Not So Bad After All

I know there aren't a lot of you reading, so it's unlikely anyone wonders where I've gone when I don't post - I still feel remiss in neglecting my little web-home. I've been temping, I've been sick, I've been writing a musical and learning to garden. I'm still nursing a nasty cold, and the headache is keeping my brain from having much of interest to say. But it does want to say this:

I have some really, really awesome friends, and that is pretty much the best thing in the whole world. Friends and family. As much as I sometimes (often) hate people categorically, there are a whole lot of people that I love individually. And so, life is good.

a/s/l ?

Living in a city where I know no one, and facing the task (rather daunting for the shy kids of the world) of meeting new people, I've been thinking about the phenomenon of meeting people and how it's changed over time, especially recently. (And since I don't know anyone I have oodles of time to sit around and think about these things - doesn't that work out well?)

This also coincides with someone I know trying out the eHarmony thing - the first person I know to give this particular site a shot. (I have, in the past, known people who've done the J-Date thing, and people who've done the Craigslist personals thing. No, not casual encounters, the regular personals. And people who've met significant others in chat rooms/on message boards.) I happen to think it's fantastic that this person is finding out who's online - it's just helped fuel my musings on the subject, hearing about the firsthand experience.

It's the era of the internet: chat online, bank online, buy clothes/books/furniture online, rent videos online, find apartments online, so why not browse for potential friends and mates online? Shopping for people, without all that messy interpersonal interaction. The fiberoptics and satellites keep everything nice and distant. Doesn't it sound perfect?

What I've started to realize is that so many of us are so lost when it comes to meeting people that these 'shopping' sites are the only ways we can figure out how to do it. I won't make claims about what caused this phenomenon, but I think a lot of you will agree that this is the reality. Perhaps there are still small towns somewhere in America where people grow up with their neighbors, marry their high school sweethearts, and spend every Fourth of July at block parties with the same people they've known for many years. In most places - at least in the densely populated places I've lived - the art of meeting people seems to be nearing endangerment.

People do still pick people up in bars (apparently), but how many people do you know who've had a relationship longer than 24 hours with people they met that way?

Perhaps I'm completely off the mark. Perhaps I'm simply demonstrating how out of touch I am with the social interactions happening all around me. But I can't count how many times I've had the same conversation with friends: "How are we supposed to meet people?!"

What I've begun to wonder is if this move to virtual, often carefully constructed meetingplaces is unavoidable. If half the people in this town are shopping on eHarmony and Match.com, does that mean they're not out meeting people face to face? Are they too busy 'reviewing their matches'? Does that mean that if I go out to meet people in 'real life' the pool will be reduced to half the local population? That sounds like more incentive to look online, and so the cycle is perpetuated.

In the end, though, is it really any better to look to meet people online than at the local coffee shop? The bottom line is still the same - you risk rejection either way. Is it enough of an improvement to be rejected in the privacy of your own home, in front of the computer, instead of in a public place, that it's worth losing the opportunity to to meet a whole person instead of some disembodied words? Is the face to face rejection really so bad that we'd rather stay in our houses and miss the chemistry that can happen when two people are in the same room? (Can there possibly be chemistry through the computer?)

This doesn't solve the problem, of course. We still don't seem to know how to meet people - where to go, what to say, how to not feel totally awkward or to be brave enough to take the risk. I don't know if there's a solution, but if we've reached a point where we're collectively becoming more and more okay with saying "yes, I want to meet someone badly enough to pay $30 a month for the chance that I'll find someone whom I like who likes me too, and who also happened to sign up for the same website" then maybe - just maybe - we can take one more leap and say "I want to meet someone badly enough that I'm willing to go out into a public place and be awkward and say the wrong thing and hope that someone else is willing to be awkward and possibly foolish too, and if nothing else we can share our awkwardness (because the odds of encountering someone totally smooth and not awkward at all seem incredibly small)."

Could we say that? If we're brave enough to have adopted the once totally stigmatized world of online dating into the mainstream, can we be brave enough to turn to a stranger and say hello?

Have I just talked myself into something?

Better Things To Do

I find myself, at this moment, most of the way through a weekend that has been....well, awesome. It's been the kind of weekend where I forget about all the trivial crap that I get so cranky about day-to-day, and just get to enjoy the really good stuff. Even the stressful parts of the weekend have been things that really matter - which seems so much more worthwhile than getting stressed out about a stupid part time job or the logistics of moving 1000 miles. It's been the kind of weekend that hasn't been "perfect" but has been exactly right. I wish more of life could be like this weekend.

