Palm Talk

Day off today. The thing about me is, I am not so great at relaxing and doing nothing, as is usually a popular choice on one's day off.

I want a project, I want a purpose.

I have a couple brewing in my mind, but never put them into practice. That in itself drives me insane! I have these wonderful ideas,  but I can't set my mind to it because... Why?

I'm worried it won't work? I'd rather browse other people's wonderful ideas on the internet?

I had my palm read the other day. No, I did not pay 60 dollars and my firstborn child. And I don't normally believe in that kind of thing. I'm cynical enough to feel like I'm getting ripped off or tricked, but enough of a child to want to believe that my entire life is written on my skin. It's the most romantic thing I've ever heard; my body being it's own book.

As the creepy french lady bent over my left palm I struggled to keep a poker face. That's how they know, I thought, your facial expressions tell them they're on the right track!

"Mmm, you're very creative. Very artistic. Lots of ideas and passion, but you don't use it. It's right here, through your life line and love line. It's part of your life, but you don't DO anything with it. You need to use your art. You can't wait for things to HAPPEN to you. You must make them happen. You are a great communicator, but strong and in charge in love. You'll have many disappointments in love. You can't make love happen.

Listen, don't talk. Listening is better then talking. That is how you'll know him."

I was a little creeped out. Is it like a horoscope, and I'm hearing things I want to hear, or things that make sense to me?

Do better, be better. Follow your passion. I'm sorry lady palm reader; it's so hard when I'm in my bathrobe and there's leftover pizza in my fridge. 

It's About To Get Girly

Yeah, I'm gonna talk about weight, so if you're incredibly bored or irritated by this topic...
You're probably a man.

I recently had to visit the doctor for some lady issues (This makes me sound as though I am infertile, or frigid, like I visited Dr. Freud) and the nurse did the usual to prep me; take my blood pressure, ask me about my medical history... Asked me to step on that scale...

I hate those medical scales. The metallic, sinister sliding scale that tips wildly back and forth as if to say "WHOA BESSIE. SHOULD NOT HAVE EATEN THAT PIZZA!"
It's so judgy, that inanimate doctor's scale. I know, I'm getting all Cathy on you. I'm sorry.
So with the posture of a death row patient getting strapped into the chair, I step onto the scale.
And after some adjusting and poking, the nurse says:
"Okay! 158!"

Ladies and possible incredibly bored gentleman: I have not weighed in the 150's for like, three years. I have been trying to lose this freaking college weight the entire time I was in college!
For some reason I just thought all those jeans in my closet I hadn't been wearing just got magically comfortable. Or I had forgotten about them. I thought that since I was dating a guy that thought I was super hot it was just making me feel more super hot.
I mean, that helped.
But I actually am. I finally lost that stupid weight, I'm finally wearing the clothes I want to wear and feeling cute and buying hot underwear!
This should feel like a victory!
And it totally did, for like a day.

And now all I feel is anxiety about KEEPING the damn weight off! I thought there would be some relief, you know?! I thought once I lost this weight I've been crying about for years, YEARS, that I would breathe a sigh of relief and be happy!
I am happy, to some extent. But there is no magical cure. It is all in your head. The way you see yourself is all in your head.
I have brainwashed myself into thinking I need to change, and now that I actually have, I still can't be relieved and happy.
So that sucks.

In some other amazing news, I went to "The Glitter Sale" at Goodwill this week. If you don't know what the Glitter Sale is, you really should, because it will change your life.
If you're a big fan of fur and vintage clothing.
So perhaps a smaller percentage of you then I thought. But still!
From what I gather from the website explaining the sale, the employees of Goodwill hoard the really nice, vintage, big ticket items and hide them in a room all year. Then for two bloody, grueling days, they open up a completely separate building INSIDE Goodwill and allow too many people to line up outside to cram inside the building with a million other women with sharp elbows.
I came away with an evening coat from the 40's (Maybe?) with a fur collar. I'm a little torn about that fur, but mostly because I don't want paint thrown on me.
Please don't throw paint on me.
This dead animal feels so luxurious against my cheek...

