I know in public. They could be a good friend, a high school enemy, or a stranger I know and think doesn’t know me. No matter who, I hide. And go out of my way to avoid being seen.

7. There’s a part of me that has never touched drugs just so that I can try and be half the person my father is.

8. I think THE ENTIRE WORLD is talking about me behind my back. And no, nobody is an exception. I prefer to refer to it as social hypochondria.

9. Sometimes I pretend I really don’t like Britney Spears. (But I sort of do.) Sometimes I take what the roommate says about the shows I watch on tv being stupid and simple minded to heart. (But oh how I LOVE Two and a Half Men.) Sometimes I’m embarassed by the fact that I was an English major but I count every book by Sophie Kinsella in my top 50 list. (And many more chick lit publications.)

10. I hate talking politics because I fear that if I’m not well enough versed in a subject such as health care (but fully educated on immigration reform and abortion rights and gun control) someone will take what I say with a grain of salt and the field I work in with less than that.

25 keys to happy-ness right this minute.

1. Anthropologie. And J.Crew. Obvy.
2. Comfortable and unscuffed black stiletto heels.
3. A John Mayer croon, an unsuspected Counting Crows song playing from a jukebox, Jack Johnson appearances on Pandora or XM, Johnny Cash on a stranger’s ipod, an oldie but goodie country song taking me right back to 10^th grade.
4. A funny and accusing email from Mere that really cracks me up. Because it totally calls me out.
5. Breakfast with the daddy-o that I have been trying to schedule for, oh, a month.
6. Handwritten cards that pretty much say the world.
7. Knowing someone cares enough to say it.
8. Bunko. Or – er – drunko.
9. “Catatonic, in the closet, supersonic, gin & tonic.”
10. BRITNEY. “Confidence is a must, cockiness is a plus, edginess is a rush, edges I like em rough.”
11. Boy bff tripping it through Columbia and coming TO SEE ME! And middle of the night emails from him when he can’t sleep that for serious CRACK ME UP.
12. Twilight dvd previews. SHUT IT. And pretty much anything and everything Robert Pattinson. That’s the feeling that happens when you’re oh so committed.
13. The prospect of a goal. A personal goal. Or two or three.
14. Clemson. Clemson people. Clemson football. Clemson everything. I just can’t help it.
15. Spring. I. HAVE. SPRING. FEVER.
16. Being booked every weekend. I like it. Sure enough.
17. Going home and crawling into bed just because I can.
18. “Man man man man manly man man…” Episodes of Two and a Half Men.
19. A really really GREAT book.
20. Ordering the roommate something online just because it makes me laugh.
21. A well planned out run. For tomorrow.
22. Making plans to attend my next book club.
23. A new dress that fits just right. And an old one that still does.
24. Dreaming about a weekend at the lake that’s just a week away.
25. Not thinking about what others are thinking about you.

the ships.

“I’m not going to change my life just because of someone else’s interpretation of it; they must not know me.” justin timberlake.

When I was a senior in college my best friend Lauren and I got into it. Now, while we can at this point kind of recount the specifics of the fight (seriously, we tried about a month ago), the truth of the matter is it was inconsequential. That our argument was based on our lack of communication. That our friendship returned to her 2 am phone calls waking me out of my sleep to meet her to discuss this crazy guy she was seeing or that crazy friend of ours. That we got back to that and that as different as we were, our friendship has had a certain thickness ever since.

One of my best friends from high school and I at some point during 11th or 12th grade began to drift apart. She worked after school, I played tennis. She went out on the weekends with the people from our high school, I went out with my best girl friends from high schools closer in town. The  summer before our freshman year in college we stood in the basement room of a house in Spartanburg mixing drinks amongst all the friends we’d met over the past couple of months. We’d been drinking, yes, when she looked at me and said, “No matter where we are now, Kristin, we were best friends once and we will always be friends.” It’s amazing that since that day our friendship has only gotten stronger. That she is one of my very best friends today. That I was in her wedding, that she named her baby Blakely after me, that I love her with all my heart.

