Currently Chasing: An Opener.

So if you remember from my last blog, I was approached in the hallway of my hotel and told by a certain married man that I was attractive. He also invited me to have a drink with him. I thanked him and went to my room … taking great care not to get to my room before he got to his room. For obvious reasons.

So imagine my surprise when last night he shows up outside my door around 11 p.m. with two beers. He said, “Look, before you freak out, it’s not like I’m a stalker or anything. I saw you look out of your window and I happened to be at the pool at the time. So I just counted the windows. Then I saw your light go off so I figured you were either coming down to have a drink or you were asleep.”

So I said, “Ok, so since I didn’t arrive downstairs, and most likely I was asleep, you decided to come up here and wake me?”

“Well, you stood me up for the drink, and I know you’re leaving tomorrow, so I wanted to bring it to you.”

He hands me a Bud Light.

I tell him I’m not much of a beer drinker.

He says, “well, if you get the inkling to join us, we will be around. And by we, I mean me.”

And with that he walked down the hall.

So I stared at that beer bottle for awhile. It was nice and cold. Sweat was pouring down the outside of it. It looked damn refreshing actually. And like I said, I don’t even like beer. But I thought about drinking it anyway. It’s a free drink. Who refuses to drink a free drink on their last night in the states? But alas, I decided to save it for today. For right this moment.

Yeah, it’s only 10:30 a.m. But fuck it. Let’s drink a beer. I want to go ahead and drowned my sorrows in 12-flow ounces of Anheuser-Bush shittyness. And really drowned them you know? I want to leave here today with my mind right. Single, celibate and sane … and maybe a little buzzed.

So to you and to me, I make a toast, grab a beer and lift it with me. May we all make it through today and every day and get as much as we give and give more than we ever expect to get. Let’s live life in the moment without too much worry on the past or the future. May we all find our wholeness (and by we, I mean me) and that other person who is nearly irresistible and who offers to complete our energy. Here here! Now let’s drink!!

FUCK! Seriously, this thing isn’t a twist off? FUCK YOU Bud Light. And fuck you mystery married douchefuck for giving me a bottle and no opener. Story of my life. A chance to have something I don’t even really like and that’s really not good for me, and me insisting that I have it right away.

Ok, no worries, I busted it open on the desk. Now let's drink this gross shit and make all our dreams come true! Dream number one, I hope I don't get charged for this damaged desk.

*I may be out of pocket for a bit, but trust me, in a week or so I'm going to have a lot to say. See you then. P.S. This beer tastes like shit!

Currently Chasing: The Road Less Traveled

It’s not late. In fact, it’s around 8:30. I’ve finished packing for my big trip. Five bags, including my carry on. As I sit in my hotel room and stare at all these bags I realize there is not really much of me inside them. Sure they are full. But what are they full of?

Some shit that will keep me alive, some shit that will keep me occupied and some shit that will keep me feeling like a girl. Tinted moisturizer and all. Granted, whatever I apply to my face will most likely melt immediately, and whatever I do to my hair will be ruined by sweat and Kevlar. But that doesn’t matter. Putting on makeup and doing my hair is some sort of routine, and I’m maintaining it.

Although I don’t know why. It seems absolutely pointless to bother with my appearance these days.

Yesterday a very nice gentleman that I’ve seen around the hotel for the last few days stopped me in the hallway. He said,” I don’t normally do this, but I just have to tell you that you are smoking hot.” He went on to say that he digs girls with short hair and that I have caught his attention on every occasion. I thanked him for his interest and told him I appreciated the compliment. Then he asked me how long I was going to be around and if I’d like to get a drink with him. I told him I wouldn’t be around long but that if I saw him and his friends downstairs at the bar that possibly I would join them for a drink. He said he was hoping he could spend some one on one time with me …

That’s when I felt like saying … hmmm, just the three of us then? You, me and your wedding ring?

I’m getting the feeling that being attractive and fun these days equates to also being amusing and temporary. There also seems to be a misconception that these fun, attractive, amusing and temporary women don’t mind that equation one bit. But I have a problem with it. I’m half tempted to dump the makeup and the hair products and whatever else I have in my bags that keep me resembling something fuckable. And instead just walk around being a total bitch and telling people to fuck themselves.

A member of my unit even pulled me into the office and said he’s worried that I’ll end up getting sexually assaulted or something because I’m cute and people like to be around me…add that to the fact that I trust people to too easily and I’m polite. I guess all together that’s a recipe for rape. Even with all the things in these bags that are meant to harm, hurt and even kill others I’m still not going to look scary or even remotely intimidating. Especially not with Lancome light beige powder on my face, Pretty in Pink eye shadow on my lids, cream and sugar lip gloss on my lips, and lash blast mascara on my eyelashes.

