50 Things You Didn't Ask To Know

I find these lists captivating on some blogs so I thought I'd post my own. Plus, I know at least one of you is curious to know more about this virgin. Humor me. 

1. I always have to have dessert. One cookie counts. 

2. I am younger than I look. 

3. I feel older than I am. 

4. I wore braces for 10 months, a retainer for 5 years and my teeth are still crooked. 

5. Though I have been told I have a great smile. 

6. I can't hear anything in a noisy place, but if it's quiet I can hear a pin drop.

7. I was somewhat popular in high school but I still hated it. 

8. The only other thing I regret about college, aside from not having any sexual experiences, is not partying more. 

9. I get nauseous a lot but I've only thrown up three times in my life. 

10. Only one of those times was from drinking. 

11. I have a different allergic reaction to different alcohol. 

12. Not one person I know knows about this blog. 

13. If they should accidentally come across it somehow and read some of my earlier entries they'd totally know it was me. Depending on who it was, I'd either feel incredibly awkward or incredibly curious as to if their opinion of me changed. 

14. I've backpacked through a lot of Western Europe on my own. 

15. Light sleeper is putting it mildly. Ear plugs are my best friends. 

16. Without music I'd shrivel up and die. 

17. I often cry at movies, but will bottle my emotions until the day I explode. 

18. I am very close to my parents though they now live hundreds of miles away. 

19. My anger is a three stop process. 1-quiet low voice 2-loud ranting vulgarity as long as person who has caused my anger is not present 3- laughter at how ridiculous all of it is. 

20. I quit a summer internship while in college because after only one day of organizing their CDs because that's all they had for me to do, I knew I'd be unfathomably bored. 

21. I can wiggle my ears. 

22. I am still computer illiterate when it comes to certain things and didn't realize until last week that my settings didn't allow anonymous comments. 

23. I'd love to be fluent in another language. Two or three even. 

24. I say I'm 5'7" but I'm really 5'6 and three quarters" 

25. #16 is a lie. Without my sense of humor I'd shrivel up and die. Without music I just couldn't function properly. 

26. I used to want to be an actress when I was young. (surprise!) 

27. Now I realize I am an actress sometimes, just not in the way I wanted to be. 

28. One of the top things on my list to do before I kick it is to get my short stories published. 

29. Bread is a staple. Red meat is not. 

30. I think about moving to the west coast or europe all the time. At the moment, I lack the cojones to do it. 

31. I'd rather sleep with a fan on than the AC (granted it's not sub sahara Africa.) 

32. I don't voice my political opinions unless others in the room feel the same way. I do not like to debate politics, mostly because people always end up shouting and insulting one another.

33. That said, I believe G.W. is a puppet and actually consumes oil in order to live. 

34. I usually like tall, lanky dark haired guys, but the occasional tall, lanky blonde makes an appearance. 

35. I'll probably end up with a short, pudgy red head (not that there's anything wrong with that...) 

36. Accents have a profound affect on me. If you are a tall, lanky brunette with an accent I will probably have a crush on you. 

37. TV is an addiction I am able to quit in the summer. 

38. I love a good long rainy day. 

39. My dream job would be to travel the world and get paid to write witty stories about my adventures. 

40. My second dream job = rock star on the lesser side of fame. 

41. I would love to knock a few people upside the head. 

42. I hope to meet a man endeared by my fears rather than irritated (as I am) by them. 

43. I wish I had a cat. 

44. I wish my ex-landlord would stop being a dick and give me back my deposit. 

45. I've never broken a bone. 

46. I've donated a total of 24 inches of hair to a place that makes wigs for children who have lost it to cancer and other disease. 

47. I find the societal expectations of a 28 year old American female to be absurd and yet often find myself pining over not meeting them. It's pretty infuriating.

48. I don't have any desire to live to be 100. 

49. I will run from a fight or any inkling of love every time. 

50. I may be a virgin, but I totally have a place reserved in hell.

To Just Know

In no way am I comparing myself to a woman who has was unjustly incarcerated for 20 years, but this feeling...this is what I want.

"He took my hand in his quite naturally. At once he realized...that I was just a frightened child dressed up as a woman.
I couldn't keep my mind from racing, wondering where all this would lead me. An irrepressible little voice whispered to me not to ask too many questions. He was handsome, young and full of life. Besides, he was so gentle, so normal, that suddenly I no longer felt afraid. With him, I have never been frightened...This was the first time that a man had made me feel...so safe."
-Malika Oufkir, Stolen Lives

I realize it is still idealistic to hope for a man to make me feel that way with just his presence and not his attempt to make it so, but I can't help it. My inner pessimist says I live in a fantasy word. My inner optimist...well it has obviously happened to her, a woman with all the odds against her, so maybe my day will come.

