On What Goes Through Your Head When You Think You May Have Met The One

What happens when you meet The One?

Saying no is easy. It’s so simple. No. No. No. No. It’s so easy to say.

Saying yes is terrifying. Because you only get to pick once. And because if a guy will give you everything that it takes to be your soul mate, is he The One?

How do you say yes?

What does it feel like?

How do you stop saying no? When you’re so good at it.

Saying yes means that you trust someone to be the one thing you’ve never been: faithful to someone.

How can you? And when you meet someone, and it is easy – when it is so, so easy, how can you not?

How can you stop staring at the ceiling at night because something real is happening and you’d deluded yourself forever that it wouldn’t?

Is this real? Is it another phase? Is it your settle-down phase that will disappear like all the rest because the parents don’t agree, or the brother hates him, or, worst of all, he winds up figuring out that you’re not worthy of that pedestal?

Is it normal to have someone scare the living daylights out of you because you kind of want to talk to him for the rest of your life, and you kind of want to run away as fast as you can, to Norway or someplace, while you still can?

Is it normal to cry on the phone because their sin costs you so much? And because everything you have ever done wrong in your life is now their problem?

Does it make you crazy when your right knee bounces up and down all day because for the first time in your life you can’t wait one.more.second for him to just end all of this and run off to the county courthouse with you?

And because you’re terrified of what will happen when he really wants to?

Is it normal to want so badly for him to just go away and stop looking at you like that because you’re so afraid you might just break down sobbing because he melts your soul? And for you to be so unspeakably thankful that he is grabbing your waist and won’t let go, because you really don’t know how to say that the second he lets go, you’re going to feel like crying for seventy-two hours?

Is it normal to cry when you get a text from your dad that says, “I don’t know if I like him or not?” with this big, friendly question mark, because it is the most devastating thing in the world, even though how can your dad know? It’s been a whirlwind. He can’t know. He has a clear head and you don’t.

It was a day. One day. You knew him three hours and you told your best friend that he was The One, and he is, which may have nothing to do with whether or not you ever get to marry him….or even kiss him.

Is it normal to keep the flowers he sent you on another desk because it aches for you to be so close to something that he loves so much?

Is it normal to feel like your life is ending if you haven’t heard from him in forty minutes (eye appointment, or more likely he has fallen out of love completely) and to be totally frightened when his best friend says: So! Summer wedding for sure, because the only one single thing in the world worse than not knowing is knowing?

You want to keep it at bay forever, because you’re an incurable pessimist.

Because no one you love this much could ever work.

Because there is no way God is THAT good.

And then you cry because He is that good. And because even though He is good, He may not give you this thing. And because He is not wrong if He doesn’t. But you still hope, you hate yourself for hoping, that He might.

Is this what all of those stupid married people called love at first sight? They acted so naturally, and you wanted to shake them. Until it was you, and you had nothing to say publicly. Just: It’s going fine. When what you want to say is:

I’m exploding.

I can’t keep waiting.

I can’t stop waiting.

I would wait for you the rest of my life.

An iMessage Conversation Between Two Attractive, Attentive Twenty-Something Girls Who Have No Marriage Potentials

Her: The whole thing with [thinking Dan was interested in being more than friends when he wasn’t] made me realize that I’m ready to have a guy in my life…..more so than I allowed myself to acknowledge before. I don’t mean I’m hurt by it, not at all. But it just opened my eyes in a new way. And the hardest part of everything…..there is nothing I can do about it, or any of us.

Me: It’s all so foreign, so faraway, that I’m not sure we’d know what to do. Like if someone came along, I mean.

Her: Exactly. It’s hard for you watch your friends have a boy come into the picture, and the relationship develop, when….why are there no guy options for us?

Me: Yeah. I feel like I don’t understand it. What made him take it to the next level? I get friendship and I get marriage. But the evolution from one to the other just baffles me because it seems like it never happens for, you know, me.

Her: Yes, exactly. I look at you, my sister, myself, and I wonder, Why don’t the guys want to take it to the next level? No, we are not perfect, but we have so much to offer. I feel like we’d all make incredible girlfriends and God-glorifying wives.

Me: Yes. Yes. And then for every guy like Dan who doesn’t pursue a girl like you I lose a little faith in men maybe, or in the institution of marriage; like, I feel that maybe the problem is that nobody is interested in marriage anymore. Maybe we are the problem? Or maybe not. Maybe we haven’t met enough guys? But it seems so easy for everybody else: a guy meets all of those other girls and he said, “I like her enough to make this work”—and he does. HOW? What indistinguishable quality does she have that I don’t?

Her: I know! It makes me feel like I am missing something….or not worth pursuing, but WHY?

Me: Everybody says: YOU CAN’T RUSH IT! It just happens! But it IS happening for everybody else and I’m never even CLOSE to moving from one category to the other.

Why I Hate Guests

I have out-of-town company, and I am vaguely inhospitable and uncooperative with everything. I attribute this to my Hot Little Brother (HLB). Whenever girls meet my brother, they are different afterwards.

I told Boss today that I hate when HLB is nice to nice girls. “Let them figure it out!” Boss said, “If this chick is twenty five years old and hasn’t figured out when a man is playing with her, she’s an idiot.” I disagreed with that, because they – HLB and Boss – have for years used this as their general excuse to destroy all sorts of good, trusting hearts.

They always think that it is the girl’s responsibility to recognize and be impervious to their games, but don’t they realize that it would never work if everyone was as stalwart as they should be around the bad boys?

HLB is a good man; he’s an excellent man. He’s godly and wise, and good with children, and charming, and funny. But he never stays around for anyone; he’s a relationship gypsy, who drifts here and there breaking hearts and not quite meaning to exploit people. These guests of mine are the sweetest ladies, and they have no idea that they don’t stand a chance.

Maybe many girls know this going into it; and I think that’s why I never really mind when he plays around in his own league, with girls who have as much to lose as he does. But I typically become very defensive when he meets my friends, because although about ninety percent of HLB’s victims are plenty deserving, there is a nice girl here and there who thinks she is going to be the one person to tame him, and thinks moreover that his skills for making girls love him are expended on her only.