Most people have never seen me mean. Even my current ex boyfriend who dug my heart out with a spoon still gets occasional emails that say “Hi, just wanted to write and say I hope your life is miserable. Hugs and kisses…Love me.” Even when I’m being hateful I’m nice about it. And it is coming off less and less like personality and more and more like weakness.

I’m going to get taken advantage of. Over. And. Over. AGAIN.

The other day in class a guy started off the lecture by reading a Robert Frost poem. It was “The Road Less Traveled.”

I think what I need to do is pick up all five of these bags and begin searching for that road less traveled, because this one isn’t making a bit of difference.

But I’m going to keep the makeup, just in case Mr. Frost is waiting for me at the end of the road.

Currently Chasing: A Music Teacher

I love Airports. I’ve actually met quite a few people while waiting for a plane. A few of them are even Facebook friends. On my way to boot camp in 1994 I met a 14-year-old boy who had never met anyone in the military before. I made him a pen pal we wrote back and forth for months…until his mother sent me a letter saying that as nice as it was that I was giving her son something to do, she feared he was writing to me like a girlfriend…and well, yeah … She didn’t think it was appropriate. However, I was only 17 at the time…so even though I absolutely was not thinking of him in that way, I think we can definitely say I was a cougar before his mom thought it was cool.

I once met a girl on her way to meet a man she had only ever talked to online. We spent hours waiting for the plane and exchanging numbers so she could give me a play by play of how it went. It went horrible of course…so that online relationship ended … but our airport friendship didn’t.

I once exchanged glances with a guy while waiting for my group to board. We sat in the same row but on opposite sides of the aisle. We spent the flight passing letters back and forth. By the time the six hour flight landed we had plans for dinner and a movie. I guess strangers don’t scare me.

Now, airport chats aren’t for everyone … for example. I traveled with a co-worker recently and he told me a story about his last airport acquaintance. He was waiting for his flight and there was an elderly woman next to him. They chatted for about 15 minutes. She asked him to watch her bag while she went to the restroom. (Which why do they even call it a restroom? Are there people in there just resting?) Anyway, he agreed to watch her bag. He saw her walk to the restroom and then he saw her walk out. But she didn’t come back to get her bag. He got nervous. He went up the counter and told the lady that although he knows he wasn’t supposed to, he had agreed to watch this woman’s bag and that she hadn’t come back for it. The woman told him she would call security.

My friend immediately began to clear the area, letting people know that there was an unattended bag and that they were unsure of the contents. People began to back away and panic. My friend hid behind a pillar while security approached the bag and began going through it. All of a sudden from around the corner comes this little ol’ lady with two ice cream cones. She had just went to get herself and ‘the nice man watching her bag’ an ice cream cone. Imagine her shock as all of her things were spread about. I had visions on police tackling her and smashing her treats into her eyes. Geezus. I can pretty much bet that lady and my friend are not still keeping in touch!

So on my way back to Mississippi from San Diego I happened to be in the wrong seat. This guy approaches and says, I think this is my seat. I say something smart ass like, um, well this is my seat too, but I’ll move. Of course it wasn’t my seat, mine was the one next to it. But I never pass up an opportunity to be an asshole.

So we chat the entire flight! We talk about where he’s from, where I’m from, what he does, what I do. He’s a music teacher. And also the Choir Director! So we chatted about that and the show Glee and how he loves it and hates it because it gets more people interested in choir, but then during the first practice, when they see that people don’t just burst into song in full costume with a pre choreographed dance routine, they end up quitting.

So anyway, I gave him my blog card and said if he’s bored he could check out the site. He said he definitely would…and he said he may even leave a comment. Although maybe after reading even one or two of these massacres I call daily events he may change his mind, but I hope not.

After the flight I introduced the teacher to my paranoid friend who was traveling with me. My friend scorned me for talking to a stranger. It’s not like I watched his bag or anything. Although I should have asked him if he wanted to be pen pals. He’s a high school teacher, not student…so hopefully his mother won’t have a problem with me giving him something to do.

Currently Chasing: Something A Little Less Strange

I got an email from my dead ex-boyfriend. He just wanted to write to me from the grave and say Hi just in case I was starting to forget about him and move on with my life. But I’ll probably write him back because I’m a masochist.

It’s funny he would write out of the blue because my mother (whom I recently saw on my visit to California) has been keeping up with my Facebook and the first thing out of her mouth was …

“What happened to that nice boy you were in love with?”

