Charming, but single

Slept in this morning, choosing to memorialize things by not setting the alarm to go off at all. (I did, however, wake up and sit right up in bed thinking that I was late. It took a few seconds for me to remember that I had the day off.) After sleeping in, I did some of what is becoming a very tedious amount of S upkeep. Deep conditioning, exfoliating, hair masques, face masques, moisturizing of the face, body and feet, teeth whitening, eyebrow trimming, nail filing ... Am feeling a touch high maintenance as of late. (And no, I did not do ALL of that today. I have a schedule! You just THINK I'm joking.) Ok, seriously, does anyone really notice if you curl your eyelashes? Because I try and try, but I am missing the gene that enables me to use an eyelash curler correctly. Went to lunch with Good Friend and B. That was bad bad bad. I'm supposed to be staying away. Will do better next time, I promise. Good Friend annoyed me a touch because she brought up the fact that her whole family thinks she should marry B. I suppose she wouldn't have done this had I actually told her that I had a minor B relapse, so I shouldn't be mad. But still. Did a bit of shopping. Bought Sex and the City Season 3, because it is by far my favorite and it was on sale. I almost got into a wreck this afternoon while trying to drive and open my newly purchased Rob Thomas CD. Fortunately, I was able to maintain control of the car. This is good, as I would not be able to live down the shame of having been in a wreck because I couldn't get my ROB THOMAS CD open. (I already have to live with the knowledge that I purchased said Rob Thomas CD in the first place, which I realize yanks me from the MTV demographic and plants me firmly in the VH1 demographic. I am sort of okay with this, as all of those damn Real World kids on MTV just make me feel old.) Saw "Crash" tonight. (It was one of only, like, five movies playing in the whole damn city. I swear, we have at least five damn movie theatres in this city and nothing but "Star Wars" and "Madagascar" as far as the eye can see.) The movie was okay. In case you crazy dating kids were planning on bringing a date, well, don't. Because somehow I think talking about the prevalence of racism and sexism in America isn't the best topic for post-movie dinner and drinks. (Hey, maybe you LIKE racial slurs on your dates. Who knows.) Now me, my moisturizing booties, my night cream and my teeth whitener are going to bed.

I'd like to reply to all of your comments individually, but that would probably take me longer than it'll take to just post. Suffice it to say that I was taken aback by the time some of you put into long and thoughtful comments. And for some girl you don't even, like, know! I owe you all a drink. Thanks! I was just overwhelmed on Thursday. B and I were at a celebratory lunch for a good friend (the girl who introduced us) and her family and it was nice. All day we had been talking about old times because the Good Friend will be moving to a nearby city for a great new job in a few months. We ended the night at a party at a bar we used to always go to back when we were in school. And we were reminiscing about the past and telling Good Friend's sister funny stories and someone commented that all of Good Friend's family thinks she should snatch B up because he's a nice guy. Good Friend said the two of them were never attracted to or interested in each other. And she looked and me and smiled. And I, two vodka crans into the night, said, "Plus, she knows I'd hurt her" and winked at her. We laughed and that was that. (B, of course, was not there yet.) Later, someone said something about how we LIVED at this bar during college and then I think I told someone the story about the Night I Cried At The Bar. Now I'm not talking about one single tear or anything. I get weepy sometimes when I'm drunk, but I rarely, if ever, let it get past that in public. Except for a night that shall live in infamy as the Night I Cried At The Bar. (And yes, you can laugh as you read this. It is kind of ridiculous and funny. I laughed at points when I was writing it.)

It was several years ago, maybe two months after I'd met B. There was a great regional party band playing at our bar and they only played here once or twice a year. So everyone always went to see them. It was one of the best nights to go out, because you knew half of the bar and everyone was in a good mood and dancing and the music was great. I was there with my girlfriends. I hadn't seen B in a week or so, but I had heard word through the grapevine that even though he'd kissed me and flirted with me and we had been having a good time when we all went out, he was seeing someone and was not going to take our burgeoning connection anywhere. And I had told myself that I was fine with that. So, I'm looking (I think) pretty cute in what is (I think) one of my favorite cool weather sexy outfits. (A form-fitting soft turtleneck, cute dark jeans and high-heeled boots. I don't know why this makes me feel sexy. I think it's because you're all covered up, but you still feel all curvaceous. Plus, wearing tall boots always makes me feel sexy.) (Seriously, enough.) I'm more than a little tipsy. I'm full-on "It's-Friday-and-school-is-over-for-the-week -and-I'm-22-and-I'm-gonna-dance-all-night-and-I-don't -have-to-drive-and-everything-is-so- KICKASS" drunk. I'm out on the deck area of this bar (because it's cool but not cold) and in addition to all of the other bar regulars and my girlfriends, there are probably at least 40 or 50 people I know from work, class or life in the crowd. At this moment, I think they were ALL outside in the general area where I was. So, I'm walking to the bar and I turn around and I literally run into B. We physically collide. He is here with his friends and he's been drinking for hours too. We immediately give each other a big hug and smile and we kind of don't pull back from the hug. I remember we were kind of huddled together talking and his hands were kind of sitting on my hips and I was playing with his belt loop while we talked. It was awesome. This guy I really really liked was here with me and he was flirting with me and (in my cloudy mind) he was going to realize that he was being stupid for not considering dating me. In the middle of the crowd, we started making out. (Cloudy mind thinks, "Hell yeah! Way to be persistent! Told you he digs ya!") And right as I'm congratulating myself on successfully wooing this guy that I am so just IN to and I'm planning out future and mentally introducing him to my parents, he pulls away and says, "I can't." "What!" I practically yell. We have a few minutes of incoherent conversation that consists of him saying, "Timing bad. JUST started dating someone. I DO like you. I WOULD be dating you otherwise." My responses were something like, "Timing's never going to be perfect. We have a connection and I KNOW you feel it to. Long talks at night! Flirting! Making out! You LIKE me!" At this point, my friends are keeping a close watch on me, getting ready to pull me out of there if necessary. We have attracted some attention. But B's not giving up his, "I can't do this" stance and I'm not moving. I am a drunk 22-year-old woman who has just had her heart broken in front of all of her friends and acquaintances. And I am not going down without a fight. I don't remember what exactly B said, but whatever it was, it did not make me happy. And in my drunken state, I could not control my emotions and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and in my head I could make them go away, but in reality I could not. B just looked into my eyes and said, "No. Please don't do that. I don't want to make you cry." (As if saying that would make me feel better.) And one tear rolled down my cheek and he touched my face with this really pained look on his face that I imagine is what a person looks like at the exact second that they realize that they really have actually broken someone's heart into a million pieces and they have to live with that knowledge for the rest of their lives ... and he wiped the tear away. That was it. It was over. The floodgates opened and the waterworks started and I burst into the most outrageous fit of tears ever cried by this woman in public while ALL OF HER FRIENDS ARE WATCHING. And my roommate and another friend rush in and I just feel people's arms around me and I'm bawling but I'm moving and I don't even know if I'm walking but somehow I'm in the parking lot being rushed down the block to where my roommate's car was. I am a complete wreck and I cannot stop crying. I am BEYOND mortified that I just had a full-on Drunk Girl Freakout in a bar. I had always made fun of those girls who cried in bars, but from that moment on, I had much more sympathy for them. My friends put me in bed and I stayed with me until I pretty much cried myself to sleep. In fact, I think I cried so much that I wasn't even making tears anymore. I woke up the next morning and threw up and begged my friends to tell me that I hadn't cried at the bar and that my eyes were just puffy and red because I was having an allergic reaction to my pillow. No such luck. On Monday when I went back to work and school, people would ask me in these very hushed tones if I was okay and what had happened and why I had cried in the bar. And it was terrible. (But I survived and I was back at the bar the next week and most people hadn't really noticed and soon forgot about my little scene.)