Boss knew I was in a bad mood today so he rushed back to my office, blowing in around one o’clock with all sorts of excitement and saying that he was going to go take me to see “some skinhead get arrested…..don’t bring your stupid phone, you’ll probably record something accidentally again and you can’t record this!” I accidentally recorded one conversation, once, and have never been able to live it down.

We went out there in a whirlwind, which was a trap for him to give his big speech about HLB. “It’s all about the chase; the kill means nothing,” he told me, “They’ll be okay, just like you are always okay. Let them have a nice time and go back to their own state to remember their week of being flattered and treated like a queen. If they’re really stupid enough to think that your brother has a genuine interest in them, then they’re stupid enough to believe it forever. They’ll probably always look back on this week with butterflies.”

I wished that I could explain that the hardest part is that I am so very susceptible to those things. I am the girl in the world who knows the most about flattery and its ease and deception; and yet, I can be a victim as swiftly as any other girl, and as wholly.

I can lose my head IN A MOMENT,

even knowing

full well

that a piece of flattery is completely made up

and that they are willing to use one line that works

on every girl.

For the smallest, of compliments, I am suddenly ready to give my heart. I wished I could explain that I hate being thus vulnerable, and thus exploited, when from whence my poor heart is, everything means something big and permanent and deliberate. But we work well together, that Boss and I, when I am quiet and let him be right, so instead I asked questions about the skinhead, and said thank you for taking me out here, it is perfect—because that’s what he always does: he finds the best drama and brings it to me, like a cat brings a mouse to the front porch, when I have been a good secretary that week. It’s all that he knows how to do, and I know enough to be grateful for that.

 

A Sad Story About Blogging, Pride and Internet Spam

So, I keep a real blog, in addition to this secret blog, and it is about boring family things, and read primarily by family people, who love seeing additional photo evidences of parties they know they went to and Christmas gifts they know they gave.

The things we do for the people we love…..

Anyway. So. I did what any self-respecting boring family blogger did and went on some XML exporting site and downloaded my whole blog as a PDF and HAD IT PRINTED, HOLLA.

Actually, it was my mother’s idea. She said, and I quote, “Honey, I think that you should print out all of your blog posts in case the internet crashes.” WHAT??

But because she’s my mother,
AND BECAUSE I LOVE HER SO SOOO MUCH,
(and because, who am I kidding, it makes me giddy to read my words on actual white paper with actual standard binding),
I had that book printed up and gave my mom a copy and watched her grin for two weeks
(AND WHO AM I KIDDING AGAIN, I WAS GRINNING TOO FOR THE WHOLE TWO WEEKS).

Okay so. That’s the backstory.

When I got the book, it was beautiful, and it had everyone’s sweet comments on it. It had the comments on blog posts back in 2006 where some boy I was pretty sure I was in love with happened to stop by my site and left an eloquent comment that left me in the clouds for days (I think it was, “Cool post!”). He posted anonymously, but I knew it was him because I tracked the IP addresses regularly; to my dismay, he only visited once, although I blogged with him in mind for a year….or three.

It had all of the comments from my relatives, saying how much they looooooooooved the pictures. At the end, they would always tack on one of the requisite post-scripts:

You’re so pretty, I can’t believe how much you look like your mom!

Your Great-Great Grandma Betty was a writer, too; she would’ve been so proud of you.

I can’t believe you hold down a job AND blog, you can do anything!

They knew that adding one of these three on the end would be sufficient inspiration for me to keep blogging, and since I’m a sucker for compliments…..

It had the comments I added to my own blog: OH I’M SO SORRY GRANDMA I FORGOT TO PUT THAT GREAT PICTURE OF YOUR GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE! And, OH HI COUSIN TJ, SORRY I CROPPED YOUR HEAD OUT OF THAT PHOTO! And other disclaimers designed to keep the peace up in these parts.

But also.

I had forgotten that I have open comments on my blog, and shall we just say? ALL OF THE SPAM COMMENTS EVER POSTED ON MY BLOG MADE IT INTO THAT STUPID BOOK. I never bother to delete the spam comments because, seriously? None of my relatives care. I don’t care.

But now that it’s a book, and now that it’s on our shelf, and now that people can walk in and be all, ‘OH, NO WAY, YOU HAD YOUR BLOG PUBLISHED????’ as though they’re suddenly interested in tracking my blog although I’ve had the link posted on my Facebook for one billion years but still only receive an average of .02 hits per day, and then they start perusing and – WHAT OH MY GOODNESS WHY IS JANE BLOGGING ABOUT VIAGRA AND RUSSIAN MAIL ORDER BRIDES AND WAYS TO TRICK THE IRS INTO FORGIVING YOUR TAXES??

I have had to scribble a disclaimer in the front of my poor blog book, and it seems that no matter how many times I open that book up to peruse it at nights when I want to feel happy about my writing abilities, all I see is (and yes, this is an actual comment that was left on my blog: enjoy):

 

By: Anonymous

I sell a boat-program which will help you to outwit auction and to win, initially the boat was created for the

Scandinavian auction http://internet-aukcion.ru/ but now the program can work with similar auctions: gagen ru,

vezetmne ru and with ten.

The program-boat stakes for you, i.e. for this purpose it is not necessary to sit constantly at the monitor. The boat

can set time when it is necessary to stake, thus you as much as possible will lower expenses for rates, and as much as

possible increase the chances of a victory.

The price of the program a boat for the Scandinavian auctions 20 $

For the _rst 10 clients the price 15 $

To all clients free updating and support.

Behind purchases I ask in icq: 588889590 Max.

 

 

 

P.S. DON’T WORRY, I VERIFIED THE IP’s AND THIS ANONYMOUS IS NOT THE SAME AS THE OLD SEMI-BOYFRIEND ANONYMOUS.

