Dear Loyal Blogwatchers,

I have a NEW blog. More bitching, less self-pity, with a little bit of "think about it" mixed in. Check it out!

See you there!

Also, why are people so GOD DAMNED RUDE?

I can forgive this coming from the mouths of my friends, or even coworkers. But strangers and casual acquaintances who ask me, "how come you never got married?" really GRIND MY FUCKING GEARS.

My cousin asked me the other day in the course of conversation, "are you gonna have kids ever, or no?" It was a purely innocent question. He's family. He's allowed. But everyone else? You are NOT ALLOWED. You are NOT ALLOWED to ask me personal questions. I don't ask you about that thing on your face, I don't ask you why your taste in clothing sucks, I don't ask you how you lost that tooth. So really, just shut the fuck up, all right?

NO. I'm NOT GOING TO HAVE KIDS. And that's part of the reason I never got married. Men want children. Who knew? And I'm somehow "defective" for lacking a maternal instinct. Somehow I was supposed to ignore that little factoid and just go ahead and push out a couple kids because that's what society says we're "supposed" to do.

I've had men on dating sites tell me straight up that there's something wrong with me for not wanting kids. I've had men cease all communiques once I explain my position.

I even had one guy who swore he didn't want kids change his tune after we'd gone out a few times, though I think he just said that 'cause he knew it'd make me go away.

Maybe there IS something wrong with me. Man...

And here we go again

Yet another friend has gotten engaged. Well, not really a friend, but an acquaintance.

And of course her wall is full of congratulatory wishes and hopeful sentiment. And yet...I still just can't seem to get it right.

How do I write this without sounding bitter? Am I just a big jerk for begrudging people their happiness as I wallow in my own cesspool of sadness?

(I should make it clear that when my FRIENDS get engaged or married it's a joyful time and I really am truly happy for them, but it's the casual acquaintances that get to me, for whatever reason).

I'm trying really hard to NOT let this GP thing fuck me up. I'm NOT letting this skew my ideas about love and partnership, which despite my history, lifestyle, and shenanigans are actually quite traditional at the core.

Deep down, I have always wanted to get married, but only if I found the right person, and I could never accept that my life was destined for picket fences and shuttling a Volvo full of kids to soccer practice. (Not wanting kids makes it really hard to find a husband, you know). And yet for some reason, wanting to find a stable and loving partner is viewed as "wrong," and makes you somehow "weak." We're told "you don't need a partner to complete you," and yes, I know this. I lived without one for a long, long time. And I always take a long time between relationships because I want to make sure I'm ready and can apply the lessons of past relationships to the next one. But what is "wrong" with wanting someone to hold and make love to and share meals with and experience life with?

Why is it so wrong to wish you had someone with you to celebrate life's triumphs and sorrows? Why is it a sign of "weakness" to have someone to hold your hand when you're scared? I'm so sick of this god damned "You don't need a man!" drivel that people try to feed you when you're down about a failed relationship. I mean, yeah, it's true that no one will ever love you, know you, or get you off quite as well as yourself, but it doesn't mean you don't need someone.

Maybe I don't need a man to cut the grass or change lightbulbs or kill spiders, and maybe I'm just fine on my own, patching drywall and fixing shit with my power tools. And maybe I even really like sleeping alone, especially when it's hot like it is now. I love having my own space, and I loved that GP had his own bedroom when he lived here. But you know what? Ballroom dancing lessons, scuba diving, miniature golf outings, day trips...there's only so much of that stuff you can do with friends. It's not about being lonely and needing someone to fix what's wrong in your life. It's about finding someone who can co-pilot the ship on life's journey. And my friends are great, they're happy to have me back, but...it doesn't mean I can't still miss what I never had.

I KNOW I'm living in a fantasy world now, thinking I might actually find someone in this crazy, fucked-up world who is suited to be my friend and lover and partner in crime, especially at my age and given my history, my "flaws" (really, men are just so god damned superficial), and my unwillingness to procreate or take up with anyone who has. I do sometimes regret not having kids, to be honest. But it's not so much regret for not having had them, but more that I never got myself into a place where I felt I could be a good parent. If I would have found that place, then maybe I would have felt differently. It's just that the idea of parenthood terrifies the shit out of me, and I could never imagine myself doing it.

