Fifty Shades of Cock Block.

Okay, while I try not to fancy myself as someone who follows the crowd, sometimes I give in.

Being surrounded by women at my new job is a brand new experience. One that’s interesting but yields different types of rules. Comments need to be thought through, hair flips need to be poignant and sometimes eye contact needs to be broken. Keep your head down, do your work.

But when in women town, do as the women do and all the women are reading fifty Shades of Grey. The English major inside of me doesn’t like to be kept out of any kind of conversation about books, so I hastily jumped onto this bandwagon.

The book itself is odd. It’s popularity stems from a mainstream book having such erotic imagery that is usually reserved to a mattress book or the back pages of Cosmo. But Christian Grey puts it out there for all to see.

Reading it confuses a lot in me, mostly because I don’t believe the character of Grey. Someone who is so into bondage and possession gives way when a confused virgin enters his world? I doubt if this were true life someone like him would even invite someone like her into his Red Room of Pain.

This then begs the question, how does this affect the men?

I have so many guy friends. I like them because they’re simple. Uncomplicated men who say what they’re thinking. How many relationships are confused because this is the way that men really are when all the books and movies paint them as these complicated layers that need to be peeled away?

I wonder what men think when they read this book. The women have had such a reaction to the complexity of Grey, that I know men are picking it up just to figure out why their women are all of a sudden glaring at them when Sinatra comes on and they’re not immediately asked to dance.

Sorry, boys.

But I bet it’s not the first time a fictional character has cock-blocked you.

And let me tell you a secret…

We’re not as complicated as we seem. This won’t be the last time it happens to you. 

Can't get no satisfaction

Some famous person, philosopher, writer, someone, once said something like satisfaction is the first step toward death.

Something to that effect.

Like, if you stop dreaming, aspiring to something more than what you’ve achieved, you’ve given up.

What happens when you have a dream for your whole life and you achieve it? Satisfaction is an unacceptable reaction to that, apparently. I go back and forth about how I feel about this whole thing.

I know when I first read this; I nodded, understanding where they were coming from. Born with the heart of a wanderer, I think that this is something that I can get behind, at least for the foreseeable future.

Having decided to forgo all the things it seems everyone else is doing, mainly getting married, having babies or just doing what their parents did in general, the whole world has opened up to me. I can go wherever and do whatever I want with only my dreams to keep me company.

Satisfaction seems to be the last thing that I want. Half the fun of getting somewhere is the journey. How do people fuel themselves further when there is nothing driving them?  Satisfaction seems like the last thing in the world most people want.

It’s really an odd idea- that we spend so much time working toward satisfaction and then loathe it when it gets here. Like maybe the journey was the best part, but we didn’t realize it until we got there. And we really wished we had taken more pictures.

That’s all I’m planning for right now- the journey. Because I don’t know where it’s leading yet. Maybe I’ll meet satisfaction someday down the road. Maybe not. But I’d like, if I ever do meet it someday, to maybe meet it on my way out of here, so that I can hold it’s hand, okay that we didn’t meet sooner.

Life is all about the journey. 

Atychiphobia

I’ve always been afraid of clowns.

I couldn’t tell you why. As far as I can remember, I’ve had no traumatizing experience. I didn’t get lost at a circus as a kid and wander into the clowns tent and see them shooting up or anything. I just don’t like them. I never will.

When people ask me what I’m afraid of, clowns are always my answer.

But when someone scoffs at a story idea, or tells me a character isn’t believable, my dialogue too trite, do I really get gripped with the one thing that could scare me more than a vat of clowns- the fear of failing.

I’ve always felt like my dreams are too big for the world that I live in. My feet were never on the ground, and my head was always in the clouds. I wanted to be an actress; I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be a chef, a lawyer, a teacher. I changed my mind so many times because I was worried about failing.

There was always someone better than I was. Or someone who had more people that believed in them. I come from sensible stock- a modest family that believes in hearty careers that if you are willing to work, you can do it. Doctors, nurses, engineers. Scientists. But I blew in from Dreamland. Where everything is a possibility and the world is too big for me to stay in one place.

I see people that just seize their dreams in a chokehold until they get them. People who are in bands that got their chance when they were 17. Singers who put a video up on YouTube and got signed by Usher. Luck found them, and they are doing what they’re supposed to.

But how do you keep your faith in a world that’s running out of room for dreams? Too many people want too many things. When you have to depend on your parents for everything because no one will look at your manuscript. How do we grow up and give our dreams a good kick in the pants?

Dreamers are always lonely. I think that’s because only people with huge dreams would be willing to call themselves dreamers. These people are often frowned upon by society. Such hope makes most people uncomfortable.

But at this moment in time, people need to get used to it. I refuse to leave this world without having meant something to it. I don’t want to live trapped in a dream that I couldn’t fight my way out of to make it happen.

