That gratitude thing AGAIN - with a twist.

So I was talking to my sister tonight, and finally pried out of her that she's got herself a boyfriend. It was always one of those things that everybody figured, but nobody wanted to confirm - not because the guy's a shitheel or anything, but my family tends to operate on a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. We're not the most open of people because we were raised with a philosophy that if you're having issues, shut up and deal with it. Of course, I'm pleased for my sister. She deserves to be happy and this guy's a decent fellow. But of course, I went to bed in a foul mood and couldn't sleep for all the, you know, crying.



At the close of last year, I made a decision to remove all of my dating profiles from various sites. I spent far too much time sending out messages to various menfolk and receiving no responses in return, which only served to make me feel humiliated and idiotic. As I chewed on it and thought about it, I think if there's anything I've figured out, any kind of grand revelation I've had, it's that I simply do not have the mental energy to try and suss out what in the fuck men are looking for and why I seem to completely lack it. My grand plan for 2009 is coming to terms, once and for fucking all, that the universe has sent a very loud message, loud like an air raid siren, that I'm not meant for a relationship. It will never matter how much I may have in common with someone, it will never matter how well we get on, I lack whatever...SHAZAM or SHECLACKY or SHEBANG that seems to be key in turning over that particular engine. You either got it or you don't, and I'm someone who clearly don't, for whatever reason that I will go to the grave not understanding. It's a blessing that I don't have a screaming need to have children and haven't spent years daydreaming about a perfect wedding to the perfect guy, and I'm certainly able to take care of myself and I've never not done something because I'd be doing it alone. I'm more than capable of contending with the next however many years I'm left with on a perpetual solo mission. I know this, in my heart and in my brain and every other corner of my being.

So it's rather vexing to find myself sitting up at 11:30 p.m. ugly-crying about it...YET AGAIN. Because I'm supposed to be in a good mood. I'm on vacation, for Christ's sake. I'm going out of town Monday to Vegas to celebrate (well, cope with) my birthday, and it will be so nice to be someplace where it's 60 degrees instead of 10 below, and have the chance to kick back and relax and oh yes, do some--okay, a LOT of gambling. I'm going alone, by choice. And I know the second I land at McCarron, I will be delighted to be someplace I really dig, staying at a hotel I've never stayed at but have always wanted to, with plenty of books to read and plans to stretch my shit out and lounge. But I also know that corner of me, that corner of me that I would do absolutely anything to vanquish, to silence, to shut up once and for all, that corner of me that wants to be with someone and will not/cannot process why I'm not worthy of being loved, that corner that I want so much to STOP CARING because it is CHILDISH TO EXPEND ALL THIS ENERGY ON IT (and write about omg), will be scratching at me...gnawing. Knocking at the door like the fucking Land Shark, determined to remind me at every turn that I am not the girl that gets a happy ending, I am not the girl the fellows fall over, I am not going to be someone's have to have. To remind me that every single guy that has been tragically unlucky enough to fall on my radar, every single one that I've held my heart out to and said, "it's yours, fucking TAKE IT"--it doesn't matter. That's probably the most...maybe "galling" isn't the right word, but mercy, it's medicine that doesn't go down easy. That notion, that truth that it doesn't matter how much I loved, what I did, it meant nothing. In the big scheme of things, if I'm remembered at all, it's as a joke. An awkward moment they'd prefer to forget.

Now it's midnight, and I seem to be all ugly-cried-out (sing about that Lisa Lisa). The temperature in and around Chicago is plunging into Oh Hell No proportions, and I've realized that I've penned yet another blog entry that is not particularly Fat Acceptancey and more...brain-vomity. I do want to touch on gratitude, though - not being ordered by people to be grateful for all that I have, which I've bitched about before. No, I want to throw down an order to all the folks out there who are in healthy relationships with people who dig the absolute shit out of them - be grateful. Be so very grateful. Give them hugs and big old smooches (virtual or otherwise), let them know how brilliant they are, how much they rock. And if you're in a relationship that you know damn well needs to come to an end A.S.A.P. but you're terrified of being alone - living alone is heaps better than living a lie. You had the SHAZAM to get into the one you're in now, you'll have that SHECLACKY to get into another one, a healthier one, a happier one.

