http://www.newsweek.com/id/105585?GT1=10755
However, we’ve yet to see any petite supermodels… One of my deepest, darkest hidden peeves is the fact that I share my Slovakian heritage with Karolina Kurkova…but obviously none of her chromosomes!
Called it: NorCal is still playing Belle hot and cold and she swears him off at least once a day. I’ve been trying very hard not to scream “I TOLD YOU SO” at the top of my lungs, because she’s still talking to him and I’ve a feeling he’s not totally out of the picture yet.
Other than that, I’m biting the bullet and succumbing. The Writers’ Strike has to end, because it has started to seriously affect my judgements and principles. I watched Cashmere Mafia for the second week in a row…and I would like to apologize (while making it simultaneously clear that I will probably be watching it again next week unless the gods take pity on us mere mortals). I miss Pushing Daisies…will the inhumanity never end?!
Know what I hate? Money. Oh, how I hate it.
Scratch that: I’m really rather fond of it, what I hate is not having as much of it as I’d like. I pay my own way for school, housing, food, work, and fun. Between Christmas and my tax refund, I subsist from hand to mouth–and this year has been exceptionally unkind especially in recent months. I swear a little piece of me dies inside at the beginning of every semester when I write a big check with a lot of zeros. Which isn’t to say I’m a Scrooge, I just like to make sure that I stay in the black. To that end I buy cheap when I need to and quality when I can, budget smart, save often, and work hard.
But that doesn’t mean my dreams and ambitions are equally easy to budget. In my head I’m a future corporate badass who can afford more shoes and a hard attitude. My life is, of course, is not nearly as cool as my fantasies and I have trouble syncing them with my Western college town reality. I can’t wait to get my degree and get a job. With an actual salary. And dental benefits.
In the meantime I have work to do and a living to scratch out. Which makes my lusting after every handbag I’ve seen so far in Cashmere Mafiathat much more acute…
Sometimes, I can’t help but feel it would be far more relaxing to be a man in some ways. Men aren’t required to keep up inter-personal relationships, the duties of birthday reminders, holiday gifts, scheduling time with friends, and so forth, seem to fall to their wives, mothers, sisters, and secretaries. But us girls are required to drop everything and come running whenever someone hooks up, breaks up, moves in, moves out, get promoted, gets fired, or has some sort of scandalous adventure. And we are also required to be completely and utterly enthralled by each separate event: laugh, squeal, boo, condole, and bitch as necessary and with genuine enthusiasm. Let me tell you, if you have interesting friends as I am lucky enough to, you had better have one seriously big energy reserve!
Tonight, I have been called in on girlfriend duty! Belle has a new man in her life. Well, not so much as new as a recurring character who fades in and out. I haven’t even met the boy and I want to like him, but he said something to her which makes me question his manhood a bit. He and Belle have done this thing for a while where they flirt shamelessly through email, texting, and phone tag, but whenever it came to actually hanging out he would back out at the last minute. Belle (who gets props for sheer balls) actually called him on it.
“So, want to hang out sometime this week?” he asked. About the tenth time or so he’s said that particular phrase.
“Sure,” Belle says, “but I know it will never happen.”
“Huh?”
“NorCal, we always make plans and you always ditch. It’s never going to happen.”
–Moment of silence–
“Sorry I’ve been such a flake, the truth is you intimidated me.”
And presto! Instant date! By all accounts it went spectacularly well, hence the need for a late night girl session, wink wink.
Here’s the thing with me, though: I no longer buy into the whole “he’s just intimidated of her” mentality. I mean, I do think it exists and is pretty common, but I think the concept gets milked for far more than it’s worth. It’s almost become a Get Out of Jail Free card in relationships. If a man acts up or behaves badly towards a girl, all he has to say was that he was scared of or intimidated by her and suddenly his behavior, though perhaps not smiled upon, is at least justified.
– Go on a few dates, spend a lot of time with a guy for a month or so, suddenly he disapeares, never to be heard from again. Your girlfriends (called in for the round table council) all declare, “You’re too fabulous, he was just intimidated by you.” Which is no doubt the truth (because you ARE too fabulous, you minx) but in the end, it doesn’t make the guy any less of a prick.