Last night I met up with a friend of mine whom I have known for around 10 years. We had dinner and some wine while out on my parent’s side of town. As we sat there catching up, she told of her weekly Monday night sushi and Wednesday night bowling followed by midnight karaoke. We are different, she and I. She’s out of school but still working at the same restaurant she’s been working at for years. Going out every night, sleeping in every day. She’s different and I love her. She makes me laugh. She doesn’t judge. And a month can go by (or two or three) and there are no nagging phone calls asking where the other of us has been. There’s just an “I miss you!” or a “When can I see you!?” And I really really love that. Effortless.

I was thinking about this and how there are people we are close to in our lives that are so very different than who we are. But with whom, it works. The friendship works. The conversation works. Everything works. And then there are the people you meet that are just like you. So much like you that you tend to, sometimes, go nowhere with. You’re both stubborn or you’re both sensitive or – damn it! – you’re both angry. And how do you fix that?

I have been consciously, over the last week, trying to make an effort to be the best person that I can be. Not to be angry anymore. Because I am better than the person I have lately been. When my mom said “kill with kindness” I scoffed. SCOFFED. I mean, but why? Because I was beaten? Because I was pessimistic?

The sad truth is that I did not used to be pessimistic. Me! Of the hope for the grand! gesture! Pessimistic?? I think not. I used to be filled with hope. I used to, instead, scoff at the people who believe that romantic comedies fill our minds with false hopes. False? What? No way. I used to believe it was real. That really and truly some Mr. Wonderful I’d had my eyes on for so long would sing “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Baby” to me while bounding down the bleachers. And when I’d ask him, daintily, “Why me?” he’d tell me I was the first person he thought of in the morning and the last person he thought of at night. And when he’d tell me he was sorry for me having to wait for him to come along I’d just say to him, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” (Yes, I am ridiculously cheesy.)

Point is, I BELIEVED. In people. In love. In relationships and friendships.

I have to wonder now what it takes to make a friendship last. And if anything ever does.

Do people really do spiteful things just because? Do they cut you out just to see? Do they do things just to be hurtful and mean when they used to be the person that meant the most to you?

In my whole life I think I have always searched for that one! best! friend! You know, the person you’re linked to through everything. And while I do have many a best friend, I am curious if that one can even exist. And IF, you know, that doesn’t exist for friendships, can it really exist for relationships?

On the phone tonight with one of my good friends P, I listened to him bemoan his latest failed relationship and wonder aloud if they could be friends after this, if they could get back together (when he has been saying for months that the end was in sight), and if it is as easy as being cut and dry. I said to him what I thought to be my “truth.” That isn’t the entire purpose of this crazy game we play to find the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with? Isn’t that what we’re doing? And you don’t hurt that person once you find them. You hold on to them. Good and tight. But he didn’t believe that, he told me. He didn’t believe that there is one perfect person.

I reached for my journal and wrote the following words: “Is there one perfect and right person for each of us or is it about the journey, are we supposed to have all these stops, feed into this drama, along the way?”

Is it I KNOW THIS IS WANT but I want ALL THESE OTHER EXPERIENCES FIRST and then I’ll come back to IT when I’m ready? Like I board game!

Because if so, I think that’s just bullshit. Total horse shit, if you ask me.

Because I really think it’s a bit ridiculous for someone to put the person they care about in the path of numerous asshats and then think that they can just swing back around and pick them up when they’ve reached the desired mileage on that white horse of theirs. Maybe friendships can roll around and recycle, but relationships? I think not.

pick a little, talk a little.

“I’m not saying I don’t cry but in between I laugh.” garden state.

I was sitting at a stoplight after a long walk with Todd the dog, en route to Mom and Dad’s house to take care of Molly the dog, when I looked over at the car next to me. I was singing aloud to Radar (which is my current song-on-repeat) and all I noticed about the woman in the car next to me was her wedding rings. And I ACTUALLY THOUGHT, to myself, “Aha! She’s married. That means SOMEONE loved her enough to marry her. And first date her. That means someone liked her! And… something is wrong with me.”

