Think outside of the “Box”

It seems that it’s an age-old problem. People are trying to get each other to hear their thoughts and appreciate them. Men and women are very different from each other, and yet, there’s some sort of human need to connect them. Personally, I’d like the opportunity to study up on the things that matter to someone before I meet him. I’m like that though! I don’t like going in blind and wondering if a guy prefers girls who eat a lot, don’t eat, wear make-up, like designer clothes, want kids, act dumb, have a brain…it’s that “getting to know someone” phase that is extremely annoying to me! There’s too much room for error! I like comfortable…uh oh…there’s the first problem: Men thrive on newness and mystery while I would rather know everything upfront. So how do we get a guy to listen to us? I was thinking of making a t-shirt with a pull-cord about at chest level that activates a sound byte of a girl giggling, “Oh my God! I’m so drunk.”…I think it would be a best seller…or at the very least, an excellent icebreaker when out in a bar. Of course, I’d have 100-year-old men and blue-collar guys who run book pulling on my shirt all night. Far be it that an engineer, or never married/no kids lawyer, have the nerve to even say “hello!” I ran into a guy once who told me that he wanted me to find him a “hot looking dumb girl.” He went on to say he “didn’t need anyone with a brain because he could always read a book after he was done with her.”…NICE!…I handed him a book I wrote called, “Why Men are Idiots… and the Women Behind Them who are Dumb Enough to Love Them”…amusing to both of us actually…but it doesn’t change the fact that I am left standing outside the box peering in as guy after guy finds hot looking girl after girl who he can easily get into the box with!

Forcing the Connection

I was looking at computers on amazon today. (That’s what I do when I want some entertainment!) On the bottom of the page, there was a “suggestions” section. Amazon uses this to direct buyers to other things that they may be interested in. It said, “Customers who bought this netbook, also bought “The South Beach Diet” book. Um…really?…I could see a jump drive or possibly an external dvd burner…but the south beach diet?…I think we may be going a little too far in trying to find “connections!” What do I know though? I always sort of sucked at analogies. You know?…from the vocabulary workbook?

large: big: triumph:______

Calia: …um? Cheese?…
Teacher: No Calia, the answer was ‘success’.
Calia: Oh. Let me try another one!

Netbook: South beach Diet: Dating: _____

Calia: …Man?
Teacher: Nope! I’m sorry Cal; the answer was ‘cheese.’
Calia: (defeated) Oh.

I suppose I’ve always had this problem though. My interpretation of the world seems to be different than everyone else’s. In my college philosophy classes, all of my opinions were always wrong for some reason. How the heck could that be? I guess I sort of thought that people were taking themselves a little too seriously. Life really isn’t that deep! We are gradually becoming a world of people who are in so much therapy and in search of deep seeded self-reflective enlightenment, that we can’t even run into someone in the grocery store without searching for the meaning in it. I mean…what are the odds of needing eggs on the same day that your college sweetheart needed to pick up bologna and soda for his wife and 5 kids?…and you’re wearing sweatpants and a headband?? …hmm...pretty good actually... (This is why we should always get dressed as though we have somewhere to be!)

Family: Husband: Calia: Netbook

Life’s a really long video game…

I can’t believe how we are taking our lives into our hands each day when we hit the road. The girl behind me at a light today was smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone. Don’t get me wrong…I do talk on the phone when I drive but I don’t even hold the phone when I’m at home! I can’t imagine holding one while I’m driving. I feel like I’m playing that old video game, ‘Frogger’, and I’m just trying to get from point A to point B without getting squashed into an X! As a matter of fact, I feel that way all the time. This is truer than I’d like it to be when it comes to dating too! You almost need to run in front of traffic and cross your fingers that someone won’t speed up while you’re right in front of him and flatten you out without looking back. The dating highway is full of people talking on their phones to other people they may find interesting in case you’re not the “one”, looking in their rear view mirrors to focus on what has long been left behind, and traveling too quickly on slippery pavement with bald tires because buying something new would cost too much upfront so it’s just easiest to drive the old ones into the ground until the tread falls off completely! I happen to think that regular maintenance could save us an awful lot of time that may be wasted by being broken down along the road while we’re waiting for someone to come save us. Possibly we should put down our phones and stop looking behind us so we can give what stands in front of us our full attention. Besides…if you keep running across the street in hopes that things are better on the other side, eventually you will tempt the odds to the point of getting hit by a truck or two anyway. I’m sure there’s someone who will be happy to try to kill you on your side of the street!

Love is on sale!

I got an email from a dating site today. It’s heading was “Love is on sale!”…well! If it’s on sale, I should pick up a spare! How could I let this opportunity to buy cheap love pass me by! It came just in the nick of time too! I was almost out of my old love. Well…actually I had diluted it with water way back when so I could take my time to decide what type wouldn’t leave those tough to get out stains. It’s so nice to know that the spam emailers were so concerned about little ‘ole me that they sent me this personalized “love coupon!” My heart is leaping with anxious desire! I wonder whom I will pick! Should I sleep on the sidewalk outside so when I get there all the good ones aren’t picked over? I know! I’ll run through the door the minute the sale starts and pick up as many as I can and then go through them in the corner by myself to sort out the size 0’s and 16’s. I guess I could pick up an 8 and cut it down to a 4-6 if that’s all that’s left. This is truly the happiest day of my life! I knew I was holding out for something wonderful! What a great bargain!

What inspires our favorite songs?