I'm going to make this short. I know there's stuff from the past weekend that I had wanted to blog about, but I can't think about that now. I am caught in a strange place right now. I've been denying it for weeks, but tonight I finally put words to it. I am still in love with B. And not in that, "I'll always love you a little bit" way. No, I am legitimately having feelings for him. The stomach flip is back. That used to be such a good thing, but it is the last thing in the world I want to feel right now. (From him, at least.) Every little thing he does has taken on some meaning to me. I ended up crashing on his couch during the party after going out one night because I needed a ride back to my car (long story), and when I woke up to catch a ride, he argued that I should stay there. To me, this meant he wanted me. In reality, this means he thought I was too sleepy to drive. We had to go to a celebratory lunch for a close friend of ours and he made me promise to call him and remind him to get up (he works nights) so he wasn't late. To me, this meant he needed me. In reality, this means he was afraid he'd oversleep. There are countless examples of this. And it's been slowly building in me and for some reason it's out now. There's is part of me that thinks I should just say, "I am seriously in love with you and I have been for forever and I am sorry to put a damper on our friendship, but I'd rather never see you again than continue with this nonsense game of not caring I've been playing." But the fear of rejection is paralyzing. The thought of putting a voice to these thoughts makes me want to vomit. I don't know that my fragile little heart can handle being smashed into one thousand pieces again. (I'm going to bet that it's not.) I left the bar early tonight because I didn't want to see him. Because if I saw him I'd want to kiss him and he doesn't want me and it's quite a situation. I have never hated someone that I cared about so much. His mere presence in this world is proof that life is (and never had been) fair. I've spent months wondering why I couldn't connect with anyone, and it seems that it's because I'm still tuned in to an old channel. I have this knot in my throat and I can't breathe and it's not going anywhere and I'm afraid I'm going to choke on it. And I don't know what's worse -- choking on the feelings, but keeping them down, or spitting them out and hoping for the best. I am not so stupid that I think this will work out. This may be a passing phase. I may grow out of it. I'm keeping my mouth shut until I do.

So, I haven't finished writing my Weekend Update. Just not feeling tres creative at the moment. So I'm starting a lameo game instead. (But only because I like to see what music people listen to.) I was making mix CDs because my traffic music blows. I'll post my list and then you post yours. The rules:

• Start with a song you use to get amped for going out (Did I just use the word amped?)
• Include at least one of the following:
• Song that was released this year
• Song that really doesn't fit at all
• A country song
• Song by an artist you listened to in high school
• A cheesy love song
• A silly song
• Something that makes you dance in your chair
• Song you are embarrassed to like
• Song you see as an anthem
• Song you can't figure out how you came to like/have
• Song you just discovered this week

• Close with a song about ending
• The other songs are up to you
• Your CD must be at least 15 songs and can't be any longer than 20 songs
• Only pick songs you'd actually listen to
• The songs can't be used for more than one category

• "In These Shoes?" by Kirsty MacColl
• "Something to Be" by Rob Thomas (released this year)
• "Breathe (2 a.m.)" by Anna Nalick (discovered this week)
• "Move Your Feet" by Junior Senior (makes me dance in my chair)
• "Bruised" by the Bens
• "Unprodigal Daughter" by Alanis Morissette (have loved her since high school) (shut up)
• "Back to You" by John Mayer
• "The Chance" by Julie Roberts (country)
• "One in a Million" by Charlie Robison (silly)
• "Making Memories of Us" by Keith Urban (cheesy love song)
• "Part-Time Lover" by Stevie Wonder (doesn't fit)
• "Damaged" by TLC (can't figure out how it got on my computer)
• "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascall Flats (am soooo embarrassed that I like this)
• "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (Acoustic)" by U2
• "Right to be Wrong" by Joss Stone (Anthem!)
• "Southern Girl" by Better than Ezra
• "You Were Always on my Mind" by Willie Nelson
• "That's Life" by Frank Sinatra