I spent TEN YEARS (not counting James because he wasn't "real") being non-committed, footloose, fancy-free, unattached, uninhibited, and selectively lonely before GP came along. Then it was like *pow* I was in love. With someone who has made it pretty clear for the last several months that he does not love me. The same man who had fought tooth and nail for me back in September, the same man who'd told me that NO MATTER WHAT we would stay together and work it out and find a way to make it work...it was all a farce. A game. An experiment. And I knew that it had started out that way, sure, but then it was like...we actually did fall in love, for real. I could have sworn it was the real deal. The man flew 10,000 miles from tropical paradise to Buffalo, New York in the middle of winter to be with me.

So once more I am left trying to figure out what love actually IS. See, this felt unlike anything I'd ever felt before, so I was sure that it had to be it. It was familiar enough in its strength and intensity and woozy side-effects, but then there was something else that I couldn't quite define. There was a pull. There was a connection. And now...I'm just more confused than ever. I do love myself, and I am not necessarily feeling sorry for myself. It's just that I always end up with more questions than answers when this shit happens. And that makes me really fucking sad.

It's my pity party, and I'll cry if I want to.

I'm 40 today. The big Four-Oh. And everyone keeps telling me that my life begins today.

Good God, I hope so.

I'm trying really hard to be positive about everything, but you know, Mother Nature is a sick bitch, and she decided that this would be a good day for me to start my period. So for the last three days or so, my hormones have been raging, sending me in all kinds of tailspin-like crying jags.

One of the things that has me reeling so hard? Weddings. There were a couple of them this weekend. Not ones I was invited to, thank God, but still - Facebook grants us the great privilege of being able to see photos in near real-time, and so I was treated to photos of lovely brides almost immediately after their weddings. Very lovely brides. Very young, very lovely brides. And then I remember: Oh yeah. I was supposed to get married this year. But I'm not. And hey, I'm 40.

*sob*

Even though my would-be wedding wasn't going to be a huge affair to begin with, I do sometimes regret never having had the chance to be a princess for a day. Yes, yes, I know - it's a hassle and a headache and an expense that I'm better off never having had to expend, but still...the romance, the pretty hair, the cake, the flowers, the dance with the dad...never got to do it. Never will. I never wanted a huge, opulent, outrageous wedding to begin with, but at this point even if I had wanted it, it's silly to do now at this age. And basically what it all boils down to is the underlying issue: It's not the wedding. It's that seeing people's weddings reminds me that I thought I'd found what I never thought I'd find - a partner. And just as quickly as I found him I had to let him go.

This morning someone pointed out (in the presence of my ex, no less) that this was a year of big changes. "Wow, you graduated and now you turned 40, that's a lot!" And all I could think was, "Yeah, and it would have been the year I got married, too, but that ended up in the shitter."

I'm not angry or bitter about the end of my relationship with GP - I know it had to end, and that ending it was the best thing to do for both of us. But that doesn't mean I still don't get sad. And today? Maybe it was seeing GP that made it worse, I don't know. He was the first person to wish me a happy birthday in person, and I think it just set the tone. I still love him, but I'd really do better to just not see him. We're taking a stab at the friendship thing, but I think it is just too early.

Wah wah wah. I know tomorrow I'll wake up and I'll feel better, but today I just want to crawl under a rock and feel sorry for myself. Is that so wrong?

P.S. Guess it's time to change that header up there. Musings of a 30-something drama queen is now a false statement. Sigh.

The Greatest Love Story, continued...

There was a short break in there, mainly as a result of my inability to show restraint. But we're back, we're live, and we want YOU to be a part of this!

http://lovestory.strident.org

Enjoy! And remember - TELL YOUR FRIENDS! This isn't just a love story, it's an experiment in social media and networking. We want to see just how far-reaching it can be.

The Greatest Love Story of the Century

It really is. Please tell everyone you know. :-)

Text from the Facebook page:

Imagine for a second that you've spent your life searching for something you ultimately decide doesn't exist. Imagine that years after you stop looking, you suddenly find it, and you realize it's something you never even knew you were looking for! So now you think, "oh man, THAT's what I needed all along!" and it's...half a world away.

Meet Deedee and Gregory, two Quirkyalones who found each other on Facebook, in a chance exchange on a mutual friend’s status thread. For the past five months, these two crazy kids have carried on a virtual relationship. And although they have never physically met, they are very much in love with each others' hearts and minds.

