Real Life is non-non-non-non-NON-Heinous!

So it's been a while. And I haven't written, haven't called, haven't so much as posted up a quick link to someone else's top ten. I wish it could have a good reason attached, this sudden drop off in posts- like, that I had secretly fostered super powers and was spending my free time running about in long johns, fighting crime via punching people doing the crime a lot. Or maybe that I had been tinkering in the kitchen so long, I discovered a cake that tastes exactly like red velvet but actually is made of celery, and the more you eat, the more you look like the very first movie character you ever found beautiful. 

On second thought...

 However comma, I have no such life-altering goodness to share. Or goodness. There is something afoot in my life, and not in the funny way that would provide either an entertaining or a Very Special episode of this rinky-dink one-chick show we're running here. It's something I can't go into, not now, and really, probably not for a good long while, as I'm having trouble finding humor in the situation at all. Which, come on people, if you've been reading along, you know full well that if I can't wrest out a "dumb me" story or even crack a joke about what shenanigans I got up to this time...

then it is probably, potentially, possibly (and in this case, definitely) something pretty horrible and let's just spare the melodramatics and woe-is-mes for when I'm on the rag and much more likely to provide adequate waterworks as to convey just how awful it all is. 

So here's a story I wrote that got published. 

She straightened as her friend approached the booth, hands skirting down to smooth her scrub pants as she did so. "Well there you are, Susan!"

"Sorry I'm late, lunch-time rush traffic." She pulled her sunglasses up over her forehead and with a quick smile and a nod, dispatched the approaching waiter for a glass of water. "But you knew I wouldn't flake on you, not when you've got juicy details." She leaned forward against the table and in the conspiratorial fashion of little girls with candy, lowered her voice an octave. "Now. Spill."

Rebecca slouched back with an exhale. "Oh, wow. I thought he was obnoxiously persistent on the flight, but when he called the third time the next day-"

"The old divorcee called again?" A titter erupted as Susan followed suit, sitting back against the booth in her own body language for disbelief. The waiter slipped her water onto the table, and after a perfunctory order of salad nicoise and peach cobbler, disappeared again.

"I know, right? But should we be surprised, from how obnoxiously he behaved on the plane, and me, completely held captive -check that, hostage- at 30,000 feet?"

"It's probably the only time he ever gets a girl's number, when she's good and trapped. Then he can casually bring up his millionaire self -flying coach- and his yachts and music videos." Her eyes rolling, Susan continued. "I mean, when you told me the bit about his owning a clothing label specifically for his own use, because, what- he's so special that he can't bring himself to wear something us pedestrian bourgeouis pick up in stores?"

Laughing, Rebecca jumped in, "Right, because that just means he really must be a millionaire; it's a well-known fact that Armani and Versace's lines are really only for the middle-class, and any really rich people just open their own lines when they spill a little sauce on their white button-ups."

The giggling continued as lunch was served, and Rebecca tucked a stray red curl behind her ear as she speared a cucumber slice with her fork, continuing her story between bites. "Well, apparently the elderly have nothing better to do than phone girls half their age and beg for dates, and well, I figured if it went poorly enough, that'd be the end of the phone calls. So he promises me a day I'll never forget, right? Makes a reservation at some little bistro, orders a car, I'm to be out waiting by the drive at nine.

"So the car rolls up- only it's not a chauffered car at all, it's him driving- he wanted to show me he was a 'take-charge man.'" She paused for effect as Susan nearly choked on a hard-boiled egg, then continued. "The restaurant is some hole-in-the-wall Italian joint, and point for him, it was really good -burned-tomato-flavored sauce, excellent garlic bread- and then we hit this country bar for dancing. Hypothetically."

Susan tilted her head, subconsciously mimicking her last patient, Woofles, the French Bulldog. "And pray tell, how does one, "hypothetically," dance?"

"Well I'll tell you, Suze- you go to a bar, boasting a whole host of knowledge and alleged compliments on your dancing abilities, and then you get inside, realize the median age in the bar is approximately that of your youngest child, and then claim that it's too noisy to get to know eachother and relocate to his 'pad' for a nightcap."

Susan regarded her coworker with incredulity. "Ugh! Seriously?"

"Seriously. And the whole drive there, he kept mistaking my thigh for his gear-shift." She shook her head. "Thing is, he was almost in the clear... up to the groping, that is. And the rohypnol in my drink."

Susan's eyebrow quirked. "So that'd be a gin and amnesia for you, and a Geritol and Viagra for him?"

Rebecca held up a hand as they giggled on, empty salad plates being replaced with peach cobbler. "No no, I have no idea what his drink was... because I was too busy staring at the gold-framed 2-by-3-foot portrait of him, his current wife and three kids."

