Humor

Who Me? Territorial? Nah.

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Never let it be said that humans aren’t territorial. Otherwise, why would we have legal property lines and build fences? Why would we hang signs that label “our areas” as such? Why would we get irritated if our neighbor decides to park a GINORMOUS camper next to our driveway, obstructing our view of the street and making us feel like we live on a Hollywood set, or we’re in prison or we’ve been relocated to Big Arbs campground!?! Huh?

The following is a little internal narrative I wrote down about 2 years ago when a grumpy old fart just up and started randomly TAKING my parking spot… EVERY. DAMN. DAY. I’ve since left that place of employment for a different place … with better parking.

_______________________________________________________

My eyes narrowed when I saw him pulling into the spot.

THE parking spot. MY parking spot. I’ve never seen him park there before. Why did he decide to start now? Everyone should know by now that THAT is MY parking spot. I’ve been parking there for months ever since the layoffs started and a “prime” spot became available just outside my office window. My window. My spot.

And I heaved a heavy, aggravated sigh.

Alright. I guess I’ll just have to take the spot next to it today… and hope that this doesn’t become like a regular thing. I mean, I’d hate to have to start cutting my lunch hours short just to safeguard the spot. If I don’t… and HE starts parking there… before you know it, he’ll think it’s HIS spot. And then what will I do? I’ll have to find another spot. This really does annoy me.

So I glared at him the entire time while he squared up his car and shut off the engine and gathered his things and walked into the building.

That will show him. My iron stare. WHO does this guy think he is? I don’t even know this guy. Does he even WORK here full-time? I think maybe he’s an engineer. Oh! Look at me! I’m an engineer! I’m better than you! I make more money than you do! My job requires a lot more brains and skill and responsibility than Marketing does… I can park wherever I want to!

And I slide into the second-rate spot right beside him. Meanwhile… one of the retired guys enters the parking lot, returning from lunch, and he glares at ME!

What is YOUR problem?!? What the #@%* are YOU looking at? Why are you even here? You are retired and supposed to be coming here on a part-time, consultation-only basis. But instead, I think I see more of you NOW than I did BEFORE you retired! What is up with THAT?!? Do you have a problem with me? You don’t even KNOW me. We’ve never even spoken. Stop looking at me. Jerk.

And then it dawns on me… I just parked in HIS spot.

_______________________________________________________

Listen… when it comes to territory… the only difference between us and the animal kingdom is the fact that we don’t “mark” our territories with bodily fluids. Then again… maybe there are a few of us who do.

If there are… I really wouldn’t want to know.

Chinese Take-Out for One

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I used to eat lunch in my car. Just about everyday. Most days I’d either take something from home or order fast food from a drive-thru window. Occasionally I would sit in a restaurant and eat by myself, but there is a bit of that good old “feeling like a loser” element at play when dining alone and in public. I’m NOT a total loser… I DO have a few friends, and naturally there were days I would have lunch with one or more of them. But the vast majority of the time I found myself flying solo and therefore it seemed much more comfortable to dine in my ride. I don’t eat in the car much anymore. And perhaps the story I am about to tell you is the reason why. I would like to share with you—a cautionary tale perhaps—about why it is not a good idea to eat Chinese take-out alone in your car on a rainy day.

It was a damp and dreary day. And I felt like having something a little different. I was in the mood for something warm and substantial and maybe even a little spicy… and yes, I am still talking about food.

The previous Monday I had stopped at Subway for lunch and I noticed a Chinese restaurant next door and so on this day I thought: Hmmm… that might just do for it for me today… it’s warm and substantial and if I place my order right… it could be spicy too! To borrow a line from Elaine on Seinfeld… eating the Chinese food in my car would be quote: “better than eatin’ it alone in the restaurant like some LOSER!” So I took it to go and planned on enjoying it in the park. I could not, however, predict the avalanche of problems this would pose on a cold, rainy day.

#1. I forgot how much “stuff” there is too carry with Chinese food. The bag (that must remain level at all times), my bottle of water, the napkins, the utensils, the soy sauce, the fortune cookie… So I had to figure out a way to juggle all those things PLUS my purse, my keys and my umbrella. Luckily I carry a big purse, so I managed to dump the water bottle, napkins, utensils, soy sauce packets and cookie into my purse. But I still had in my hands, the purse, the bag of food (that must remain level at all times), the car keys and the umbrella… which I was hoping to somehow manage to OPEN before venturing outside into the torrential downpour. When I finally got everything situated (or so I thought), I had such a terrible grip on the umbrella that when I pushed the button to pop it up… it flew open, poking me directly in the eye!

