Dare I say it?

It was a date, and it was pretty much a perfect date at that.

Who knew?

That said, on to other honestly quite delightful things... small victory over sponge bob and elmo and other such child icons that I would rather chew on a scant cup of sand for 30 minutes than let my daughter watch: We are going to cuddle up now in front of the Roku and watch She-Rah. Because she loves it.

The next 24 hours don't stand a chance in topping the current, I'm just saying.

Getting Together For Dinner Is Not A Date.

For years, specifically the three since my 7 year boyfriend and I officially broke up ( as in 'divided the books, yelled at each other in the front yard over the vintage Persian rug, exchanged glares that vibrated with sheer hatred when one of the other had the audacity to hum a song with lyrics that didn't fit the situation' variety officially broke up), I have been trying to cosmically channel this 'not a date' state of being to men who I somehow found myself sitting across from.

"This is not a date, this is a meal. We are not 'getting to know each other', we are just getting to know each other. This is not an audition, we are not connecting on some other worldly romantic plane just above that which others around us can see from our conversation, we are just having a nice time. This. Is. Not. A. Date. "

But it ends up being a date every time... or at least on one side. There is always me turning my head half sideways at the end to avoid an awkward kiss I wasn't going in for. It ends up that moment where I reach for the check to figure my half and he says "Oh, no... I insist. " It seems like he is saying "No really, I'd like to buy you dinner", but what he is really saying is "Oh, no, I'm forcing a date on you. Once I pay this, it has been a date. Even if nothing comes of that, you've been totally punked into this date. I went on a date with you, and you had no sayso about it. You like that? Oh yeah... you can't take it there, can you. Now come here and let me try to kiss you."

And as such, I hate what I know of as dating. Usually. Most of the time. There has been some involvement here and there since being relieved of (or rather, liberating myself from) my suburban domestic partnership status that few years ago... 2 to e exact. One, arguably gay. One, my best friend, and now someone I do not speak to. Neither consisted of the formalities of dating, however, they were just friendships that drifted to the next level without pressure, which is why they likely did-- I do not like pressure. I do not like my face, I do not like my voice, I am haunted by the requests of babydaddy the year of his ND graduation to "Just please, don't be so pedestrian around my family", and overall, I do not like to be on dates.

Now and again, however, I will make plans to get together with someone for dinner and actually get a silly little smile about it and think "Gosh, that boy sure is sweet"..., and I will have to remind myself that odds are, they are the ones who know that "Getting together for dinner is not a date" . And even as I layer on the extremely fancy Umbrian Clay Mask from Sephora, even as I am plucking my eyebrows, making note to not do that thing I do where I start a sentence out loud in the middle of the place it already was in my mind, he is not thinking twice. Because getting together for dinner is not a date.

And then I have to have a serious blogging moment with myself after sending my daughter off with baby-daddy for the night because it's easier than getting a sitter sometimes and I have a...

No.

It's not, Nanda. Don't be creepy, OK? I myself swear by dinner not being a date so I better not dare go there, wonder if he'll hold the door for me, half expecting him to want to do something else after or walk me to my door, watch to see if he picks up the bill or not and trying to figure out what that means. No. This is not a date.

And anyway, I don't like dates... right?

Has It Really Come To This?

I am writing an 8 page final paper (though clearly that is not, at least at this moment, entirely true true now is it?) that is due at 10:00 tomorrow morning, and that I started about 20 minutes ago. In and of itself, this is not so strange-- I don't know that I have ever finished a paper with more than a nights effort. What is strange is that midway through the paper, I realized 2 horrifying things:

1.) It is 10 days until Christmas, how in the fuck did that happen? And what in the fuck am I going to do with these 36 printed cards featuring one precious Morgan Athena looking over her shoulder in a red velor dress? I don't have stamps, and if I go into the post office tomorrow to buy some, they're all going to know I didn't send my cards out until just now.