100 little Asian ladies line up outside the Goodwill on Dearborn.


Wanda Jackson wrote the soundtrack to my life.
So interpret that how you will. 
FUjiyama!

Incredibly Introspective and Preachy

You know what's gross you guys? Right now I am at a coffee shop in Seattle.
Blogging.
In a scarf.
And you know I am drinking me a wet cappucino.
Despite this, me being out in the world with other people, sitting here on our computers together, I feel strangely disconnected. And I've been thinking a lot about why that is.
There was a time when people had journals, or diaries and they poured their bitter thoughts and feelings about unrequited love, or how fat their ass is, or how much they need to get laid right onto those little pages with the cartoon kittens on them.
These days we take those thoughts and feelings and vomit them out into the internet where strangers can read them and... What?
Judge you? Empathize with you? Feel smug in the knowledge that they are somehow better because they aren't feeling angst-y on that particular Tuesday?
And I don't know if it's healthy, or kind. Especially if you are writing about other people, as I tend to do.
It's this kind of self celebration that facebook and twitter and blogger all succeed with.
I guarantee that a person that writes "God today is a deep pit of despair and doom" on their facebook, will reply "Great! How are you?" to the age old question: How are you doing?

What is that? Why does the faceless facebook allow us freedom to be whiney and judgmental and bad without feeling any guilt about it?
Perhaps because when we post our status about how much our day sucked, we see a million other voices proclaiming the same thing on our "news feed".
EVERYONE'S DAY SUCKED.
If I wrote all the things down that I've ever written on facebook in an actual BOOK and left it at work, or a coffee shop, I would probably be mocked mercilessly for my diary.

Which brings us to this blog.
Sometimes I can be very catty and bitchy and bitter. These are the bad things (Oh just the tip of the iceberg really) about me. Sometimes I write about things, and then the next day I feel completely different and I wish wish wish I could have never written it. That's probably not healthy.
I guess when I started this blog I was really lonely, and really angry I was lonely.
I suppose that I also felt my life was in need of a theme.
"23 year old single in the city" seemed fun and witty and something people would want to read about. Something I wanted to write about.
But instead 23 has been incredibly hard and confusing. And not romantic or sassy single girl living at all.

It's been me; painting my walls and learning to hail a taxi and ride the bus and fix my leaky toilet.
So as much as it may pain you to hear this, I don't think that being single is my theme.
I think figuring out my theme is my theme?
(ITS SO DEEP)

So instead of writing about the failures of men, or okcupid or my romantic fantasies that involve a bookstore and coffee:
I am going to write about me. Living here! In this city. And yes, there will be some nods to men in my life as they come and go. That is probably inescapable.
But mostly it will be about how much I love Than Brothers, and the monorail even if it's full of tourists.
It will be about the color of all the trees in Queen Anne and the millions of colors of the leaves and the matching scarves of all the children around the fountain in the Seattle Center.
I want to explore everything, and connect with people. I want to meet everyone and write about everything I see that I love, and some things that I don't.

I want to write about it if you want to read about it. Hell, I actually don't care if you're reading it. I'll write about it anyway.

The List

I think this is a topic that has been pretty well covered in the media. Everyone's got one, even Barney Stinson. Okay, especially Barney Stinson. (By the way, How I Met Your Mother is not always the funniest show, but at least there's Neal Patrick Harris. Worth it.)
It's not necessarily the people you sleep with. I wouldn't post that, that would be tacky. Also I'm a virgin.
(Pause for laugh track)
The list I'm specifically talking about is your list of types.
The cliche guys (Or gals. God knows there might be some man somewhere reading this, hoping to pick up on some tips. Good luck.) you found yourself romantically (Or genitally) entangled with.

