New Family Member

This lil' peanut will soon belong to my parents.  Her name is Hailey.  I hope she comes with the yellow collar. 

I have a sneaking suspicion she will be a lot like her older sister, Samantha.  We all miss her.

Armed & Awkward

So 'My Very Worst Date' has published my story.  Enjoy!

This blog is great (MVWD).  There's a ton of hilarious stories.  Sometimes having random people share their stories can be great.  Whoever created this website had a great idea.  I hope to have an idea like this soon.

The Ultimate Vice

The best/worst thing for a person.  My ultimate vice.  

Orange Soda.

Another Challenge of Being A Blogger

I have now, on three separate occasions, caught myself unintentionally 'rewriting' a post I've already done.  Not editing or redoing a post to make it better, but unknowingly 'retelling' an old post as if it's never been told before.

(Imagine the great-aunt at the family party telling some story everyone's heard 18,000 times as if she's never told it before.  That's me.)

I'm glad I've caught it pre-publish each time.  I think there might have been a time a post like this 'slipped through' and one of my loyal readers pointed it out.  But what do I know?  I clearly can't remember what I've already said.  And I pride myself on my great memory.  Le sigh.

Do any of my fellow bloggers also have this problem?  Has anyone out there caught him or herself rewriting a post?  Is it just me?  

A Modern-Day Relationship Problem?

So, as most of my readers know, I briefly tried eharmony.  I thought it was a decent site, but nothing to write home about it.  I didn't get too much out of it, other than some drinks and a couple blog posts.

Anyhow.  I am still subscribed to their emails for some reason.  They mostly address dating dilemmas - such as 'top ten can't stands for men'.  A couple of them annoy me a little (because I almost feel like they are advising women on how to 'behave' in order to 'land a man' if you will), but most of them really just crack me up.

The other day, I saw one that really got me.

"You're In Love, But He's Still On A Dating Site"

LOL.  Well, I guess you can file this under a 'modern day relationship problem'.  I am not sure the protocol for dating someone and initiating the 'get off the website' conversation.  I guess that has to be a little awkward.  And, well, doesn't one party still need to be a member or said site to log in and see the other person is still a part of the site?  How does one know the other is still on the site without being guilty of the same offense!  (Cue for Jimmy Buffett's 'if you like pina coladas'?).

Does anyone have any insight for these peeps?  How does one deal with the dilemma 'you're in love, but he's still on a dating site'?  

Another Facebook Pet Peeve

Ok, so most people who know me know I use facebook.  A lot.  And, I, personally, like facebook.

However, I do realize not everyone feels the same.  I do not work for facebook, or desire to impose my facebooking ways on others.

So why, why, why on earth do people make a point of defiantly telling me 'I hate facebook' or 'I don't use facebook' and look at me as if 'well I sure showed you!'  Believe it or not, this happens to me a LOT.  Uh, my name is not Mark Zuckerberg.  It's totally fine that one doesn't use said product.

Editor's sidenote:  I am really not sure what there to 'hate' about facebook.  Well, I see plenty of hate-worthy things, but that's simply the behavior of our fellow human beings, not facebook.  If I wasn't dealing with it on facebook, I'd be encountering it in some other daily interaction.  Maybe there is a lot of it 'in one place', if you will.  But still.  Whatevs.

Anyhow.  A small part of me feels these people secretly just want to make sure they're not being forgotten about (because they are, you know, not on facebook, and so many others are).  That or they want to know if there's anything they are missing out on.  I have several non-facebook-using peeps who ask me for updates on people/things happening on facebook.  I am debating if that's a specific privilege that they, as non-facebookers, should not have.  Hmm.  Your thoughts?  Anyone else encounter people stressing their lack of facebook use?  How do you handle it?

A Word On Martha Stewart

Ok, guilty pleasure - I LOVE Martha Stewart.  It might be her craftiness.  It might be that she's a powerful, successful, independent woman who likes domestic things.

However, a small part of me really likes Martha Stewart because of her story is a comeback story.  She was in jail.  She paid her dues.  She picked herself up, dusted herself off, and kept doing what she loved and now, it's as if it never happened.  She did, in theory, what jailbirds are supposed to do - she went back to being a functioning member of society.  I realize she's definitely not your average american (or average jailbird), but I think she can really set the example here.

Anyhow - I LOVE her lines at Macy's, etc.  And I think when it comes to celebrity comebacks, she kicks Britney's ass!

Quite The Award

And I will wear this with pride.

Cheating On My Hair Girl

So I may have touched on this before.  I know I've touched on the subject of getting one's hair done in Chicago before.

