The Line Forms Here

I have always suffered from some great fear of filling out forms.  I can’t seem to track the information or understand exactly where to put my name or address, above the first line, below the first line?  I fill out forms as though my entire life will be altered if I am not 100% in agreement with whatever is being asked of me.  I am convinced that there is always another option that some rigid group of form creators deliberately left off just to make my life temporarily miserable as I fill out any given form.  I am a nonconformist and forms just don’t jive with this aspect of my very being.  I want there to be a box that says “it depends” after just about every question.  Or “maybe” or “not today” “who wants to know” and “really, who gives a _ _ _ _”.  The truth is, I have never filled out a form that leaves me confident and absolutely certain or even nearly certain, frequently, often, or at times.  I am pleased to note that the terms “form fear” and “formaphobia”  were recently added to the well-respected and highly acclaimed Urban Dictionary.

My formaphobia is especially problematic because I have a great deal of forms to fill out. Around this time of year I become rather inundated with forms.  Income taxes.  College application forms, FAFSA, Financial Aid for the slew of students in the home and at school, (self included).  Work related diagnostic testing forms, behavior assessment forms, conference and professional development forms.  In fact, the reason I am blogging is because I am avoiding several open and incomplete forms at this very moment.  I have handed in a couple of forms at work after long bouts of avoiding and hiding said forms. I have a less than appreciated tendency to circle in-between 2 choices because I just can’t agree to the choices provided.

I just reviewed a profile I created on an on-line dating site about 6 months ago that was a bit misinforming due to my form fear.  I also realized that my daughter’s Financial Aid form wasn’t processed because I missed the last box of the 4^th page of the section needing my driver’s license number, that wasn't handy at the time I was filling it in.  These were both filled out via on-line forms.  I probably should have reviewed them a little closer. On the dating site, I kind of feel like I was misrepresenting myself and I could have missed out on all sorts of amazing and religiously diverse dreamboats due to my dysformia.  In one section I thought I was sharing information about myself,  but I had been inadvertantly checking off boxes about what I wanted from my potential matches. 

The on-line dating sites typically ask questions like; religious affiliation, salary range, do you own a car? do you want kids?  Help me out here, let’s start with the kids, I have 3.  I want them.  I am 48, I am not Kelly Preston, although she is also 48. I have the choice of selecting: I want kids, Undecided, or I don’t want kids.  I don’t want more kids is not a choice. I would like the choice of “been there, done that”  but I want it to be sweeter and more loving “I wanted them, I have them” or  “I have kids, they are great”, or “I’m 48, let’s get real here, shall we?”  I want the profile of any potential dreamboat to reveal if he has kids, he is taking care of them, loving them, paying for them to the best of his ability and then some, and being there for them but these questions don't get answered on this form, and that's for another forum.

I messed up big time on the religious affiliation section of my profile form.  I believed I checked off Christian/Catholic, Christian/Protestant, Christian/Other and Spiritual for myself.  I am not as ambivalent about my faith as it may appear on a form, it’s more that I am not as committed to one particular section of the Christian Faith.  Allow me to explain, I am baptized, penanced, communioned and confirmed, Catholic.  I currently or occasionally worship in a Protestant church, I am more openly spiritual with a bent on: the Universe is an amazing place full of wonder and joy that just can’t be easily explained.  Oh well, I guess I am not exactly “openly” spiritual, I am rather privately spiritual? maybe not, but there isn’t a box for Religiously Curious.  Not enough boxes for me to jam and slam myself into. If your interested,  I like religion, it’s so fascinating to me, sometimes like the ocean, sometimes like magic beans, mostly an anthropological wonder full of hope.  The snafu?  I checked these off on the side of what I want for my would-be dating partner and left my side blank.  As though I were some atheist or an agnostic with a fetish for Christians, any which variety of Christian.  

See, this form thing gets way too complicated and I don’t want anyone misinformed.  I can be rigid in my need to be clear, or clearly understood.  Forms rarely, if ever are one size fits all, but neither are tube tops or uni-tards and I rarely, to never, pay any mind to them.  I really need to stop over-thinking everything.  I might also need to unsubscribe to the SAT Question of the Day, that I have subscribed to in order to help my son prepare for the SAT so that he may have a strong chance to get into a school that he desires to go, with forms that I will need to assist him with.   He needs to declare racial identity which keeps getting more complex.  I want to check off a box for Atlantic Islander, which could mean Irish, but they only offer Pacific Islander, which could still mean a diverse and varied ethnicity.  Gender identity will be offering additional boxes.  The parent and guardian section has several layers and permanent residence is influx for many.   Adding days of the week may help a few sections, we are a rather fluid species, hard to pin down.

I am longing for the form that is handwritten on a scrap of composition notebook paper.  Will you work hard in school?  Check y for yes/most of the time.  Are you interested in learning and growing? Check y for yes.  Will you be coming to school so that you can drink heavily and game far away from your diligent mother that is paying for this experience? Check n for no.  Are you full of hope and potential but maybe have not mastered every aspect of your being by the junior year of high school? Check y for yes.  