An Update On Jane

A Report: I have been unsociable and unlikely to keep company. I haven't written anything important in over eight months. Boss took me out to the desert last week and I was laughing in the wind with my hair everywhere, and I thought that if I had food and water I could have stayed out there forever. I suppose this means that I am growing up, or maybe that I am only becoming an otherworldly creature who will eventually metamorphosize into a nymph and disappear. Either way, I am very happy. I will try to blog more; I will, I will. 

On Prodigals

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ

Moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line

Nor all they tears wash out a word of it.

 

-Omar Khayyam, trans. E. Fitzgerald

 

It befalls me to announce that my childhood friend, whom we’ll call Barbie, has come back to the Fold. In the years since high school, while I have gone on trying to do good, she squandered her teenage years in blonde ponytails and string bikinis making out with Orange County boys in a series of never-ending bars, going from one forbidden fruit to the next. God rewarded her binge-drinking, rebellion, and dishonor to His name by bringing her to Himself, and in the last year she has become a rather unstoppable force of Christlike Love & Peace, AMEN.

It seems selfish to follow up the theatrical astonishment of this story with a complaint, but I have a rather grievous one and it is this: Barbie's miraculous salvation was followed fairly immediately by any number of astonishing rewards. Everybody accepted her back with immediate and total forgiveness; they trusted her; she acquired an incredible boyfriend (who is the next Hudson Taylor I suppose) and who has oodles of charm, handsomeness and money to go around; she gained sudden relief from several physical quirks making her as beautiful outside as she is becoming within; and on top of that she got a new job, four vacations, sixteen or so maid-of-honor gigs, and God. I have been struggling to rejoice with her, even as I fellowship with her, but this week in Church I somehow stumbled upon Luke 15 and was rather amazed to read about me:

 

And he answered his father, "See how these many years I have served you faithfully,

and never in all of this time have I ever dishonored you or violated any of your wishes,

and yet never have you given me a calf so that I can make merry with my friends,

but as soon as your son comes back, who has squandered your money on

prostitutes, you have thrown him a party and given him your best."

And his father said, "Oh, son. You are always with me, and all that I have will

be yours. It is appropriate that we should celebrate your brother's homecoming;

be glad, because your brother was dead and now he is alive; he was lost, and now he is found."

 

The Bible never says what happened or how the brother responded. How do you respond, when your dad says that the thing your brother missed most was quality family time? I know that staying is not the same as coming back. I know that. But how should I react when Barbie lost mostly fellowship with God? It is the cry of my heart some afternoons -- like this one -- Why, God? Why do you let her disrespect her family and you, burn her bridges, give into sin, stray, and mock You, only to reward her with the restored friendships, the spectacular boyfriend, the eager converts? I am struggling to rejoice with her. I am trying to invest, to choose to be glad for her, and I am.

But I do so wonder what the older son did. How did he enjoy that calf and that supper?

 

I Wish I Could Make You Less Single

A boy I know got married yesterday.

He was one of my favorite men from my youth, when I trotted off to some other state after high school and did disaster relief work and found out about the world.  He was one of the brightest, friendliest, funniest, most well-spoken men I have had the privilege of knowing. We didn't know, really know, eachother and there was certainly no romantic spark because I never like popular boys and because when I was the house-marm at the disaster relief center all of the girls were madly in love with him and I was sworn to secrecy in exhausting long midnight talks and whatnot. But he was a good man, a really good man, and anyhow he married this girl who was about six feet tall with everlasting little legs and some work undoubtedly done to render her especially resplendent, and when a photographer friend of mine blogged the photos she was paid to take at their wedding I marked the post as "Read" immediately because it was discouraging to me.

I feel happy these days, because for better or worse I am surrounded by a little group of people who for whatever reason need me. I feel lucky working for my boss, who encourages me to wait for the right guy and who in the meantime tries to make my life as full as possible. I'm lucky to have a family who believes that I am reasonably good at everything I put my hand to, and a network of friends who with very few exceptions invest more in me than I have opportunities to invest in them. Therefore, I want to be clear that I am not complaining. I am sad, though, because I have a growing number of friends who seem to have been promised any number of things that aren't true. Everybody always said that if you had a beautiful soul everybody would notice, and I have so many thirty and forty year old friends of average looks and glistening personalities who have never even been asked out on a date. I am sad for them because none of what anyone said helped them, and because when it comes down to it, having a beautiful soul doesn't mean anything if no one is fated to come along.

 I am so sad, so heartbroken, for these multitudes of girls who have lived good, unstained lives in honor of the men that they will never meet because the best men command the attention of the prettiest and the most enchanting.

 

How A Text Message Made Me Doubt That I Am Ready To Get Married

My friend texted me that her cousin had had an anorexic "episode" shortly before her wedding, after a lifetime of struggle with anorexia, and had left the wedding before the cutting of the cake due to a fainting incident.

Let me just say: I had NO IDEA HOW TO REPLY.

See, here’s the sitch: It is my immediate thought to display my boorish insensitivity by saying that anorexia, fainting episodes, and the like are silly and theatrical because there is no medical helplessness surrounding grown women who decline sustenance, and because furthermore such women are acting primarily for an audience. I think spells, especially fainting ones, are designed to solicit pity, reassurance, flattery and approval. We are likely to be universally less interested in our own persistent self-doubt than we are in another's opinions, and for this reason public and private spectacles are only further manifestations of the anorexia.

But what do I know? I feel uncomfortable even thinking these things; they make me suspect myself of intolerable insensitivity and lead me to believe that I am unqualified for friendship and all of that. I don't mean to disrespect poor Cousin Sandie (or whatever her name is), and I don't know her and I have no idea of what she has gone through; I'm just saying that she is representative of everybody.

I am not really sad that she cannot eat, because she has the tools (the wheat toast and the concord grapes and the shaved asparagus and the pulled pork) to fix it when eating is, of all the choices in the world, maybe the most obvious.

