"It's Not Me...It's You."

Here's the thing about pregnancy tests: You never quite believe that it's actually you holding them. They're like a Twilight Zone wormhole from which you look down at the box in your hand and ask yourself, "Is this really me standing here with this thing? Like, is this for real?" You know how in movies, when they do POV shots, it feels really uncomfortable to be the viewer, because you KNOW that that's not actually your body that you're trapped inside and seeing the world from? Welcome to exactly what buying a pregnancy test is like.

A little while ago, the universe conspired against me in a whole number of different ways to fuck with my body without my consent. My script for Zoloft ran out, and by the time it took the pharmacy in my hometown to refill and ship it to me, I was a few days lacking the serotonin my body desperately needs to keep me sane and level. Life was also shitty at the time in others ways-- stressful and full of drama that was neither mine, nor of my own making. It started to take its toll; I was constantly nauseous and dizzy. A morning hike turned into a battle to stay upright and cognizant. I also was probably a little anemic, due to the fact that living with a vegetarian was NOT doing my diet any favors in regards to my body's generous appetite for red meat, blood, guts, and protein. And I was having sex. Lots of regular, good ol' fashioned relationship sex. What a perfect Molotov cocktail for disaster and pee-dipsticks.

I first got my period when I was 12. I remember it vividly, because it was during the summer, and I was with my family and childhood best friend at our usual summer residence at the Jersey shore. For the rest of our vacation, I refused to go in the ocean, because I was SURE that I was going to end up the tragic victim of a shark attack based on the fact that I was now BLEEDING, dripping BLOOD UNCONTROLLABLY, from somewhere that I didn't quite understand yet. I was young. It was traumatic. I really, really hate sharks and their cold, dead eyes. But since that summer, my period had been something that came like Swiss clockwork-- you literally could have set Big Ben or international standard time to it, it was so reliable, down to the date and time of afternoon when it made its appearance. And there was none of this "skipped period" or "spotting" bullshit for me when I started out; my period RSVPed, and it made it its business to show. Punctually. Only once, the second month that I was on birth control when I was 18, did I ever spot between cycles. It was unsettling and odd for me, but I had a reason for it, so I sucked it up, bought more panty liners, and moved on. So I was properly freaked out when suddenly, last month, I started spotting a week before I was supposed to be due.

I let it go for a day or two, considering all the angles: Maybe my lack of Zoloft had impacted its buddy Ortho Tricyclin Lo, considering I take them both at the same time every day, and it was lonely and taking it out on me the only way it knew how. Maybe I had some internal trauma I didn't know about, a ruptured cyst or something. Maybe my lady bits where rioting against all this sex, as unused to routine as they were after all the dry spells of my life. Or, maybe, as I input all my bodily woes into the Mayo clinic's database of diseases and scrolled down the page, I was experiencing "implantation bleeding." AKA: Maybe I was well and truly fucked.

Small quantities of brown blood. Nausea. Dizziness. Higher Basal body temperature. I did the complicated and quantum physics and math of my menstrual cycle's peak performance and ovulation time and the history of my sex life and compared it to what not only Mayo, but WebMD, BabyMed, SteadyHealth, and Woman's Health had to say. It was not good, in the way that for the first time in my life, a mathematical equation coming out to equal the sum that it should was not something my mathematically-dyslexic self wanted to celebrate. I considered calling my mother to ask if she'd experience implantation bleeding when she got pregnant with me. I decided against it, and called a friend of mine who had been pregnant once before instead. We jointly decided it would be best to wait it out; see if my period made its real appearance when it was supposed to. We cited the Zoloft, the anemia, the stress as contributing factors. We didn't even entertain the possibility that pregnancy was a real option. I took my birth control every day with the fanaticism of a Southern Revivalist. We'd been careful. We'd been good. In my sexual history, if Ortho were to fail me and fuck me over, it would have happened before now. The ratio of possible pregnancy situations in my past compared to my present would have read something like 234:3. (That's probably not even a real ratio, and now you understand just how bad at math I really am.)

So I waited. The spotting waxed and waned, but nothing like my usual period showed. One day, at lunch, I excused myself to the ladies' room, and came back triumphant, sure that I had finally exited the danger zone, but later that night, the well dried up. Nothing. Nada. I was going on two weeks now refraining from sex because I may or may not decide to start bleeding. It was killing me. Finally, my friend convinced me it was time to do the damn thing and know for certain, instead of continuously directing disparaging remarks down toward my belt and being a general ostrich with my head in the sand. "I blame the Holocaust," I told her. "If it wasn't for Hitler, those fucking sperm wouldn't feel as deep a need to survive." We went to Shaw's. She shopped for the week's groceries while I deliberated between spending $13 on a pregnancy test, or $6. On one hand, did I really want to trust something so important to a cheapo no-name brand? On the other, I was really freaking tapped for cash, and if it was negative, well...that would be a totally un-cool way to have wasted what could have bought me two dirty martinis. I settled for a middle-range option, and grabbed another box of condoms, too. Optimism.

In the checkout lane, specifically picked to get maximum hilarity out of what could otherwise end up being a pretty desolate situation, the teenage boy behind the register didn't even blink. My friend and I felt let down. When we got back to her apartment, I opened the box, and discovered that taking a pregnancy test apparently mandates a map the size of your average road atlas, and instructions as detailed-- down to the second and no-nonsense-- as taking your SATs or the bar exam in your state. After reading the instruction to DO NOT HOLD TEST UPSIDE-DOWN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, OR ELSE YOU'LL SCREW UP THE TEST AND NEVER KNOW AND END UP ON 'I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT,' I handled it like a grenade whose pin had been pulled. And always tip-down. We debated peeing on it the good old-fashioned way versus using the cup method. She pointed out that I would then have a cup of pee to deal with. We both pulled a face. I tentatively journeyed into the bathroom to try hovering over the toilet without peeing on my own hand. Through the door, I commented that it would be a lot easier for men to be the ones who got pregnant and had to take pregnancy tests. She instructed me to be sure that I didn't wimp out and got a good stream on the tip. I didn't pee on my hand as I feared I would, so I was feeling a little bit triumphant when I capped it again and laid it gently to rest on the sink's counter. If I could not pee on my own hand while taking a pregnancy test, I reasoned, there was no way in hell I could have actually fucked myself over even more and be pregnant.

My friend instructed me that even though the test said it could be checked as soon as 2 minutes after, waiting at least 4 to get a conclusive result was even better. She knew what she was talking about, so we set a timer, and found a Youtube clip of the Jeopardy "thinking" song to wait to. There is nothing that really raises the class level of taking a pregnancy test like the thought of Alex Trebek and people dressed in tweed. My friend got a call and stepped out for a minute, and then it was suddenly me, Alex, my thoughts, and the bathroom door that was open just enough to see the toilet, but not enough to see the hidden test on the counter, diagnosis yet unknown.

Here's the thing: I knew as soon as I read Mayo's diagnosis for me what I would do if it was true. So, in one aspect, I knew exactly what I was going to do. But the more I sat there and thought as Jeopardy kept playing and the timer was ticking down, I realized that this whole shenanigan wasn't about me. The stress that I'd been going through, the intense fear at the thought that I may be enciente was not my stress, or fear of what I would do; it was fear of what another woman would do. And that, I realized, was much more; ten times more; a hundred, million times more fucked up and ridiculous than me actually being worried and taking this pregnancy test to be sure for MYSELF. In a perfect world, devoid of any other players or pawns, the fact that I was 22, in a stable relationship, and taking a pregnancy test would not have been so scary. In that same world, I would have been allowed to be potentially excited, and entertain the thought of other options besides my cut-and-dried one of abortion. But this is not that perfect world. There are other players in this one, and there are pawns. In many ways, my own pregnancy would not be about me. What is supposed to be one of the most significant times of a woman's life would not be made of joy and healthy levels of both fear and excitement; it would be full of strife and more stress and drama and endless questions and phone calls and arguments, and not all of them would be about me, my relationship, or my child, but about another person, another relationship, and another child. What it came down to was not the fact that I didn't want a child; it came down to the fact that I didn't want to bring a child into a situation as volatile as the one I'd entered when I started my relationship. Because it wouldn't be fair. Not to me. Not to a baby. Not to my partner. And, a little part of my mind reminded me, not to another woman. In that moment, Jeopardy's timpani drums striking merrily, I knew I had my answer, regardless of the test's results. My friend came back into the room. I was white and drawn. The timer went off.

The test was negative. I laughed, danced, and ate a big steak.