I wish I could summon up a really good, Go Team! message for those who are in positions similar to mine, some sort of "'sawright, we'll get froo it" like I'm some jolly old bat in a very British musical. It'd probably be disingenuous at best. I guess if I were to say anything, it's that it's okay to be pissed off and baffled if you've given it the good old college try and then some and still come up with naught. We just need to stumble and grasp our way to contentment at all costs.

For now, I hope to stumble my way into some sleep.

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A smattering of nattering.

My brain’s all over the joint so, as a result, this post will probably cover 18 katrillion topics and I’m not 100 percent sure it will make any sense, let alone come to any sort of point. But hey, Monday's almost over. Let’s roll the dice and see what comes out of my idiot head.



I’ve been ruminating on this comment I read over at Jezebel a couple of weeks ago:

...do we ever tell single men to just suck it up and be happy alone? To me, it seems like we just want these older single women to shut up because there aren't any solutions.

It rang my bell something fierce, and since then, I’ve been paying slightly closer attention to the various message boards and whatnots that I peruse and it really is rather striking how older single fellows bemoaning their single status are given the “keep yer chin up, buddy, she’s out there/don’t give up, man, Ms. Right’s right around the corner!!” platitudes and rah-rahing, but us older single women…yeah, why don’t we shut our traps and be happy with what we have, huh? Be grateful that you have friends/family/a roof over your head/a job to go to/two legs to stand on/two eyeballs to see out of/the sun shines/the wind blows etc. etc. etc. and fucking on and on. You don’t NEED a relationship, you know. So BE GRATEFUL, and you’d damn well better keep any of those stupid thoughts about how it pretty much sucks being the third wheel/ignored/alone to yourself so the rest of us aren’t bummed out.

If I sound bitter, it’s because I am. Bitter and kind of furious at times, actually. I know I trot out this song-and-dance more often than anyone really gives a rat’s ass about, but as I’m preparing to embark on one last ridonk attempt at online dateage, perhaps I’m trying to pump out the last remnants of bitterness from the lower decks of my very large failboat, the U.S.S. Chunky-n-Doom’d in order to embark upon this project with some semblance of optimism. Or, at least, the ability to put on a convincing show of it. But I think we all have that moment of “bwuh!!!” when someone tells us of a double-standard and then we see it in practice for ourselves. And mercy, am I bwuhing my ass off lately. I think it’s the most hurtful when it comes from people who you’re close to, be they family or friends. When my mother trots out the old saw about “Life Lessons” and “Everything happens for a reason”, I would like to put her in the shed because I’m waaaaaaaaaaay over Life Lessons Happening For a Reason. I’m at the point in my life where I would much rather just be presented with a list of all the Reasons the Life Lessons are happening and what I could do in order to pass the next exam. Someone tell me where I can pick up the Cliff’s Notes and I’ll study up something fucking fierce.