As for me and the dating scene "need to know" scrap paper form:  Do you think I’m cute? Check y for yes.  Do you like quirky, dorks with snarky wit?  Check y for yes.  Do you need me to be with you every waking moment?  Check n for no.  OK perfect- we must be compatible enough to grab a cup of joe.  OK.  Check ✓  That was easy.  I wonder how many religiously diverse and indifferent were turned off by my falsely checked Christian fetish?   The line forms here, retakes and do-overs accepted.

Trending and Trust

I am trying out all sorts of wild and crazy living on the edge with reckless abandon activities of late.  You might recall, I recently wrote about eating tongue.  Not that I did, or likely would, but I did talk about it-that’s surely wild!  I enjoyed a fairly successful art opening with a room full of positive energy and encouraging feedback.  OK, I am being painstakingly modest- the art opening was absolutely fabulous, and I am not typically one to do fabulous, not seriously anyway, but the opening was totally kick-ass.  It was serious and amazing and fabulous.  I also submitted a painting to a gallery, in the small urban setting of Kingston, N.Y.  which was well received and generated an immediate, impassioned response.   I started biking, well a little, but a start just the same and I did make it the whole 8 miles with speed and delight plastered across my wind blown face.   So I did it again.  I logged a few "dates" that I thought were great fun. We all have our own take on things, for me the great smile I was receiving was a fresh new start after years of forlorn sadness, and pale, strained grief. So, I might try a few more soon.

All of this living on the edge and not taking too much seriously led me to say these words out loud yesterday, “You have been doing my hair for years, I want you to do something different, I totally trust you.”   I guess I thought that meant she would also know my inner most insecurities and fears, being all trust-gaining and such.  This trust of a hairdresser parallels the trust in intimate relationships and the belief that when we do finally “trust” we imagine that to mean; the other bloke or broad in the inner circle of trust can read our minds and know our inner selves and inner fears.  The very dark and secret part of us that we can’t quite look at directly will be understood and honored and protected.   That's kind of hard to really master.  But then that’s what living on the edge, all reckless is about isn’t it?  Embracing the feeling that we are OK  in spite of those deep dark secrets.  We have very little control of very few things so why exert so much energy trying so hard to make everything just so, or just soooooooo hidden? 

Something different.  That’s all she needed.  Well, actually, she went on a mission to find a few good magazines and hair style catalogs to choose a perfect style.  She handed me one and told me to see if I could find anything.  I decided not to really look.  I wanted to give up and just let the  “expert” decide.  She was getting more and more exhilarated.  She did in fact have a great idea. 

Around the halfway mark, I thought of saying “OK, great you did it!”  But again, I fought the urge and just decided to wait it out.  I did not have long hair to begin with but when all was said and done, you could have created costume and design for 2 – 3 Planet of the Apes characters.  Let’s just say my hair is, or was thick.  Extremely thick and now it’s not.  It’s not thick, it’s not there, or here, anymore.  It’s just not.

I survived it in her smiling presence.  I am a sucker for smiles it turns out.  An easy mark at the end of a smile.   Very easy, it seems. I don’t often enough give them, so they are typically hard to come by, but maybe I am smiling more of late, because I seem to be getting more.  (I’ll have to make a mental note of that, am I smiling more?  Are others smiling in happiness or something more akin to shock and fear?)  I left the salon with the sinking reality that when I woke from my spritz of valium-sprayed-smile, I would be greatly and deeply traumatized and traumatizing.  When I got home, my son who favors crew cuts, (which incidentally drives me crazy,) said “WHOA” in that smiling, deep, way that doesn’t really mean good or bad but it surely means DIFFERENT.  I prefer good or bad when it comes to feedback, DIFFERENT is hard to pin down.  I like pinning down, and smiles.

In the late 60’s the “pixie” was a hairstyle in vogue.  Twiggy wore it best.  Her big deep eyes distracted you from her short hair, or were made to look deeper without some big, distracting, flip, wave.  Her Peter Max inspired fashions also brought your eyes away from her hair or lack of it.  Florence Henderson, as Carol Brady added a little length and popularized the “shag”.   In those same late 60’s my mother, frugal, efficient expert that she was, marched us downtown and had a barber cut our hair quickly and cheaply, once.   I was too young to complain or grasp that this was not exactly normal girlish fanfare.  The second time however, was traumatizing.  To me, and more so to Mrs. Hunt, my best friend’s mother charged with taking me.  She was on her way downtown and needed to take her son to get a haircut.  My mother, frugal efficiency expert that she was, handed Mrs. Hunt the cost for a haircut and requested that I get mine too.  Mrs. Hunt appeared a little reluctant, due to my status as a “girl”,  but she was headed there anyway, and what are friends for?

So off we went.  It came back to me quickly but apparently too late.  Maybe it was the clippers, maybe it was the fact that I was with a different boy, not just boy brothers that did things with me out of familiar tribal ritual or the privacy of our own family oddities.  Suddenly it became clear this was a “boy” hair-cutter and a “boy” haircut and now what?  Was I a boy?  No! I was not a boy.  But from the looks of things in the barbershop mirror, you could have fooled me and probably everyone else in the universe.  I was probably 5 or 6 at the time, cute - sure, but a bit on the rough and tumble side of things, skinned knees and wild abandon.  