I am currently engaged in a two-week round of phone tag with my Best Friend From High School, who is really my Best Friend Ever, so we'll call her my BFE. She went to school in a good-sized city about 8-to-10 hours from where I live, depending on how fast you drive. (Sometimes I miss her so much that I think I could make it four or six.) We had a stupid fight before she left for college and we didn't talk for a few months. And then we started talking again and now, thanks to free nights and weekends, we talk for hours on end and I try to make at least one trip to see her a year and she usually makes it here at least once or twice each year. (Honestly, I couldn't tell you what our pre-college fight was about if my life depended on it. I think the real issue was that we didn't want to say goodbye, so we just fought. Probably.) I love all of my friends, but secretly, I love BFE the best. When I was stuck in retail, hunting for a better job, and I felt like I would never find one, she was more supportive than anyone else I knew. She was working at a restaurant and stuck in the same boat (a much more lucrative boat than mine, but a boat nonetheless). She told me a million times that I could put my stuff in storage, pack some clothes and move in with her. Even if it took me months to find a better job, she said I'd be ok. She'd get me a job at her restaurant and teach me how to wait tables and we'd be fine. I never took her up on it, but I always believed that if I did, we would have been fine. And now we both have better jobs and we are fine. Just in different cities. Aside from my mom, BFE was the FIRST person I called when I finally got offered the Dream Job. I was actually late to the celebration of me for getting a new job because I was sitting in the parking lot of the bar talking to BFE on my cell phone about said job. In the phone-tree of "Things that are important to S," BFE is the first non-blood relative who gets a call. (Now I'm getting a teary-eyed. This post was supposed to be funny!) Anyway, we're playing phone tag. Phone tag of epic proportions. I think we're at round 10 or something. The first rounds were simple. "This is S, call me back." "Hey! It's BFE, give me a ring later." But now it's gotten rather ridiculous and we're just leaving each other really long and slightly obnoxious messages. (And these are not verbatim at all. At all. Also, these obviously aren't ALL of the messages.) From her to me:

"S, this is BFE. I think I'm being stood up. Seriously, I am. I am at the bar and nothing. Nothing! I can't believe ..."

"BFE, this is S. How dare a man stand you up! He is clearly unworthy of your time. Feel better! I can't even get to the point where a man would be able to stand me up lately ..."

"S! New guy just broke a date en route to meeting me. This is just great! I don't understand ... "

"PROMISE ME you aren't getting married. PROMISE. Everyone is getting married but me and it wouldn't feel so lonely if you weren't getting married too ..."

BFE: I can't talk right now, because my food just came. I wanted to check on you. Are you ok? S: I'm great! You'd tell me if you were getting married, right? BFE: You're drunk, aren't you? S: Am not! Ok, maybe just a little bit. BFE: I'm not getting married. It will be okay. You are not the only person who's not getting married. I promise. Stop drinking. Can I call you later?

"S, I was just calling to check on you. Call me and tell me you're ok."

"Hey. I'm fine. I was being dramatic. Also, why did I even BOTHER wanting this job? Seriously, I never get enough done and I'm never caught up and ..."

"Hey! This is damn near ridiculous. I'm at Wal-Mart getting groceries. Call me!"

"Sorry! Hope Wal-Mart was fun. I've been drinking champagne and watching 'Sex and the City' with some friends ..."

"I swear you must be the BUSIEST person in the world. I mean really. Call me, because ..."

"Who's the busiest person now, missy! Sorry, I was at the spa getting a brow wax and a massage. It was a present. Jealous? Seriously, give me a call, because ..."

"Ok, so, just a little FYI. I am heading to a party where there will be at least two boys I've hooked up with and probably numerous boys that I've made out with. I'm serious. Like, four or five, maybe? Or three? I don't know, but more than one is too many. Also, my mom saw me dressed in my going-out clothes and she told me to make sure my boob didn't fall out of my shirt! Is that bad?"

This evening I had a snack-supper with two girlfriends to watch the Apprentice finale. I've never been one to have a party or anything for a TV show, but it seemed like a good excuse to eat unhealthy snack foods and gossip. (As if you needed a reason for that.) Also, Kendra won, which was cool. Mad props to hard-working young professional women who get so many mixed messages thrown at them -- "Get married and have babies!" "Have a career!" "You can't have a career with babies!" "Yes you can!" Also, if I would have had to hear about how Tana is just a "housewife from Iowa" one more time ... Enough with the Apprentice. As we were leaving, my friend and I were exchanging plans and whatnot for the weekend. We were both blowing off a party we'd be invited to. This turned us to the topic of invites and parties. Now, we all have friends who go to every party, every happy hour, every dinner, every barbecue or any other kind of celebration that they're invited to. They're determined to make an appearance at every social function they know of. They're constantly seeking invites to events and worrying far too much about the details. You know the type. They call you the second they find out about a party and hassle you about if you're going and then send you a million reminders about the party and stress about every detail of it and then if you don't go, they call you and say, "Why aren't you at [Name's] party? We got invited to it a month ago!" These people drive me crazy. My friend has a theory that I sort of agree with. "They can't miss you if you're never gone," she says. Now, I'm not trying to make people miss me or anything like that. But in many situations, I take a "leave them wanting more" approach. There's a big difference between being well-liked and the life of the party and being a groupie barfly. If you're going to go to every event ever held by someone you know, you just as soon paste yourself to the wall, because you're basically wallpaper. Truth be told, you never want to be the girl or guy who's always hanging out around closing time at the same place every night. Barfly is a derogatory term, not a badge of honor. I'm not advocating skipping social occasions to be fashionable. But to err on the other side, to be the first person to every party and the last person to leave and the first person to RSVP on Evite every time just makes you look overeager and not busy enough. (Not to mention, who doesn't want a night off sometimes? I know people who go out every night to every bar where they know someone. I'm too old for that.) I've missed a few things with my normal partying crew. Most of it had to do with sickness, although I skipped a few events just because I didn't want to go. I've been reverting to the "I'm an adult and I don't have to go if I don't want to" excuse with people a lot. It's my new favorite excuse. To recap: Parties, good. Busy social life, good. Being a groupie, bad bad bad.