This is, as we see it, The Greatest Love Story of the Century. It’s post-modern love at its finest - and as far as we’re concerned, it’s the Real Deal. It’s hard to describe the true depth and scope of how we feel, but we love each other - truly. But, you know, it’s online. And while it looks great on paper and works fabulously in cyberspace, the fact remains that we want to find out if it works in "3-D".

The future of our relationship is obviously uncertain, given the geographical limitations. These limitations, however, aren't necessarily impossible to work around! BUT...we can't possibly know anything until we find out for sure if our relationship is workable on a real-world, real-life level. In order for us to take the next step (or even know what the next step will be), we need to spend some actual time together. Because the nature of his work and situation preclude Gregory from traveling for awhile, we have decided that Deedee should join him in Thailand for the holidays this coming winter. This is more than a vacation - it is an experiment in love. :-)

So…what is this page all about, and where do YOU fit in? Well, we’re begging, to put it bluntly. We are trying to raise $2000 to offset the cost of Deedee’s plane ticket. All her other trip expenses will be taken care of by our meager incomes and whatever’s left of the student loans this semester, but the plane ticket…yikes. So we thought, “Hey, people love a good love story…maybe we can find 2000 people to send us a dollar to help make it happen!”

And that’s really all we want. Just a dollar. Or fifty cents, if that’s all you have. Hell, drop some bottles and cans at Deedee’s house if you’re local to her. Buy some of her artwork. Whatever. We just want to be together for Christmas and see if this thing actually works. If it does? Well, you can feel slap-happy and warm and fuzzy that your little old dollar facilitated the most awesome union since … [umm, insert your favorite against-the-odds couple here]. If it doesn’t, and turns out to be the most carnage-strewn disaster in the history of mankind? Hey, you’re still only out a buck. And either way, you’re off the hook for a wedding gift (Christmas, too!). ☺

Whether you know us or not, we hope you’ll take a chance on our in-love, broke asses and help us out. You’ll be treated to updates and photos along the way (to prove that your dollar really did go to this trip and not to a pyramid scheme or a shoe-shopping spree) and we’ll even send you (like, real snail-mail!) a postcard from Thailand if you give us your address! If you want to get really fancy and donate a lot of money, we’ll send you a special gift! We don’t know what that is yet, but you’ll love it, we promise!

But seriously, please suggest this page to all your friends. Ask them to do the same. We’ve already seen the power of Facebook in our introduction. We're writing our story before everyone's eyes, and we want you to help us write the next chapter. There are 500 million people on Facebook – surely there are 2000 of you with big hearts and some spare change.

With all our love and gratitude,
Deedee and Gregory

P.S. Yes, we know – there will be haters. Please try not to rain your hate on our parade, though. If you’re not interested in tossing a buck in our direction, simply ignore the page and move on. We’re not interested in hearing from you. Thanks! And love love love!!!!

Land of the free? Hardly.

I don't often get into political rantings here, mainly because I've gotten to a point where I'm pretty apathetic about most issues. Either that, or I just don't feel like dealing with the argument.

There is one issue, however, that really puts my knickers in a knot, and that's the issue of Homeland Security. It's always bothered me because it's just so subjective, and full of blurry lines and double standards...but it didn't REALLY start to annoy me until I moved back to a border city.

I'm not unsympathetic to the cause. I understand that we're trying to keep our nation safe. I understand and was profoundly affected by the devastation of 9/11. I get it.

Immediately following the attacks, the country was thrust into upheaval, and mass paranoia set in. People were buying plastic wrap and duct tape to cover their houses, and boycotting every last convenience store because they were supposedly underground funding coffers for terrorist organizations. If you were any color but white, you were essentially fucked. God help you if you wore a turban or a burqa or attended services at a non-Christian church.

Fast forward nine years, and where are we? There's still an overwhelming sense of paranoia and mistrust...and it's a MAJOR hassle to get anywhere. Flown anywhere recently? Domestic flights are just as bad as international ones (if not worse - ask my Indian-born brother-in-law). That's another post for another time, though. What I'm talking about here is border crossings for U.S. citizens who are trying to come home.

