because that shit has an expiration date, apparently.

The other morning found me on my way (crankily, and with a slight hangover. ever so slight) to an OBGYN appointment that I had successfully avoided for nearly six months, in a manner quite similar to this:

Nurse, to me: "We're just calling to let you know that your PAP results came back abnormal again, so we're going to have to take a little piece of your cervix out and send it to the lab for further analysis."

My brain to myself: "Self! This sounds important! You need that cervix for baby-having in the future! Make that appointment and don't repeatedly cancel it like you always do!"

Me, to Nurse: "Oh, um OK. I guess just put me down for the next available appointment then."

Me, to Nurse, on the day before the appointment (multiple, rescheduled appointments) "Ummmm, I've been sort of feeling under the weather/have a job interview tomorrow/have to take my dog to the vet/am going out of town/could possibly start menstruating at any moment, so we're going to need to reschedule that. Again. Sorry!" (literally, I think I rescheduled it about six times. And straight-up just missed it twice).

On the morning of the appointment that I finally decided was probably in my best interest to actually make before I turned thirty, I was running late, having overslept at NAB's place (UPDATE: having not blogged for months, readers should note that I did in fact enter a very short-lived relationship with NAB. It has since ended. By ended, I mean we are no longer 'exclusive' because we want different things. Do we still go on dates, spend significant amounts of time together, and hook-up? Naturally. But that's a blog for another day.). I was in prime walk-of-shame mode. Slightly wrinkled short, cleavage-baring dress, boots, and some serious bedhead. Complete with smeared eyeliner and serious cranky-face. There's really something special about going to get checked out at the ol' womanly doctor in the outfit and panties you wore to your booty-call the night before. And by special, I clearly mean definitely-not-something-a-girl-in-her-mid twenties-should-be-doing.

So, there, I sat, contemplating the state of my life while simultaneously wondering what this 'procedure' I was about to have would entail. I was already pretty nervous, and had been ever since I was told that 'a little piece of cervix' would be TAKEN FROM MY BODY  and analyzed. Dudes, I'm no lady-parts doctor...but it seems to me that you probably need most of your cervix for important reproductive procedures. You can probably imagine the level that my already high anxiety rocketed to when my eyes fell on the procedure tray and found that amongst the shiny, clean, sterilized equipment and iodine, alcohol, and saline bottles, there was an old, sketchy looking pair of NEEDLE NOSE PLIERS! By the time the doctor came in I had worked myself into a full blown anxious frenzy and chewed off most of my manicure. As she was explaining the procedure to me, my doctor must have somehow caught on to my high anxiety level. It was probably the fact that I was breathing heavily and sort of backing away from the stirrups and towards the door. She finally sighed and asked me if I wanted to tell her what I was so worried about, because "Frankly this is a really routine thing, you're going to be just fine, there's probably nothing seriously wrong..." At which point I interrupted her to screech "There is a pair of pliers on that tray, PLIERS!!!!" She gave me a curious look and glanced over at the tray and then turned around to look at the medical assistant who almost peed her pants from laughing as she told me that the pliers were just to tighten the broken microscope. Then they both kind of looked at me like I should be embarrassed or something. I maintain that it was a pretty legitimate worry to have crossed my mind.


Since I generally live most of my life in a constant state of obsessive-compulsive worrying, it should come as no surprise that what my doctor next told me sent me right back into an anxiety spiral. Basically, she said that I'd probably have to get my uterus removed around age forty. She said that's really not a big deal, because "You're planning on having kids before then, right?" I told her that I sure hoped so. She then said: "So you're dating someone, right? Someone serious?" When I told her I wasn't I briefly caught a look of concern (and dare I say pity) pass over her face. I pretty much knew what was coming next. She told me that at my age (Jesus, is 26 the new 35?!) I really need to start "narrowing it down, and not switching from partner to partner." Gee, thanks lady. That's some solid advice right there. Essentially I had my gyno tell me to stop slutting it up and find a mate to procreate with before she snatched my uterus away from me.


Definitely one of the most shameful walk of shames I've done lately.

N.A.B.

So I've been sort of seeing this dude recently. It's been pretty great, but also awkward in the way that only I can make things awkward. I've noticed that I have become quite skittish at any mention of commitment or seriousness and that my skittishness then leads to extreme Hales-speak, which is where whatever comes into my head immediately escapes through my mouth before I have time to decide whether or not what I am about to say is stupid, rude, or extremely offensive (and it's usually one of those, if not all three).