<insert expletive here>

#2 So with my one good eye, in the torrential downpour, I found my way to the car and folded myself inside, purse, food, keys and demonic umbrella included and drove to my favorite park. Once settled I began assembling my meal. As everyone knows, soy sauce packets are hard to open… Even harder with a plastic shell of hot food teetering on your lap in the cramped driver’s seat of a car. So, naturally, upon opening the first packet of sauce… it squirted all over my favorite light blue sweater.

<insert another expletive here>

By the way… does anyone have any tips about how to remove soy-sauce stains from finely-knit sweater material? If so… please let me know.

#3 With one good eye and a soy-sauce-stained sweater, I began to eat my food. After a bit, I received a text message from my friend Jodi wanting to know if I’d like to have lunch with her sometime next week. Of course I would! Anything would be better than eating in the car… all one-eyed and soy-stained… ALONE! But as I attempted to reply to her message… my phone slipped from my grasp and landed… right smack-dab in the middle of my General Tso’s spicy chicken.

<insert yet another stronger expletive here>

#4 With one good eye, a soy-sauce-stained sweater and a General-Tso’s-and-rice-covered cell phone I began damage control. Since the chinsey napkins didn’t seem to be doing the trick, I desperately and ashamedly resorted to licking my phone in order to clean it off before the food was able to congeal and gunk up the phone for good. Oh… and I prayed to God that no one was parked beside me to see me licking my phone!

#5 So there I was, making out with my mobile phone, with one good eye and a soy-sauce-stained sweater when I realized that ALL of the windows in the car were fogging up from the hot food. For the second time in as many minutes I found myself praying to God that NO ONE had pulled into the lot beside me and happened to notice the windows all fogged up… just me and my LG. I wondered if there were any new city ordinances against such behavior like Public Indecency with a Cellular Device.

So this my friends, is why it isn’t necessarily a good idea to eat Chinese food—ALONE IN YOUR CAR—on a rainy day. You really are better off eating it alone in the restaurant like some loser… because trust me… you cannot possibly look like MORE of a loser than a one-eyed, soy-sauce-stained-sweater-sporting, window-fogging, cell-phone-licker.

The Back of the Closet

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Have you ever, in desperation, looked in the very back of your closet to search for something to wear because nothing you own seems good enough and you HATE all of your clothes? You push aside the tees you wore this past weekend, the blouse you wore yesterday and the top you’re saving for “Casual Friday,” all in the vain attempt to reach the bowels of your wardrobe hoping against hope that therein hangs some incredible unforeseen garment that you’ve forgotten you own and can therefore resurrect!

Aha! You find something! How in the world have you missed it in all this time?!?! This is wonderful! This is going to open you up to endless, interchangeable fashion possibilities! This is going to double, no TRIPLE your number of available ensemble choices! This textile, could perhaps… transform your entire world.

Now, of course, as you stand there… hanger in hand… arm outstretched… admiring the aforementioned “Savior Garment”… there is one thing you know you must check first. And it is absolutely imperative. It is the biggest hurdle you will have to overcome, but you MUST find out before you get too excited and mentally begin pairing things up and creating outfits that will undoubtedly turn heads. I am referring to the all important question: Does it still fit?

<gulp>

Quickly, you consider everything you ate THAT day as a peremptory justification for any minor snugness, should it exist. You try to recall the last time you’ve broken a sweat (not including this one), pushed play on that dusty Denise Austin DVD or even laid eyes on the inside of the gym. Then you begin thinking about all the morning lattes, the mayo on your sandwiches, the bleu cheese dressing on your salads, the 3 p.m. sugar binges, the weekend baseball beers, the weekly-Lifetime-movie-cookie-dough binges… and the fear begins to build.

<double gulp>

Somehow you gather the courage to slide the first appropriate appendage into said clothing item… then the second. So far, so good. Now comes the true confirmation of your intestinal fortitude: Will it button, latch, zip or close without the surgical removal of any vital organs? With your eyes squeezed shut, muttering prayers, you try it. Praise God!! It STILL fits!!! The clouds part, rays of sunshine pour into your room and in the distance you can hear the faintest sound of angels singing The Hallelujah Chorus!

