Tomorrow the family and I head north to Presque Isle for the annual weeklong vacation that includes super relaxation and fun with the occasional family-fueled drama. Here’s to more of the former and less of the latter! I wish Gracie could come. Why are so many places so anti-dog? It’s annoying and, frankly, uncalled for. Gracie brings nothing but love with her wherever she goes. Well, that and tumbleweeds of dog hair. But that’s nothing that a little (read: constant) vacuuming can’t cure. Have a good week, folks!
Archive for the 'life and pups' Category
Here’s something that bugs me, since you asked: people talking to me first thing in the morning at work. Or at home, really, but that’s easier to avoid. When I get to work, I want to turn on my computer, read my email, have a cup of coffee, balance my checkbook and do some other inane things. And I want to do them quietly, alone and in peace. But sometimes people seem to think that I might want them to come into my office and drone on and on about how hard their life is and how having kids is the most difficult thing in the universe and how they have too much work to do. Let me assure you: this is not the case. I can tolerate these discussions (not that they are really discussions — they’re much more like monologues) much better later in the day, after I’ve had some alone time. So, please, just give me half an hour alone and then we can talk for an hour about you don’t have enough time to get it all done.
Warning: this blog post is rather personal and slightly sappy.
One of my many shortcomings is my insecurity. I feel like I’ve made great strides in this regard since, say, eighth grade, but there’s a lot still going on. One of the ways this manifests itself is in the field of love. Bear with me here. It’s not that I’m one of those people who can’t imagine someone loving me, or that I don’t feel like I deserve love. It’s more that I’m somewhat uncomfortable with it. Let me explain.
I was watching ‘Dan in Real Life’ this weekend, while getting ready for the barbeque. There’s a scene in which one of Dan’s three girls is demonstrably heartbroken when her father sends her teenage beau away. She screams and cries and calls her dad a traitor to love or something. I mean, she SCREAMS and CRIES about how much she loves said-teenage boy and how he’s perfect and dreamy and blah blah blah. Now, we all know I can cry. And I have definitely shed a tear or two over love lost or confused, but I have never had a breakdown of that magnitude. I just have never felt that, “He’s perfect, we’re perfect, what I have is perfect.” Or maybe, if I have, I’ve just never let it to the surface.
Sure, I’ve had my giddy moments of glee over the years and I feel like I’ve been very blessed to find love not once, but twice. I still, though, think that I put up a wall that I don’t allow myself to go through. I don’t want to shout from the rooftops or sing at the top of my lungs or click my heels together in the rain. I worry about drawing that kind of attention to myself. I worry that I will look vain or silly or smug. I worry that only super attractive people are allowed to be open about love. I worry that drawing that kind of attention to my relationship, my feelings, will make them both disappear. I worry that there will be some sort of karmic force that will say, “Bam! You lose! You should have kept it to yourself!”
And I felt this way when Ben & I got married. I wanted to throw a really fun party for everyone, but I didn’t want to spend time on myself. I bought my dress (a bridesmaid’s dress in white) online for about $200. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to have a dress I really wanted because I wouldn’t look that good in it anyway and it would be silly to spend money on something that wouldn’t look very good. But it’s not as if the wedding was cheap. Far from it: we had a great band, an open bar, tons of food, an afterparty, a fun rehearsal dinner, etc. But when it came to me, I didn’t want to go to a store to go dress shopping. I didn’t want people looking at me, thinking that I was trying to have some sort of day for me. The day was about our families and friends and trying to make them happy. That’s not to say, of course, that I was entirely selfless or anything. I made the reception a heavy hors d’oeuvres party — instead of a plated dinner — because that’s how I like to eat. But still, the fact remained that I had a very hard time ever saying, “But this is my day and I want to look pretty.” The truth is, I felt extremely nervous and unattractive on my wedding day. My dress didn’t fit all that well and I hated my hair in that updo. I had fun at the reception and loved seeing my friends. But, honestly, I was really relieved when it was over.
Now that it’s the second time around, I feel even more nervous. I feel like no one wants you to celebrate a second wedding. I worry that people think, “Hey, you failed the first time, you should probably be quiet about this one and just hope no one says anything.” So, I’ve struggled as of late. Since Aaron and I decided that we should get hitched, I’ve felt very uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable when people are so excited because I wonder if it’s sincere. I feel nervous when people are blase because I worry that they are skeptical about our ability to make this work. I worry when people don’t say anything at all.
As I said, I’ve struggled. Should we just run off to Vegas; should we just walk down to the courthouse; should we throw a party; should we have a ceremony; should we invite no one; should we invite everyone? You get the picture. We started thinking that what we really wanted was to have a small party with our closest friends and family. We want something intimate and friendly, easy and relaxed. We want something, though, for us.