And then everyone is going to be looking through their cards Christmas morning (because domestic families do that, right? I know smug newlyweds and new parents always do-- I've seen it firsthand) and think "Oh, not one from Nanda, I see (or Amanda, depending on what home the judgment is coming from). You know, her mother died and her father isn't around and she got dumped a couple of months ago and her daughter is in Colorado with that boy's family... you know, the one that (whisper) got her pregnant. No wonder the poor dear didn't send a card. She's allllll alone."

And then, they're going to call me while I'm, like, surfing pornhub and smoking in the house in a dirty wife beater having the time of my life and be all "We noticed you didn't send a card, and we'd really like you to come spend the holidays with us. Since you know... (more whispers) you're all alone."

And then, all of a sudden, I'm going to be sad that I'm all alone. And my Christmas, fine up until that point, will be ruined. And, I only have 10 days until all of this inevitably happens. If only there was something I could do to change it... oh, right. Stamps.

And, at the end of this entirely insane stream of consciousness, I without noticing it typed "Get fucking stamps" right in the middle of my paper. As I was deleting this, I was led to my next thought...

2) New Year's Eve is only a few days after Christmas, you know. So if my sprained ankle isn't healed by then, am I going to suffer through in heels for it even after it hurt so much at that party I went to last week? Or am I seriously going to go out for New Year's Eve without heels on? I can dance then, but I won't like to because I only wiggle right in real heels.

And then I have to stop again and think about my New Years Plans. They were (when I made a point to be child free on the parenting schedule ages ago) to do something, whatever it needed to be, with my best friend who after years of confusion I finally found a way to date with some success. When he left my house after movie night and disappeared a couple of months ago though (and I do mean disappeared, I didn't see him for over a month, just like that), I didn't make backup plans. I've entertained notions from utterly absurd to completely practical, but in the end the place I had just deleted the words "Get Fucking Stamps" was filled in again with the words "You're going to end up kissing your own hand for New years Eve Again". This is a true story mind you, I spent last NYE with a guy friend who was seriously looking for more and leaned in with his mouth slightly parted, so I pretended to kiss his cheek, kissed my own hand, and said "I love me!" as though it was totally adorable self absorption rather than totally sad disinterest in someone who cared about me a great deal.

And so, before anything else happened to my paper, I thought I had better, with only a few hours until bedtime, come blog for 20 minutes to purge these neurotic irrational typing turrets so I can get back to typing my paper-- yet another thing I have known all year was coming, and somehow managed to be completely shocked by when I found it actually upon me.

You know what would be really nice? If my nerves would make me accidentally interrupt my blogging to write my paper in the middle of this entry too. Alas... back to Word I go.

Because I Gots No Class

I may have outright danced into class this morning-- and what I mean by "may have danced into class" is "totally danced into class". It was They Might Be Giants, and I'm the only woman I know who can dance to a song about James K. Polk, but it is what it is and by time I realized what I had done, it was too late. I was standing in front of the classroom with my hands in my hair, hips flung to one side, and I froze for a moment, horrified.



Here I should clarify, this isn't a unique experience, I wasn't about to die of humiliation because I couldn't believe I would be so totally engrossed in my own little word that I was making a total fool of myself and disrespecting an entire classroom (mind you, I was 10 minutes late-- I'm always 10 minutes late). No, no, nothing like that. As I froze, the thought that ran through my head wasn't "Oh no, please say I didn't", but "Jesus fuck, Nanda-- you have to stop doing this!"



I have danced into stores. I have danced directly into actual people. I one time danced into the middle of the street in front of a school bus (nothing was hurt except my nerves, and they've never really been in primo condition to begin with). And still, my Zen is full of playlist titled "Dance It Off: My Breakup Brushoff Songs", "Nanda's Hoochy Dance Mix #7" and"Superhappy Dance In Public Songs (December) ". No, these aren't funny little names I made up to get my point across for this entry... the sad truth is, I was listening to the Dance In Public mix when I happened to dance into class, freeze and think "You have to stop doing this!". If only there had been some clue...



Luckily, with finals happening and this one pending for Thursday it seems that I was the only person standing in the classroom. Clearly this was something discussed in the first 9 minutes of the last class, when I was just gyrating out of my house into the snow towards school.



