Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Here's hoping some of you have awkwardly funny Thanksgiving moments to share with the rest of us!!! Who knows maybe I'll have one :)

He Doesn't Belong With You

So it's virtually impossible not to here the Taylor Swift song on the radio since even if you only listen while driving to work in the mornings. So the song I'm referring to is that "You Belong With Me." If you haven't figured out why she's making millions off of it, listen to the words, it's what every not dating girl aged 14-24 is thinking about their guy friends that they have unrequited crushes on. These guys apparently like talking to them and hanging out with them, while they are dating and kissing on other girls.

I can remember several times growing up where I didn't understand why "he" didn't see the chemistry between us that I saw. This is because my mother didn't teach me what I sense I may not have listened to, thus requiring that I learn this lesson on my own over time. If I could talk to Taylor and all other other girls out there this is what I'd say:

"He doesn't belong with you. He's not romantically interested in you, and probably never will be, otherwise he'd be asking you out on dates, not kissing on those other girls. He probably respects you and likes you as a person, but even if you put on a cheerleader outfit or high heels and cute skirt and lots of makeup, he still won't see what you want him to see. He knows you want him and that feeds his ego. That's why he makes sure to keep you in the 'friend zone.'"

"You belong with someone whose heart and butterflies flutter when he sees you. You belong with someone who only has eyes for you. You belong with someone you choose who chooses you back. You belong with someone who wouldn't string you along just to feed his ego. You belong with someone who makes you a better person and is a better person by virtue of being with you. You belong with someone who you sweep off of their feet rather than the other way around."

"He belongs with someone else not because he's a bad person or an egomaniac, but because he doesn't belong with you. He is too immature for you or anyone right now, but hopefully he'll find someone someday that sweeps him off his feet and makes him become a man. He belongs with someone who will make him a better person by virtue of being with her. He deserves the same thing you do, he's just not choosing it with you. So don't waste your time pining when you could be missing out on spending time with lots of other great guys that do meet those conditions."

Perhaps this is a lesson that girls must learn on their own, but I'll be damned if I don't try to teach or at least warn any daughters of mine that I see wasting their time pining over some boy who is stringing them along. This lesson didn't apply to every boy I had a crush on, just the ones who were actually friends and were spending time with me.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but had I wrote that song I'd be a millionaire too! I just lived it more or less.

Diarrhea of the Mouth is.....????

What's awkward is listening to people who have it and not knowing how to handle this situation. I had a boss with this problem. His diarrhea pushed the line of sexist or just inappropriate. And it didn't really seem to hurt him since he's was making good money....moral of the story....perhaps I'm too careful with my words....professionally and personally.....which might be the cause of the following...

What's even more awkward is that I've nothing awkward left to write about and no one reading anymore so really, what's the point???

I think I'll take a hiatus until I get inspired again and until I've improved my diarrhea of the mouth for posting. As this might be an appropriate medium for it....

Until then feel free to look through my old posts. Some of them don't suck so bad.

A Perm Isn't Called a Perm Because It's Temporary

Perhaps I'm the only one to experience this phenomenon, but does anyone else remember when perms were the rage in the 80's? My mom had the short perm look that she still used a curling iron on. What was the point of the perm? I still don't know. The perm look that I liked was the spiral perm that only blondes seemed to pull off or get to work right.

I guess I decided at one point that I wanted one so my mom went to cosmetology school to learn how to do a perm. No but she did go to the store and get one and the rods if she didn't already have one. And she did the perm herself. I was looking for the cute spiral perm results but that's not how it came out. My hair was fine other than not looking like I wanted it to. Amazingly without schooling and a license, my mom did not fry my hair. Well...

So I hated my hair but made due with it for awhile. I really wanted a professional to do it because I was convinced they could give me the spiral perm I wanted. So at least once or twice in my live my mom took me to a professional to have it done. It still turned out the same way. Not cool. It only added to my awkward, zitty, big giant glasses, bad perm dorkyness. As far as I can remember I was given somewhere between 2 and 4 perms in my life. Half by my mom and the other half professionally. I was never satisfied with the results so I was determined to let it all grow out to my once beautiful straight hair.

It grew and grew and grew and 18+ years later, I still have some kind of curly hair. I can't just let my hair naturally dry and get beautiful hair. I have to use heat to make it straighten it and make it look remotely presentable. But then I still have that nagging frizziness that pops up in humidity.

A few years ago a professional showed me what to do to make left over perm in my hair look good. I tried it for awhile but not for long because I suppose it was too much work for me. You see I'm pretty lazy when it comes to my hair. But a few weeks ago I decided to give it a try again to see if it took any longer than my normal routine to straighten my hair. Turns out it takes about the same time as long as I put the hair dryer on high. With the right product in my hair, it doesn't look half bad. So I decided to try it at work all last week. I might keep it up since my look has felt redundant for most of my life. Just with varying lengths. I'm just not a huge fan of overly crunchy or wet looking hair. So I suppose I'll have to experiment with various products. I just wish I'd known how to fix it back then to make it look half-way decent.