I mean, I’m not saying I’m not crazy. (Actually, I’m saying, right here, that I AM crazy.)

So then I saw this diamond ring clothed hand holding a cigarette and I thought, “Pssssh… she smokes! She’s married! And driving a mom car! And she smokes!?”

Okay, next, (really, this is where my mind went) I thought, “Oh! I GET IT! She must have been the cool girl. Still is the cool girl. Her husband wanted the cool chick and that’s why he married her. Because I bet you she’s still! so! much! fun!” I mean, it’s like McHottie. He is proud to say the first time he met his wife she was skinny dipping. And um, yea, cool girl? Not me. So not me. I’m kind of dorky. In an I like to read a lot, wasn’t really the prom queen type in high school, never really have been a big partier (not to say I don’t trip and fall into a keg every once in a while) kind of girl. I mean, it’s Tuesday night and I’m sitting at my parent’s house and quite content if I’m being honest.

The funny thing is that while I thought all of this, it actually humored me. I may have laughed. Out loud. Because I do that. Sometimes it’s after I figure out what songs like If You Seek Amy mean (okay I may have gone to see Britney in concert last week, hence the theme) but other times I just do. I find myself laughing. Over a revelation, a conversation remembered, over nothing, even.

The best thing about all of this is that it’s a turn of events. Because last week? Last week instead of laugh I cried. Really, I did. A lot. I sort of had one of those breakdowns I talk about sometimes. And then I decided. Stop, Kristin. Really, this is ridiculous. This is not you. You used to never cry. Overanalyze? Yes. Talk to death? Hell yea. Lose sleep over? Damn it, yes. (This is a new one. I used to be sleeps-like-a-baby-Kristin.)

So I realized something. I realized, I AM GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS. And I am going to be stronger because of it. Because that’s what happens. That’s what we do.

And then I went on Spring Break. Yea, seriously, Spring Break 2009. It’s what I did to get me to where I am now.

I went to Atlanta to see Britney. And it was AWESOME. More awesome than the first time I saw her. (I mean, this time she didn’t have sex on the stage.) But really it was fantastic. And then afterwards I met a guy who wouldn’t stop calling me “beautiful.” So much so that I thought about changing my name to it. But then again, his girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend? I never really could get the whole story.) was upstairs in their room. And he was a strange bird. But, I digress.

After Britney I went to Clemson. Home Sweet Home. I went to Esso and had a dollar beer. (If the economy gets any worse, EVERYONE AND THEIR MAMA GO TO CLEMSON. Seriously. You can survive on nothing.) From there I went to Tiger Town Tavern and met up with a friend I hadn’t seen since he graduated and moved to Illinois. And we had a pitcher and some nachos. College style. (I know that sounds retarded but go with it.)

When we decided, hm, maybe we should go home, we did. And my high on life mode caused me to get very little sleep. Which, put together with the beautiful weather and the fact that I was up and dressed early for a wedding shower the next day, caused me to want to be ANYWHERE BUT COLUMBIA. I wanted to be on the coast! In Charleston! SOMEWHERE! And so, somewhere I went!

And I had THE BEST TIME EVER. I mean, seriously. Spring Break was so much fun. (Except for the fact that I learned I SUCK AT DARTS. Okay, “learned” might be a joke. I kind of knew that already. But let me play Wii bowling or flip cup or beer pong and I swear! I can win! At one of them!) But that doesn’t keep me from reacting to REPEATEDLY missing the targets.

But this Spring Break thing? When you’re in the real world and don’t get a Spring Break? Totally underestimated. Because I needed it. Needed it like I need fresh air.

So what I suggest to all is cry a little, break a little, laugh a little, and live a little.

Really, it’s good for the heart.

a letter to will.