XOXO

How To Not Meet The Parents

After over 6 years of dating, NUMEROUS relationships, and both some long and short distance flings, I have finally managed to stop dodging the bullet, and put my Big Girl Pants on and met a guy's mother. Mostly, I managed to accomplish this tremendous feat of chicken-shit-ness by either A.) Dating guys without parents (read: orphans, foster kids, or extremely independent children of nasty divorces who moved out early and aren't really "family guys"), B.) Dating guys whose family's live far enough away that it wasn't an issue or even topic to broach (read: Vermont to Virginia, hundreds of miles, etc.), or C.) Dating men who had no interest in either keeping me around long enough to deign meeting their parents a possibility, or dating guys who just didn't give a shit about the whole parent/family/girlfriend/girl-he's-sleeping-with equation. Mostly, it worked for me. The closest I actually ever came to suiting up for parental battle was agreeing to go to a potential dinner with TGIS's dad after we'd been together for 5 months, but mostly, that was because he was a foodie as well and I thought he and I would have no chance in hell that we WOULDN'T hit it off over our steak frites and vino.

Now, other than the occasional foodie daddy, I feel a couple ways about meeting parents, and in particular mothers, because when you think about it, fathers are just really grown up men, and I tend to do really well with men. We get each other. We have similar senses of humor. In general, I tend to know what a guy is looking for from me in terms of behavior, conversation, attitude, etc. Women, however, are a whole different barrel of slippery eels. Women are fickle, fickle creatures (and I should know, being one of them,) and if a woman decides she doesn't want to like you, not even an injunction from GOD is going to make her suddenly change her mind and give you the time of day. But with mothers-- MOTHERS-- here's the deal:

Mother-Law #1: If given the choice between meeting someone's mother or a psychotic ax-murderer in the darkness of my apartment hallway late at night while home alone, I would take the ax-murderer GLADLY, because one of those, you can kill in self-defense, where as no matter how badly it goes with the other, you can't.

Mother-Law #2: Now, if (god forbid,) I were to ever have a son, and he were to somehow make it to the appropriate ages for dating and copulation himself, and if he were to be charming and intelligent and pretty much all-around my child, and were to bring a girl home for me to meet, as she would be telling me how nice it was to meet me and how much she's heard about me and what a lovely home I had!, all I would be thinking is, "yeah, yeah, and all those nice words are coming out of the same mouth that sucks my baby boy's dick."

In two bulleted points, THAT sums up how I feel about mothers, and why, in general, I've tried to avoid them. But, after being told, very gently, that I might as well get it over with in a no-pressure situation, I actually entered under the threshold of a mother's front door with her son. And made it back out alive. She was lovely. She thinks I'M lovely. And since then, I've met nearly the rest of his family, including my first over-night stay at a parent's house, and he's met MY immediate and extended family. And Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, everyone seems to be doing just fine. Who ever knew-- I am really capable of growing up and getting over my emotional bullshit.

XOXO

Should We WANT To Lose Ourselves?

We all know the sayings: Lose yourself in the moment. Lose yourself in your work. Lose yourself to find yourself again. But should we want to lose ourselves in the first place? Lately, I've been wondering what good can come from losing oneself. I hate that moment in a relationship when you suddenly realize that you're not happy being alone anymore, or, at the very least, have come to expect that someone else will be around to entertain you. And when that's not the case, then that thought becomes an obsession, and it's like you're suddenly a half of a Siamese twin severed, who feels like they've lost their identity, or what was special about them. In many way, identity theft may be kinder than the moment in which you find yourself realizing you're losing yourself, or, at least, losing the things that used to make up your life or define you as an individual or Single Person.

The existential crisis started around 56 hours ago (and counting). Thursday morning, I was woken up by a text from TGIS, and we continued correspondence from afar until about 5 o'clock that night, after which, I haven't heard from him since. (Granted, I haven't been trying very hard, but that's because A.) I'm under the severe impression it's just better not to nag, and B.) I've always thought it gives you a better symptom of your relationship to see when he finally gets back around to you.) One day was fine. But when I woke up this morning, I felt odd, disoriented. And that's when I realized it was because I'm so used to waking up beside someone. Noon came, and I found myself still in bed, because no requests for brunch out had been made. By this evening, I was in full-out obsession mode about not only the state of my affair, but also, about what the FUCK I was supposed to do with myself and all this free time that had suddenly (and unwelcomely) been found on my hands. So while I may not be neuros-ing about it all over him, I found an outlet for it elsewhere: With my girl friends. Obviously. Because some things never change, even if your established weekend routine suddenly does.

I'm in my twenties. I'm so close to having my Bachelor's Degree in hand I can almost feel it; I paid for the insanely expensive and insanely luxurious Ralph Lauren sheets on my bed myself; I'm paying down my credit card; and I'm giving a presentation at a national writer's convention in Boston in March. My life is pretty fabulous, and yet, all it takes is two day's worth of silence, and I find myself acting like I'm 16 again, trying to occupy myself by making a list of things to do with items like "Wash dishes," "Moisturize entire body," "Watch a 'thinking' documentary to try to get my mind off of 'thinking' about the fact it is a weekend and I don’t believe it without another person here: Sexual Intelligence; Wild China; Food, Inc.; or Prehistoric Predators, Season 1," "Find some way to make a palatable drink with Skyy vodka, the dregs of orange juice, whipped cream that’s lost it’s whip, and anything else in the fridge, all while really just wanting a nice glass (or bottle) of wine," and "Try not to 'wine' anymore." It made me wonder: Do our lives really still revolve around boys?

Once upon a time back in sophomore year of college, my mother thought my friend Madison was secretly my lesbian lover. I can see why she might have thought that-- we spend an uncomfortable amount of time talking to each other. Mostly, I think, it's because we usually have equal levels of confusion in our lives, and think about things similarly. So it was Madison I turned to when asking, "Why do I always panic like this if I don't hear back from a guy for like, I'm not shitting you, two days? I mean, it's TWO DAYS. My sane self knows this. However, my relationship self is going mental. What I want to know is, why do I FREAK out?"

And then Madison said something very true, yet not very heartening at all: "Because you haven't had good luck with similar situations in the past."

Touché, my dear, and good fucking lord, there is no hope-- I'm done for.

I am not the only one who seems to be wondering about the ramifications of losing yourself for someone else. Madison has her own issues, too. "The problem is that I've always known that [I was letting him use me like a doormat]. I just kind of let it happen. And that's not me at all. And that's why I'm ashamed."

And that's when I hit my epiphany in our conversation: "Secretly, I think we're all ashamed at things we do in relationships or non-relationships with other people. Look at me-- I've forgotton how to be ok with being suddenly alone. I think there's something about wanting to be with another person that makes us crazy and makes us forget and sacrifice parts of ourselves because we want something else SO MUCH."

It's all so terribly ironic, because as I was driving home on Wednesday night after bringing TGIS back to his hometown, I was smugly reminiscing on this relationship versus past relationships, thinking to myself how you can be the person you're supposed to be and want to be when you're with the right person. Give me 56 hours of silence, and I'm still the confused little mess I was a year ago, give or take a different man, situation, and a few relevant learning curves. Look how far I've gotten on the road map to finding myself.

XOXO

So what about you? How have you learned not to lose yourself, or how to occupy yourself when you'd rather be doing something with someone else? Do you think that we're more willing to sacrifice parts of our lives and our selves if the payback of having the love of someone else is an option? Comment below and tell me what you think-- who knows, we might be able to solve all our relationship issues and neurosis together. Wouldn't that be a freaking miracle? What would the world do with so many more sane people?

Bringing "Baby" Out Of The Corner.

A few weeks ago, I was surprised. It wasn't a good surprise, though it wasn't a bad surprise, either. It was the kind of surprise that takes a minute to sink in and then makes you decide how you feel about it. It was the kind of surprise that makes you reconsider if you're a right-to-life supporter, or a pro-choice defendant. Let's be clear, here: I am in a monogamous relationship. We have sex. I take birth control. I get my period religiously on the afternoon of the second day of the green pills, between the hours of 2 and 6 PM, always. But occasionally, a girl takes antibiotics or accidentally misses a day of the population control pills and finds herself sitting on the toilet, counting the days back on her fingers, wondering when, WHEN is she supposed to start worrying that there's something more to the bloat than water-weight? In short, could she be...gulp...knocked up?

Now, I am not the most child-friendly person in the world. As an only child, I never had to deal with younger siblings, so I always felt awkward growing up when someone handed me their baby brother to hold while they wrestled him into his socks and shoes. Of course I babysat in my teens-- but only for children over the age of 7; it was a strict stipulation. In the beginning of my twenties, I found myself nannying for a family with three children, ages 1, 6, and 9. Primarily, I spent the most time with the baby while the two older kids were at school, and I promptly found myself falling in love with Patrick and his Tonka Trucks. The Diaper Genie and I bonded. I started carrying around the necessities of life in my purse. I strapped a baby seat into the back of my Civic. At the local rec center, I earned the nickname the "Sexy Nanny" after an unfortunate incident involving a string bikini and teaching Patrick to swim (flailing baby limbs were involved). I got used to fending off questions if the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pointy-eared little boy was mine. I decided, for the time being, that I was ok with babies-- as long as they were Patrick. (He was the man in my life.) But once it becomes a possibility that you might have found yourself incubating one of your own, you have to start asking yourself the hard questions: Could I do this? Would I want to do this?