Hola, people. I'm soliciting opinions from my blogger buddies about some tools I've been playing around with. I'd e-mail you all ... but, you know, I have a LOT of things go on right now. I mean, with The Apprentice finale coming up and a very demanding schedule of resting to help heal the lungs and dreaming about what I'm going to spend my coming-any-day-now tax refund on, I've just been swamped. Swamped, I tell you. So, we likey Sitemeter (the free version) for stats? Yay or nay? I just added it to the site to give it a whirl. Any other free counters? (I've been using Branica, which is okay, but I'd like to have something that tracked more than just my last 10 search terms and referrers. For free. I'm cheap like that.) From a commenting standpoint, I was considering switching to Haloscan, but I'm a touch concerned I'd lose my current comments. That would just break my heart. I'm around 300. (Y'all rock. We'll have a party or something when we get to around 500.) Anyone know if there's a way to not lose your comments and transfer to Haloscan? Is it even worth changing? I'm not sure that the Blogger commenting system discourages commenting ... I don't know. Thoughts? Also, I was reading a little bit about the Google AdSense program. I'm not getting a TON of hits. (Between 50 and 100 a day, I would estimate.) I didn't start this to make money ... I started it to have a canvas, so to speak. I know that at this point in time, I am not ready to place ads on the site. I've been thinking about the direction I want to take the blog. This is part of a lot of thinking about the general direction of my life and dating and all that boring jazz. It's odd for me to think about putting ads on my journal. Of course, I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the fact that I actually publish this -- anonymous or not -- for anyone else to see. I'm waiting for the day when I wake up and think, "Holy crap, why the hell did I think it would be a good idea to blog about my lacking love life? I just need to go back to therapy and delete the damn thing!" On one hand, I think, if people want to read this and click on ads and I get money off of it, that's kind of a sweet deal. Is that any different from publishing your work in a magazine? (This is a much much much smaller scale, obviously.) But there's probably a can of worms waiting to be opened when you switch from "fun side project of fed-up singleton" to "ad-supported, money-making site." For one, there's the need to fill the site up all of the time, regardless of what's going on in my personal life. (I like having the option that if nothing is going on in life, nothing is going on on the blog, you know?) Also, by taking ads, do you run the risk of having to water down your content? I'm sure Google AdSense has some sort of language filter in place and if you get into BlogAds and stuff, you end up having to think about how your advertisers are going to feel about your content, which is common in the publishing world, but more of an afterthought in the writing-in-your-journal world. I'm not passing judgment on blogs that take ads. I haven't seen a TON of single-type blogs that do, but I'm sure they're out there. It's an interesting proposition, but ultimately something that I don't think fits for me right now. All of this ad talk is probably a touch presumptive, as I doubt I'd make much (if any) money from ads. This was just rumbling around in my head and I wanted to get it out and get some perspectives. So, darlings who have bothered to read this far, opine on ad-supported blogs versus blogs with an ad or two versus just-for-the-hell-of-it blogs. I'm just curious. Also, I've been getting crazy Google referrers lately. A lot of searches related to the words "panties" and "peeing." Crazy crazy, I tell ya ...

On Friday, there was a touch of car trouble in my life. A dead battery. Sigh. My father and uncle, my go-to lifesavers in such situations, were both out of town. My brother and B were both working, my mom clueless and a string of other people unavailable. A kind stranger in the parking lot finally jumped us off, which was very nice of him. On Saturday, I left my car at the shop to have some (not battery-related) things done to it -- oil, fluids, filters and something else changed. I greatly underestimated the popularity of the shop on Saturday. It was annoying and I didn't really want to sit around and read magazines, so my mom suggested that she pick me up and we eat lunch and then I tag along on her errands for the day. I heard "Free lunch. Shopping!" and we were off. After a few hours of this, we were driving to the grocery store when B called. He apologized for not returning my call from the night before, saying that he hadn't gotten off of work until 1:30 a.m. and figured by that time that we had either "fixed it or given up." I joked that I had almost called him to come put a battery in the car this morning and he fell silent. "You don't know how to put a battery in your car?" He was serious. The amount of information I know about my car could probably fit in the world's smallest thimble. I do (sort of) know how to jump off a car and where to put water for the bug washer thing and how to pump gas and check the amount of air in my tires and add more -- but that's about it. I don't know how to change a tire and I certainly don't know how to put a battery in a car. Although I do know that you can pour Coke on it if there's corrosion on it. Doesn't that count for something? (Sidenote: I am not without handy skills. I can paint and hammer and use some tools and do minor around-the-house repairs. I can put things together. And I can sew, when I want to. I don't see anything wrong with not being able to fix my car.) I'm not going to lie, B was amazed. In fact, he was damn near incredulous.

B: S, seriously, how do you not know how to put a battery in your car? Me: I've never had to. Plus, that's a bit more major than pumping gas or adding air to the tires, no? B: Okay. I'm going to explain this to you. Me: What? B: There's a red wire and a black wire. Me: [interrupting] I've SEEN a battery before. B: Ok, so, you want to unscrew the wires and ... Me: [interrupting again] B, can I be honest with you? B: Uh, sure. Me: I am never going to change the battery in my car. Most places will put it in for free when you buy it. B: But, S, you need to know about your car. Me: B, there's only so much knowledge that I can have at any given time. And this is something I do not need to know how to do. I promise you, I'm never going to have this sort of interaction with a battery. Ever. B: Um, okay. I see.

