Currently Chasing: A good sport

Games are great. They challenge your mind. They offer up a chance at friendly competition. They make me want to shoot someone in the face.

Over the holidays a group of my friends decided to play a game called Things. How you play the game:

One person in your group asks a question...for example, what shouldn't you cook for dinner? Then everyone else writes down an answer, folds up that answer and hands it to the person who asked the question. That person then reads all of the answers. Then one by one everyone except the reader gets a chance to guess at who answered what to the question. If someone guesses your answer, you are out. If you guess someone elses answer, you get a point. He with the most points wins. And the reader alternates between the players.

So there we were. All playing nicely. The question is thrown out there:
What would you like to find in your horoscope?
I realize pretty quick that I should answer with something I wouldn't care to find in my horoscope so that no one will guess my answer. So I write down...sports scores.
Just like I planned, no one guessed and I ended up winning that round with 7 points. When it came out that I had written that answer, the others caught on. It was like, oh...you answered the opposite of what you normally would so no one would guess your answer...smart!

So for the next round...I figured...I'm going to guess like me. You know, to throw everyone off.
So the question came out. What shouldn't you say to a teacher?
So I write down, you suck at life.
So the reader has the answers and she reads them all off. And then someone yells out my answer and says, that was probably Terrina. So the next person to guess went ahead and took a guess. Um, Terrina said...you suck at life. And there it was. I was out of that round. And pissed.
From then on I referred to that person as a cheater. I made it CLEAR that I was utterly annoyed. Truth be told, I'm a terrible sport. I don't play games I can't win, or at least place high in. And if I have to lose, I don't so much mind .... IF I LOSE FAIR AND SQUARE. I don't like losing because someone cheated.

On with the story.

So round three. The question is, What shouldn't you call your children?
I wrote Sinners.
The reader reads the answers...and what do you think happens? The same guy says...Ha, Sinners...that was Terrina.
THAT WAS IT!!
I threw down my remaining pieces of paper and excused myself from the game. And by excused myself I mean I stomped out cussing and screaming and telling everyone they were assholes. Did I mention my daughter was in the room? Yeah, I'm a mess.
And the poorest of sports apparently.
and a bad mom.

Bottom line: I shouldn't be allowed to play games.

Currently Chasing: the other cutlet

Boobies~
We all love them. Want them. Flaunt them. And there is something to be said for the girl who goes to slightly extreme measures to have them.
Slightly extreme, means exactly that. Slightly. We aren't talking boob jobs! No matter how much we may appear to need one...

And I'll even admit that there are moments of weakness we may begin to feel like desperate times are calling for desperate measures...

But some of us aren't ready to not be able to feel when our tit is hanging out of a dress. Or when our nipple is resting comfortably near our armpit. So for those of us still not ready to take the plunge...there are 'slightly' extreme measures we can take.

Wearing two or three bras is one way. The more the merrier. Keep em coming. Pile those bad boys on...especially the push-up bombshell bras, and you'll be looking like a breasty bimbo in no time. I have indeed doubled up some bras in my day, and it's safe to say, I'll never burst a pad nor will the pad ever 'leak' out of my bra lining. So we are safe there.

Then there are boob inserts...

Not to be confused with these obnoxious inserts...

And this is where our story truly begins.
My friend has some inserts. The first ones that resemble chicken cutlets, not the creepy, crazy nipple ones right above this paragraph.

She wears them every now and then, but only for special occassions, or to make a dress fit better.
The other day she had company. Male Company. And though she wanted to show him around her house and maybe even allow him a peak at the bedroom, she didn't want to clean it spotless, nor did she want to shave her legs. Reasons for this are as follows:

1. If your bedroom is too clean it looks too inviting. If your bed is made with all your fancy pillows and the room is smelling like fresh cotton, a man may feel like lingering there. But if you have no intention of sleeping with him, you want him the fuck out of that room. So she picked up a little, but not a ton. And she found a chicken cutlet while she was barely cleaning. How embarrassing would that be? She hid it in a drawer and forgot about it.

2. She didn't shave. As with the bedroom, you don't want your body seeming too inviting either. If you don't shave your legs, or groom other areas of your body, then you know you won't let hands wander. No shaved legs, no sex. No clean bedroom, no sex. Simple and full proof. Sometimes.