I recently read an article about the fact that most of our favorite love songs are inspired by real life events. Okay! I’d have to say that I do agree…but there’s a catch to that. I once met a guy who made plans with me to meet him and when he didn’t show up, I started to call him. Finally that night, he picked up the phone after a number of calls and answered “Stalker! I’m eating a grilled cheese sandwich.”…Of course I did what every songwriter would do: I wrote a song called “Stalker! I’m eating a grilled cheese sandwich” and emailed it to him. He didn’t seem to take it well. I mean…he didn’t get a restraining order or anything…but he was definitely put off by the fact that he stood me up, blew me off with a nasty comment about calling me a stalker, and then instead of me going away, I wrote a song about him…Okay…wait…now I’m starting to see his point a little. But…well…hmm…All I can say is if you don’t want a song written about you, don’t hang out with a songwriter. The article I read was about love inspiring songs, but you do know that it goes both ways don’t you? I have walked away from guys and written some huge hits such as “Are you really that dumb? Or were you just nervous?”, “Come on! Don’t you think you should’ve at least cleared the clothes off of the floor of your bedroom?”, or the ever popular, “Let me out at the light…no…forget it, I’ll get out here.” Love is inspiring! But can we ever live up to the fantastic spin put on one small moment then embellished into a 4-minute masterpiece? I worry that we are putting too much emphasis on fairytale love that is invented in the minds of the creative! Don’t get me wrong! I believe in it…but I’m one of the creative…so finding anyone to live up to the song I’ve already written continues to be a quest for a cartoon character out of a fairytale romance novel! Wish me luck! Can you think of any songs that you have based your mantra on? Do you really know what they were about or have you invented your own meaning behind them? One year I sang Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always love you”, for nearly every wedding first dance theme. Isn’t that song about her leaving?…oh well…Chances are those marriages broke up already anyway so no harm done! If you aren’t going to listen long enough to get to the verse in order to make sure your first dance isn’t about breaking up, I suppose you probably aren’t going to handle your first fight over who used up the toothpaste very well either!

There is definitely no shortage of seagulls…

I learned something important about myself today…I’m not a fan of the outdoors. As a matter of fact, if I could dig a tunnel from my house to my car, and from my car to work, I’d be happy. The funny thing is that I do love to hike for hours and hours in creeks and gorges. So then what’s the problem? Who knows…I went to the ocean to hear my friend’s band play and as I stepped out onto the sand and saw the mass of people lying around, my heart started pounding. I looked from side to side- ocean, sand, sun…wait!…Where’s the shelter? Oh no. I decided that I needed to get out of the sun so I threw off my flip flops and started running for my hotel room – 50 blocks (3 miles)…this is not as easy as it may sound. I am used to running, jumping and playing – but in sneakers or high heels…not barefoot in the sand. The sun beat down on me and I could actually hear my skin aging. Help! I looked around. It all looked the same- guys with beer-bellies and tattoos…elderly people with bathing suits and sneakers… sand, water… sand, water…I played out the bible story about the footsteps in the sand over and over again in my head trying to remember if the point of the story was that the blisters on the bottom of Jesus’ feet never healed? Had he been wearing flip flops and Capri pants?…well no wonder people wanted to walk behind him! He was the only one covered up appropriately. The person I was following clearly needed a larger swimsuit…I quickly passed him. I could always poke my mind’s eye out later so I could get the vision out of my head! I felt a little anxious for the people just lying there. I clearly have a problem with throwing away a moment to nothingness. The strange thing is that some people would say that the nothingness was somethingness!… I could run and take in so much of the day by observing the things around me and loving the feeling of being able to run free. To each his own though. I did learn, however, that I don’t need to do things that I don’t enjoy in hopes that I might meet someone to spend time with. My routine is actually perfect the way it is. When I’m doing something I love to do, someone will appear and love to do it with me…otherwise, I’ll likely run right by him one morning coming home from my run as he sits on the toilet reading about what he might do one day! He’s probably not for me… I love my life the way it is. No need to try so hard. There’s no way my guy will let me pass him by!

Dumped for Punctuation

I was talking to a friend who has recently decided not to keep seeing a girl because she doesn’t use punctuation in text messages. I immediately thought, “Wow! That seems to be awfully close-minded.”…Then I remembered the guy I stopped talking to cause he had a sign on his car that said, “4-sale”. I have to say that now that I think about it, I’m completely with my friend on this. Not using punctuation is just lazy. I think I would let the person know that it bothered me before cutting him out though. If he didn’t take it into account and use it from then on, at least with me, I would consider him to not want to take an interest in me and then decide not to see him anymore.

People get choosey as they get a little older and settled. In a way, it’s a good thing, but on the other hand, have you ever noticed that a person who needs someone for survival, always has someone? It’s ironic that the people who have figured out how to live alone and be happy with their lives while they wait for someone to share it with, seem to stay alone for years and years dismissing each other over the wrong outfit, punctuation, a messy house, food in their teeth, a bad laugh, tattoos, etc… So what are we supposed to do about it? No one is ever going to be “perfect”. Are people settling for the person who “annoys them the least?”…geez…I hope not! They always say that once you truly love yourself, you are ready to love another person. Blah, blah, blah…okay! That made a lot of sense in the generation before us before they started handing out baggage to infants as they left the hospital! Those infants are grown-ups now and are settling for the person who can take care of them the best. I’m not sure that half of them have ever learned to love themselves. They have been taught to survive by stringing together bouts of external validation from random partnerships with the “rent with the option to buy” mentality. Don’t they know that when you rent, you have no return on your investment? I think that people should be a little more choosey and find something that really fits them instead of just living out of their suitcase in order to make a quick exit if they need to. There’s nothing wrong with trying on different outfits in the store, but there really is no need to take one home cause there isn’t one there that fits your body type! Go to the next store. Maybe there’s a great one there that enhances your assets and minimizes your flaws. If you’ve already used up all your cash on the one that didn’t fit, you won’t be in the position to buy it!

My communication highway!

People are always asking me if i'm on facebook and i always tell them that i'm not. Well...all of a sudden, I decided to make one to just use a little for fun and to get back in touch with some old friends. That's all well and good...but those of you who know how facebook works, know that this thing spreads like a virus! I had to actually call in sick today so i could answer all of my "notifications!" I just wonder if anyone has ever gotten into trouble on this thing? I know that personally I have had issues with email...you know...reply all? Have you ever said something really horrible about someone and actually sent it right to them? I mean...everyone's done it! I think... okay...maybe it's just me who has accidentally emailed an ex boyfriend a card with a comment apologizing for his actions stating that he's a sick person and needs to get the help that only a psychiatrist can provide and that his medication is off...that read "dear (insert name of someone I like better than you cause you're a loser)" at the top?? ...Okay...so it's only me then! ...then it didn't really happen....and it was a hypothetical situation...kinda ...not really...yeah...it happened!