If you ask young children now the difference between boys and girls they often say, “Girls have long hair. “ I can assure you, the rules back then were even more defined.  Girls had long hair, well except, Twiggy, and Carol Brady, but I don’t think they went to the barber.  When I caught a glimpse of myself, I did what any traumatized girl does.  I screamed.  I cried a shrieking, screaming cry and tried to grasp the utter act of violation that had been committed.  I could do no more.  My hair, thick and long, was gone.  It was not there, on my head, and could not be returned or fixed or salvaged.  Worse, I felt like I was stripped of my girlness.  I walked home, sulking, down trodden, several steps behind, Mrs. Hunt and her son.  Knowing the neighboring “foreigner”, (I think that once meant “Italian”) girls could at least wear earrings to stake a claim toward gender clarity, didn't help.  I was stuck, hairless and nationalist without the old world pleasure, or disguise of pierced ears.  Sulking and down trodden with minimal nationalist expression, I tarried homeward.

I don’t hold on to many feminine pleasures or pursuits.  I was not primped or pampered.  Feminine mystique is not an area of expertise for me.  I am not high maintenance in any stretch of the imagination, but I do like a little more hair.  I have a few different quirky rules about what NOT to do to it.  Of course if you don’t share these rules and you say, “I totally trust you with my hair” you have to just take it with a grain of salt, or scream bloody murder, or suffer stoically.  Maybe I just need a thick, Peter Max-inspired headband or a big floppy hat for the next couple of weeks.  

I went out to pick up a few things from the grocery store and the local high school teacher looked up from his cart and smiled widely, and said, “Oh, I like your new do!”  Of course his hair is thick and long, and I think he was caught off guard, but he did smile.  Maybe it was ok to trust someone with sharp scissors near my hair.  Maybe I need to lace up my high heeled boots and twirl around in my new.... wait, according to fashionising.com  I am "in".  The trends for 2012:  wide eyes curtained by big false lashes, bright block colors,  graphic prints and colorful abstract geometric patterns,  AND  short, boyish hairstyles.   

Maybe I will check in on Mrs. Hunt.  I imagine if pressed she still has pangs of guilt about taking me to get my haircut some 43 years ago.  It might please her to know, I finally outgrew it, sort of.   I’m just happy to know, my hair grows quickly, in thick, waves that will soon cover my ears and hide my, I mean frame me just so!

Exposed: Achieving your values brings happiness

I was recently asked about a quote I have on my FaceBook page.  I have two quotes listed and I was caught off guard by the question.   I also felt a bit exposed and maybe put on the spot so I did what came naturally (to me), I attempted to pretend to make light of it.   I actually played possum, so to speak.  It’s not a good strategy.  It’s really quite dim-witted and dull, but sometimes when I am caught off guard or feel exposed, I am not so very quick on my toes, or my verbal responses.  Of course putting your life, or your life’s dreams and values up on FaceBook kind of makes you fair game for being exposed, kind of like blogging, I suppose. 

The quote was/is by Ayn Rand and it goes as follows: 

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. 

It’s a quote that I connect to for several reasons.  Mainly, I value happiness.  I firmly believe happiness is not one of these abstract concepts that needs to be lost on so many.  I believe happiness is attainable, abundant and at the ready for anyone that wants it.  I really like happiness a great deal in spite of my sometimes serious grimace or determined gait.  Read on, because those features might be me in pursuit of happiness.  Smile when you see it in me, I am getting happy or going for happiness full-on.

What do I value?  What makes me happy?  What comes to mind immediately, I would have to say first and foremost, my children, or the opportunity to share life with them.  Not so much in the literal sense of giving life but more in the ethereal sense of providing opportunities for them to see beauty and develop wonder and see the goodness of each day.  To have been able to expose them to different paths and possibilities and then allow for their lives to emerge and choose the path that works for them.  I’m not saying this has been easy or even clearly in view at all times, but I think they are truly open to the world around them and feel valued.  To have lived by my values to provide a chance for them to develop their own has been a worthy cause.  I know it’s schmaltzy but maybe that’s another value of mine - schmaltz, in all of it’s puffed up, glittery, feel-good potential.

I value hard-work and productivity.  Ambition.  Drive.  Accomplishment.  Discipline.  The concept that cutting and stacking wood to heat the hearth can fulfill all of these values sometimes as much as, or more so, than landing a high-powered position isn’t lost on me. In fact it is incredibly attractive in it’s simplicity.  But I also enjoy the bigger, bolder attempts, the kind that provide regular paychecks to buy the wood that needs to be chopped and stacked and fed into the hearth of the happy home.

Individuality.  Independence.  Creativity.  Risk-taking.  These speak to confidence and drive and sometimes the chance to just push past all of the restrictive and constraining doubts that linger all around us unheeded and unduly.  These are important values that provide and abundance of happiness when acted upon.