Dear Brother,

You were right when you said Sunday night that it seemed like I’d been falling apart lately. I think I am. There’s been a lot of stuff going on in my head and I just don’t really get it. Or know how to handle it. Or have the ability to. You were right also when you said that I need to focus on me more and less on what others think of me. And I’m trying. Really, I am.

But there’s stuff going on I can’t talk to you about. Like that thickening? Yea, that thickening really bothers me. Still. And I know I went to my doctor and he said some mumbo jumbo I didn’t get but what I did understand is that he thinks it’s a result of my surgery. So I stepped it up and I got an appointment with my regular doctor in a week. Hopefully she can check it out. Because the doctor saying that if it still bothers me in 3 months we’ll schedule a mammogram? Yea, that’s not all that comforting. I’m 24 years old.

And then there’s the fact that while this is going on, that while I’ve been visibly showing signs of being upset, I feel like I’ve begun realizing the people that are there for me. And while the roommate can pretty often drive me up the mother freaking wall, and while half of the time (or more than half) I don’t listen to what she says, I’m well aware she cares enough to say it. It all takes me back to that time in college when college bff Lauren and I got in a big fight and we were still trying to be “friends” one night without having “the talk” while we were drinking. And we went into our favorite Saturday night stays open til after midnight bar and proceeded to argue. Leading me to leave and get Other Brother to pick me up. And nobody called to find out where I’d gone. Or how I’d gotten home. Or if I even had. Do you see where I’m going with that? That I apparently need people to check on me. It makes me feel loved. And yea, I get that. I get that I’m needy.

Let’s talk about your fiance’s bachelorette weekend. Brother, I LOVE your fiance. I do. She is wonderful. She is everything I ever wanted you to marry. But her friends? Her friends are brats. Her friends that for years left the two of you out. Her roommate that has been consistently rude to her. Her non-bridesmaid who I actually heard saying that she disliked me. I have to go spend hundreds of dollars and a weekend with them? I know you understand this. How do I know? Because you don’t like them either. And I know you keep saying that Fiance wants me there and she’d be upset if I didn’t come. But really, would she? Because they’re her friends. So I don’t think it would faze her in the least.

And the fact that Mom’s response to this is that if I don’t like these people at all something is obviously wrong with me? And that if these people that have affected me over the past few months don’t like me, again, something is wrong with me? That doesn’t help. Focus more on me, you say? This is a part of me. These are the things I deal with. This is my life.

LA Emily told me last night over and over again that you cannot be the supporting actress in your own life. Something clicked when she said it because I feel like I am. I have been out of college for 3 years. I have been working (basically) the same job. And I am making nothing and going nowhere and today I felt it. Today I had to take vacation days for going home to meet the cable guy. Am I kidding? No, no I am not. AND I AM SO OVER IT. So over it. Other Brother called as I walked out of the office tonight and guess what? Don’t think you can guess? Well, try. Oh yes. Yes I fucking started crying AGAIN. Worried about the drought conditions in South Carolina and Georgia? Have no fear, Kristin’s Floodworks are here.

Focus on me. Focus on me. Focus on me. Here’s what I think. I am so full of hope. Hope that this guy’s gonna be a nice guy, be everything he says he is. Hope that this friend is gonna be a good friend through thick and thin. Hope that this job is gonna get me somewhere, someday. Hope that this day is gonna be a good day.

I am over hope. Hope gets me nowhere but hurt. And disappointed. And I’m sick. And tired. I am so over it. So over.

I will not be the supporting actress in my own life, Brother. I don’t want to be passive. (I don’t care what my New Year’s resolution was.) Nor will I be quiet. I will not allow myself to have my ass kicked over and over and over again.

Now let’s talk about the good stuff. My love life. I know, it makes me laugh even saying it. About as much as it made me laugh when you jokingly asked if you needed to include “And Guest” on mine and Other Brother’s invites. Here’s what I’m thinking. I know, I know, I don’t have a lot of dating experience. I mean, I’ve been on dates, yea. But experience? Pssh. It’s funny, though, because I remember when I started college, you were a big senior there and I was about to go into my freshman year and Mom told me that you had expressed to her how you really wished I’d had a boyfriend in high school so that I knew what I was getting myself into in college. I think you were scared maybe I’d do something stupid. I don’t think you ever realized that that lack of a boyfriend compounded by you and Other Brother being everywhere I was on campus made me terrified of guys. Absolutely terrified. I didn’t want to date them. I didn’t want to hurt them. I didn’t want to hurt myself.