Other than that, I have a problem with being overly attentive to email and computer tasks. I sat in the staples parking lot for 2 1/2 hours the night i got my first blackberry trying to clear out my email to "empty." I was trying not to be rude to a new guy who was emailing me.
The conversation went like this:
him: "what are you doing"
me: "answering your email"
him: "oh. What about now?"
me:"um...still answering your emails."
him: "OK Cool. Are you almost home?"
~sound the dramatic pause and frustrated anger audio~ Girl nearly explodes!
me: "No!! My freakin' God! No!...I'm answering your email in the parking lot."
him: "oh...Are we okay?"
~eye blink... pause...looking for a knife to stab myself~
me: "well...we were okay...and now we are not!"
him: "is there something wrong?".

..no answer...I threw the blackberry out the window and drove home peacefully.

I honestly don't know what happened to him...

…okay…I’m out…the pub crawl is not gonna happen!

Well…I suppose I’ve finally come to the realization that I’m just not like the typical 18-year old. Perhaps it’s cause I’m not 18…or simply because even when I was, I couldn’t see the purpose in acting irresponsibly. So here I am, at the beach. I thought, “Maybe there will be some cool people who wanna hang out and talk.” Well! Not this beach. This beach is full of 35 year olds who are drinking their faces off! I wonder why that is? I suppose that they could be that miserable that they want to pretend that they are younger and without responsibilities…or they really think it’s fun. I will never know the answer to that cause my idea of “fun” has never been what other people’s was. I hate it when people say, “Just have fun!” It sort of makes me want to puke! I always have fun. When I write, work, sing, dance, workout!…it’s all fun! When I was in 6th grade, kids would be roller-skating… and I would be learning “Stars and Stripes forever” on my piccolo. FUN! So where are the people who want to hang out and talk? You know…the academic people who are go-getter, workaholics who want to workout when they aren’t working?

I walked into this outdoor bar. There was a guy who almost would’ve been close to taking that smile off of my face that clearly said, “I think this is absolutely ridiculous!” He was okay looking. I asked what he did for a living. He said, “I’m a rocket scientist. I actually do that for a living.”…okay…now we’re getting closer to my speed….then he continued, “but I’m the reason that all of this exists. I’m the judge and all these people in costume will do shows at the end of this pub-crawl and each bar will make thousands of dollars in beer sales. People are thanking me in every bar!”…hmm…I heard the sound of the whimpering trumpet in the cartoons, whining, “wah, wah, wah, wah” as if to say, “thank you for playing! Johnny, tell him what he’s won!” I looked around at the scantily dressed girls- some with nice bodies, some with “healthy self-images”…all with their eyes rolling back in their heads and guys hanging on them as if it really didn’t matter if they were fat or thin…or what their names were for that matter (this seemed even more pathetic because it was only 5pm)! I looked over at the group of older, skin damaged, freckly women with wrinkly faces wearing cougar outfits. Oh boy! I got a crazy message from the universe as if to say, “CALIA! GET OUT OF THE SUN AND PICK UP A 32 YEAR OLD NOW BEFORE YOU LOOK AS RIDICULOUS AS THAT GIRL!”…then I received one for them, “get out of the sun, put on a sweat suit, and subscribe to the law and order channel! You’re glory days are over!”…So what the heck was wrong with this Rocket Scientist that his self image was based on how many drunks he could get into a bar and not his rocket scientry? I have to wonder if everyone has something about them that is amazing but we tend to look at the things that we lack and make those the important things? This forces us to overcompensate for the inadequacy in those areas. For instance, I no longer liked this guy cause he seemed like he was trying too hard. I bet if we had a conversation about his job and his schooling, he would’ve seemed confident and attractive to me. Why would he need to make himself look pathetic by focusing on some high school fantasy that he could be the cool kid instead of the kid with straight ‘A’s’ in math? I like the kid with the ‘A’s’! I suppose I do the same thing though. I have all sorts of special skills, but when I get down, all I can see is that everyone else has a family and I don’t. What exactly am I supposed to do about that? You can’t make it happen and forcing it will make me come off insecure. I guess that all I can do is take this guy’s advice to focus on my strengths and spend time around the people who appreciate them. (well…it was sort of his advice- what he actually said was, “PARTY! WHOOO HOO!”) Anyway…going to a strange place and trying to fit in where I don’t is going to look like an obvious attempt to achieve other people’s approval and not my own. What my priorities are, are mine! Why not accentuate the positive and walk away from places I don’t belong anyway! I’m checking out of the hotel now…and since there was someone else’s hair on the floor of the bathroom when I got here, I’m taking this box of tissues… and this tiny soap…and this towel…wait! No…not the towel…I don’t think this was mine…ewww!

So…how drunk do you have to be?

