I’m a Librarian, B^+<#@$!!!

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Four years ago, I had just found out that I was pregnant and that my ex-husband was lying about having a job… again. I was morbidly obese, starting my senior year of college, about to do my student teaching, and paying the bills through… well, prayer. I was petrified.

Today…

I am a fucking Librarian!!!!!!!

Suck my dick statistics, because I left the bastard and…

I. Did. It.

I followed through on all of my dreams and got that Bachelor’s degree and then that Master’s degree and now the job! My divorce didn’t lower my station in life. It opened up a universe of possibilities and opportunity.

Women who divorced between 2010 and 2011 were more likely to receive public assistance than men who divorced during this time, with rates being 23% and 15%, respectively.
Of women who divorced between 2010 and 2011, 27% reported a household income of less than $25,000.
Children of divorced parents are twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college.
While men are financially better off than women after a divorce, they are more likely to suffer more emotionally.

I’m sorry. What was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of my I’m a Librarian, BITCHES!!! dance coupled with my ROAR OF AWESOME!!!!

A little bit o’ this…

… and a little bit o’…

.. and some nce, nce, nce.
Finally, some…

Yeah. They don’t let me dance at stuff.

Today, I talked the ear off the lady at the gym who asked why Librarians need a Master’s degree. Yesterday, I bought myself these… because I am just that cool.

Sometimes, divorce is not a failure. It is the righting of a path. I wasn’t meant to be the miserable wife of a sociopath. I was meant to be right here.

Gail: “The divorce was not the mistake. The marriage was the mistake. The divorce was just what was required to correct that mistake.”

I’m not advising you to leave your husband because he won’t try that new thing in bed or he won’t put his fucking shoes away. If there’s something to salvage, fight for it. If you’re fantasizing about a life where he dies, through no fault of your own, because you’ll finally be free… if the marriage is truly awful and he or she is a truly poisonous person… there is a better life out there. No matter how scary it feels to go in search of it, it is so very worth it.

“It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.” – John Steinbeck

Yeah. I looked that up.
http://divorce.lovetoknow.com/Divorce_Statistics

My dog is the only boy I like and his longevity does not compare to mine. Commence the dying alone.

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Ugh. Maybe he’ll be an asshole so I can leave sooner. I hope I’m the first one there. I hate that moment looking around for the other person. I’m pretty sure I look like a meerkat every time.

Is that him?

Maybe I’d have more options if I’d stop mentally correcting everyone’s grammar when I’m looking at profiles. Who knows? Last night’s date wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good either. If I had to be unkind, I’d call Extruder Technician “a little blue collar.” He’d likely call me a little pretentious, though. He was a nice guy, who worked forty hours a week, and his profile stated that he was working on a bachelor’s in business and finance. I don’t usually date undergraduates, but he’d spent five years in the Marines, so the delay in his education and career planning was more understandable. Extruder Technician clarified that he was in his first year of community college and hoped to eventually transfer to a four year university. When I asked what he planned to do with the degree, he said..

Extruder Technician: “My brother and I are going to open a business.”
Me: “Oh? What kind of business?”
Extruder Technician: “Building guns… maybe… at least that’s what my other brother wants to do. We’d have to get the start up money first.”

Then, he mentioned how his goal is to move up into management, at his current job, in four or five years.

This is neither the administration nor the economy in which to start “building guns… maybe.” Also, dude, you’re 28. You’ve been out of the Marines for five years. How do you not have this figured out yet? This reaffirmed the “no students” rule. It relates closely to my “no fixer uppers” rule. I don’t want a work in progress. I want the end result. I want the guy who already did that and has his shit sorted. If he’s also working on a graduate degree or a supplementary skill, I’m cool with that, but the career has to be firmly set.

I wasn’t unkind to Extruder Technician. We, in fact, had a nice conversation. He was passionate about making insulation and seemed happy with his life. I, however, am passionate about my career doing something entirely different. It’s not that I’m being a snob… okay, fine… it’s not just that I’m being a snob. I was a 23-year-old divorcée . I come from divorced parents, who also come from divorced parents. My home state regularly ranks number one in divorce for statistics that don’t include Nevada, which, fun fact: most don’t. I have enough against me! It is a statistical fact that education plays a major part in divorce, including educational gap between partners. The other day, I opened my freezer and my first thought was…

Did I put the sherbet there? Has someone been in my apartment?!?!

For realz, yo. My first divorce fucked me up enough. No thank you.

A person can be quite intelligent without a formal education. Gail doesn’t have a degree and she’s one of the smartest people I know. She wouldn’t have found intellectual stimulation in Extruder Technician either. His half an associate’s degree and expressed distaste for learning is light years away from my Master’s in Library and Information Studies, but also from Gaily’s audio books on finance. He was perfectly nice and so was I. I just didn’t connect with him and when I told him it was nice to meet him and thanked him for my frozen yogurt, neither of us mentioned ever seeing each other again. He didn’t text me. I don’t have his number anymore. However… I also didn’t mark his number as spam. Points for me. It was a nice enough date that went nowhere. That, in itself, was quite nice. I’m getting better at this and learning about myself and what I need in a partner.

On that note, I treat you to a list of my worst excuses for no longer speaking to men. Don’t misunderstand. There was always some deeper issue. These statements, though, always got raised eyebrows of disbelief from Gaily, before I clarified the real reason.

“He was wearing silver board shirts.”
One: Those silver board shorts were coupled with an Affliction t-shirt. I could see my reflection in them.

Two: The man actually spoke the sentence “There is no way your divorce was worse than mine.” Who the hell even wants to compare those?!?! I don’t owe you any damned justification for my divorce. I just fucking met you. Go suck a bag of dicks!

“He had furry hands! It was like he was wearing his September mittens!”
One: All I could think about was having those plush claws on my breasts. I know that’s weird, but I kept imagining what it would feel like to be felt up by my older brother’s Teddy Ruxpin doll.

Two: The guy had very liberal beliefs, countering my personal conservative ones in regards to my profession. It wasn’t just that we disagreed on gun control (though that would’ve been a deal breaker), but he told me that parents shouldn’t be allowed to control what their children read if their reasons are stupid. For example, if a parent feels Harry Potter is “of the devil” (a common and genuine statement in the Midwest), they shouldn’t be allowed to keep their child from reading it. Who decides what reasons are valid? Him? They’re the parents. It is their call. No. Just no.

“He keeps texting me.”
One: He was an air traffic controller. He worked for an hour and would have an hour off. He texted me every other hour. No one should ever text that much unless they have a vagina, coupled with a chemical embalance.

Another one?!?! Oh. Em. Gee.

Two: He swore constantly. I just used the phrase “go suck a bag of dicks” and this guy’s potty mouth offended me. That is impressive. When I told him I wanted to buy a Schwinn, he told my I was an idiot if I spent less than $2,000 on a bike. He told a story of a time he ran over a cat and killed it and was pissed because he thought it messed up his wheel. Dude, I like domesticated fuzzy, cute shit, and the correct response to accidentally killing it is uncontrollable tears! We met at a bar and grill and accidentally stayed for 20 minutes past closing time. He did not tip. He then tried to tell me why God isn’t real. I told him I was going to Mass the next day and he responded with his speech about why God isn’t real.

“He loved the movie Christmas Vacation.”
One: I was talking to the guy on Plenty of Fish. We never actually met in person.

He’s financially irresponsible and it’s funny! Get it!?!?!

Two: He was clearly using this as a tester movie. It’s like when I tell a guy I like Seth Rogen. If he disagrees, then he’d better have money. Kidding. He loved this movie enough to bring it up in June, though. I figured, since I do not get the appeal of Christmas Vacation (or the other stupid movies he named), it was a sign of our intensely differing senses of humor… that and he didn’t like Seth Rogen!

“His grammar is too good and he called me ‘enchanting.’ I’m not even enchanting. I’m kind of a bitch.”
One: In addition to “enchanting”, he used the word “thus” in a casual e-mail, in poor context. He. Used. The. Word. THUS. BADLY. Also… who says “enchanting”?!?!

Two: He was the spitting image of Gollum and there was no connection. He was perfectly nice, but that communication was standard, because he was just so socially awkward and dull.

– My dog is the only boy I like and his longevity does not compare to mine. Commence the dying alone. –

I posted that on Facebook. Bo recommended a parrot, because they live longer. I’m terrified of birds. Perhaps an exotic turtle.

I look this shit up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-whelan/pew-research-marraige-gap_b_758272.html

Tears, Giggles, and an Urn

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Me: “I don’t know. I never actually watch porn. I only ever watch pornographic GIFs. You never see any faces and just have a repeat of the good part. I don’t need a story or anything. I usually have one in my head already. He’s a werewolf… she’s a woodnymph. It’s just best not to mess with it.”
Gail: “What is wrong with you?”

Gail: “I didn’t think they were legally allowed to sell vibrators in CVS.”
Me: “It’s not a vibrator. It’s a ‘personal massager’, you pervert.”
Gail: laughingly “I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend.”
Me: “Oh, hey! I was right. It does say ‘personal massager’… and it’s ‘perfectly contoured for the female form.’ Thirty dollars?!? Mine was only thirty-four and it’s a lot better ‘contoured for the female form’!”
Gail: “Ahhh, Belle. You will just say anything won’t you?”
Belle: “What? No one heard me.”

Sunday, it was just after these conversations, that I was lying on the couch reading the train wreck that is the This Man triliogy, marveling at how trapping a woman with an underhanded pregnancy isn’t considered abusive, but sexy, when my Dirty Girl Novel was interrupted with the following text from my Aunt Dee:

Do you think you could do a reading at grandpa’s funeral? I was thinking you and Mickey both. Both granddaughters and both good Catholics. Gramps was so proud of you.

I responded without the use of the word “irony”, proof that I can control myself and just choose not to do so, Gail. I told Aunt Dee to just let me know what passage so I could practice. Now… how much did I not want to speak at my grandpa’s funeral as a “good Catholic girl”?

Thiiiiis much.

I hate ceremonies. It’s a whopping generalization, but they’re all awful… and here’s why:

Weddings: usually an expression of financial irresponsibility. A couple goes into a marriage, either in debt, or just down a couple of tens of thousands of dollars over a party that no one really wanted to go to anyway. I was bored at my first wedding and I’m sure I’ll be bored at the next one, between the dry heaves and shouts of “maccarroni!” which Gail will have forgotten is our codeword for “I’m freaking out and why the fuck am I doing this again?!?!”