As I pondered these thoughts, something strange occurred to me: I am no longer a teenager. I successfully made it out of the danger zone of having the social stigma of "teen mother" attached to me. I'd give birth at 22, a perfectly acceptable age to procreate. I'd have graduated college. I wouldn't even be showing by the time I accepted my diploma. I'd have nine months to decide what I was doing, where I was living, and establish a steady job (or more likely, jobS). I could still attend grad school, could still travel, could still move from Burlington to New York or Boston or Virginia or god knows where. I could still do all these things I wanted to do with my life-- it might just take a little more time, but I could do them. IF I wanted to.

I found myself touching my belly at random moments, as if I could learn about my state of affairs through touch osmosis. I got properly freaked out when TGIS curled around me one morning and started rubbing my stomach, then looked up at me and, out of the blue, said "Babies?" in a voice that sounded suspiciously similar to some kind of abstract hope. I hadn't told him; hadn't said a word, not even to my closest girl friends yet, but at that simple question, told him he better pray not, all while wondering if by some bizarre physiological design, he knew when he had hit the winning round of insemination and was able to commune with the budding baby. I excused myself to the bathroom and stared down my pelvic region for a good 10 minutes, looking for some kind of sign. The only one I got was that I needed to start going to the gym again.

Though I ended up getting my period a few days later (the operative part of that word being "late"), it still changed something in me to have seriously thought about the repercussions that getting pregnant at this point in my life could have. Instead of being cut-and-dry, I now was finding myself with options, which in turn opened the possibility if I were to actually want a baby at some point in time up to me. It wasn't anything I'd really ever considered before, other than a few other times when having an abortion was the only option I had even thought of. But now, that wasn't my only option. I had new ones opening up to me. And that was the first time in a long time that I realized that I was, in fact, growing up. And I found that that idea was more scary to me than the thought of another life-form growing inside of me.

XOXO

P.S-- I cannot stake claims on the impossibly adorable little bundle of joy at the top of the post. That is Steve Ward of VH1's "Tough Love" fame's nephew, and I think he is THE MOST unFUCKINGbelievably adorable child I have EVER seen. I have a massive baby-crush on him, and if I could get a promise that a child of mine would come out looking like this, I’d have one. Tomorrow. Before 8 AM. ASAP. This child makes my biological clock HAMMER. Ughghjjaksfhsadfkhkjsabdfkhasdfkkasjdfbasfdkj. I’m in LOVE.

Hush-- Staying Silent.

I don't think there's ever a worse time for a girl to start crying than after having sex while still in bed with her lover, and yet, that's where I found myself the other day.

It wasn't him, not at all, and it wasn't me, either-- it was my past. My past is a bit colorful. As may have been previously stated, I haven't always had the best taste in or luck with men. One of my past relationships manifested this trait physically-- I was manhandled (quite literally) in a way that's left me with some residual emotional scars and idiosyncrasies, which seem to pop up at the most inconvenient times. A classic sign-- I'm loathe to actually call it "abuse," which of course means that I'm in denial about it and it was, in fact, abuse. I just hate to think of myself-- me: loud, dominating, confident, and proud-- as a victim. I don't consider myself a victim-- just someone who was too young, too naive, and too inexperienced to do something about it. And because of these facts, I've almost never admitted to it or talked about it.

I was smothered; I was uncomfortably pinned; I was choked. I was shaken. I was slapped. None of these were things I asked for-- they were things that just happened, for no rhyme, and no reason. And now, a perfectly wonderful man who treats me like a princess and would never think of purposefully hurting me has to be the one picking up my pieces after I spooked at finding myself in a situation completely non-related that my mind interpreted quite differently, and sent me spinning off into a panic attack the likes of which I haven't had in quite awhile.

Maybe it was the weight of someone on top of me, while holding me down. Maybe it was the thought I had that linked this feeling with pain. Maybe it was just because I'd been having nightmares lately, and was particularly susceptible to feeling overwhelmed. But for whatever reason, I suddenly found myself fighting furiously to get out from under and away while breathing like a winded racehorse. He touched my back to ask if I was ok. I nearly screamed at him to give me space. We both took a few minutes to calm down and process, and once I realized what had happened, and what I had done, I scooched across the bed, threw my arms around him, and started crying with my face screwed up against his chest. He was lovely about it, telling me that I didn't need to tell him the full story; that he understood, even if he didn't understand everything, because we all have our own skeletons in our closets. He let me cry, rubbed my back and kissed my head, and let me work it out of my system. And once we had both calmed down again, we had sex again, possibly the most reaffirming and reassuring act that I can think of.

Please, listen to me-- if you have been mistreated in your past, please, please find some way to let your current partner know. I know it's hard, and I know it can seem at times unnecessary or excessive or like a cry for attention, but if you care about the person you're seeing, they deserve to know about your issues and emotional well-being before you find yourself hyperventilating and sobbing onto their chest like I found myself. You can only be a victim as long as you stay silent, and as long as you let yourself be thought of as such. Instead, learn to grow through the experience for the hard lessons it teaches you-- how to be in tune with your emotions, feelings, and relationships with other people. And even if this isn't something that you've been through yourself, remember-- if I can be a victim of abuse, anyone can be a victim of abuse. The best thing you can do for someone with past issues is to be there for them and try to understand what it is that makes them panic or feel a certain way, and to work through it, together.

To all the other people with "colorful pasts" out there, please know-- you're not alone, and there is someone out there who will be patient and willing with you, because that's the way it's supposed to be; I promise.

XOXO

America's Funniest Home (Sex) Videos

I was having a conversation with a friend last night while procrastinating taking a shower and catching up with everything due in my Food Writing course that took a decided turn for the philosophical when home-made sex videos came up. As has been previously stated, I have no issues with porn, but there's something that really just rubs me the wrong way (pun intended,) about making your own sex video. Have we learned nothing from Paris Hilton, Pam Anderson, and Rob Lowe? (In researching this, do you know that Fred Durst, frontman of rock band Limp Bizkit, and the wet-dream of my entire middle-school years, had a sex tape leaked? Please believe...my research on this matter is FO' SHO' not stopping here.)

While Cosmopolitan preaches that if you were to create your own D.I.Y home porn star DVD, it's best to be sure that there is only ONE copy recorded, and that it is kept in YOUR possession. However, I have no idea what sort of man would actually agree to this arrangement. Not one like the sort of men that I date, anyhow. All the men I know would consider that a lost cause if they had to take it out on loan, like a sort of very naughty, decidedly not public library. I'd also worry about home invasion after you break up if he has the keys to your place-- funny how your cat burglar would only be interested in what was in the "Lady and the Tramp" DVD case that definitely DID NOT contain children-friendly material.

Then there's movie-quality issues...I am a snob about these sort of things.

Overall, though, my friend and I quickly sorted out the most paramount issue about becoming your own little movie star: That one session is out there. On the records. To be seen. Compared and contrasted to. Judged. It will be impossible to deny the truth of your sex-life from then on. You'll actually see how the interior of your thighs jiggle-- and do you really want to see that? Does ANYONE?

My biggest hang-up on this matter isn't quite so trite, but it goes hand-in-whatever you happen to be groping: My issue is with its repercussion on the future. Not just your personal future, but with all of humanity's future. Though popstars have shown us that you can weather a sex tape scandal, I'm worried about what society in 2125 will think of us.

"It's there.
For posterity.
Someday, an archeologist will dig it up, and that's what everyone will think sex was like in the 21st century.
That is seriously what I always think of-- someone will dig this up someday. And what does that say about myself?"

I'd rather not know for sure what I look like during the act to fulfill my dreams of becoming an actress than have to consider what anthropology students in the future think of my reverse cowgirl. Yikes.

XOXO

The Man, The Woman, The Legend.

Urban legends, right in time for Halloween. Not only are there scary urban legends, there are the sort of urban legends that Single Girls tell to each other to feel better-- things like "It's not you; it's him. He's obviously crazy, and he'll be begging you to come back next week, just wait and see." That, my friends, is a total myth, and one we all know is complete bullshit.