I live in Buffalo, NY. At certain points along the Niagara River, you could throw a rock from this side and hit Canadian soil. For years, Buffalonians and Canadians enjoyed a co-presence that involved crossing the border at any old time to do any old thing like shopping or sight-seeing or having dinner or riding rollercoasters, or less wholesome activities like gambling or drinking (the legal age is 19 in Canada) or attending the "Canadian Ballet" (a colloquialism for the strip clubs in which full nudity is legal). Prostitution is also legal in Canada, so...you know. Lots of reasons Americans might want to go up there. My point is that when I'm done shopping at Ikea or eating at Happy Jacks or showing an out-of-town friend around Niagara Falls or enjoying a lap dance at Mints (just kidding), I want to come home.

Home is Buffalo, New York, United States of America. It says so on my driver's license. I have a United States passport. My car is registered to me, in New York State, and the title is in my name. It's insured in New York State. I have a job in New York State. I was BORN in Buffalo. Should be a piece of cake to return home after some time spent in Canadaland, no?

No.

When you cross into Canada, this is the conversation that takes place with the friendly border patrol agent:

Border agent: Country of citizenship?
Me: USA

BA: Where are you headed today?
Me: The Butterfly Conservatory and a couple of wineries, maybe the Horticulture School and dinner at the casino if there's time.

BA: How long do you plan on being in Canada?
Me: Probably a good 6 or 8 hours, I would imagine.

BA: Are you bringing anything in?
Me: Just my personal effects and some spending cash.

BA: Okay, have a nice time.

Sometimes they'll ask if you're meeting anyone, but usually it's more or less, "Welcome to Canada, enjoy our lovely, clean country. We trust you won't fuck anything up here, eh?"

Coming back...a completely different story. You will be asked your country of citizenship, where you were, how long you were there, who you were with, what you did, and what you're bringing back. You will then be asked what you do for a living, who your employer is, where you were born, who owns your car, and you may be asked to recite your license plate number. This will all be asked with a suspicious scowl and an attitude like you're ruining the agent's day simply by existing. And no matter how cooperative you are, if he has a headache or was just dumped by his girlfriend, you are screwed, and you'd better hope you don't have any place to be that day because your ass is theirs now. You will be asked to pull over. Your car will be searched, and you will be subjected to an outright interrogation. I've only ever had the experience of having my trunk searched, but I've had friends and family members go through much worse.

This was my friend Megan's status update this morning:

We were pulled over for a random inspection returning to the US at 7am today. Had to drag sleeping child out of car so they could ask us a series of basic questions and rifle through our belongings.

What's so disturbing about this? Well, let's start with Megan. She is 41, a former political and economic relations officer for the Canadian Consulate who is now the Director of Government Relations for SUNY Buffalo. Her husband Brian, 43, is employed by the Canadian Consulate. They have a two-year-old daughter, are homeowners in Buffalo, and are both natives of this area.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Here it is, folks:

I'm sorry, but you know, I am having a harder and harder time living in a nation (and a developed one, at that) that makes it such a freakin' hassle for its citizens to COME HOME. Yeah, I understand that the best terrorists are probably indeed cleverly disguised as 40-ish Caucasian professional couples (WHO WORK IN GOVERNMENT AND IMMIGRATION) with napping toddlers in the back seat, but come ON! You live here, you're documented to the teeth, and you're squeaky clean. What more do they need?!

This will probably put me on some terrorist watch list, but you know what? I don't give a shit anymore. I'm so tired of our resources being wasted on ridiculous shit like hassles and random searches of U.S. citizens trying to return home. It's kind of hard to love a place that wants to keep you out in the interest of keeping it "safe." I could go on for DAYS about everything that's messed up here, but Megan's experience just boiled my American red blood. Maybe I'll just move to Canada.

Try this: The Greatest (and perhaps most absurd) Love Story of the 21st Century

A few months ago, my relationship status on Facebook changed from "single" to "it's complicated." It stayed there for a while, then a few weeks ago it changed to "is engaged to Gregory Pleshaw." This, of course, sparked a shitstorm of comments on both his page and mine, people alternately offering hearty congratulations and expressing confusion. I mean, as far as most people in our respective lives knew, neither of us was dating anyone with any sort of seriousness or regularity, and now...engaged? To who? After the flurry of comments, we each decided to clear up the situation to those who weren't in on it. I wrote:

All right, everyone...look. Since Gregory cleared it up on his wall, I may as well clear it up on mine. I was hoping that the status about being a merry prankster would clue some in, but...really. We are NOT actually engaged. I'm NOT getting married. To him or to anyone. It's too hard to explain in any sort of detail to anyone who doesn't *know* Gregory or anything about the nature of our relationship, but we are involved in an online relationship that works for both of us on a level we each need it to for the moment. He's an *amazing* human being who has opened my mind and heart to things I never knew were out there, serving me a larger slice of life and teaching me some really neat stuff. I love him with all my heart, but it's not necessarily the most traditional or orthodox kind of thing. So...not nearly as detailed or eloquently conveyed as his description, but that's the nutshell version. Sorry to have gotten you all atwitter.