On a totally unrelated side note, something brand new has happened to me recently: I got a "Good luck on your finals" from someone at the end of an email. I was kind of startled, this is something I have never heard before and rather liked. I think more people should wish luck on finals. That said, I should probably dance out to smoke a cigarette, I would like to actually show up for the next of the above mentioned finals on time. I may moonwalk in, and according to the syllabus, there will in fact be people there to see it this time.

Guess What I'm Having For Second Dinner.

Go on, guess. Did you happen to guess an entire box of Star Crunchies?

Yeah, no one ever does.

Things That Are True About Today

In the course of the last 24 hours, several interesting things have happened. The best is that my nanny's fiance cleaned my kitchen. The worst is that she was here because I decided instead of doing something very important for school that I was going to go to a party. But, there is gray area in between (let me pause here to mention how annoyed I am that my spellcheck does not recognize the spelling of gray as correct when I spell it grey even though it is a perfectly acceptable alternative spelling. And now, how annoyed I am that my spellcheck does not recognize the word 'spellcheck' as valid. Moving on...), various hues and shades that are deserving of note. I can say many things about my life, but among them, 'uninteresting' will never be uttered. Because in the course of the day, the following things have been true:

-I allowed someone to cut a bit of my hair with a box cutter (and honestly, sort of encouraged my hair to be cut with said box cutter). It was a kind of rusty box cutter at that.

-I learned that if my Cosmic Internet Soul-mate (who is also my real life friend, April) and I are hanging out in person, if she drinks enough wine I seem to become drunk. The second I am not talking to her anymore, I resume a normal voice tone and fewer things seem to be the most hysterical thing I have ever seen, heard, said or done than previous. Then I, like, walk to the hall outside the bathroom and she's standing there and I suddenly trip over my own boot and cackle maniacally about it. And at some point, we both begin referring to one another's blogs both as "our blog". Then, more cackling.

I could try to figure this out, but as long as I don't have to get her hangover I think I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

-I bought a Christmas tree as a Christmas present. I wish less of my friends had trees, it would make holiday shopping so much easier and more gratifying.

-You know that Walk Of Shame kit I always wanted from Too Faced? And then it got discontinued and I was all whiny about it? I got one. Best early holiday gift ever.

-I still have 3 pots in my shower. I can explain. I mean I won't, but I totally could if I wanted to.

-No matter where I go and no matter how long he has lived in a different state, there's always going to be some drunk dude that's like "Hey, you're Amanda right? I know your brother Frank!" Um, his name is Huck, but that's totally cool drunk dude. I know him too.

-I've changed my outfit 4 times in one day. Not, like, "I tried on a few outfits today" but "I genuinely felt there were 4 different occasions that required the wearing of different outfits today".

- If I'm not getting a crush on a gay guy, I'm getting a crush on a guy that's wayyy out of my league. Tonight would be no exception. The best part? I'm like "We should do something" and he's like "Yeah, call me". This man has never given me his number. The tasteful response? "Yeah, totally!", hint taken without creating awkwardness . My response? "Oh, I don't have your number. Mine's on facebook! You can get it there!" and then walking off making the hold your hand like a phone gesture and mouthing "Call me" and wiggling my eyebrows.

OK, so I didn't really do that last part. But I may as well have. "Get my number off facebook!"... dork.

- So when I was told by more than one medical professional not to wear heels or my sprain was going to get bad all over again? True story. Who knew.

-An added bonus: My daughter came into the kitchen a few seconds ago and said "Mommy, let's cuddle and look at the tree. And at 2 in the morning, that's just what I'm going to do. She'll probably be asleep again by time we make it to the sofa 8 steps away, but I could use a couple of quiet minutes, and I appreciate that she suggested it more than I can say. Happy Thanxmas to all, and to all a good night.

(and if any creeper calls my number from off of facebook, so help me I will call you all hours of the day or night and blow a whistle into your ear. Really-- have you not seen the above? I am exactly that much of a dork.)

Of Course There's No Snow In Africa, You Idiots.