For example, a few months ago we had that inherently weird and painful discussion about condoms: to use or not to use? After getting all of the horrible "When were you last tested-how many partners since then-what kind of birth control are you using" bullet points out of the way, I wanted to make it clear that I'm not at a point in my life where bangin multiple people is cool. So instead of just saying that, I sort of just blurted out "Well are you sleeping with other girls? I mean if you are it's okay I don't even care at all you're an adult and you can do what you want I mean if you like me or whatever maybe you'll only sleep with me but either way just tell me so I don't catch some disease at the age of 26!!" He just looked at me and blinked, but before he blinked I caught that 'Wow this chick is a little loony' look in his eye. He then calmly said: "Um, no...definitely not sleeping around, so...there's that..."

Having gotten the sex talk out of the way, things continued on just swimmingly with only minor hiccups, caused by me, always when I caught any whiff of a transition from dating into...well, you know (I don't like that word, don't make me say it). When my neighbor introduced herself to Not-a-boyfriend (as my friend RA has aptly titled him) she said "Oh hey, you must be the new boyfriend!" I immediately began muttering "Oh...yeah, you know we're um, I mean dating...or whatever.... " before I quickly cracked open another beer to drink during the awkward silence I'd just caused.

The other night we finally had that weird talk about whether or not we're seeing other people. A few hours after Not-a-boyfriend inquired as to how I would feel "You know, not dating other people. Besides me." and got the answer he had been looking for, I suddenly panicked and felt the need to ask him "If you're my....well, you know, I don't really like saying that word, exactly. Ever." His response was that although he had been "out of the game" for a good 8 years or so, that was generally what he took "not dating other people" to mean. I guess it was sort of a stupid question.

Am I abnormally awkward or is this just the way dating is supposed to be? Because we're a solid three months in and I still act REAL spesh around this dude. I can definitely see the perks of arranged marriages.

I'm glad I love the shit out of these people, since I'm stuck with them either way.

I've always known that I have the best family in the world. I'm sure your family is pretty great too, but I'm equally sure that mine is better. Having just got back from our annual beach week vacation, I thought I'd share some of the reasons my family kills it:

- Do I want to wake up and immediately crack open a beer when I'm on vacation? Why yes, I certainly do! Does my family really give a shit that not only do I have an extremely (and probably somewhat unhealthy) tolerance and love for booze? They probably do, but hey-they're awesome enough to accept that fact about me and move on.

- Family beach week includes, but is not limited to, the following meals: champagne scallops, beer dip, duck-stuffed pork, spaghetti and meatballs, red beans and rice, etouffee, crab and shrimp cocktails, and endless cookies, cinnamon rolls, and brownies.

- You really haven't lived until your entire family has been kicked out of the wave-runner rental place for not following the rules and driving too dangerously.

- This years beach week ended with two empty Grey Goose bottles. The huge ones.

- We once had a family discussion about circumcision. This included me polling my cousins on who was and who wasn't, and my cousin Peter replying: "I don't know, ask my mom!" (By the way, he was 16 at the time).

-Most nights end in drinking games and a midnight food run.

But seriously, I don't know what I do without these people. I have always been supported unconditionally by my amazing family and taught that I could do anything and be anything...and thanks to them, I've never doubted it for a second. My family is my heart and my proof that true love really does exist.

puppy love

So there's this new dude in my life. He's sort of immature, has way more energy than I do but still loves to take naps with me, and has recently been keeping me company on my runs (side note: is running going to help me get some of my ghetto booty back? I swear it's been shrinking lately and I'm really not okay with that). If you haven't figured out by this point that I'm not talking about a human dude, than take a little gander at this picture and all will be explained:

Pretty cute, right? Don't let him fool you though, he's trouble. He can (and will) basically break out of any enclosure he finds himself in for more than half an hour. I keep him from breaking out of his crate by securing it with five carabiners and a chain. He's pretty bad ass. Other than this massive case of separation anxiety he's got going on, dude's pretty chill.