If I knew Cousin Sandie well I would hurt for her, maybe even ache, but when I got the text all I could think of was sadness because Husband John Doe is now responsible to Cousin Sandie for all of this. Marriage means that no longer is this her problem; marriage means that when Cousin Sandie is sick her husband is, for the rest of his life, inextricably linked to her problems and everything he ever does is either a contribution to her failure or a part of her healing.

Isn't that terrifying?

Isn't such weighty and inescapable responsibility a deterrent to marriage? My own imperfections, every single bad choice I ever make, will be my husband's problem, and I will share in consequences for all of his sins. It is so critical to marry the right person, but no amount of vetting can account for the devastation of fallen humanity. God's grace alone must sustain Cousin Sandie and Husband John Doe in these days ahead, when he married a girl who is in the middle of the worst of this sickness. I am sorry, because love sometimes hurts, and because hope is so important on the day of one's wedding.

Was that completely inappropriate to say? Anyhow, it made me doubt that I am ready for marriage.

 

How I Decided To Become A Mother Someday (And Possibly A Felon)

I am going to get an Asian baby. I am saving up my pennies, and one of these days I'm just going to get one. Asian little girls are all that is right with the world, and as long as one is orphaned, obtaining her is the Lord's Work, obv. So far my scouting efforts will be concentrated on Chinatown, San Francisco, where there has got to be some beautiful little creature being raised by angry lesbians. Since it is a fact well-established that one mother is gentler than two, and since it would be a clear battle of good vs. evil, I think that God would allow the kidnapping without the usual moral ambiguity of peacetime questions about lying under oath, impersonating a law enforcement officer, and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. If you spot a little Asian girl, preferably between one and two years old and surrounded by pretentious communists, please put me on notice. Who doesn't want to be the formidable white mother of a darling child who is genetically inclined to be skinny, brilliant, and very short? Like I said, I'm saving my pennies.

Love & War

Why do we like pain?

Why do we pursue what confuses and makes us angry?

Why is it so exhilarating and thrilling when we are confused and momentarily set back?

I think it is our instinct to be enchanted with the stories of humanity; it is inbred in us to be heroes and victorious, to hope when we see no hope; to thrill when we are in a fight. I don't understand it in other people -- I don't understand my dad and Little Sister, who sometimes make eachother crazy and who consistently find the optimism to try again without any diminishment in the reckless fondness they possess for one another whenever they are not squabbling. I do not understand it, because I am nothing like that: my relationships are tepid and cautious, non-confrontational, mildly sentimental, and reasonably formal. I never fight with anybody, and I never fight with myself about anybody. I do not at all understand my boss who, in all of his marriages, has been with the same person: critical, unimpressed, combative, querulous, and strictly out of love except for in brief, petulant moments of hopeless, irresistible, crazy, affection. I am mild you know: I don't torment folks, and I don't like people who torment me; I am baffled by anger and I try consistently to either defer or give the benefit of the doubt, until it is almost impossible to make me lash out about anything to anyone. I don't understand witchy women at work, who are forward and ugly, who take liberties and boss folks around and criticize them unabashedly to promote themselves so shamelessly that they cannot be liked by anyone, but are slowly given greater positions and coddled by managers who love that security is as easy as hiring an insufferable secretary. I am a model employee: I never question the wrong decisions; I support my boss by quietly suggesting alternatives when I must; I smile, and take wrongs; I am sweet--I am so incredibly sweet--and I choose humility. I have as many opinions as anybody, but absolute control over them.

I hate all of these things in everybody, and I hate all of these things in myself. I see how being a good girl is never as rewarding as being a prodigal; and I see how the goodish boys always fall in love with the girls who they can hate as often as they can love; I can see that conflict is so much more exciting than peace, and yet I cannot seem to stop being given to peace. Lately, I have broken my rules about all of this. I have written to my lifelong guy friend, although I keep disapproving of him more and more as he continues to hurt me more and more. Every time I hear from him I think, he is the worst! I am never talking to him again!--and every time I am five minutes off, I think, If I try a little bit harder, I can fix this. It seems like each time I am defeated I am more disgusted with myself, but each attempt, however futile, keeps me alive, until I am actually convinced that I can change things. That if I try, if I keep trying and hoping, things will be better. After all of those years of friendship I finally hate him as often as I am glad to know him, and it is awful, and terrible, and lovely, and exhilarating. I am the same way with everything that I cannot understand. I love my horrible former boss the longer she resists God, because I am convinced that it will work someday. I am exhausted with people whom I do not understand, and I claim to be so aloof and impervious to the wild joys of untamed people, but eventually, I am just like them. I love the chase and the story; I love the chance that I will be new and different, that I will change somebody. Do you suppose that, after all, the story is behind everything?

Why, again, do we love pain? Why do we find conflict so exciting and dashed dreams so exhilarating? I think that it is within us to be more enchanted with stories than anything else: to thrill at the struggle and to rejoice in the fights because ultimately we love battles (however so awful) better than we like endings (however so happy).

Guacamole & Victoria's Secret

Today I was typing away I was typing away at some financial document or another, while my boss was talking to himself, about some girl the guys had met that day; I tuned him out, until he said, ".....[so-and-so coworker] knows how to work the system, because she dresses just enough like a, well, a whatever, and she displays just enough of that tramp stamp to make everyone think that they have a chance of taking advantage of her...."

"You're saying that she uses her body to make people give her free stuff?"

This is one discussion that I hate. I can never quite resolve myself with it.

"Oh, come ON!" Boss said, "You always act like that surprises you."

"It doesn't surprise me," I said, "It just seems wrong; it seems sad for guys, and sad for her. And sad for good girls. I guess it's probably saddest for good girls, when we always see that so often goodness isn't rewarded."

He launched into a big speech, about me and other good girls. He said that the guys at work that day were just talking about my outfit:  how they had searched for a word for it and had finally come up with "elegant," how they thought it was odd that when I dressed nicely it made them notice me in the opposite way that they would notice that other girl, and he reported moreover that one of the less-smooth guys at my work had declared that, "When Jane dresses like that, she's so classy that we don't want to get into her pants." That is a very crude statement, and I am sorry that I repeated it here, but it is what he said.