She takes the man through the rooms of her house and then to the bedroom. She walks in, says a little something cliche like, "this is where the magic happens," and then proceeds to escort him out. That's when she notices what he has in his hand.

The other cutlet.

He asks what it is. She says it's a shoe insert. He holds it up to his chest, looks back at her and says sure it is, right before tossing it into the hamper.

I think she could have gone ahead and shaved her legs. Not wearing the boob inserts and instead deciding to go on a date wearing only one bra already sent a clear enough message.

Currently Chasing: A joke, perhaps. Perhaps not.

I love going on cruises. I’ve been on four. Two within the last two months. All you can eat. Sun and fun. Overly priced but very STRONG drinks. Life is good on the ship.

This trip was even more significant because I went with a man. Normally it’s me and one of my best friends floating around, getting drunk, singing Karaoke every night, dancing at the night club all night, stumbling to our cabins and then sleeping in the following day and doing everything over again. It’s a blast…but at some point we end up looking around and wishing we had a man to share it all with. Don’t get me wrong, we’d usually find a stand in! But we always figured a cruise with someone you really care about (and of the opposite sex) would really just make the experience.

So when I booked the cruise for me and my guy I was hopeful. Having spent the last nine months apart, I wasn’t sure how spending a solid week together was going to fare. We had spent five years on and off, learning everything about each other and I had hoped that at this point I could do the things I needed to do to prevent the parts of his personality I wasn’t so attached to from showing up.

But I failed before we even left Maryland.

You see, I planned the trip in January. We took the trip in April. Plenty of time for us to make sure we had sunscreen, bathing suits and even relatively flat tummies. I guess what I forgot to tell him was that in addition to those much needed items, he would also need one other thing.  A passport. Or at the very least, a birth certificate. I decided that telling him he needed these documents at the convenient time of, um, 11 pm the night before we were supposed to leave seemed ideal.

It wasn’t.

He was annoyed. And rightly so! I was annoyed too. Why had I not mentioned this? I mean WTF right? But why does this man not have his birth certificate? I mean, isn’t that a better question? Who knows. He did what any man does when he’s in trouble. He called his mother – a call she loved getting at 11:30 pm I’m sure – and asked if she knew where it was and if she could scan it and email it to him. Luckily, if his mother did know where it was (she didn’t) but if she did, she would have had the skills and technology necessary to do what he asked. Most mothers I know would not. So good on her.

Back to the story. No passport. No birth certificate. NO GO.

So he gets online and starts looking shit up, making phone calls, playing the active duty military guy who just wants to serve his country and do the right thing and POSSIBLY get on the cruise ship without a birth certificate? Not possible.

By this time it’s almost midnight. He is running up and down the stairs going through boxes of papers and really searching for that certificate, which tells me one thing. He loves me right? If he didn’t he would have said, fuck this trip. I’m not going. And you’re stupid, get out of my house.

But instead he was actively looking for a way to get on that ship with me. And he was doing something else as well. Trying to remain calm. He didn’t seemed pissed, just concerned that we weren’t going to be able to go on vacation. This was a different side of him than I had seen in the past. And I liked it. However, me appreciating his patience wasn’t getting us on the cruise any faster. So I did something I thought would help. Went to sleep. (on the couch.)

Somewhere in the night I went upstairs and climbed in the bed. He made room for me. Good sign. When the alarm went off at 6 a.m. I was surprised.

“Did you find your birth certificate last night?” I asked.

“No, but I have an expired passport and a military ID,” maybe that will work.

I decided it best to say nothing at that point. Just start getting ready for the flight that would take us to Miami for the cruise.

We spent most of the car ride to the airport and most of the plane ride in silence. I hoped that even if we couldn’t get on the ship, he would still want to spend a couple days in Miami. He had paid for the plane tickets and I had paid for the actual cruise. I didn’t get insurance on the cruise and the web site made it clear. If you do not have the proper documents to board, then you will NOT be getting on the cruise ship and you will NOT be getting a refund. Yikes. Not good odds.

Upon landing I went to the restroom to freshen up.

“How do I look?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It depends on whether or not we make it onto that ship today.”

A joke? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Then he said,

“You should still go if I can’t get on. You deserve a vacation. You can sleep in and lay out in the sun. It will be relaxing.”

“The whole point of going on the cruise is to get drunk and make out!” I said.

“You still can,” he said. “After all, you’ll be a single girl.”