So the other day Rose and I took Charlie on a little trip to Home Depot to pick some shit for her boyfriend (you KNOW we weren't in there shopping for ourselves. So NOT our brand). There we were, waiting for some super friendly employee (ok seriously, what is WITH the people who work at that store? They're all so damn happy, it's like the Disneyland of home improvement warehouses) and Charlie decided that right there in aisle 13 was as good a place as any to take a shit. Naturally, Rose and I went straight to freak-out mode. "SHIT! Get rid of it before someone comes over here! Hurry!" So as she's yelling at me and I'm frantically digging through my purse for something to pick it up with, Charlie is kinda just hanging out, eating popcorn off the floor, scratching his balls, whatev...like it's no big thing. Naturally neither of us has anything practical on us that could be used to pick up Home Depot dog shit, so quick as a whip I empty out my purse and spy my extra pair of panties in the zip up pocket. Yes, I'm one of those girls. I like to be prepared, all right? You never know. Don't judge. Or do, it's cool. . And since I'm single, and since I've been sort of seeing someone, or whatever, they were a NICE pair. But you do what you gotta do.

I now own one less pair of sexy red panties, so thanks for that Charlie. You're lucky that you're cute as hell.

so that's awkward.

This a typical date for me:

The other day on my way to a date I decided to stop and get frozen yogurt. Kind of like a reward, because I literally had to force myself to leave my place having already agreed to this date even though I really, really just wanted to go to bed. So I show up to his apartment with a giant diet coke in one hand and a frozen yogurt in the other. Around the time I realized that isn't the sort of first impression one wants to make I also realized that my diet coke had no booze in it, which made sad and wary of how I was going to make it through the next 45 minutes (I like to keep first dates to the absolute minimum. I figure that's good either way; if they suck you haven't wasted more than an hour, and if the chemistry's there then you leave them wanting more. Or something). Not to worry, because this dude seemed to be an alcoholic of some sort. I'm just going out on a limb and making that assumption based only upon the fact that he found it necessary to down two shots of whiskey before we walked to Whole Foods for dinner. He also had one mixed drink. I didn't judge because let's be honest, we all know I poured some of that whisk into my DC.

Off we went, fueled by booze and hunger. He decided on pizza and I got a soup and salad. I told him that I was going to eat ONE bite of his pizza, but I guess he didn't believe me (I can't fault him, would you believe the chick that just showed up to meet you eating a giant Maverick frozen yogurt?) because he kind of looked at me sideways and muttered "mmmhmm". Apparently neither did the guy working at Whole Foods because he gave us the biggest slice cut into two individual slices so that I could "have my own." I shook  my head and explained that I really did only want one bite because I was so full already. Then I ended up eating almost all of it, including my soup and my salad before he even finished half of his slice. So that was super sexy. It's probably time to seriously examine my relationship with food. I think we may be a little too tight these days, food and I.

After I scarfed down my dinner like a growing baby dinosaur, a girl who used to be a patient at the residential treatment center I work up tapped me on the shoulder. So here I am, drinking a HEAVILY whiskied diet coke in the health food store at  ten on a weeknight, talking to this girl about following the rules and not staying out late on school nights and why in the world are you on your way to a party right now you're only fourteen years old please tell me you don't have a boyfriend.?! Naturally after she left, whiskey dude wants to know who she was, and for obvious reasons I can't really tell him that she was a patient in the hospital I work at, so I just muttered something about her being a girl I used to hang out with. "You often hang out with fourteen year olds....?" he asked "Um, yeah. You know. Pretty regularly. Sometimes. Just...." is literally what I said.

Is it bad that I don't want to go out with him again only because I can't understand why in the world he would ASK me out again after all that?

do I get my girl-card revoked because I don't like to cuddle? no, seriously. please stop. now.

When Mini-J, Rose, and I all lived together I ended up with the room that you had to walk through to get to the bathroom. This is how it pretty much went down:

I had been at work when Rose and Mini-J went to look at the place. Mini-J, who has powers far beyond normal and can convince almost anyone of nearly anything called me beside herself with excitement. "The house is perfect! It has hardwood and crown-moulding and ALL the original tile in the bathroom!" (trust me, when you're a renter in this city those things are all what you really, really want). She went on to describe the bedrooms: "So, since I don't like sunlight and I don't have as many clothes as you guys I thought I could take the little basement and turn part of it into the sitting room. Rose can have the big front room because it has so many windows and natural light." (Rose turns into a monster without her sunlight, true story. Often I just don't see her between December and March). I had pretty much figured out how this conversation was going to end from the moment it started. Having found the house and looked at all the pictures online already, we ALL knew that the main bedroom was the only access to the bathroom, so somone was going to be stuck having her bedroom constantly invaded by people who needed to pee, or brush their teeth, shower sex?, get ready for work, puke, etc. This is how Mini-J sold that room to me: "And you can have the room with the ceiling fan and HUGE closest!" (the closest wasn't huge. I mean, I'm sure when that house was built it was obscence but that bitch wasn't even big enough to hold my boots). But yeah, that ceiling fan was pretty sweet.