My List:
The Nerd - Oh my god he's so nerdy. But so smart. And also so grateful to touch your boobs, even if he's grappling around with them like they're game controllers. 
The Asshole - Sure, for two seconds at that bar he seemed nice. But now he's hitting on that girl. Your waitress.
The MindFuck - Wait, you thought you were winning this argument. He didn't come home until 3 in the morning, why are you apologizing? Yeah, of course someone just gave him those condoms you found. Wait... What is HAPPENING?!
The Nice Guy - Nice guy, why are you so nice? At first it was really... nice. But now it's just boring.
The Great on Paper - Everything about this guy is awesome! He works for an airplane company! He builds airplanes! He owns stock! He is in awesome shape with awesome facial hair! ... And there is absolutely no chemistry.
The Military Guy - He's on time, treats you like a lady and wants to drop money on you. Drawbacks? He voluntarily owns guns and enjoys it.
The Funny Guy - Oh, he's funny. Very funny. Someday you'll probably have a serious conversation. 


And of course there's always the guy that fits into a couple categories. But I prefer to fit people into tiny cliche boxes and label them. It's more fun that way.
What's your list?
I asked Seth, and he gave me incredibly cliche titles for women that's he's encountered. So very successful, in other words.
Seth's List
The Scenester
The Party Girl
The Prude
The Ditz

Newsflash, no one says ditz anymore. We say "Kim Kardashian," or "dumb ass bitch". No just kidding. We say Snooki, obviously.
I am none of those things he listed, so apparently I'm not included in people he's dated. Though we are "casually dating"? Whatever that means. Once you try and define things, things get all messy and weird.

It sounds to me like he has dated a lot of "crazy" people. I sometimes balk at men that have a long history of putting up with insane women, because it seems like there's something wrong on their end. Endless patience, or just an inability to find a normal person?

Hello, attractive lower halves. 

I'm Much Too Young To Be This Insane

I have been thinking a lot lately, for no reason at all other then obvious ones, about falling in love.
I think too much. I know that. But how can you tell yourself to not think about something? Especially if that something is thinking itself!
Okay, I can see I'm getting a little too deep for you. 
Let me lay it out here.
The things I've been thinking about.
Love:
How do you know it's there?
Are you supposed to be hit with it? Like a train, or a bus or other things people use to violently describe the feeling of love? 
If I broke up with boyfriends that I said 'I love you' to, was I actually not really in love, since we broke up?
Is this "love" bullshit actually created by the media and only exists in television and movies and is only intended for people like Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock? 


I would always ask my ex boyfriend, "Why do you love me?" In a whole, desperate sad girlfriend way.
"Chemicals in my brain! Hormones and pheromones," he would say, kissing me on the top of my head on his way out the door. My love for him felt desperate and tangled, mixed with a lethal dose of anxiety and passion. 
So that was sweet. 
To my other ex boyfriend I would ask the same question, and he would tell me a different thing every night. My love for him felt warm and comfortable, and sometimes spread through my chest and shoulders like a blanket when he touched me. 


I don't know what love is, or what it is supposed to feel like. It feels to me right now like love is made of compromise. I don't date smokers, but he is incredibly funny. I don't date short guys, but he likes to read.
Full of things you don't like, mixed with things you've always wanted. 
When you find love, do all the pieces fall into place and that person is perfect? Or do you just not care about those little things you hated because... I don't know!


My boss at work is awesome, and she and her husband love each other very much. When I asked her how she knew that she was going to marry him, she said,
"After two weeks, I knew that if I spent more time with him and actually dated him, I would never leave him. We would get married." 
That is an example of the hit by a train love. That actually exists for people!
My mom and dad have been married about 30 years. They are the perfect couple. I have only heard them fight once, that I can remember. My mom loves my dad more then herself and vice versa. Sometimes they meet for dinner and they're wearing the matching outfits. It's disgusting. 
My mother on my dad:
"I didn't think I was going to marry him, no."
So that's comforting! 
How did you know you wanted to marry Dad then?
"I guess because I couldn't imagine being without him."


