keep your chin up, baby!

As long as I can remember, my mom, aunt, and grandma have fawned over my chin (weird...I know) because I was blessed with the Dye dimple. Apparently I have the exact same chin as my maternal grandfather, whom I never met as he died when my mom was ten. I like to think that he'd find me to be  pretty great, had he ever met me. Because, well, I am sort of great. Each time someone gives me advice on my current life situation and tells me how proud they are that I was true to myself, I am also usually given  advice in the vein of "Keep that chin up, baby!". I often find myself wondering if people look at my chin when they say that and notice my little dimple and also what advice my grandfather would have to offer me.

In an effort to, ahem, "Keep my chin up", or what have you, I have recently been..rendezvousing with someone from my past. Most single girls I know have that someone. The someone that is great to pass a few hours with, the someone that makes you laugh and offers you various pleasurable distractions when dating is the last thing on your mind and anything with more emotional involvement than a few hours of stupid TV and time between the sheets is much more than you're willing to commit to. This is a someone that you tend to not talk to for long periods of time, the periods of time in your life when you're half of a couple. Then something happens and there you are staring your single self right in the eyes again, and well. You do what you have to do. This someone usually tends to be single at the same time as you. Single karma, I guess.

Last night, after a few hours of blissfully mindless and emotionless fun with that someone,  my heart apparently decided to stop pumping the right amount of blood to my brain? This led to an immediate black-out after standing up, and I shortly thereafter came to, realizing why yes, I did just blackout, fall, and slice my chin open to the bone on some guys nightstand. And yes, I am wearing only my sexy underwear (and no, I certainly was NOT drunk. No really. I wasn't). After a phone call to my friend who is a nurse ("How many glasses of wine did you have?" and "No I'm not gluing it closed! It's on your FACE, go to the ER!") and closer examination of what I must say was actually a very clean slice right down to the bone, I decided that $200 co-pay or not, I do love my pointy little dimple chin dearly and a scar-free face is worth much more than a couple hundred bucks, right? I mean after all, I do have insurance and I surely do not want to march back into the dating world with a scar on my lovely face!

As I was sitting in the ER with my beloved Mini-J, having that little dimple chin stitched right back up, laughing (and yes, I admit it, crying just a tiny bit) I turned to her and asked "Please tell me that blacking out in my panties, falling, and slicing my chin open to the bone in the apartment of the guy I'm currently screwing is the lowest point in my life right now. It's going to get better after this, right? I mean, RIGHT?". Smiling, she reassured me in only a way She, Rose, and my mom can do and I immediately felt better. We laughed about all of our misadventures in dating and decided that when we compile a book of stories regarding such topics that it should definitely have the word post-apocalyptic in the title. My nice ER doctor (side note: his name was Dr. Weed. This incident happened on April 20th. 4/20...beloved to potheads everywhere. I kid you not.) interjected to ask me why I thought I passed out, "Do you think you drank too much?". I told him no and explained that I thought it was probably a combination of a bunch of different things that had happened throughout the night and the fact that I had been having a weird heart palpitation. Then, of course, he asks me what those things may be? I literally said: (before my nearly non-existent filter had time to boot up and actually work) "Wellll, I was on this like date, or whatever. And I drank a glass of wine in the hot tub, theeeeen there was about twenty minutes of strenuous aerobic activity..." I looked over at Mini-J snickering in the corner and mouthed "Did I REALLY JUST SAY THAT TO THE ER DOCTOR?" To his credit, he just continued quietly stitching up my dimple chin and listened to Mini-J and I talk about my dating life, or lack thereof. As he stitched and listened and my chin inadvertently drooped down as I conversed, do you know what that nice man said to me?

"Keep your chin up!"

Oh, buddy. If you only knew...