The funny thing? This kind of goes hand in hand with something the roommate and I were talking about tonight. I’d run into a guy in the lobby today that I knew. We were standing there talking and apparently he took something I said and interpreted into that I was hitting on him. Um, he so does not know me. That is obvious. Because do I hit on people? I think not. Aside from McHottie. Sometimes. Shhh. And have I mentioned this guy was old? And bald? And married? (And apparently full of himself?) Um, so not hitting on him. Not even close. But the point is, I am not a go-getter. I am, here, the supporting actress. I don’t float around. Or sleep around. Or sleep at all, if we’re being really honest. Brother and sister here, you know. So I don’t get it. I don’t “get” people.

Last night I helped fill Lake Hartwell with a little more water as LA Emily told that I should procure the book “Why Men Love Bitches.” I didn’t quite tell her I’m having a hard enough time getting through “Be Honest – You’re Not That Into Him Either” but, I digress. Is it that much to ask that I want a nice, normal guy who loves his family and his friends and God and his work and me? Um, really? That much? Because I know he exists. How do I know? Because there’s you.

At lunch today a coworker told me that I am looking too hard for the “normal” guy. The outdoorsy, good time boy. I mean I don’t think it’s really as simple as that. But it scares me to think that He is not going to be anything like what I think, right now, I want. But then again she also told me I totally go for the wrong guys. And that is why I am where I am now. How crazy is it that as careful as I am with guys, as infrequently as I have true crushes, that statement is as true as it is? That I can go so wrong?

So yea, I’m falling apart. All around me anvils are dropping and that’s upsetting. (And painful, as you can imagine.) But I’m getting it together. Because tonight? Tonight I was driving home from a meeting listening to Britney (shut it and don’t judge) and this one song came on and I was stuck due to a train and I just started jiving. Arms waving, legs kicking. When my guy best friend in Asheville called and I told him this he may or may not have called me crazy but, damn. It felt good. And if I have to do that every day for the rest of this year, I will. I will dance at every stop light if I have to and sometimes in between. And I will smile at the woman next to me that’s looking over at me like I’m crazy. Because I will get out of this. And I will learn from it. And I will shine. And I believe that because I know you believe it too.

And Brother? I love you. Thanks for listening.

Love,

me

hanging up the hang ups.

I was sitting there one night, talking to a friend of a guy I was smitten with as we watched said guy carousing with a group of female friends of his. “He doesn’t respect you,” the one I stood beside said to me. It had followed his asking what was going on between us. And my response that it was nothing. That we were friends. Minutes later he had seen us, up against a counter in the kitchen, lips pressed together.

“Why do you say that?” I had asked, my own curiosity budding.

“Slapping you on the ass, Kristin? Really?”

“That doesn’t bother me,” I told him. As though I needed to find some way to justify these actions. And my own for staying around. But slapping me was touching me. And touching me? Didn’t that mean he wanted to be around me? To have his hands on me?

***

I don’t know much about people. My closest relationships can sometimes be with the likes of Sophie Kinsella and Jane Austen. The last guy I dated was Edward Cullen. (Pssh.) And every now and then I think Charlie Sheen and I are doing a dance. He just has that ability to make me laugh that I am desperately searching for. I don’t know that much about friendships because often I find that my closest friends are the ones that don’t expect the unexpected out of me, that sometimes live at great distances, that love me and love my flaws. And with which, at least at one point in time in our friendship, there has been a moment of silence. Followed by a long talk. Followed by endless love from that point on.