I know I shouldn't even think this much about it. I'm 23, it's not like I want to get married tomorrow. But I have always been so curious. So, so curious about everything. And incredibly impatient to boot.
And now it's like, I want to experience this thing, but it's not like sky diving, or sushi. You can't just order it.
I want to know how it feels, I want to know what I am like in love. I want it to color my day and my being a bright yellow. 
Is this going to be like college, where the entire time I was stressed out, and tired and having the time of my life without realizing that it was the time of my life?
Is being single right now going to be like that?
Should I not be in a relationship just for the experience of not being in a relationship?
Can I turn my brain OFF?

"At one point, we were very attractive and young,

but then you got Alzheimer's and I lost the ability to hold 

an erection."

All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name. 
- Andre Breton

Mr. Attractive Seth Rogen

Sorry I've been a little absent, but I've been going on some amazing dates. Dates: plural, man: singular.
Mr. Attractive Seth Rogen. Which is a really long name, but I can't for the life of me think of a better one. It's strange, because there are so many good things about this person, and a couple of very unique things, but his resemblance to Seth Rogen (Yet attractive) sticks out the most. Who can question the inner workings of my mind.
Not you, dear readers! (All 7 of you.)
Lets call him Seth. That's a little shorter, and at this point I think I'm on a first name basis. Seein' as how we've been on about 5 dates and I know his face pretty intimately with my face.
Too much?

First Date
I met him at a party. He was standing there with a martini, being funny. We talked about things he later forgot because he was drinking. When we left the party, I mentioned to my friend that he was cute. She offered to set us up (With extreme enthusiasm because that is how she does everything.) and I hesitate.
I do. Because even though this blog is fun, and all tongue in cheek and stuff: I am exhausted. I am exhausted of holding my tongue (In my cheek?) and acting very polite and acting interested and... Acting. I am holding up a drawing in front of my face of a very interesting, normal, cute girl and my arms are tired.
Because, although I am very interesting and cute and all of those things, I am not normal. Who thinks they are, in this world.
I am bratty and spontaneous and quick to judge and say what I'm thinking (Even if it's really uninteresting) and I have a vendetta against very elderly people and cars that refuse to let other cars merge in traffic.
I am just a ball of weird.
I am tired of pretending I am not for these random strangers. They are not even worth the trouble.  If you recall, the last time I told someone that I liked them, he called me and told me Jesus was not a fan.
I did not want to waste more time and effort on an awkward encounter in which I waste my time and he wastes his money (Though that is being hopeful).
It wasn't like that, not at all. Well, maybe a little awkward. Luckily I am a destroyer of awkward; cutting through silences and pauses with my sword of irritating babbling about random shit.
We met on the pier in Seattle, in front of the pirate store. (His idea.) There was not a plan, but I am also a destroyer of plans, so that worked out fine. We walked and talked about things. We went in antique stores and weird tourist traps. We went to the comic book store. I noticed he was not dressed like a hobo, which was nice.
I imagined myself as Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up, only not pregnant or a bad actor.
At the end of the date, we smoked a cigarette. He is a smoker. I hate that action, not only because I hope to date someone who will not die anytime soon, but because I have it within me to become a smoker. I like to smoke: I started in Paris when I was 17, and I have smoked sporadically at parties ever since. I never buy a pack, but I hear cancer doesn't give a shit about stuff like that. It smells bad, it makes my throat hurt, I can't run up hills as well, and my brain won't shut up about how bad it is for me. I am too smart to be willingly drawing chemicals into my body that injure it.
And that is my rant about smoking and how much I hate it.
So we smoked a cigarette. And then he kissed me.
THAT was awkward. I'm just gonna calls it like it is, because he is so cute, but god it was awkward.
I understand. It's hard, as a guy, to know what kind of lady you're kissing. Does she like the cute 90/10 equation? Does she want to be grabbed by the shoulders and kissed like you're going off to WWII? Who can say.
So instead he chose the third: awkwardly lean forward and trip off the curb into your face option. Which I continue to laugh about. It was a nice kiss.
We planned a second one. Date I mean.