The point is, had I known all of those years ago that a perm was going to fry my hair follicles to permanently make my hair grow wavy, I wouldn't have bothered. I went so far as trying to do my own "straight perm" at home. Didn't work. I didn't even notice a difference when I was done. Am I the only one who learned this the hard way? Someone tried to tell me in college that it was puberty. She can sell it but I'm not buying it. It was that dadgum perm! You won't convince me otherwise in spite of what evidence to the contrary might be out there.

Online Dating Isn't for Everyone

Online dating is what about 10-12 years old now. Right? Maybe more. Before then blind dates consisted of being set up by friends, parents, co-workers, etc. Perhaps answering ads in the back of sketchy magazines, but I'm sure most normal people stayed away from that. Anyways so my mom really couldn't warn me about online dating. I'm going to share with you my one and only experience with it. I'll tell you the punch line now, it was not with my husband. I met him the old fashioned way. At church!

This happened shortly after college though I can't remember the exact year. Maybe 2002 or 2003. So I was playing around online with a dating sight and I don't exactly remember how but signed up for the 2 week free trial as a joke. So we started trolling through profiles in spite of not setting one up for me. So I ran across a guy that struck my fancy. He had a full head of hair, and confident demeanor about him which instantly attracted me. He lived about 5 states away or so. Just for fun I sent a flirty little message, figuring with a picture like that, he's probably busy with chicks that were more geographically desirable and in his own league.

Low and behold he wrote be back and seemed all flirty and interested. I can't remember the circumstances by my free trial was about to expire and it was going to cost $5 to extend it for 2 weeks or a month or something like that and I was just going to let it go, but a lady I worked with insisted I not drop this, since they'd gone through all my failed guy drama up to that point. So she paid the $5 to extend it. So I kept corresponding with him exchanging emails before my term expired.

I should have seen the writing on the wall when he was so eager to correspond with me and when flowers and candy showed up at my place of business. No guy ever sent me flowers and candy, and I was always concerned about my friends that did shower girls with gifts like that. (Flash forward to dating my husband, I told him never ever to pay to send me flowers at work, if he wanted to give me flowers he could buy the $5 bunch at the grocery store and deliver them himself or wait until he saw me later) This is because it's sign of what to expect post marriage and to a girl like me, I see this as a bottomless pit of wasted money. $5 no, but $30-$40 a pop, way too wasteful. And they don't last nearly as long as the flowers from the store do.

Red flag number 3 or perhaps 4(I believe I've covered 2 now, maybe more), the day he sent me the flowers and candy, he tracked down how to call me at work. Granted I did work customer service so he called the 800#, but still, perhaps a little to stalkerish. Though I will admit had the rest of the story gone differently, I'd look back at that as romantic rather than red flagish. At the time, I didn't see it as a red flag, but I should have. Several of my friends had gotten married right out of college or were engaged and I had no prospects on the horizon, so I though what the hell. Why not take a chance. I generally learn my lesson after one time.

So anyways after that we exchanged phone numbers and began talking on the phone on top of emailing. After some time we were curious enough to meet, but I was never going to go meet a stranger by myself. He offered to come visit me. My friends were well aware of this and were on standby for the weekend in case it didn't go well. So I go to the airport to pick him up and what I had pictured in my head and what I picked up didn't quite match up. Do you remember how I said full head of hair and confident demeanor? The picture was clearly several years old, which I can deal with thinning hair, when someone carries them self with confidence. I knew in the first instance I saw him that I wasn't attracted to him. He looked as if he was 30lbs lighter than me dripping wet, which I've hung out with plenty guys my height or shorter, and they still weren't that lite. His shoulders were hunched over and he carried himself as if he was going to get rejected. Why did he even come?!?!

So I knew from that moment it was going to be a LONG weekend. Thank God for my friends! So that I didn't have to be alone with him much. And he stayed in a hotel, because I'm not an idiot. So it started off awkward and it just got worse from there. Want to know why? He kept fishing for complements! I'm happy to give a complement unsolicited if I believe it's deserved, but when someone is fishing for one, I won't even throw the fisher a bone. Perhaps that's how I added to the awkwardness that weekend. But I refused to give some BS "you're so great" when I didn't believe it. That's not to say he wasn't a nice guy. He really was, we just weren't a match and I knew it, I just felt bad for him and me both that we had to make it through the weekend. And I didn't know how to let him down easily. Perhaps it was because of immaturity, perhaps I was just chicken. Either way, the awkwardness still wasn't over.