And it's all going by so fast. How can it be the middle of June already?! It's now only two months until the Big Move, which I still can't believe. I guess that just means I need to make the next two months more like this weekend, and less like last week. (Last week was pretty well summed up by "urgh.")

But I shouldn't be spending this afternoon in front of the computer. Blogging is fun, but I'm pretty sure I have better things to do....

Happiness Is.... *

- ...a warm blanket.
- ...a long drive.
- ...a bright moon on a clear night.
- ...a problem well solved.
- ...a good, long belly laugh.
- ...the perfect song coming up on iPod shuffle.
- ...getting into my very comfortable bed at 2:30am.
- ...having such a great night that I completely forget the morning ever even happened.
- ...knowing tomorrow will be just as good.
- ...being continually reminded of the good stuff even in the midst of the bad stuff.
- ...having caring, compassionate, totally awesome friends.
- ...knowing that some things will never really change, just get better and better.
- ...finally seeing the forest and not just the trees.
- ... ...

* with thanks/apologies to Charles Schultz

Now and Then

I am watching "Becoming Jane" (quite enjoyable though inarguably a chick flick), and I'm wondering what it would be like if my friends and acquaintances and I were subject to the social rules of Jane Austen's era.

I can sort of imagine it with some of my girlfriends: our email exchanges would all be handwritten letters, of course, but I doubt we'd be any less cheeky in composing their content. Of course, it would be strange and rather terrible if our lives consisted of nothing more than writing those letters.... and reading, and doing needlepoint. No trips around the country by ourselves, no jobs, no crazy adventures.

It would also be a mighty shame if an unmarried girl weren't allowed to spend time alone with a boy to whom she wasn't related... though perhaps it would be less of a tragedy in a world without all-night IHOPs and good beer.

But it would be funny to watch the same relationships play out under a wildly different set of rules. Would they still be the same, I wonder? Or are even those parts of our lives dependent on our times and circumstances? Would my friends not be my friends if we couldn't have the same conversations, or the same experiences? Then again, would we ourselves even be the same people if we'd lived at a different time?

Idle speculation, I suppose. "What if?" with no answer.

I hope that our circumstances let our stories develop happily. We shall see.

Not Such a Bad Day After All

The highlights reel:

- alarm at 9:30 feels like vacation
- rolling down the windows
- being pleasantly surprised
- wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt all.day.long.
- kids and books
- more kids, yelling barely intelligible but hilarious insults at professional athletes
- asking dumb questions and being made fun of...but getting answers
- winning 2-1 in the 9th
- enough warm clothes to be just the right amount of cozy
- "He sounds cute."
- a walk in the night air (without getting mugged)
- ridiculous, awesome friends

**(People might think blogs are written for the readers, but that is perhaps a lie.)

Wishful Thinking

I wish I could make the mail arrive faster.
I wish I could rearrange geography.
I wish I could fix the things that upset my friends. I wish I could do more to help.
I wish I could see the future, just for a second.
I wish I would get a check in the mail for a million dollars, tax free.
I wish I could park my car for more than fifteen minutes, anywhere, without worrying about getting ticketed or towed.
I wish I didn't hate how I spend half my waking hours.
I wish I could worry less about everything and everyone.
I wish people could and would just say things, without all the complications.
I wish the weather could be perfect more than three days a year.
I wish my phone wasn't starting to suck just a little.
I wish I could spend more time with the people that matter to me.
I wish the places where I feel truly safe were places I could stay and not just pass through.
I wish there was less waiting.
I wish I was too busy with all the good stuff....

Priorities

Sometimes you go out on a Wednesday night and don't get to sleep until 3am, even though you have to be somewhere at 9:30am on Thursday. Sometimes that leaves you tired enough to actually fall asleep facedown on the awful shag carpet in your living room in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes you still go out that night, but vow that you'll go home early and get to bed since you have work at 8:30 Friday morning. But sometimes someone buys you just one drink, and you stay up until 2am doing nothing - laughing - anyway. And sometimes it's really worth it. Sometimes it's exactly what you need.

Pickup Truck of Death

The last time I was on a bicycle was several years ago (much to my roommate's chagrin). My friend was last on a bicycle at least ten years ago. That is, until yesterday, when we decided to ride twenty miles - ten out, ten back - on bikes we dug out of the basement, one of which ostensibly fit her and one that was blatantly too small for me. We crammed the bikes in the back of the car, drove to the parking lot, donned our dusty helmets, and congratulated ourselves heartily on making it from the car all the way to the beginning of the path.