Yes, I mean you Bono. You and Boy George, and Phil Collins.

Especially Phil Collins. Idiot.

Once a year for a few weeks, I live in a blind rage. The Snow In Africa song is the reason for this. Of COURSE there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas, morons, because

a)It's Africa. It's jungles and deserts. Oh wait, unless you go to the mountains, there's snow there. Is that what you want, Band-Aid? A buch of freezing African children? It's not enough that they're starving? That's cruel, Phil Collins... cruel.

b)It's not fucking Christmas. I mean, for some people it is, sure... Christmas is a Christian holiday, and the Africans who do have Christmas are going to be fine. And there's a lot of them too-- sooo many huts built in exchange for some baptisms and bible reading... those Christians, we already made sure they know it's Christmas, because we're the ones that told them it was. Further, they're going to know it's Christmas because it's a national holiday there. Those that aren't are also going to be fine. They'll have the same famine tomorrow, because you all got together in a recording studio and made one of the worst songs of all time instead of each chipping in your coke money for the month (have you ever noticed how many people famous for coke problems specifically took part in that Band-Aid moment? White Christmas, yo). That could have fed those non-Christians through several more years of arbitrary holidays. And don't you stand there and tell me about song proceeds...

I mean, seriously. Have you heard that song?

That said, this holiday is about so much more to me... it's about the fucking Christmas lists. Christmas lists are a strange thing for me int he randomness with which I am able to come to a gift conclusion. And I have a list of completed shopping, I do.

-My best friend in New York
-My Internet cosmic soul-mate
-My ex boyfriend and his girlfriend
-My father who I haven't seen in 6 months who lives in the same town as me.
-My AA sponsor (What? It's never come up before. Relax Dad, you haven't even seen me in 6 months)

These are people who I one day woke up and said "Christmas is coming. Oh hey, you know what I should get for (insert name here)?"

But there's that other list too.

-My best friend in California
-My actual soul-mate, who I am not speaking to
-My other ex boyfriend and his boyfriend
-My daughters father, who must require something from her, right?
-My daughter herself. I was going to get her a Littlest Pet-shop and a Barbie (I'm a size 1 with a D cup, unrealistic body image issues do not apply in our house unless you want me to wear a box around her). The way things are looking lately, however, I'm torn between a flask, a my little pony switchblade, and The Bad Girls Guide To Dating.

God bless us, every one. Even those poooor lost souls in Africa.

And, We Have Issues.

I was wondering when it would start. It seemed too good to be true. A 6 year old who remains the size of a 4 year old, seldom argues, reads at a 3rd grade level easily, has empathy to put my peers to shame... there had to be a catch. Something had to go terribly wrong some time. Yesterday was that some time.

Mommy: "Why didn't you come out with your class?"
Perfect 6 year old: "Oh, I just wanted to wait."
Mommy: "OK, what's going on?"
Slightly nervous perfect 6 year old: "I don't want to tell you."
Mommy: "Well, this is me telling you that you have to tell me. Out with it."
Bursting into tears 6 year old: "I Got a red, I said a bad word today!"

The other kids at her lunch table (ohhh, how I wanted her to change lunch tables last week) were teaching each other bad words. Or, bad words in their houses, clearly. It so happens, bad words in my house, her fathers family home(I don't care what kind of money they come from, those people are traaashy when they're red-wine drunk--and they're almost always red-wine drunk), even my ex boyfriends good Polish family (who are much more like a fathers family than babydaddy's creepy brood)... those are the good words. Those are the words the other kids need to know.

Specifically, "Shit" is the word those kids need to know.

As though this were not bad enough, at some point in the conversation that followed we stumbled as I knew we would on why it's OK for me to cuss (though in my defense, the aforementioned swear is not one I use). And I had already though about this, I have been waiting for this question for years: "I am an adult, Morgan. I am old enough to make decisions about how I want to behave myself, and I'm old enough to know when it's a bad time to say certain things. You are not old enough to use those words in the right way, they're very serious words, and you don't have those kinds of serious situations to use them for yet."