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I had this thought many times today: JUST FUCKING EAT FUCKING EAT FUCKING EAAAAAAT. No, not directed at myself, but overhearing co-workers getting tight over calorie counts and dress sizes and being "disgusting" and "pigs" and the usual foorahrah, accompanied by oohing and aahing over a co-worker just back from maternity leave. The same woman that insisted I'd lost weight while I was overseas was borderline frothing as she told New Mom she'd lost weight ohyesyouhavethebabyweight'salmostallgoneohmygoodness! I really loathe how diet conversation has become a lo-cal substitute (har har) for CONVERSATION. That discussing one's diet/exercise regimen and how many calories are consumed and what "bad" things you avoid eating and how "bad" you've been if you had a cookie is considered interesting chat while at work or out with friends. Not that I'm looking to have a deep, philosophical chat with my co-workers, but good gravy, could it be chatter that isn't a competition to see who can come up with the most colorfully hatey ways to deride oneself? I suspect I may be repeating myself, but it's appalling to me that self-loathing has become a rite of passage. It's absolutely acceptable for a person to participate in a conversation that consists primarily of which body parts of ours we find to be horrifically disgusting and how we HAVE to get in shape (the only appropriate shape being thin) and coveting bodies that it is downright scientifically impossible to have. I think about Dara Torres, the 41-year-old Olympic swimmer that made so many headlines because she was coming back to compete at *gasp* the ancient age of 41 AND *super-mega-gasp* after having had a BABY! You know goddamned well millions of women saw the photographs of her and her washboard abs and muscular thighs and immediately thought themselves shitty because they didn't have those abs and muscular thighs--never mind the fact that Dara Torres' job...is being a SWIMMER. She spends $100,000 a year on a head coach, a sprint coach, two stretchers, two masseuses, a chiropractor, and a nanny. That's why she's got friggin' washboard abs and muscular thighs--because she can devote every friggin' free moment to flopping around in the friggin' pool, friends. But that kind of logic doesn't penetrate our brains because we are so caught up in the magic being sold to us each and every day that our lives will practically turn into a never-ending utopia of awesome and unicorns if we could just stop being such out-of-control hogbeasts and GET. THIN. Oh, I mean, GET IN SHAPE.

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Lastly, I do wish to report I'm in love with something shiny, pretty, and with a blinky light. I bought a 500GB hard drive tonight and it's...it's a delight, frankly. A couple of years ago, I had a massive hard drive implosion that ate much of my writing, including 15 or so completed screenplays. Yep, a LIFE LESSON if there ever was one. Not that I've been able to write shit since then, but I suddenly came over all "must have external hard drive now" this evening and trotted out to pick myself up my new best friend. We'll just overlook the large amount of surge-protecting power strips I have in my Bachelorette Lair (a.k.a. my room in my parents' house) *cough* because it's important that my bass amp be at the ready at all times in case I feel a need to jam, or it only take mere seconds for my PC to leap to life because dammit, I NEED TO KNOW WHERE CHRIS MAKEPEACE IS.

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Show me the way to go home.

It’s an unfortunate aspect of my personality that I think way, way, way too much about various things. I think about things that have been said to me, experiences that I’ve had (more often the missteps and humiliations than anything that’s pleasant), and I chew on it all like I’m chewing on my own cud consisting of bitterness and bafflement. It’s an irksome tendency because I feel like I’m being childish because so much of what I chew on revolves around my being alone. I feel ashamed because I should be dedicating that brainspace to something more…important, like issues in the FA movement or politics or philosophy or working on an actual creative writing-type project or any number of things, but instead I walk around in a state of almost perpetual irritation with the entirety of the universe because I just DON’T GET IT. I don’t get why I’m alone and I don’t get WHY I CAN’T STOP CARING ABOUT IT.



I bagged my match.com profile about a month and a half ago, because that was just dumb. Gave a fat-centric dating site a whirl, and that was even dopier. I actually pinged a guy and never got a response. So that certainly did wonders for the bountiful wonderland that is my stupid head. Today, I peeked at a place that someone had touted somewhere and I had to physically back away from the screen in a bit of horror, as it does not seem to be, uh, my kind of place (that is, a festival of people wanting “intimate relations” and that’s…about…it). The thing is, I know what I want. I also know that at the end of the day, I’m not about to change fuck-all about me. I am fat. I will not diet. I am plain. I rarely, if ever, wear make-up because I don’t like how I look in it. I dress like a fucking 14-year-old boy (well, one that occasionally does drag). I am smart, I am cynical, I am funny, and I will not play stupid in order to soothe someone’s ego. I would rather be alone for the next 40 years than compromise anything I believe in just so I can say “well, I had a boyfriend once upon a time”.

However.