I decided to take a break and go on vacation. I had a little bit of anxiety about it because I truly hate to travel! I am a big fan of sleeping in my own bed. I set my mind to it and packed…well…nearly everything that I owned…and went off to the beach to meet some friends. Everyone always tells me that I need to get out more because if I ever want to meet someone, I need to be somewhere other than my house working on my computer. Okay…so I went out! My new friends were so good to me. They understood my pain. One of them made sure to walk me through the crowd so I wouldn’t get shoved around. I think that she could possibly have seen the panic on my face as the guy next to me was spitting random sentences on me and spilling beer into my shoes. She took care of me all night! The other girl was so sweet too. I knew that she would probably have liked to party a little more but I think that some of my hopeless responsibility may have stifled her fun a bit. Oops…sorry…I definitely thank her for that! We wove through crowds and crowds of people as the music boomed and people yelled over each other! “Hey Baby!”…(UM….good one!)… “So, are you from here?”… (“No”)… “Oh. So, are you from here?”…. (my head made a strange shaking noise as if it was full of marbles and being shaken by a household blender)… Clearly this was not the place where anyone would ever meet anyone for anything other than a common one-night hookup. As a matter of fact, I was overwhelmed by the blatant attempts at it. Guys would walk straight up to us and put their arms around us. One actually touched me and I looked around and said, “Weird! I thought I felt someone touch me!”…he said, “Yeah, I thought we should spend some time together!”…uh…nope…wait…did you mean you’d like to get to know me over coffee sometime because you find my mind captivating? That’s so sweet!… I wondered if all these girls in short shorts and tall shoes were really having a good time? I suppose that they were. I would never understand it from my perspective though. The thought of screaming over music at strangers who had no intention of forming any lasting connection with me reminded me how much I love the gym. At least there, there’s an understanding that we will stand next to each other doing our own thing and never think to get each other’s names. There we can be assured that we will see each other every single day for years and years and never speak a word to each other. Ah! That’s the sort of intimacy I’m searching for. It’s the best feeling in the world to know that wherever we go, we can be sure to protect ourselves from real human interaction by turning on our ipods, texting other people from our cell phones while sitting next to strangers, uttering a quick “what’s your name?” in a club where the music it too loud to hear the answer…etc…Ah! Modern technology has truly saved us all from needing any social skills whatsoever!

I am very glad to have met these girls who hung out with us last night though. They are good people. The fact that they kept me from temper tantruming and closing my eyes and yelling, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” as people pushed me out of the way as though I was the dented soup can in the aisle at the grocery store to quickly grab the next one and check off another “thing to do” on their list, is truly amazing. I usually crack pretty quickly in that situation. I just kept smiling and being amazed that they didn’t dump me off with a bouncer to go have fun for awhile without Aunt Pollyanna!…of course I did have the keys…nah…I think they are actually nice people! I like them. Now my friend who introduced me to them on the other hand, had an interesting way about him. He yelled out the window of the car all the way home as though he was a barking dog with his head panting out the window. I thought, “um…dude! It’s three o’clock in the morning and this is a rural community. If I get pulled over for what you’re doing, I’m going to offer you to him in return for letting the rest of us go.”

If my new friends ever need a tour guide in an electronics shop, I will definitely be there for them! In the meantime, I learned that I absolutely am NOT missing anything by not going clubbing. When I meet someone, I am certain that he will likely be somewhere that I am at my best and don’t have a look on my face that suggests that I think there’s something wrong with everyone in the room!

There’s always nice weather somewhere…

I drove to the top of a hill near my house today. There was something very strange in the air. From the highest point, overlooking the valley in front of me, there were thick black clouds with intermittent bolts of lightning. I looked out my window to the left and there was a field lit completely by a bright sun. I pulled over because I felt as though there was something I was supposed to recognize in this moment. I know it sounds a little crazy, but sometimes I think that there are signs sent to everyone in everyday life that we need to choose to be able to see. I looked out the back window at the beautiful day that was before me as it shined with hope and expectation. With one simple turn of the head, I viewed the gloom of the angry winds that were bending trees and tossing their leaves from their branches. I sat there for a few minutes as though I was in the eye of all weather, protected from either of the two extremes. I noticed that I was sitting under a bunch of power lines and thought to myself as a side note, “hmm…if I’m planning on having my first child in my 50’s when I finally meet a man who doesn’t have bad phone etiquette and food in his teeth, I probably shouldn’t spend too much time under these.”…I was distracted by a crack of thunder and the thought was dismissed quickly as I giggled, realizing that children were really the least of my troubles judging from the fact that I had just pulled over to park under power lines during an electrical storm….no matter…the storm can wait! I’m having a moment! I turned my back to the storm and looked at the brightness of the sunny day and had a realization that there is always nice weather somewhere in the world. At this moment, I could choose to drive towards it. The funny thing was though, that in order to get to where I was going, I had to drive into the storm….the even stranger thing was that I sort of wanted to.

Is it human nature to want drive directly into a storm?…I mean…doesn’t it seem that the bright and sunny days seem that much brighter when the day before was dark? I wonder if we welcome the drama of our troubles in order to fill our cravings for excitement? If every single day were without incident, people would forget to recognize how great the good stuff really is.

So what is it about me that left me frozen, not going in either direction? Where I sat, I was protected from all of the elements (of course, other than my pending electrocution…but I had a plan…I wasn’t dumb enough to complete the circuit with my own body. The car tires would assure my survival!…there I go again…always taking the safe route of irresponsibility!)…I suppose what I was meant to take away from this moment that had pulled me over, was that as long as I remain protected from the sun or the storm in the eye of nothingness where there was only room for me, I would never meet the people who are just down the road enduring that storm together.

I pulled out and continued towards the lightning. Really…what could happen?

Do we all want the same things?

I don’t think that we all want the exact same things out of our lives…at least I hope not. Is every woman looking for a boring, metro sexual, thin, businessman?…I hope not! If you meet him, he’s mine! I have met girls who like guys who drive trucks and go outside- not me! I’m not allowed to ride in trucks. Wait…I can’t remember why that is?…oh well…no matter! That’s fine! No truckers for me. I’m sure there are some trucker girls for the trucker boys…My only struggle now is that I’m a little worried that since everyone is getting married two and three times these days, there are few people left over for those of us who are hoping to meet someone to have a future with! I look at it like a game of musical chairs: The music stops, everyone sits down and once I’m done making sure the next song is written and ready to play, all the chairs are taken. In a perfect world, there would be a bouncer at the musical chair house, stopping people from collecting chairs so other people can have a chance to sit down!…alas…it doesn’t work that way. Those chair stealers are getting so good at staking their claim when the music stops, that people like me have just had to throw their hands up and walk out of the game!