After work I had scheduled an appointment to check out an apartment, as my hunt for new digs is still going on. (I'm being terribly particular because I don't HAVE to move. I would just rather move somewhere closer to work. Traffic and long commutes suck.) So I didn't take the Interstate home. Instead, I drove through town to get an idea of how the commute to this new place would be. (Fabulously short commute, far-from-fabulous apartment.) My car was in direct sun all day, so it was hot and stuffy and the AC just wasn't doing it for me and my still-weak little lungs. I was burning up, with sweat rolling down my face because I was still in my jacket. (I had to look nice to meet my potential landlord.) Suffice it to say that I was a sight. And probably not a good one. I turn onto a mildly busy sidestreet and I notice a car slow down to my left and pull even with me. It was pretty obvious, but I didn't think much of it. I stop at a very long red light. I was checking my voicemail when the same car pulls even with me again and the driver and passenger roll their windows down. I hear a man's voice calling for me. I look down and fiddle with my phone, trying to ignore the man, who is unfazed by me ignoring him and only yells louder -- "Hey, baby! Hey! Baby! Looky here! Hey girl! Heeeeey!" I put my phone back to my ear. I pretend to make a call. I curse the long red light. So these dumbasses start honking the horn at me. Annoyed, I turn and shoot them a Look of Death from behind my sunglasses. They start bouncing up and down and hollering and catcalling like crazy. Now, what did these prospective Mensa members think I was going to do, leave my car parked on the street, jump in theirs and make sweet, sweet love to them in a parking lot? Shout out my phone number? Follow them home? Flash my breasts? More likely than not, it was just a random act of obnoxiousness caused by a need to feel like big men. Machismo gone mad, although I'm not quite sure how getting my attention displayed their virility. Things like this drive me crazy. When I'm out and about, I don't want to be yelled at or honked at by anyone, let alone strange men that I don't know. I don't know many women who do. Guys who catcall, yell, whistle, squeal and generally make a scene when women walk by are always overcompensating and never fooling anyone. These are the same men who feel the need to display their "straightness" when around gay men. (Men don't have the market cornered on this -- I know plenty of women who try to act sexy or play up their femininity to make themselves feel better.) It goes without saying that anyone who feels that they have to prove something isn't really proving anything. When people look at you and think, "Doth thou protest too much?" it is never a good thing. I knew a girl who got really tired of catcalls while we were on Spring Break a few years back. After about the 10th time in as many minutes, she snappily replied, "Oh really! Let's go then, Bring! It! On!" to a guy who loudly suggested that our group of girls perform a sexual act on him. He was left speechless and stammered something before quickly leaving us alone. He wasn't prepared to back up his random act of sexual harassment, and he looked like an ass. It was one of the funniest things I've witnessed. As for the geniuses in the car next to me in traffic today, I sped off as soon as the light changed, leaving them honking and yelling behind me. Jerkoffs.

I missed the shoe (and purse and martini, if you're an old-school CBS reader), so I did a little shopping to pretty up the sidebar. Found a lot of pink shoes, but not so many lilac ones ... Also, The Dummy still owes me the shoes from my blog. (He promised!) DD, dear, you should have bought the Manolos ... they were cheaper. Enjoy the goodies. Now, I'll give you a topic to discuss. Per some recent posts around the 'sphere -- is it the size of the wave or the motion of the ocean?

Having bronchitis has forced me to slow my pace down to a crawl. I've watched the first half of season 6 of Sex and the City, Mean Girls, both Bridget Jones movies and a slew of really bad TV shows during this past weekend. I tried to read, but found that TV watching was preferable, as copious amounts of codeine cause me to slip in and out of sleep, making reading difficult. I'm taking a very exact combination of medicines that does not knock me out all day, but also does not prevent me from getting numerous cat naps. (This was great when I was taking sick days and not-so-great at work today.) The influx of girlie-type movies and shows combined with a persistent loopiness got me thinking about my approach to dating. I've always used the "Watched Pot Never Boils" method of playing the field. I avoid going out trolling for men, because you never find them when you're looking. (Once I find one to lust after, all bets are off and I abandon Watched Pot and go right to "A Little Obsession Never Hurt Anyone" mode. Not good.) I've been the girl in the bar who dressed for attention. I was young and we were hunting for boys so we dressed the part. It's tiring and time-consuming and shallow and I hate it. Looking like you're on the prowl, in my mind, only attracts men who are on the prowl. And I've always thought that guys who were out looking to hook-up every night were douchebags. This is how I adopted the Watched Pot method. It's not that I stopped going out and trying to meet people -- I've just stopped searching like finding a man is the only thing I'm interested in. But I'm afraid I've become too good at this. I think I've become detached from the whole scene and feel of meeting people. And while my aim was to come across as open to meeting someone, but not existing solely to seek out a suitor, I think I come off as closed and aloof and snobby. Not good. To combat this, I started looking into online dating sites. Actively seeking matches via personals is the exact opposite of the Watched Pot method. Sometimes you need a shock to your system. Now, I did an eHarmony trial for the hell of it a year or so ago and I hated it. I'm not on the marriage track and I don't think I got past picking silly questions for the other person to answer with anyone. So, I found a free dating site and put together a profile. I didn't publish it because I wanted to go through some pictures from a party to find a cute one. I planned to update the profile and post it today, just to see what would happen. I went back, picture in hand (figuratively, obviously), but I stopped myself. It just didn't feel right. I can't narrow down what I want in a guy or a relationship using a series of checkboxes and forms. I'm not ready to discount people because they're 36 and my age range was 25 to 35 or because I drink regularly and they drink socially. (Plus, I took a look at what was out there, and people are odd in what they specify. One guy wrote about working out at a gym based on Christian principles. I don't even know what that means! I thought gyms were based on principles of health and wellness or something. Another guy flat out said that he was very conservative, totally Republican, very traditional and by-the-book, but then put that erotica turned him on. Now, I'm making a snap judgment, but I don't think he knows what erotica is in this sense. I'm thinking he likes porn and thinks Playboy is erotica ...) Anyway, not to sound snobby or judgmental, but I'm not ready to boil my hunt down to checkboxes and profiles and witty banter that's less than 1000 characters. It just all seems so artificial. My current tactics may have failed miserably, but I can't even fathom one of these dating sites working at all. At all. I've got to fine the happy medium between Aloof and Standoffish and Watched Pot. Do not expect that to happen this weekend, though. I've got some mild beautification (a mani-pedi) planned, but that's about all I'm doing. I have grounded myself from going out until I am off of my heavy-duty scary purple particle inhaler. (Seriously, that's what it is.) Send Netflix recommendations and recipes for deep conditioning hair treatments, please.