So, I have a hair girl.  I like my hair girl.  However, kind of like someone in her first long-term relationship, a part of me wonders what else is out there.  I am generally happy with her work, but I'm uncertain about a couple things.  And I guess, since it's so f*#^&$! expensive, I've started to expect nothing less than perfection.

However, as we all know - sometimes the grass is not greener.  So here is my question - can I go to another hair person, then, in the instance I do not like said person better, can I go back to the old person?  Is it that I've cheated on my hair person?  Or is he or she simply happy to have his or her customer back?  Have any of you ever left a hair person and gone back?   Has anyone ever been confronted by a hair person for someone else having touched his or her hair?  Has anyone ever run into a hair person out in public after having left him or her?  Is this overly paranoid?  Your thoughts?

Nicotine Patch

Let's call this attempting to get an expression going, take 2.

Nicotine Patch (n.) - the person one is using to distract oneself in the interim of weaning oneself off someone else.  Also commonly referred to as the 'rebound' - one can't have or knows he/she shouldn't have the one he/she really wants, so he/she goes with an available distraction, or, if you will, a nicotine patch.  Often used after romantic break-ups, but not necessarily specific to them.

I referred to the guy my one of my friends casually saw after the breakup of her long-term relationship as a 'nicotine patch'.   Also, I remember a time when when I was, ahem, "not speaking" (dun dun dun!) to someone I had talked to on a very regular basis.  I ran into someone who was a casual friend of said person.  She brought up this person and said 'yeah, I have talked to so-and-so more in the past couple weeks than I have in the past three years!'  I simply smirked to myself, thinking, 'oh sweetie, you're merely a cheap substitute for me'.

Moral of the story:  never be anyone's nicotine patch.  You're better than that.

In The Spirit Of Tax Season

It's a little belated.  Hey, I was doing my taxes.

Mary Schmich - Pulitzer

Even though I don't know her (despite a facebook friendship!), I want to congratulate Mary Schmich on her Pulitzer Prize.  I've read her articles for many years.  I think she has some very astute observations on the way things are and a very clear, precise way of communicating them.   I hope, one day, that THIS BLOGGER will win a pulitzer for commentary.

Dear Miss Schmich - in case this somehow came up in your google alerts - my mom calls your articles 'Schmichies' and always saves them for me.

People Walking and Reading

A couple times throughout the past couple years, I've witnessed a random phenomenon throughout downtown Chicago.  People walking and reading.  I've seen it in the Merchandise Mart.  I've seen it on Michigan Avenue.

I get it that the book is good.  And it get it that you might be at a part where something really interesting is happening.  Maybe a big plot twist is about to be revealed.  I get it.  BUT STILL.  I don't get how one can do this and not crash into something.  I find this infinitely more difficult than walking and texting, and I struggle with that.

Your thoughts?  Do you see people doing this?  Is it just around me?  Have you ever seen anyone walk into a pole or another person whilst doing this?  Is it happening in the suburbs too?  How about other parts of the country?  Do you do this?  Weigh in!

Thanks for the Heads Up

This picture was taken at Public House last night.   I can't help but wonder if this is 100% a precautionary measure, or if, perhaps, this is in reaction to an incident.  And, if so the latter, I'd really like to hear more about the incident.

A Great Old Song

The other night, I was out 'downtown' and the bar seemed to be on a bit of a '90s kick.  Not complaining at all.  Some of the best music ever was made during that era.  Anyhow.  This great old classic came on.  I'm not going to argue its merits as a song, however, I just love it.  It's the perfect 'you knocked me down but I got back up, damnit!' song.   We've all experienced a time when we felt we needed such an anthem.  And also, it's the epitome of a one-hit-wonder.



Here's the song's wikipedia page.  

A Knife, A Penny....

This is a set of nice kitchen knives I received for my birthday (per my request).  As you can see, there is a penny affixed to the package.

When I was young, I was taught of a superstition that when one gives another a sharp object (a knife, scissors, pins, etc), the other party needs to give one a penny in return, otherwise a fight will result.  My mom (sorry Mom) supported this with the example of the fact that my boyfriend at the time and I had just had an argument, and the pins from the corsage he gave me at our recent high school dance resided on our counter.

I've been plagued with randomly handing over pennies at various moments when I needed to borrow scissors in a pinch, etc.  When I received this recent gift, it had a penny attached.  My mom explained that the person in front of her in line was also buying a sharp object as a gift (story in question - again, sorry Mom), and the sales lady suggested this person tape a penny to the package to 'negate the energy'.  So my mom followed in suit.  However, she said she is uncertain this effectively 'works', and casually dropped 'or I can give her 14 pennies, whenever convenient' on several occasions.  (There are 14 knives in this set.)