I said: "Well, being classy and elegant never got anybody free chips at Chilis."

"THAT AGAIN?" Boss asked me, "Why is it always back to that one screwed-up homeschool girl who you can't stop tormenting from one stupid Facebook post? Why is it always back to her?"

 

----

 

My token lifelong guy friend has several friends whom I can't stand, and I try to always speak kindly about them in his presence, because they are his friends, and because he believes that I dislike all people. When I dislike anyone, I am reluctant to tell him. It makes no sense: just because I dislike a few of his friends does not mean I dislike humanity, and does not mean that I should be afraid to tell him about these things. But that is neither here nor there. One of his friends whom I have always disliked is a brunette who is obsessed with Victoria's Secret sweatshirts and sweat-pants with words plastered on their rear-sections, Tim Tebow, and Ulta. She is vain, reasonably pretty, and thin. I never really disliked her for being pretty, because her younger sister was the equivalent of the Homeschool Barbie, and married before she did; and because there is an unconfirmed rumor that once, a desperately romantic acquaintance either did not recognize, or else declined, a first date with her. If the romantically-effervescent friend like he was turns you down, you know that it is a very sad state of affairs, and therefore I have never disliked her, but have only felt a little sorry for her, year after year, as she continues to be in love with Tim Tebow (she literally has a Facebook fan-club page) and to display her lingerie choices on the outside. (I should note that I have no problems with Victoria's Secret, and indeed I feel pretty and confident when I wear nice things, but what I wear and what I don't will be the business of a maximum of two people in my life: myself now, and my spouse later. Being a public tease is hardly a virtue.) She is not as bad as I am portraying her: she loves Jesus, sings beautifully, and supports her parents even in older life (she's closeish to 30 now?).

That's why it's complicated to like her. And that's why I was very disappointed, shocked maybe, when she posted a Facebook post a year or two ago that has never been more than a few heartbeats away from getting dredged up again. She posted that she hated getting female waiters at restaurants because then she never got free stuff, and mentioned that her waiter at Chilis that night had been a female and that therefore there had been no free chips. This was accompanied by a pitiful sadface emoticon, and everybody from her father to her hangers-on commented with similar sad sentiments and wishes for better luck next time. The status was appalling, for several reasons. First, how would you feel if you were reading that status as a girl who had been in the presence of her fair share of male waiters her whole life, and had never been comp'ed free chips? I am in that category, you know: I am a good tipper, I am a sweet person, I make excellent eye contact as of this year, and I am a very sweet lady, but have I ever been comp'ed free chips & guacamole at Chilis because I'm a girl? Noooo, of course not. The arrogance and cluelessness of poor Jane is initially astounding, because does she not understand that her poor fangirls have never had such a similar experience and that, even if they have, it is not the routine?  Also, the status made me angry because it throws poor men under the bus; is Jane so pretty and airheaded that she imagines that Chilis designates an endless supply of free chips + guac to waiters, so that they may pass them out at will to girls? Her lack of grasp on the simple logistics of the matter makes me think that her expectation of "male waiter = free stuff" must have in some way affected her actual behavior at restaurants. What types of things has she done to pressure guys at Chilis into either lying about her order, or else in spending their tip for her table on buying food for her to munch on while she waits? If she is willing to post a Facebook status like that in front of her bajillion friends, her dad, God, and everybody, do you suppose that she has ever said anything similar at a restaurant? Don't you think she has batted her eyelashes and said, "Oooooooh, you're a cute waiter! Yay! Now we get free chips!"

Of course, the biggest problem is that now every time I go to Chilis, or every time I see a pretty girl get something free when I know she expected it and got it, I end up feeling a little less pretty. While Jane has this supposed ministry to young girls, encouraging them to be lovely and gorgeous in their own way, she slaps them in the face with her own experiences, and renders them not good enough. I have often considered writing to her to talk to her about this; and indeed I had a whole letter planned in my head, which has slowly been revised on five-mile runs over the last year, until it is a dazzling piece of pithy rebuke. I won't send it, because what, really, am I trying to change? A pretty girl who accidentally let it slip that she gets everything she wants based on her looks? I cannot change that. And ultimately, I have no desire to, because although I do not understand beauty, I am glad that there is beauty in the world.

 

-----

 

We heard guys in the hallway, talking; I didn't mean to over-hear them, but I did: ".....There's no way! Jane’s too classy to wear something slutty to the gym."

"SEE?" Boss said, "I'm right. Who cares about free chips when you have control of people's minds?"

I care. I care, because every time a girl acts a little edgily to get free chips, it gives good girls less motivation to be good, and more motivation to do what works. Boss was right, but not about that: he was right that it is always back; back to that one home-schooled girl whom I cannot stop tormenting, and whom I cannot allow to stop tormenting me. Isn't that sad?

 

___

 

Of course, what I did not say at work is: when you make everything raw and objective, isn’t the point of being a girl, ultimately, and crudely, that what makes you a girl is the fact that guys want to get in your pants?

Wherein Jane Becomes Brave

This Sunday afternoon, I received a call while I was napping. I like Sunday Naps. When other things are going on around me in the world, and when I am quite busy, I still take Sunday Naps; they're somewhat of an institution. (An exception is last week, when I worked through the afternoon and into the night creating these.) I awoke from sleep, briefly, to ask Little Brother to silence my phone, and then I went back to work, and was startled awake at 6:45 pm--later than I ever nap--to a sort of disoriented haze. My first thought was: I have slept through the night, and I need to leave for work in seventeen minutes! But I hadn't. I checked my phone, as a matter of course, and saw the Google Transcription:

 

This is ABC security services with a message for Jane. We have received a burglar alarm at the residence of John Doe, 18000 Main Street, Small Town, Big State. If you have any questions, please call back at this number. Authorities will be notified. Thank you.