Graduation ceremonies: too fucking long and made up of overly generic speeches. At my graduation for my Master in Library and Information Studies, the speaker made repeated references to how it was “only a few short years ago that we were moving into our dorms.” Psh. It was only a few short years ago that I was drinking myself to sleep to take my mind off of my wretched marriage. I can guaran-damn-tee the forty-something woman next to me didn’t relate to the statement, either. The ceremony was also held inside a kiln and I sweated for two hours just for someone to call my name. There’s not even any actual requirement that you prove your right to graduate. They will, literally, let anyone walk.

What?!? It’s practically Ambien.

Funerals: Funerals just fucking suck. Everyone’s sad and the last place they want to be is standing outside in July, wearing tummy tucker panties and heels.

Ahhh, comfort clothes.

Also… I make everything awkward and a funeral is just not the place for that. In fact, the entire drive to the church, I kept thinking…

Is this dress too sexy? Do I look like I’m going clubbing after the funeral?

I was pretty certain I was wearing a Magic Dress: a dress that can look equally professional or sex kitten based on accessories. I wore my interview heels, but had I been in the knee-high black heeled leather boots, I’d have looked rave-bound and I knew it. I just wasn’t sure about the heels and dreaded the whispers of “Can you believe she wore that?” Fortunately, Bea made a similar comment about her own simple black dress and told me mine looked great the second she saw me.

This uncertainty, however, is precisely why I didn’t want to do the aforementioned reading. I got to the chapel about fifteen minutes early and a woman in a glowing green suit jacket took me to the front, showed me a binder and instructed me to put it on the table to the left when I was done. She pointed out the steps to the podium, which were danged near invisible. I already knew I was doing the second reading and had gone over it the night before to avoid the mispronunciation of anything.

Okay. Don’t trip. Don’t forget to move the binder. I can do that.

The Mass started and my cousin Mickey immediately went up for the first reading. I did not hear one word she said, however. It was at that point, after the procession and drama and melancholy had set in, that I realized… I had no idea when I was reading. I had no Mass sheet and found I couldn’t remember the typical order and wasn’t sure how funeral Masses differentiated. My Aunt Dee was seated in front of me, so I spent the first reading whispering to her about how I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to do mine. Bea sat to my side and tried not to giggle. Mickey was finally seated and I sat with bated breath, just about to rise… then the music started.

Well, I guess it’s not now.

A Catholic Mass is a formal affair. A Catholic funeral is a very formal affair. I discreetly glanced around in hopes of spotting a neon green suit jacket, but had no luck. The music stopped, I was poised to rise… and Father started speaking.

Well, I guess it’s not now.

Father: “Geff was not a complainer or a whiner.”
That’s not true. Grandpa Geff whined about everything and everyone knew it. Why can’t we just remember the man for who he was, flaws and all? How is it respectful to make shit up? ‘Belle will always be remembered as a seven foot tall space cowboy.’ Horseshit. I shouldn’t think ‘horseshit’ in a church.

Wow. I want to get married in this chapel. This place is gorgeous.

I started thinking about how it would be funny to put little decorative stones in the wall where the angels’ toes would be, so it looked like they were wearing nail polish. I felt bad, because you’re not supposed to think about that at a funeral. Then someone tapped my shoulder and I realized Father was no longer speaking and there was a woman wearing green Christmas lights sitting directly behind me, which explained why I couldn’t find her earlier.

“Are you going to read?”
“Oh! Yeah. I just didn’t know when.”

Bea assures me that the lull did not stretch out for days and everyone thought I was gathering myself, so there was minimal awkwardness in retrospective. She claims.

Then the sad part set in, because funerals suck.

Father: “Geff was a proud veteran.”
Grandpa Geff was a veteran? Why didn’t I know that? How terrible of a person am I for not knowing that?

Father: “As we all know, Geff knew dogs.”
Grandpa Geff was into dogs? Why didn’t I know that? How terrible of a person am I for not knowing that?
Father: “Having worked for the post office for many years…”
Oh. It was a joke. Grandpa Geff didn’t know dogs. Why didn’t I know that? How terrible of a person am I for not knowing that?

I should have visited him more. I lost five years with dad’s family, because of my mother. I hate her. I shouldn’t think that in a church, during a Catholic Mass. I’m doing this all wrong. I’m failing at a funeral and I hate my mother!

I want to suck my thumb and cry and I don’t want to be in tummy tucker panties. I can’t suck my thumb in public and emotions are gross. Why are we even doing this?!?!

Me: crying and whispering “I hated his Christmas party, every year. No one liked it and a lot of times we never even went. I feel so bad. We didn’t have Christmas with him last year. How awful that we didn’t want to spend any time with him at Christmas?”
Bea: “We had his birthday party, though. That was nice.”
Me: “Yeah.”
Bea: “Oh, my gosh. I thought for an awful moment that maybe you weren’t there.”
Me: snorting and laughing “Nana nana nana.”

Oh, gosh. We shouldn’t laugh during a funeral. We look like we’re having the best time.

Gramma was the same age as Grandpa Geff.
That brought on more tears.
Oh, I’m crying because of the thought that Gramma might die one day, rather than the fact that Grandpa Geff is dead.That is so much worse than reading Lady Porn when I was asked to read a bible verse! I am the worst person!

Not only is a Catholic Mass a formal affair, it is one fraught with beautiful ritual, as is every Catholic Mass, and attended by many who do not know these rituals. Mass ended with Father raising his hands in prayer.

I looked over to see Bea and her brother Cade doing the same… alone. They only lowered their hands when they saw my cousin and me snickering.

Finally, the Mass ended and we made our way to the cemetery. My dad carried Grandpa Geff’s urn, a brass perfect square, in one hand like it was an empty casserole dish.

Cade: “Only Kent would carry an urn with one hand.”
Aunt Kendra: “Kent, I hope that’s sealed.”
Me: “My dad thinks it’s dumb that we have to bury it anyway, so if he drops it, it’s probably not an accident.”
Step-mom Lena: “Don’t joke about that. It’s taken very seriously in the Catholic faith and you might offend someone.”
Dad, Cade, Bea, Aunt Kendra, Me: simultaneous laughter

My step-family is not Catholic, if you haven’t guessed. My step-mom certainly meant well, but no one present would’ve been offended. In fact…

When we arrived at the burial plot, we found the unmarked hole, perfectly carved out for Grandpa Geff’s urn. We piled on his roses and the wreath that read “Grandpa” and gathered round as the sadness set in and everyone got quiet.

“Wait. We’re over there.”

That is right. We almost threw Grandpa Geff in the wrong hole. The hearty laugh we got out of it as a family is precisely why Lena needn’t worry that anyone would be offended by jokes about the redundancy of the Catholic decree that we bury ashes.

Other Shit You Probably Shouldn’t Say at a Funeral

Dad: “..and then father will bless us with the ashes.”
Me: “Okay. Wait! Bless you with the ashes!?!?!”

What he meant.

What he realized I was picturing.

– Debating cremation versus burial –
Bea: “I don’t want to be burned!”
Me: “You can’t feel it. You’re dead.”
Bea: “Hopefully!”
Me: “Well, if that’s the case, then I’d rather be burned than wake up.”
Dad: “We’ll just have to make sure to leave a string tied to some bells outside of your grave, Bea. That way you can ring for help when you come to, like in the 1800’s.”

– Driving to the cemetery, my step-mom holding the urn on her lap, everyone waiting for us to bring Grandpa to his final resting place –
Cade: “Ugh. I’m starving. Can we stop for tacos or something? 7-Eleven is giving away free Icees today.”
Me: ::tearing up:: “Wait. He was alone when he died?!?! That’s horrible.”
Step-mom: “Belle, he was alone, but he wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for days.”
Bea: “Wait, wait, wait! 7-Eleven is giving away free Icees?!?!“

My dad gets out of the truck and leaves the urn while he checks to see if we’re in the right place.
Cade: “Kent… I think you forgot something! You didn’t even crack a window.”

– sitting in the back of my dad’s truck with Cade and Bea , while my dad and Lena bury Grandpa Geff –
Bea: “Is my dress see-through? I feel like it’s see-through. Could you see anything in the sunlight?”
Me: “Yeah. You’re practically naked. You’ve got a little toilet paper in your ass crack, by the way”
Bea: “I hate you. It only seems see-through right here.” ::points to space between her legs::
Cade: “I don’t know what’s worse, the heat or this conversation.”
Me: “Yeah. Geez, Bea. ‘Hey, big brother. Can you see my vag?'”
Bea: “I cannot believe you just said that!”
Me: “You’re the one who said it.”
Bea: “I am not!”
Cade: ::groaning:: “Thank you for that, Belle.”

Me: “Ugh. It is a thousand degrees in here. They’re gonna have to bury three more piles of ash if they don’t hurry the hell up.”
Cade: “It would be awesome if the window was open and they could hear you.”

My Grandma Kay has been divorced from Grandpa Geff for near fifty years, but was at the funeral.
Me: “Hey, kid. Did you wish Grandma Kay a happy birthday?”
My cousin Mitch: “What? It’s Grandma’s birthday? Seriously?”
Me: “Yes, seriously. It’s on Facebook, if you don’t believe me. Go tell her happy birthday.”
Dad’s cousin Tina: “Aw. That’s a tough day. We should take her some flowers.”
Me: “Hey, there’s some over there in the chapel.”
Mitch: laughing “We’ll just take her all of the funeral arrangements. She’ll never know.”
Me: “Yeah. Let’s take her the wreath with ‘grandpa’ on it…”
Mitch: “… we’ll just write ‘ma’ over it.”
Tina: trying not to laugh “You guys are horrible!”

I came home and I slept. It was a tough day. I’d have been content to skip it and pretend Grandpa Geff was still alive and that I just never see him. The only consolation is that Grandpa Geff was a devout daily Mass goer. He’d have been thrilled by a traditional Catholic funeral filled with people he loved sharing the occasional laugh. There’s not a whole lot more for which anyone could ask, and if one sucky day fulfills that life goal after a painful battle with cancer… well, at least it’s all over.