It will take about a million years to write about all the dates we went on, and what we did. Also I am a lady and only kiss and tell 79% of the time. That's an exact percentage.
But here are some hot spots:

The Needle and Thread
Seth had jokingly spoken of taking me to a speakeasy, and silly me, I assumed he was kidding.
Not so.
I'm not going to tell you how to get here, because you'll have to find your own way in. Part of the magic.
After making a reservation, your date escorts you through the restaurant and find your way to a wall. With a door and a telephone. It's all very mysterious. He then picks up the phone, states the reservation and the door is buzzed open. Then you go up these stairs:

I freaking know. 

And you're in a freaking speakeasy! With the music, and the highbacked chairs and the two lone bartenders polishing glasses. 

He bought me an amazing drink. Whiskey sour with egg white, which sounds gross, but is actually foamy and delicious. Try it. Maybe it's gross somewhere else, I don't know. 

Then if you're really lucky, when you're done with your drink your date will take you to

Quinn's

We were seated upstairs, in the 

"I'm Better Then You Because I Eat At Gastro Pubs" Section.

Oh wait. That was the whole restaurant. 

It was amazingly good, the waitstaff was nice, and it was really cozy and not pretentious, like you think it would be. Seth got bone marrow. That is exactly the kind of person I like to eat out with, the person that gets the weirdest shit on the menu, so that I can try it without committing my order to it.

My steak was better. 

I give it a serious 5/5. It's relatively inexpensive, delicious and fun.

Then we went back to his place and made out. So that was awesome. 

I am having way too much fun with this person. How much time are you supposed to spend with someone you just met? Am I jinxing things by talking to him every day?

Can things actually be jinxed?

In other news that is awesome: I signed a year lease on an apartment in Queen Anne. So I am no longer "the girl crying on the ferry because it's 2 in the morning and she just wants to sleep."

I am "girl who lives in hip neighborhood and has amazing calves from hiking up hills."

Or "girl with absurdly long nicknames."

A Date With Michael Bay: Part 2

Oh gosh, are you excited or what. I know I am. I love to relive these moments. These moments of deep, deep shame and humiliation...

Part Two
So we're at the park, holding hands and things. Sitting and talking. And he leans over and kisses me. No big deal, easiest thing in the world! I think that was the big draw there. It was not awkward, not forced. Nothing with this guy was. It was... sweet.
I try and refrain from being sweet too early, so guys don't get the wrong idea and think that's how I normally am. I don't want to give them the wrong idea and crush their hopes and dreams. Usually...
At this point in the summer, I had an internship at a theatre where I was working backstage as a stage manager. It was a play with teenaged actors and not something everyone would enjoy... Actually probably just the parents of the children and people that appreciate youth theatre... So like five people.
In any case, I had to go. It was in Seattle, we were in Tacoma, I had to drive and that was the end of our date. OR WAS IT.
"Well, I could just drive you there on my MOTORCYCLE."
He did not really speak in capital letters, but that is how my brain saw it.
And my brain said yes. yes. YES. Almost immediately.
I try and follow the simple rule of "If my mom would not like this, I shouldn't be doing it." Now, I'm not a total prude, I do occasionally ignore this rule and revel in the debauchery of my twenties. But I've noticed a lot of things I do that I know my mom would not like, I regret later. Or I'm on my knees throwing up later. Either way!
In this case, I totally ignored my rule.
And then got in a horrible fiery motorcycle crash.
No, jay kay. I did not. Gotcha. But we did drive all the way to Seattle and by the time we got there my ovaries were vibrating. And I was clutching on to him like a baby panda. Or koala. Whichever you prefer envisioning me as.
"We can sit up a little bit you know. You don't have to lean forward the whole time."
"OH. Yeah I was doing that out of terror."
He watches the play, poor soul. (It was actually quite good, and I like this theatre a whole lot, so I'm sure he wasn't completely tortured.) Then we're back on his motorcycle and back to Tacoma.
Riding on a motorcycle, on a freeway, at night. One of the most exhilarating things I've done this summer. I watched my shadow race by me as we passed street lights and laughed, and it was scary-cool-amazing.
"So do you want to come up and watch a movie or something?"
Gentleman, can I just let you guys know: we've cracked your code. You don't really want to watch a movie. You just want to make out and touch our boobs. And that's okay! You don't have to keep up this pretense that you want to watch a movie on your laptop on your bed. We're okay with that!
Ladies: They don't really want to watch a movie.
We didn't watch a movie.
What we DID do, I'm not quite sure how to describe.
So I've decided to do a mad lib for you. Whoever comments and has the most hilarious fill ins wins an illustration of your mad lib from me. Now, not the most accurate, the most hilarious. Got it? I don't want to draw me in any of your strange fantasies.