The Dark Side

My father has officially crossed over. He has said a total of four things to me about men during my entire lifetime, the first occurring after I graduated college. The last, about 2 days ago. (I suppose I should mention that he is not American. That should account for something if you must judge him by the following statments.)

1999 "You need to meet men. Go out to some bars!"

1999 (same conversation) "What about online or something?"

2006 "You should sign up for one of those dating sites. You should! You can meet men that way!"

2006 (same conversation) "You have to start having babies. Mom wants grandchildren. We both do so we can spoil them." (My brother's kids apparently don't count. Now there's a story for another day.)

At dad's request, any takers?? Or have I proven myself too much of an emotional idiot?

Saved

I just realized...if I ever find myself in a terrifying, horror movie type situation, I will totally survive. Only the slutty girls die! Woohoo!

Have Some Paranoia With Your Night Terrors

My body lets me know when it's feeling stressed by manifesting physical symptoms. At this point in my life, it has even determined specific symptoms for specific stresses, ie, general stress that becomes a little too much gives me indigestion and various forms of heartburn, nausea, etc. while heavier stress that has made its way into my subconscious gives me night terrors.

I started having these night terrors during the Jean fiasco. Of course, I didn't realize that's what they were when I was having them, but now that they seem to surface whenever I'm emotionally stressed about something I try to pretend I'm not, it seems a logical conclusion. The worse one I ever had I woke up from standing beside my bed shaking and scared out of my mind. I had to stare at the ceiling for a good five minutes before coming to the conclusion that there weren't any knives dangling from it.

They are usually extremely violent and feel extremely real. Sometimes they are just hints at violence. Lately they've moved into this surreal paranoid realm where I am sure someone or something is watching me. Whatever the case, they are always terrifying and I wake up in a state of utter fear and confusion.

Two nights ago I woke up hitting the bed next to me as a dark anaconda-like body slithered up from underneath it and brushed my arm. Scared the shit out me until I could slow down my breathing and convince myself it wasn't real. When I finally fell back asleep I dreamed about Jean. I was with her husband (the boy she dated in college who is not in fact her husband) and when she got off the bus from work she saw me and opened her arms and said, "I can't believe you've come! After all this time, I knew we could work this out." She then proceeded to hug her husband first before coming to me. I remember feeling very odd, almost like someone had dropped me into that scene and I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to work anything out with her.

Then yesterday I logged into an old account online and found an email from her. It is over a year and a half old and I only vaguely remember getting it, finding it irritating and ignoring it. It was two and a half years after we stopped speaking. And as in the hand written letter she sent the year before that, she claimed that our friendship meant (and still means if I would get back in touch with her) so much to her and she honestly didn't know what went wrong. She honestly didn't know. This after I replied to her hand written letter with one of my own explaining that it was not one thing that made me angry enough to stop speaking to her. I told her I couldn't go back through it all but that if she really had matured she should be able to look back and see how unbalanced our friendship was, and that it just wasn't meant to be.

Obviously she didn't get the hint. Or she needed some kind of closure by way of explanation. I feel no need to provide that for her. In writing what I did write, I was able to have closure for myself. Or so I thought...

I suppose it really never should have surprised me that an energy sucking black hole couldn't see why a relationship was one sided and hurtful. Perhaps it was true, perhaps she had changed and matured since then. By saying that, one would think it was also an admission that she was partly at fault, or at the very least partly immature thereby leading to some kind of emotional rift which there clearly was. But that would be wrong because she then asked what she did so she could apologize for it.

How does she not know that by doing that she negated the sincerity of the apology?

The whole forgive and forget thing…I'm not sure how far I am with either. Obviously I haven't forgotten, I know I never will, but as for forgive? I may have. I want to think I have…but that doesn't mean I ever want to see her again. She said she thought the reason for our "drifting apart" was because maybe stories were told and therefore our end was based on untruths. If she knew me at all, she'd know I'd never base the ending of a 6 year friendship ( 2.5 of which were extremely rocky teetering on horrible) on something I heard from someone. It only makes me sadder that everything I thought I saw in her, everything I thought we shared really was just me projecting. She never did take the time to know me. Why should she? I fit all her projections perfectly. Apparently we're both at fault.  

At any rate, it's just weird how all of a sudden she's in my subconscious again and I'm coming across letters at the same time, and of course now I think I'm seeing her places. Unresolved issues as my friend J would say? I dunno. I thought it was over. I thought I finally forgave myself for being a doormat. Perhaps I should rethink it. Uh. That statement alone makes me want to jump off a bridge. Why can't old shit just remain buried?
 
Last night I had another paranoid night terror. I even remember reaching up into the space above my bed, trying to grab the audio device I saw floating there. First of all, why the hell would anyone be listening to me sleep and b, wtf? a floating audio device? I even know my eyes were open because it felt like I was awake but trapped in a body over which I had no control. At some point I was able to shake it off….probably after staring at the ceiling for five minutes convincing myself none of it was real.