Susan let out another laugh, but her reserve was depleted and the sound barely carried. "So that's when you knew."

Rebecca nodded sagely, turning to regard her reflection in the window. "That's when."

The redhead lowered her eyes from the glass pane and blushed. Susan coughed delicately, then picked up her fork to prod her cobbler. "So what about the body?"

"Turns out, he wasn't lying... about the yacht."

750 word flash fiction; published under the name Joan Colairta* by Bank Heavy Press in their September 2011 offering, "Orangutan."

*Oh, come off it, anyone who's ever dreamed of authoring more than a shopping list has toyed with a nom de plume. Especially if their name puts them in shoddy cupcake territory. 

The Definition of Inanity

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. This maxim is not just said, actually, but emblazoned on several items of apparel and quite a few bumper stickers, often paired with an animal whose fur or feathers are standing on end to symbolize "crazy."

 "See, it's funny because he looks all crazy and the card says crazy and-"

But what of repeating an action expecting the result to be equally repeated, only to have dissimilar results? Literally, step by step, repeating a process that has served you well in times past, only this time, "well, screw you bucko, here's something completely different"?

What happened? If the players didn't change and the process remained the same, one might in hindsight espy that the environment in which said action was carried out hence might be your culprit. This is not, mind you, a question of nature verses nurture; this is simply being aware of your surroundings, and how you and your precious previous performances might have altered it, and as follows, your results.

I hate this. If there is a personage in this world that holds my envy, it is young children and their ability to honestly forget that anyone else exists, ever. Oh, don't play like you haven't seen it yourself- the kid walking to or from school, cheerfully oblivious that judgey old-people eyes are upon them as they suddenly STOP! And shoot out JAZZ HANDS!

 JAZZ HANDS! Oh to be young and allowed to re-enact West Side Story outside of the bathroom.

JAZZ HANDS! As the music playing in their heads commands them to frolic, stroll and be-bop along down the sidewalk, shaking various parts of their anatomy in a display less ballet and more 'muppet-handler on LSD.' Makes me hate them just a little more, which as we've already established, is already a plentiful pile of heartily disliking to be increasing. 

No more, my fellow adults (I hope; if there are any actual or mental minors reading, be aware that a snape kills a dumble door, Santa does not exist unless he's murdering your grandmother via vehicular manslaughters singing a happy little ditty all the while, and that when parents say you were a "surprise" they mean "well there goes the trip to Curacao. And the next eighteen years," and not like the other, happier surprises, like "it's not yours!" or "it's not chlamydia, just the herps!")

Now get off my internet lawn.  

Adult-impersonators remaining, unfortunately you and I need be aware of our surroundings; the blissful shroud of oblivion is now three-sizes-too-small. Like your favorite t-shirt from 7th grade that you can juuuuuuust still fit if you suck in and wear a sports bra (or bro, if you're of the penis-having persuasion); sure, you can still annoy physics by wearing the thing without imploding at the areolas, but it's no longer societally accepted to do so, and if you persist doing it in public, you might get arrested, on charges of public indecency for the ill-advised apparel, or on the aforementioned granny-meet-vehicle-murdering from above if you choose to be an oblivious idiot to the world around you.

 Which is how you find yourself doing something you've done dozens of times before, always garnering a satisfactory result, but somehow, somewhere along the way, the circumstances around you have now changed *juuuuuuust* enough to affect the aforementioned result, possibly in a deleterious way. Where are the clever t-shirts and beer cozies for this exception to the not-quite rule?

Damnit Zazzle that doesn't even make any sense

Or hats? For a hat would be useful, as on a related note, I dyed my hair again, back to black. I've had it thus for years, always using Feria for the subtle blue highlights and lack of propensity to wash out and leave a highlight color I can only describe as "mottled lasagna scab." I performed the action step by step, same as I've always done- got good coverage, rinsed well, conditioned for the specified time, etc.

However, if I had stopped to consider how the environment surrounding my grooming had changed- a different bathroom, a different city from the last time I'd dyed my hair... that I had, from January of this year up until this afternoon, been a bottle-blonde...

 So, how's it look?

My failure to account for the lack of naturally brunette backdrop for those 'subtle blue highlights' was a miscalculation of epic proportions. Which is a fancy way of saying that people at work tomorrow are going to think I'm a moron of 'blue is my favorite flavor SO I'M WEARING IT' proportions. As I'm slated to fly the following day, there's no way to weasel a day's reprieve to well and truly shampoo all the dye remnants out enough to allow different color to take hold in a re-dye, either.

So I take it all back. I'm going to go ahead and propose we all continue to wear the too-small shirt of obliviousness, tomorrow and forever.

A show of jazz hands, who's with me?