First of all, what nice boy are you talking about? Secondly, he died … virtually.

So my mom said. “Well that didn’t last very long.”

So I say … about two weeks.

And my dad says, “so this was one of the more serious relationships you’ve had?”

Yes father, that’s right, this was one of those long term things. Also here’s your knife. I can’t breathe with it stuck in my throat!

This is an example of parental facial rape. I didn’t even see it coming and yet I’m left vulnerable and I can’t find my shoe.

So the reason I’m even in California is because I’m attending a sexual assault response and prevention course. Hence the reason I could identify immediately the above face rape. Anyway, there is a guy in there that has been married three time, has a couple of kids from women other than those three wives, makes jokes in class that are centered around his ignorance and he dips. So why wouldn’t he ask me out?

But I said no. I didn’t think it had the two-week potential I require before falling in love. So why bother.

So anyway, a day later I get a frantic Facebook message from a male friend of mine whom I haven’t seen in years. He is wondering if I’ve already left on my journey overseas and is pretty pissed that I didn’t say goodbye. So I write him and let him know that I haven’t left quite yet, but soon.

So he confesses … I’m madly in love with you and I think we should get married.

I gotta hear this logic. Although I must say, the idea is intriguing. Especially since everyone in my life has been getting married, separated or divorced. Agreeing to marriage feels about as permanent as a spray on tan. But less orangy.

He said, “Look, we’ve been keeping in touch for years and we’ve never even slept together. It’s obvious that we care about each other mentally and emotionally. So just come visit me and if we click physically then … let’s get married.”

Wow, I’ve heard of the “just tell her you love her” line to get a woman into bed, but “just tell her you’ll marry her?” That’s a bit out there.

Here are the facts, he roughly my age (which is rare!), he’s got a good job, he saves money, he plans on being fully ready to retire at 45, he’s tall, he’s funny, he’s smart and he doesn’t believe in cheating (although threesomes aren’t cheating, according to him.) And oh yeah, he’s an alcoholic. Or ‘passionate’ as he likes to call it.

So we dive into this threesome thing a bit and I tell him my theory on threesomes. He tells me that my theory is way off and that men sometimes just need another woman and that I can pick someone uglier than me if I’d like. So I say, ok, what if instead of an ugly woman, I just pick a man?

He assures me it’s not the same thing. Well no shit.

So he explains: “Men sleep with other women for PURELY physical reasons. It has nothing to do with love. However, women ONLY sleep with other men when they are not being emotionally fulfilled. So if you are sleeping with another man then there is something I’m not doing right, and I’ll fix it.”

Then he said something pretty profound.

When sex in a relationship is bad then sex becomes 90 percent of the relationship. But when sex is a relationship is great then sex becomes only 10 percent of the relationship. In other words, the better your sex life is, the less likely your man is to run around on you.

But I don’t buy it. It seems like the whole world is posting a Craig’s list add, “Desperately Seeking Strange.”

I mean, I must have that ad posted on the back of my shirt, cause lord knows strange finds me.

So It’s possible I’m engaged right now to a man I’ve never slept with and will most likely never see again. And that's not strange at all. Just desperate.

Currently Chasing: Control

So…it has been said by several different people in several different places that when women get together they all begin to “link up” with each other. Their bodies begin talking and they are like, hey you wanna bleed today? I don’t know, what about tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow’s cool. Heather, is tomorrow good for you? Let me just check with Susan … Yep, all good. Let’s Bleed. It’s going to be a blastie blast.

But it’s not a blastie blast. It’s a nighty fucking nightmare.

I’m currently away from home and will be away from home for quite a few months. My plan is to remain single, remain celibate (those two work quite nicely together) and then my third thing … remain sane. Single, celibate, sane. Simple.

Well let me tell you what’s going to drive me insane before I even take the plane ride to the land of camel spiders … three periods in a month, that’s what.

I decided before I left home that I was going to get a year’s worth of birth control pills. It just made sense. Even though you really can’t call what I do being ‘on’ birth control. I would take a pill Monday, forget to take one Tuesday through Thursday, Take two Friday and Two Saturday and then drop Sunday’s pill down the drain on accident.

