Women who take relationship self-help books seriously

Please stop. If you can't help yourself then please resist "helping" others by dishing out inane advice from books like "He's just not that into you" and "Why men like bitches." I'm not any better qualified to give dating advice than you, in fact I'm a total spaz, but I still think relationships are far from formulaic or that there is some method I'm failing to apply to hook and sink the perfect guy. In fact the more single women I meet and talk to, the more I realize that regardless of the method, we're all still single. Whether we wait for guys to call or grab him by the tie and straddle him, we're still single. Whether the girls are using match, e--harmony, dating constantly, or never dating, we're still single. It's maddening but my philosophy remains, it's wrong until it's right. I am me. I can only be me and I want to be with someone who wants me. I hope to change and grow as I age, I endeavor to be better versions of myself always, but however I evolve, I am still connected to an essential, elemental, me. I know books that sell their methods with anecdotes of success but I don't have a single friend or acquaintance who owes their marital status to a self-help book. In fact the only women I know talking about self help books with any sense of authority about the truth they contain are single like me and trying vainly to find some truths to buoy them through the unanswerable questions who, what, when, where, why, how, and most importantly, if there will ever be a man for them. Oh, and the smug women and men who write them.

Twitter, blogging, Facebook, MySpace

I just read a horrible story today about a boy who committed suicide in front of a live web audience. He announced his intention to kill himself and then took pills and died not long after. The entire thing was streaming live, including the arrival of the police to the scene. A sidebar on the tragedy was this oft repeated sentiment that there is a generations of folks who live out their lives on the web, chronicling every non-event, every intimate detail of their very ordinary lives as if anyone would have any interest. The truth is that we are interested in one another, we do get caught up in the mundane and fantastical, not just of celebrities, but of each other. The web is so big that you don't often have to go far to find someone or something to connect and relate to. It gives people voices and a sense that because the medium is not as fleeting as the spoken word, that their thoughts may find their way to like-minded souls eventually. It is a community and while we can discuss and argue what kind of community it is or what we may be missing in our tangible lives that we seek in virtual connection, it is nevertheless to me just reinforcement that no matter the medium, human beings seek connection and community with one another. I know it is a strange place to go given my tragic lead-in but I could say nothing about the young man that his family and friends won't say better and with authority I lack in the matter.

Maria

Maria threw darts at maps and traveled the globe, and depended on the kindness of strangers but slept with a machete just in case. She lived in places and ways that seem unreal and found a way to scratch a full life out of wherever she happened to be. She lived bravely and with conviction and determination. She had a wild mane of black hair and a beauty both striking and serene. When she moved to a remote plain in Idaho, it was no surprise that she lived "off the grid" as in all the stories I heard about her, she had never lived "on" the grid. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly two years ago, I remember hearing that she had felt it even earlier than that but didn't have insurance. Although the news initially saw her declaring she would go quietly into that night and refuse treatment, she actually ended up defying the odds so many times that I lost count as she rallied from hospice and returned home after she was given weeks and hours to live over and over again. It was a long and painful goodbye for her and her family but the family was able to rally around to see her, laugh, cry, and try to say something like goodbye. If you believe that God ultimately keeps the time on our stay here then she wasn't here a moment longer than we all needed her to be and her life continues in her frighteningly beautiful daughter and two handsome boys. I hope for her passing to imbue them with that same steel rod of determination to live and push through things and that her loss will give them a well of strength they can draw from and remember her as the source of. I never met her in person, never even spoke to her, but I still can't believe she isn't here anymore. My dear friend is grieving her, the one who told me everything I know about her sister Maria, who finally laid down her head to rest on Saturday November 15th, 2008.

Introducing: The CrushCode Chronicles

Do not ask me what it means. I do not know. I do know this is hilarious.

I also know that I'm not giving out my number to random dudes anymore. Ever. My made up boyfriend (working name Slash Thudkill) was working great as a graceful declination from getting caught up in the phone number exchange and then I left the program for no good reason last night. Security guard at my building hits me up for the digits and even sets me up to use the boyfriend excuse and I don't! I'm going to blame a depressed immune system on account of my bronchitis. So dude calls me today, twice, one minute apart. left a snarky voicemail and then sent me a high priority text message (I did not even know you could do that) that said, "called twice. your move." It was 1:30 in the afternoon on a work day. You are calling me on my cell phone. In the middle of a work day. Twice. One minute apart. Dude, you need to relax.

Also Burnside turned me on to a great link in this post.

A suggestion from the sexiest woman alive

So they just named Hugh Jackman sexiest man alive--I agree completely. Hence the title and the thought for the day which I'm only now finishing a few days later.

If you are alive and have ovaries, chances are that you don't have many pictures of yourself that you like. You also probably like old pictures that you used to hate. It is a strange and mocking vanity us ovary carriers have. So I have a suggestion and before I reveal it, I must first give credit to dearjes. dearjes is the only way to describe her as she is quite dear and also pretty amazing. She told me once that every year for her birthday, she takes a picture of herself. I think one year the 'self-portrait' was of her feet but the picture I saw of her was amazing. She's already beautiful and ridiculously photogenic but this picture captured on film the beauty we know of her everyday. A great picture. She confessed that she went through quite a few bad pictures to get this one good picture and it got me thinking that maybe I could take a good picture after all. I just needed to practice.