Very creepy.

But obviously things are going on in my subconscious (which I actually attribute to work stress, but may be related to Jean also??)

Do paranoid people know they're paranoid? If you are aware that you feel like someone is watching/listening but you're not totally sure if it's an actual reality, is it invalidated? That is, am I not technically paranoid because I am aware it's probably all in my mind?

FSD

I suspect we've all had it at one time or another.

I just received my new copy of Bitch Magazine and read it through, cover to cover, like a good feminist. The article about the Pharmaceutical companies actually researching ways in which to sell woman "pink viagra" by making them worry about potential sexual problems made me think twice about my own um...non-sexual history.

"Female sexual dysfunction is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the official catalogue of mental illnesses), so if a woman is diagnosed with something that falls under the umbrella of FSD (say, lack of desire, lack of arousal, pain during intercourse, or lack of orgasm), she is automatically considered to have a mental disorder. A few generations ago, a woman might be considered mentally ill (more specifically, a nymphomaniac) if she wanted sex too much; these days a woman might just as easily be labeled mentally unsound if her libido is below "normal."
-"bad medicine Big Pharma's female trouble," Heather Hartley

I would definitely be interested in hearing what a psychologist had to say about me, but I highly doubt I would be diagnosed with a mental disorder, even if I did have a lack of desire, arousal and orgasm. At least...I hope. Yes of course your mental state affects your physical state, but it's just ridiculous to imagine you can reduce such widespread symptoms to a (gendered) mental disorder.

Wouldn't it be nice if it could be that cut and dry? I'm not having sex during what's supposed to be my prime because I have a mental disorder. I'll take some drugs and it'll all be better. According to their terms though, I don't really know if I have a lack of desire, etc. because there's no one asking me for sex at all, let alone when I'm not in the mood, to gauge the alleged normal libido. All I have to go on in that respect is self-love, so at least I do know that I can be aroused and have orgasms. Frequency would be the issue I guess.

And that is possibly yet another fear I have. Will I be expected to do it all the time? What if I'm not in the mood? A lot? I can go for weeks without a little howdyado, and I feel like though that's the norm for couples that have been together for a long time, not so much with the newer ones. He's either going to think I'm a tease or a tightass and won't stick around for long. Who wants to deal with that?

I never realized just how many ways I can justify removing myself from the entire dating/relationship process entirely based on sex. I don't want to get involved because I don't really know what to do. I don't want to get involved because it'll be expected of me and I hate expectations. I don't want to get involved because what if he wants to and I don't? Annoying. I wish I could shut off my brain. It's just useless projection and what does it matter anyway? Why can't I just let things take their course? I can do it with just about every other area of my life, to a degree anyway.

It's also really frustrating to hear that it isn't that big a deal and yet everything, everywhere has something to do with it. The act itself may not be, but remember how scared you were before you did it, or anything else that involves fear of the unknown? Ok, now multiply that by a hundred now that you're an adult and still haven't done it. No matter what the subject, it can be related back to sex. It's like the engine that runs the human race. I suppose that's actually a good metaphor in that sex keeps the population alive, but in mainstream culture, that's not the reason why it's done. We are a hedonistic bunch. I include myself in that because I want to be part of it, I'm just having a few issues getting there (perhaps due to my mentally unsound-ness.)

I shouldn't be surprised then to hear that Pharmaceuticals are trying to profit off the one thing that everyone, sans religious devotees, has in common. For once, it's even affecting men. Sex, sex, sex if you're not having it there must be something wrong with you. It's sexual terrorism. (Talk about dramatic!!) Next time you pop that viagra though, or whatever new drug they push on us for our sexual dysfunction, think about who you're actually helping.

Let's start making our own rules:
1. Pharmaceutical Companies do not have a say in what is and what is not normal human behavior.

My Gaydar Is Wrongly Attuned

How can I tell if a guy is gay?

If he's cute, wearing mint green shorts, an unmatching checkered blue shirt and I'm not attracted to him-
He's straight. Probably one of those rich playboys from the Hamptons who doesn't wear socks with boat shoes.

If he's cute, wearing mint green shorts, an unmatching checkered blue shirt and I am attracted to him-
He's gay. Probably hasn't come out yet which is why his shirt doesn't match his mint green shorts.

If Only Anonymity Wasn't So...Anonymous

Carol: Hello! I filled your freezer again. There's now enough meat in there to feed every guy who answered your ad and still...whoa.
Sarah: Carol this is Jake. Jake did, in fact, answer the ad.
Jake: Do I get my meat?
-Must Love Dogs

If I could meet John Cusack through online dating, I would totally do it.