Day 11: Farting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Okay, so I lied about the under $200 thing...at least for this ensemble. Unfortunately, there is NOTHING cheap here. This is the definition of a dream outfit. The shoes are over $300, and the shirt (!) is even more...I think $350....good lord. But it's so freakin adorable! We'll call it "Dinner with the Boss," because I don't have a boss and think that's funny. It could also be "Take Me with You, Santa" for all those holiday parties (for people who have lots of parties to go to, that is).

Now...you're probably wondering about the title. Well, the big question in relationships--and the one the girls address in episode 11--is not, "Do I marry him?" but "Should I fart in front of him?" This is serious stuff here, folks. All the women hit a dry spell, and Carrie blames hers on a fart she accidentally let rip in bed with Mr. Big. Mortified, she spends the entire episode analyzing whether or not the budding relationship is doomed or whether she can still muster enough sex appeal to keep Big interested. We'll get back to how ridiculous this is later, but first, the others....

Samantha goes on a sex fast after talking to her handsome, young, celibate yoga instructor who swears ongoing foreplay beats copulation any day. Miranda hasn't been laid in two months and is bitter. So bitter that she attacks a Latino (of course) construction worker who whistles at her as she is entering Blockbuster for the upteenth time. Charlotte thinks she's in love (surprise) and wants to consummate her relationship, but the guy isn't interested (what?). He has chosen Prozac over sex and is just fine with his inability to get it up.

Okay. Back to Carrie. Maybe if I lived in New York City and dated multiple people a week, I would be worried about a little fart early on in a relationship. But isn't real love a little deeper than that? Isn't it a really bad sign that a fart can scare a guy away (not to mention guys are generally more farty than us ladies and better not be pointing any fingers...or butts)? Besides any guy I know wouldn't leave a girl for a fart--especially if she was hot.

See, maybe some guys think they want a goddess who doesn't fart, shit, or clean out her earwax. But I've found out that most guys prefer comfortability. We're not talking peeing with the door open (Hank still gets mad at me for this--Hey! I've always lived alone, why close the door?) or having farting contests with your mate (even I don't want that--talk about killing the moment). But if a little poof sneaks out once in a while, it's not worth WEEKS of morbid analysis. The first time this happened with Hank, I admit I was embarrassed. We were walking to dinner, and I think I laughed and said, "Oops!" or something. Right away he just said, "What? Hm?" with a little smile. I knew he had heard and was just acting as if he hadn't. He's sweet like that.

So I'm at Starbucks today. I am about two blocks from the Panera that offered me a job last week. Yes, I got a job offer. I almost can't believe I turned down a position in this economy. Lord knows job searching sucks. But Hank, a certified math wiz, worked out that I couldn't afford to take the job. It didn't have any health insurance, almost no chance of promotion or mobility, and paid $8 an hour with virtually no tips. That's slave labor, in my humble opinion. My health insurance is over $200 a month, people, and there is no way I'm working an entire week for money I'll never even see. So, I'm back looking.

And shopping. Just a little. Well, what did you expect? It's Christmas. So, I've activated another credit card (oh, yes, I hope you're cringing right now, because I am) and have been using it frugally, but using it nonetheless. I used to (meaning yesterday) feel panicked about this, but I am consoling myself by thinking that not only am I stimulating the economy and raising my own spirits by buying presents for people (and myself), but I am probably not unlike most Americans. Sad but true.

Last night, I tried to imagine my life without any debt--the way it was a mere two years ago. Honestly, I felt pretty proud of myself then, but other than that, not much different than I do now. Debt doesn't cause you to suddenly loose all of your teeth and die of shame. I can now tell you that firsthand. Just like money doesn't make you happy. (Though, I wouldn't know. It just might.) No, debt only holds you by the neck until you pay it back. Actually it really blows. But we are all held by the neck by something financial, no? School loans? Mortgages? Children? Wait, those are investments....oops. (Well, children are debatable, and I can say that, because I am one and am not so sure I've been the best investment.) Anyway, I do have to watch it, or I'll probably end up being that person crying on national TV about how bankruptcy ruined my life, caused my mate to leave me, and put me on the streets. I'm convinced this is what would happen.

Well, this has been a coherent posting, right? I guess I blog like I order coffee drinks, according to coffee guy--just throw a bunch of crap together. (You know--like decaf and regular. OHHH, you devil!) Better go. Bela is home with his head cone on, because he has been licking his paws obsessively. I guess we all have our obsessions. He licks his feet, and I just buy cute shoes to put on mine--proof that dogs take after their owners or something like that. By the way, Happy December!

Hope you'll be back. I will.

Day 5: Ah, Dating Twenty-Somethings...Wait, I'm Twenty-Something

The gang's big complaint is that the twenty-something man dating an older woman either thinks she's exotic, his mother, or just another good $%^&. Or there is the odd young chap like Skipper who just follows Miranda around like a lost puppy.