You’re alone for a reason, Bridget Jones…

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Belle of the Library

… and it’s not the Ben and Jerry’s.

I am not a chick flick person. In the year 2010, all of the following things happened:

Gaily’s little girl died at 8 months old.
I did not give birth to the child that was due in March.
My ex-husband went out of town “on business” and didn’t have a job.
Gail’s divorce was finalized.
My ex-husband swore he changed the oil and the engine fell out of my car for no reason.
I learned that sometimes “I want a divorce” is met with the word “no.”
Gail made me watch the movie The Women.

Me: “I’m pretty sure that movie was the worst thing to happen in all of 2010.”

As much as I like my romance novels, I cannot watch that crap unfold on-screen. The lines are too over-the-top and emotion is gross. There’s a difference between imagining things and seeing them acted out. Just like I don’t want to watch porn, I don’t want to see people cry. What is wrong with the degenerates supporting these industries?!?

… and then, insult all of your readers.

There are, however, a few chick flicks I love and a few I love to hate. Bridget Jones’s Diary is actually in the first category and I’m just an overly-analytical person. I haven’t read the book and don’t intend to, precisely because of how much I like the movie. So, when I checked it out from the library (because I’m too cheap to rent it if it’s free at work) I enjoyed it immensely… while simultaneously tearing apart the lead. Not having seen the movie in years, it was fun to analyze as an adult and realize exactly what was wrong with Bridget Jones. I don’t claim to be an expert on men or what men want, but I don’t enjoy being around most women either, and I found many of the reasons for that personified in Chubby Zellweger. For example…

If you don’t like, change it.

There are a lot of things Bridget Jones doesn’t like about herself and her life, so she vows to change them… for like a day and a half. The main focus of this film is that Bridget Jones is a little chubbier than she’d appreciate. Renee Zellweger put on a confusing amount of weight for the part (20-50 pounds – does Hollywood even know what weight is?). Like most women, Bridget Jones wants to lose twenty pounds. Like many women, she doesn’t actually commit to doing so. Unlike most women (I choose to believe), she constantly bitches about it and blames her size for unhappiness. If you want to lose weight, quit smoking, drink less (7 calories per gram compared to fat’s 9), then fucking do it. If you’re comfortable with who you are and that person isn’t intensely unhealthy, in which case Bridget Jones should be more concerned with the smoking and drinking anyway, then stop obsessing over something you’re not going to change. I would like to be 15 pounds lighter. I really would. I also really like red gummy worms. I’d rather have hips and red gummy worms than no hips and no red gummy worms. This is the concession I make, so I’m pretty content in my size 8 shorts, rather than bitching about the 6’s in my drawer that don’t fit anymore. Bridget Jones’s issue wasn’t her weight. It was her unwillingness to change the things that made her unhappy.

If he proposes with these, I don’t need a ring. Ell oh ellsies. Just lying. The last one was surprise-fake. Gaily knows the next ring must include a diamond the size of a cow’s eye, so pure and magnificent that the blood is still actually on it.

Be nice to people.

A few weeks ago, my precious five-year-old niece, Layla, told me she doesn’t have any friends. She’s right. She doesn’t, because she’s mean. Here’s a snippet of her conversation with my brother, Bo, from her birthday party last year.

Layla: “He hit me!!!!!”
Bo: “Why’d he hit you?”
Layla: “Because I pushed him down.”
Bo: “Why’d you push him down?”
Layla: “Because he hurt my feelings! He didn’t want to play with me!”

So, when Layla told her Aunt Belle that she had no friends…

Me: “‘Be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.'”
Layla: “I’m nice to the gentleman and the ladies!”

What? It’s not like a five-year-old realizes I’m referencing a song about prostitution. It’s sound advice. It’s also advice Bridget Jones needs to take. I am not referring to the times she embarrasses herself in these movies. There’s little to be done about the fact that no one told you the party no longer required a slutty costume or fumbling your words during a speech. There is, however, plenty to be done in regards to not insulting a group of people with whom you’ve chosen to spend your time, by calling them “fat, balding… upper middle-class twits.” You can express an opinion without telling everyone to go fuck themselves. It’s also kindest not to assume that every well-poised, attractive woman is after your boyfriend. When you’re mean to people, they and others don’t want to spend time with you. Regardless of your size or ability to embarrass yourself, if you laugh about it and move on, if you’re kind to people, they’ll enjoy being around you.

There is a time and a place.

Bridget Jones was 33 years old in the first movie. She was single and beginning to feel hopeless about that fact. Despite that, she presented herself horribly in most situations. Again, I’m not talking about the embarrassing or desperate moments, like running out into the snow without pants, because she was terrified Mark Darcy was leaving for good. I’m referring to introducing yourself to someone by telling them how hungover you are, New Year’s Day or not…. about having the gall to be upset that they think little of you when you’ve done so. I’m talking about getting smashed at the company party, rather than saving it for a night out with your friends. I’m talking about slutting up to get some attention from the opposite sex at work. Bridget Jones was 33 years old and she really should’ve known better.

Value yourself.

Despite the fact that Bridget Jones was a little chubby, men still found her attractive. Hugh Grant slept with her, after removing her tummy tucker panties. Her new boss cast her as sex appeal. Collin Firth/Mark Darcy told her that he liked her “just as she is.” Regardless of all that positive feedback, she still blamed all of her problems on her weight. Bridget, you’re not unattractive, because you’re fat. You’re unattractive because of your whopping self-esteem issues. Bridget sleeps with her boss, pretty much just because he pays her inappropriate attention, which he’d have done to a floor lamp. This doesn’t just happen. She considers the option, acknowledges it as a bad decision, and does it anyway. On a similar note, she’s lamenting her single status at age 33, but she doesn’t actually try to meet anyone. She meets Mark Darcy, only by her mother’s introduction, bemoaning the fact that this is a regular occurrence. She sleeps with Hugh Grant because he’s present. Those are the only men she dates in the entire two or three years in which these movies take place. If you don’t want to be single, stop spending all of your time with your gay friend and gal pals and go date.

Gail is a brilliant gal and an amazing friend (currently she’s preening from reading that) and gave me a wonderful piece of advice a year ago.

“Go on a hundred first dates. Go on bad ones and good ones and meh ones. If you do that, eventually you will meet someone and it’ll click for you and it’ll click for them.”

She’s right. I’ve been on a dozen bad dates, because of that advice. It hasn’t clicked yet, but I’m trying. You know where I’m not going to meet anyone?

Here.

Forcing it with Gollum the Awkward Geologist

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Belle of the Library

I met Geologist on OKCupid a few weeks ago. He messaged me first and since his profile said he had a big boy job and seemed to like some of the same things I like, I messaged back, despite the fact that he didn’t look terribly attractive in his single headshot.

It was possible that he just didn’t photograph well, a recurring theme with men who date online; so I kept responding to his messages, though he wasn’t really leaving much of an impression and when he asked to meet, I figured I’d give him a chance. Then things started to get a little… awkward. I gave Geologist my phone number, figuring the communication had progressed enough to text message. Maybe then the conversation wouldn’t seem quite so stilted, because we’d be chatting in real time. The first text he sent me, however, was about how he was just going to continue e-mailing through OKCupid, because he finds letters to be more personal. I thought it was weird, but I also thought my death might one day be discovered only due to the downstairs neighbors complaining about the stain on the ceiling from the fluids evacuating my body, so whatev. I obliged. The conversations didn’t get any more engaging and I considered canceling our meeting, because this guy was dull and had a weird aversion to text messaging. Enter Gail.

While I tend to never give men a first chance, let alone a second, Gail has the opposite problem with… well people in general, but it was particularly prominent when she was dating. Gail would go out on a first date with a guy and come home with architectural drafts for the energy efficient home they would build together and information on domestic and foreign adoption. This was possible, because she completely ignored major turn-offs. Nine times out of ten, it was a highly entertaining disaster…

Gail: “Then, finally, he left the diary on his nightstand, so I figured… what the hell? I’m gonna read this fucker. So I open it to the last page…”
Me: “Wait, wait, wait… did you have to use a bobypin to pick the butterfly shaped lock?”
Gail: “No. It was leather. Anyway, the last sentence says ‘I don’t find Abigail to be particularly attractive, but I’m pretty sure I can get her have sex with me, so I will continue to date her.'”

This led to the purchase of a dollar store children’s diary filled with fake entries that went something like this…

Dear Diary,

Today, after I got out of the shower, I looked down and sighed sadly. But then I remembered that I am a beautiful (butterfly sticker) no matter how small my wings are.

XOXO,
Zaccc

You’d think that the tenth out of ten times would have been her boyfriend Terry, but no. The tenth time was the time Gail almost got supermudered by Post Office Mike, the man she dated for about six weeks and whose ex-wife may or may not be in stew. Post Office Mike was the only guy for whom she repeatedly ditched her best friend of ten years. For realz, y’all. I didn’t see Gail once for those six weeks and then she showed up on my doorstep covered in blood and cat fur.

Fine. I’m lying. But in all seriousness…

Gail: “So, he started yelling and I cringed away and he jutted his chest and shoulders toward me and screamed ‘Don’t act like I’m gonna fucking hit you!'”

Soooo… when I mentioned to Gaily that I was considering canceling on Geologist, she admitted the texting thing was he-has-a-secret-wife weird, but encouraged me to ask him why he didn’t want to text before canceling. His explanation was basically just that he preferred e-mail, because he’d been in the military and learned to appreciate actual letters. It was still weird, because, dude, I’m not showing my grandkids the OKCupid e-mails I’ve printed off and stored away in the cedar chest, but whatev. It was an answer that didn’t sound like he didn’t want his girlfriend to know about me. My stand-offishness leveled out with Gail’s everybody’s-made-of-rainbows-and-daisies horseshit and I met Geologist.

The first date really wasn’t bad. He was really awkward, but I assumed it was because it was a first date. Everything he said was new information on a new person, so he seemed interesting. Spoiler alert: wrong. It was actually a pretty good date with someone I had met online. He wasn’t terrible looking and I did a lot of the talking, because I tend to ramble when I get nervous…

Me: “… and I have my Gramma’s signature on my foot.”
::silence::
Me: “It’s a tattoo. She doesn’t, like, come over daily and sign it.”