I have decided that while I’m still uncomfortable with people looking at me, and while I still worry that things may come crashing down, I am going to make an honest effort to recognize that this can be about me. This celebration can be a celebration about me and Aaron and that there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not hubris; it’s love. And as a very wise friend recently reminded me, love is something that is always worth celebrating.
You know how some people are just weird? Like those people that make you wonder how they get by in everyday life? Those people that make you question Darwin’s whole thesis? Well, I am hear today to vent about one of these people.
Last night I played an epic tennis match. Let me back up. Yesterday I was in a pretty foul mood. Some of it was probably hormonal, but I was just feeling very out of sorts and cranky and, well, sad. Said bad mood led me to leave work early for some cuddly Gracie time and to pray for rain so that my tennis match would be canceled. Tennis is at 6 o’clock and last night’s match was in McFarland, which — while not exactly as far away as Malta — feels like a ridiculous place to play. The weather was threatening, but not menacing enough to justify me staying put in the bed with the pup. So off I went. As I was driving, big raindrops started to fall. They continued to fall sporadically on the whole drive over to the wee little town, but weren’t quite enough to make me feel like I could turn around. In fact, as soon as I finally found the sole tennis courts in town, the rain stopped. The skies were still gloomy, but there was no rain. Just super humid, heavy conditions. Yuck. I realized I would have to play afterall. At that point, I also realized that playing may be good for me and might help ameliorate my craptastic mood. And then I met the woman against whom I would play for the next two-plus hours. A total weirdo.
Now, in hindsight, it was probably good that she was so weird. In my bad-mood-state, I should have appreciated that I didn’t have to do a lot of small talk and smiley stuff given that she was too weird to engage in such socially expected behavior. At the time, though, this fueled my bad mood as I became increasingly irritated with her. What am I talking about, you ask? Give me examples, you say. Ok, ok. I’ll try. But when I tried to explain it to Aaron, I failed rather miserably. Maybe in writing I’ll have better luck.
We pick our court and pretty much the first thing she says to me — no pleasantries, though she had already admitted that she’d forgotten my name — is, “Do you have scorecards?” Um, no, I don’t. There are people who carry their own scorecards and, frankly, I think they’re a little weird. For those of you who dont know, scorecards are exactly what they sound like. They’re plastic numbers on rings that you hang over the net and flip them when you switch sides to reflect the game score. They’re cool in high school when you want to see how everyone’s doing, but as an adult they strike me as pretentious and unnecessary. And, if you want to use them, fine, but I’m not bringing them. Ok, that was a long-winded story, but my point is just that she started out weird and it didn’t get any better.
She would never say, “Thank you” when I tossed her a ball, she would never smile between games on the changeover, she never asked me a single question about myself, etc. Now, you’re probably thinking, maybe she was really focused and in her zone and didn’t have time for pleasantries. Maybe. But she was also kind of an idiot when it came to tennis. She played ok, but she had no tennis etiquette or no, I don’t know how to say it, tennis practicality. In tennis, when you are not say, Serena Williams, you have to carry the balls with you in your pocket. You don’t have a ball boy or girl to assist you. Because you get two serves, the server carries one ball in her pocket and serves the other ball. Should the first serve be out, the server reaches into her pocket and retrieves the second ball. This is not a rule, but it is pretty much what every player in the universe does. Because there are three balls, it is common practice for the non-server to hold that ball in her pocket. Some servers like to have all three balls with them, but that’s pretty uncommon. What’s my point? This lady would make me take all three balls every time I served. She never offered to hold one and didn’t seem amenable to doing so. Ok, that’s weird, but it’s more just insensitive and out of touch. What’s weirder, though, is that throughout the match, when I was serving, she would then keep the balls. Not just one, but two. Say, it’s 30-love and I’m serving. There are two balls on her side of the court so I have just one. She would go and retrieve those two balls, put them both in her pocket, stand behind the service line and wait for me to serve. I would then say, “Could I have a ball, please?” And she would then reach into her pocket, take out a ball and hit it to me — without saying anything. This did not just happen once. This happened over and over. And over. And over! There was absolutely no learning curve. And we had a loooooooooooooong match. [I won, but it was 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3.] There was plenty of opportunity for her to catch on to the notion that I wanted to have two balls handy when I was serving, but she just refused to do so.
Anyway, I realize this is probably not capturing my supreme frustration with her. Well, maybe it is, but I fear it’s not reflecting how severely odd this woman was. She just had zero social skills, I suppose. I should probably feel some sympathy for her, but instead I just wanted to smack her on the head with my racquet.
life and puppies 