UPDATE:

Ex-it Strategy, Ex-amples, and Ex-cuses; More of the Reasons to Recluse

To recap, for those at home keeping score:


When J glimpsed me at a group event, and later impressed upon mutual friends to bring me to a party at his house, I had no clue as to how, why, or who he was, or how someone I didn't remember from months ago would remember me. It was only when penis-having mutual friend jogged my memory with, "He liked your tattoos? 'Cause he has them too- remember, he took his shirt off in the theater to let his fresh tattoos breathe?" that a vague, man-shaped memory surfaced.

"Mmmaybe?"

"Well he's having a party..." he trailed off.

 The female mutual friend hastened to affirm that he was generally a nice guy, and had asked for my attendance specifically, which, if you paid attention in the last I Really Shouldn't Date post, was ATTENTION, and all mine.

That was that. I was going to this party.

Now, with the benefit of (mumble) years between then and now and hindsight being 20/20, I hasten to caution impressionable minds with the following 'yellow flags.' (That I will flag. In yellow. Creativity Incarnate, I am not.) For there were no true red flags with this kid- so sorry to disappoint some grander ending you kids out on the tubes had imagined up for me- but like with many less-than-stellar events, it's not one massive problem that kills it. Instead, it's that veritable straw that breaks the camel's back, or if you will, a tedious stacking of Lego blocks. In your slippers. Given enough of those spiteful little suckers and even the most callous (ha!) among us is kicking those puppies to the curb and possibly investing in some slipper-socks.

So we begin the stack with the gestation period: four months is a long time to recall a girl who might have said three words to you in toto. Let's be honest. I'm more Mildred Pierce than Mila Kunis, and even that takes some work, kids. In retrospect, it maybe should have tipped me off that a guy who would be passive enough to think on a girl for months, and then make his big play... by asking someone else to ask me to a non-date... perhaps may not be the storied streetwise Hercules. It wasn't a self-confidence issue, either, because from what I remembered, he wasn't hard on the eyes at all. He knew it, too, catching the second yellow flag in the one interaction we'd had: taking your shirt off in public indoors to show off tattoos to girls you've just met, stone sober all the while, is around two-popped-collars on the Douche Scale.

Why he felt the need to revert to the fourth-grade with his "DO YOU LIKE ME CHECK ONE PLEASE NONE OF THAT MAYBE CRAP" note, I hadn't a clue. Nor was I looking for one...

 he thought I was pretty. Or... memorable. Whatever.

The party was well-attended, and initially I spent it consorting with everyone except J, as he was party host and was constantly chaperoning the jungle-juice punch bowl- what, was someone going to spike it *more*?- but as the night waned on, and people drifted out of the party, he and I found occasion to speak. He himself brought up that he'd remembered my tattoos and this prompted his curiosity; mine extended to seeing what new work he'd had done, which he proudly showed in the exact same fashion as the movie theater. My memory had served me pretty well, and as I was now somewhat expecting it, it didn't seem as douchey. What I remember of this conversation was a confirmation of remembering the movie at which we'd 'met,' viewing of a youtube video,

and a few awkward pauses. It turned out that, body art and military aside, we had very little in common. What's worse, what J had in tattoos, he lacked in conversational skills... but since you don't need those to make out...

We hung around eachother for a month or so after that. Not so much at work- while both in the military, we were in separate squadrons, and really had little reason to visit eachother's buildings during the day. The most time we spent together at work was a night wherein J pulled NCOD, a duty that, boiled out of its fancy acronym jacket, meant a living, breathing human had to babysit a building for a shift of 2-4 hours. (Oh, the things recruiters leave out of their spiels.) To help pass the time, J requested and I agreed to make and bring us dinner. I threw together a lasanga-pan-sized batch of Italian food, a salad, and bread, and drove on base and to the building late that night. J watched on the security camera as I struggled with keying open the outer door, dropping the salad in my attempts and nearly losing the glass pan and bag of bread as the door slammed shut on me. After cleaning up, juggling the remaining food and managing to key, open and enter the door, J met me with laughter as he regaled me with how funny I had looked, and how he had laughed the whole time he'd watched me, from his perch four feet from the door. He then ate the whole pan of food, stopping only at the last two bites to say, "Oh, did you want some?"

Elsewise, we hung out on the weekends, whenever he would text or call me to come over to his house; he would play COD (poorly) and I would sit on his bed next to him and wait for him to get bored enough of 12 year olds spawn-camping him and maybe make out with me. This is pathetic, and not just on his part; why on earth I would hang around being Jane-On-The-Spot for his occasional desires, I can't tell you. And boy, am I embarrassed to admit to it, in writing, on the Internet, which, I have been advised, is forever. But if you never made mistakes, you'd have nothing to write about on a blog for an audience of 4 people.