However, after getting here my feelings changed. I didn’t want to bother with the pill and there was no reason I needed to. It was just one more thing I had to remember to do every day, and trust me, I already had too much shit to remember. I already had to remember that on PT days I needed to wear Blue shorts with a brown command T-shirt, a white reflective belt (not the yellow one I spent 12 dollars on, but the white one that was issued to me for free after I spent the money on the other one) my camel back at least half full of water, my arm band ID holder and my ID, all while remembering that I have to be to PT at 6, which actually means 5:45, so I have to catch the bus at 5:25, which actually means 5:20 … and don’t forget my camera because there may be a surprise award ceremony immediately following PT even though no one knows and the person receiving the award is at medical. So yeah, Pill who?

So when my period came out of the blue one fine Wednesday morning, I thought to myself…ok, not the most convenient thing in the world, but doable. It’s fine. This seems to be around the time I should be getting it, so I’ll just go with it. It should only be hanging around for two days, three days tops. I bled for seven days. Eventually it stopped. And I thought, ok, well that was pleasant, but at least it’s over.

Until two weeks later when a girl in my office informed me that it was ‘about that time’ for her. That night my body informed me that it was ‘about that time’ for me as well. YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME.

So there we went again. Not to mention that the whole time I’m taking this ‘time’ for myself, I’m also shoving every sugary snack I can find down my throat and straight into my bloated belly. So that’s awesome.

After a few days it ended, but not without me deciding to take some corrective action. I decided to put myself back on the pill. With all the lack of scheduling and control in my life at this moment in time, It would be nice to have control over something, even if that something is as simple as my bodies decision to drop unfertilized eggs. So that next unbloody Sunday I decided to start taking my pills again.

There are pills that do a lot of things. Pills that help fight HIV. Pills that cure Polio. Even pills that help with the fight against cancer. But those aren’t THE PILL. The reason it’s THE PILL is because men feel like if you take it they can fuck you without a condom.

HELL YEAH, NOW THAT’S A PILL!

So it’s been two weeks and needless to say, I need to take three pills tomorrow and two Saturday. It’s good to be back in control.

Currently Chasing: A Full (of shit) Moon

So just got back from watching Eclipse, the latest installment from the Twilight phenomenon, and let me just warn you there will be some spoilers in here…so heed the alert.

First of all, let me just say Fuck. Fuck everything about this movie. I mean, there is a reason the main characters aren’t really human. I would believe that vampires and werewolves exist before I would believe that the love portrayed in this movie exists.

Can you please let me know if you’ve ever been in the middle of, or even on the outside looking into, such an extreme love triangle? Edward loves her. We get it. We don’t need a breathy, hesitated 25-minute monologue every hour to remind us that Edward wants to save her soul and marry her and love her forever. GEEZUS, we get it. What I don’t get is this insatiable love that Jacob has for her. And also why he always needs to talk through a stiff angry mouth. Even when he’s telling her he loves her he’s angry about it. And quite dramatic actually. Like…”Bella, you have the right to know what’s going on. I’m in love with you. Grrr. And I’m angry!”

So Jacob FINALLY gets that kiss, right before Bella punches him in the face and breaks her hand on his cheek. Since when are werewolves made of steel? So SuperJacob and Edward are all in an uproar over her and who she’s going to choose and what she’s going to do. And they are just hanging on her every word and once again the entire movie revolves around saving her life and kissing her ass. Jacob tells her he’s going to love her till her heart stops beating and Edward can’t get a wedding ring on her fast enough.

So my friend sends me this text about the movie:

“I know the love that they show in these kind of movies is not realistic. But do you think there is anything close? I know you will probably say no, but love varies with every person and every relationship right? And it is all about what you put into it and get back. I would think if you loved someone hard and they loved you the same way back that it would compare and seem like the love in the movies. Don’t you think so?”

To which I replied, “Nope.”

To which my friend replies, “So what’s the point? What am I looking for? Am I fucked? I just told the person I once thought was the love of my life that I was not in love anymore. If there isn’t that kind of love out there than what the hell?”

And I promptly respond, “First off, it’s then, not than. If there isn’t that kind of love out there THEN what the hell, not THAN what the hell. And that is the point. You make a choice to put it all in and get it all back. She chose Edward. She’s not going to go fuck Jacob because it feels good. She’s sticking with her choice. You don’t get the kind of love unless you give it. And us mortals, we can’t give it.”

“Or won’t give it,” my friend responds.

And then adds that he’s done being gay.

I tell him that there are people who love like that, but the objects of their affection usually end up in a freezer.

In the end, it’s a good thing that Jacob was always half naked. My friend said it distracted everyone from his gayness. I say it distracted you from noticing that even the characters couldn’t ACT like they were that in love. Love like that is nearly impossible to feel and even harder to fake.

Unless you belong to the list of guys I’ve dated recently. But they haven’t really been human either.