A joke? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

So finally we are in line waiting to get through security. I hand them my passport, which aside from a god awful picture (which if I hadn’t known was me, even I might consider suspect) my passport was accepted. I’m a citizen. Yay me.

My guy handed the agent his expired passport then quickly shoved the active duty military card next to it and smiled his most pleading smile. I smiled a pleading smile too. The man looked at us both, looked down at the passport again then back at us and said,

“Enjoy your cruise.”

AWESOME! We made it on the cruise. And guess what, we had a great time.  We watched the shows, got sun raped, ate to our heart’s content and drank the days away. We played a lot of blackjack. By the end of the cruise I was up 100 and he was up almost 250.

And besides that second to last day at sea where in addition to my Mojitos I began eating the mint leaves that accompanied the drink, it was a good trip. I mean, do the math…10 drinks. An average of 5 leaves per drink. That’s about 50 leaves sitting in my stomach. Not to mention the alcohol. And then the steak and triple chocolate dessert. Needless to say I was in the bathroom the entire night and into the morning.  A very minty puke fest indeed.

But overall, the trip was a total win.

“How do I look?” I asked, as we were leaving the ship.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Like always.”

A joke? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Currently Chasing: A Movie Ticket

Alcohol is a pain in the ass. In Afghanistan we weren’t allowed to have ANY. So you can imagine now that I’m a light weight when it comes to drinking. Not that I could ever drink anyone under the table, but I used to be able to hold my own.

Except that time I went to Atlantic City and ended up incoherent and being shuttled around the hotel in a wheel chair. I ended up in the security section of the hotel until they were sure I could at least pronounce my name and could determine that I wasn’t going to die from choking on my own vomit.

But other than that dreadful night, and the time I vomited for 23 minutes straight outside of the taco bell parking lot, I’ve done alright.

And then there was last night. I went out with a close friend and his buddy. We are sitting around and I decide to order a drink. I take it down like I would take down a five year old in an arm wrestling competition. Quickly and without hesitation. I order another and I’m feeling good. Too good. One of two things happens when I get to my drinking happy place.

1.       I make out with someone. (Most likely someone I know, but that’s not always a guarantee.)

2.       I talk too much and say stupid shit that will haunt me later.

Last night, it was the latter. I start talking about something mildly inappropriate, and then it escalates into something I probably shouldn’t talk about, and then rounds out in the ‘definitely do not fucking say this’ area.

By the time I realized what had happened, the damage was done. I was no longer the cute, funny girl that had sat down thirty minutes earlier. I was now the drunk girl who stumbled up to the cliff and then swan dove right the fuck off. Great. That’s me right? I’m the asshole? Yep. I was the asshole.

So my friend is pissed and I’m trying to smooth things over, but at that point I’m still not totally convinced I’ve done anything wrong. I’m just doing that thing where you apologize blindly and hope that whatever you did to get yourself in trouble solves itself at some point during your ramblings. But not this time. He asked me if I was finished eating. I said yes. Then he got up with his friend and they left.

There was one problem with leaving at that point. I was still, um, not quite under the legal alcohol limit to drive. So I wandered around the mall in JLo Heels that I had no business being in … and made my way toward the moving theater.

I bought a ticket for ‘Take me home,’ which seemed very appropriate, and proceeded to watch a movie by myself to sober up and ‘think about what I did.’

On the downside, I’ll probably be watching even more movies alone in the future due to the fact that I become a plague after one drink.

The upside is, I can finally catch that Justin Beiber flick that no one will go with me to watch! Nothing says winner like a drunk 30 something sitting alone in a Justin Beiber 3D movie. Another upside is, with a little alcohol in me, I may finally understand his hair.

Currently Chasing: A different channel

Ok. I have a question. How often do looks rule out over actual personality and connection? I’m watching the final episode of the Bachelor and thank God I have short hair, because if not I’d have to have someone hold it back while I throw the fuck up.

I’m sure not all of my readers are fans of this absurd and ridiculous show, so let me just sum it up. Guy meets really skinny beautiful girl and falls in love instantly. Then spends the rest of the season pretending to connect with other people for the sake of the show.  But here’s the thing. He never  even truly connected with the skinny beautiful girl. All of the other girls try desperately to prove their love. They swim with sharks, jump off cliffs, ride elephant, zip line through the jungle and do whatever crazy fucking thing he wants them to do. But this skinny beautiful girl, he spends the whole time proving his love to her. She doesn’t have to swim with sharks … instead she gets a helo ride to a mountain top, falls asleep during their dates and overall is just a total snore fest.

