Meditation on a Mantra

It's been a while since I posted anything.  Here's what I've been up to:

About a year ago, I adopted a new mantra.  I'd never had a mantra before and I'm not sure where it came from, but it's helped me to be a relatively happy me for that length of time.  The mantra--I will cultivate a life I love.  There's something about the word cultivate that really gets my juices flowing.  It brings to mind images of planting seeds with the hopes of reaping a good harvest, pulling weeds from time to time, and getting my hands dirty but having a feeling of contentment.  Cultivating isn't something that will be easy, but it is something that will be rewarding.  

And it has been rewarding.  In the last year, I've played volleyball on several teams, played pub trivia with new people, bought myself a Fillaseat membership to attend cultural events around Austin, set up monthly quirky activities with a group of friends, attended book club meetings, and maintained meaningful relationships with good-hearted people.  I reorganized my entire apartment over the summer so that I know exactly what I own, which means that I no longer feel the need to shop.  I created a new budget for myself with the idea that I will purchase a house in the near future.  I made a new career plan and took active steps to meet the goals I set for myself.  All good things.

But there is one important parenthetical that always went along with my new mantra: (and if I meet a man who wants to be a part of it, then great!).  Initially, this parenthetical was probably the main reason that I formulated the mantra.  I wasn't having any luck with the internet dating and I really wasn't meeting any men out in the world and it was starting to get me down.  I kind of had a "come to Jesus" talk with myself--"Lisa, it is possible that you will be on your own forever.  Or at least for a long, long time."  So instead of doing what I'd done for the last decade--putting all big life decisions on hold because of the possibility that I might meet someone--I decided to create the life I wanted to have, even if it meant I would be on my own.

I think the problem with parentheticals is that they really are always in the back of your mind.  So even as I was meeting up with friends and pursuing the things that I thought would make my life better, I was always hoping a guy would come along and we’d hit it off.  Honestly, in this one year, I’ve met more single men than I probably have in a decade.  There are single guys in my volleyball leagues.  There were single men at parties and outings with friends.  There are single guys at trivia.  Cute ones.  Smart ones.  Funny ones.  Kind ones.  All good qualities.  But it’s so hard to find someone with the right mixture of qualities who also likes your mixture of qualities and then for there to be enough of a spark to get the ball rolling.

So here I am.  I really am enjoying life so much more these days, but there’s still something missing.  I guess without completely deleting that parenthetical from my manta, I’m never going to be rid of that sensation.  But do I really want to delete it?  Do I really want to believe that I can be completely fulfilled on my own?  I think that’s the sort of thing we all tell our single loved ones to put a patch over the holes they have. 

The thing I dread the most is the idea that it might be time to give internet dating another go.  I guess that's part of getting my hands dirty...

Summar Slump

Today is my first official day of summar.  No, that's not a spelling error; only pronouncing it "summar" gives summer the proper amount of simultaneous excitement and dread that a single teacher like me experiences at the start of this season each year.

One of the reasons you become a teacher, apart from wanting to help kids and stuff, is the guaranteed vacation time: three days at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, a week for spring break, and a little more than two months off every summer.  What they don't tell you is that you won't be able to survive in the teaching profession without all that time away all the demands of the job.  And they definitely won't tell you about the summer slump.

In my first several years of summer vacation as a teacher, I didn't have this sense of dread.  I went into summer like a kid, excited about spending time at the pool, sleeping in, and hanging out with my friends.  I spent those first few summers as a seasonal alcoholic with friends who were still in undergrad, grad school or who were just loafing about until they figured out life.  That kind of stuff is still socially acceptable when you're 24. Not so much when you're 31.

The further you get away from college, the fewer friends you have who are able to hang out with you in the middle of the day.  It can become a lonely, lonely time filled with conversations with your cat, not-showering and sleeping like a factory worker on the night shift.  You can really lose your sense of time, place and self.  Sure, there are other teachers you could hang out with, but the truth is that as much as you need a break from students, you also kind of need a break from coworkers by the time June rolls around.  There's also the high probability that most of those coworkers have children, which greatly affects either the activities available or their available time.