Early this week as I sat on the phone with my mother, crying about bachelorette weekend plans for my brother’s fiance, and how much I didn’t want to be there, and how these girls I was going to have to spend the weekend with were just mean, cutthroat girls I’d gone to college with, Mom said to me, “I really do believe you learn with age. And what I know now is that when people are mean to you, when people dislike you, you do what you can to make them. You make them like you. Kill them with kindness.”

I found myself telling her it doesn’t work that way. When you’re the kind of person that admittedly likes everyone until you find out they decidedly dislike you, it just doesn’t work that way. You can’t force someone to be your friend, to talk to you. You can’t change things after you’ve heard someone telling another, from their very own lips, that they don’t like you. Or after you’ve watched as the correspondence from someone close to you has slowly slipped away. Or once you’ve seen that when that person said that your friendship would change because of something, that trust was now an issue, even though they never bothered to hear the whole story, that they meant it. And that they didn’t care.

It just isn’t as easy as making someone like you.

***

To summarize The Gospel according to Whitney Port which I was privy to on Monday evening, the more you feel the need to verbally justify or excuse something, the more guilty you appear. I am a good person and a good friend, I hear myself saying. I really do mean well, I repeat. I am not malicious, I recite.

Whitney would say that my having to say these things over and over again should cause you to question the truth of them. And that, in itself, bothers me to a great extreme.

I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

In one of the books I am reading (and yes, I am reading many) a woman is subjecting herself to a 21 day overhaul. It’s purpose is to redefine her life. To set her on the right track. To make her mind and her heart happy.

Right now, I am working on an overhaul of myself.

And that’s a little more important than the impending 40 days of no fried goodness.

tossing it out to the universe.

I write things down frequently. In a small notebook I keep in my purse. On word documents I save with random titles in a folder labeled “Personal.” On scraps of paper in my room and on my desk at home. In the margins of my staff meeting notes.

Most nights, either in my head or on paper, I write a note to someone. I draft an email. An email to any number of people. An email I never end up sending.

Sometimes I think the reason for this is that I’m looking for something. Or that I’m trying to get to a conclusion. I’m trying to understand.

My biggest fear, this very moment, is not having that clarity. I don’t know when sometimes it’s just too much. Or when it’s not enough. Or when I’m supposed to get a hint with a friend or when I should reach out. One more time. Try again.

Most days I go back and forth.

Two days ago I would have told you my biggest fear was cancer. Two weeks ago I would have told you cancer didn’t scare me. How can it scare you when it’s seemingly inevitable, when both your parents have it? Two days from now I will find out if I can go on not being scared anymore.

Monday I decided for the umpteenth time that I don’t like the direction I’ve chosen to pursue professionally. I haven’t made any changes to fix this. But I feel like recognizing it (albeit again) is a step in the right direction.

I sat in my room the other night, floating on oyster shots and beer, and thought of the things I want. Like really want. The things that I would like to accomplish for me. What I want out of 2009. What I want before I’m 30. The simple things. The measurable ones.

I want to learn how to sew. With that brand new sewing machine I’ve never used that I got, ahem, two years ago. I want to know how to use it. Well.

I want to play a couple of rounds of golf. Because last year? In 2008? I didn’t pick up my golf clubs once. Except, well, to move them from one apartment to another.

I want to play some good tennis. And I want to watch some good tennis.

I want to go to as many college baseball games as I can. And I want hot dogs.

I want to run. Far. Just because I think I can’t.

I want all of the half finished canvases I have piled up to be finished. Done. And I don’t care that that requires me to use oil paint for one and that that takes a day or two or way more than that out of my life. I want them finito.

I want to be published. Somewhere other than my company’s quarterly magazine and the newspaper I freelance for. And I want to be published for something that is not boring. Because what I write for each of those? Bo-ring.

I want to figure out my laptop. I will finish MacBook for Dummies. And yes I purchased that for myself.

I want one person – just one – to tell me that I’m wonderful and that they love me. And that they can’t imagine their life without me. And won’t.

That’s what I want for 2009.

things i am over today.

(Inspired by Molly.)