Strength.  This is my big scary value that I exude and ultimately intimidate and then quiet and shamefully attempt to mask.  I understand I need to temper this one but I have some more time to work on it.  It’s a process, this life and this undertaking of values and this desire for happiness, at least give me that much.  Strength is also evident in being able to carry on.  To wake up each morning and face adversity and take it head on or push it aside to achieve some other small accomplishment or complete a basic task.  For me strength is the power to be resilient and remain hopeful and expectant amidst a great deal of unhappiness in others.  And the on-going idea that my strength has some ability to make someone else feel less strong?  Poppy-Cosh! There is plenty of strength to go around, have at it!  (Time will tell if I can temper this, or want to, or need to.)

Passion.  Desire.  Pleasure.  Sexuality.  So much taboo and taintedness, restraint and discipline associated with these values that provide deep interconnectedness or momentary thrill.   The opportunity to express and feel and live is electric and vital.  Why do we work so hard to devalue and demean and disparage these feelings?    Another day.  Can’t figure it all out here.  I do know that this value has been one in need of minimizing for the conformity police and the jump to conclusion die-hards.  But the secrets out: this one makes me happy, easily, and quickly, under the right circumstances, or lighting, or eagerly, smiling, kind and gentle companion. Privately and respectfully.

Faith.  This value is a bit tough to truly explain to others.  Faith has this negative association with religion.  Religion has this negative association with rules and restrictions and restraint and conformity and discipline, which are typically values I run from, but I have a very unique relationship with religion and faith.  It’s not easy to describe or explain.  Well that’s not really true.  It’s not easy for others to hear about because religion and faith have these really harsh and negative connotations with you know, rules and restrictions and hatred and war, even.  That’s just not right though.  That has nothing to do with faith.  I do go to church, more than occasionally.  I like the traditions, the structure and the opportunity to sit and think of something, anything, bigger and better than self and society.  I also like the concept of faith as a value in saying “I have faith in you.”  “I believe in you.”   I have great certainty in the power and ability of others being able to carry on and succeed when they try, attempt, risk it all for some piece of happiness, really isn't that faith?  I am really happy to know that I have faith in myself, in others, and have welcomed the faith others have in me.

Appreciation. Wonder. Joy.  I value beauty and nature and color.  The natural world.  The man-made contrived.  I cannot recall a day in my life that something has not captured my attention and surprised me or caught me off guard in a manner that has not left me awe struck.  Each day on my way to work I drive toward the Catskill Mountains and see the interplay of sky and clouds and color.  Water and mountains and trees.  Fog or mist, snow, sun…color, movement, life.  The play of light.  The constructed invention of humans.  Buildings, parks, walkways, internet, medicine, books, language.....Joy, wonder, appreciation.

Wit.  Real, funny, happy, laughter causing wit. Play.  Like sledding or skipping just because.  Playfulness.

Humility.   

Dignity.   

Honesty.   (Realizing that sometimes being honest about yourself leaves you exposed.  So trust might have to come with honesty, hand in hand.  I honestly want to have fun and take life slowly.  I honestly like the idea of being available to anything that comes my way but I honestly don't operate that way as much as I would like to imagine. I am honest to a fault, when called out or asked to share my thoughts or opinion.  OK, I didn't exactly share all of this when the quote on my FaceBook account was brought up, but if a follow-up question was asked I would have.  Or if I knew why my FaceBook account was being heavily scrutinized or perhaps simply curiously reviewed.   I am honestly, at times a big talker but still a lot of fun to be with and snarky as all get out occasionally. Honestly, I want what most of us want; love, companionship, connection, belonging and the courage to be honest about it.  All a process....But I definitely value honesty and it's not always easy to come by, which makes it that much more valued.)

Balance.

I am so easily happy, see?  There are so many opportunities for happiness all around us.  Everyday, all ways.  Ripe for the picking when you have values. And we do, all of us.  We might just need to wipe them off and re-evaluate or realign ourselves to them.  

And for your reading and thinking pleasure just a couple more quotes by Ayn Rand, a phenomenal woman with clearly articulated values and therefore, hopefully happiness.

 “Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
― Ayn Rand

“Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.”
― Ayn Rand

Bon gré mal gré - C'est la vie!

Just over three years ago, as I drove my daughter to college, I began a journey deep inside myself that had been long overdue.  I had been on the outside of most everything for some time.  It wasn’t always that way.  I was once, or practically, a rebel, a warrior, a risk-taker, and devil-may-care hellcat, or so I like to imagine or claim.   Not a myth of youth, so much as, a clearly defined being with personality and purpose.  Sometimes a force to be reckoned with, other times a calm and quiet presence, an observer, a thinker, and just as quickly a raucous instigator challenging others to be more, or less of who they were destined to be.  I was more frequently alive and lively.  Realizing, almost at once, that I had been this "someone" so long ago, I started reflecting and examining and analyzing before starting to adjust and alter and maybe soon embrace or at least calmly accept. 