He wants her because he can’t really have her. She wanted to win the game, and she did. But they never really had a connection. And he is just that shallow. And like most men he craves what he can’t have. She is literally telling him on a daily basis that she doesn’t think she can do this. That she wants to leave. That it is all too much for her. And he is fighting tooth and nail to keep her. Every moment is a forced and awkward conversation.  And every single thing he says to her is a cheesy line out of a bad movie.

“You are my forever.”

“I love you so very much.”

“Please make me the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life.”

All code for –

“I’m a shallow piece of shit and you better not gain weight.”

He picked pretty over personality and connection and he is suffering the consequences. Watching them on TV is hard. They are not right for each other.  He just keeps telling her how beautiful she is. Not how fun she is, or how smart she is, or how amazing she is, but just that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. I mean, is that really all it takes?

Get skinny….get some boobs, shiny white teeth and a tight dress. Walk out of a limo and tell the man you want that you don’t love him and don’t know if you ever could…and you are automatically THE ONE.  Make sure you don’t want him, you don’t connect with him, but are just too damn pretty to walk away from and there you go.

But the other girl. The one that he didn’t choose. The one he had a connection with. The one he had so much fun with. The one who made him laugh and smile. Well, she was a bit chubby…and in the end, she didn’t get the guy.

Now , am I saying that he chose the skinny beautiful girl just because she was skinny and beautiful? Of course I’m not saying that…she also made it clear that she was a locked door and that she wasn’t really into him like he was into her…and that sealed the deal. Maybe if the chubby girl held back…told him she wasn’t that into him…dyed her hair and lost 20 pounds, she would have been wearing a ring right now. Instead she was just a great girl, who loved a man the best she could, gave him everything he could want and made him feel like the only man in the world.

What a loser. But trust me. She’s definitely not the biggest loser in this story.

Maybe she can burn a couple calories running as far away from that douche bag as possible.

Currently Chasing: Moist Lips

People are poking me on Facebook. What is up with this craze? Did I poke them first, did they poke me first? I don’t get it. What does it mean anyway? There are some people who poke me just so I can continue to think about them long past their relevance…then there are others who poke me just to say hi, and then there are others who just want to poke me, literally.

And my problem is, I can’t stand to have 150 requests or a bunch of ‘pokes’ running down the right side of my screen, so I do what anyone would do. I poke back. I don’t even necessarily know if I want to poke back, or if I need to poke back, but I poke back. I could just hit the X and leave it at that. I mean, would they poke me again if I never poked them again. I’m going to try it. Right now there are a few people who have poked me. I’m going to X out the pokes and see what happens.

So far nothing.

Please enjoy doing something else,  while I enjoy wasting your time. **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

It’s been 24 hours. Two people re-poked me. The others are still waiting for my poke I guess. Not going to happen. I’ve never gone out of my way to poke someone and I’m not going to start now.

On another note I recently received a care package with a peculiar item in. Here is a photo.

Now imagine I am talking in front of a group of people and I pull this out of my pocket, open it up, and apply lip balm. I actually had someone ask, “Is that deodorant?” and you know what? I had to look twice. But no, indeed it is lip balm…and now I can’t stop applying it because of the reactions I get. And It kinda seems like it could be dual purpose. And I’m not talking deodorant. I don’t know, just maybe. Might be fun right?

Uh oh, I just got poked again.  That was quick. That’s what she said. They must want to play with my lip balm.