I was reading a post over at Serially Single and it reminded me of a moment from high school. I felt compelled to share. (And I hope she doesn't hate me, because I'm not trying to insinuate that her situation is high schoolish, just to highlight the whole cycle of dating and how we all feel the same damn things over and over again.) I was 14 years old and I was a freshman at an all-girls high school. Each week we got all prettied up to go to football games for our all-boys brother school. Afterwards there were sometimes dances or parties at either school. Given that I couldn't drive, these events were my only real chances to meet guys, as my parents were still hopelessly overprotective. (They wouldn't even let me hang out at the mall with friends. As if!) A rush of nervousness came over me in the weeks before Homecoming. I had to get asked. I was convinced I would have to transfer to another school rather than live the humiliation of not going to Homecoming my freshman year. My friends (and pretty much every girl in the freshman class) felt the same way. It was as if this one event would define us for the rest of our social lives. I begged one of my guyfriends to help me get a date. He already had one, but he promised he would send any dateless classmates my way. About three weeks before the Big Dance, my friend pulled me aside during the football game and said he wanted to introduce me to someone at the party after the game. I was so nervous, I thought I would die. (This is a running theme throughout this and most other stories from my high school years.) We met after the game and after a few minutes of the most awkward conversations I've ever had in my entire life, he asked me to dance. As we clumsily rocked back and forth on the dance floor (because ballet classes do NOT teach you how to slow dance), he made me happiest little 14-year-old girl in the world. Literally ten minutes into knowing me, he asked me to Homecoming. I didn't care that he was barely my height. I didn't care that we had nothing in common and very little to talk about. I didn't even try to play it cool. I just said yes immediately and after the song I told pretty much everyone in the whole damn world that I had a date to Homecoming. I wasn't going to have to change schools after all, which was a plus. I spent the weeks before in a constant state of terror -- what would I wear and what would I say and, oh dear God, what would I do if he didn't kiss me. I spent the three weeks poring over old issues of Seventeen and Sassy magazines for kissing tips and tips on how to look cute and what to say and what to wear and what to do if he tried to have sex with me. (Because, seriously, all I'd heard about in sex ed and health was that the boys in high school were going to try to have sex with me and I had to do all that I could to remain untouched and virginal. I had to be prepared to stay chaste.) Now, it wasn't as if I had never kissed a boy before. My sixth grade boyfriend had not only kissed me, but he'd told me that he loved me and sent me flowers on Valentine's Day. (Now, why the hell did I let him get away?) But I wasn't content to have my only romantic encounters be with another 12 or 13-year-old -- especially one who was a wimp and told all of the other boys in the sixth grade that we had kissed even though he had promised that he wouldn't tell anyone. (And everyone teased us, like kissing was a bad thing, but that all went away when he went to a new school the next year. Not because of the kissing incident.) I was obsessed and this self-inflicted pressure to lock lips only made my 14-year-old life more unbearable. My mother made me a blue dress with a sweetheart neckline and I wore black velvet flats (so as to not be taller than my date) and a black velvet choker with a heart on it (I was a wee bit obsessed with chokers in the early-to-mid 90s) and matching earrings. I had my hairdresser fix my hair and she made it huge and curly and teased it up so high that I didn't think it would ever come back down. It was 1994 and I thought I was so hot, even though us freshwomen looked about 10 years old compared to our senior classmates. I barely ate at dinner and I barely spoke to my date all night. I was so nervous that he didn't like me, but as we made our way through the tables and chairs and bodies to the dance floor, he grabbed my hand and held on tight. At the time I thought I would die of happiness, but I think he was just worried he'd lose me in the crowd. Either that or he was just as scared as I was. After the dance, a few of us hung out until 12:30 (as late as I'd ever been out in my whole life) at my friend's house, until my date's mom came to bring us home. I slyly slipped a mint and reapplied my lip gloss. His mom tried to chat us up the entire ride home, but I was so nervous that I couldn't speak. In just minutes, he and I would be alone and he would kiss me. I just knew he would. And I would kiss him back and then when all of my friends asked about it at school on Monday, I would blush and they would know and I would be one of the cool freshmen who had totally made out with a boy instead of one of the loser freshmen who had never been on a date. (Mind you, I went on my first "date" and got my first kiss at 12 or 13, so this was a moot point anyway.) His mom parked at the end of the driveway and he walked me to the back. We walked slowly and he held my hand and I felt faint. He told me he'd had a good time and smiled. And nothing. I smiled back and slid the key in the door and everything felt like it moved in slow motion. As I turned the knob, I could feel something welling up in the pit of my stomach. I went to step inside and he said my name and I turned around and he grabbed me and gave me the most odd clumsy hug I've ever had. And then he all but ran to his mom's car. I went inside and closed the door and leaned up against it in the dark, in my best totally crushed 14-year-old Angela Chase wannabe pose. He hadn't kissed me. And everyone would know that he hasn't kissed me when they asked me about it on Monday. I wanted to die. But I didn't. I survived, even though Homecoming Date hadn't kissed me. He never did. I went to another semi-formal dance and on several dates with him, and he never got up the nerve to do it. I was friends with one of the "bad" girls freshman year, and we even arranged a "movie watching" night and rented some dumb Pauly Shore movie specifically so Homecoming Date would make out with me. Still, nothing. I am certain mine is the first boob he ever touched, though.

I have been sick this weekend. Siiiiick. So sick that today was the first day since Thursday that I even bothered to a put a bra on, and had it not been Mother's Day, I would have probably just lounged around, braless and moaning. Everything hurts -- my chest and back from coughing so much, my head and face from the sinus pressure, my body from the general aches, my throat from the coughing and grossness, my ears from the swelling and my eyes from the itchiness. Even my damn teeth hurt, presumably from the sinus infection, as I can't imagine I got a cavity between now and Thursday. As if the combo of a sinus infection and bronchitis was not enough, I had a reaction to the meds the doctor gave me. I'll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that it was unpleasant. My mom was checking in on me and she took one look at my greasy, matted hair and my pastiness and my ill-fitting comfy PJs and tried to put on a happy face as she said, "So, how are you feeling?" I looked at her and deadpanned, "Gross. Like death." And then I coughed this deep cough with all of this nastiness in my lungs and I sounded like someone who had smoked 5 packs of cigarettes a day for the last 25 years. As I uncovered my mouth, the fever and lack of sleep a set in and I kind of lost it. In a weepy voice, I said, "Mom, I am so unattractive right now." She just giggled, smoothed my hair, walked me back to the couch and said, "I know. But I love you."