 

I panicked. I have been watching my bestie’s house while she’s on deployment and everything has been so benign there. When the burglar alarm went off on this particular day, I slept through it. I was still sleepy and disoriented, so I called back the security company and they confirmed that since I didn't take the call, the police were dispatched to the house. "We didn't hear back from them," the bored-sounding alarm lady told me, "Which is customary in cases where no threat is found."

I called Bestie’s Google Voice number, which she can access occasionally, and left a voice-mail keeping her apprised. I felt that I had failed her in some way, although I had not, and I woke up my Big Brother (who has no policies against sleeping after 6:45 pm) and dragged him over to the house with me. We both forgot our phones, which is odd because we are never anywhere without our phones. I told him that we would just cruise through the house and make sure nothing was missing. Anyway, when we were laughing and talking on the way up to the door, I paused, heart suddenly thudding: behind the security screen, the front door was open.

THE FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN!

I am not the type of person to display any degree of courage. I shrink from adventure, and I pretend that conflict does not exist. Big Brother said, breezily, "Let's clear the house." I followed, because I have been becoming a follower; sometimes I don't recognize myself anymore. I have been more trusting, more vulnerable, more willing. WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING TO ME? It is a good thing in my pursuit as a lady, but a poor thing for safety & security in the face of potential home invaders. The alarm went off when we pushed the door open, so I typed in my code, and then Big Brother grabbed a pool stick, broken down, with the screw-end out and the girthy end in his hand, while I walked behind him, silently, as he went to each room and each closet.

 

I’m adventured out.

 

Pampered Chef Magic

I wish that I could adequately explain to you the horror I feel concerning multi-level marketing. Marketing in general scares the daylights out of me, but asking your friends for money, and preying upon their friendship to request money, makes me squeamish in a way that very few things do. Unfortunately, because of this, I am particularly susceptible to marketing, multi-level marketing, and am likely to preserve friendships by showing up at parties when I would rather be almost anywhere else. It is all very convoluted.

 

I have a friend whom I’ll call Jenny, and for about the last eight months she has relentlessly invited me to Pampered Chef parties at her house. I haven’t the foggiest interest in Pampered Chef: I’m twenty five, I live with my parents, and we have a well-stocked kitchen. That’s what I should tell her when she asks me. It would be so simple. But I never do that. I just make up excuses (of which there are plenty of good ones, thankfully) and she seems to regard me as a social butterfly and admire my continual lack of availability as an indication of social standing, which only makes her more zealous in pursuing me to attend her parties. It’s a vicious cycle. Finally, a few weeks or months ago, she came to my office and cornered me in such a way, and at such a time, that I could not offer a single excuse, and therefore agreed to go to her party. Two days ago, she called me up, giggly, to remind me “about Monday!” I had totally forgotten the party, had other events tentatively scheduled (funny, right?), and my car is currently in the shop, so I am driving a borrowed mini-van that is basically NOT MINI AT ALL, and who wants to roll up to a Pampered Chef Party with a borrowed car, making it look like you borrowed a soccer-mom van JUST TO FIT IN AT THE PARTY??

Laaaaaame.

It was just.....I am SUCH a hermit that I was so not thrilled about going. That’s all there is to it.

 

BUT.

As it turns out.

IT WAS A MAGIC SHOW.

 

I went through the catalog immediately and flagged a few pages where there were cheap, non-bulky items my mother wouldn’t mind introduced into her kitchen. Meanwhile, the hostess began to address us, while shoving pizza dip at us.

PIZZA DIP.

Like liquid pizza, I am not even kidding.

 

She was a formidable, bejeweled manifestation of a “Pampered Chef Consultant,” was wearing numerous diamonds and bracelets apparently to show off her lucrative commission checks, she made endless jokes about her own weight (which has got to be among the surest ways of making everybody awkward), and she showed us various important items that we would never use in our real lives. Meanwhile, Jenny’s million cats were around me creeping me out by scratching the couches from the inside out, and I felt like the room was claustrophobic and snobbish. Too, I think it was a throwback to my childhood, when my mother was invited to a Tupperware party. We were legitimately poor and my mom bought six small cups, and I felt like everybody looked down on her because she just bought six plastic cups. (We still use the cups to this day; they are about twenty years old.) There are few things that make me angrier than one of my mother’s so-called “friends” acting in such a way that makes her cry. She is a beautiful, thoughtless, unselfish woman who is diligent and has a good spirit, and when someone makes her cry I always feel helpless, and particularly helpless when I was young. Around the time that the room was closing in on me, the Consultant began a miraculous show by pulling out sundry overpriced cranberry-colored stoneware and walking over to the microwave.

“Do you want to see a TRICK?” she asked.

NOOOOO, GET ME OUT OF HERE!

“SEE?” she said, popping a large raw chicken into the pot and sprinkling it with herbes de provence. “SEE?” She covered the pot, with only the chicken and the herbes de provence inside, threw it in the microwave, and proceeded to talk about her commissions and sales until she opened the door, whipped the lid off the pot triumphantly, and presented to us a roasted chicken, as though it was fresh from the rotisserie at Costco.

 

It was exactly like a magic show in Vegas, only instead of making live birds appear out of a hat, it was a very-much-deceased bird in a clay pot, and we were all digging our forks into it.

 

IT WAS SO MACABRE YOU HAVE NO IDEA, naturally, but it was SOOOO delicious too, which is basically unfair, and it was the finest chicken I had tasted in a very long time. I thought: My mother would love that pot, and we would eat chicken-and-herbes-de-provence twice a week!

 

It was the finest Pampered Chef Party anybody has ever been to. I purchased four things: a microwave rice-cooker, a microwave vegetable cooker, a mini muffin pastry shaper, and herbes de provence.

 

In conclusion: I AM GOING TO SCOUR eBAY THE INSTANT I GET HOME BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY I AM PAYING EIGHTY DOLLARS, EVEN FOR A MIRACLE POT.

But boy, was that chicken delish.