Well it just so happens that my awesome laptop has an built in camera and an application called Photo Booth where you can snap away to your hearts content and even use cool effects--sepia tone is a personal favorite. So I've been snapping away whenever the mood hits me for about year trying to get "candid" but flattering pictures. I'll paste a few below for the weekend and then I will take them down so if you're reading this later, that's why there are no pictures. There is nothing particularly great about these pictures but I really like them because they are 'elemental.' It's not so much that I look good in these pictures as much as I just don't look bad. They also feel very intimate. I think that the lighting and angle of the shots convey an intimacy. What I've also learned is that I don't normally take an okay picture when I'm feeling decidedly unsexy. The point is, give it a try. I think you'll see faces that you didn't realize you had.

Excedrin: Racial Tension

In consideration of older men and selected other thoughts

Karaoke was good last night. I didn't sing but it was because I didn't feel like it, not because I was terrified to, which is an important distinction. There were so many people there, you could hardly hear anyone at the mike and only 5-10 people in a tiny room that had to have been beyond capacity could actually see you. I screamed back and forth with a couple of nice women and was pleased that more than half of the women who showed up weren't interested in singing, were coming out for the first time, and had also recently moved and wanted to make some women friends. A surprising number of women had boyfriends or husbands. Most were dressed even more casual than me, some took a little more care, so I definitely did not feel like the loser in walking shoes. All in all, I'm glad I went. Met some interesting people (always), had a very full day, including lunch with a friend who happened to be in town, and woke up this morning with a sore throat in what feels like the same cold I had three weeks ago. I hadn't had a cold in two years and this year, I've been sick three times now. Totally weird and very irritating.

Friday night, I took some out-of-town folks to my neighborhood bar/cafe. There, I saw Boston, an older guy (older-than-my dad-older) I met about a month ago when I wandered in to the place to shake off a funk I was in. He has a dark hair that has gone mostly gray, a kindly weathered face, a wonderful Boston accent, and killer blue eyes. I think he's at least 20 years older than me but I like him. We had a nice talk, walked out together and that was that. Last night, the place was crowded and he had just given his seat the the guys I was with and I invited him to join us. Though he had eaten already, he ended up staying with us the entire meal and even after the guys left. We talked about everything under the sun and like the last time we talked, I felt a weird energy coming from him. If I'm right it was 1/3 loneliness, 1/3 alcohol, and 1/3 lust--not in an aggressive way, but as an extension of his loneliness. He reminds me a bit of Jay, because their loneliness is similar. but Boston is a quieter soul. He strikes me as the type who could earnestly fall in love with a stripper. We left the bar and walked a few steps before our separate homes drove us in separate ways and the space between us was pregnant with something that I thought I recognized but didn't really want to. I gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, he lingered at my neck in a way that could have meant nothing but I think it meant something. I know I'm one for overblowing things--IBC springs immediately to mind, but this feels different.

I don't want to date Boston. He has 4 grown sons, he's older than my father, and I refuse to believe that if God ever had anything at all in mind for me, that Boston would be who he sent. What has me here typing about him is I think what Boston feels happening between us is what I feel between me and every wrong guy. I bang my head against the wall and say, 'how do we talk for hours? how does he share his soul with me and still want to be with somebody else? how can things be so easy between us yet I feel he doesn't seriously consider me romantically? what is wrong with me?' If Boston and I are splashing on the same emotional pheromones, I can see with some degree of objectivity why I seem often to have these long term emotional affairs with the likes of Maybe and IBC and others who haven't been assigned monikers. Like I am (inexplicably) to Boston, these guys are attracted to something about me, maybe they're attracted to my attraction to them. Who doesn't like feeling wanted? Even though I think there is something in them, perhaps a basic decency, that won't allow them to take advantage of the uneven emotional playing field, I do run on the fumes of something in my passive pursuit of their affection. Maybe they are the innocents and I generate all the romantic tension and energy all by myself. But it could also be like the lyrics from the Mamas and Papas:

"I saw her again last night and I know that I shouldn't
To string her along is just not right, if I could then I wouldn't.
But what can I do? I'm lonely too, and it makes me feel so good to know she'll never leave me."

And my favorite, which feels like a shout out to IBC:

"I'm in way over my head, now she thinks that I love her
Because that's what I said, though I never think of her."

Such a jingly sing-songy tune with 'whoa' lyrics.

I'm not sure how, but I can't do Boston like that. It helps that I don't really go to the bar that often and so I'm unlikely to run into him a lot but I will run into him. While I don't need to borrow that trouble in advance, wringing my hands and trying to figure out how to be, what to say, I will be thinking in the coming days how I would have liked my many beyond reach men to treat me. I know I don't have control over his emotions and he's free to like or dislike me the same as everyone else, I just see this as an opportunity (if I've read this situation correctly) to sow something into the world that I will one day benefit from in the way someone conducts themselves with me.

And now for something completely different.

A great song and fun video. Anyone who saw Inside Man will remember this song from the opening and closing credits. I love the dances in this video. They are gettin' down.