And the older you get, the more you realize that you really should be spending some of that down time taking care of adult responsibilities like getting your oil changed in your car because it probably resembles hot fudge by this point.  I'm not sure if this habit comes from my Midwestern mother who has probably the craziest work ethic on the planet, but summer has become a time of goals for me.  Goals I rarely accomplish, but goals nonetheless.  Here are this summer's goals to meet some adult responsibilities and stay busy enough to avoid the summer slump:

Lose the weight I gained over the course of the school year
This school year I made the decision to sponsor the student council at our high school.  It was an effort to find a new challenge, and, boy, did I find one.  The magnitude of what I'd taken on hit me sometime in September, which is when I started stress eating and avoiding the gym because of sheer exhaustion by the time I left work.  By the end of the year, it was a rewarding experience; however, I carry around a pound to help me remember each of my StuCo officers.  As much as I want to remember those kids, I don't need to carry around the extra baggage.

Use all of the Groupons and gift certificates I've accumulated 
Here's more of a glimpse into my neuroses--I have five Google calendars, people.  Five. One for student council--coded green.  One for work appointments--coded blue.  One to schedule in grading time because it's impossible to get all the grading of an English teacher completed during school hours--coded red.  One for training (clearly I didn't stick to that one very well this year)--coded orange.  And, finally, one for my own social calendar--coded purple.  While I am able to be social during the school year, it takes a lot of planning to make it happen and it's difficult to squeeze in unexpected events sometimes.  And my eyes are bigger than the free space in my calendar.  This year I've purchased Groupons for Dolce Vita (eek!  It expires tomorrow!), The Melting Pot, and a pottery class for two.  I've also been gifted a generous gift certificate for cooking classes at The Silver Whisk and a gift card for an Aveda salon.  Time to mark those things on my calendar!

Write more
When I started this blog, I set some goals for myself, none of which I've met.  It's time to finally write the saga of Hotel San Jose, for cryinoutloud.

Read more
Through the accountability of my book club and a long-distance friend, I've managed to read a few books over the course of the school year.  But now it's time to devour them.  Some of my favorite summers have consisted of me and a series of books keeping each other company until the wee hours of the morning.  It's time to curl up with David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood, and many others to have a giant literary orgy again.

Ensure that I no longer have summers off
I'm sure there are people reading this who hate me a little for complaining about summer.  All I can tell you is that I hope to no longer have summer vacation by the end of this summer break.  My plan is to spend at least part of each day working to find a new job (today I bookmarked a bunch of jobs for which I'll be applying in the coming week--check!).  As much as I've loved the creative aspects of teaching, enjoyed the relationships I've formed, honed my craft, and developed a love/hate relationship with summers, it's time for me to try something new.  At least until I long for summers again.

Less Good than Goodall

Photo Source:
http://www.southwestern.edu/livewhale/content/images/
30/11006_goodall_photo_web_cstuart_clarke_36ceccb23d6d0a9b0817e9531a6a8708.jpg

When you live alone, you have a lot of time to be alone with your thoughts.  And when you get tired of being with your thoughts, then you must find other activities to fill your time.  One of the things I like to do with my time is attend lectures.  It's nerdy, I know, but I like that this type of event gives me more to think about when I'm alone with my thoughts.  See how that works out for me?

Austin, a university town, is a great place for this past time.  Most people just think about UT when they think of Austin, but Southwestern University in Georgetown, my alma mater, also offers some quality events to the community, many of which are free (at least they are to alumni).

One of the events Southwestern holds every year is the Shilling Lecture.  I've only been to it three times.  The first was when I saw Desmond Tutu while I was still a senior.  Last year, I went with friends to see Thomas Friedman speak.  And last night, I saw Dr. Jane Goodall give her speech called A Reason for Hope.  Of the lectures, hers was the one I was most looking forward to, even though all I really knew about her is that she's "the monkey lady" in my head (I actually even confused her with Dian Fossey, the gorilla lady--oops).  I've always loved animals--I used to sing songs to my dog Peaches in the back yard when I came home from kindergarten--and even thought of studying animal behavior when I was at Southwestern.  I went into the evening, expecting to hear stories of monkey socialization patterns, but I came away with so much more.