1. Michael Phelps and genius Sheriff Lott.

2. Christian Bale’s rant. (But obvy not Christian Bale.)

3. Chris Brown & Rihanna.

4. Nadya Suleman. Her 14 kids. And her “money is just paper” comment.

5. Committee meetings. And conference calls. And 4.5 hour long staff meetings.

6. Liars and liars by omission.

7. Conditional friends.

8. The inability to lose lbs.

9. The difficulty at staying away from m&ms.

10. The awkward silence at home. (Which was somewhat broken this morning by “let’s not keep tiptoeing around” brief word exchange.)

11. Best friend in Charleston beating me to everything. Marriage. Baby. Last night I said I was going to try to get my game together to have a son before her so I could, um, maybe tell her about circumcision. Clearly I am looking for something, anything, she wouldn’t know about first. (But definitely not over her sweet baby Blakely.)

12. J.Crew emails offering free shipping “if..”

13. Female coworker with never ending attitude.

14. My quest to stay on top of book resolution and the currently inability to find a book I can’t put down.

15. The feeling of not being wanted. Or needed.

16. People who think it’s cool to make fun of my friends.

17. Restlessness.

18. My messy room. (Um, I haven’t had a chance to unpack yet.)

19. The difficulty of getting back to running after, ahem, one of many brief running vacays.

20. Columbia.

obligatory he's just not that into you post.

Subtitle: “He’s Just Not Into You” messes with my head.

Sub-subtitle: “I’m just overthinking.” (Grey’s Anatomy)

When I was 15 and a freshman in high school I went on my first date. I was so smitten with the boy. He came and picked me up, we went to Chili’s, I ordered what he said his mom usually got because I was shy and uncertain. He brought me home. He called the next night. It was fated.

I remember a month later I found out he had started dating a girl a year older than he. He was a junior, she was a senior. I listened to Brandy sing “Have You Ever” over and over again. (Don’t judge me.) My heart hurt.

When I was 16 and none-the-wiser, I went out with that boy again. This time was a double date. Afterwards we went to the house of the other boy and watched Friday and it was ohhh so romantic. I swooned over Ice Cube. The boy tried to unhook my bra. (FAIL.) And then he took me home.

Shortly thereafter he wrote me a note and handed it to me between classes. “I’ll always love you,” he wrote, as he went about explaining to me that his best girl friend, whom I had never met, had confessed her love for him. And if they didn’t try things now, he’d always wonder.

It wasn’t until the end of that school year that I got my first kiss. From Mr. Athletic. We had gone on a walk on the beach and he’d laid it on me. It was my welcome to the world of sandy kisses. He carried me back down the beach to the house. We kissed more on the couch in the room with our friends. And then I went to bed thinking, How am I going to get rid of this guy?

I had liked him for months but now? Now that I was sure he liked me? Now he was smitten and I was not. Over instant messenger he asked me to be his girlfriend. His girlfriend! I could’ve been somebody’s lady friend. Instead I told him I really didn’t want to date someone over the summer. Because, obvy, the summer after my sophomore year was going to be booked, you know.  He didn’t listen to Brandy but I hear he got good and drunk.

My freshman year of college was the year that I got good and drunk. At a fraternity function. I was dressed as a flapper and my date, my old friend from preschool who I’d always crushed on a little bit, was Mafia attired. We pre-gamed, we danced, we hit up a booth in the corner of the place and we kissed and we kissed and oh lord I needed a ride home and someone to tell me the next day whether that kissing actually happened or not. Which my date’s best friend was more than happy to do, as he told me how much my date had liked me and he was so shy and I needed to reassure him by calling him some (or, er, calling him back). But I didn’t, and he didn’t step up, and there was nothing lost. (Except maybe for a little dignity which had likely been spent on purple jesus.)

Two years later I was back on a dance floor in a frat house with a boy named Ben whose name I think I liked more than Ben himself. He tongue attacked me and tried to [in the bathroom] mack on me but all in all I left with most of my dignity and my phone number still kept to myself. (A trend I would later recognize.)