To which my little angel with her tear stained cheeks took a deep shakey breath, gently touched my hand and asked with wide shiny eyes... "So when can I cuss mom? When I'm a teenager?"

Fuck.

Eventually the subject was dropped... we had to go back to school a few hours later for the first grade holiday concert (which consisted of her spinning on a riser dangerously, forgetting some words, and at one point just turning the other way completely for no clear reason), followed by some very sweet pictures of her little boy-friend (this is not a title I approved, just one I don't feel like fighting with). At the end of the photo-op she turned, grabbed his face, and kissed him in the middle of the hallway.

My daughter is cussing and kissing boys.

All of this started in the same 5 hour stretch, and I would not have been surprised in the slightest to find her smoking in the ice cream parlor bathroom after the show, or sipping gin and juice boxes in her bubble bath before bed. I don't know if it's because she lives in a single parent household, because I cuss and smoke and kiss boys (I don't drink, can this not count for something?), but somehow it's finally happened-- I ruined my child.

I can't believe they gave me a baby, and this is what I ended up letting happen to her.

Tonight, There Will Be Glitter.

I don't talk about it often, it's one of those things everyone can see and no one feels the need to go into, which I appreciate. But, today it stares me down, mocks me, allows me no peace.

I have bad skin.

Not, like, I have big pores or a weird birthmark, or even like dryness or shine... no, these would be OK with me. These can be concealed, or even accentuated and played up to my benefit. No, my problem is that I would be quite beautiful, if not for the fact that I have more acne than a teenage fry cook with PMS.

There are scars, there are blemishes, it's uncomfortable. Sometimes my makeup sticks to it in such a way that it actually looks worse, concealer paints on in such a way as to look like I have a raised white dot of paint on my face here and there instead of a raised pink dot on my face here or there. There are places where there are flat red and purple splotches where long ago there was a blemish that one way or another was disturbed and left a scar. Those ones cannot be covered, they are part of my skin tone that will always show through. Without meaning to I will self-consciously brush my fingers over them to feel how bumpy I am, how dried out and flaky the medicine has made the bumps (and as such, my makeup), succeeding only in rubbing off what little I could cover and drawing eyes to it further.

I also don't talk about it much, but I am an art model. Not just "I sit for an art class", but "I work for artists, photographers and sculptors individually in their basements and studios for fairly reasonable monetary compensation". How the skin on my face and the skin on my body can match up so poorly is beyond me, and how they manage to capture what they want through the veil of blemished distraction is well beyond my comprehension.

But, what I do know is this, a 3rd thing I don't talk about very often (specifically in my blog): My breasts are amazing. While I can't understand how the artists can get what they need from my face through the blemish, i can understand completely how my face can be gotten past in general when I've got these bad babies to... ahem... draw the eye.

And tonight, I'm going to a show in a bar located inside of Notre Dame University-- where the girls are all well under 30, clear skinned, childless and perfect. And in honor of this, in order to take a cue form may smart artists, I'm wearing an exceptionally low cut shirt to keep the eyes away from my cheeks. And what is more, I've made a special trip to Sephora for some brand new extra sparkly eyeshadow (Midnight Cowboy Rides Again by Urban Decay if you were wondering). Because even if there is some looking at my face, I want them to see my eyes... not my dots. And while I am at it, I am going to be dusting a little bot over my cleveage as well.

Tonight, I will feel pretty. Tonight I will not worry about what people see on my face because I'm going to say it frankly-- I'm discouraging people from looking at me from the neck up. Tonight there will be breasts, there will be eyeshadow... there will be glitter. And somewhere nestled between the sparkling scoops of flesh and the shimmering twinkling blinkers will be a woman who is completely comfortable in her own skin.

Because she knows no one will be looking at it.

This morning, my 6 year old daughter said "Mommy, I hope you go have fun when I'm at Daddy's house and don't be sad that you're doing homework."

And I think it is

a) Adorable that my daughter thinks I have been sad about homework and

b)A really good idea that I go out and do something tonight. Yeah, that's right. I'm going to a bar, where I will play darts and overtake a jukebox. If at all possible, with the new Kids On The Block.