Since I ended up in the no privacy room, Mini-J, Rose, and constant others were continually invading my room, meaning they pretty much had unrestricted access to my love-life, such as it was. Most people who know me realize that I'm not a very...affectionate person. I mean yeah, when I'm in a relationship with someone I adore I love spending hours in bed snuggled up...but for the life of me, I just don't understand the NEED that so many GUYS have to continually try to spend the night, to cuddle, to hold hands, to nuzzle...ugh. Barf. Mini-J said she would frequently walk into my room at night to get ready for bed and find me curled up in the corner of my bed with no blankets, scowling in my sleep with some dude glued to my side with his finger in my hair. What is that?

I've recently been re-introduced to this practice, and I still basically hate it just as much. I'm sorry, we just met, and you're SORT OF ruining my badass reputation by continually trying to hold my hand. And what's with awkward back pats? I've been getting tons of those lately. If you're going to insist on touching me, at least make it worth my while and give me a massage or something. Geez.

At least this time there isn't an audience for my irritated sighs.

Dating is not for the weak-hearted

In honor of my recent decision to 'rip the Band-Aid off' and dive right back into the sometimes (often?) hellacious world that is dating in my lovely little mountain city, I thought I'd share some of my all-time favorite dating stories.

Rose and I were single at the same time once a few years ago. We also (although both unaware of it at the time...hindsight, right?) were both prettttty manic. It was our 'Summer of Love', and it was pure crazy mixed with a hearty dose of alcohol. To paint the picture, this Summer included me missing our flight to Portland because at 8 AM the day of the flight I was still so drunk that I couldn't stand and slept through ten to fifteen phone calls and my friend knocking on the door to rouse me. Once I finally made it up I was convinced that I could make it to the airport to catch my flight that left in forty-five minutes. Oh, and yeah...I hadn't yet packed. I ended up realizing half way through my packing job that I wasn't going to make my flight so I passed back out after booking myself on an afternoon flight. When I woke up, much more sober and refreshed, I opened my suitcase to find I had only packed fifteen pairs of panties, a camera, and every single piece of make-up I owned. Later that Summer Rose and I were outside of our favorite bar. I was drunk and crying and my purse had spilled out all over the sidewalk. A homeless man hit me up for some cash and I LOST it. That night ended with me yelling obscenities at the man as he ran away from me, telling Rose and I to "GO MASTURBATE YOURSELVES OR SOMETHING!". This was the Summer I introduced 'road vod', the handle of vodka that I kept in the trunk of my car, for emergencies? Like I said, pure crazy.

Between the non-stop partying and holding down full-time jobs as well as tutoring on the side, Rose and I were also serial daters. It never ended. Date after date after date. I should also note that this single status was newfound for both of us and came after our first very long-term relationships. We were like two innocent baby does thrown into the wild with no means of survival. No one warned us that well, to be frank, dating sucks. It sucks hard.

• I once was walked to the door (against my wishes, which I had verbalized) by a young man who literally walked into a pole and then pretended like he hadn't. He then gave me his business card.
• Rose was once followed home by a guy she had met in a bar. I was passed out in her living room, wrapped in a blanket. As she saw him walk by her window she dropped to the floor, spy-style. He came to the door and after I opened it in my blanket and confirmed with Rose that she did NOT want him coming in, I informed him that he was crazy and slammed the door in his face.
• Rose and I once had a crush on the same guy. Everything came to a head one night at a party he was throwing, when Mini-J had to referee a tear-filled argument between Rose and I over both of us liking this guy and both yelling about why we liked him so much: "But he's so smart and loves math!".
• I once had a guy tell me: "I really like you, and I want you to meet my cat, I think she's ready to meet you too!".

The saddest part? I actually dated cat guy for a few months.

Here's to another (much less drunk and dramatic) Summer O' Love!