TENDENCY

Surely there are some fly notary pickup lines.

Every time the Tigers have gone to the World Series in my lifetime it’s been a very significant year in my life. In a good way. Being born, graduating from college, relationship stuff, blah blah blah. I got excited about this fact when we got that last out, like, okay! Here we go! Life! And then I realized that it’s fucking October so I’ve got 2 months for it to be significant (and good) year and it had better get going. 

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments when we realize we’re about to eat ice cream for the third time today.

Shhh I’m watching YouTube videos of old SYTYCD dances and tearing up. 

Funny thing?  Two more weeks and I would have been sick of him because that’s what happens at the two-month mark with anyone I date. It would have taken care of itself. If, somehow, we made it past that, we definitely would not still be together now, and I probably would have initiated the breakup.

I have total boy amnesia. I ALWAYS agonize over whatever dumb guy I like for approximately 2-3 weeks, certain he doesn’t actually like me, and going crazy because if I like him that means he’s cool and aloof. Then 4-5 weeks in I hit my stride and things are great! Because we’ve met in the middle before I become the uncaring, aloof one! 

So! The only issue here is timing. A cutoff at 4 weeks is no fair: I’ve spent all that energy being silently crazy, working hard not to do ANYTHING that could be perceived as needy or clingy, then things get comfy and good and I finally chill out and BAM, done.  I could look at this as going out on a good note, but that’s just not how I work. 

And seriously. Sooo many dealbreakers with this one. SO. MANY. He was the one who made me realize that one category of people I date is “Guys I Can Picture As My Ex-Husband”.

You Can Bring Me Flowers; Ray LaMontagne

Love Kills; Robyn

One and Only; Adele

You Are The Best Thing; Ray LaMontagne

Rain; Patty Griffin

Cold War; Janelle Monae 

Not About Love; Fiona Apple

Indestructible; Robyn

Shadowboxer; Fiona Apple

Roses and Cigarettes; Ray LaMontagne

Get Gone; Fiona Apple

Fly; Patty Griffin

Hannah; Ray LaMontagne

…On repeat. 

I’m sure my neighbors want me to branch out, but seriously no one else understands unrequited/underrequited/hopeless love whatever, particularly as it relates to stubborn prideful women and the aloof/noncommittal men they just can’t shake.   

If This Had Been Assigned First Semester, First Year of Grad School:

“Find an object in your home and create a voice for it? How whimsical and fun! I’m so glad I get to be creative again instead of spending all day doing data entry in a cubicle from 7:45 to 6:15! I’ll bet I can find something really good if I poke around in storage this weekend.”

But It Wasn’t; It Was Assigned Final Semester, Third Year of Grad School:

“Ugh are you fucking kidding me with this shit [stomp, stomp, stomp] okay, tongs? Beer bottle? Chip clip? I swear to god there had better be something on my kitchen counter because I don’t have time for this bullshit*. Okay, tomorrow I’ll just reach into my desk drawer and use the first thing I find when I get up at 9 in the goddamned morning. She’d better like whatever I come up with in the 15 minutes before class because fuuuuuck this.”

*this week I have a grand total of four classes to attend** and two to teach.

**I’ve already skipped one*** and it’s only Tuesday.

***It was African Dance.

I am so goddamned sick of the word Thesis but seriously between Halloween and my Thesis show I inexplicably lost 15 pounds and developed a click in my jaw. Which is to say, I quit exercising in any form and through a combination of stress and loss of muscle mass I went down 2 sizes.  Which is to say, it should not be surprising that yesterday in almost a trance I purchased the following assortment of several things that I have not purchased in months/years including:

1 (one) can of Pringles

1 (one) movie-sized box of Milk Duds

1 (one) thing of Red Vines

1 (one) box of Sour Patch Kids (they were having a sale jeez)

and announced that I would be eating all of that immediately which was not literally true but 18 hours later that is all gone and I just ate most of the container of ice cream in my freezer (which was the first ice cream purchase I’ve made since moving to Madison because I genuinely have zero self control so I just don’t put myself in a position to be able to go to town on an entire thing of ice cream in my own home because every summer I try AND FAIL to institute an “ice cream only ONCE a day” rule so I have to set a line SOMEWHERE)  and not just that, but I went to my cabinet and dumped a jar (everything in jars all the time i am insane) of chocolate chips into that thing of ice cream and went. to. town. Suddenly this sounds like a bulimia how-to but really the point is that even if my brain says “hey, body, you’d probably feel better if less sugar went into you” my body says IF YOU WANTED TO YOU COULD MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF PRINGLES AND SOUR PATCH KIDS WITH A MILK DUD CHASER and who am I to go against nature. 

Which is to say PHEW I don’t need new clothes after all I just need to listen to my body’s need for Red Vines.