I suppose bringing my daughter to college was symbolic as much as it was monumental and yet still, an ordinary transition in the life cycle of us simply, mortal humans. The depth of the separation caught me slightly off guard just the same. I had 3 years prior released a son out into the wild, or an esteemed college, in any event, and survived unscathed.  With my daughter I saw something else.  As much as I saw the richness and fullness of her life beginning, I also saw how much I had been evading and stifling that fullness in my own life.   The anticipation and expectation of greatness was tangible and all around her.  Something large and possible lie ahead for my daughter, it was palpable. I saw her as ready, but vulnerable, open but inexperienced and accepting of what was to be.  I had great faith in her and knew she would go far if only she wished.  As she does. 


This transition forced me to take a closer look at what was missing in my own life.  It wasn’t hard to identify.  It was me.  I was missing from my own life.  I wondered when and why I had given up or left.  I might have mourned my “self” more than I mourned her parting.  I wanted to feel whole again.  I no longer was able to be the pulled and partitioned parent providing too little to too many and nothing to myself. 


I started to take a closer look at my efforts at evasion.  I struggled to maintain a marriage, knowing it had long ago lost its way.   I was not ready to accept that it likely never had a chance, and so I was never looking directly at it.   It had been built upon deception and illusive assurances.  I suppose the best way to avoid that truth was to embrace it and try to quell it.  I might have tried to hug the love into it.  When that failed, I became combative, and frustratingly ambiguous and finally submissive. 


I can now say, sadly, I helped create this conflicting duality.  This dance that offered rejection and attraction, over and over again.  Repelled and rapt. This self-fulfilling prophesy that has permitted me to gloat in the reality that I cannot trust.  Men.  See.  Again.  I have been playing out a deeply rooted childhood violation, molestation, but never fully.  And so it hasn’t healed.  I haven’t healed.   Instead I get to “imagine” that I am in control of “it”.  This harm that has festered deep within.   I choose men that offer very little and then I get only that much.  Expectant of little and appreciative of less.  See.  Again.  Why would I expect more? 


I am strong.  I am a fighter.  I am smart.  I am funny.  I am attractive.  I am violated.  And so I fight.  I resist.  I submit.  I attract.  I repel.  Anxiously.  Awkwardly.  Uncertainly. And angrily.  Because all that I am that is good didn’t protect or help or save me.  And all that I am that is not so very good did not protect me or help or save me.  And so I can’t trust.  Me.  See?  


In not wanting to believe that there must be something wrong with me to have made this happen I have kept this secret tightly concealed for so very long.   I believed I would not be able to convince others that I did not cause this violation to occur.   I did not stop it.  I did not understand it.  Instead I grew up and believed I could not trust men. Or myself...with...them.  


I have developed some strong, unconventional leanings amidst some regular, ordinary thoughts and desires.  I don’t always “fit”.  I tried to convince myself I mostly don’t want to, or need to, or simply just can't.  But I have tried only so much, and doing so, I have lost a great deal of me.   I have started realizing I am not so very different, or difficult, or dastardly.  I am resilient.  I am strong.  I am a fighter. I am smart.  I am funny.  I am attractive.  I am healing.  I am trying.  I am deserving and desirable. I am ready to trust a little more.  I am ready to expect more.  


Tonight after struggling with the reality that I took a chance and tried out my dating chops and more or less failed miserably (well maybe not that much),  I shared with a friend,  "The worst problem is that I don’t have a clue why it didn't work out”.   It didn’t take very long to reveal that that was really not the worst problem, or even entirely true. There has been this pattern over time:  There is initially BIG attention and attraction directed my way that I find so intimidating and unbelievable.  Rapt and repelled, curious, isn't it?  I question and discard and distrust at the same time that I desperately want to eagerly accept and experience.   I send out, or keep close, unclear cues.  I was even able to imagine a few of my not so appealing traits and features. I briefly attempted to develop this new interest in requesting feedback, as though if I only knew what was not working I might tamp it down and alter who I am.  Still playing out the early violation.  Or maybe just bide for time and explain it away. Imagine that? I’m not really interested in tamping down or submitting or giving up me.  Instead, I am ready to heal and accept and maybe grow and chalk up the experience to the real possibilities that await me and smile at the kindness and gentleness that was shared, if briefly. 


I am attracted to men, and no longer so afraid, ready to trust, finally, and that’s more than ok.  I am complex and wizened and maybe not appealing to every man, or even a man I might find appealing.  So, whether I like it or not,  C’est la vie!  I suppose that's the greatest lesson in being this particular woman in control.  I don't get to decide or determine or alter or fix it all.   My story is still unfolding, I am ready to live fully and find out where I might lead, and follow, and just be.

Oooooh Oooooh Pick Me, Pick Me!!!

In a classroom full of potentially competitive individuals, or perhaps attention seeking supplicants, the best way to gain the attention of the top dog, or teacher, is to wave your arms and shout, “Ooooh OOOH Pick Me, Pick Me!”  This technique works on several counts even with the most stern and serious teacher. The chaotic fits of waving, wiggling and shouting attract attention. If the teacher does not approve or consent to this frowned-upon technique, the attention of peers is clearly noticed just the same.  The teacher is sometimes left to acquiesce in the absence of any other volunteers and call upon the reckless individual. Next, the weakened teacher is often compelled to gain classroom composure by taking a moment to point out this is not the approved mode of acceptable classroom behavior, thereby further attending to the impetuous attention-seeker.  The function of the behavior was to gain attention and approval, perhaps to share and display intelligence and garner respect and esteem.  At the very least he or she got attention.  This system of gaining attention and then approval, infrequently supports any predetermined end goal.