I think this is a bit of a stretch (as if SATC is supposed to be highly factual). Granted, I have usually dated older men. Actually I have ONLY dated older men. My first boyfriend in high school was a junior when I was a freshman. The year span seemed to increase as I got older. For a brief time at 21, I dated a 38-year-old with a 6-year-old girl. Once I realized that I was closer in age to her, it made things awkward. But all through my 20s, thirty-somethings have been my men of choice. I always scoffed at girls who dated younger guys, thinking they must be in it just for the sex. Inevitably, I thought, the guy would need to go off and get his testosterone fix by sleeping with another girl or slapping some guy's butt at a kegger.

Then Hank came along. When our mutual friend, Alan, told me about Hank, he mentioned a few facts. First, Hank was prematurely balding. Second, he was 24. I didn't care about the receding hairline, but having just turned 27 myself, the age thing freaked me out.

I mean, obviously it wouldn't work out, right? How could a 24-year-old feel serious about anything? I conveniently had forgotten my engagement at 21. Or maybe I hadn't. That had ended when I canceled the wedding two weeks before the big day. After that, my early twenties were a whirlwind of bad relationship decisions--mostly made because I wasn't mature enough to know myself and what I wanted and needed. Maybe that was what bothered me. When I was 24, I was a mess. So how could someone else be completely settled? Heck, I didn't even think I was mature at 27.

But I met Hank anyway, despite my foreboding, and have been amazed ever since. Maybe it's that Hank's mother is a few years older than his father--actually 3 years and a couple of months to be exact, the same as Hank and I--so he's used to the age difference. Or maybe it's that his family members have gotten married young (most before age 24), so that's just the time he thinks is right for settling down. But Hank says he knew he wanted to marry me the night we met, and I don't think it wasn't because he was a lost puppy. He had been alone for over a year before we met and had had plenty of time to get to know himself. No, it was because he's Hank.

Dating a younger guy does have its less amazing sides. Sure, he really doesn't know how to do laundry correctly (I'm sorry, hon, but it's true). He just throws it all together, which would be a travesty for my white capris (that is, if I let him touch them, which I don't). One of our first formal dates consisted of playing beer pong with his buddies. The fact that I played--and liked it--seemed like a sign from God that we were meant for each other. When he makes dinner, it's soup from a can. He claims it's because that's all he has time for. Otherwise he would make steak every night. No salad. Just steak.

But when it comes to real measures of maturity, Hank's way ahead of his older counterparts (and I know) and surely ahead of me. He'll say wise things like, "You'll find the job that's right for you." He's better at disciplining our dog than I'll ever be, and he already has an booming retirement account (I wouldn't even know where to start). Most importantly, he knows what he wants out of life. When I said I couldn't wait to have kids one day, he didn't say something like, "Yeah, I guess in like ten years" or (worse) "Yeah, I'd be ready for another one soon." Instead, he said he'd been waiting to have a baby since he was ten and only wanted to be married first. He was actually behind schedule, since he wanted one at 20. But, of course, he said, it would happen at the right time.

He's like a 24-year-old Confucius, and I'm the lost puppy.

Sometimes I remind him of our age difference just to get him going, you know play the age card. But he always trips me up. When he talks about dorm-room memories like they were yesterday (they were), I'll say, "You're so young." And he'll say, "So are you." He's right. But I have a feeling even if I was 40, he'd still say it, and I'd still feel like it was true.

Maybe most twenty-something guys don't have years of past relationship muck, a steady career, or amazing cooking skills. Maybe some of them really only want to have fun and play the field. But if you find that rare man who loves you and who you love, regardless of age, never let him go. Even if you have to do the laundry.

Day 3: Naked

It's been a few days since I wrote here. I have decided to keep this as more of a diary or journal, not a blog. It's too much pressure (and too depressing when you don't have any followers) to have blog.

The last episode of Sex and the City I watched was the third one--fitting since this is day three--and it had to do with "modelizers." Since I've never actually met one of these men, I don't know what they're like. It isn't a type of man I have ever dated. I've dated nice guys and rebels but not really the weird, fetish-driven guys.

But instead of talking about the show, I just want to talk about the day and life.

I woke up at 9:30. I am still looking for a job and under the impression that I'm going to have to start looking seriously in unconventional places. Like the grocery store. Hmm.

I did not get the bridal receptionist position. Neither of the two I interviewed for actually. I didn't even get asked to work at Starbucks. All of the sudden, they didn't have a position open at that store, but I should keep trying back every few weeks or so. I feel so disappointed in myself. And bored. And yet strangely unmotivated, which leads to more disappointment. That's the hardest part. At least when you have a job that sucks, you can complain about the job. I can only complain about myself. Because my job is finding a job, and every day I don't find one is one day where I haven't succeeded at work and--the worst part for me--have nothing to show for the entire day. I hate this. I had better job prospects in Peru. And it was fun work. I love teaching. It makes me feel like I'm doing something meaningful with my time, even if I don't always enjoy it or it takes a lot of energy...both of which are true.

I also like writing. I like getting thoughts down I didn't know I had until they're there on paper. I like just thinking and thinking and thinking. Or doing but stemming from thinking. Does that make any sense? So not making coffee. Or bagging groceries, or just answering phones. And I will very likely be doing one of these things very soon. Why am I so gloomy and defeatist?