Ah… now the real fun begins. What to pair with this “new” former frock for it’s reintroduction into the rotation. After trying various color and texture combinations, taking into consideration this particular item’s unique strengths and weaknesses… you finally select just the right piece with which to pair it.

You’ll wear it the very next day.

Tomorrow arrives and you’re amazingly able to jump out of bed and kick start your day just by thinking about how nice you will look in the day’s oh-so-stylish ensemble. You will get so many compliments and your envious co-workers will assume you’ve been shopping, when in actuality, you haven’t spent a single dime. In anticipation for your great day, you get dressed, leave for work early and even stop for a latte… because apparently they haven’t damaged your figure too much seeing as this item still fits.

No sooner do you get to work, pull into your parking spot and get out of the car do you realize WHY it is that this piece of clothing was SHOVED to the back of the closet… It may fit you the same as it ever did… but it is so uncomfortable you cannot STAND IT!! You spend your ENTIRE day tugging and pulling and adjusting and hiding in your office, praying for the day to be over so that you can take this freaking piece of crap and CRAM it in THE BACK OF THE CLOSET… right where it belongs.

Life by the Numbers

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It begins and ends with a number. A dreadful sound shatters the stillness of my slumber and I open my eyes to see 3 green and glowing numbers looming ominously over my rapidly-dissolving dreams. 6:00 a.m.

In the midst of a heat wave, I turn on the news to channel 3 see how hot it is actually going to get today so I’ll know exactly how much or how little to wear. 95. With a heat index of 110.

Stumbling down the stairs to my non-air-conditioned main floor, I glance at the thermostat. It says 84. I say a curse word.

With great fear and trepidation I climb onto the scale before climbing into the shower to estimate the damages from my nephew’s 11th birthday celebration the night before. XXX lbs., XX.X BMI … these numbers are for my eyes only. But I do utter another curse word.

Sitting down with a 200-calorie breakfast comprised of 8 oz. of OJ and 8 oz. of cereal with 4 oz. of milk, I obsessively check the stats on my blog page. At 7:20 a.m., there have been 23 views, 2 comments and 9 referrals. 0 new subscriptions. On Facebook, I have 1 notification, 2 messages, 1 invitation to play FarmVille and 1 friend request. I accept the friend request. I have 664 friends. Nope… make that 663. Someone just dumped me. Somewhere in the distance I hear a muffled scream as my profile goes swoosh into the virtual trash can belonging to the loser who unfriended me.

Out the door with 20 minutes to spare, I have the misfortune of getting behind 2 of the slowest-moving utility vehicles you’ve ever seen. They are doing 35 in a 55. At this rate, I will be 10 minutes late. Eventually I pass them doing 85 (I imagine my speeding ticket will cost well over $100) and wind up behind 1 even-slower moving 18-wheeler carrying 3 steel coils on a 2-lane highway. I follow him for 4 miles at 45 MPH. Make that 15-minutes late.

The word count so far is 335. In case you’re curious. Though now that I’ve used more words to tell you that… it is higher.

Miraculously only 10 minutes late to work, I have 5 unread messages and 7 projects to complete before 5 p.m. As a graphic designer, my work day is infinitely full of numbers… dates, times, account numbers, quantities and measurements. Therefore, I will spare you the details of the bulk of my day.

At 12:00 noon I call Verizon Wireless to give them $112.68. There is $XXX.XX remaining in my bank account. I utter yet another curse word.

By 5:00 p.m., there are exactly 6 hours left in the day before bedtime. Another obsessive check of blog stats and Facebook: 71 views, 8 comments and 11 referrals. 1 new subscription. Facebook offers 3 notifications, 1 message, 0 friend requests. Dinner at 7, a 2-hour phone call starting at 8 and 1 hour of reading, watching TV, writing or painting my nails before the clock strikes 11. I must get at least 7 hours of sleep a night or I’ll be a hot, cranky mess the next day. Just ask my loved-ones.

Turn off the TV, check the thermostat… 86. Curse word. Lights out. 11:03 p.m.

I wrote this account (get it… account?) as an exercise when it occurred to me how much of my daily joy and pain is tied directly to NUMBERS. Why must we quantify our value based on hard numbers… from how much we weigh to how much we earn? From how many virtual “friends” we have to how many people visited or commented on our blog today? For 1 day I’d like to ignore these “values” … and derive my worth from that which cannot be counted. Who’s with me?