I am finding in the world of dating, or at the very least the world of meeting potential dating possibilities, there are similar conventions that have been poorly developed, if at all.  I am unconventionally conventional with a smattering of unique and unusual and a touch of nonconformity, or maybe a bit more.   I won’t be the one waving my appendages flamboyantly in order to gain a brief moment of someone else's attention.  I also won’t be playing coy and attempting to set up some sort of carefully devised “test” to determine whether or not some potential contender is a real catch.   So what am I to do?  What’s a self-sufficient, grounded, seeker of fun and occasional companionship to do really?   (Admittedly, I am still in a slightly vulnerable state post 20 year relationship status, but I am picking up speed and momentum quickly.)

As I recall, the first objective is to be picked.  Then what? There seem to exist very clear guidelines of what not to do as opposed to what to do.  This is problematic to me on several levels.   First, I am not very good at following guidelines.  This in and of itself, has landed me with some not so good partners.  That concept of cutting off your nose to spite your face, has been a lesson hard earned.   Secondly, I continue to stubbornly fight the notion that I must conform to some outdated, oppressive, gender-related restrictions.  Here again, cutting off my nose to spite my face, I continue to attempt to approach situations and forge a life that works for me, against the grain, or the tide, or the acceptable societal rules.  I believe the current courting rituals were created in the 1950’s with some slight adjustments based upon the introduction of the birth control pill.   It seems we've come a long way, baby, but we haven't covered much ground. 

I recently came across an article at AskMen.com that highlighted yet another perplexing formality, if you adhere to the conventional wisdom of gender-related generalizations and the stereotypical confines of current societal courting rituals.  The gist of the article was warning men not to have sex on the first date.  The premise being, waiting shows that the man is more likely to be considered a gentleman, waiting gives the man time to evaluate whether the “woman is crazy”,  waiting creates anticipation.  Waiting shows you don’t think she’s a slut.  This is my all time favorite bit of conventional wisdom, it’s right up there with the warning that “some women still view sex as synonymous with coupledom” in the same article.  I definitely need clarification here.  If I am the so-called slut that sleeps with someone on the first date, does this also mean we are now a couple? Well, that would surely be crazy, I think.   There was more about determining the crazy factor and also the issue/problem with learning too early about sexual incompatibility before a relationship can be formed and sealed.  Umm, buddy, if we don’t have that certain je ne sais quoi we probably won’t be forming a deep and spiritual relationship of love and adoration.  But that’s just me.  I imagine it could explain all the sexless marriages out there today, the men clearly waited too long and those crazy women had the chance to, or were forced to, wait before revealing their sexless attributes after the careful evaluation process that determined they were not sluts.  But we all know that isn't really the reason intimacy in marriage is on the downside.  I just think we could re-evaluate how we go about all this hooking up nonsense and make some adjustments to how we determine what to do after we get through the initial first phase of being picked.

I think I might have passed an initial meeting.  I was asked what I was looking for, I shared honestly.  A little excitement,  a little attraction and then a couple more meetings, or “dates”  and ….maybe I blew it when I asked the buzz kill question:  “What are you looking for (in a relationship)?” It may have translated to “Holy Schnikes! She’s going to start wanting a commitment, and then co-ordinated towels hung just so in the bathroom, and jeez, before long….(insert here whatever fear of commitment activity hits home).”  I was only asking because there were smatterings of possibly charged territorial binding remarks that were starting to sound less than the light and easy connection I was seeking.  Of course I didn’t just say,  “Whoa, dude, this is really fun, albeit a little heavy getting through some of those I-am- a-little-vulnerable-after-ending-a-20-year-relationship-and-out-of-practice questions, but let’s not get too serious, this has been fun can’t we stay here for awhile?”  (Note: I said "awhile", I dare not say "forever" another buzz kill word)  Question asking in relationships, or pre-relationships is a tricky business.  I did want to know what the dude was looking for, but I think it may be time for me to communicate what I want. 

Here’s the short list:  I want cream in my coffee.  That’s a shout out to Lyle Lovett, but I do really like cream in my coffee.  I like my coffee strong, with cream, or really, half and half to be precise.  I want dates.  Not the dried fruit, but the occasional dress-up and be seen events at a restaurant, movie, theater, or music hall of one type or another.  I am just as thrilled to go hiking, picnicking, for a long walk, watch a sunset with a glass of wine or water, boating, occasionally and maybe fishing, or just lie on a beach.   