Currently Chasing: A Zoom Lens

I'm laying here with my shirt slightly lifted and I'm staring at my belly. Why can't it be this flat when I stand up? Just sink into my back the way it kind of does when I'm in the horizontal position. Missionary is really the only position I look good in. I would never make a porn - for several obvious reasons, but also because I wouldn't want anyone seeing what I even hide from myself. And it really isn't sexy when girls half way through porn sex ask ... do I look fat in this swing? yeah...and out of it too.
I recently had someone ask me to 'make a video.' A video of what? A bag floating in the breeze? A red balloon flying all over town? You've got to be kidding me if you think I'm making a video of me doing anything! I don't even want a video of me doing something productive and good for the earth, let alone me doing something destructive and girthy! I mean good lord, a photo is one thing. I can find a good position, take a hundred and fifty digital shots, and then pick the best one and act like it was the first and only one I needed to take- like I just snapped that and viola, it's fucking playboy home-photo ready. But a video. PUKEDY PUKE PUKE.
Uh, no.
Don't worry Dad, I'm not going to do it. My father reads this blog. Fucking great. I'm sure he loves when I cover topics like this. This and the one about what come tastes like right Dad? Yeah, not his all time favorites, I can assure you.
And here is another thing, and it's possible I've mentioned this before...but men who send photos. There needs to be rules. I've gotten my share of provocative photos...and I've noticed something. Men who send me pictures of their ass, no matter how nice it is, just seem ... curious. If you know what I mean. I don't really need to see your ass. Feeling it is one thing...but just looking at it. I'm not a fan. I once had a boyfriend who had lost a lot of weight...and his whole body recovered and formed quite nicely...but not his ass. And I didn't care. Until one day when he got up to go to the bathroom and he wasn't wearing boxers and then bam, there is was....like a ass that had given birth to a couple of babies and was never going to be the same. And that image will never leave my mind. So save the ass shots...they are hard to get anyway I imagine. Unless you have help taking them..and again, curious.
Next...do not pose with anything. Do not pose with your weapon, do not pose with your arm making a muscle, do not pose with a tape measure (yes, I've seen it, and yes, it's obnoxious). In fact, just don't pose. It didn't seem natural when Fabio was doing it, and it sure doesn't seem natural when your chewbacca chest is doing it.
If you have to take a picture of your member, please make sure it's hard. And just take a picture of it. Not of you holding it with the camera over your head looking down so I can see your face. What kind of look are you going to be giving? Women have a way of always looking pretty, and always making seductive looks seem easy to do...but men, they just always seem to look like they are shitting. And make sure when you snap that photo that you fill the frame. I don't want to see what's on TV in the background, and i especially don't want to be asking you whose bra that was on the floor!!
Another rule: Don't send the same pictures to everyone. I once had a boyfriend send me a picture he had 'just taken' of himself...only it was about 9 at night, and I could see out the window that it was daylight when that photo was taken. So who was it actually for? Not exactly romantic. Not that a texted picture of a cock is romantic anyway, but I'm just saying.
Last but not least...do not do a 'photo shoot.' I mean, one picture of you at your best is good. I don't need a series of three emails with nine attachments each where you are auditioning for a job at Gay Way Magazine. Leaning here, laying there, all fours, leg propped. shorts half way down, shorts all the way down. boner pushing shorts up. head slightly exposed. You get the point.
Please feel free to take pictures of your chest..I love a good chest. And Abs...well, that goes without saying. and I don't even mind mirror photos where you kind of just give me the entire package without using any kind of dumb ass prop. If you want, I'll do the women of the world a favor and screen your naked nasties before you sext them out. That way I can warn you before you either end up in the friend zone, or as a blue preditor dot on some website.

Currently Chasing: The ability to not give a shit

I'm dating someone. But not really. I only actually find out we are dating when I've done something to piss him off and he tells me we are done dating. Or he will tell me he's my boyfriend...but only after he has decided to break up with me. Example:

Hey, why are you talking to that other guy?

Um, because we are friends.

Well, tell him you have a boyfriend.

Um, are you my boyfriend?

Well I was until you started talking to that guy. Now I'm not.

Of course you're not. And why did I think I would even have the right to be privy to that information?

We fight. He says rude things. He says no things. He says things that don't relate to the other things. And then he'll decide to throw in an I love you just to really fuck me up. But again, he will only say I love you as he is writing me out of his life.  Example:

Me: So, how do you feel about me?

Him: You know when you put me on the spot to answer that question you never get the answer you want.

Me: So you are going to say you don't like me, even if you really love me, because you feel like there is a spot you're on and now you are under obligation to be an asshole?

Him: You already know I love you, but you've left me no choice but to end this. Please delete me from your phone and your life.

Me: So you're saying you love me?

Him: Yes. I love you. Goodbye forever.

It makes my head hurt and I'm wondering why I'm keeping myself awake giving a shit? If he is having a bad day I will get a text or email a mile long telling me all of the horrible things that happened...in excruciating detail. If I try to comment or give advice, it's not welcome ... and if I say nothing at all, then he'll ask if I want him to just shut up because obviously I'm not listening.