So which do you think is more unbelievable, the ones we choose to re-tell, hope attached, or the ones told to give us goosebumps of the un-delicious kind? The stories of the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-cousin whose fiancée cheated on her, and then repented to become the best husband and father there ever was, or the one about the girl who came home late one night to her dorm room, drunk, and fell right into bed, only to wake up in the morning to find her roommate brutally murdered, and the words "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights?" written in her blood on their wall? Appalachia's Tailypo story scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, but the legend about how it's women who least expect it find the perfect guy is supposed to give us hope? How do we least expect it, if we're all frantically looking for it? Sure it happens, but never in the way we're least expecting it to.

And what about Hook Man? Maybe at one time, he had showed up under a girl's window with a boombox and won her over. And alligators in New York City's sewers. Oh, wait-- that one's true. Do you know what other Single Girl urban legend is sometimes true? The girl who had a one-night-stand that turned into a relationship.

Once upon a time, I had a one-night-stand. I had met the guy a week previously. We spent about 2 hours talking, on a kind of set-up, and that's all it took to convince me he was attractive, convince him I was cute, and convince both of us that we should end our respective dry-spells. We slept together for one night, and then never again. I ran out of my apartment the next morning at 8 AM, leaving him eating breakfast in my living room.

Once upon another time, I had another one-night-stand. This time, I had no disillusions about it being anything but-- we both knew it. He asked me to spend the night; I had brought my overnight bag with me. He kissed me goodbye the next morning; I was confused, yet triumphant. It was like big-game safari hunting, campus edition. 5 days later, he called. He wanted into a relationship. Thus started a 330+ day on-again, off-again unholy partnership of egos, lengths of silence punctuated by periods of too much talking, the exchanging of books and saliva and lots and lots of stories, and just enough occasional sweetness to make it actually seem like an ok idea when barely lucid. The fling was flung. Man, myth, legend.

Like how my mom used to chop all my Halloween stash candy bars in half because of that urban parenthood legend about psychopaths shoving needles and razor blades into trick-or-treating candy, proceed with caution when it comes to these stories, and like with all urban Single Girls legends and gossip, take it with a grain of salt. Someone else's sort-of-optimistically-Unhappy-Ever-After may be just what you're looking for, or it may be the sort of thing you told around campfires to hear other people's screams. Moral of the legend? Promiscuous sex rarely leads to relationships-- it tends to lead more to things like venereal diseases, people saying "I'll call you" and then never doing so or never returning your calls, and terse mornings spent hovering over the toilet bowl making all sorts of strange promises to different gods re: your fertility-- but sometimes, when all the planets align, and the air smells right, and when you least expect it, sometimes, it will at least lead to a second night. Or a whole bunch of second nights. Boo. Scary, ain't it?

XOXO

Carissa Goes To Jail

Jeepers Creepers appeared again for an encore show the night after his first performance, now with a new act: masturbating in front of his window while looking up at ours to see if we were watching. For what we pay for rent, we should have a view of shirtless hunks washing dishes or carrying heavy lumber, not a man who only gets close and personal with blow-up dolls, his palm, and apparently, us. While variety may be the spice of life, his little variety show understandably turned us way off, so the living room blinds have been closed for the past two days, and today, Alli and I went to Burlington P.D to lodge a formal complaint against our unsightly scenery.

Considering the last time I talked to two cops, I was drunk and said "good evening" like a Transylvanian brothel madam, I was understandably a little nervous. That, and I may or may not engage in some activities not exactly kosher with the law. And I always feel cops just know that about you. Like psychics. But with handcuffs instead of crystal balls. And arrest records seem to be far more damning than birth charts, from what I've seen, at least. But knowing that I am a grown-ass independent girl (or at least, should be), I sucked it up, and went.

In hindsight, I really shouldn't have been worried. My behavior never came up-- just his. If you were wondering, "lewd and lascivious" is the definition for it, and in Vermont, you can only be fined up to $300, which to me is a pittance when compared to what you're knowingly inflicting on other people, or spend under 5 years in jail for it. Unfortunately, unless Creepers initiates more attention from us than just standing full-frontal in his window and whacking it silently, there's not much the police can do about it, given it is technically in his own apartment, as I suspected. I voiced my concerns about the fact we're two small young blonde women living together, and that this may be his way to seek attention, be it positive of negative, along with the fact that I wouldn't recognize him if he and I were both out on the sidewalk checking our mail, which is just icky to think about brushing shoulders with this freakshow and not know it.

However, I was pleased as-- no pun intended-- punch when the Corporal gave us permission to either have a male friend talk to our Chippendale's wannabe or, and I quote here, "kick his teeth in." So-- how many male friends do I have who are willing to help me out of this awkward skin-pinch? Because we really do need some help, guys. We would do it, but we were instructed to not involve ourselves with him in order to not egg his delusions on any more. We're here for another year, and I don't want to be afraid to walk in or out of the front door to my own apartment or feel forced to not stand by the same window the cat loves to sleep in. After being grabbed in Italy, I'm more sensitive to these things than I'd like to admit. I wasn't able to do anything in Florence, but I'll be damned if I do nothing on my own home turf. That's just not cool, at all.

Later, as Alli and I sipped our restorative Slushies from Cumbies in the oppressive afternoon humidity and discussed our dilemma, I looked at her and said, "I can't tell if I'm disgusted by it or if I really like it."

She looked horrified for a minute before I caught myself. "I mean the slushie. Not the creeper." Obviously.

XOXO

The End Of Men?

This month, The Atlantic featured an eye-catching cover with a wilting men's gender symbol proclaiming the article, "The End of Men." Being in a currently man-less stint, I was intrigued. Dating makes me just want to die, so was there some miraculous way that I could just...get around it?

Let's examine how our world has changed in favor of women in the last few decades:

- For every 2 men who get a college degree, 3 women do. Women now are earning 60% of all bachelor AND master's degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees, and 42% of all M.B.A.s.

- In the 1970s, biologist Ronald Ericsson found a way to determine and customize the sex of children. Since then, when Ericsson looked into the results of his technology in the '90s, he discovered couples were requesting more girls than boys. In some clinics, the ratio was 2 to 1, and a newer sperm selection method called MicroSort is seeing a request for girls that runs about 75%. Ericsson says of his surprising findings, "Women live longer than men. They do better in this economy. More of 'em graduate from college. They go into space and do everything that men do, and sometimes they do it a whole lot better. I mean, hell, get out of the way-- these females are going to leave us males in the dust."

- In 2006, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development devised the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, which measures economic and political power of women in 162 countries and found that the greater the power of women, the greater the country's economic success.

- Women own over 40% of the private businesses in China, where a red Ferrari is their new status symbol as a successful female entrepreneur. (May we institute this fad in the U.S, please?)

- In 1950, about 1 in 20 men of prime working age wasn't working; today, the ratio is at 1 in 5, the highest ever recorded. This, in part, is due to our economic position-- the crash killed millions of man-dominated jobs, mostly of the working or blue-collar class. White collar economy values "raw intellectual horsepower," which men and women tend to have in equal amounts, while also requiring "communication skills and social intelligence," which according to many studies are areas in which women have a slight edge over their male counterparts.

- This leads to risk/benefit selection between the sexes. Leadership talents include being aggressive and competitive, which are swayed more toward men's natural dispositions. But psychological study research has painted a broader picture of what constitutes a good natural leader; in lab studies that simulate negotiations, men and women are equally assertive and competitive, but where men tend to assert themselves in a slightly controlling manner, women tend to take into account the rights of others, say psychologists Alice Eagly and Linda Carli, authors of the 2007 book "Through the Labyrinth." Researchers have also started looking into the relationship between testosterone and excessive risk, leading them to wonder if because of their biological make-up, men are more likely to make reckless decisions. The picture that emerges from this research is completely counter-intuitive to the way we've thought of the genders for ages: men on the side of irrational and over-emotional, and women as cool and level-headed. Blame it on the testosterone?

So, do I think women still need men?

Yup. Without a doubt. I'll cash my 2 cents' in as saying "absolutely." There are some things that you just cannot or should not do by yourself. I can be as pro-feminism as they come, and yet I still acknowledge there are some things than men can do better than women, hence, the need for them-- coupled with our desire for them. (However, "drive better" is not one of those things.)

Granted, there are some things about men that we could stand to do without. As Joan Rivers said, "Do remember that men are like mattress salesmen-- they'll say anything to get you into their beds." Joan Rivers knows a thing or two. I just had the unfortunate luck to be shopping for both at the same time. In the end, the mattress salesmen ended up having the safer investment, even though the mattress itself took a week in coming (longer than any man I've ever been with,) and has yet to actually be assembled and used.