… but Geologist didn’t seem to mind and we made plans to meet again the next day, because he works two weeks on and one week off the oil rigs. That’s sort of a thing here in the Midwest and a ton of those guys date online. I eagerly called Gail to tell her I liked the guy and had a second date.

Date two was at a suburban bar on a Monday night, at 10:00, because I’d come straight from the library, and since it’s not football season, it was deserted. Geologist wasn’t a drinker and I’m a lightweight and just had water while we played pool. This time, I was careful to talk less and give Geologist a chance to speak… which was a mistake. Not only was that not just first date awkwardness, but the man was… well, really dull. What he was saying was so un-engaging that I found myself looking at him and critiquing him…

What’s with the hat? He was wearing the same one last night.

Neither of us had spoken for a while, when I blurted “What’s with the hat? You were wearing the same one last night.”

Gaily is gleeful, because this supports her “broken filter” theory.

Then he took off the hat…

That’s when I realized, it wasn’t an issue of being skilled or not at taking selfies. The guy just actually looked like that and the baseball cap concealed the fact beautifully. The conversation continued… sort of… while thoughts drifted through my head, along the lines of…

He is really unattractive. Should I ask him to put on the hat again?

Stop being such a judgmental cunt. He’s being really nice… if not terribly interesting.

I don’t want him to kiss me.

… the second in the voice of Gail. I knew I was being unfair and, more importantly, I possessed the self-awareness to realize that I just do this with men. So I fought through it and chatted with Geologist… about nothing. He talked about being homeschooled a lot and told me how he was close to his family and I realized he’d said the same things the previous evening. The only people in his life seemed to be family. He even works alone in a trailer for two weeks at a time. Don’t get me wrong. I work in a public library. I’ve met droves of homeschooled people and many of them have great social skills along with superior intelligence, but Geologist explained that he’d lived in a rural town and was not a part of any teams or social groups. His whole world was only his family. He even told me his brother got his wife pregnant just because their sex education was so unbelievably lacking that they were using her mother’s old wives’ tales as birth control. That is not even homeschooling. That is intense isolation of the “MY LUCKY STARS: A NEGRO!” variety.

Listening to Geologist talk was like counting sand. Other than his family, he talked about credit and math and that is all. We’d already discussed the single T.V. show we both liked the previous night. While we played pool, he explained the geometry behind the game and seemed enthralled by it. I don’t even like pool or math and he was enthralled by the math of pool. Still… Gaily’s voice thrummed in my brain…

No one is going to be mad at you if you don’t like this guy, but give him a chance.

So at the end of the night, he told me to keep in touch. When I woke the next morning, I sent a hope-you-arrived-safely text, knowing he’d driven to the rig after we’d left the bar. He sent me an oddly formal text message…

Well, hello there. I hope you’ve had a good day. I did get to the rig safely, thank you for asking. It was lovely to see you before I had to leave town. I hope you’re well.

I assumed we’d text while he was out of town, now that we’d met in person. Then I logged onto OKCupid and saw his latest e-mail.

How’s your day going? It’s been an interesting day already for me, I’m not one to get lost easily but I admit that it was a little difficult finding the access road to this rig at 3 AM this morning. I could see the rig’s tower illuminated against the night sky my phone’s map app kept taking me to someone’s drive way. With a little time and doubling back once I was able to find the gravel road that lead to the rig. It’s by far the longest access road I’ve had to use thus far. Usually the rig is close to a main road but this time it was quite a ways off the beaten path. Also my monthly performance test arrived in my company email today. Aced it, though it was a little trickier than the others have been. I don’t think I’ve ever had a first date that I enjoyed as much as Sunday’s. Good conversation is hard to come by, don’t you agree? I would like to see you again on my next week off, I find you enchanting. How did the carpet cleaning go at your grandmother’s? Did the cleaner work fine after it’s tumble down the stairs? Off topic, do you have a favorite poet?

Holy shit. Even this guy’s e-mails are awkward and boring. I didn’t respond, because, frankly, who the fuck sends e-mails?!? I send e-mails for professional reasons and professional reasons only. Writing formal e-mails is a chore. Being with the guy was already a chore. I’d done enough chores. A day later I got…

I’m going to disable my account for now. Simply because I rather enjoy chatting with you and have no need for the account at this time. If you’d like to continue using email along with texting to touch base then my email is geologist@gmail.com.

I hope this email finds you well Belle,

Geologist

I immediately thought that was creepy. I’d met the guy twice and the second time was about as fun as dropping a carpet cleaner down the stairs onto my own head. He responded to said meeting by deleting his online dating profile? Since then, I’ve told others this story and they’ve all agreed it was crazy early for that. Gail, however, insisted it was just “flattering.”

Y’all, meet Mike.

If I don’t like someone I’ve met online, after our first meeting, I’m pretty comfortable with no longer contacting them. If he’s not interested, I’d much rather never hear from him again than get a brushoff text. I’ll get the point and so will he. I couldn’t quite bring myself to this conclusion after date two, however, in part because of Jiminy Fucking Cricket in my head going by the name of Gail.

Gail: “I understand you no longer talking to them after the first date. It’s unbelievably rude after a third date, though. Really, it’s pretty rude after a second date.”

Through the Belle filter…

Ugh. Fine. The guy knows where I work. There may be a face-to-face confrontation.

In all honesty, I know I’m bad at this and I legitimately try not to date like an asshole. I want to be respectful of the people I date, as long as they aren’t a bag of dicks. I just freak out, act, and then realize there were better ways to handle things. So, I promised myself that if I didn’t like this guy after the third date, I would tell him so, nicely… via text message. Baby steps, y’all.

It turns out, three weeks was the perfect amount of time to talk myself into never seeing Geologist again, then decide that I’m just broken and he was nice, looks great on paper, and I need to give him another shot. One good date and one bad date even out. I needed something to tip the scales and our bland-as-raw-flour text messaging wasn’t doing the trick.

Maybe he’s just not a good communicator via technology… I thought optimistically.

No. He’s just not a good communicator, which I learned on date three.

We scheduled date three for this past Friday. He wanted to take me two-stepping, which he’d mentioned during date two. I thought this sounded potentially astronomically uncomfortable, in the instance that I really just wasn’t feeling it, so I asked if we could do something else. When he asked for a suggestion, I mentioned dinner and a movie. He told me a late movie time and said we’d meet 15 minutes early to get seats. Okaaaaay. I’d mentioned dinner, because I figured it’d give us the chance to talk and recapture whatever connection we may have had, but didn’t want to press and appear as if I just wanted him to buy me a meal. I didn’t tell Gail about the date, because I figured it was best to remain entirely neutral and not freak myself out with her expectations and the requirement that I report back.

On the way, I told myself I’d exaggerated his unattractiveness and that he was just technologically awkward and we had the possibility of really hitting it off. Then I saw him and the first thing I thought was…

Oh. He does look like that.

I felt like an ass for thinking it, but I’d psyched myself up to believe that he wasn’t terribly unappealing only to realize that… well, I was wrong. I just was not attracted to the man and that hat must have belonged to Frosty the Fucking Snowman, because Geologist looked like a totally different person wearing it on the first date. I had initially described him as “well, you wouldn’t pick him out of a crowd, but he’s not bad looking” and now I’m astounded by how much the dude looked like Gollum, because I’ve never even seen The Lord of the Rings and still placed it.

Feeling like a superficial bitch, I was really friendly and charismatic and tried to get the conversation going… to no avail. The guy had to have had conversation cards or something, because he’d bring up a topic and then jump to a completely unrelated one, just like in his e-mails. For example…

Geologist: “How were your interviews?”
Me: “Oh, they were were good. I had one on Monday and one yesterday. I didn’t get the one from Monday, because of scheduling and I haven’t heard back from the other.”
Geologist: “I misunderstood when my benefits would kick in.”
Me: “Huh?”
Geologist: “Yeah, it’s not until July 1st, so I’ve had to wear broken glasses for a couple of months now.”

He just didn’t respond to any conversational cues and had nothing to talk about, because he spent two weeks alone in a trailer in the sticks. The movie started and Awkward Turtle over there had speed walked into the theater, not giving me the chance to grab any kind of refreshments, so I spent the movie thirsty. I would’ve gone to get something, but I really didn’t trust myself to come back. That’s how done I was with forcing something that just was not there. Halfway through the movie, I was dreading the end of it and simultaneously hoping time would go triple speed, because I wanted to be home, but knew the walk to my car would be tense. After, I tried to start up some conversation, while keeping my hands occupied so he couldn’t take one of them. He barely responded and speed walked to the car (I struggled to keep pace), which I hoped was because he was done as well, but no… he was just that much more of a reason for me to Google synonyms for awkward.

I showed Geologist my front end damage and thanked him for the movie. I gave him, what I intended to be, a quick hug, but he clung and started rubbing my back.. for an oddly lengthy amount of time. I had deliberately turned my face away to avoid a kiss, but in all his finesse, Geologist still leaned in a bit as I turned away from him. He, quite sincerely, told me he really enjoyed himself and I thought WHY?!?!

Then, I had my own moment of finesse. I was just searching for something to say and blurted…

Me: “So, when do you leave for work again?”
SHIT! Now he’s going to think you want to see him again in the next few days!
Geologist: “Tuesday.”
Me: “Oh. Um… you… uh… have a good time… with… that… and all.”
Geez, Belle. Seriously? You might as well scream “MY PRECIOUS!” and run, you ungainly twit.

Then I drove away as Geologist speed walked to his vehicle. I texted Gail, but she was asleep, so I recruited the reinforcement I should’ve recruited after bad date two… Jane.

Me: “I give up on dating. Clearly I just want to turn down nice guys and die alone.”
Jane: “Haha, aw. You’re not broken. He is. Someone you can’t have a conversation with, without wanting to stab yourself in the wrist, is not the guy for you. You can’t want to die alone. You enjoy talking too much. That isn’t a jab in any way, by the way. He sucks for you. That’s all there is to it.”

Gaily pretty much agreed, at this point. She said I’d given Geologist a fair chance and it was okay to not be into him. She even agreed with mine and Jane’s conclusion that a fourth date would imply some real interest in moving things forward. I wouldn’t want to lead him on in my desperation to not be a ceiling stain one day.