We went up to his room and he immediately                 me up against the               . "Man," I thought, "This guy is                !"  Making out with this guy is like                              . And it's                     . I never thought that I would find someone else that liked to                           . He pulls my                     over my                   , and suddenly we are outside on his                      and I am upside down, looking at the lights of Tacoma.                        are coming off rather quickly for someone who proclaimed himself to be a                    , but no big deal! "I don't want to be that girl you                    in the morning," I say seriously, looking into his                 . "I really              you." That's probably where it all                    . He doesn't seem like a               , with the kind of                he is doing, but I'm not one to judge. Maybe he's read lots of                   ? It is outta control, and I have                in places I never thought I would have                . It's perfect. It is like Fight Club up in here and I am                  . There are some things he does that I don't like, such as the frantic                      . But you win some, you                        . At the end of this, after                hours, we are                     and                        and collecting our                        from various places.
And I am                      .


I don't know what you gleaned from that artistic rendition of what I like to call, "One Night With a Marine," but I hope you enjoyed it and didn't think any less of me for my cryptic mad libs.
I drive home at about five in the morning, floating on this candy cloud of bruised lips and words that I haven't heard anyone say to me in a long time.
This was my first "date" I guess you could say, since my boyfriend and I had broken up. I missed him, a lot. He was my best friend, and despite incredibly obvious reasons we could not be together, I thought about him every day. It was nice to not think about him.
It wasn't my first "date" though, as much as it was my first time finding someone that I actually liked to talk to. I was beginning to think I had given up my only train ticket; that at 23, I was going to be left behind on the platform and everyone else was going to have their great love. All I had to do was compromise a few things, and I would've been fine. Now I know that's not true, but this summer was a hard one. It was really hard.
The next morning he texted me.
"It looks like a wolverine attacked my back."
"Well, it looks like a crazy sucker fish attached itself to my neck. So there."
I didn't really say that, but it did look like that. Who gives hickies?
The day goes on and I am singing and polishing things and contemplating inviting him over for dinner so that we can actually talk and find things in common and jump each other.
He calls later then expected.
"Are you somewhere where you can talk?"
"Um, sure. I'll go outside."
I settle myself on the lawn, expecting a warm lover's voice and instead getting a cold stranger. I am confused.
"Are you okay? What's going on?"
"I went to dinner with an Elder from my church."
Oh no, oh noooooo. I am writhing on the grass I am tearing up things and throwing them.
"Oh?"
"I'm really sorry. I didn't respect you as a gentleman last night and I apologize."
"It's really okay. I mean, it takes two to-"
"I can't see you again."
I am silent on the grass. I am contemplating at one point I hated being 23 and alone. This point. 
"Like, ever? Because we don't have to do those things, I mean, I'd like to just go to a Mariners game and-" stop stop stop being so desperate oh god stop
"Ever. I'm really sorry. I need to be in a relationship where I can come before God with my partner, and I don't think I can do that with you."
I'm pretty confident he is correct, but still cannot believe this is happening.
"So you're just, not going to see me again? We can't just take a step back or draw a line?"
"No. I'm really sorry."
"You know, it's funny how that doesn't make me feel better. I hear it does sometimes, but it's really not working for me." please don't cry with this stupid person on the phone. 
"I know. Look, I'm going to have to let you go."
"I hate when people say that. I didn't say I wanted to go, you can't let me go."
"Goodbye."
"Yeah."

Now I wonder if he was really talking about something else. I throw the phone.