From a completely selfish and stilted side, I sleep with a body pillow named George because of the fact that I am so pitifully loathe to sleep alone, and need something to throw an arm or a leg to drape over and have something at my back in the night. A nice anecdote that further cements my thinking on this matter, George got his name because there was a time in my life in which my roommates couldn't keep the Men du Jour straight and threatened to fill a whole Costco-sized "Hello, My Name Is ______" name tag roll with "George" so they would never need to learn another Tom, Dick, or Harry Dick's name again, just to be inundated with another a week later. (For awhile, men were my kinda-slightly-more grown-up Pokemon-- I believed I had to catch them all without also catching the Hep. This is why I may be a little more prone to being soft on the cads that I seem to pick up-- a feeling of sluttish camaraderie at the same time you want to pull at your hair and moan, "Why do I do this to myself?!") Men may drive you crazy, but as my reluctance to sleep alone points out, there's just something about having one there that can calm the female beast.

But that objectifying of men leads to the belief that they're disposable, which they're not. First-generation college-educated white women-- that's me, right there-- constitute a new type of middle class, where marriage is increasingly rare. What does that mean for me? True, marriage is not at the top of my list of desires and life-goals, but to see that fact there, so black and white and stark, makes me wonder about my chances, given the fact I might want to make it a chance.

Increasing numbers of women unable to find men with a similar education or income end up forgoing marriage. in 1970, 84% of women ages 30-44 were married; now only 60% are. Ashley Burress, a student body president at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, stated, "In 2012, I will be Dr. Burress. ...I would like to date, but I'm putting myself in a really small pool." One female senior in college supposedly remarked, "Guys are the new ball and chain."

It's not like men are going anywhere-- they're not. But finding ones who share your educational and emotional leanings is getting harder and harder. Think about the recent portrayals of men-- unemployed, romantically-challenged young dudes feature predominantly in Judd Apatow's films as perpetually adolescent. Noah Baumbach's charmless misanthrope of Greenberg has nearly zero chance of finding a woman who will tolerate, let alone love, him. "We call each other 'man,'" a line in Greenberg goes, "but it's a joke. It's like imitating other people." And where are we in a world when even the American male novelist has lost his mojo and can't even rely on sex as a way for his characters to assert their macho-ness?

That same macho-ness may be exactly what women still-- emotionally, if we don't need them financially or reproductively-- need men for. Though it may be terribly clichéd, there are some jars I can't open, some shelves I can reach, and some sore shoulders that are best massaged by someone else. Yes, I have a roommate who is more than capable of all of these things, and I have always been able to kill my own creepy, crawly spiders, but it's the gesture that remains. I am at my best and most charming and feminine and sweet when a man is around. I like that girl who comes out to play, because as the statistics above show, most days, I'm a power-wielding, income-earning, college-dominating, self-nurturing woman. Who, if I am entering a bracket of such low marriage expectations, is supposed to take care of me?

Women still, and will always, at least want, if not need, a man in the picture. We keep dating and putting ourselves out there against the odds, because, at the end of the day, it's nice to go home to someone. It's nice to know that you have the ability to make a "What are you up to?" call. It's nice to have someone other than a down comforter or a body pillow keep you warm at night. At its most base, there are only so many solo-gasms you can have before it's just not fun anymore. And at its best, having a partner brings out a new side of you. The side that isn't a blossoming CEO by day, but the side of you that is still a girl who has needs and a desire for companionship and intimacy.

XOXO

The Tell-Tale Heart

I know Facebook has ruined us. Do you want to know how Facebook has ruined us? Because for what was probably the past three hours of my sleeping life, I grappled with a dream which started out pleasant and involved two loves of my life: men, and pie, and yet progressed into something that made my heart-- literally, I felt my heart-- plunge to somewhere in the vicinity of my toes when in my dream, I saw It. That thing that all girls secretly dread. The terror of the internet. The scourge of Facebook. "_______ is in a relationship with _______." That little pink heart has never been more ominous.

When I woke up, I promptly lunged for my laptop, just to make sure it wasn't true and I hadn't been sleep-web-surfing like how I sometimes have to wake up and grab for my phone to see if I really was sleep-texting or so-fucked-up-you-might-as-well-be-asleep-because-you're-not-gong-to-remember-doing-it-in-the-morning texting. The rest of the dream I could brush off as kinda ridiculous-- running down the road, looking in houses for someone you have no idea how to find (oh, that's telling!) and who remains, decidedly, not a character in the rest of this dream, but instead, a blue and white profile with a new pink heart on it; an 18 year old, baby-faced, cowboy hat-wearing new girlfriend who kinda looked like Bret Michaels had actually succeeded in fathering a child with one of his Rock of Love floozies, having a traumatic breakdown on my shoulder while the only decent thing to do was hold a tissue for her to blow her nose while consoling her because, "I know how he can be, sweetie." It rang so true I couldn't even get mad when she blew snot all over my toes and her parents told me how perfect they were together over what seemed to be a feast straight from Henry the VIII's table. I mean, there was a woman ladling split-pea soup straight into her mouth, for chrissake. How am I supposed to take a dream like this seriously?

The point is, I did. The point is, I woke up with a start, gasping and bolting upright, and then scrambled down to the foot of my bed and grabbed my laptop to check-- just because. Just because it felt so real. Just because I am that terrified. Just because it brought to my attention that any day, that could be a real possibility, and I am, as evidenced, nowhere near prepared for that. I guess what they say about dreams bringing out your subconscious fears and desires is true-- in which case, I am a mess. Facebook, you've finally fucked me over.

XOXO

P.S-- In other news, you have 5 days to become my 48th, 49th, or 50th follower. (Which is a great birthday present to me.) And there's $1.14 that stands between me and a check from Google, which would really be appreciated as I am currently investigating the laws of prostitution for some gray area and not quite the same severity as a sentence for robbery/forgery/extortion/embezzlement, as those are my 5 options at the moment to afford summer rent.

"Something More," Said The Clock.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes a perfectly functional and happy person decide to throw their lot in with another person and want to be in a relationship. Not being a big fan of relationships or the institution of commitment myself, I was recently horrified to hear the first audible "tick" of what I previously thought was my busted biological clock. Maybe it's the fact that a close friend with whom I played wing-woman for has now reached past the 1 year anniversary with said boyfriend I did the winging maneuvers for and are vacationing and cohabitating together, or the fact that I'm watching people I grew up with planning for their long-term serious relationships, weddings, and even babies, or maybe it's just the fact that I have done the "I'm so not serious about you I'm going to do everything to prove to you I think this is a lark and self-sabotage this whole state of affairs" thing for the past 5 years, and now with a landmark birthday approaching I'm realizing I should be acting as old as I'm getting and I'm ready to give it a rest for awhile. Whatever the reason, the ending thought remains the same: Scary.

I think as graduates of first grade, we can all agree on the fact that 1 + 1= 2. So why, then, do proponents of love and the Hallmark company seem so hell-bent on convincing us that two people in a relationship are one entity?

I've found myself wondering where my extremely colorful past fits in with my new desires. What about all of a woman's past relationships? Are they now halves? What happens after the union, no matter what sort it was, how serious or how tenuous it was, is gone? How can anyone be expected to deal with so much continuous disappointment? Are we trying to be martyrs, or can we just not get out of our own way? As long as there are women, there will always be women who fall for the wrong guy. Women with a predilection for the Bad Boys. Women who have convinced themselves that if she just loses that last 5 pounds, if she never says "no", if she can change her inner desires to be less demanding and more like him, he will somehow realize that she is perfect, just perfect, for him. These are also the same women who often end up finding just the sort of man who is not perfect for them. (Guilty as charged.) Usually, if anything, I'm over-confident. Most of the time, I am pretty sure I could rule the world single-handed if all the nation's leaders suddenly all came down with a deadly infectious disease at a U.N meeting and keeled over. But for some reason, when it comes to men, all bets are off. Maybe it's because women really have no idea, past a good steak and a blowjob, what men really want. Maybe, if they talked about it, like women have a tendency to do (myself not included here, as I would usually rather extract my own wisdom teeth sans Percocet than talk about my feelings), we could all be a lot more clear and a lot less confused and apt to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on someone, just to realize that they are never going to change. At least, not for us.

Which brings us to why men like some women and not others. Frankly, I cannot understand what anyone sees in me. And I am not being self-depreciating here. At times, I want a divorce from myself. I have altogether too many flaws and personality quirks to be consider either easy to live with, enjoyable, or sane. When I see a guy look at me like he adores me, I want to shake him and ask, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? DO YOU ENJOY BEING RUN RAGGED? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO!" Because no matter how crazy women can get at men and relationships and love and how delusional we can make ourselves, there is that-- that ONE MOMENT-- where you watch him watching you, and you are hit over the head with it like a two-by-four that he likes you. Not, "I think you're entertaining" likes you. Not, "I'm imagining you naked right now" likes you. But that often sought-after and rarely found moment where the guard goes completely down behind his eyes and you catch that look and instead of what most men would assume, you do not go "There is the answer to all my dreams and desires!" but instead think, "OH. SHIT. That's real."