I have to say that though at times I’ve come close to throwing up more than my hands over this subject, it’s usually just because I’ve been on some sort of sugar binge. Like for instance today- I couldn’t take that girl driving in the car behind me who was pounding on her steering wheel and screaming for some reason. Um…why did I feel like I wanted to drive a little slower? I mean…clearly the person in front of me was the one who was moving at a snail’s pace. I was just trying not to hit him. Normally I would smile and wave at her! Geez! I’m nice!…well…sometimes I just don’t feel like being nice…and I had eaten Swedish fish! Oh boy! Red dye number 5!…YUM!…but what about the 48 or so hours of a short, calculated temper (rather an oxymoron I suppose)? Actually…come to think about it, even at my worst, the most I would do to the crazy lady pounding her steering wheel, is give her a stern look with that expression of “I think you’re an idiot” that I’ve practiced in the mirror in case I need to express my feeling without words someday. Ah yes! That’s gratifying...wait...no...she flipped me off. I bet she could tell that I didn’t approve of her behavior and will think about it next time. She probably won’t even be able to sleep tonight! I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings.

Crisscross applesauce

Well…the world has finally lost its mind. I was teaching a group of children with my sister and asked a child if she could sing while sitting in “Indian style.” …yep…that’s right! You can see where this one is going can’t you?…my sister ridiculed me for calling it that and repeated it to the kids as they said it back in unison, “crisscross apple-sauce”…um…I have officially lost my mind. Is it really just me who thinks that it’s possible that we have gone a little too far now? It’s as though by not having children yet, an entire generation of political correctness has made me feel completely illiterate. I have to wonder how many others I’ve missed. I’ll be sure to take this matter to heart. I’m going to watch for things around town that I can start calling then the appropriate terms:

Metabolically Challenged (fat)
Strong maths and sciences (socially inept)
Cream-skinned (white person)
Street-side operations manager (drug pusher)
Mature man with convertible (midlife crisis)
Man with truck (man who can’t afford a BMW)
Girl with really nice eyes (counter girl)
Man with psycho ex-wife (man who cheated on wife)
On the liver transplant list (Alcoholic)


I know that this is an area I need to work on. Saying it like it is seems to be getting me into trouble repeatedly! An older man tried to have me thrown out of the Country Club the other day cause when he made a bad joke and said it was a bad joke, I agreed with him and said, “Yeah. Actually it sucked.”…what?…it did….I was just agreeing with him…I’m never going to get this right! I need an instruction manual!

Do I need to pay more attention?

Sometimes I get bored when my brain isn’t being encouraged into thought. I love to learn. That being said, when someone makes me sit and listen to random thoughts strung together into paragraphs when it is blatantly obvious that a required amount of time is being filled just to fill it, I get extremely distracted. I sat in a grad class week after week one semester and though I couldn’t wait to get there, when I did, my mind quickly turned to mush. The professor was a good-looking, young, PhD. I suppose he would’ve been considered my “type”- brainy with a nice face, but a tiny bit socially odd. I did notice that he was a little too tall for his pants at times though. I got there early one evening after Thanksgiving and since I was the only one there with him, I asked him how his Thanksgiving was. I suppose I didn’t really care how it was but aren’t we supposed to ask people random things as small talk? I.e.: How are the kids? How was your weekend? What do you have planned for vacation? Do I look fat in these pants? Etc…all things that no one really cares about or listens to the answer to…right?…well…maybe it’s just me. Oh well…His answer was, “I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. I think it’s more like Thanks-Taking cause what did they do? They came in and took the land.”…oh…(eye blink…Um…Okay… )Another person entered the room and I quickly told her under my breath, “ixnay on the anksgivingthay!”…There was something strange about this class. Did he really have that much passion for the social structure in latino culture?…and why did he keep tripping over me?…and spitting food on me?…there was definitely something about a blonde girl in this class that made him act extremely strange(or he just was- not sure!). One day he started talking to 2 of the 18 of us for about a half hour – IN SPANISH. The conversation would drift in and out of English in random accents. I peered out the window. I saw myself giggling as I sat on a large branch of the tree outside. Then I watched as I twirled and ran free outside the window, frolicking like a child as the sun went down behind the rolling hills that I could barely see far across the campus…No…I wasn’t on drugs. I like to call these ADH!- Attention Deficit Hallucinations! In order to keep myself from getting completely bored, I like to send half of myself somewhere else to have some fun!… “Calia? Do you have anything to add here?”…The playing girl outside the window burst into laughter and pointed towards me as if to let me know to focus my attention towards the professor. I turned my head toward him slowly and said politely, “I’m sorry. I stopped listening an hour ago.” He seemed to take it very well. I made him nervous for some reason and ended up getting an ‘A’ in the class…and come to think of it, I have no idea what that class was about.

Facebook stalking…

I have to wonder if the age of twittering our every move and facebooking our feelings is counterproductive to the elusive requirement of dating? It seems that deductions can be made from a simple sentence without knowing the background of the person writing it. For example, I knew a guy…we’ll call him… let’s see…ah! Yes! “guy whose no longer my friend”… I was trying to get to know him a little to see if we may have a little something in common. (Let’s not be crazy here, I knew we had nothing in common but the constant drone of all of humanity telling me that I’m too picky, beat in my ears to the point of drowning out all common sense!…oh well…) Week after week, we would miscommunicate simple plans. I’d think he had said he would call and what he had really said was, “I’ll call you (and then under his breathe he was apparently uttering a silent giggle with a “NOT” at the end!”) I know! My mistake. He would call another day instead…after I had deleted him from facebook and my phone. This happened nearly every Tuesday for 5 weeks for some reason. I suppose what I’m getting at here is that if he had wanted to spend time with me, he probably would’ve called. I think the kicker though, is the ability to open up a near stranger’s facebook and read, “I don’t have anyone to go out with tomorrow, any takers?”…um…hello?…wasn’t that an evening that if you were interested like you had said, that you might think, “Hey! I know…that girl that I’ve been saying I want to date might want to go out in public with me?”…again…my fault and I’m likely overreacting! I’m not really upset but I’m extremely confused. Is the tiniest bit of attention from someone whom you aren’t interested in to begin with, worth the energy of apologizing weekly? I have to say that we are all guilty of this at some point in our life. If it isn’t right, it isn’t right! We can’t force relationships, either casual or serious, on the people around us. I suppose I feel like it’s the social equivalent to Macaroni and Cheese. If it’s the middle of the night and you are bored and hungry and don’t feel like going to the store, you can search through your cupboards and likely find a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese left over from 10 years ago that the mice haven’t chewed through. At what point do you say, “hmm…this really won’t be worth the calories… or the time it takes me to find a package of powered milk in a bag in the cellar that I would need to make it. I should just go to bed and wait till someone’s grandmother makes me a baked macaroni and cheese one day!”