I have to find what my path is. I know it’s to something amazing. I was meant for more than I’m living now. I know I am. 

I've got promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Sometimes I get frustrated that I’m so blaringly single.

I get frustrated that I can’t walk two feet without running into a couple in love or hearing a really sweet couple story. When plans are being made, people have to check in with each other. A sickening smile crosses most people’s faces when their special someone’s special ringtone goes off and they answer the phone like they haven’t spoken to them in years despite the fact I just had to watch a very lingering goodbye kiss minutes before.

They seem to have found all that they need. And maybe that’s enough for them. I wouldn’t know. Maybe falling in love is what most people wait for. It certainly is what keeps the movie and music industry in business.

But is it the end of dreams?

The universal thing about college is that while the buffer of education surrounds us, we can dream that the world beyond is whatever we need it to be. Nothing is out of our reach. All pre-med majors want to build clinics in Botswana. All French majors want to spend their years sampling cheese in Paris. All English majors will publish the greatest American Novel.

But when we fall in love, these dreams lay forgotten in the darkest parts of our brain. This big bully, Love, sweeps through and nothing else matters. He’s a big selfish brat, Love, and he needs to be the center of attention.

Too many times I’ve seen people forget the dreams they had for themselves to focus on the dream of the couple. To do what’s best for them. Decisions are made to make the relationship last. When they do forgo the relationship to do something they’ve wanted to, like study abroad or finish a degree, they spend the whole time missing the person they left behind, effectively ruining the experience you left for in the first place.

If I was a dream, I would say what the fuck.

Our dreams have been there for us for so long, and yet they are always forgotten when love comes along. Love has a way of making you think that being wanted by someone else has been the dream all along.

Think about what you wanted to do before your relationships. Are you still working towards those things?

I can’t feel too upset about being single when my dreams are already too big for me. I love all of my friends that have found that other person. I am so happy for them.

But like Robert Frost said, “I’ve got shit to do.”

Actually, I think he said something like “I’ve got promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.” But I was paraphrasing. Maybe falling in love is enough for them.  But it’s not for me.

Maybe love only seems like the enemy of dreams from an outsider looking in. Maybe there really is someone out there that will only be help and never a hindrance. Maybe there’s someone who will always be your sounding board, who never tells you to calm down, or think rationally. Who never asks “What about me?” But can you be that person back to them? Will it ever be fair to both of you? Is it worth it to even look?

Can a dreamer ever really fall in love?

Love Today- A Lesson Inspired by One Direction

The word of the day is rescue.

Rescue- to free or deliver from confinement.

There is a story that was told in some movie or another that speaks of a bird who had been in a cage its whole life and then all of a sudden it is set free and all it looks for is a way to get back into the cage because that’s all its ever known.

How often do we live in the familiar? Change is frowned upon and is something to be avoided at all costs. With everyone around me graduating, everyone has made their Plans. Big Plans that are going to outline their lives, to make their transition into the real world as seamless as possible. To make the change not a change at all, but a transition.

But rescue is different. The word seeps with drama. To rescue implies that one was once in danger. And something or someone came in to change that.

A new infatuation with One Direction has me thinking about what it must be like to be 18 and have the entire world watching everything that you do, and criticizing harshly. They ask for rescue in one of their songs. Is it a Hollywood written ballad, or are they sincerely asking to be delivered from something?

I’m here to argue that we’re all in a cage. One that we choose to be in. Like the boys in One Direction, who alongside the adoration of the entire teenage set of English girls also have to deal with the hatred of the world. We may not have it tweeted right to us like those poor boys, but we have it pressing down on us.

An inclination to impatience, a stressful set of circumstances or the lowest self-esteem can all be things that can lead us into hate. This cage of hate entraps us and we just live inside it, wondering why the sun doesn’t shine anymore.

But I know that just within the reach of our fingertips is love that we can all pull into our lives and give to other people.

It’s so much simpler to just not care about anyone. But that’s no way to live. That’s no way to love.

A offhand comment about someone’s outfit, or a vehement dislike of a certain celebrity may seem like small potatoes compared to war and terrorism, but let’s be truthful- they had to start somewhere.

I’m going to call all of you to reach out of your cage that you may not even know you’re in and decide to not hate for just one day.

Just one day of trying to find the best in people and of smiling at people who look like they need it. If this happens for just one day, what if it could change the energy of the world? If a war could be started by an offhand comment, maybe it could be stopped by a sincere inquiry about someone’s day.

I’m calling you all to Love Today. 

Yes or No. There is no Maybe.

“How do you know when the yes is coming?”

This question was posed by the lovely Addison Montgomery on the most recent episode of Private Practice. At first I just wanted to kill her, because seriously, who would turn her down?