This was because rather than accept it wasn't a match, he had to call me out on not biting while he was fishing. I think also on my friends being around the whole time. I suppose if that's what he was expecting, he deserved an explanation. But I didn't know how to be nice about it. Again either immaturity or chicken or both.

Anyways the weekend finally ended and I was glad to drop him off at the airport and send him on his way. I do remember feeling a little guilt because it wasn't cheap to fly out to see me and stay in a hotel etc. But, it was as much a risk on his part as it was on mine. And one shouldn't start a relationship based on guilt. I do hope he found a good match for him. My friends and I had a laugh about it for years. I hope he was able to laugh about it to. I never saw or spoke to him again after that. And I never ever ever was tempted to try online dating sites ever again. Though I know of people that it's worked for. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

High School Reunions are as Awkward as High School Was

I realize that high school reunions are supposed to be about reminiscing about the good ol' days, but the reality is that if your class was awkward in high school, the reunion isn't likely to be any different. And I'll say it; I don't look at high school as the good ol' days since most of it sucked buckets for me. So why in the hell would I want to go back?

My class seemed very clicky. It was a small class and we all knew and talked to each other, but we didn't all hang out together in our free time. The reality is that if we'd gone to a huge public school, most of our paths wouldn't have crossed including most of the friends we actually did hang out with. But here's the thing we have all hopefully changed since then and that includes people we used to hang out with. We've all moved on. Reunions are about going back. Back to a place I didn't much care for when I was there but made tolerable by the friends I did have.

A few years ago, I went to my 10 year reunion. I had avoided going back in previous years but decided to go since a friend I'm still in contact with was going. And another friend was going to show and I hoped a few more of my friends would show. Also I really had a morbid curiosity about what some of my former classmates were up to, though I myself was not where I had hoped to be in my career 10 years out from high school. I had recently acquired a stable job that I wasn't completely ashamed of. But I was afraid to go because I figured everyone else would have these crazy awesome careers to brag about.

The reality was that most of the people that showed up had between 1 and 3 kids already. I was shocked because I wasn't even close to thinking I was mature enough to have a kid. (still not sure that I am) Much more 2 or 3 toddlers that were running around. This was a bit awkward because I didn't know what to say to them anymore. I couldn't even relate to wanting kids yet. On the bright side, I didn't see the fabulous high dollar careers that I expected. We were all pretty much paying our dues as far as I could tell. Most of us were well on our way to middle class life, meeting the hopes and dreams of our parents.

Only about half of us, if that many showed up. People that ignored each other in high school continued to ignore each other. I will admit I didn't make an effort to talk to everyone either. I just didn't see the point. Plus hearing about the divorces made the following sympathy awkward.
Now we're all ignoring each other on Facebook. Go figure. We really have nothing to say to each other except to the click or group of friends we belonged to then. It was such an awkward experience, that it's awkward to write about and make it sound amusing. It just sounds sad I think.

Wedding Jitters

If I knew then what I know now, I would have had a small wedding in the back yard and only invited family and a very few close friends. I was excited to get married but the fanfare gave me a bit of nervous anxiety that I would have been happy to do without. Though I'm still proud of the cake that cost about $10 and fed everyone that came that wanted cake and still had leftovers.

So onto my jitters. I had a bunch of stuff stored in my dad's attic that I needed to move out and into our new apartment. The week before, I was up there getting boxes and loading up my stuff to move. You know how most attics aren't finished unless you finish them? Well my stuff was on parts that didn't have any kind of flooring down on the studs. So I was standing on the studs, beams or whatever they are called, lifting a box when I lost my balance and stepped in between the studs and my foot when right through the ceiling. Luckily I came to a stop on top of the fridge.

OH CRAP!!! I just ruined my dad's ceiling!!! and I was getting married in a few days. I was immediately terrified that he was going to be furious and disown me or refuse to walk me down the aisle. Or charge me to fix it and I didn't have a job yet!!! Well that was a little dramatic, but I was really upset that I was in the attic standing on his fridge. I called my soon to be husband and forgot to tell him that there was a fridge under me. So imagine what he pictured, me falling 10 feet to the floor with legs and arms mangled in directions they aren't supposed to go! If he were a woman he would have imagined a wedding with me being wheeled down the aisle in a body cast.

On the bright side, my dad was glad that the fridge was there, and it was something he knew how to fix and so it didn't even come close to breaking the bank. So in the end it wasn't so bad. We all survived. But it didn't relieve any of my other jitters. How do you tell a new bride and her mother that less is more. Most people will tell you that my wedding was more less than more. But I fought for less and hind-sight being 20/20, would have preferred much less than I even fought for. That would have lessened the jitters greatly.

Do any of you have any great wedding jitters stories? The funnier the better!