We considered riding the whole trail - 22 miles each direction - but once we found ourselves stopping every mile or two we changed our minds. It turns out that resting all of your bodyweight on, essentially, the top of a narrow pole is extremely uncomfortable. As in, I'm very much still sore in very inconvenient places, and probably will be for several days.

Fortunately we managed to avoid meeting motorized death at any of the road crossings, and were mostly able to ride side by side so as to hear each other's snarky comments and jokes along the way.

The weather was beautiful, the picnic lunch by the hard-to-find lake was chilly but nice... and I won't be getting back on a bike for at least another five years.

But a weekend out of town, with sunshine and fresh air and really good (completely uncomplicated) company is the best cure for almost any ill...or for many ills at once. It doesn't actually solve the problems, it just makes them seem a lot less problematic. Or, at the very least, it gives you a respite from thinking about them, worrying about them, being sad about them, trying to solve them.

Find a friend to visit or put a tent in your trunk and go. Now. Go.

A Tale of Two Cities

I want to go down to 3rd and Lindsley and run into all the people I used to see at the Lounge. I want a spicy chocolate chocolate chip cookie from Fido after dinner at Diva. I want two homes and a private plane.

I want to tell my friends that I’m not really leaving, I’ll just have a slightly longer drive to meet up with them. I want to believe that there will be no sense of loss, just a geographical redistribution. I want to say that I know it won’t be easy, but what’s (and who’s) important won’t change. I don’t know how it’ll work, I just know that it will.

On the Spot

Over dinner, recently, one of my friends turned to another and said "not to put you on the spot, but...." and proceeded to suggest that the second friend do his impression of me.

Friend 2 clearly did feel put on the spot. I was quite surprised that I'm worthy of being impersonated at all; I was nervous about what this impression might reveal about how these friends perceive me, on the one hand, but on the other hand was silently daring Friend 2 to do go ahead and do it and risk offending me. He decided to go ahead because, as he later explained, that was the only way to show me it 'wasn't bad.'

Well, I have yet to decide whether or not it was 'bad'. It was an impression of me leaving a voicemail - I'm well aware that I leave ridiculous voicemails, because I hate phones and hate leaving messages, but I didn't realize I sounded quite that ridiculous. The (brief) performance seemed up to par as far as the rest of the table was concerned. I was also amused, partly by the impersonation but perhaps even more so by Friend 2's concern that he'd insulted me. When I decide, I'll let him know.

He should rest assured, though, that it will always be (at most) secondary to the infamous "oh my god! You look like a GIRL!!" Isn't it funny when you start to find out what your friends really think of you?

Things You Leave Behind

It's funny how things can change so fast. One day you're meandering through your twenties, minding your own business, and the next thing you know you're a few months away from uprooting completely and starting a new life in a new time zone - new apartment, new friends, new school (for the first time in a long time). New you. And there's a lot you'll have to leave behind.

- Impromptu dinner parties with The Girls, who make you laugh harder than anyone you've ever known.
- Friday nights out at The Spot, where you're genuinely happy to see the people who stop to say hello.
- Ice skating in the park.
- Ice cream cones in January.
- That one view of the city that you still love, even on days when you can't wait to leave town.
- Your roommate's cat who barfs at least once a week but still manages to be quite endearing.
- The dive bar in the 'burbs you all end up at until much too late on a weeknight because you just can't help yourselves.
- Remembering what used to be in the storefronts where the chain restaurants have since moved in.
- Those rare perfect days when the wind lets up and the sky is the most beautiful shade of blue.
- The friend's family who have taken such good care of you when you needed it most.
- The friend with the extremely expressive face to match the extremely snarky sense of humor. The friend you've known since at least two lifetimes ago. The new friend who you hope won't get lost in the move. The friend who helped this whole change to happen in the first place.

And so much more. Bad stuff too, but you never think of the bad stuff when the melancholy of leaving sets in. It's all wistful glances backward at the good times that were had.

There are many reasons to go, better than the reasons for staying. The new town, new school, new career path, new you all promise to be not just new but improved - that's the big selling point, right? You'll be new and improved and there will always be long drives back to visit and see how much has changed since you left.

It was twenty years ago that you cried over the ugly, broken dining room chandelier that was being replaced. Even then you knew that the new light would be so much better, but you couldn't help being sad for the loss of the one you'd always known. Is trading one city for another any more or less trivial? Any more or less difficult? At least Boston won't be sent to the garbage dump on Monday morning.