Something that strikes me about the people who are brought in to speak at the Shilling Lectures is how determined they are and how much conviction they have about what they're doing in their lives.  Dr. Goodall had a scientific curiosity about the world from a young age.  She had an interest in Africa as a child.  She always loved animals.  Through a series of personal connections, her own intelligence, and luck (or divine intervention?) she met Louis Leakey while she was living in Africa with a friend from England.  At the time, she did not have more than a high school education, but he was so struck with her auto-didactic knowledge that he hired her to help with one of his studies.  From there, she proved herself quite the scientist, obviously, and only went on to get her degree once her work started to become famous.

She spoke of attending a conference in the 1980s that changed her focus from living in Tanzania and studying chimps to doing what she's done for almost 30 years: traveling 300 days out of the year to raise awareness about what we are doing to the planet with the Jane Goodall Institute and organizing groups of teens to create change through a program called Roots and Shoots.

First of all, I think it's incredible that a woman who just turned 79 today travels that much.  I'm only 31, and I drag my feet trying to leave the apartment to go to the grocery store.  But it's even more amazing to me that she gave up something she loved so dearly to do good work for us all.  Her gifts led her to success; her success led to fame; fame led to an increased awareness of other issues; and awareness led to her own selflessness; her selflessness, through giving her time and giving up the work she loves, will hopefully make the world a better place.

Listening to people like Jane Goodall, knowing that they exist in the world, evokes a range of emotions for me.  The first are inspiration and awe.  It's incredible that people like her exist.  The next is gratitude.  We are so lucky to have people like her doing work like this.  A little jealousy. How do I find that same level of conviction in my life? And finally, like the good Catholic girl I am/was, guilt.  What the hell am I doing that is remotely close to this?

Looking at the faces of the college students attending the event, they still have that bright, shiny glint in their eyes that says I can change the world, just give me a chance.  I can see them sitting there, thinking about what they will invent to make our lives on this planet more sustainable or what organizations they will found that will solve the problem of poverty in Appalachia. 

I used to be like them.  I thought I could change the world.  That's why I became a teacher.  I saw myself making a difference in the lives of students--through teaching them The Canterbury Tales?  Perhaps I'm too entrenched in the day-to-day frustrations of the job at this point to see the good I do, but I have to say that I feel I've used The Teacher Card for too long when it comes to contributing to the planet.  I let it make me believe that I'm doing enough when I see commercials about starving kids or hear requests for donations to the Red Cross.

Maybe I'm too hard on myself.  I do give money to Radiolab when they ask me to text for a $10 donation.  I give any time I have cash and I see a Salvation Army Santa.  I buy one overpriced box of Girl Scout Cookies every year.  Why, just yesterday, I gave $100 to Pasta for Pennies at work.  Of course, I only did this once I found out that the school was just $100 shy of reaching our $1500 goal that would lead to our principal having to wear a crazy costume to work.  But the money still goes to Leukemia and Lymphoma research, right? \

My questions are these: how much is enough?  Is it enough to give money to different organizations?  And does it matter which organizations?  Is the money I give to NPR or PBS less good because they provide programming I enjoy?  Is donating to the arts less good than donating to the Red Cross or The American Lung Association?  And do our motives matter?  The money I give to attend a charity event still goes to charity, even though I'm having a great time, right?  Is that $100 going to be less effective because part of the reason I donated it was the vision I had in my head of my principal dressed like a clown?  Or should we just forgo the monetary donations altogether and donate our time and talents?

This is what happens when I'm alone with my thoughts.  All questions.  Not even the beginning of an answer.

My hope is that people like Jane Goodall felt as lost as I do even though they appear to have planned it all out from the beginning.  I hope that I will be able to recognize the moments of luck or divine intervention should they ever drop in my lap.  I hope that the things in my life that feel random are somehow leading to something greater, not for my own good, but for the good of those around me.  And I just hope to do a little good here and there in the meantime.

Why I'm Single, Reason #1: The Sweat

I'm a sweaty gal.  I've come to terms with it.  I don't deny it.

I'm the one you see at the gym wiping down a sweat slick on the weight bench.  I'm the girl who can't wear her hair down if it's above 70 degrees outside because it won't take long before it looks like she just stepped out of the shower.

I inherited these sweat glands from my dad.  I have very clear memories of helping my dad outside in the yard or garage and noting that the back of his shirt was a complete shade darker than the front of his shirt.  Not just in patches, either--the whole back of the shirt.  And he's a bald man with a very large dome of a head, too.  The sweat would bead as it came out of the pores on his scalp and dribble down, collecting at the end of his nose.  As I would stand near him, ready on deck with the next tool he'd need for his project, I would wait in anticipation for the moment when the drip on the end of his nose would drop.