Post-college I experienced a lot of boredom. This is also known as no dating potential. Casually recognized as just plain no date invitations. (Um, I was used to it, so who are we kidding?)

I found an attachment to a guy friend I’d met that meant spending most nights at his house. We never did do anything but talk and sleep and spend inordinant amounts of time together. And he, Mr. Beat, was a guy that soon became someone I wanted to beat over the head with a stick. I was attached. To him and to his conversations. (And now, I can honestly say, not to the way he looked.)

One day, some time later, we did finally kiss. It had followed jaeger, produced zero sparks, and taught me a lesson that Garth Brooks has tried many times before to instill in me. That being thanking God for unanswered prayers.

The search continued. After pina coladas laced with moonshine, I found myself on a Sunday funday in August of 2007 on the backporch of the Slumdog Bachelor’s house realizing what the words “good kisser” meant. I got up off that porch and into my car that night to go home and counted down the years it’d been since anyone had good and kissed me. The next morning before work I told the roommate of the little bit of dignity I’d spent the night prior and she decided the following week to test my best kisser theory. (No harm done; Slumdog Bachelor never was on my radar to begin with.) I continued to act all Judgy McJudgerson on guys that followed. Guys who continued to go without my number. Someone I’d known in college, Dreadlocks who had been my super secret special crush, McHottie’s brother Otter. I continued to kiss ‘em and leave ‘em and Oh! They never called because they had no way to! And I didn’t want them to anyway! So all’s fair, right?

Well, if we’re being honest, they never tried to get my number. And the one or two that did have it? Yea, they never tried to use it.

So while saying no big deal, I wasn’t that into them either, can be both helpful and true, it really makes me think. It’s pretty simple: I’m just looking for the guy who’s my exception just as much as I am his.

“I don’t want to be ‘sort of dating’ someone. I don’t want to be ‘kind of hanging out’ with someone. I don’t want to spend a lot of energy suppressing my feelings so I appear uninvolved. I want to be involved.” He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.

hello & welcome to my life.

Let’s recap for a minute what I like to call now “the first week of 2009.”

I have finished my 5th book of the year. To catch up with my resolution I will have to read approximately 1 book a day for the rest of the month. Wrap your mind about how much that’s not happening.

Yesterday at Aunt Chris’ funeral a woman came up to me and said, “I haven’t seen you since I missed your wedding!” I keep thinking that she wouldn’t have “seen” me if she, in fact, had missed out on attending something. But I am way too overwhelmed by the fact that I! missed! my own wedding! I actually said to her, “Oh my gosh! I wonder how it was!?” She looked confused.

As my brother and I were leaving a woman asked me, “Is that your father?” Please make sure you understand that she was pointing to my 25 year old older brother. Full beard aside, I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for him to pass as my dad. However, that’s not going to stop me from calling my mom “grandmother” atleast once. Or twice.

To fully grasp the level of awkwardness I impose on myself I need to make a confession. I ate an oats & chocolate Fiber One bar on the way to meet my mom to ride to Puddin’ Swamp for the funeral. I was aware that some of the – ahem – chocolate chips had dropped in my lap. I thought I had adequately dusted them off. HOWEVER, when I made a stop on my way home I left my black long dress coat in the car, danced inside and was faced with a full length mirror. A full length mirror showing me that I had dropped a chocolate chip in my crotch. Where it had sat. And melted with the heater on. And rubbed together. And totally looked inappropriately like I had had an accident in my pants. And for the past 24 hours I cannot stop thinking who would have seen me without my coat on, who would have looked at my crotch, and who would have thought, “Oh, no wonder she’s still single.”

I also did not eat anything but that Fiber One bar until about 4:30. “I’m hungry,” I said to my brother after the graveside service. “I’m pretty sure everyone that sat by us knows that by now,” he said back to me. Stupid tummy and it’s stupid noises.

Ah, yes. Welcome to my life. I am still waiting for maturation and dignity to find their way to me. That is all.