I really don't understand how the people who end up living their passion do it. I don't understand what makes them different from me, but they seem very different from me. I always thought I was resourceful and proactive and smart and driven. These days, I just feel like a bum.

I'm reading Sylvia Plath's novel THE BELL JAR (I've mentioned this), and that's not helping. But I will say I had an interesting thing happen today while reading in the bathroom. For the first time, I actually felt myself disassociating from the main character. It was fine when she was becoming disillusioned with life, when she couldn't choose between different possible futures, when she was depressed. But today she tried to commit suicide. And as she drifts into deeper insanity, I just find myself reading about a character instead of my potential self. It's almost like the people in the book who put her into the asylum. Really, we are all so close to insanity, but we can't relate to it too much. Otherwise that makes us crazy too. And that makes us able to do the things crazy people do. And that's not cool. Maybe it's just self preservation. So I'm the enemy for her now. I wonder if she meant for that to happen to the reader. Probably not. She probably just needed a catharsis.

Getting tired. Now that I know nobody's reading this yet, I will just say that I'll be back. Like the Terminator. We all do the best we can.

Day 2 (continued): "Have You Ever Been in Love?"

Carrie asks this to Mr. Big at the end of the first episode of Sex and the City. And what I can't believe is that she seems to never have been. How can you be in your mid thirties without ever experiencing love? I guess I relate more to Big when he answers "Absofuckinlutely."

But maybe there are degrees of love. This has always intrigued me. There's love and then there's LLLLLOVE. And when you're in LLLLLOVE, it seems that love was never love at all, just an impostor. Somehow, looking over all of our relationships in life, it becomes easy to sort them in order of love strength. Yeah, he was a two or maybe a three, while that other guy was clearly a 5. It hardly matters how long we were with them, whether or not marriage was discussed, how good the sex was. Some people just capture a bigger piece of our hearts than others. Why? And what does it mean?

When I first got together with Hank, my current partner, we both said it was love at first slow dance to "Thriller." We met through mutual friends--three of them--who all said we would be "perrrrr-fect" for each other (okay, confession: all involved were a bit tipsy, including us). And I was so cynical (what, me?). I didn't even want to meet him. Just out of another whirl-wind disaster of a relationship, which had begun right after yet another fatal union, I was all out of ways to make the spark last or even start to grow it into something meaningful. I just wanted to spend Saturday nights with my dog.

But Hank really did capture my heart. Right there on the dance floor. And he's kept it since without us even trying too hard. I don't understand it myself. I had struggled before to be right for other people, to think they were right for me. I had stayed in relationships for two, sometimes three years, just to figure out that I had known everything I needed to know at two months. Why do we stay when we know it's not right? Wait, I know the answer to that. We always think we might be wrong. That this really is as good as it gets.

So...love. How do we know when we're in it? How do we decide what's in love enough?

Sometimes it's the little things that end up feeling really big. I went shopping today. At Neiman Marcus. Let me reiterate that I don't have a job. I shouldn't be shopping. I should be staying as far away from malls as humanly--well, womanly--possible, especially evil stores like NM. But I had just come from my interview, which didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, and I felt like I needed a drink. So I put $600 on my credit card instead. Cute Nine West red heels, a huge red clutch, and tailored designer jeans later, I was in trouble.

Shopping was always taboo in our family. With two doctors for parents, we had our fair share of disposable income. It was understood you would shop. But either because my father came from a humble Lutheran background and worked construction to put himself through college or because my mother's family repressed everything, you weren't supposed to talk about shopping. What you bought was to be hidden in the spare bedroom. That way it wouldn't cause anyone to worry that you were dealing with your emotions by making mass purchases.

I would like not to blame my current credit card debt on this shopping complex from childhood (so cliche), but old habits die hard. That's all I'm saying. And it's no coincidence that my sister is the only one I can talk to about shopping woes and the only one who is in deeper than me.

When I came home today with my loot, I looked guiltily at Hank. "I did a very bad thing, " I said. "I needed a drink." "Oh no," he said. "What happened?" I replied quickly, eager to feel relieved from telling my secret, "I decided to go to the mall." I prepared my gut for the blow. The "How could you?" he was sure to ask. I formed my argument for why spending that money really wasn't so bad. The self-blame and promises to cut up the credit card. "That's okay, sweetie. I thought you went and took shots or something." Huh? What? He didn't even care?Even after our conversations about why accumulating stuff wasn't the best way to feel good about your life? Even after I had told him it would stop?

And then I realized that that's love. Don't know what I mean, but when someone isn't even bothered by the things about yourself that bother you the most. Yeah, it would be easier on our finances if I didn't spend what we don't have (and we don't have it). But it isn't the end of the world.

There's that line that if you hate someone, the way he holds his fork will drive you crazy. If you love him, he could drop spaghetti in your lap, and you wouldn't care. Maybe that's all LLLLOVE is--the natural inclination to forgive another's faults because all you can see is his or her greatness. And that's a wonderful thing.

Hope you'll be back. I will.