While I may make a good friend and a fun time, I really cannot see what would make me captivating to a member of the opposite sex. Maybe this is a great example of why love and infatuation are random and women need to stop comparing themselves to other women and asking "Why her, and not me?" Maybe there is no reason. There are other people out there, other women and other men, who are not going to demand a single thing from you, but in the long run, are they really the sort of person you want to be with? Shouldn't you want to be with someone who wants you to be the best you possible? I'm apt to believe this, especially when faced the with realization that despite all my bullshit, there are people out there with a soft-spot for me a mile wide. That would be the only explanation. But the problem with a connection like that with someone else is despite all of your warning signs and pros and cons lists, you're loathe to let them go. It's not, believe me, that you are so unlovable that you will never find someone else who will look at you that way again or make you feel the same. It's just that nothing will ever be exactly like that connection, and that connection may just be the one that you need, questions, hard work, disappointment, and all.

I'm getting old enough to realize that despite my parent's fairy tale, love is not easy. Loving someone, in fact, is one of the hardest things in the world, because loving who they really are, and not who you'd like them to be, requires a nearly Gandhi sense of acceptance. And there are times-- when the trash is spewing forth from the garbage can because it hasn't been taken out in over two weeks, when he forgets meeting with you for the second time in a week, when their tongue is in someone else's mouth-- that love and acceptance seem damn near impossible. And that's the hardest part-- keeping that love despite all of someone's faults. I'm tempted to say that we fall for who we do because they're difficult. It's said that nothing worth having is even gotten easily, and I think we'd become more quickly bored if it were so easy and simple. And when we get bored is when we hop onto the next slowly passing train, or person.

"A human's desire to mate, the pair up, to be part of a couple, will never change. But the way we go about it, how badly we need it, what we are willing to sacrifice for it, most definitely does" (Liz Tuccillo, intro to her novel, "How To Be Single"). That's the problem: what two people want is rarely the same thing. How people manage to "work it out" is beyond me. I used to be a status-quo girl. Most days, I still am. I'm content to share a bed, share some time, share a few meals, and otherwise, be on my own. I don't demand much, time- and commitment-wise. A friend of mine who just got out of a three-year relationship asked me how I do it, how I maintain my life when trying to juggle it with someone else's. The real answer to this, and the answer that is not quite the most flattering in the world in regards to the whole "selflessness" item, is that even when I'm in a relationship, my mentality is still that of a Single Girl. I can't separate the Independent Me from the Someone's Girl Me. I've lived far too much of my life being my own girl that I don't think I can, or would, ever want to lose that part of me.

I'll admit, some of it may also be the fact that I do not have a stellar retention rate, either for keeping relationships, keeping an interest in one man, or actually doing things By The Book: dating, commitment, relationship, a satisfactory amount of time, clean break-up. I tend to operate outside of the lines of public dating decency. That's just the way my stripes run. I am tempted to say, "It's not long long you were with someone that matters; it's the effort you put in," but then again, I have also never stayed with one person any longer than six months. As Tuccillo writes, "I have dates, I have flings, I have "situations." But I don't have men, one after another, whom I cart around as my boyfriend, and then break up with for some reason or another and say later to my friends "What was I thinking?"" (Tuccillo, 197).

But the more I see of the world and of other people, the girl who used to be content to sit on your sofa and order in starts to wonder, "Is there more than this?"

I'm tempted to say that there has to be. I'm tempted to say that despite people's fundamental differences, there is something that is akin to the look in someone's eye that makes them willing to stretch who they are and what they can do for someone else. I'm tempted to say that, because if I don't, I'm pretty much admitting defeat right here and right now. I'm also tempted to say it because we cannot live with all of our bullshit intact for the rest of our lives. We're all pretty ridiculous people who start out one way, and gradually change because of our love for someone else that is not ourselves. That is the only way we're ever going to get better than we are this very second. One day, there is going to be a guy who will look at me and say, "I'm not trying to clip your wings, so just fucking stand still with me for awhile more than a month or 6 months. It's not so horrible. If you keep trying to run, I'm just going to let you go." And if I care about him as much as I should, that will be the day that I should get smart enough to slow my roll and start thinking about someone other than just myself. And if I don't, or if you don't, then we really are all just helpless fools when it comes to love. So best of luck.

XOXO

Commitmentstein: A Monster Of Our Own Making.

I am a commitmaphobe. Now, don’t get me wrong—there are some things I have absolutely no problem committing to: a cell phone service provider, a certain brand of mascara, riding boot, motor oil, or restaurant. But at heart, I’m the sort of person who once they agree to do something, spends a pretty good amount of time re-thinking my decision to commit, even if it’s just spending a weekend somewhere or agreeing to meet someone in a specific place at a specific time. Christ, I can’t even commit to how I feel about Phish Food versus Chubby Hubby. I have a nearly chronic grass-may-be-greener questioning nature. As it has been pointed out by one of the people who knows me best—and I mean capital ME; not just the person I project to the world, but the devious, conniving, self-serving, helplessly human ME—I am not happy unless I have something to endlessly worry and puzzle over as I try to decide whether it’s worth it or not, and what it means for ME. Commitment, therefore, is not one of my strong suits.

This, I think, is one of the overwhelming factors in why I am a pathological One Month Girl. One month always seemed to be the perfect amount of time in which to meet someone, convince them I’m great, have them convince me they’re great, and then watch everything fall apart when both parties realize that everyone is, in fact, human. As I say, it usually only takes me one month to get sick and tired of you, or one month for you to see into all my crap and decide it’s not worth your time.

Being such a self-proclaimed commitmaphobe with enough past history, blunders, and failed relationships to substantiate that claim, I recently picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s newly-published novel “Committed.” Gilbert, of “Eat, Pray, Love” fame (another book I absolutely adore and brought with me to Italy,) is another self-styled commitmaphobe—only in her case, it stems from a bad divorce. She also believes that most commitmaphobes suffer from the same fear of lasting-decision-making. In the second chapter of “Committed,” titled “Marriage and Expectation,” she writes,

“The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice…Equally disquieting are the times when we do make a choice, only to later feel as though we have murdered some other aspect of our being by settling on one single concrete option” (Committed, 45).

About the only thing that you could get me to be committed to without being fully thrilled about it would be a mental health facility. And then I don’t think I’d have a choice. As Gilbert writes, “It doesn’t take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstances to do the one thing that you have always specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity” (Committed, 20).

So why all the resistance to committing? Why are people so loath to hitch their trudging life-pioneer’s wagon to another person’s? Because we are people, and we are fallible. Because we have so many options that the next wagon, the one going faster, with the nicer oxen (or ass) always seems like a better one to take a chance on. Because there is temptation, and laziness, and sheer bull-headed stubbornness in the desire to be a singular individual. Because trying to be with someone else is like bashing your head repeatedly against a brick wall. An attractive brick wall, but bashing your head full-force against it all the same and getting those rectangular lines stamped all over your forehead and now broken nose, nonetheless.

Differences between the genders explain the break of commitment phenomenon quite nicely. Women have a tendency to over-examine, overanalyze, and overhype situations they are in until they don’t even resemble what is going on in reality, and not on the inside of their heads. Men are also guilty of this, maybe to a lesser degree, but they seem to go about it differently, exhibiting more of a “me against the world” fantasy, in which they feel as though they have to constantly avoid being “trapped” in a situation or relationship when in most cases, no one is deliberately trying to tie them down—instead, just a little bit of reliability is being asked of them, instead. A huge imposition, right?

But maybe Gilbert substantiates this idea. She writes, “When it comes to questions of intimacy, I want many things from my man, and I want them all simultaneously” (Committed, 48). That is an almost inhuman amount to expect from someone, and yet, when I look around, it’s the norm that I see, and, in fact, the norm that I expect. The problem is that women get used to depending on something from a man—be it phone calls, someone to make the first pot of coffee in the morning, or someone who always says the right things—and when that expectation is not filled, it feels like the world crashes down around us, rendering us disoriented and moody. “Why didn’t he call? Why didn’t he leave me my two cups of coffee that he knows I need in the morning? Why did he ask me how my day was and then tell me what a dickhead my boss is for making my job a living hell?” And so on, and so on—“Why didn’t he say goodbye? Why wasn’t he on time? Why didn’t he pick up the drycleaning? And it all ends up spiraling into, OH MY GOD, WHAT’S WRONG?!”