 

 

How To Wind Up Dead In An Alley Somewhere

I am about to tell you a story outlining why I believe that my female coworker will shortly wind up dead. She met a gentleman on the internet (back to the Plenty Of Fish sludge) last Saturday night – meaning four and a half days ago – when he sent her a message, noting that her profile was “gorgeous” and that she appeared to be his soul mate. She found nothing odd in this declaration, and they struck up conversations using his Yahoo Messenger (!) where he went by a handle with any number of romantic epithets (to include lover, soul, and romance) in a continuous string ending with @yahoo.com.

He launched into his life story and the searching out of her being, by declaring that he was successful in business as a structural engineer from London, residing in Hollywood, currently residing in Hong Kong because of a job upon which he could not elaborate, and did not want to elaborate upon why he could not elaborate. By Sunday morning, when she texted me, she had adjusted to Hong Kong time and having a boyfriend, and they were calling eachother, Love and Babe.

By Monday, he was writing her poetry and explaining how they were indeed two parts of a whole. Moreover, the emails were beginning to repeat themselves, as I noticed, although Coworker seemed oblivious of the fact and when I gently mentioned it, she cited those notorious Hong Kong internet servers. Parts of emails do not repeat themselves, clearly, but I sit next to Coworker, and she receives enough grief from everybody else about her sketchy love life, so I kept my mouth shut and smiled at intervals. She declared that she was worse than a school girl, and although that is difficult to quantify, she was.

Monday night she gave him her physical address and accepted his challenge to ‘trust’ him by forwarding secret papers to her, for her safekeeping. She agreed quickly, of course, and showed me the papers, outlining his three million dollar contract to plan a bridge in Hong Kong. The documents were scanned in, guaranteeing their virtual permanence, however she printed them off and kept them in her safe. By that time I had begun to worry, because I had a nagging feeling, at the back of my mind, that I had heard a similar story too often before; of insecure women, of men who invest less than a week in readying their weaknesses without so much as one sext, and of getting them to give their hearts (which Coworker has: she is planning outfits for the Christmas party, quite literally, as well as honeymoon destinations) before sending secret documents managing to suggest wealth, claiming to be across the ocean (so as to put at bay healthy inhibitions about divulged personal information), and eventually arrive with shadows and knives and death. At Boss’ request, I already had a discussion with Coworker on her re-entrance into what he calls “the game,” after her thirty-year monogamous spell, and safe sex practices. But this seems too much, especially for a good girl like myself, and I find myself unsure of how to proceed. They say men are stupid when it comes to sex, but women are worse, when it comes to flattery.

Isn't that sad?

Happy Endings

I usually run Monday nights, but this particular night, I parked in the parking lot of “Winco Foods” – an employee-owned company – and picked up my Bestie. I always wanted to be in a wedding, and the only time I was actually asked, I came down with the pox (chicken) on the day of the rehearsal. Now, I am in three weddings, upcoming. Bestie is one of the brides, and instead of behaving as normal people do and asking folks to select appropriate dresses from David’s Bridal, she opted to buy dresses from a private shop in a big metropolis city. If you know anything about my homestate and this particular big city, you’ll know that it is the type of town where white girls do not go. I went there with Bestie, who is Hispanic and does not speak a word of Spanish, so I was less of an oddity than was she. We talked on the trip, planned, and laughed, without any hurry.

 

When we got to the small shop, its proprietor and, I suspect, sole employee was watching us, politely. She had a $.49 college ruled notebook with a number of small pictures and scribbled notes, in Spanish, cursive. One of the notes said, “Jan” –(me?) she pointed to it. I nodded, and her expression did not change. She glanced at the photo I’d brought, from Google Images, of a Temple Dress, and blinked slowly, as though she was bored. “Ok,” she said.

“That’s all she needs: to just look at the picture?” I asked Bestie.
Bestie said the, I’ve Seen Her Work and the, I Know She’s Good: Why Do You Suppose She’s Charging Ninety Dollars? I thought there was some confusion, certainly: bridesmaid dresses are not supposed to be as inexpensive as ninety dollars, even in sweat shops; and for someone to design a dress from that scrap of a color photo seemed unrealistic.

“Ok,” I said.

The woman was done measuring me, then, and we went to Bestie’s family’s houses, scattered across the city. They spoke in English and didn’t seem to treat me as a friend or a stranger: I was just there, and we dialogued openly. Bestie did not introduce me. I ate something they called ice-cream cake, which was neither. I politely regarded a cat named Cardboard (?) and a dog that didn’t seem to have a name. Then I got a call from Katie, another of “my” brides, who was talking, through hysterical tears, about her rehearsal dinner. Katie, characteristically expressionless, has been transformed into a pool of emotions upon her engagement, and I patiently listened while Bestie went into a small Chinese restaurant to buy us food.

 

I looked up at the sign; it said, “HO-HO CHINA.” The window had a sign with a “B” rating. The car was dark, so I ate the food, half of it anyhow, and saved the rest for my mom, then drove home in the rain. We’ll see how the dress comes out. When my mother ate my leftovers, in the daylight, she found all sorts of odd pork skins, with the chicken; they were crackly and had little black dots, where the spiny hairs should have been. It was, most certainly, something other than the sign implied, that of Chinese with a happy ending.

 

On Singleness, Part Three

In September, I’m writing about singleness. You can read Part One here, and Part Two here. I feel bold and empowered because this blog is anonymous! It’s nice, natch.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I am single because I am too content. I am incredibly happy, at home. I have overcome all of the angsty behavior of youth when I fretted about responsibility and independence, and these days I am perfectly comfortable as a professional woman who lives with her parents to honor their desire to protect her. I am obedient when I need to be, healthfully willing to respectfully disagree and come to mature compromises on everything else, good friends with all of my family members, and just generally very happy. I work with a group of more than sixty men and I am the only single girl under 40 in my company, I am routinely given attention that far exceeds a normal girl’s usual need for male affirmation. My coworkers are primarily in middle age and although they would’ve never chosen me in youth (and indeed selected one or more wives that are nothing like me) they find now that I seem to represent everything by which they are now enchanted. They adore me, compliment me, and (most importantly for my emotional equilibrium) consult me seriously and routinely about everything from finances to fashion. It ends up that I spend more time with them than any other human being in their world, in most cases including their wives and children and coworkers, and by perfecting techniques that I learned at The Lakes, I am the loveliest secretary I can be: I listen, and laugh with a certain wondering giggle that suggest that I have never heard anything quite so entertaining as what they just said. I love my job, and if you were to ask me on any given day, I have likely satisfied my possible quota of compliments needed in a 24-hour period. (I should note that I conscientiously honor their wives by my demeanor, speech, intentions, and appearances. I am utterly devoid of suggestiveness, create no awkwardness by behaving in a sexually aggressive way, dress carefully to be attractive without being irresistibly sexy, show no cleavage as a rule, and pursue friendships with their wives, who often tell me that they are so thankful to know that when their husbands go to work, they are safe with me.)