Who Are “They”?

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They say drinking a glass of red wine everyday is good for your heart. They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. They say owning a pet lowers your blood pressure. They say driving a red car increases your chances of getting a speeding ticket. They say more and more children are being diagnosed with food allergies. They say playing video games contributes to Attention Deficit Disorder. They say purple is the new black.

So I have just one question: Who exactly are “They”? Because it seems that “they” sure have a hell of a lot to say. I mean, is it just me, or has anyone else ever wondered about this?

Recently I was having lunch with a friend, making regular small talk and naturally “They” came up in the conversation. I don’t remember in what capacity exactly, though it doesn’t really matter. It might have been something like: You know, they say that the polar ice caps are melting at a much faster rate than initially projected. Or maybe: I just heard that they say carrying a few extra pounds is actually healthier, so lets ask the server for another basket of bread! Or perhaps: They say it’s better to wash your hair every OTHER day, rather than every day.

Whatever the topic of discussion, I stopped for a moment and asked her: Have you ever wondered who THEY are? I mean we are always quoting what THEY say and we seem to base a lot of our decisions on what THEY recommend. If THEY are so frickin’ important, how come we don’t seem to know who THEY are?

She didn’t know either, but confessed to both reciting and following the advice that THEY offer with some regularity.

Who are these people that we would constantly listen to whatever “they” say? They seem to know everything, from what we should eat to what we should wear. What medicines we should take for what ails us and when. What we should read, drive and listen to. What we should do for fun, for improved concentration, for effective time-management, for better-behaved children, for healthier relationships, for better sleep, for better sex, for slimmer thighs, for thicker hair, for cleaner floors, for softer skin, for whiter teeth, for gingivitis, for wrinkles, for snoring, for dragon breath, for athlete’s foot, for dandruff, for excessive flatulence, for bad credit, for NO credit, for better bowel movements, for increased productivity, for more laughter, for more friends, for more love, for more fulfillment, for better quality of life.

I mean, if THEY know sooo much… I for one, would like to meet these people!! THEY have been telling us what to do for centuries now, and THEY seem to enter our conversations on a daily basis, if not an hourly one. I don’t know who THEY are, but if anyone out there does… PLEASE let me know!

In the meantime, while we continue searching for the ever-elusive, all-powerful, all-knowing, collective “THEY”… be aware the next time you hear yourself or your companion utter the phrase: “You know, they say…”

Shopping for Jeans With PMS

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Ladies, we all know what a nightmare it can be to find that magical pair of jeans that somehow makes us look 10 lbs. thinner, 6 inches taller and 5 years younger without breaking the bank, or giving us a nice muffin-top or (gasp) a dreaded camel-toe. Now imagine—for a moment—what it might be like to shop for said item during (shhhh) that time of the month.

Surprisingly, it is not as bad as you would think. I have new cause to believe that shopping for that new pair of jeans while experiencing PMS may just be a great idea, rather than the homicidal-tendency-inducing-disaster that one would initially suppose.

Here are just a few of my reasons why:

  1. You are already in a pissed-off-mood with a take-no-prisoners attitude. This enables you to blow right past all of the other younger, hipper, skinnier patrons and annoyingly-chipper, SUPER-HELPFUL store employees while you search for the ever elusive “right” pair of jeans.
  2. Your patience is extremely short. Therefore you are able to cut the crap when it comes to finding that miracle pair. You are “over” lying to yourself about what size you actually wear and can skip immediately to the BACK of the rack where your REAL size hangs.
  3. If you actually locate said “elusive ‘right’ pair of jeans,” and they actually FIT you with the extra 5 pounds of water weight you are currently hauling around in your trunk, gut and thighs… then you KNOW that they will fit you even better 7 to 10 days from now.
  4. Due to the previously-mentioned extra 5 pounds of water weight you are currently hauling around in your trunk, gut and thighs… your expectations have been severely lowered. So when the mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-whose-the-skinniest-bitch-of-all moment of truth finally arrives… You are actually PLEASED with what your reflection says about you. One must NEVER underestimate the positive power of lowered expectations.
  5. If you have located the “elusive ‘right’ pair of jeans,” and they actually FIT you with the extra 5 pounds of water weight you are currently hauling around in your trunk, gut and thighs… AND you have been successful in your reflective encounter with the “mirror-of-lowered-expectations,” THEN you are ABSOLUTELY ready to proceed and face the credit-pushing cashier when she inquires about your potential interest in obtaining a store charge card. You are fully equipped to look her square in the eye and answer her with a strong, resounding and powerful “NO!”