Of course, I describe this only with affection, because I know exactly how he feels.  Maybe I feel even worse that he feels.  Because as grossed out as people might be by a sweaty man, they must pity a sweaty woman.  Women aren't supposed to sweat in great drops that pool at the waistband of their jeans.  Women are supposed to only slightly glisten, to glow, to appear dewy--not to look like a wet rat.

I cite my sweatiness as just one of the many reasons I still find myself single today.  Not only does my body react to even the slightest heat with oceans of salt water, it also takes cues from my emotions as to when to release the tide.

I sweat when I'm nervous.  A lot of people do.  But it's probably not the same full body sweat I experience.  Once, at a conference for English teachers, I was selected by my round table in a creative writing session to share my quick-write with the entire group.  Of about 300 people.  Now, everyone knows that one of the reasons you go to a conference as a single person is to try to meet other single people.  You wear your cutest outfits.  You try to sit next to attractive people and wow them with your amazing insights on whatever bullshit professional topic is being discussed.  And this should have been my shining moment.  Not only would I be on display for all of the men in the room who would surely decide they needed to talk to me after my reading, I was also singled out for my creativity and writing abilities.  All men are amazed by that, right?  Uh huh.

Well, I've spoken in front of groups of 30 people for years.  I'm a teacher.  That's a daily part of my job.  But at that point, I'd never spoken in front of 300 people.  And definitely never with a microphone.  I am pulled up to the front of the hotel ballroom, and the microphone is shoved in my hand.  Immediately, my body starts to quiver.  Then I feel the blood rush to my cheeks.  The panic sets in.  The red, hotness in my face is a sign that the sweat is about to come.  I start to read the words that are in front of me, probably with the microphone too close to my mouth, but all that's going on inside my head is: stop sweating, stop sweating, stop sweating!  But it just keeps on coming.  By that point, my voice was shaking as much as the hand holding the microphone.

Needless to say, zero men approached me to talk about writing when I sheepishly made my way back to my chair.  I like to believe that they would have if the sweat didn't come.

The worst part about the sweat is that it's also my reaction to attraction.  I'm sure there's some scientific reason that has to do with pheromones, but I just don't agree with science (one thing I have in common with Creationists!) when the thing releasing the chemicals that are supposed to attract a mate also completely disgusts him.  As soon as I lock eyes with a new attractive man and get within a normal range of personal space, it all starts--the redness, the heat, the sweat.  Not just a faint bead on my upper lip.  Full on face sweat.

If I'm lucky, I've interacted with a man enough from a safe distance before this happens and it's not the first impression I make.  But that's usually not the case.

As with most shitty situations in life, I've tried to make the best of it.  I've learned to just not even bother leaving my hair down between April and October in Texas.  I've learned that if I have to be outside when it's warm, it's best to wear a dress or skirt and let the breezes flow.  I've learned to pay attention to types of fabric when shopping for clothes so I don't end up like my dad in the yard.

But my favorite lesson is that my body tells me who I'm attracted to before my head realizes it.  It's become my own little detection system.  It's come in handy in places like the workplace where you don't necessarily want to be flirting with coworkers or when you meet a married man so you know not to joke around with him too much because it might get weird.

And it actually helped me realize I was interested in the last guy I dated when we were left alone at a picnic table and I suddenly felt sweat dripping down my neck.  As I tried to subtly wipe it off with a head-scratch-to-wipe move, I thought, oh, I guess I like this guy.

Luckily, it was a breezy night and the sweat dried quickly.

Secret Single Behaviors

According to The New York Times, "1 in every 4 American households is occupied by someone living alone."  The article goes on to discuss some of the strange behaviors that humans cultivate when left to their own devices, away from the civilized world.  I will now cop to some of my own Secret Single Behaviors (SSBs) I've developed in my 8 years of living alone.  Beware: some of it isn't pretty.