Gail: “So, are you going to tell him you’re not interested?”
Me: “I’m pretty sure he got it. I mean, if he texts again, I’ll let him know, but there’s no way he could not get it after my exit.”

Sunday night, via text…

Geologist: “How was your day, today?”
Me: “It was good. I worked. I should be honest with you and tell you that I don’t really feel a connection. It was nice getting to know you, though.”

Yes, it was a text message, but the only other option was apparently e-mail. Seriously, what guy, who works out of town for two weeks at a time, expects to carry on a relationship without texting?!?!

Ahem… It’s an improvement, though. This guy got a third date and an explanation. Considering my original idea was to stop talking to him, because I’d likely get a new job soon, I’d say I’m improving.

What did he say in response? Oh, I don’t know, because I marked his number as spam to avoid any unnecessary discussion or confrontation, before realizing that there was a better way to handle it. This is why I am an asshole.

ceiling stain
“Really. It smells bad and it’s dripping. We need Maintenance, yesterday.”

S#^t I Can’t Do (Part 2): Drive… At All

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Preface…

Over Lent, Father shared a series of homilies focusing on the Seven Deadly Sins. Each week, he focused on a different one. This is the same… exactly the same.

Shit I can’t do:

Date Without Being a Jackass
Time Management
Cook on the Stove
Express Sympathy Appropriately
Manage Heartbreak Without Humor
Drive… At All
Share Important News Like a Normal Fucking Person

Drive… At All

It happened. I was in my very first car accident… just hours ago. The story is typical… damn near boring. I was in a rush, tried to change lanes, and was hit by a Saturn Vue. The other driver and I immediately traded information while waiting for the police to arrive. I called the insurance company, the claims department, the body shop, my dad to ask to borrow his Jeep for a few days, my Gramma and Gail to tell them I was alive, my step-mom to tell me it was just an accident, and then my actual mother who ignored my calls because she’s mad at me for some fabricated-batshit-crazy reason… and I did all of this while waiting for the aforementioned cop.

-Phone conversation-
Gail: “Hey. You get everything handled?”
Me: “If I were a rape victim, I’m pretty sure the semen sample would no longer be viable. I am still at the side of the road, waiting for the police. I have been here since the beginning of time.”

In all honesty, outside of the inconvenience and 90 degree plus weather, it was pretty much the best car wreck ever. Like, for realz, if there are collisions in that town from Big Fish, they look like mine.

If she wasn’t from Spectre (I would make sweet love to Google), I’m pretty sure I hit a fucking Sesame Street character when the word of the day was “understanding”, because that woman could not have been more pleasant. When the cop finally showed, he was the kind of friendly that makes you wonder if he’d gotten into the supplies in the evidence locker and basically told us both that he didn’t have to write a police report unless we really wanted him to, so no one (like the person at fault ::cough:: me ::cough::) had to get a ticket. Then the lady actually apologized to me for making me wait. I was fully responsible.

Is she serious?

In addition to all of that, my dad has a habit of collecting cars he does not need, so I don’t even need a rental while my car is in the body shop. My deductible is only $500 and I needed a new bumper anyway, because…

I am a terrible fucking driver.

I’m not even kidding or exaggerating when I say that I don’t know how I’ve been driving for nearly ten years and this is the first collision I’ve been in, let alone caused. I curb check daily, people. I make split-second decisions that are more often than not really bad, like braving flooded streets after a tornado when I drive a hatchback that is about four inches off the ground.

Three times, I have managed to use this picture. Fucking Southern spring.

I run out of gas almost as frequently as I get lost and most of those times, I had the money to fill up and just… fucking… forgot. Each and every time I sputter into the station, I scream “Fuck yeah! This car runs on prayer!!!!” like I’m Grandpa Joe, just saw the golden ticket, and leaped from bed for the first time in twenty years.

Then there are all those times I’ve misplaced the car… with me in it. Gail and I once went shopping… or planned to… with me behind the wheel. The destination was the north side of the city and Gail was supposed to be giving me directions. She took a phone call and looked up to exclaim:

Gail: “What the fuck did you do?!? How did we end up at the Capitol?!?”
Me: “I don’t know! You were supposed to be giving me directions!”
Gail: “I looked away for two minutes! How did you even do that, Belle?!?”
::silence::
Me: “So… um… you wanna tour the Capitol?”
Gail: “Eh. Why not?”

We live in a grid state. Our roads are probably the easiest to follow in America. I have gotten on the wrong Turnpike, taking myself 30 miles out of the way at least four times. I’ve gotten lost on the way to the college where I received my master’s degree more than five times in three years. I was an online student. I don’t even know if I’ve been to that school more than 15 times total. The town of Springfield practically merges with my hometown, Shetland. It’s a Shetland family’s answer to sit-down chain restaurants, the one department store, and the movie theater. Gail and I spent most of high school driving around this town and giggling in the bookstore. I once had a Springfield address and I have gotten lost there recently. It’s sad, y’all. Mice can navigate mazes, on the first trip through, better than I can navigate my hometown. Not only that, but… well… I tend to hit shit. I tore a panel off of the side of the car the day I bought it, because I didn’t see the curb. Luckily it only cost $25 to reattach it, but that was only the beginning.

Incident 1: My extended family is huge. On Christmas day, we rent out the gymnasium of one of the local Catholic schools, where the kids put on a nauseatingly cute talent show, the women fight over their Dirty Santa theme, and the men grudgingly pretend they give a shit which Home Depot card they take home, because their wives made them play. It’s a blast and last year’s was no different… save for the ice. In my area, we don’t get a lot of snow, so when we do, everyone freaks the fuck out. My dad sent me a text Christmas morning telling me not to get out, because of the ice and insisted the party was canceled. My cousins all told me otherwise on Facebook. While I enjoy my solitude most of the time, it was Christmas day and I was not going to stay holed up inside alone like the star of some depressing as fuck Peanuts Gallery special. However, the storm had been raging for days and when I went outside, the entire car was encased in ice.

I know what you’re thinking, mostly because I got the same responses when I posted this picture on Facebook.

“That’ll break your windshield!” – Ward
“What the hell are you doing?!?!” – step-momma

But, no. That is not how I damaged my car on Christmas day. That is just an example of one of the “brilliant ideas” of which I researched no possible consequences. Gail actually refuses to listen to anything I preface with the quoted phrase. Close-minded bitch. After about an hour of scraping, during which I slipped on the ice only once, I finally cleared the window enough to drive through the ice and fallen tree limbs to the church. I fishtailed a few times, texted my dad at stoplights to ensure him I wasn’t leaving the house, and finally arrived, no damage to my car. Whew. Then, I pulled into the parking lot and didn’t realize that that curb was a half-wall and rammed the fucker. That is correct. I drove through a Southern apocalypse unscathed only to crack my front bumper in two on a wall while parking.

Incident 2: Shetland is a suburb and I work in the city, so I drive about 70 miles per hour on the highway, to and from the library. The speed limit is somewhere between 50 and 70. I couldn’t tell you for sure, because I don’t pay attention.

My Gramma is the most adored, most paranoid person in my life, with my dear Gaily taking a close second on both counts. Every night, when I get off work, she calls to make sure I’m no longer in the “bad” (read: not “wealthy and lily-white”) part of town. She’s an elderly white woman from the South and I mock her for it, but she worries, so whatev. I’ll appease My Favorite Lady. This particular night, she called right as I got on the highway. I don’t know that the reason I busted my bumper is because I was on the phone. It probably didn’t help, however, that I only had one hand available for any possible evasive maneuvers when I saw a dead pony in the road. Fine. It was a dog, but it had to be fucking Falcor, because that thing was huge.

I saw Falcor in plenty of time, there just weren’t any options. I was going 70 miles per hour with only one free hand. Had I not had the phone plastered to my ear, I don’t know that I’d have had any other options than to hit it, either, because there were cars on either side of me. Were I a typical Southerner in a pickup truck, this wouldn’t have been a problem. I, however, drive this…

The guys call it my “roller skate” and the four-year-old boy that Chad and Jay babysit once asked verbatim “Why do you drive that?” It’s a reliable car and I don’t want to replace it yet. It’s cute… because it’s small, and not meant to be driven over stray cattle. Having been the only one affected by said accident…

Me: “Hey, I’ve never even been in an accident, thank you very much.”
Chad: “Technically, hitting that dog and busting your bumper was an accident.”
Me: “That dog was already dead!”
Jay: “That dog could’ve been napping!!!”

… I didn’t bother to make an insurance claim. I know how much the parts are for my car and I know they couldn’t replace a single piece, but would instead need to replace the entire front bumper. It wasn’t worth reporting an accident to my insurance for cosmetic damage, so I… got creative.

Psh. I’m kidding. I’m classier than that. I used zip ties. That brings me to today, my “very first accident.” As far as accidents go, it was peachy, since I happened to be driving through the town from the Hidden Valley Ranch commercials at the time.

$500 to fix my bumper / (three separate accidents that destroyed my bumper + the damage done to the other vehicle) = $125 per incident and/or vehicle.

The car won’t actually be serviced until July 9. What can I say? Don’t get into a car wreck during tornado season. I’ve had worse days, though. At least I’m not married to a man who’s insisting the oil was changed and the engine just fell out of the car for no reason, amiright?!? Perspective people.

The “Ideal Woman”… probably isn’t drunk at 4:00 on a Wednesday.

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Wednesday was my day off and, as the result of some Hellmouth-level bizarre occurrences, the fates lined up and Gail and I actually had the chance to hang out… in person! Usually when we spend time together, it’s via phone, text message, or the occasional surprise Facebook annoyance of her ex-boyfriend until Gail deletes the damn conversation just as it was starting to really piss him off. Bleeding hearts of the world unite, Jiminy Fucking Cricket.

We met up after Gail got off work, with the full intention of laying out by the pool at my apartment. I didn’t press that plan, because I’d been doing so for two hours and could later prove it with the spots I missed when putting on sunscreen. It’s not truly summer until you’re rubbing aloe into your ass, wondering why exactly your ass was showing at a public pool, amiright? Since it was 93 degrees, Gail works outside, and I had been laying out reading for long enough to end up in the ER again – being yelled at because that’s apparently “not text message news” (true story) – we decided to lounge in my living room, in our bathing suits, enjoying air conditioning… and liquor. We truly are classy Southern gals, so I supplied ice cream bars and Gail brought Taco Bell sodas and Patron. She refuses to drink cheap liquor, even if it is just going into cherry soda. For realz… it’s like drinking with the Queen… of the trailer park.* She won’t drink anything out of a plastic bottle. Fucking princess.