So with your head held high, bag-in-hand and credit-in-tact, you can exit the store. You have your new jeans, the store has your money, no tears were shed, and most importantly… no bodily harm came to any of the parties involved. Mission accomplished.

Now go out and rock those new jeans bitches … and get down with your bad-ass, pre-menstrual selves.

To Be or Not To Be (Liked)

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From an early age we learn that it is good to be liked. To be liked by our teachers, neighbors, family members and especially peers. We come to understand that it is important to be found pleasing in the eyes of others and to be someone that they enjoy being around. Therefore, it is basic elementary logic to say that from an early age we ALSO comprehend what it means NOT to be liked.

Whatever your first encounter with not being liked looked like, we have all had one. And it is beyond terrible. It usually happens in the sandbox and it is tear-your-heart-out-throw-it-in-the-sand-and-stomp-on-it awful. But somehow we survive and we wind up surrounding ourselves with the people who DO like us… and we continue on our merry way toward adulthood.

As we age, however, I believe we wind up in one of two camps. The I’m-so-cool-I-don’t-care-whether-you-like-me-or-not camp OR the I-WANT-no-make-that-I-NEED-everyone-to-like-me camp. Unfortunately, my tent is firmly staked in the soil of the latter. And life is harder for people like me. Oh how I wish I could be one of those people who doesn’t give a damn what others think of them.

I am 36 years old and STILL troubled if/when someone doesn’t like me. For example, (yes, this is the whole hopefully-cathartic reason I am writing this in the first place) there is someone in my life right now who just DOES NOT LIKE ME. I have no idea why. What’s not to like? I ask myself this question. You don’t know me. How can you NOT like me when you don’t even know me?

In order to protect myself from further misguided hatred I will not say whether this person is a he or a she or in what capacity they are a “part of my life.”  But suffice it to say that they have made it abundantly clear they have zero time for me as well as ZERO interest in ever speaking to or getting to know me.

This puzzles me.

Please don’t mistake my puzzlement for a massive ego. (Puzzlement? Is that a word? Spell-check isn’t flagging it, so it must be. Cool!) Anyway, I don’t believe—contrary to what my family might tell you—that I am perfect or that the sun rises and sets on me. I just don’t think—to the best of my recollection—that I have done anything worthy of such unsolicited disdain. I’m a very friendly person. I’m a complimentary (though genuine) person, and probably the best measure of all is the fact that I make friends easily and often. Wherever I go.

Joanna plays well with others.

So what the hell then, is this person’s problem? (Heavy sighing) I don’t know. I have asked myself a million times and a million and one times I have come up empty. I guess they just don’t. I have absolutely no clue as to why, but for continued health and happiness (and lower blood pressure) I realize I must let them go. And perhaps… PERHAPS this could be one giant step toward seeking out a plot of land in that OTHER, more-desirable, cooler camp.

Silence is Golden

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“Joanna is an excellent student. She completes all of her schoolwork on time, is polite, plays well with others and keeps her desk neat and tidy. However… SHE WILL NOT STOP TALKING!!!”

This is often how the “progress reports” from my elementary school teachers read. Of course they didn’t quite word them that way, but amidst all of the “Joanna-is-doing-everything-well” reporting was—without fail—some mention of my amazing gift of gab and how it would be desirable if I were to get it under control.

Hello, my name is Joanna and I am a talkaholic. However, I have recently discovered the true value of Silence. Not the I’m-taking-a-VOW-of-silence kind of silence… (sorry everyone) but the “Silence Is Golden” kind of silence. We’ve all heard the famously-quoted proverb a thousand times and although the origin of the phrase remains a mystery—for one who is addicted to words and sounds—those 5 syllables carry a tremendous amount of weight.