Has anyone else heard of this superstition?  Is there an 'old wives tale' regarding the exchanging of sharp objects being bad luck.  Does a penny really undo it?  Are there others who abide by this superstition?  Your thoughts?

Disappointment

File this under random and completely pointless, but check out this link.

#12 is speaking to me.  Don't tell me if you agree with it.  I simply don't want to hear it.

Dumped?

So, as you all know, I online date (yadda).   There was a dude I met on eharm.  He was 30, nice looking, seemed to have a nice family, and had a seemingly successful career.  The communication at the start of things seemed slow, however, he seemed like a generally nice guy (maybe just not as experienced in the 'dating' world.)

Anyhow.  We went on around 4 dates over a period of around five weeks.  As I said, the communication was slow, with, often times, long periods between contact, but he continued to call and initiate suggesting we hang out.  I was cautiously optimistic and perfectly ok with things moving slowly, so I didn't think it was too big of a deal.  At the end of our fourth date, it ended with a kiss on the lips (the extent of our intimacy).

After our fourth date, during the week, there was some brief casual texting about how our weeks were going, etc.  The next week, I knew from something he'd previously mentioned he had something big coming up for work, so I texted him good luck on it.  No response.

Whatever.  As I said, things really hadn't gone far and I wasn't too invested, so I had mentally written it off and moved on pretty quickly.  Over a week later, I see my phone ringing - it was him.

At this point, I don't know what to do (except for the obvious one - let it go to voicemail).  Does he think it's ok to just randomly go missing for periods of time and resurface?  However, it doesn't seem like there's any point to confronting him/starting a fight - it's not like we were actually boyfriend/girlfriend or anything.  I listened to the voicemail.  Here is the cliffnotes version (voicemail was around 4 minutes - long & rambly):

"Hey Jaime, it's Andrew...Sorry I've been MIA the past couple weeks, I've been super busy with work (Editor's sidenote:  Of course.)...thanks for sending me a text last week wishing me good luck, that was really nice of you.  Things went all right.  Yeah, I'm calling cause it's been really nice getting to know you, but I don't think it's going to work out.  I just didn't feel enough of a connection.  I didn't want to just not call again, so, uhh, that's why I'm calling (ES: isn't this apparent? did you really need to say that?)...you're a great girl, I'm sure you'll find someone (ES:  Oh fuck off.).  So yeah, I just wanted to wish you good luck."

Anyhow.  I couldn't help but wonder what the hell this was?!  Was this call really necessary?  I'm voting no.  It left me feeling much more annoyed than the thought of him not calling back again.  Who does this?  Isn't there a protocol for when one needs a breakup conversation?  And wouldn't this situation not qualify?  It could have potentially made sense immediately after our fourth date, but at this point, in my book, it truly didn't.

I ran this by quite a jury.  One of my female friends felt that, with the exception of the line about me being a great girl (hardly know you, dude - certainly wasn't concerned about your opinion of my value), it was respectful.  Some of my other friends felt it was foolish and illogical, but the guy meant well.  One of my male friends thought it was a very douche move (several of my female friends share this opinion as well).  Someone else raised an alternative idea.  As I said, he was not very communicative, and he was one of those who was 'super busy with work', so our dates were often short and ended early.  Someone suggested he was perhaps in a relationship and just one who was 'dabbling on the side'.  Maybe he 'broke up' with me out of fear that I would somehow call or text at the wrong time.

What are your thoughts?  Douche?  Nice guy who meant well?  When is a breakup convo necessary?  When is it borderline inappropriate?

Putting A Goal Down In Writing

So, the other day, I was having a conversation with someone where it was addressed that it helps to publicly tell people about a goal as a means of a) being more committed to it and b) having others help keep one in check and lend support.

Anyhow.  With no further ado.

One of my goals is to have a good side tilt.  It's a dance move.  It's pictured above.  Mine right now is REALLY not good.  Especially for my flexibility.  I know this is something that is going to take time, training, and patience.  The main reason I don't have it is I haven't put the time into training it yet.  And, as an adult, sometimes it's easy to just let these things go and accept defeat on some things.

Hence, me creating this blog post.  My goal is to, by the end of October/early November, have a side tilt much like this dude in this picture.   I will post an 'after' photo.  The before picture is too embarrassing.

Please help keep me in check, dear readers.

Snoopy Easter!

From Southwest, With Love?

Thanks for the first birthday wish, Southwest Airlines.