Oh, unhappy marriage, how I miss you. You can’t even taste the tears through this stuff and it’s like eight bucks a gallon.

* I’m totally allowed to make this joke, since I spent my first eight years in a trailer. Fucking disclaimers. There. This entry is no longer offensive.

Gail has always been a hopeless lightweight and my prime drinking days took place when I was about 90 pounds heavier, so after just a a few sips, we were both giggling maniacally in my living room.

It was at this point, I began reading OKCupid profiles. You see, Gail and I used to browse the Craigslist personal ads for entertainment, because they are fucking hilarious. Seeking serial killers is actually how she came across Terry (see above photo). Advice: don’t open the ones with pictures… or wait… maybe I totally want you to open the ones with pictures. I can’t decide.

Drunkenly, I suggested informing individuals on the site exactly why no women responded to their messages. For example…

“I’m not like, interested in you or anything. Just so you know, though, you aren’t getting any attention on here, not because you open with ‘Hi, how are you?’ but because the first paragraph of your profile is a lecture about how I shouldn’t be so picky about my prospects because of their openers. Change that.”

Even drunk, Gail is all gum drops and lollipops and the Spirit of Fucking Christmas and kept telling me this would be mean. Frankly, I’m sober now and still think it would’ve been a great idea. Maybe that’s why she calls me “The Instigator”… or maybe it’s because I wanted to mail her creepy sex toys from Terry just to see what she’d do. Who knows, really? The girl’s an enigma. Ultimately, she managed to talk me out of it, only because I decided to blog about the following instead.

Me: shouting for some reason “Okay, okay, okay! This one is for you! ‘Ideal woman’.”

Then Gaily’s feminazi head exploded and I just cleaned my fucking carpets. FYI, one of those industrial rental carpet cleaners will totally survive a tumble down a flight of stairs… and if it doesn’t, you don’t have to tell the clerks at Lowe’s. Wait. Where was I? Ahem…

The following is copy and paste (complete with oddly placed punctuation).

Ideal woman:
Please note: This is not his ideal woman, but rather the ideal woman and you should probably just print this out and staple it to your to-do list.

She knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go for it;
Translation: She’s adventurous in bed… early and often.

she likes her man to be a man but still be able to show his emotions.
There’s his very first contradiction. Don’t worry. Even if you disagree and think men should be able to comfortably cry at sad movies and ultimately turn into walking vaginas, there are many, many more contradictions to come. Also, what the fuck, Google Chrome? How is “vaginas” not a word? Is it like “deer”? Is the plural of “vagina”… “vagina”?

Balance is important to her; she works hard enough but her job doesn’t consume all her energy. She enjoys the nice things in life, but is also spiritual and doesn’t get fully caught up in the quest for material goods.
Okay. Here’s my big issue with this little tirade of his. Who is going to describe themselves as any of the negative things he’s listed? How many profiles say “My job consumes all of my energy, but when I am awake, I’m the most materialistic person you’ll ever want to hit”? Even Carrie fucking Bradshaw would’ve described herself as simply “enjoying the nice things” and all that woman ever did was demand things she didn’t deserve from people she didn’t deserve.

Remember when he hit her? Sigh. He was the best.

She wants a man in her life, but doesn’t need one.
I could totally get on board with this declaration if it weren’t for…. wait for it….

She knows that she and her man will be worth more together than apart.
Well, there’s part of it. If she doesn’t need a man, how/why is she to be convinced that she’s not worth as much without him? That’s sort of the definition of needing a man.

She enjoys the simple things in life but can also be spontaneous.
How is that a “but”? Those two are completely independent of each other. That’s like saying “she likes macaroni and cheese, but also enjoyed the movie Ferngully.”

She likes to travel to far-off places, relax on sandy beaches under a hot sun, and then cool off in the sea, but she also likes the hustle and bustle of a busy city.
That’s the deal breaker for me. You see, I hate traveling to far off places (particularly when they include a superfluous hyphen) and I’d rather swallow my own tongue than relax on a sandy beach under the hot sun. Whew. It’s a good thing he was so specific in his requirements. Many women hate exotic vacations.

This contrast and balance are part of her character. She is centered and content, but being with people that she cares about is important to her. She is kind and considerate and would like to be her naturally caring self with people who have earned her trust.
Wait. She’s supposed to be caring, right? Also, isn’t it sort of a given that his description of her character should be a part of her character? For realz, yo. That whole thing is just redundant.

Me: still shouting for some reason… I’m a loud drunk “Well. I certainly don’t fit the bill then. Kind and considerate, I am not. I’m kind of an asshole.”
Gail: guffawing on my floor “Yes, yes, indeed you are… but we love you anyway.”

She wants a man who understands her–one she doesn’t need to tell what she wants, but who just knows.

This was the most obvious lie to get Internet poontang (one word… I checked). I’ve hung out with a lot of guys. They hate “I shouldn’t have to tell you. You should just know.”

A man who can be the closest person to her, to help her make decisions, and to always be there and offer her his strength when she needs it. She doesn’t expect to find him right away, but she’ll know when she does.
Aaaaand…. there it is. He actually fucking used the word “needs.” I thought she wasn’t supposed to need a man, yo? What’s up with that? Also, just reading that sentence made me claustrophobic. That sounds like Christian Grey putting tracking devices in my phone, battered wives shelter crap.

Oh, let’s start this love story now!

The Amazon in My Corner

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Abigail the Passive Assertive is how she’d go down in history if passive assertive people went down in history. They don’t, but you get the point. When we met, I was the mouthy one and Gail was the doormat. We seem to have leveled each other out, more or less, over the past ten years, as I’ve taught Gail the value of standing up for herself and she’s taught me the value of doing so without a screaming match in Algebra class. True story. Every now and then, though, people push Gail just an inch too far and it’s always Feed-the-Gremlins-After-Midnight awesome.

Scene: at a bar, where Crooked Teeth has been begging her all night to come out to his truck with him, actually trying to pull her to the parking lot at one point.
Crooked Teeth: “I just want to show you my truck.”
Gail: “Really? You just want me to see your truck?”
Crooked Teeth: “Yeah. I swear.”
Gail: suggestively “Well, what if I just wanted to go out to your truck, pull down your pants and suck your dick until you cum in my mouth?”
Crooked: “Uh… what? Is this a trick?”
Gail: “Uh… yeah…duh.”

The Musician was a phase (THANK GOD) and they were never exclusive. He, however, desperately wanted them to be… on Gail’s part, while he had a mirrored headboard and multiple brands of tampons under the bathroom sink.
The Musician: “So, what? You’re out at a bar trying to pick up other guys?”
Gail: “I’m going to let you go, so you won’t have to talk to such a whore anymore.”
The Musician: “I’m just trying to get to know you and that’s hard to do when my lady is getting to know other men.”
Gail: “I’m not YOUR lady, I’m MY lady.”
The Musician: “It’s just a figure of speech.”
Gail: “So is ‘nigger’.”

See that. Gail’s a regular little Amazon when you push her too far. Overall, however, she’s a pretty passive person. We both had somewhat absent parents in our teens. My mother was busy eating candle wax, while Gail’s parents were busy bragging about her little sister. Don’t get me wrong. Gail and I both understand that they just have more common ground with Sadie and that’s why she was their favorite. It’s not that they love her more, but that they get her more. If there is a crime, it’s that they aren’t all that subtle about their preference. For example, I’m not even kidding when I reference the birthday card Gail saw displayed in Sadie’s bedroom declaring her “the best daughter two parents could ask for.” I cringe, not because of the obvious favoritism, but at ending a sentence with a preposition.

As adults, Gail and I find this hilarious. We know they love her just as much as Sadie. They just don’t connect as well with the daughter who truly had to be talked out of living in her truck a few summers ago, for no reason. As a teenager, however, Gail felt rejected and mistreated and, as is still the way of Gail, she said nothing, because familial conflict is a lot more difficult than telling off Jethro Clampett in a bar. So… enter teenage Belle, who felt abandoned and abused, and could therefore totally relate. Ultimately, we clung to each other, fumbling our way through our formative years with only another clueless teen as guidance. Considering we were both divorced by age 23, that may not have been the best path, but it was certainly better than going it alone.

Having been through all we have, Gail and I can both be accused of going Mama Bear on each other at one time or another. After I posted a blog about how overwhelmed I was with grad school, I got a text message demanding “You’d better be kidding about the cocaine.” I was. When Gail told me she met Terry on fucking Craigslist, she got an angry text message “That was wreckless and dangerous. You could’ve been super murdered and then I’d be all alone to deal with how much that sucked. Fuck off.”

“Eloquence” is the word you seek. I should be allowed to address the masses.

Despite the must-be-fated-in-our-blood connection, Gail and I are far from the same person. As a reader of Red Pill blogs (though I don’t subscribe to the ideology), I love to call Gail “Captain” when she does any traditional male activity, just to piss her off. It’s even more fun than “Rosie the Riveter”. She generally responds with a comment about how I should be churning butter or vaccuuming in pearls. You see, we are the victims of identically broken marriages to men who weren’t men or adults in any traditional sense. Both refused to work and resorted to tears as manipulation tactics. Neither took any pride in supporting themselves and were happy to let the woman of the house do it. Gail took it for less than two years. I took it for just over four. Our reactions were exact opposites. Gail wants to take care of herself and doesn’t need a man’s help. More importantly, she doesn’t want to support a man financially. I can take care of myself as well, but I want to be with a traditional guy who understands what role a man is supposed to play: breadwinner and spider killer. I’ll gladly slip into some pearls and vaccuum in the meantime. Ironically enough, Terry, Gail’s beau, is mighty traditional. I always knew she secretly wanted a man to take care of her.

Insert condescending head pat :here:.

You see, Gail has a mothering tendency that is beyond normal or healthy and the death of her infant daughter three years ago didn’t help. We once had the following textersation, in true keeping with our humor-cancels-out-emotion arrangement.