Maybe we just shouldn’t expect so much. I know—it’s completely counter-intuitive to everything we’ve been taught, but we were also taught that going to the doctor’s isn’t going to hurt, the Easter Bunny exists, and every Disney princess has a happy ending, ever after (and look at the divorce rates in the U.S). We all know where that got us. What if we could suddenly stop being so disappointed in our partners and relationships and ourselves? What if we could stop being so afraid to commit, because that scary bar could be lowered, and we could do it ourselves?

This is not to say that we should not expect things of people. Surely, there are some things that you should be able to expect from the people in your life, nonnegotiable. You should be able to expect someone who looks out for your best interests, as well as theirs. You should be able to count on someone to treat you with respect and decency. You should be able to expect someone to be there when you say “This is important and I need you.” You should be able to feel confident and comfortable in your relationships the majority of the time.

The only further advice to not expect so much and burn yourself out that I can give you is to be sure not to sacrifice all your time and effort in the name of not expecting so much. Although you may be able to give 112% right now, if your partner is only willing to give 20, don't bend yourself in half to make up for all of their lost effort. You'll drive yourself even more crazy. They'll stop trying to work because they'll (rightly) assume that you'll do all the work for them. It'll piss you off. You'll start to resent them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a mental and emotional health time-out and just letting a relationship lie where it is if it's stalling at the moment. Both of you should still be there when you return from getting your air. And if not—who really wants to be with someone who would leave when things get a little stressed, anyway?

Pure science can prove that not expecting everything from someone is healthier in the long run. Psychologist Carl Jung believed that the first six months of any relationship is pure projection of your desires upon the other person, which explains why at about month five every. little. thing they do start to inexplicably annoy you to distraction and unhappiness. You are, in fact, finding out that they are a real, imperfect person. A person who has their own emotions and moods and problems that don’t involve you. Goethe once said, “When two people are really happy about one another, one can generally assume they are mistaken.” Why? Because we see what we want in our partners. This is not a bad thing; in fact, this is what assures that the human race continues. But perhaps we need to start seeing less of what we want, and more of what is really possible for two people.

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of that.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you” (Committed, 129-130).

How many people can say that they really know their partner after just a month or two? The longer it lasts, and the longer you stay together and learn more about each other, (which is the goal of every relationship, after all—to actually BE TOGETHER,) the greater that chances that you will have to deal with depression and disappointment and unhappiness and quarrels and disagreements and periods of time where you feel alone, even when you’re together, because you are sure—no, CONVINCED—that this is not the same person that you started out with. But it is. They’re going to make you mad, and you’re going to piss them off. After a certain amount of time, you can just see the forest from the trees now, or the flaws from the perfect smile or the charming mannerisms. The sad news is, so can they. And this is where the idea of two people committing to each other comes in, not, as some might assume, at the beginning of a relationship. No, the real commitment is when you can finally sit back, eyeball the big, hairy monsters that your former sweetheart-turned-pariah has been hiding, and say to them, “Ok, I see your self-absorption and tendency toward melancholy, and I raise you my need to be the center of attention, the way that I make everything a much bigger and more frantic deal than it needs to be, and the annoying way I mutter in my sleep. Can you handle that?” And if they say yes, and you say yes to them, then—THEN—my friend, you are in the commitment business. Not when you first get together. Not when you first decide to split time between two residences and share meals and bathrooms and life details. Not when you ask if you are in a “committed relationship.” Real commitment can only happen with time, and a firm grip on the personal reality between two people.

This form of commitment, not to an ideal or a relationship, instead focuses on commitment to a person. A commitment to on the daily accept their “most tiresome, irritating faults.” Gilbert explains, as she comes to grips with the idea of living with just one, flawed man for the rest of her life, “What I am talking about is learning to accommodate your life as generously as possible around a basically decent human being who can sometimes be an unmitigated pain in the ass” (Committed, 132). Because that is what you are doing—you’re welcoming a pain in the ass into your life. You’re telling them that you are committed to being their co-ass. That you like their ass-ish-ness. That you might even, in fact, find it endearing and lovable and value it, quirks and all. And really, once you learn not to expect the moon from someone, and instead take what they can give you, flaws and all, what more could you ask for from them? Nothing. And right about then, you can start to learn to be content. Content, and committed.

But how does this make a commitmaphobe feel better and more like committing to another person, let alone a situation, isn’t the end of the world? Commitment isn’t going to ruin your life. It doesn’t have designs on sapping all of your hopes and dreams and aspirations and tying you down in one place to one person, ‘till death please-come-quickly-and-take-one-of-you apart. Instead, it has the desire to give you a cohort in crime, who, like your parents, will love you inexplicably, no matter what you do or who you are. It gives you a solid constant when the rest of your life is changing so fast it makes your head spin. It gives you someone who always knows what you need to hear, whether it’s a “You are amazing and can totally do this,” or a “Get your ass in gear and stop fucking around.” The goal is to render you not quite so alone and afraid of what someone wants from you. And so, I close with the words that made this one commitmaphobe feel a little more lenient in dealing with the thought of letting other people into her life and dealing with the repercussions. Because sometimes, just sometimes, the only thing that you realize you’re missing to make yourself, your desires, and your life whole, is another person who can handle your shit, too.

“In the end, it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in love, to combat the inescapable disappointments of intimacy” (Committed, 133). The trick is not to ask for or expect someone to be something that they're not; instead, sync up who both of your are and what you both want or need. I'm not the sort of girl who you buy Valentine’s Day flowers for. I don’t want to be the girl who you feel like you have to take out for dinners and dress up for, because I don’t really do dates without feeling massively awkward. I'm just the kind of girl you can tell when you hear a good show is coming into town. I want to be the girl who you call when you’re heading home at night. I want to be the only girl who is expected to walk out of your bedroom. Those are my expectations. I'm sure you all have your own. They're pretty pared-down. When it comes down to it, we're all pretty simple. So don't ask for too much. Do not expect too much. Don’t be too harsh, or too judgmental, or too quick to act or make up your mind about something and rule it out. The only way you are ever going to get out of any relationship alive and satisfied is if you first relax your own ideas and expectations enough to let someone else just be the “themselves” that you love, for whatever twisted reasons. And that is pretty phenomenal. More phenomenal than scary, I’d even say.

XOXO

Flight Of The Midnight Sun

As I watched the sun rise in shades of pale orange, rose, and eggshell blue over the Atlantic Ocean at 6:30 AM Euro-time, and 1 AM U.S time from the plan window, it struck me that just like watching the sun rise in the middle of my night, I am in totally strange territory. In one month, I assigned myself to living in a totally foreign country for three months. There was lots of last-minute paperwork, not much planning, and a sense of total disregard for reading any of the prepatory material. Watching that midnight sun rise, I realized that not only was I not traditionally "ready," I also have no clue what I am doing. After a brief moment in which my eyes suddenly burned with a wall of saline tears pressing against the back of them, much to my total horror and embarrassment due to my attentive seatmate watching me, it passed. I am here. I said I'd do this. I need to do this. Already, I am stretching boundaries, making new friends, and opening myself up totally to whatever new experiances find me (including a group outing planned for what will be dubbed "The World's Most Offensive Scavenger Hunt" to a park replete at night with prostitutes, transvestities, and drug dealers in effort to find the holy trifecta of a transvestite drug-dealing prostitute, just to say we met one,) and just rolling with it.

Something's different in the air over here. It's not just the 50 degree temperature. It's not the food smells, or the palm tree that grows below my hotel window. It's a different permiable attitude of "what will be, will be." I am far calmer and more out-going and humorous here than at home. It's easy to be with a group of strangers, as a stranger, when all the natives expect you to be different anyway. Don't get me wrong-- I'm still alternately scared shitless and asking myself what the fuck I've gotten myself into, but I'm pretty sure I'm in love with Florence, already.

I am pretty sure this is the craziest and most exciting thing I have ever done.

Thank you for letting me go do this. It means so much.

I miss you all.

XOXO

Ciao, Bellas!: Goodbyes Before The Great Adventure Begins

"We're not going to encourage you to cross an ocean. We're selfish bitches who like you where you are."- Samantha, Sex and the City, Season 6.

In 24 hours, I will be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean between Boston and Italy. I have 2 bags packed fully to the brim, my student visa and passport, 3 guidebooks, 3 new novels (2 bought, 1 very contentedly borrowed,) and lots and lots of people I don't want to leave.
...And a horse. She's equally, if not more, important.

The funny thing with the people who are close to you is that you can always, always, invariably tell when they are doing something strictly for your sake and trying to hide their real feelings on the subject. There is always the person who is not so keen on your leaving who knows that they should be excited for you, and so tries to pretend to be excited for you so that you aren't worried about them, because they are worried about you, and you just start a whole circle of projected feelings.
"I'm excited."
"Good. You should be excited." (Falsely cheerily.)
"...I'm coming back, you know. Don't worry."
"I'm not worried."
"You're so worried. And I'm worried about your being worried."