Let me share with you how I stumbled across this treasure. In an effort to achieve some semblance of sanity, I have made it a personal goal to get more sleep. I’ve been going to bed earlier and relaxing by writing in my journal or reading rather than watching TV. But the TV is usually STILL on in the background. I don’t know why… for some reason I find it comforting to hear the familiar voices of 4 friends (let’s call them Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer) sitting around a coffee shop or a tiny New York apartment bemoaning the minutia of their existence. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The other night I decided to turn the TV off and read in total silence. And although it was a bit foreign to me at first, it was completely wonderful! So wonderful, in fact, that it felt absolutely luxurious! Who knew silence could be this enjoyable? Besides my family, boyfriend and friends. For a moment, I put the book down and just listened to the nothingness that surrounded me. I took a deep breath, soaking in as much as possible as though this sheer state of nirvana could be stored. I knew that all too soon—with the nagging of the alarm clock—this beautiful quiet would be shattered by the noise of life in the digital age.

Now, I’m not a twitterer, which is surprising given how much I like to talk, write, converse, chit-chat, chew the fat, stay in the loop, laugh, giggle, whisper, yell, shout, sing and just be heard in general. But with the help of twitter, not to mention all other forms of social media, smart phones, iPods, radio, cable and the internet… not only are we in touch with one another 24/7… we are surrounded by constant sound as well. So it’s perfectly understandable that the absence of noise was such music to my ears!

Every evening across America, it is not uncommon for the typical household to have the TV (or TVs) blaring and computer glowing while talking or texting is taking place. We can literally be catching up on the news, watching football on ESPN and the dramatic story of a woman scorned on Lifetime… while simultaneously communicating with multiple people in multiple ways. We can be texting, chatting, instant messaging, emailing, writing on walls, poking, tagging and twittering all at once. And this is what we are doing with our DOWN time… never mind what we encounter during the workday.

It’s no wonder we’re all stressed out and hopped up on antidepressants. And don’t be salty with me for saying that. (Which kind are YOU taking?) If you aren’t taking anything yet—give it time. At the rate we’re going… you will be. Unless, that is, you take the time to stop and listen… to the sound of silence.

A Tiny Taste of Fame (Just small enough to choke on)

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“So this area is called the ‘Dashboard’ and this is where you pull all of the strings to create the pages that people see.” I explained to my mother who knew very little about blogging and cared even less. Then I showed her around my blog and eventually over to the WordPress homepage and the Freshly Pressed section.

Pausing ever-so-reverently on the Freshly Pressed area. My eyes glazed over like Homer Simpson’s when he sees a beer or a donut and I dramatically drew a circle in the air around The Page with my index finger and with an equal amount of drama said to her: “Mother, THIS is where I can only hope to end up some day. THIS is the goal. THIS would be THE place to be.”

A day or two later, I did the same thing to my boyfriend.

I can be a bit of a drama queen.

My fledgling web log was just 10 days old. I had 13 subscribers and anywhere from 40 to 80 hits a day. And then last Friday something amazing happened. Going to my blog to check the stats (as I had begun doing religiously) hoping each day that the numbers would climb, I told myself not to expect much. I literally SAID to myself: “Don’t be disappointed if the numbers are low. You are NEW at this and it will take time for people to discover it.”

But the numbers weren’t low. They were skyrocketing! And I immediately thought there must be something wrong with WordPress and that this had to be a mistake of some kind. I knew enough to be able to check where the majority of hits were coming from and I saw that it was the WordPress homepage. So naturally I went there. And that’s when I saw it. My baby. My blog… right there in the middle of the page. The picture, the name…  I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing.

It was for real.

I called my boyfriend. I called my parents. I emailed my friends. I wanted to run yelling through the streets: I’ve been Freshly Pressed!! I’ve been Freshly Pressed!! I did refrain, however, for fear of looking like a lunatic since I’m pretty sure that a large slice of society probably would assume that “Freshly Pressed” is something akin to water-boarding. But on the inside I WAS running and yelling.

Since it was a Friday, I was fortunate that my blog stayed on FP for 3 whole days (plus one more if you count the day that it slides back to the “earlier” site). Four whole days of extra exposure to the world and readers and hits and comments and spiking stat charts and emails and “likes” and subscribers! I had never experienced anything remotely like the rush I got from it. By the end of the 4th day, I was exhausted. I looked like a junkie in desperate need of a fix. My eyes were red, I was cranky from very little sleep and I just generally looked like shit. It was then that I realized how HARD it is to stand under the white-hot light of overnight celebrity. No wonder so many people crack under the pressure.