Me: I was watching this documentary on penguins and thought of you. “When the female penguin loses her young, she is quick to adopt any stray and will often fight another female penguin over rights to the chick.”
Gail: Shut it, stray.

So, when Gail dates a… oh, just for fun we’ll go with musician… who smokes a ton of pot and lives a wreckless lifestyle, she can’t help but worry (despite her own tendency to fuck Craigslist truckers). She feels like the babysitter, whereas I would just feel like it’s his fucking problem when he gets arrested. In completely different ways, we have both washed our hands of men who don’t act like adults. She avoids them and I encourage them to put pepper spray in their eye: another true story and one that demonstrates this perfectly.

About two years ago, Gail’s on-again-off-again (they still said “I love you”, but didn’t sleep together) boyfriend, Cam, was at my apartment with Gail. I had just begun a new job in a different part of town than my white, wealthy, suburb, where I walk the golf course at 2:00 a.m. with no worries, and my Gramma had insisted I buy pepper spray. My Christmas tree is hot pink, y’all. When I saw pink pepper spray, I was sold. Gail has this theory that there are some things that you just don’t buy in pink. I fully disagree since my tree and my hammer and both of those guns all work fine, Captain.

Gail, however, kept insisting that the contents of my pink pepper spray were “lemon juice and glitter”, to which I responded “I don’t want either of those in my eyes, so we’re good.” I must state that Cam was about two years younger than we were, putting him at 21 during this story. Though he worked three jobs, he was pretty much 12 years old forever in a lot of his antics. The pepper spray debate continued so I jokingly asked Cam…

Me: “Hey, Cam. You wanna test my pepper spray?”
Cam: “Sure! I’ll try it!”
Me: “Seriously? I was kidding. You probably shouldn’t do that.”
Gail: “NO! Do not! We’re going to have to take you to the hospital.”
Cam: “Oh, it’ll be fine.”
Me: “Alright. Here. It’ll be a story either way.”
Gail: “BELLE! Don’t encourage him!”
Me: “What?!?! He wants to do it. Let him do it.”
Gail: “Ugh! This is a terrible idea.”

So Cam took out his knife, cut open the package, sprayed a little bit of pepper spray directly into his palm, rubbed his finger in it and touched his eye.

Then… all hell broke loose. Cam immediately declared “It works! Oh… it burns!” and leaped up to run to the sink while Gail frantically ran water… forgetting about the open knife on his lap. As he was bent over the sink, blood gushing from his nose due to his clotting disorder and high blood-pressure from the pain, I took a moment from my uncontrollable laughter to ask “Is your foot bleeding?” as blood dripped onto my floor. Only then did we realize, he’d dropped the knife on his socked foot… and that was even funnier. In my defense, Cam thought this whole thing was hilarious as well and part of the problem was that he was laughing while Gail yelled at us both that this was serious, while shoving tampons into Cam’s nose, partly to shame him and partly so he wouldn’t die.

Me

Cam

Gail

That story pretty much sums up Gail’s entire relationship with Cam.. and the musician… and our friend Malik… and pretty much every irresponsible person she’s ever met. I just declare them to all be adults and let them do as they will. Worst case scenario, I know that’s not lemon juice and glitter.

Scene: Cam lies on my floor with an ice pack over his eyes, a bandaged foot, and tampons in his nose. Gail stews angrily while washing the bloody towels and sock.
Me: “Well… at least we know the pepper spray works.”
Cam: groaning laughter
Gail: groaning laughter “Damnit, Belle.”

Gail and… well, the majority of the relationships she has with people.

Since the Great Pepper Spray Incident of 2011, Gail has pretty much steered clear of Adult Children and I credit that to the actual stray she took in, Ginger.

Gail’s all “I don’t remember her taking this picture and this is the second time she’s posted it” as she reads this, because coincidentally enough, the sewer rat Gail insists is a dog looks just like this.

I comforted Gail during her divorce. She held my hair during mine. She listened to me cry during my miscarriage. I helped her make Valentines to leave on her daughter’s grave. Maybe we’re both pretty broken, but it’s beyond amazing to have someone there who will read everything I write and send me encouraging comments, come over and cry to me when a boy uses her, listen to me rant and rave about my lunatic mother, and call me when she’s having a hard time dealing with the fact that her little girl, Grace, would have been four today. Told you she was an Amazon, because fuck I don’t know how she’s retained her spirit through that. Lucky for me, though, because it’s pretty awesome that I always have an Amazon in my corner.

The Tornado Diaries: Where I Giggle About Something Terrifying

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Belle of the Library

A Southern toddler could tell you exactly what the appropriate procedures are for a tornado warning. A Southern eight-year-old could tell you exactly how no adults ever actually follow said procedures. All non-Southerners think one late night viewing of Twister qualifies them to say “You know a tornado’s coming. Get underground!” Umm… no. We don’t. We know a tornado might come… sometime this spring or summer or maybe in the fall. There will be more tornado warnings this Tuesday and Wednesday, just as there were all last week… encompassing a third of the state. A tornado did not hit a third of the state. The sirens go off all the friggin’ time… and nothing happens. We can’t live our lives underground five months out of the year. This ain’t District 13, folks. We have to watch the news, wait, and determine whether or not it’s safe to get on the roads to seek shelter, because we don’t all have underground facilities, especially those of us in apartments. So this is what a real tornado experience looks like through the eyes of someone who jokes about everything, including those things that are scary as fuck.

Shetland: I gave my hometown a real name. This is the town I’ve lived in for the majority of my life.
Springfield: About 10 minutes north of Shetland, often merged with Shetland.
Fairview: About 20 minutes west of Springfield. I lived in a motel in this lower-income town for a few months when I was married. I hated it.

A Southern spring night.

My best Facebook posts of Friday night and Saturday morning:

Scariest thought of the night: “That mattress is really wedged in there. Am I trapped in the bathtub?”

I can’t sleep without a fan blowing. There’s sauce all over my kitchen from using a hammer to open a can of Spaghetti O’s. My Kindle battery is draining. I am so over this Laura Ingles $#^+.

I would not even care about the zombies in The Walking Dead. Those people have no electricity. EVER.

Wait. What is all over the kitchen? Oh, yeah. Spaghetti O’s. Hammer.

Textersation With Gail Friday Night
Gail: Watch the weather.
Gail knows I don’t watch the weather unless someone calls or texts that I’m about to die.
Me: Rory Gilmore would be 30 next year.
Even then, I may or may not take it seriously. I just assume we’re under tornado watch March through October.
Gail: Turn on the weather if you haven’t yet and get to a house instead of your place.
Me: Why?
Gail: Very bad storm in Fairview.
Me: I’m not in Fairview.
Gail: Heading east, as tornadoes do.
Me: I’m not east of Fairview.
Gail: Well, I meant so that if one occurs here, as they’re warning is likely, you don’t die.
Ugh. Here goes Gail again. This is just like the time she claimed that guy I met online wanted to “show me his hatchet”. He just wanted to watch Arrow. So, he didn’t have a T.V. That doesn’t mean anything. So fucking paranoid. – I called my dad, who works for the electric company and is therefore in the know. Then I called my Gramma, who along with Gail, works for the fabricate-shit-to-fear company.
Me: Everyone else said it’s not coming here.
Gail: Yeah, the current tornado isn’t. The storm is still developing. Channel 4 just said “If you’re in Springfield, take shelter now.”
Me: Ah. Cherokees blessed the town. I’ll be fine.
Me: I’m not in Springfield.
We have a heavy concentration of Native Americans in this state and a heavier concentration of ignorant, rich, white kids in Shetland. Last spring, while substituting under another tornado watch, I had a fifteen-year-old boy assure the class that we were fine, because Cherokee Indians blessed the town a hundred years ago. I tried to explain that’s bordering racist and also isn’t how weather works, but the class seemed calmed by the idea, so I left it alone.
Gail:*shrug* suit yourself. If you ever die of Belle-related causes, I’m letting your mother dress your corpse for the funeral.

That is exactly what that would look like, because to my undiagnosed/secretly diagnosed mentally ill mother, I’m frozen at age 11.
Gail: “This is a major tornado. It’s making a hard right and turning toward Shetland.”
I had actually heard this on the news and was headed toward my Gramma’s house, but admitting that was acknowledging my own fear, which is an emotion, so ew.
Me: *Picture of Cherokee* – Couldn’t find one. Typed the words.
Me: My grandparents left to “outrun it.” I don’t know what to do, but I didn’t go with them.
A drunken Southern child (that’s probably a thing) could tell you this is a stupid idea. You cannot “outrun” a fucking tornado, particularly with 2,000 other people on the road doing the exact same thing, because an idiotic weatherman told everyone to “head south.”
Gail: It turned toward Springfield. He said if you’re in Springfield, go south. Right now it’s headed down the highway.
Me: You might want to pray for me. No. Pray for my Gramma and my stupid grandpa, who decided they could outrun a tornado.
I didn’t tell Gail that I was on the road at this point, and would likely die if the tornado hit Shetland, because I was stuck in traffic. It wouldn’t have helped and where do we keep our emotions, y’all? That’s right. With the last fucking horcrux.
Gail: You shouldn’t have gone. You did the right thing. Now it’s more likely to hit my empty duplex, but now it’s just a circulating cloud. It’s off the ground.
Me: Shetland is fucking anarchy. People are driving on the shoulder and all over the roads. Police and ambulance sirens are constant.
Gail: It’s back on the highway. It destroyed one of the storm chaser vehicles. That’s why they thought it ended – they lost contact. Springfield and north Shetland. You’re probably okay by now.
Me: Yeah, the power outage is the biggest deal. It’s freaky quiet.
Gail: NO! There’s another similar storm right behind it.
Me: Fuck this. Wanna move to Colorado with me?

Where there is no bad weather.
Gail: They think another tornado is forming in southern Fairview.
Me: Knew I hated that place. The sirens are steady now. It’s eerie.
Gail: Yes. Looks like a small tornado is by my place. Figures I’d lose everything.
Me: Least you KNOW Terry didn’t do it. I hope no one finds my vibrators in the rubble.