But for us mere mortals left here in the wake of what Hollywood has created, we can ask, “How do you know?”

Is it just human nature to say no? And how do you know when someone means it? Rape advocates tell us all, “No means no.” which in the case of that, yes true. Okay. But what about the more complex questions when it comes to relationships?

I know that I’ve told people no, and I’ve really meant it. Either I just wasn’t attracted to them, or they had cut up a screen with a box cutter a week before Prom (true story, by the way) but in any case, it was like rape. No means no.

But sometimes it’s not so cut and dry. Sometimes it’s for the greater good. Or something that even I don’t know why I’m saying no. Which seems so much easier.

But hearing no from someone else, that’s the most heartbreaking thing in the world. Unrequited love is why the Lifetime Movie Network can stay afloat. Once, years ago must be at least 8 years by now, I asked my cousin what the most attractive quality was in a woman. He pondered for a minute, and I was expecting something like brains or loyalty or something, and instead his answer was “persistence.”

Was his answer just setting me up to fail? But with that, I am persistent. Maybe too much so. I always tell myself that the right guy won’t mind that I don’t let up. In fact, it’ll be the thing he likes about me the most. But I have to fight my way through a lot of dragons first.

And the real question is, how do you know the yes is coming? When do you give up on someone? When can you know that someone’s answer for saying no is concrete or are they just pretending? Too scared, or too something to say yes?

We all need to learn to say what we mean. If you mean no, then you mean no. People move on. They eat ice cream, or go running or kill themselves. Something that eventually makes it go away. But it’s the maybe. Or the no that doesn’t have any kind of reason behind it that drags on.

If you think for even a second that it might be yes, then you should go for it. Tell that person. Because the only thing that keeps truckers awake is cocaine. And sooner or later, they’re going to OD and hit you head on, effectively ending your life. Do you really want to be killed by a trucker and not ever have said yes?

The Ubiquitous Man- A Love Story

While we were growing up and watching Wiley Coyote chase the Road Runner and then get an anvil dropped on his head, I’m not sure why we weren’t more confused. What even was a Road Runner? I’ve never seen one. I’ve also never seen an anvil. We don’t have many blacksmiths in suburbia.

Yet we nodded along, laughing like we knew what was going on. But when we toured a historic town and saw a real anvil, did we recognize it from all those cartoons? If you were out west, would you recognize a roadrunner?

It’s the same with the men of Chick flicks. They’re a dime a dozen. Every one has an equation. There is very little differentiation between them. They’re all impulsive, loving, passionate, and ‘different’. They are set-apart men.

And like we always picture the purple plumage on the roadrunner, we always think of set-apart dreamers when we look for men.

Men don’t realize we’ve been waiting all our lives for them. It’s no one’s fault but Hollywood. No story is complete without a love story in it. The Hunger Games couldn’t only be about 24 children fighting to the death and an uprising, there had to be a love triangle. Star Wars couldn’t only be about light vs. dark, Han Solo and Princess Leia had to fall in love. Hollywood tells us that as great as our story is, it won’t end happily ever after unless we’ve found a partner.

So we wait. We wait for the man that Hollywood says is everywhere.  So ubiquitous that they have a movie released every Friday. Yet we can’t seem to find them anywhere. No wonder men think we’re crazy.

This is why women wear Yoga pants with thongs and fitted tops when we work out, our sleek hair pulled back into ponytails with completely dysfunctional yet stylish headbands. The perfect man could be anywhere, even at the gym.

We dream that someday we will have someone to break up our morning jog. That the ubiquitous man will be waiting at a halfway point with a cup of coffee. So we dress for them. Who knows when one might crop up? We stare straight ahead, hawk-eyed, not wanting to miss them.

We wear bras and cute clothes to bed. Because how often does the Hollywood ubiquitous man knock on the window in the middle of the night? We wouldn’t want to be caught with our glasses on and out retainers in. So we wait, on silk bed sheets with our hair down, eyes closed, but listening…

We’re ready at all times because there never is a set up. The ubiquitous man always comes by serendipity.

So we wait. Dreaming that Hollywood wasn’t lying this time, that the right adjective to describe the leading man really is ubiquitous, that they’re everywhere and we’ll recognize them when we see them.  

But sometimes the roadrunner doesn’t have the fantastic plumage. Sometimes they are just brown and dusty and we don’t recognize them. And sometimes the man isn’t waiting for you halfway or knocking on your window for a nighttime stroll. Sometimes he’s just getting his mail. Or sleeping while we wait. You’re supposed to be everywhere, did you get lost along the way?

Yet even though we know the roadrunner is brown, not purple and even though we know that not all of you will be searching for us, we still keep our heads up, hoping you’re just lost. Our eyes are focused forward, looking for your plumage.