I may have hurt this guy’s feelings a little when I said, “Lose my number” in a facebook email and then deleted him so I couldn’t read the other girl’s comments to his attempt to “dig someone up” to spend time with. I do feel a little bad about that…but though I don’t like things left unsettled and wish he would’ve simply told me that he wasn’t interested to begin with, it is likely best for me not to entertain that sort of “space shuttle food packet sustenance!”…I have some liquid eggwhites and a powerbar that will get me through for now.

The Neckline Slimmer??

What exactly is going on with the human race these days? Have we really come to the point that a neck exerciser that comes with “it’s own beautiful carrying pouch” is sold on TV? Not to mention the fact that judging from the amount of television promotion, someone must be buying it to maintain the advertising budget. I’m not sure whose worse? The people who invented it, or the people who are buying it? I think we have become so hung up on outward beauty and youth that there is virtually no definition of beauty for the age we actually are. Why does everyone need to look younger? I can understand trying to look your best…but why does a 50 year old need to do neck exercises cause she doesn’t look 20 anymore? Of course she doesn’t look 20 – that’s not because she has done something horribly wrong! It’s because she is 50 and has lived a number of years and carries herself with the mature beauty that a woman of 50 should have. When I sing, there is typically some woman who is wearing an outfit that she picked out of her granddaughter’s closet…or better yet…the other night, there was a lady who obviously went to some boutique that had some vintage clothes and asked if they had “one of those butterfly backless shirts to show off my tattoos?” …It has got to be someone’s responsibility to quickly slip that shirt into a drawer somewhere and reply, “oh shoot…we just sold our last one ma’am! I’m so sorry!”

I’m going to purchase the neckline slimmer and start marketing my own funhouse mirrored glasses so as we age we can hand them out to all of our friends so we only see society’s definition of beauty standing in front of us! I will also set up a booth that will quickly race 20 year olds through all of their life experiences in order to have the knowledge and experiences that people at 50 have. That way we will all look and act exactly the same! I feel better about this melting pot that we live in already! Maybe one day we’ll all live in the same houses, have the same likes and dislikes, wear the same clothes, do the same job…uh oh…wait a minute…who’s gonna pick up the garbage and dig the ditches?…oh well…forget it! No ditches or garbage!…ah…I love America- the home of the Beautiful people!

Who the heck is he anyway?

I have to wonder if women are better than men at filling in the gaps in their minds about who people really are? I’m actually pretty sure that it often doesn’t even cross most men’s minds. I have known a guy, who I think VERY highly of, for 5 years now. He has consistently been unavailable to me in drastic ways! A normal girl would likely just go away and move on. NOT ME! I actually think it’s hilarious for some reason. I mean…who the heck is this guy? Is my imagination so strong that I have invented a man who far extends his own life’s reality? I think so…and yet, I still sort of wonder. Some may call this “stalkeresque!”…I like to call it “curious and supportive!” I will admit that when I first met him, there was something about him that left me walking away with a feeling of amazement that someone so perfect for me could be out there. We hung out once or twice and while we were together, we laughed, treated each other respectfully and I would even think that he would say that we had a good time. That’s all that was. He quickly he decided that he wasn’t interested in me for whatever reason. I’m strangely Okay with that. The trouble lies in his expression of that fact. Why do guys think that a lack of communication or response is the best method of getting their point across? I have to say that I hate this. I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve called after a few “meetings” (I don’t use the word “date” cause I’m sort of closed off to the concept! I don’t like to feel locked into people thinking that I’m “dating” someone…it makes me throw up a little! – likely a story for a different time…or possibly a few years of therapy are in order?…nah…I’m sure it will work itself out! Feeeww!)…Anyway…I have called guys and simply told them that I just didn’t see it working out between us. I've let him know that I appreciated the fact that he was a great guy but wasn’t interested in him at this time…or in some cases told him that I had cd recordings of the voicemail messages he had left me and if he contacted me again, I would get a restraining order…but no hard feelings! Possibly my communication skills are a tiny bit stronger than the average evasive man. I suppose that guys just assume we’ll get the picture. Oh…Well…I get the picture! But for some reason, I would rather have an answer to an unfinished equation than use one of the 40,000 answers that my high functioning brain is able to concoct for lack of having the real one.

So what about this guy? I still think he’s great. On a superficial level, he is well-mannered, friendly, smart, funny…etc…The funny thing is that I’m not even trying to date him anymore though I have to admit that the curiosity is overwhelming. I’m certain that I’m not the only woman he has this sort of “un-relationship” with…and I am very aware of the fact that I shouldn’t really care. But…I find him extremely entertaining!…STILL! Now years later, I get hours of enjoyment out of the 2 minutes that he’s put into thinking about me! I know that he could never live up to the superpowered action hero I have written stories about in my sleep! I can see it now:

Calia pulls up to his house while he’s at work…she opens the front door with a bobby pin…and it isn’t locked anyway due to the fact that the alarm is set and she’ll only have 30 seconds to run the algorithm on the 14 digit passcode…then she discovers that though she is quite competent with the time constraint, the 28 characters of numbers and case sensitive letters that protect his assets, quickly set the scene in motion for some fun!