It was going to be short-lived and I was aware of it every second of every day. And it was wearing me out. Staying up late to watch the numbers, answer comments and emails, read other people’s blogs and nurture new virtual friendships. I kept thinking: I’ve got to stay after this or it will all slip away! Soon the clock will strike midnight and my carriage will turn back into a pumpkin, my gown to rags and my fine white horses to rats… I will be the little-ol’-graphic-designer-from-Ohio-who-writes-for-a-hobby once again. I will be just another regular gal doing the 8 to 5, eating frozen Lean Cuisines and watching Hoarders with my cat.

What can I say? I did the best I could for 4 days. My family and boyfriend—God love ‘em—did their best too. My boyfriend asked me daily what my numbers were and whether or not I was getting enough sleep. He and my parents reiterated how proud they were of me. They graciously listened as I told them about some of my new online connections. My parents showed their friends my blog while at a dinner party instead of passing around pictures of grandkids.

On Tuesday morning I logged on to my computer and  much to my chagrin, the numbers were abysmal compared to the day before. Back to normal I guess. My moment in the spotlight had expired. Like the rollercoaster that is 60 seconds of sheer unpredictable terror and thrill and then comes screeching to a halt… The ride was over. I then glanced at the clock: 15 ‘til 8… I grabbed my purse, my keys, my coffee … and headed to the office.

As I pulled out of my driveway I heard the faintest voice as though over a muffled loudspeaker say: Please exit quickly to your left in order to make room for the next passenger.

Hmmm… That’s New…

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I went shoe shopping at lunch the other day. I am in need of new black pumps, as my mother is calling for her very-cool pair of Nine Wests back. And even though possession IS 9/10ths of the law… this weekend she successfully guilted me into returning them.

I find a cute pair… not as cute as the Nine Wests… but definitely doable. However, while hiking up my pant legs to check out how awesome these shoes will make my calves look, I noticed something peculiar. Something that wasn’t there the LAST time I checked out my calves beneath cruel retail lighting. There was a small purple vein, about an inch long, snaking it’s way across my calf muscle. The vein was faint and probably not noticeable to anyone but me… but it was NEW! And while gently running my finger over it I actually uttered aloud: “Hmmm… That’s new.”

Now, I have OTHER purple veins on my legs. Not many, but a couple that are remnants from an unfortunate horseback riding incident that took place when I was 19. But I know exactly what both of them look like and where they’re located. In other words, I have taken full account of these blemishes… and made my peace with them. But this one… THIS one, does not have an “unfortunate horseback riding incident” on which to lay the blame. THIS one, showed up unannounced and unwelcome.

I suppose that eventually, I’ll make peace with it as well. After all, what other choice do I have? I am not exactly one of the “Real Housewives of Carroll County” who has her plastic surgeon on speed dial and then disappears for a few days away at “The Spa” and has magically done away with any and all imperfections.

Given the fact that I am indeed, NOT one of these women… this newest dermatological development really got me thinking about some of the other “new” things that I have noticed recently…

  • Last weekend, in a photo taken at a Pirates / Cubs game, I noticed that the skin around my eyes wasn’t nearly as taut as I remember it. It was softer and a little droopier and, well… let’s be honest… it was the beginning of Chick’s Feet (Crow’s Feet’s hideous, younger cousin). UGH.
  • Another photo that was short-listed as a potential profile pic was swiftly rejected when I became aware of the fact that someone had maliciously drawn lines across my neck.
  • LAST week… Feet tossed over the back of the couch, sporting a pair of boxer shorts… I was disturbed to find that when I moved my legs down from the back cushion… the skin did not initially want to go along. It protested by forming a bunch of teensy little wrinkles. Instead of snapping back like it used to… it reluctantly slid back into place… eventually.
  • By 5:00 I no longer appear “rested” like I do first thing in the morning. Rather, I look as though I’ve contracted a healthy case of swine flu.
  • The right side of my neck and shoulder now stiffen at the slightest hint of stress…
  • AND I suffer from some type of unspeakable digestive disturbance if I eat anything after 10 pm.

The French philosopher Voltaire once said: “If we do not find anything pleasant, at least we shall find something new.”

How comforting.

I’ll try to remember that the next time I look in the mirror, squint my eyes to look more closely and say to myself: “Hmmm… That’s New.”