So, this isn't related to my single life or dating, but seriously, how much of what I've been writing actually is? (Don't answer that!) You may remember an unfortunate incident involving your resident Charming (but single) Blogger, a certain pair of high heels and a hardwood floor at a restaurant. (For those who don't, this is my coy way of describing how I fell off of my heel in front of an audience of stunned diners on Saturday night.) I didn't realize it at the time, but my left knee hit the floor with a lot of force. A lot of force. I think I bounded up so quickly due to embarrassment that I didn't even notice the pain in my knee. Well, I notice it now. I've noticed it for days. My knees are not in good shape to begin with. Years of dance classes and other injuries only highlighted a knee problem that I'll have forever. There was a time when I could roll my kneecaps around with my fingers and slide them out of place with very little effort. (I do not so much recommend this.) As long as I work my legs out regularly, my knees are fine. But every now and again they slip out of place. Suffice it to say that a direct hit to the knee was not what I needed. I'm surrendering for a few days. The floor wins. I won't wear heels for awhile. I will rock an ace bandage with style and avoid the stairs. If all else fails, I'll drag myself around on crutches for a spell. Sigh. But anyone, ANYONE, who mocks my 1980s business woman in a power suit with tennis shoes attire can consider themselves officially out of my good graces. (And folks, that's not where you want to be.) I may be a touch cranky. (Did I mention that the not smoking thing is going amazingly well? Only two cigarettes in more than a week. But who's counting! Certainly not me ...) Consider yourself warned.

(Three posts in one day. You should all feel tres blessed.) So, on Friday night I did something I haven't done in months. I stayed out until 4 a.m. This was big for me, as I used to routinely stay out that late or later, but my 9-to-5-having self just hasn't been up to it as of late. I'm old and my bones are creaky and I no longer crave copious amounts of carbs at 4:30 a.m. Sad but true. I picked my little sister up and took her to get sushi early in the evening, as I am the only other sushi eater in the family and I know how much she loves it. (She's 10 years younger than I am, and we're pretty close.) After dinner, I dropped her off and headed out to a comedy club to see a show that my friend had won passes to. It was okay and the comics were kind of funny, but I am not a huge fan of the club. At all. I try to be open-minded, but my snobiness will not permit me to like this club. I only go when coerced or if I reeeeally don't have anything better to do. After the show, we sat around at our table and finished our drinks before making a beeline for the door. We headed across the street to a more acceptable locale, albeit a bar that I have very rarely been to. Inside, there was a main bar, an area with pool and a side room with those big leather couches that look like they're from the 80s, a dance floor and a band. (Sidenote: No one looks sexy sitting on or getting up from those big leather couches from the 80s. You sink down in them, which makes you look like your stomach is huge and then everything shifts up and your body looks all stout because your back isn't straight. And you're supposed to try to hit on people when you look like this. As if.) I almost immediately tripped over B's roomie, who has pretty much taken up residence at this bar, as it is about two blocks from their condo. He was loaded and announced that he had stopped drinking beer altogether and had replaced it with Red Bull. He waved his drink in front of me and I got a strong whiff of Red Bull. That stuff smells gross, although I will say that I love me a vodka and Red Bull every now and again. (Although, I don't think giving an extremely drunk person a way to be hyper is such a good idea.) He was with a friend he'd made at the bar a few weeks ago. My assessment of this guy was that he was painfully shy and drank to break his shyness. (Pretty unsuccessfully, in my opinion.) He looked over to me a few times during the night, but I wasn't going out of my way to have to make conversation with someone. We danced some and had some drinks, before leaving the band room in favor of the somewhat quieter bar area. I had a Blue Moon, which I'd been meaning to try since it showed up on a few menus around town. It reminds me of Hoegaarden, but with a much milder taste. It was very fresh tasting and light, and it had a gorgeous citrus aroma. It would have been better in a chilled glass, but sometimes the bottle is all you've got. I had no idea that it was a Coors beer until today when I Googled it to find out what brewery made it. I just assumed it was a microbrew or something because I've never seen it at any stores and just started to see it in bars. And I am a beer snob, so I feel like I should know about these things. Hmmph. But back to Friday, I was with three couples and I felt a bit like a seventh wheel. We had started out with nine people in our group, but the other two guys had found girls to entertain themselves with. The couples I was with were very inclusive, but after hours of drinking they were all getting touchy feely and flirty in that, "We are so going home and having sex in a hour" way, where the playful foreplay starts at the bar and culminates at home. I finished my beer, gave hugs and kisses and went to go home. It was 1:30 a.m. and I wasn't really tired. I couldn't go to another bar, as bars here can't stay open past 2 a.m. I was feeling a little heady and I wasn't really drunk, so I decided that it wasn't time to go to sleep. I flipped open the phone and scrolled through my contacts, trying to think of someone who wouldn't mind me popping by for a visit at 1:45 in the morning. Of course, the only person who fit that bill was B, who is a notorious night owl and always up to hang out. (Either that or he just can't ever tell me no, which I don't really buy, given our past, um, disagreements.) I don't even know why I even considered going anywhere else. I wanted to see B. We haven't had the opportunity to hang out much, and I miss spending time with him. I miss flirting and dancing and going out. He had no problem with me coming over, so I went to his house, where we caught up and watched the end of "Runaway Jury" before settling on watching the very dark "May," which was possibly too creepy for me to watch at 3 a.m. (I do NOT do scary movies. At all.) I want to see the end of it, just not at night. I drifted to sleep for a few minutes around 3 and woke up when B asked if I was staying the night. I mumbled that I needed to wake up to drive home and eventually did around 3:45. I could have stayed, but I refuse to crash on a couch when I am perfectly capable of getting myself into a bed. B wasn't offering, so I knew my own would have to suffice. (A sidestory: This is funny now, but it wasn't then. Three New Year's Eves ago I got terribly trashed at a party. B was still living with two friends of mine, and they assured me that he would be staying out all night (he bartended until 2 a.m.) and that I could sleep in his bed. Extremely drunk, I curled up in his bed and at 3 a.m. the damn lights come on. He had gone to a party after work and went to leave to go somewhere else when he backed into someone's car and now had to pay to have it fixed. He hadn't even been off of work long enough to have more than a beer or two and he was pissed and wanted to crash. So he walks into his room and he turns on the lights and he finds my drunk ass in some sort of sexy going-out top with my shoes and my pants and bra on the floor. I roll over and mumble something about him waking me up. In my drunkenness, I thought he'd just climb in bed and play along, as if months of refusing to consider being with me and then making out with me and sending me mixed signals didn't matter and he was going to be fooled into cuddling with me. He was a good sport and didn't kick me out immediately, but eventually he was like, "Um, are you going to move to the couch?" I was mortified and made him turn around so I could get dressed and make my way to the living room. He admitted later that had he not been in a terrible mood, he wouldn't have kicked me out of the bed -- but he quickly deflated my ego by adding that he would have slept on the couch himself. Sigh. Bastard.) So I left B's and wondered why I'd even wanted to go in first place. It's as if I still want to chase him or I still haven't completely gotten over the need to hang out with him sometimes. You know how you're over someone, but you're not? You don't actively want them, and you don't feel head-over-heels in love and you don't want to puke every time you see them because they make you giddy and nauseous, but if they were to one day decide that they wanted you, you wouldn't turn them down? I think that's how I feel about B. Not totally healthy, but at least I'm aware of it. As I pulled out into the street, I flipped through tracks on the CD until I landed on Joss Stone's "Right to be Wrong," my personal girl power anthem of the moment. About 20 minutes later I barely made it to my bed before I passed out and woke up several hours later with a pounding head, a dry mouth and smudged mascara on my face. I looked in my bathroom mirror and a scary-tired, matted-haired monster stared back at me. I was sore and cranky all day Saturday. I knew I was too old for all of this.