She knows that she only has enough time to rearrange the furniture a little and steam up the mirror in the bathroom so the next morning when he showers, he sees his morning welcome from a steam apparition of a smiley face wishing him a “happy day!”

She runs down the long hallway and down the stairs to greet the officer as he arrives.

Calia: Hi Officer! I apologize for any inconvenience. I’m completely in the wrong here.

Officer: What are you doing here Miss?

Calia explains the years of lack of events leading up to this day as she hands him a warm cookie that she made in the car on the way. It’s on a covered plate marked, “For the kind officer who is doing his civic duty to protect and serve!”

Officer: You're right Miss. You take the bedroom. I'll take the bathroom! We don’t have much time.

He radios for help and the helicopter soon shows up to let out “information sniffing dogs” that are careful not to scuff the perfectly buffed hardwood floors. After carefully rummaging through his Italian made designer shoe collection and his hand folded underwear drawers and then checking under the towels that are neatly stacked inside his bathroom closet which is marked simply, “His”, Calia and the team of investigators are satisfied that he absolutely does not exist.
She leaves, having formed lasting, lifelong friendships with her new team of detectives, knowing that she has truly done all that she can. Perhaps this guy will call her one day and tell her absolutely nothing…cause that’s her polite, sweet boy that nobody knows…and everybody loves!…I mean…what are friends for?

A miner's hat?

Sometimes I think that we are so busy doing what we think we are supposed to be doing that we never stop to do what we want to do. In fact, I think that many of us don’t even know what that is because it has been long overshadowed by responsibilities. I usually do what I want to do in most instances though I do notice that I need to quickly complete everything that I think should be done first before I run off and do it! I called my mother tonight at around 9:30. She had just come in from weeding. I thought that was strange since it was pitch dark outside…(not to mention that when I say I’m weeding, it usually means that the neighbor is weeding and I’m out on a run. I’m not really into outdoor responsibilities. I sort of think that they suck. As a matter of fact, one day when I meet someone special, people will likely know it because they’ll notice that all of a sudden they can see my house over the pile of garbage in front cause someone has cut the grass and found out when garbage day is.) I asked my mother why she was weeding in the dark? She said that now that she has the hat with lights on it, she is able to get a few more hours in. um…wait…that lighted hat is for late-night weeding? I thought and thought about what I might use it for…camping?…uh…no…wait…nope…oh! I have one - Stirring up some cookie dough during a thunderstorm/power outage!…Yep. That’s really all I can think of that I would use a lighted hat for. There is a reason that the sun goes down. It’s so that people stop outdoor work and are forced to go inside and eat dinner. The government has even been known to change the clocks in order to adjust to when it’s light outside. Here’s an idea…and I’ll give full credit to my mother when I call Obama with it (perhaps he’ll sit out at his picnic table with her and discuss it one day…!)… I’m going to suggest that they use some of the stimulus money to issue every American Citizen a battery operated miner’s hat. It is a win win situation. The lithium, long life battery would cut down on energy usage, people could work longer hours and get more tasks done, there would be fewer back injuries due to not having to hold flashlights, health care costs would decrease cause the older generation wouldn’t have heat stroke from doing yard work in the heat of the summer sun, jobs would be created in landfills and recycling plants where the hat batteries could be melted down and made into titanium and then shaped into space crafts for high taxable tours to Mars for the wealthy…etc… the possibilities are endless. My mother has saved the world! Thanks Mom!

…and if that doesn’t work, maybe we could just take a little more time out of our day to do the things that we feel like doing! The weeds will be there tomorrow…what are they gonna do to you?…

Um…did your dresser explode?

I have to wonder how people function with things out of order. Is there something that happens in a person’s head that somehow makes clothes burst from their dresser drawers? I’m not a fan of disorder. It makes me nervous (that sounds like I could have a “disorder” of my own)! I can’t imagine how anyone could wake up and pull an outfit, inside out, off the floor and put it on? It’s no wonder that people are losing their minds. My friend would say, “It’s like heart jewelry. Some people like it, and some people don’t!”…uh…what?? Actually I have no idea what that means. She was comparing heart jewelry to camping when she said it. Hmm…uh…well…I suppose that since everyone sort of knows that camping sucks, she must not like heart jewelry…but I still can’t connect a necklace with a heart on it to s’mores and sleeping on the ground??… Although, there is something about chocolaty goodness melted against a hot marshmallow that sort of warms my heart…but then again, I could put a marshmallow on a spiedie skewer and melt it over a gas stove in my kitchen… if I disconnect the smoke detector for a few minutes…Just a minute…

I’m back…I had to make a s’more…anyway…I think that the point is that people like different things. Why would we bother to try to identify with people who don’t fit with us? I met a guy who by all standards was very nice…however; there have never been two people more wrong for each other. Our differences are laughable! So why did we even try to spend time with each other? Not being able to make something like that work shouldn’t be seen as a failure right? Should we at least try new things?…but what about the fact that he likes heart jewelry and I love to camp…wait…no! I like looking pretty and he likes camouflage. The funny thing is that he is really nice…but dancing around the subject of the fact that he’d be embarrassed to take me around his family because I’m a tiny bit too “country club” seems hilarious to me. To each his own though! Why torment each other? It’s like saying, “You’d be perfect for me if you were a completely different person!”…excellent…let me try that! I’m sure there’s no one left on this earth and we are meant to spend our lives making each other miserable! It’s so wrong…that it’s almost right! Strangely, there is something still a tiny bit appealing about him. But for God’s sake man: Put your clothes back in that dresser of yours! How hard can it be to match your flip flops to your camouflage shorts?

I wonder what they are talking about?