Being a Filthy, Filthy Human Being
Now, if I know that people are coming over or if I have people visiting on a regular basis, I keep my humble abode pretty tidy.  The cleanest I've kept it in my adult life has been when I've had boyfriends or when I had weekly parties at my place.  But 99% of the those 8 years have been spent with me knowing that people pretty much do not come to my apartment ever.  Therefore, shit can get crazy.  Piles of laundry in the dining room.  Plates from dinner on the coffee table.  Plastic bags from HEB and Target flying about my apartment like the most beautiful thing in the world.  And personal grooming can become an issue, as well.  Some weekends, if I don't have a reason to leave the apartment and join the world, I may wear the same clothes and not bathe until Sunday evening.

Interesting Fashion Choices
Often when I come home from work, I know I'm not going out again.  That means shoes get kicked off and go flying into a pile of laundry or stack of books.  Pants drop and may not leave the spot where they fell.  And I may do one of two things--walk around for the rest of the evening in the nice shirt I wore to work and my underwear, or change into "house clothes."  House clothes are the items you never want any living person to see you in.  Some of my prized items include:

• a nightshirt my mom gave me for Christmas when I was in 3rd grade that now barely covers my ass and is so thin that you could see straight through if it weren't for the giant Santa hat wearing bear drinking cocoa on the front of it;
• a heather grey deep v-neck tee from American Apparel that has a hole the size of a cantaloupe in one of the armpits (this might be worn with comfy pants, but is more often than not worn with just underwear);
• a pair of red gingham pajama pants with hokey sunflower trim around the ankles, of which come up around my calves because I've had them since high school and have washed them so many times,
• my burnt orange UT Snuggie;
• a men's large pullover hoodie that is most comfortable to wear with the hood up;
• and any kind of fabric headband to keep the hair out of my eyes.  My current favorite has green, shiny sequins on it and makes me look like a flapper.

But my favorite fashion choice is no choice at all.  Hanging out in the buff is the way to go, my friends.

Taking Far Too Many Baths
Hugh Grant's character in About A Boy has that segment in which he describes how a man can be an island if he uses his units of time correctly.  Baths are something that fill up units of time for me.  Bored?  Take a bath.  Really bored? Take an hour long bath with a fizzy bath ball or eucalyptus scented bubble bath.  Use the time to meditate, shave your legs, get creative with *ahem* other shaving, or turn on some music and sing along because the acoustics in the bathroom really are the best, and the neighbors in your apartment complex surely love your singing voice.

Singing--A Lot
The silence of living alone can be deafening at times; therefore, the radio, my record player, itunes and Spotify are my second favorite companions in the apartment.  I will put my Bonnie Raitt record on the player and sing along with side A for one week while I make dinner and then flip it over and listen to side B the next week.  It's best when you listen and sing along obsessively to really be able to nail those notes, you know.

My Cat is My Friend
Willis is my favorite companion at home.  She's really the only one I have to talk to, unless I'm on the phone. And I talk to her a lot.  If I had a recording device running at home, I'd like to count the number of times I say the following phrases:

• "Whatcha doin, Willis?"
• "Hey pretty girl"
• "You're so pretty"
• "You're a good girl, Willis"
• and, for good measure, "What the hell, cat?!"

Technology is Also My Friend
When there's not a human to interact with, sometimes technology can fill the void.  Movie marathons!  Did you just spend an entire week watching Pride and Prejudice with your students?  Well, then...you absolutely must watch the 6 hour A&E version immediately!  You don't know how many incarnations of Mr. Darcy Colin Firth has played?  Well, look it up on Wikipedia and get swallowed into clicking on link after link for at least two hours.  No one is around to rush you, so you should just take your time.

What's Happening with the Neighbors?
When there's very little activity going on within your home, sometimes it's easy to get wrapped up in what's happening with the neighbors.  Of course, I never talk to them directly or look them in the eye.  I do my best to avoid leaving my apartment when they're walking by.  One summer, I had particularly noisy neighbors.  I'm convinced that I was awakened in the middle of the night by this woman and one of her many boyfriends having sex outside.  I was also convinced that she was a prostitute.  She had so many men in and out of that apartment at all hours of the day--I don't know what else it would have been.  This is just one of the stories I've concocted in my head through stealthily observing my neighbors through the blinds.

And, of course:

Thanks, PostSecret.

Care to share any of your SSBs?