– Guy says he loves spending time with you, but that he finds you too intimidating. This has two possible conclusions 1) he’s a pansy and you’re better off without, or 2) things just aren’t working out but he’s too coward to say so. Either way, there is a definite case of spinelessness here.
The list goes on and on, any sort of faux pas a guy can make has probably been justified by the “Intimidation Excuse” at some point, but I seriously think it’s an overused and overrated one.
There, rant over. But the way Belle’s eyes are sparkling, Norcal will probably be around for a while. Which means lots of late nights and mocktails. Yes, MOCKtails. And if you saw how wild we get on sugar, you’d understand why we must never, ever touch alcohol!
Like so many jaded people these days, I don’t put much faith in resolutions made at this time of year. Most of my friends swear to give up alcohol, sleeping with strangers, or (the more conservative ones) swear to give up self flagellation and start enjoying life more. History demonstrates that all that really happens is that my outrageous and my conservative friends seems to switch places: the crazy ones pound themselves into guilty messes the night of Dec. 31 trying desperately to behave and the quiet ones put on something tight and red (even some of the men) and spend the night trying desperately to prove how fun-loving they are. However, these fits of virtue/vice don’t usually last too long; give or take three weeks, things slide back to normal.
But in the spirit of the season, I admit that I do try and resolve to do something positive in my life. I don’t ever manage to come up with a bullet point list, in true type-A fashion I tend to come up with plans or programs. But this year, I’m at a loss.
2007 was a strange year. Still economically sound, personally stable (at least in public), and privately confused, it hasn’t been a bad year so much as a hard one. Between work, school, men, life, my first sticky steps into the soggy marsh of love, and a catastrophic family meltdown I’ve been…busy. But I did come to one stunning realization recently: I’m not good at making myself happy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a happy person. I love my fun, I enjoy life, and I love living it, but when it comes to making decisions strictly for my benefit I fall short. This surprises some people as I tend to be a decisive (a.k.a. bossy and stubborn) person, not given over to bouts dithering or dallying. As such, I spent a lot of time in ‘07 being called in by many friends to assist in various emergencies (including, but not limited to: getting dumped, dumping someone, getting over someone, being a designated driver–which was an expirience not having my American license–mediating a potential divorce, breaking into several flats when someone got locked out, support for a relative with cancer, and the usual gossip duty with my girlfriends). I’m not complaining! Most of the above, except the obvious, were loads of fun! I will bend over backwards to make those I love happy…
…but I have little expirience, I’ve discovered, in going out of my way to make myself happy!
So, in 2008 I have resolved to be happy. Not content, not merely cheerful. I am going to be obnoxiously, mind-bogglingly, intoxitcatingly happy! So, watch this space…
Timing, I have come to learn, really is everthing. Looking back on the past year especially, I’ve been kind of shocked at how everthing in my life, good, bad, and ugly, boils down to timing: the men I dated, the men I didn’t date, the job that landed practically in my lap, the amazing condo Kiri and I found together. I can’t take to much credit of any of it, it was all a case of being at the right place at the right time. Don’t get me wrong, preparation is vital and hard work is essential, but timing is what morphs them into golden opportunities. There is nothing like the feeling of the gods smiling down on you and the universe conspiring for your good, when the right moment comes along and you are able to reach out and grab hold of it and ride it for all it’s worth.
But…what happens when the timing isn’t right? What happens when you want a different job, a different guy, a different plan and for some reason things just don’t work out the way you so desperately want them to? What then?
Contrary to chick-flicks, all known Victorian literature, and most of the annoyingly hopeless romantics I know, what happens then is that life goes on, in all its inconvienient glory. What is important, if often difficult to remember is that just because we are sometimes out of sync with what we want doesn’t mean that we will always be. It just means that the gods are smiling on some other (probably equally deserving) being in need of a little good timing. And eventually their attention will come shift back to us. Probably at the very moment when we most need it. It’s all about the timing.
Small Dog Syndrome 