It is incredible and flattering, and they make me feel lovely and ladylike and even (when I walk into a room and they all abruptly stop discussing it) sexy. They make it easy to be caught up in the artificial comfort that comes from having all of the luxuries of affection without any of the responsibilities. When I get home this, added to my happiness at home, makes it easy to be apathetic about change.

 

And then, I am also the type of person who always thinks the worst. I am cheerful, happy, funny, and ladylike, but I am far from an optimist, and while everybody goes on becoming progressively more hopeful because they cannot help themselves, I grow more and more settled into the deep conviction that things will turn out however they are destined to (usually poorly) and that I must be joyful despite unavoidable disappointment. I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing: I have spent so much time expecting the worst that it feels like I am always genuinely surprised when nice things come along. This may be one of those times, because of course anything can happen, but I truly have both gone so long believing, and have had so great reason to do so, that no one will ever come along for me, that the matter feels settled entirely. I pray boldly – for the specific things that I want (YOU MUST! READ! THIS!), for a good man to come along, but I don’t feel I am entitled to one and I certainly do not feel, as though some girls do, that they are very likely one heartbeat away from the start of some sprawling, gorgeous story that will, in its far-reaching happiness, either explain entirely the past, or else completely eradicate it with overwhelming joy. I am not that sunny girl who believes that a Prince Charming will just come along, and luckily so: if I were that girl, I’d just be a 25-year-old with worn dreams and uninspired promises. I feel like I am the opposite: robust, willing, content, and happy. So very happy.

 

A few months ago, my parents realized that there were no boys left to be considered. The conversation went something like this:

Mom: Jane, what about that nice boy Jake you used to know?

Me: Oh, he’s married now.

Mom: Married? What?

Me: Yes, as married as a boy can possibly be. A ring, too. Titanium, I believe.

Mom: Well, what about Charles?

Me: Girlfriend, long term. Public Displays of Affection in city parks.

Mom: What about Joseph?

Me: Two kids. A mini-van. He knows how to make empenadas now, too.

Mom: And Matthew?

Me: Live-in girlfriend. Curly hair. Road trips.

 

And on this went, down what I realized was my mother’s Y2K-esque list of post-apocalyptic boy options, to be brought out when everybody else had excused themselves from the pool of possibilities for one reason or another. I heard her telling my father, afterwards, that, “Jane wasn’t just BEING JANE when she told us that there was no one left. THERE IS LITERALLY NO ONE LEFT, HONEY.” She was alarmed, and what resulted was an expected flurry of sudden and frantic strategization for getting me to meet somebody. Everyone (LITERALLY EVERYONE, HONEY) had already moved from the “maybe” column to the “no” column for me long ago, but I remembered the overwhelming confusion I had experienced when they did, in realizing that in order to  marry somebody, I have to first meet him. So I gave them time, as I once gave myself, time to grieve. But my parents are (unlike me) perpetual and unconquerable optimists, and their planning and alarm led them to asking me, very quickly, if they thought there was anything I should be doing to make myself more available. I was glad to listen because they were right to interrogate and question me me: my current style of living has no possibility for new introductions. I go to work early; I get off late; I work out; I come home; I go to bed; and I repeat it all. On weekends, I fix up my investment house; and I attend a darling little church with fewer than a hundred members and among them not one possibility for marriage.

 

It’s not that I am against possibilities, because Lord knows I am not, and let me say that in spite of my deep resignation to being unmarryable forever and ever, if I knew what to do I would be doing it. But I don’t want to do the usual things like take a college class or join a dating site, and what is left? The thing is, I’ve worked really hard during my single years. I’ve taken time to be thoughtful, lovely, responsible, diligent, forward-thinking, and I like to think that I can expect someone who has been at least similarly self-motivated. I am twenty five years old, and I have a good job, I own a home, and have $45k in the bank saved from my earnings. I don’t need a college student, however dreamy, who is figuring his life out experimentally. I’m already the possessor of an old and matured soul: I don’t want to marry somebody who needs a mentor or, worse, a benefactor. And the internet dating scene is equally suspicious, because I do not necessarily want someone to be so familiar with the computer real that he is likely to be profoundly comfortable spilling his soul on a screen. I work and live with a father and coworkers who are diligent and strong, and seem to rely on me for all of their primary electronic communications. I like that very much. (Besides, no one on any internet dating site is ever as tall as me, and I do not want to feel like an Amazonian Freak of Nature if I have to bend down to hold someone’s hand or, worse, make out with him. I’ve never heard of anyone on a dating site being taller than my height of 5’8”—have you? Thought so. Just keeping it real here, folks.)

But what else is there?

 

When my parents called a family counsel convened to discuss the issue indirectly, dad said that maybe when fishing we ought to go where the fish were, and dear momma said that perhaps we ought to consult the One who made the fish, and my brother said that maybe we should do that for our literal fish suppers too as long as we were just being resigned to everything, and so on, until the group was talking in allegorical circles without consulting me. I finally interrupted and said, “I am doing the best I know how! If I knew where to fish, I would be fishing, and since I do not, have asked the fish and the fisherman and the one who made the fish and all that, and that is certainly all anybody can ask.”

 

That shut them up, but I still feel as though I do not have the foggiest idea what I am doing.