The Stand-ins

There are reasons human beings couple off.  And when you've not been in a relationship for 98% of your life, like I have, you have to find coping mechanisms for dealing with everything you're missing out on by not having that other half.  My own greatest coping mechanism are The Stand-ins.

Stand-ins do exactly what you'd think--they stand in the place of a romantic partner and perform the functions that your ideal mate would.  Now, a Stand-in doesn't necessarily have to be from the gender you'd prefer your mate to be.  He or she also doesn't have to fulfill all of the roles described below.  But it's important that we single folks find ways of meeting these emotional, social, and (yes) physical needs somehow.  The Stand-ins are all we have.

Over the years, these are the roles my own personal Stand-ins have performed:

Date Nights
I've always been somewhat of a tomboy; among other things, when left to my own devices, I would almost always choose to wear what is comfortable over what is attractive.  But there are definitely times when I want to dress up and I want to feel pretty, damn it.  The Stand-in isn't usually aware for the fact that I'm using our fun night out as an excuse to feel like I'm pretty, but that's what's happening.  In the last few years, I've even started going so far as to purchase tickets waaaay too far in advance for events that might turn into these fake, emotionally and sexually bankrupt dates.

Flirting
Since the invention of instant messaging and texting, everyone wants to be in on the fun of e-flirting, don't they?  I certainly do.  Hopefully the double entendres and teasing comes off as my own silly, dirty brand of humor to these Stand-ins.  I have to practice these skills on someone, don't I?


Occupying Head Space 
When you're single, there's great danger that you'll become selfish and self-involved.  One of the things I like most about being in a relationship is that I have someone other than myself to think about.  It might be "I wonder how he's doing today?" or it might be "oh, he'd really like this movie".  Pretty inane stuff.  But it keeps me from focusing too much on my own thoughts, wants and feelings.  These Stand-ins are the ones I text out of the blue with random comments, questions and pictures.

Snuggling and Snogging
The need for physical connection is just a part of who we are.  I'd say that about 95% of the time, I take care of the snuggling issue by wrapping myself up in my Snuggie or hugging my cat, Willis.  But there's only so much love a cat can provide before it takes a turn into Creepville.  Over the years, there've been a few male friends who have filled in for this role a mate would provide in my ideal world.  The absolute best Stand-in was a roommate I had once who would cuddle on the couch with me nearly every evening.  Then there were those days of drunkenness in my youth when a (sometimes gay) male friend and I would look at each other through our booze goggles and say "why the hell not?" and make out with each other until the wee hours.  Now, I know there are people who've struck up friends-with-benefits situations with friends who will do more than just snog until the wee hours.  I've never been able to have that kind of casual intimacy with someone, but more power to 'em, I say.  Single, dateless people have needs, too.

Major Holidays
There are two types of holidays that are difficult to navigate as a single person.  The first are the holidays in which the entire world expects you to have a date--the dreaded Valentine's Day, or VD as I like to call it, and New Year's Eve.  VD is a single person's worst nightmare.  VD just won't go away.  It's impossible to ignore VD.  For several years, one of my Stand-ins was My Platonic Valentine <3.  The first year, he bought me flowers (he was actually the first and only man to ever do this) and we went on a double date with my best friend and her Stand-in for the evening.  Another year we were in different states, so we each purchased a bottle of wine and rented a movie.  We called each other, pressed play at the same time, and watched the movie together over the phone.  That's still the best VD I've ever had.  New Year's Eve is a different beast.  Whoever came up with the tradition of kissing someone at midnight deserves to be killed in a firing squad by all the single people on the planet once we build our time machine.  My Platonic Valentine stood-in for me one year and we just stared at each other awkwardly at midnight, but mostly my girlfriends are the Stand-ins for this holiday.  We would just hug each other or kiss on the cheek at midnight to occupy ourselves while couples around us made out.  It did get awkward once they all paired off with boyfriends and husbands and I was the only one left without a date when the clock strikes midnight--Where do I look?!  What do I do with my hands?!