So when you cringe, know I did these things for you!

Our like was not to be as it happened; we were both set to deploy to the exact opposite ends of the earth. And so we did, with little fanfare- he left in December, and two weeks later, I boarded the mission jet and left the states too. Neither of us felt the need to keep in touch; either I finally had my fill of sporadic attention morsels, or he'd had his, or maybe, just maybe, his idea of what having a girlfriend who got tattooed as regularly as he was seemed better in his head than the incident after we'd both had appointments, and had to un-stick ourselves from eachother/his sheets the following morning. (Oh, the things Suicide Girls leave out of their blurbs.)

However, J was back in my sights only a few months later, when both the female mutual friend and another disinterested third party/dude I'd dated years before approached the topic online; specifically, they both informed me that while I was under the impression that our parting was amicable, J had wasted no time in running his mouth about what an awful, bitchy, clingy, needy girlfriend I'd been, and how he'd had to dump me, and how terribly I'd taken it.

Now, of that statement, no one who's met me, read this blog, or can make inferred guesses of the "if there are two crayons and one is blue and one is red, which one will you use to accurately color in a tomato" caliber, would ever argue the bitchy comment. I'll own that proudly, even if I didn't really see 'makes food and delivers on request' as bitch moves persay. But the rest sounded like the cliche of every lowbrow comedian who depleted his stock of 'airline food- gross or what?!" jokes and had to move to the much less explored quadrant of "women be shoppin'." And as for the dumping... funny how that didn't come up when I drove him to the airport or made him his requested puppy chow for his deployment. Both friends hastened to tell me that, when they'd overheard him boasting about 'kicking her to the curb for being so needy' they'd interjected their disbelief; the from-before ex, when relating this to me later, laughed when he recounted how of all the adjectives one could use to describe me as a girlfriend, 'clingy' was not it. The female friend seemed mortified that she'd had to do with us meeting, let alone, "him saying you were needy- I mean, did he ever try calling you? You don't pick up for anyone."* Both, however, let me know that they'd set the record straight, and that he'd clammed up immediately.

(Their incredulity was only made possible by my track record with most of my friends as being one of the flakiest, reclusive people in a community of people that are known for their lack of interest in being social; so, the teacher who smugly gave me my Myers Briggs results like a death sentence is hereby most cordially invited to slob my figurative knob. That introvert poop worked out for me after all!)

Not a day passed from their relaying of the RUMINT before J had sent me a message on MySpace, which, yes, yes, the message was actually carved in stone and delivered via pterodactyl and I get it now get off my lawn, thanks. Expecting a hasty retraction or an explanation of how "well, guess I'll see you around," was translated as "move, bitch, get out the way," I was most surprised to find a cute little note, saying he wished he'd gotten to know me even better, and wanting to take me out again when we were both stateside.

After I informed him that his version of events and its lack of resemblance to reality had been made known to me via the same friends who'd stopped him in the first place, he responded only once, and as the subject line read "They musta made it up I'd nev..." I promptly deleted both him and the message. Not only did he lie about me, and then lie to me that the very friend he'd asked to get me to attend his party and an ex-boyfriend would have some stake in keeping us more separated than 3 continents already did... but he clearly thought I was that stupid, and that's a no-go for any level of relationship, right down to 'favored cashier.' In fact, I never received another MySpace message from the kid, as the Ice Age happened and all the servers were destroyed to make way for newer social network evolution in Facebook!

Wherein J reconnected with me, a year or so later, in order to send 9 separate invitations for me to become a fan of his new DJ band/group/circle jerk.

Invitations to become a fan of someone as well-known and close to you as 'favored cashier' would be more welcome. Hell, not even the good cashier who remembers your name- even 'that one cashier with the lazy eye who crushed your eggs' would be better received than a dude who was not great to you, lied about you, lied to you, and now expected you to become his groupie... but the absolute worst of his slights was, quite clearly, this last. I mean, what does it say when someone thinks your greatest potential lies in being a groupie of a person who doesn't even make their own music? Feels so strongly about it they feel the need to send that invitation to supply adoration 9 times?

I lied. That's a massive red flag. If you take nothing away from these dating stories (save a lingering feeling that there must be something in the water in the Midwest, and we're not talking fluoride) please, please, PLEASE, take away only this:

1. You are worth far more than the sidelines of a never-was.

and

2. If you're getting tattooed, buy a set of sheets you don't mind destroying, unless you want the boudoir looking like a butcher's. If he'd cited that crusty bruise of a bedding set as the reason we'd broken up, well hell. I couldn't even be mad.

This is a cute version of what I looked like after I googled "gross bloody bed" with the safe search off. 

Not pictured:insomnia.

*Lies. I pick up for my mother.