Gregory's explanation was much more involved than mine, really, and included more detail about his work and the part I play in it, but the basic sentiment was the same.

Okay, so hold on - Gregory who? And...what? Haha. Let me back up.

This is the story in a nutshell: Gregory and I have never met in person. We met online back at the end of March when we both commented on a mutual friend's status update. (Said friend actually does know him AND me in real life). Our exchange moved over to email, which segued into chats, which then became frequent and regular Skype/video chats. Through the course of getting to know each other on a cerebral level, we discovered some very significant and unusual commonalities. Without going into too much detail (because, honestly, I'm not trying to be coy or weird, but this stuff is really deep and private, which is one of the reasons we bonded so tightly over it), I will say this: somewhere along the line, we fell in love.

For real.

Some day I will tell the entire story, but I'm still trying to figure out how to write it myself. I'm attempting to decipher feelings I've never had before, or had so long ago I'd forgotten how to process them. All I know is that I am involved in a deep connection with another human being that is so intense it kind of blows my mind sometimes. Sounds perfect, right? It might be. But there's just one catch: he lives on the other side of the world. When we met, he was living in Thailand. Right now he's in India. It's just where his work (he's a writer) has taken him. He has no immediate plans to return to the United States. His plan is currently to stay in India until the fall, at which point he will return to Thailand to spend Christmas with his mother (she's an English teacher there), and then, if all goes according to plan, New Year's and a few weeks beyond with...me.

This is provided I can come up with the money to actually make it happen. But since he's a broke-ass writer, and I'm a broke-ass graduate student, we're having some trouble figuring that part out. So now I'm seriously considering holding a fundraiser type of thing to finance the trip. I thought, "Hmm...if I could get 2000 people to donate ONE DOLLAR, I could buy a plane ticket to Thailand and finally see if this thing is worth the emotional investment I've made, if it's worth the tears and the fluttering heart...if it's really, really REAL and can actually WORK on a physical level so we can figure out just what the hell to do with the damn thing."

Crazy idea? Sure. But really no crazier than anything else I've ever done in my life. Self-indulgent? No doubt. Risky? Uh-huh. But isn't love made up of these very elements by nature? The BIG question remaining, however, is whether or not we can actually make it happen.

Because, see, lots of people meet on the internet every day. Lots of relationships have been born on Facebook, Myspace, etc. So what makes ours so special, unique, or worthy of trying, that 2000 people with an extra buck would toss it our way to help make it happen? Well, there's the fact, first of all, that Gregory's current project involves LIVE-WRITING a book ON Facebook. He and I MET on Facebook. I'm part of the story. (As an aside, I'm also writing a book, the final chapter of which I'm planning on writing overseas). Consider it..."research."

As far as anything else goes, all anyone really needs to know is that he and I have this incredible, intense, and amazing connection that we have determined MUST be tried physically to see if it works in the "3-D" realm. It could be the most mind-blowing, happiest-ending thing ever, it could end up being the biggest carnage-strewn disaster in the history of mankind. Who knows? Nobody - until we TRY. But trying is gonna cost a lot of money that neither one of us has. And so this is where our "investors" come in. If it doesn't work, we call it a day and move on, and a couple thousand folks are out a dollar. Oh well. Better than me being out two grand that I don't have. And if it works? Two thousand people can take credit for it. Either way, they're off the hook for a wedding gift, ha.

And then what happens? Not sure. I had the idea that maybe we could take it even a step further and turn it into an "online reality show" of sorts. People are going to want proof that their dollar actually went where it was supposed to, so we could add that extra element. It could be in the form of a website, or even just an expanded Facebook fan page or something. We haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still deciding if I'm actually ballsy enough to try it. And yeah, I know - it's risky. But like I've always said, I'd rather die trying than die having not tried. I think he's worth a shot.