The other type of holiday, that might even be worse than VD and New Year's, are the holidays you're expected to spend with your family--Thanksgiving, Christmas, and sometimes Easter.  If you're a non-single reader, think back to the last time you had to handle your family solo.  Now think about doing that for every single holiday since you've been alive.  It's ok for the first 20 or so years, but there comes a point when you've been living apart from your family long enough that spending an entire day or, worse, series of days pretending like you still live at home is a living nightmare.  A nightmare that you want to share with the person you love most in the world.  Sometime in college, I started inviting a friend or multiple friends to join me at my mom's house for holidays.  I just think of those Stand-ins as the spouse or children I'd bring were I married.  They help with the cooking, watch whatever sport you're supposed to watch that day, laugh at my mom's jokes, and act as a great buffer until I, cross your fingers, have a family of my own.  (Love you, Mom!)

Emotional Support
This is the most important role of a Stand-in because, in my opinion, the hardest part of being single is not having that one person who knows all your stuff, who actually wants to hear about the problems with your boss or the memory you had from your childhood today or what you had to eat that day.  The average, casual friend does not want to hear about these things, and should you share too many of these small details of your life with the casual friend out of sheer desperation to talk to anyone, you can be sure that you won't be seeing that friend much in the future.  The Stand-in for emotional support is the most generous of the Stand-ins.  He or she understands that you spend the majority of your time outside of work completely alone and that if you don't tell these things to someone, you are sure to create an imaginary friend or to start holding conversations with your cat.  Most of the support is small, but I've been especially grateful to these Stand-ins when shit in my life has gotten real, when whatever is going on really is too much for me to handle on my own.  The worst fear with these Stand-ins is that I'll wear out my welcome, after all, we don't have the motivation of sex or shared property or whatever to keep us together.

If you're reading this, and you realize that you've been a Stand-in for me, thank you.  You've helped me make it to 31 without completely losing my mind.  I hope it's never been awkward or an inconvenience.  And, no, it's not a paying job, you whore.

The Pity Party

The other day I was at Kohl's, hunting for items to use up the $50 gift card I'd bought for a friend who snubbed her nose at it, thus granting me the permission to shop for myself.  Recently, I've been spending a lot more time at home in the kitchen and have realized that my past failures (leaving pans "soaking" in the sink for a week, burning the bottom of pots, scrapping Teflon off the bottom of pots with metal utensils, you know...) have led to a lack of necessary tools.

It occurred to me as I perused the housewares section and looked at prices that most people my age already have a healthy stock of items like a mandolin, a garlic press, a salad spinner, fork tongs, and other devices that I've never purchased for myself.  I've been cooking for years with 1 frying pan, 1 13"x9" pan, 1 sauce pot, 1 soup pot, 1 ladle, 1 slotted spoon, 1 spatula, 1 whisk--you get the idea.  It's bare essentials in my tiny apartment kitchen.  The few extra items I own are a cheese grater and some plastic-like mat you put on the bottom of a cookie sheet to keep cookies from burning, both of which were purchased from the dollar bins at Target.

Suddenly, a wave of jealousy ran over me as I stared at different sized CorningWare.  All those lucky bastards who got married got to register for these items.  All those homeowners got to have housewarming parties and beg for these items.

But not me.

I remembered an episode of Sex and the City in which Carrie finally became fed up with buying her girlfriends expensive gifts for engagements, weddings, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, baby showers and housewarming parties.  She finally decided it was her turn and registered for expensive shoes.

I like her thinking.  But I don't just want the stuff, and a little payback from all those friends who I adorned with gifts for the last decade--I want the party.

By the age of, say, 35, people who are spouseless, houseless, childless and everythingless should be entitled to throw a pity party.  Our friends and family get to acknowledge that they actually do feel kind of bad for us.  And we finally get to acknowledge that the single life with all this freedom isn't all it's cracked up to be.  We get to register for the items that we never bought for ourselves, but more importantly, we get to have a huge blow out to celebrate the lives we've led without all of those other celebrations.

We can celebrate the nights spent curled up on the couch alone.  All the bills we paid all by ourselves.  The number of friends we've managed to find to help us move from apartment to apartment.  The animals who become our companions.  The technology that keeps us entertained and thinly connected to the outside world.  The fact that we've made it this far without breaking down completely or running away and going off the grid.  We can rejoice in it all and the fact that we've come so far with so little change.

And I, myself, will be the life of my own pity party.  Because, really, I'm the only one who knows how much there really is to celebrate.

In 2017, I'll be registered at Target and another to-be-determined location.  It'll be the party of a lifetime.  You're all invited.