If I ask him to look at something I've done, he will immidiately begin to critique it and tell me how I can do it better...or what he would have done, or what I should work on doing next time. Example:

Hey did you get that newsletter I sent to you? It looks pretty good right?

Yeah, I got it. Your story on page 13 was hard to understand. Your conclusion was trite. Did you mean to make the cover so hard to read? The pictures could have been more organized. Were you in a hurry?

So, you didn't like it?

I liked it just fine as a rushed through version of what I know you're capable of. Send me the next one so I can be sure you're improving.

Yep, I'll do that and then I'll burn out my eye with a cigerette.

So the burning question of course is...why am I keeping myself awake wondering why I give a shit. Well, it's an easy answer. I'm a moth to a flame...only it's not just a flame, it's a gosh damn full on California wildfire.

*Note...being in Afghanistan, with the network the way it is, I am unable to comment on my own blog. But I'm reading all of the comments and maybe it's best that I can't say shit. But to Caramel, who commented below...yes. nail on head.

Currently Chasing: Pleasure, not pain

I don’t even know where to start this blog, which is always the case when something totally ridiculous happens.
So I’m in Afghanistan and I run into a fellow photographer and we are photographing the same event. I ask him for his card so I can be sure to get his photographs…because he may have caught some moments I didn’t catch, and …his camera is bigger. Not that size matters. Just saying.
So he gives me his card and he’s off. He contacts me a couple days later and sends me all of the photos he took. There are some of me just standing there and a couple of me shooting pictures. I notice that I’m in PT gear…and I begin to wonder…how did he know my name? How did he know where to send these photos? Why did he take so many pictures of me, and why was he being so proactive and sending photos before I had time to write and ask for them. All of it together caught me very off guard.
Long story short, it turns out he did know me … I played a small part in instructing him in the art of journalism, and …wait for it…he reads my blog. Then he does something I clearly expected. He hits on me. So I do what girls normally do in that in that situation. Went to stalk him on facebook.
I wasn’t a friend of his, so I requested him as a friend and then started to look at pictures that weren’t locked. In most of the pictures I couldn’t see past one thing … a wedding ring. While I was looking through his facebook profile photos he must have seen the friend request pop up in his email because he immediately sent me an email that said, no-no…that’s cheating. He suggested we get to know each other the old fashioned way, and I agreed, but not before asking the question…”are you married?”
Of course he was/is. He assured me his wife and him were distant and not very happy, which made me jump for joy and want to bed him immediately. Um, not. So I wrote him back:
Me: “So you read my blog and you know how I feel about this sort of thing, and you would still bother to hit on me? And also, why did you take these pictures of me in uniform? I look fat and awful.”
The photographer: “Well, I just have a propensity for pretty girls, which I guess gets me in trouble…I’m grasping at straws.”
Me: “So you’re saying I’m thin enough to be a straw?”
My point is I couldn’t believe this was happening … again.
So the next day I come into the office to find this email:
Subject line: And this is how I spent the last hour
Email content: “=A brief philosophical treatise on why you and I should enjoy the next two months, guilt free=

As I get older, I find myself growing a more and more epicurean appetite. This is undoubtedly the result of a combination of life’s events, not the least of which is having spent three of the last five years in the dirt, frequently coming to very close terms with human mortality. In a single phrase, my desires could be stated thusly: seek pleasure; avoid pain. While the former is certainly an easier achievement than the latter, it often simply boils down to expectation management.

I am at least moderately familiar with your written works, and I know you have an aversion toward – yet somehow a proclivity for – being a side dish. While I have little doubt you would make a thoroughly enjoyable nine-course meal (and that’s not a remark), circumstance often narrows our course, and like it or not, we are treading along the edge of the appetizer bar. (And now I’m super hungry. Awesome.)

There is a significant distinction between forwardness and honesty; while I am almost always forward, my track record with honesty is less than unblemished. This is what lead to the end of my first marriage, and seems quite likely to end my second.

As you noted, I do plan to return to my home upon leaving Afghanistan. I already know I have a shiny, new basement bedroom waiting for me. I am hopeful, as always, but not entirely optimistic. I, for one, would hate to head home and watch the marriage finally disintegrate knowing I had missed out on the opportunity to experience a little something with you while I was here. Self-destructive thought process for sure, but a process nonetheless -- my process.