I was watching hundreds of people as I sang yesterday. There was a girl with a tattoo covering her entire back. I thought… “hmm…how does she match all of her outfits to that?…or will a burlap sack and a beer bottle just do on a daily basis?…” As I watched, I noticed that though there were many people there, everyone who came together, stood in a small circle with only each other. It was a huge party with little sub-cluster parties taking place within it. No one ventured into anyone else’s circle. I was making up conversations in my head so I could feel like I was part of each circle:

Sub-cluster 1:

Person 1: Hey! Did you check out that traffic on the way?
Person 2: Yeah.
Person 3: This beer is good.

Sub-cluster 2:

Person 1: Did you see that girl with that crazy tattoo on her back?
Person 2: Yeah! How does she match all of her outfits to that? (clearly I had just joined that circle!)

Sub-cluster 3:

Person 1: This is a lot of fun! We should do this more often!
Person 2: We actually do this all the time…minus the hundreds of strangers that we aren’t talking to anyway!
Person 1: Good point!

After a few hours, people started leaving one cluster at a time. I started to think that possibly I should get out more often…but the next time I do, I’m going to make it a point to join someone else’s circle randomly. It seems like people get so used to what “normal” is for them, they are completely unwilling to experience anything else. I can see it now!

Calia joins random circle of women at a party:

Woman 1: Some of the people in here are so drunk! I’d hate to have to be single again.
Calia: You’re not kidding about that! That guy over there just started telling me how nasty his wife is and that she doesn’t know it yet, but he has already started hiding money so he can leave her with nothing.
Woman 1: That's my husband.
Calia: hmm... (need a twix?…)…well then…have a great weekend!

Do you think he’ll call?

I have been pondering if women hold on to things longer than men do or not. For example, if you have plans with someone and he is running a little late and hasn't called, how long do you wait until you’re sure he just isn’t coming?…does 10-12 years seem extensive?…I agree that this may seem like a long time to be standing by the door in an outfit with your hairdo slowly going out of style, but you have to admit that if he said he would call, it seems logical that he is going to! The other question is: Do guys plan their bad behavior or is it unintentional? I think that it’s possible that they can have a day when they just feel like doing something other than what was originally planned and blow you off for as long as they think it will take you to hopefully get amnesia so that you won’t bring it up or ask for an explanation! Come to think of it, this may be a pretty good plan on their part. We actually do tend to forgive and forget, but should we? When he eventually gets back to you, and for some reason he always does, he will just say something like… “I thought you wanted more and couldn’t handle it!”… Well! Isn’t that the dumbest thing I've ever heard?... Then I'm so confused that the conversation easily gets shifted to my shoes or something in the present and he has actually won that game with little or no consequence!...wait! Go back!...Crap!... This is yet another reason that I’m building an ark (in addition to the fact that birds seems to be getting bigger and I’m worried that they are going to eventually come and peck all of our eyes out!…but this is a story for another day!)…Anyway… Do you know how many times I’ve called someone back and simply told him that he was really nice but I just didn’t think it was going anywhere? It seems like the right thing to do. When someone doesn’t call, this is what goes through my head:

1) Was there something in my teeth?
2) Did I accidentally tuck my skirt into my underwear?
3) Do you think he loved me so much that he just couldn’t call me because he was scared?
4) Did he get kidnapped and had his organs harvested?
5) Is this a test and he wants me to make him cupcakes and cookies everyday because he wants to see if I care enough to chase him?

Now…when he actually does show back up years and years later with absolutely no explanation, do you just say, “Oh. Okay! No biggie…I just assumed that you were gay!”, and then befriend him again with no more questions asked! …yep…most likely…cause women are just that way!…That’s where they getcha!” We have taught them that we will always take the high road. It’s the age old story: Boy meets girl, Boy makes plans with girl, Girl gets dressed and ready, Boy doesn’t show up or call for 12 years, Girl moves on, Boy sees girl again, Boy has no explanation, Girl says, “Cool. Give me a call sometime!”...Oh boy... I guess that’s why we are all pretty screwed! All we can do is hope that the wrong guy doesn’t get out of his coma after apparently stepping in front of the bus driven by "the right one" 12 years ago and come for us first!

Well! Thank God you thought to start beeping!

My friend and I were stuck in traffic yesterday. It was one of those summer construction issues where you are sitting at a complete stop for what seems like forever. Cars are breaking down around you, the heat is beating down on your car and you are sort of hoping there is something huge up in front when you finally get there so it will make it all worth it. Of course…you never get to see what caused it and somehow, out of the blue, traffic just clears and that’s that. We were sitting there laughing about random things cause I suppose we thought there was really nothing we could do about it!…all of a sudden someone started to beep his horn behind us….Oh My Gosh! I should’ve thought of that! Sometimes I forget that if you see in a motionless line of a thousand cars, beeping your horn will clear the traffic faster.

Actually…I think that is absolutely ridiculous. There was a time when I felt like getting frustrated with uncontrollable things in my life would do some good. It doesn’t! A friend told me the other day that I should be looking a little harder for a man to spend my life with. He said, “It’s like two people in a dark cave who are both shining flashlights to light their way and eventually they shine it on each other! You’re not even in the cave! It’s as though you are waiting to just fall into a pot of gold.” …I have to say I am impressed with his assessment. My problem with it is the fact that it often seems like the harder you look for something, the more obvious it is that it isn’t showing up. I think that standing in the cave…let’s call it…The Holland Tunnel…and beeping your horn at stopped traffic when eventually it’s going to move anyway, is simply a way to stress yourself out. I suppose that I don’t mind taking a lap through the cave once in a while, possibly beeping my horn in a pattern of “a shave and a hair cut, two bits” as I smile to let people know that I know that there’s really nothing I can do to fix the situation but I’m at least somewhere near the “game”… but to tell you the truth, I’m pretty sure that we’ll all get through that tunnel eventually…and judging from that “pot of gold” (or heavy meteor activity that apparently has been taking place on New York City streets) that I just dropped my car in once I got through the tunnel, the odds of me falling into the hole unstressed are about the same as the person who’s intentionally throwing themselves into it…only I’m going to look way younger as I pick up my bumper from the street!