Why? Because my 6 year old thinks I should.

In the past 6 hours, I have...

-Filmed a 3 minute student movie
-Cried for no less than an hour about being dumped
-Put up a Christmas tree with full 'Martha Stewart Living' worthy decoration in under 20 minutes
-Wrote a paper on white privilege
- Somehow managed not to write in said paper "Yes, yes... I'm now so very aware of white privilege, how real it is, how powerful and completely unearned it is... and it's awesome!"

What? I'm wayyyy more lazy than I am socially conscious.

And, that is what I did in the past 6 hours. In the next 6 hours, I intend to dream about nothing, and wake feeling refreshed and ready to try to take over the world-one trivial task after another- all over again tomorrow.

Did I Mention?

I totttally got the best Christmas present ever, Elvis Costello tickets. From someone secret, which is even more awesome than knowing me so well to begin with. I'm sure I'll be back to my angst in no time, but at this particular moment, I'm going to go dance around to Every Day I Write The Book in my pajamas a little more.

Not at all about men...

Some days I suddenly remember I have a Twitter and it works from my phone, and post like 47 things in .11 seconds. Then next day I feel a little shaky, my head hurts and it's all kind of a fog. I find myself making a mental note that I'm a small girl-- I really shouldn't mix medias.

Oh Gross, here it comes... Fucking Men Part III

I was fine. I was good. I didn't eat any ice cream last night or this morning, I didn't peek out the window every time I heard a car door close hoping he was coming to say it isn't over, that an impostor has been posting as him online and he really couldn't get to me because he was tied up in a basement. I have spent the past 3 days fine, happy, good.

I got a tattoo and talked about the holy trinity of female conversation (Makeup, Men and Motherhood) half of Friday. I ate fried dough and talked to a dear friend who gets me and laughed at the kinds of things normal people don't find funny. I didn't even blog for the love of fuck... I was healed.

And until half an hour ago, I was fine. Then suddenly the sick feeling started, and out it came-- gallons of snot and tears and miserable sobbing. 20 straight fucking minutes of body shuddering can't breathe face drenching blubbering.

This had better have been the fucking end of it: My blog is getting way boring.

Fucking Men: Part II

This. Fucking. Sucks.

I've used the $50 mud mask, I've thrown out all the pictures and notes and little trinkets from the past 6 months (except the Hold Steady shirt and poster: Ironically, if we hadn't been dating I would have been at that show). I've called the best friend, I've cried, I've deleted Buffy from my Instant View, I've updated my Netflix. I'm out of best friends to call, I'm out of tears, I'm out of things to symbolically destroy, and I'm out of energy.

And, I'm out of fucking ice cream.

But, I'm still in hurt--this fucking sucks.

Fucking Men.

Can you break up with someone you're not 'really' dating? And didn't he pretty much break up with you by facebook 'poking' you once over the course of the last week (with no form of chat cuddling after, mind you) as the only form of communication, even while you couldn't peek your internet social site wall because of the overflow of movie ratings and comments to shared friends that he did have time for (and once you have to block someone's posts because they're so frequent, aren't they lying to say they don't have a second?) And isn't it weird when people keep telling you how he's doing despite your not asking because you're too hurt to even care, even though he 'hasn't had a second' and has totally just shamed you for being like 'what the hell', making you feel like an asshole about the fact he hasn't realized that everyone already knows-- that he hasn't bothered... fuck men. Fuck men, fuck men, fuck men.

OK, Snuggie. OK, Ben, Jerry. OK, mascara oozing down my cheeks already... it's just us tonight, let's get down to business.

Grrr... Fucking men.

Not that I could stop anyone from reading my blog...

... not that at all. Nor am I trying to. No, ex boyfriend Tom Lopez of Granger Indiana, I don't care if you read my blog 27 times a day, I don't care if you need a box of tissue and some hand cream to read my blog, that's your own fucking business. However: Since you're already reading...