Again, in the name of expectation management, there can be something quite enjoyable about a fleeting romance and in taking advantage of each day as it passes – it allows us the rare opportunity to read the expiration date on a relationship. Perhaps not a great thing, but it allows us to make decisions with our eyes open and to enjoy a dozen or so devil-may-care weeks.

So that’s about it. I would like to spend some time with you and enjoy your company. I think we are similar enough in spirit and passion to have some really enjoyable times together, even if only for a brief moment. But I make no promise nor have any expectation beyond that. I won’t promise you the world. I won’t propose and then send you a ‘never mind’ text message. I’m not looking to fall in love and run away to Paris -- il ya trop beaucoup de fromage dans cette ville, anyhow. The only thing I would promise is to spend the next nine weeks doing my best to make you smile – and occasionally laugh. I think it’s a decent promise, and it’s certainly honest.

In closing, this is the first time I have attempted to win a girl over through gratuitous use of logic and literary prowess. So in a sense, you’re my first. And they say you always remember your first.”


I was impressed with his writing skills. Even the $10 words were well used. And I will say this…the line “Seek Pleasure, Avoid Pain” really made sense to me. But what did he think the ultimate demise of a relationship with a married man would bring me? Awesomeness? Epicness? A feeling of being whole and complete? No. It would bring MOTHER FUCKING PAIN. Duh?
I should have just deleted the email, but I couldn’t. Instead, I wrote back.
To be contined…

Currently Chasing: An Answer to Why I Suck

There’s something I don’t understand about women. It’s something I don’t even understand about myself. It’s fucking ridiculous actually. Why do we put up with stupid shit and settle for men who make us want to shoot ourselves in the face?

And guess what else we do.  After said love of our life shits all over us, we talk a bunch of shit about him to our friends. I do this all the time. I fucking do this in my blog. I talk/write a bunch of shit about how retarded and douchie he is. I tell the world that I can’t stand him and that I will not put up with what he has done.

Meanwhile I’m fucking texting him asking if we can get back together, or if I can come over and pick up a couple things I left there, or if I can just suck his dick while he plays call of duty. Whatever. Just please let me be in your presence!

And simultaneously all of my friends are applauding me because of how well I’m handling everything. They are high fiving me and telling me that I’m a strong independent woman and I don’t need that asshole bringing me down. And I’m right there saying, you are so fucking right! Fuck this guy. I don’t need him. He was such a waste of my life. I DESERVE BETTER.

Meanwhile I’m still stalking him on facebook and wondering if he’s going to unfriend me and messaging every girl who comments on his status to let her know what a dillhole he is and that she shouldn’t get involved with him because he’s only going to destroy her heart, her trust, and her reason for living. “Run for your life Girl!” I’ll scream.

But simultaneously I’m asking said guy to come over and talk because I just really think we can work it out. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH US.

Case in point:

I want to lose about 20 pounds. So I say to this really sweet guy I like once I reach my goal weight of 145 I’ll be happy. So about seven minutes into the conversation he says, you know at 115 you would look emaciated.

“yeah, that’s why I don’t want to be 115. I want to be 145.”

Then he said, “At 120, your face would still be sunk in.”

“Um, yeah, what is your point? I don’t want to be 120.”

Then he says: "You know at 125 or 130, with your frame, you would be really lean with a tiny waist. And your ass would be perfectly round and tight."

To which I respond, “ …………..shock…………..awe………….”

You’ve got to fucking be kidding me? I just told him I wanted to be 145, which admittedly is thinner than I’ve EVER been in my whole adult life…and he suggests I lose an additional 15 pounds?

FUCK YOU.

So I tell my friend about it. She agrees with me that this guy is a bag of assholes.

So the next day when he sent a text telling me I took his statement wrong and that he didn’t mean it, I should have told him to shove it up shitter, but instead I wrote back some flirty bullshit and brought women back 20 years in the process. Why am I always forcing women to (D)E volve?  

I’ve done this in the past as well. You spend so much time convincing all of your friends that some guy is a total waste of your time and that he should die…and then you bring him to your fucking block party and expect everyone to just forget that they spent four hours holding your hand and comforting you while you blew snot rockets and cried trailers of tears the night before.

Men are not that strong ladies … the weakness is in us!

But guess what? We are good enough, pretty enough and smart enough to actually move on! And these guys who treat us like we are replaceable just need to become background noise. Now excuse me while I hit the gym, I’ve got 35 pounds to lose. Then he’ll love me.