It is kind of a blow to the ego (and mine is decidedly healthy in certain areas, believe me) to think that-—rather, to pretty much KNOW-—I am nobody’s bag. I am not anyone’s idea of a good time, unless it’s within the realm of “wacky fat girl sidekick”. I am not the girl that gets the happy endings I used to write so fervently. I’m not walking out of the church to see Jake across the street, leaning up against his red Porsche. Edward Ferrars ain’t showing up at my door to FYI me that his heart is mine. Two words: MR. DARCY. (Sorry, I’ve been on a Jane Austen novel kick over the last few months. And my Colin Firth kick is eternal.) Not that I think life should be one gigantic romantic comedy/dramedy or that it’s any way to live a realistic life, but for CHRIST’S SAKE. Could I have at least ONE moment in my life? One moment with a male human person that, when I look back way too many years from now, I could nod and say, “hot shit, now that was something else”? I’ve done a lot of stuff in my time, stuff that was pretty cool, seen some amazing things. I know how to eat fire, for example. Okay, pull up a chair, it’s tangent time:

Back in...oh, let’s say, 1991, I was rather enthusiastic about Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame (as you can see here). One of Penn’s skills is fire-eating. Because I have a few synapses that tend to misfire, I decided I wanted to learn how to eat fire as well. Funny...it’s not something on which you can pick up a how-to book. Perhaps it’s due to that whole risk of burning your fucking face off thing. After much research that went nowhere, I resigned myself to the belief that I would never learn (short of becoming BFFs with Penn). Then, one day, a flier appeared on the bulletin board at my fine arts college from a guy who would teach juggling...and/OR HOW TO EAT FIRE. I was so mega-stoked. I called the cat, he happened to live in a suburb near mine, and I arranged to meet him at his house. He wore a very jaunty knitted beret and, of course, worked weekend at the renaissance faire in Wisconsin. Of course. For liability purposes, I can’t go into specifics regarding what I was taught (though I’m sure at this stage of the game, you can google “fire-eating” and get the general mechanics of it), but within an afternoon, I was eating fire. I was sticking fucking flaming torches into my mouth on purpose. I’ve got scars on the back of my right hand from learning the lesson that polyester doesn’t burn, it melts (kids, no matter how tempting, don’t practice eating fire in your bedroom). I mean, I’m sorry, not to toot my own, but that has to earn me some cool points, right? I can light a torch off my tongue!! Shouldn’t that entrance some male on some planet?? I just found this disclaimer on an old website somewhere, for Christ's sake--how does this NOT MAKE ME COOL?!?!

Fire Eating and particularly Fire-Breathing is possibly the most dangerous and potentially injurious art to be found in circus, theatre and street performing.

DAMN RIGHT! Sheesh. Anyway.

I do take pride in the fact that I’m independent, so much of the stuff I’ve done has been done on my own, completely self-sufficient, not needing anyone. So it riles me, it makes me downright scrappy, to be so immensely bothered by my state of being. I would like a list of things that are wrong with me so that I could work on them. Maybe I chew too loudly. That’s something I could actually improve. I’m kind of sucky with details. I tend to miss details in conversations so that when I have to report information back to someone, I blank out a bit unless I take copious notes. That’s something I could work on. A bit of a procrastinator, most certainly (as evidenced by how often I update this bleedin’ blog). You know, all sorts of things are probably wrong with me...THAT ARE WRONG WITH 99.9999 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION (except George Clooney. Or Colin Firth. NOTHING is wrong with either of them...especially when they are shirtless, and I will not have Clooney-Colin negativity here).

I want to not care that I’m alone. I want to not be irritated by the platitudes I mentioned in my far-too-willing-to-be-honest post (perhaps another failing of mine—my tendency to overshare). I want to get to the point where the thought of being the 35th wheel doesn’t make me take to my bed and cry for an hour and I can ably pretend that I’m having a good time while the couple-conversations whirl around me at a social event or wherever I happen to be. I want to feel like I’m not being ripped off.

Just one moment. Just one that makes my heart stop and tears come to my eyes...out of happiness. Just one.

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