I absolutely 100 percent promise that if you ever ever ever ever ever email me again for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to sending me Youtube videos and saying you enjoyed my last blog at 2 in the morning, I will have something totally awesome to blog about-- where we met, how we met, why we broke up, and every creepy dysfunctional insane thing you do. We could talk about the cookies. We could talk about the vacuum. We could talk about Trios. The fireplace video. The coming to my house all out of it on both this and that, and probably some that. We could talk about it all in humiliating detail. For days, weeks, probably months even! And so there's no confusion, that red link there would totally link to your facebook, whatever job sites you have, classmates.com, and multiple pictures of you to be 100% sure that anyone, everyone, can know exactly for certain who you are.

So step away from the keyboard, Tipsy McEmailson. Step away from communicating with me at all. You perhaps forgot how pissed I am, but certainly you could not have forgotten how tacky I am... I will soooo do that shit.

Things I Can't Believe They Gave Me

1) A baby.

Seriously. I have answered the question "Does Daddy call you babymommy too?" I wear stilettos and mini-dresses kite flying, when she asked for pink hair when she was 4 I said "that's awesome" before the question was entirely out of her mouth. I ignore cussing if it's in the right context, in private, and in a reasonable voice level. I let her wear the next day's clothing for pajamas because we both enjoy the extra 15 minutes of sleep it affords. We fight over the last Twinkie-- and sometimes I totally win. No one is as shocked as me that I got away with it... the cosmos somehow totally screwed up and gave me a baby.

2) An Apartment.

Clearly, however, not a vacuum, dish soap, Pine Sol, a shoe tree, or any real motivation to use such things if I actually do have them. You may think 'Mold on your dirty dishes' or 'odd smells' would be some sort of 'motivation'. You may indeed... but you would be wrong.

Caring about those things would require some degree of 'Dignity'. What? I just said I wear mini-dresses to go kite flying: Don't act all surprised.

3) The Right to an Education.

I dropped out of interior design school a semester shy of having my license because I went and got myself in a family way. Somehow the universe saw fit however to let me go back to school 6 years later to get what I have always really wanted, a degree in Psychology. And it's true I have not yet gotten myself pregnant by a drunk ND English major (Oh, how I love the English majors...) in the midst of a drinking game called 2 shot Saturday. It's true I have not yet told a professor that I'm actually thinking so far outside of the box that I'm thinking outside of his box, and that's why he doesn't understand me, and that I don't care to write it out in small words right now because PMS reduces my tolerances for salary-earning ignorance.

This doesn't mean, however, that I don't bring Twizzlers to Film Class, leave my MP3 player on for one of my lecture classes on a frighteningly regular basis, start working on 7 page papers the night before they are due as a rule, or blog when I 'm supposed to be doing a 7 page paper the night before it is due.

4) A Computer.

I don't know how they gave someone so irresponsible, impulsive and scatterbrained something like a computer or the Internet. What I do know is that Sephora and Ulta are sooooo glad they did.

I know there are more, these are just the ones that at current... as I place an Ulta order while blogging instead of writing my paper, perched on my counter-top next to a 2 day old half eaten pop-tart and 3 lipstick lids but no lipstick, eating the last of my daughters Halloween candy and wondering just how I can cover my tracks before morning.

When you keep a blog and no one really reads it too regularly, and then someone makes known that no, THEY will be reading it...

... you suddenly feel the need to add an entry to make it worthwhile.

And by 'you', I mean 'me'.

Ahhhh, that feels better. Hello, April. Welcome to my neurotic.

In Retrospect...

... when the guy I've been seeing said to me last night when I asked if it was over that "No, I just don't really know what's going on with anything, and I don't see that getting any better or me having any more time for anything in the future" and "It really doesn't have anything to do with you. I mean, it effects you, I know, but it's not ABOUT you"...

He wasn't saying "We're good, I just have a lot going on", but that dreaded sentiment I run into oh so often and never notice until after the fact: "It's not you, it's me".

And then I made out with him for at least a solid 20 minutes. My God, I'm glad I'm so hot... because I'm realllllllly fucking stupid.