I can't be excited if you're worried. I'm worried about you. Me, I could care less about. So you care about me, and I'll care about you, and we'll both pledge to be nervous but excited for each other, and in no time flat, I'll be back. Easy as pie. Chocolate mud pie. My favorite.

Some don't try to hide it. Some, like Samantha, tell it to you exactly how it is. Friends are funny. They do unexpected things for your benefit that you never expect and then you have to balance their love for you with the situation at hand to see it from their perspective. (I recently remembered the fact that when a good friend of yours says they're going to do something, they usually do it. So take them seriously, or you're going to be the one feeling your jaw drop against the desk in shock.)

"I'm inviting you to go to France, not to jail."- Alec.
"I just--"- Carrie
"Have more questions?"- Alec
"Yes. I'm not finished with New York."- Carrie, all Sex and the City, all Season 6.

You always leave for a trip sooner than you want to. Universal truth. Am I ready? No. Am I going to do my best? Yes. I may or may not have mulishly not planned some details, like, plotting points around the city in regards to the college or my apartment because, frankly, at this point, all of the paperwork and planning has left very little room for the adventure in this adventure, and I really would just like to get lost enough to have no other options than stop wandering, find a good bar, sit down, and just...let it go.

If there is one thing I have learned recently, it's that when something keeps popping up unexpectedly-- a book, a person, a place-- you better face it head-on and get over your shit, because if you don't, you're just going to waste time and an opportunity. You can't deny what is right in front of you. You can try like hell, but sometimes, it's just best to stop the fight and resign yourself to the fact that at times, things greater than your own force of nature are at work. Sometimes, it's to help you. Sometimes, it's to teach you a lesson. And other times, it's to open you up to possibilities you never imagined were possible.

When two things work in tandem, they are always stronger and more sure than one. Remember this. Find someone or something else that works at your speed, and don't give up on it easily.

"There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."- Carrie, Sex and the City, Season 6.

So here's to traveling and friends and letting go and new adventures. Speaking of, I have no idea when or how I will be getting internet access in Florence, so I'll do my best, but it may be a little while. Rest assured, I'll be back.

Ciao, bellas! I love all y'all.
XOXO

Necessary Evils: G-Y-N Does Not Spell F-U-N, But Being Clean Does.

There are some things in life you just shouldn't be subjected to. The ad for sheer men's thongs of yesterday's entry, for example. Particularly horrendous in-laws. Obscene amounts of child snot (though this is manageable after one gets over the initial disgust. Believe me-- True Life: I Was A Nanny. I know. This may also be why I always have a zip-lock baggie of tissues with me. Always. Because you never know when someone else's baby is going to start leaking from the nose on you. And because I am basically like Mary Poppins with my Big Red Purse of Everything You Could Ever Want. I could entertain a child with the contents of my purse for hours [and I have] as long as you let me keep the cigarettes).

Back on topic. More unfortunate things: Running into and having to make awkward conversation with people, particularly exes or friends of your parents, in inopportune places: specialist doctor's waiting rooms, in front of the condom selection in the grocery store, any time anyone involved is blatantly drunk. (However, if it is an ex, I have a handy script for you. For doctor's offices, it goes: "Well. I guess I know where I got THAT." In front of the Trojans: "Yeah. I'm bangin' like a rabbit ready for spring. And how are you lately?" No one ever said I was tactful.) That totally unnecessary and stoke-inducing pause between when someone says "We have to talk...about who's picking up the cat," or something equally mundane. Lines at the DMV. A long winter walk without gloves or a hat. Staying on hold for more than 5 minutes. Purgatory. (One could argue the DMV and hold are lesser forms of Purgatory. I'm all for that argument and so anti-Purgatory it's not even funny. You don't just wait around after you die. Something, other than waiting, has to happen, even if it's nothing. Life is not about waiting and then going on to die and wait some more.)

But the number one thing you shouldn't have to endure? Totally pointless invasive procedures. First off, I have never had to wait so long for ANYTHING after getting naked. And at least, once you're there, get me ready by asking probing questions before you actually PROBE. This time round, there was no peeing in a cup. (Another thing I loathe. I am not a man. Peeing into and/or on things is not something that I pride myself on.) Hence, I could have toked my little self silly this morning to take the edge way fucking off instead of panicking and cold-sweating into one of those ridiculous open-back robes while being talked through that day's activities. (On the downside, this also meant no super-quick and accurate medical pregnancy test.) There was also no asking me if I was sexually active (guess the cat is out of that bag), when the last time was, about partners, etc. I mean, that's like, my bragging time. Call me immature, but after years of appointments occurring during dry spells (programmed like clockwork for the most emotionally-stunting impact like every. single. "I am alone but I really shouldn't care about it anyway" Valentine's Day,) and pregnancy tests run with me in the background going, "No, really-- it's been six months. I think even I'd have noticed SOMETHING right now. And if that comes back positive, either that sucker had some Olympic sperm, or call the freaking Pope and tell him it's happened again, and to a PAGAN," nothing makes me happier than to announce "YES" like a child who has just learned how to tie her shoes. And generally, I only let people down there for a good time, and I don't exactly call getting pried open by the Jaws Of Life "fun." Also, quit talking to me like everything is normal. This is a fucking awkward situation. If a guy I was with looked at me mid-act and said something like, "So, what are your summer plans?" or "I was thinking of repainting the walls," I'd ask him to kindly shut the fuck up with the small talk or dismount so we can talk about non-sex-related things like civilized people while not trying to accomplish the task at hand. Or...well. You know.

Can't we all just agree that if you take a look and it looks good, it's probably good and you don't need to get all up in there? I know there are few of you out there going, "Tsk tsk, Carissa-- this is exactly the sort of thinking that will wind you up dying a slow and painful death from syphilis. STDs are a serious matter. You can't just self-diagnose! Eye-balling it doesn't answer everything!" Believe me-- when I was 16, I thought I was going to be the first and only person ever diagnosed with Brazilian Vagina-Eating Disease (the country, not the wax job,) due to some young, naive--FINE, they were mostly just STUPID-- mistakes I'd made; I am all about getting a clean bill of health. (Important for both partners, people. If one of you has something, chances are, the other's gonna get it, too. It's like magnets; it's just how those parts work.) But really-- if it is a trained medical professional or specialist saying everything looks good TO THEM-- do we really need to continue to do the rest of the song and dance and swabbing? "Everything looks great!" should mean "We're stopping now." Only if you hit a "Damn, that's certainly not normal!" should it mean "Full swab ahead!" I mean, the "oww's" I am saying are not for theatrical effect. "Oww" means, "it used to be fine in there, and now you're fucking that all up!" There is no lying back and thinking of England. There is no fooling yourself about what is going on. There is just lots of squirming and manically checking the clock. Though, I am pretty sure, with catheters and all that, you guys have it much worse off. Ha. Hahaha. Small consolation prize for us being stuck with the whole childbirth thing.

My mother told me last night to stop being such a baby about it. "It's not like it's your first time," she correctly pointed out, but then she said what made my heart sing and snarky wit sensors start vibrating (...maybe this is not the best post to use the word "vibrating" in...oh well. Damage is done,) and churning. "It's not unlike anything else that goes in there."

I was practically salivating at the mouth by the time I cocked (...another unfortunate word choice...) an eyebrow at her. "I'm pretty sure I've never been with a guy with a metal penis."

Ew. Ew. Ewww.

But yeah. Getting tested is important. Do it at least once a year. Like any well-functioning machine, making sure all parts are clean and in order is para...mount. (Jesus, I don't even try, I swear.) And though it may be one of the more awkward conversations of a relationship (or evening), it really is important to make sure your friend isn't bringing other "friends" to play-- his ex who gave him herpes, the one-night stand with the clap, or some exotic STD from playing abroad. A clean bill of health in one of the most important things you can bring to a night (or nights) of fun, otherwise, well, it's not going to be fun when you have to make or receive that angry phone call, is it? So, suck it up, because if I, Miss I-Faint-At-The-Sight-Of-Needles-And-White-Coats Syndrome can do it, so can you. Make an appointment. And if you're lucky, (and clean, and someone is on some other form of preventative birth-control, and monogamous, and not totally worried about it,) maybe you can play without the raincoat. Which, I will admit, even from a woman's stand-point, is so much better. But until you see a doctor's signature or the emotional wounds from an appointment, be safe and wrap it, kiddies!

After this emotionally taxing morning, it is nap-time for this big baby.

XOXO

P.S-- No Brazilian Vagina-Eating Disease yet. Thank god. In my mind, it's akin to Audrey 2 from "Little Shop Of Horrors." Sheerly terrifying.