A trip to Home Depot can be a turn on, but only if we mutually agree to be there together, or we mutually agree to go our separate ways to find whatever gadgets and gizmos are needed to successfully create, repair or recondition some important mechanism, or project of our own devising, or maybe each others- I don’t want to be waiting for hours, or keep someone else waiting.  (On deeper thought, this may be a test, but I don't think so.  I might want to know how handy the dude is, but I do really like Home Depot, and Lowes, too.)   I want someone to open the car door for me, and gently close it after I get in, or out.   I want to cook dinner for someone once in a while and I want to enjoy a meal cooked for me.  For the record, I like good food, but I also like basic hearty stews and soups with a side of toasty, cheesy bread in the cold months and seasonal fruits, salads, seafood, and grilled meats in the warmer months.  I want to hang out and watch movies, but I don’t always have the attention span, and I want that to be OK too.  I want to converse, and joke and challenge and be challenged.  I want to go on adventures, these might take place within a couple of feet of where I am at any time, or they might be far and wide from where I am located.  I want to be able to comfortably say, "Whoa, dude, what the heck are you talking about, or slow down, or you really need to stop..."  I want to quickly deal with the uncomfortable stuff head on, lightly and easily.

Oh, and I want all of this to happen without a great deal of stress.  Maybe once a week, or every other week.  I want my freedom and independence.  A call or check-in doesn’t hurt in the early stages of maybe-this-is-working-out-for-now.  I want to know that someone is thinking about me and maybe grinning sheepishly because I don’t fit so easily in any particular square peg or round circle or whatever place we are all supposed to be trying to fit into.  I also want to be OK if time stretches out a bit longer and I haven’t heard anything.  I want my space, literally and figuratively.   I want to be busy and satisfied and engaged in my own interests.   I am also up for spontaneity and wild abandon from time to time.  I guess I want it all.  I just don’t want it all at once from any one particular person, right now, or maybe evermore (nevermore?).   

I may want to have it all on that first date and give it all and if that changes the fate of having more later, so be it.   I have more to give and get and I might want something different next week.  So, pick me or don’t.  I have a lot going on right now.  Deciding on co-ordinated towels or wondering if I might start revealing hints of crazy is not part of my AskMen.com Action Plan just yet.  I want something different after all.  

 If AskWoman.com hasn’t been launched  I have a few very good ideas……

The Culture of Dating, Desire and Dining Out

Now that I have set sail into the world of potential possibilities and set my sight on just maybe, I am starting to get my sea-legs back when it comes to dating.   I am trying to recall why I was not so very good at this several, three, decades ago.  I am not entirely sure that it is worthwhile to spend too much time looking back.  I wasn’t so good at a few things back then.   Walking.   Cooking.  Singing.  Driving a car in reverse.  OK, it appears I am still not very good at these things. 


Walking.   I don’t fall or knock into things nearly as much and I have added hiking to my short list of physical strengths.   Uphill climbing is a bit easier than the basic flat surface movement- I apparently need to be watching and stepping.  I seem to be very good at walking fast.  NYC walking.  People move out of your way when they see you coming with speed, they confuse it with purpose, and the only purpose to walking quickly and deliberately is to get somewhere fast.  If you are walking down a hall in a school, as I typically am, with what looks like speed and purpose, it typically appears to be an emergency, an attack, or a demand is soon approaching-people truly move out of my way and assume I am, maybe aimed at them?   It could soften my image and reputation if they knew I was really an accident waiting to happen kind of klutz.  I am not really sure I want to soften my reputation quite yet or let everyone in on my problem with movement.

Dating.  I had a really difficult time following the proper sequence of events in my earlier dating experiences.  I believed, or pretended, that I was able to exercise my rights as an equal partner in the race to get horizontal. I imagined that there could be a way for women to want the same thing that men wanted without getting accused of being loose or easy or numerous other unsavory terms.  I attempted sophistication and intrigue with a touch of mystique.  I probably spent too much time even considering any of this, the men-folk were generally thrilled that I (or anyone) was game.  In doing so, I was mostly avoiding the area that was much more difficult for me to navigate.  (See below.)


Speaking.  It looks or sounds like my walking, but it comes from my mouth.  Abrupt starts and stops.  Twists, gallops, stubs and stalls.   I developed a coping skill in this arena, as well.  Fast-talking, loose-lipped, jokey, funny, zings and snippy little bites.  Not so much the hurtful variety as much as the sardonic, sassy wit.  Or so I like(d) to believe.  Of course it’s not always the case but since it’s a coping strategy for me it’s been difficult to think about how my commentary might land on those around me.  The trick for me has been more to get it out quickly and wittily to deflect and distract from the lag time in processing and thoughtfully producing clear and interesting, sustainable communication.  I am not interested or available to “avoid” speaking to just anybody.  It’s only those I am attracted to that might get the pleasure of my company before the pleasure of my communication skills.  I have my standards!  There is definitely a need for attraction and a few other value-added requirements that will only be disclosed at my discretion, most likely through non-verbal cues. 

Maybe I can’t say I have improved a great deal in some of these areas.  I will say I am more readily accepting of some of my “Areas in Need of Improvement", A.I.N.O.I.  I am perhaps, just as accepting of the idea that some of my A.I.N.O.I  (or lets just call it ANNOY for laughs and the sake of simplicity) are, or will be quite endearing in the minds of at least a few others in the years to come.  