Me: I love you.
NOOOOOO!!!!! LAST FUCKING HORCRUX!!!!!!
Gail: I love you, too. Are you okay? Where are you?
Me: I’m good. I’m home. Is your place intact?
Gail: I have no clue. I’m at my parents.
Me: Bad things don’t happen, Gail.

Just sayin’.
Gail: There are overturned cars and injuries in Shetland. The Cherokees could improve their aim.
Gail’s a little racist.
Me: Holy shit, there’s a telephone pole across the street in front of Wal-Mart!
Gail: Told you. Go inside!
Me: Ummm.. I did something stupid instead.
Gail: Do you have a flat tire? Dammit, Belle! You know there are nails everywhere!
You know, I grew up here. I should’ve known there were nails everywhere, but it totally didn’t occur to me. Neither did the fact that I practically drive a low-rider hatchback and it had been raining heavily for hours.

Me: Okay. Home.
Gail: Thank you.
I immediately left to grab ice from the gas station, though it was still pouring, there were down power lines everywhere, and the gas station was clearly closed… until they saw me driving away with their ice and started shining a flashlight through the window.
Me: So, Shetland is SUPER flooded right now.
Gail: Yeah, gotta conserve phone battery though, so please no more texting unless it’s pretty important. Sorry. 😦
Me: One last one. How much trouble can I get into for stealing two bags of ice from the gas station when they didn’t see my plates and I’ll totally pay for them when they’re open?
For realz, I had to keep talking myself down from a panic every time I saw red and blues (which was often) outside my window, because I was certain they were coming for me for looting $3 worth of ice, for which I did eventually pay. You know, because they didn’t have bigger shit on their minds.

______________________________________

When I woke the next morning, I realized I still didn’t have power and wasn’t surprised at my three hours of sleep. Seriously, if the power flickers and the fan goes off briefly, I will wake up. I texted my dad since there were reports I might not have electricity for days. Keep in mind, my dad works for the electric company. It’s gonna be a busy week and that started Friday night.

Me: Can I store some food in your freezer and stay with you until I have electricity?
Dad: Sure. You can have the front room.
Me: Thanks! I’ll be totally unobtrusive.
……..
……..
Me: I’m at your place with a flat tire.

What was that about nails, Gail?

… and then God reminded me that online dating was at least funny.

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Belle of the Library

I caved. If you don’t recall, here was the hierarchical list, in the sense that I must accomplish one task before moving onto the next:

Graduate Portfolio
Master’s Degree
Librarian Job
Boys

I passed the portfolio and I got my degree. Then I had a panicked fit that went something like this…

“I’m never going to be a Librarian! Because I’m not dating, I’m going to die alone and not even Gail will be there, because she’ll be on a fucking couples’ cruise with fucking Terry! She signs onto CRAIGSLIST to giggle over serial killers looking for love and fucks a trucker in a Buick and it turns out perfectly (even though it’s the obvious set-up for a horror movie) and I’m going to be the lady from Mona Lisa Smile crying about how life wasn’t supposed to be this way! Gail won’t even be there to console me like Julia Roberts did! She’ll be too busy playing Pictionary with The McIntyres, even though they have the personalities of plates and wear too much pastel, because they have kids the same age as hers, and she’ll have outgrown me and my rotting ovaries! Motherfucking Terry!”

1. I graduated two weeks ago.
2. I’m 25.
3. I don’t know anyone with the last name McIntyre and neither do Gail or Terry.
4. I really like Terry.
5. I’m an eensy bit high-strung.

Soooo, I talked myself down from the bell tower and decided to change the list up, taking my mind off the job search with a little online dating… which I have not legitimately engaged in since November, when I failed my graduate portfolio presentation the first time. I got an OkCupid account and then I got a PlentyOfFIsh account… and then God reminded me that online dating was at least funny. Don’t get me wrong. There have been some promising guys and I’m continuing this effort, despite the guy who told me he was looking for someone “naughty” after three hours of standard Q&A texting… or the guy who explained that he got a divorce because there was nothing good on T.V. that day, my only ever reason I cannot dignify such a decision, outside of the obvious cheating with heroine stuff.* The promising ones, however, are not funny material for blogs. So, the following are copy and paste openers from profiles and personal messages.

*He actually said that there was no chemistry or passion in his marriage, because marriage is a tingly feeling and not a lifelong committment. Okay. He didn’t say that last part.

The Profiles

-I LIVE WITH MY PARENTS!!!!!-
Okay. There are extraordinarily rare scenarios where I’m cool with this and I think it’s best to be open about the fact that your mother can’t get around by herself after her stroke, before getting involved with someone. That’s fair and quite responsible e-dating, in fact., and I can get on board with such selflessness as this.You, however, offered no explanation for this living arrangement at twenty-fucking-eight. You did state that you worked full time at a clothing store. Dude, you have a full time job. We live in the South, where you can buy a decent house for $60,000 and rent a meh apartment for about $600 a month. Stop taking advantage of your clearly too loving parents. Grow. The. Fuck. Up.

-To those that have already seen my profile I want to apologize my crazy psycho ex somehow managed to get my password and talk crap about me?!-
Oh, please, please, please tell me you have issues with your ex-girlfriend!!! You do?!?!? There is a flash flood in my pants right now.

For realz, yo, I do not know your name. If your ex did this, start creating more unique passwords and get on with life. Anyone who actually saw what she wrote, probably won’t be back. Opening with a rant about your “crazy psycho ex” tells me that you thrive on that sort of drama. In other words…. NEXT!

-I’m a genuine gentleman at heart but I can also be a NAUGHTY BAD BOY ;]-
Telling me that you’re a gentleman “at heart” sort of implies that I can’t really see it upon the first meeting, which is not particularly gentlemanly; neither is calling yourself a “naughty bad boy” in an introduction. I sure as shit do not want to shake your hand without some kind of glove.

-I went through a divorce all of 2012. finally got my divorce papers a few weeks ago. I use to have a motorcycle, but i lost it in the divorce.-
“Von. Two. Three! Three uses of the word divorce in your first two sentences! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

Wait. You’re divorced, aren’t you? Is there a clearer way to tell me that you are sooooo not over your divorce? My general rule for online dating, regarding exes: if they’re mentioned in a profile, they’re not ex, because they are still very much a current variable in your life.

The Personal Messages

-Hi I’d like to tell you more about myself My father was a beekeeper before me, his father was a beekeeper. I want to follow in their footsteps. And their footsteps were like this. (Runs screaming) AAAAAAAH! I’m covered in beeeeees!-
Ummm…. okaaaay. I get it. I do. He’s opening with a joke… a bad one. The thing is, I’ve gotten this from him before. It was months and months ago on PlentyOfFish (this was OkCupid). It was weird then (enough so that I remember it) and it’s weird now. This is also clearly his default opener and he’s sticking with it. He thinks this is funny and encourages conversation… even though it says nothing about him and inquires nothing about me. All this tells me about the guy is that we do not share a sense of humor and that is a deal breaker.

-You seem entirely like someone I could be interested in.-
I do not think this guy could’ve sound more pretentious if he tried. For one, this was worded… awkwardly at best, as if in an attempt to sound intelligent, though it ends in a preposition. Two, it sounded like he was inviting me to impress him, though he sent the first message. It was just short of “dance, puppet, dance!”

-You asked for a guy who is in a career…unfortunately I left a career to go back to school to do what I’m passionate about.-
He went on to tell me that he was studying vocal music performance and I think he thought I would admire this, despite clearly stating otherwise. Then again, he said “unfortunately”, so I don’t know. I honestly do not care what other people do with their lives. If he’s paying his bills and singing for his supper, what-the-fuck-ever. He’s not going to date me while doing it, though. My profile makes it clear that I want someone who has an obvious career and knows where their life is going and it does so because my ex-husband’s “career” was stealing from his wife. I have no idea what sort of future someone sees for themselves majoring in “vocal music performance”, because that’s not how I operate. In the movie Across the Universe, the old man tells the young man “what you do is who you are” and he’s clearly stuffy and unenlightened. Yeah. So am I. I’m into practical fields and that’s what attracts me, because I feel that means someone could potentially take care of more than just themselves. I also don’t see why someone needs a degree in music performance. If they’re good, why not just go sing? Mostly, I don’t get what this guy thinks he’ll have in common with someone so corporate as a librarian. I work for the man.This job is stationary and nine to five. His clearly will not be once it’s started, whatever it is. There is zero future there and my profile was just shy of saying so verbatim. He sent me another message a few minutes later telling me he added to his profile and wanted me to check it out again. No. I stated I wanted a career guy and he is the antithesis of that. That’s cool and all, but no.

-Is that the face your pup makes when he looks into the future?- (he was referring to a photo of my dog)
“Crazy man” was taken as a photo title in the folder where I save images for this blog. That should tell me something about my life.

-Good evening miss. So I read your profile and I am very interested in getting to now you. Maybe we could be like to comets in the night sky burning brightly in the night sky showing off are passion for each other . That is if we hit it off. Which I bet we would.-
I legitimately screen capped this and texted Gail to ask if she thought he was kidding. Upon reading his profile, I realized no, he was not. I recently read a great blog post by an online dater about a guy who awkwardly petted her head and asked for permission to kiss her. I’m pretty sure this is the Southern version of that guy and dating him would’ve made for a great blog post, though that would’ve been cruel. First, there are the spelling mistakes. Shudder. Second, there’s the somewhat creepy use of “miss” and the whopping romantic clichés. Third, there’s the use of the word “passion” in an introduction. Another, completely different, shudder.

In conclusion…

There are clearly many other reasons why I will be dying alone.

Belle of the Library

… the musings of an overly organized thirty-something, married, southern librarian turned stay-at-home-mom with too many opinions, too much ambition, just enough kids, and a stubborn, mouthy, redheaded country boy to accompany her through life.

Tag Archives: funny

I’m a Librarian, B^+<#@$!!!

My dog is the only boy I like and his longevity does not compare to mine. Commence the dying alone.

Tears, Giggles, and an Urn

You’re alone for a reason, Bridget Jones…

Forcing it with Gollum the Awkward Geologist

S#^t I Can’t Do (Part 2): Drive… At All

The “Ideal Woman”… probably isn’t drunk at 4:00 on a Wednesday.

The Amazon in My Corner

The Tornado Diaries: Where I Giggle About Something Terrifying

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