These things are starting to not be funny anymore. You would think after all of the breast baring and the office flashing, you would think I would have had my fill of obnoxious, bad-chick-flick embarrassing moments. But no. Saturday night, my father invited me to dinner at a restaurant I love. We don't get to hang out alone very much, which is a shame, because now that I'm grown up and past the phase in my life where being seen with my parents is terribly embarrassing, I have a lot fun with my dad. We have a lot in common and a lot to talk about it. (I feel like I'm describing a date or something. Ew.) (Not that I even remember what being on a date is like.) Anyway, I wore some of my favorite sitting shoes, cute black slingbacks with a pretty thin heel. (Have I explained what sitting shoes are? I don't remember. Just in case I didn't, sitting shoes are shoes I love to wear, but only to places where I don't have to stand, as they are terribly uncomfortable and difficult to walk in. I probably noticed this when I bought them, but was too in love with them to care. A common usage of this term is, "We can't go out dancing tonight! I'm wearing my sitting shoes.") Back to dinner: We went to a restaurant that isn't niiiice, but also isn't really cheap and family-like either. It's casual nice, I suppose. It looks like a huge old house someone converted into a restaurant and it has the gorgeous old hardwood floors, which are kind of worn-looking, but it a good way. It was pretty crowded, so we had to wait in the bar. My poor dad could NOT get the bartender's attention and no one would let him close enough to bar to really get noticed. After a few minutes of waiting, I surveyed the bar, asked him what he wanted and headed over to the end where a group of three guys my age was sitting, having a beer while they waited for their table. It took them less than 15 seconds to move over and make room for me to get to the bar and apologize for causing me any inconvenience. You boys are sooooo easy sometimes. After a few drinks, we got a table and had a nice dinner. I ordered coffee after dinner and went to the bathroom while I waited for it to come. I freshened up, checked my hair and admired my favorite shoes in the full-length mirror. I looked cute and felt good. I only drank two glasses of wine, so I was in no way drunk. Just having a good time. I walked from the bathroom and back to my table. And then it happened. Remember the pretty wood floors I described earlier? I got to inspect them in detail, as I faceplanted in front of the entire damn restaurant, in a skirt, just feet from my table. I was mortified. Time slowed as I felt my foot slide on a slick spot on the floor and come out from underneath me as I tumbled forward and tried quite unsuccessfully to stop my falling with a nearby table. I made a huge thud as I hit the ground, as this restaurant, in the style of many old houses, is raised off of the ground. There was an audible gasp throughout the restaurant as people looked at me with pained, pitiful expressions. I don't know how, but I hopped up unassisted before my father could get to me. I straightend my skirt, checked my shoes and smoothed my hair in one quick motion and returned to my table. My server apologized and I tried to play it off, but it was tres embarrassing. I don't know if the entire restaurant saw my blue panties. I hope not. I could feel eyes on me as I walked out, slowly and carefully, later. Someone pointed out that I was the "woman who fell earlier" and someone else commented on my three-inch-sort-of-spiked heels as the reason I fell. I find blaming the shoes to be terribly unnecessary. This was clearly the floor's fault.

So, I fixed the blog. Rather, I took one of Blogger's templates and slapped my banner on it and moved on. I would like to build my own preeeety template again, but we all saw how well that worked out for me and my IE readers. I always wondered why everyone used this template. It only took me 15 minutes to customize this, so I guess now I know, huh? Ciao! Update: Sorry for the continued housekeeping. I do have ACTUAL things to blog about, as I was in, "Take notes for CBS" mode this weekend. A week's worth of observations. I swear. I think I have completely updated the blogroll. I tried to add links to the people who regularly link to me and then I went to DD's page and linked to the people I always visit through his page. I also added all of the people (I think!) from my old Kinja blogroll. And, I tried to link to the people who comment here. I'm sure I forgot someone, but I can't imagine who, as I now have 46 blogs blogrolled. (And I'm going to be honest, try as I might, I know I don't read 46 blogs every day.) So, we're going to try this again. If I have repeatedly scorned you and left you off of all of my updated blogrolls, please comment here, and I will blow you a kiss and blogroll you. Promise.