Walking.   Gracefully at a pace that feels slower than watching paint dry or peel or whatever slow-paced painting activity there is, will need work, super-sized effort and maybe a slow walking steady-paced partner, or those big old football tackling posts for me to slam into a few, maybe hundred times.  

Cooking.  And of course eating, might need a cultural transplant or some sort of repressed memory replacement therapy.   A recent date brought me in close contact with excellent El Salvadorian food.  The ensuing conversation about food that followed gets me tongue-tied.  Oh yeah, that’s because I was asked if I liked tongue or ever had tongue.  I wish I could recall specifically the question about my experience with tongue.  But I can’t.  The mention of tongue and eating creates some primeval Irish famine reflex.  Up through my DNA, the synapses immediately fail to connect because I am from a people that collectively perished rather than eat the abundance of fish and seafood surrounding the green rolling landscape.  And, hey, I love a potato as much as the next Colleen but really? Refusing to eat prawns, trout, crab, seafood et al, when the blight occurred is just a little tough to mash up and digest especially to those cultures, and they are many, that eat tongue, liver, sweetbreads, tripe, brain, pig’s feet, chicken necks, sushi, and seafood.   The Irish are a proud group.  Some of us would rather perish than eat “beneath us”.  Of course when you get close to the point of perishing you are fairly and far "beneath" a few different layers of troubles.   Irish people eat food as sustenance.  Period. The end. The ugly bitter end, indeed.  The concept of thinking of, and eating food as a source of pleasure is a fairly new concept for us.  I mean, 20-30 years new. 

A recent visit home for Thanksgiving helped me recall just how much the relationship with food is supposed to be one of torment and displeasure, ummm, I mean sustenance.  My darling son, Liam, with the map of Ireland all over his dear sweet face, and a gusto for eating that was indoctrinated at the Greek and Jewish-American dinner table of his best friend from Nursery School and further cultivated through the African-American cuisine served at the table of his best friend's family, recently lamented, “When I grow up and have my own home, I am doing Thanksgiving up.  I mean really, I am doing it right. “  I may be recovered by then and prepared to join him.  It will take a while.  I would really like to enjoy “Thanksgiving done right”.  In my family of origin it seems to be celebrated in a manner to suggest, “Oh you should be thankful you get anything….”  It’s like a scene from Dicken’s Oliver, or Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.  I am unfortunately, not well-suited to plan or prepare Thanksgiving dinner in a manner that speaks to appreciation or gratitude.   I am thankful for things like yodels and toxic pink sno-balls, if pushed and on occasion.  (Another coping strategy).  I believe Ring-Ding Jr's are a brilliant chemically enhanced marriage of sustenance and pleasure, second only to banana moon-pies which for the record, easily, and secretly can be scoffed-down following a sustaining meal of sadness and regret.  (They have a shelf-life measured in ions.)

While I work on improving my walk, my talk, my desire to share of myself with an other self, I am open to redefining eating for pleasure as opposed to sustenance.   I know I will need some real work here and a gentle dinner companion.  During the last 20 some odd years of my own Irish-American existence, and a couple prior, I felt quite thrilled and downright culturally daring, yes, exotic even, to have eaten hot dogs with mustard - instead of ketchup, goat cheese, Indian food-of all different regions, calamari, clams, steak prepared medium- rather than medium-well or well-done.  


In the early 80’s I ate  shawarma.  Now what about that? 30 years ago! A wild, adventurous eater from the very earliest days of Irish dare-devil culinary appreciation and pleasure eating.  I probably started the damn trend.  Someone probably noted me walking kamikaze-style with a determined glance, that sometimes appears to be a scowl, heading into the middle eastern restaurant in the Village with a friend that I trusted, rather than dated.  He mesmerized me with his tales of travel and adventure, I ate heartily of the unidentifiable meat product that a small she-devil served after she cursed out her husband while demanding that he slice off some meat product for my friend and I.  I was dating a friend of his at the time. I might have missed the boat on that one, but I just got my sea-legs back, I am ready and open to all of this now.    What kind of wine goes with tongue?  I am going to need a lot, of wine….or maybe if we just call it something  else, it will be easier to, ummmm, swallow?

Bruite Teanga?

Bullai fir Teanga 

Tóstáil Teanga?   

Leasaithe Teanga? 

(Gaelic for Boiled, Well-done, Toasted, and Seasoned Tongue)  I’ll have the Tóstáil Teanga with a side of boiled buuuuh-dade-uhs (that's "potato" from the homeland) and a Guinness with a-lot-of-wine chaser, please!


Singing is done, only for pleasure, no sustenance here-and it's really just my pleasure, usually my pleasure at causing the displeasure in the hearts and minds of others, or just that little old play on "wild abandon" I am toying with.  Driving in reverse?  Now that I have shared that out loud, I kind of need to learn how to improve.  It seemed kind of silly when I pronounced it recently, as though it were some sort of disability or disease, like say, shopping or eating moon-pies excessively.  I guess I could actually learn how to back-up.  I have an ass-kicking parallel parking gift, driving in reverse really shouldn't be impossible.  Maybe a one-time tongue-lashing might be in order, I sometimes learn best when I have my Irish-all-up and twisted in a knot.