Platonic Boy Friends

This post is not, as I had originally intimated, about Arrested Development (season Two).
Instead, I would like to address a very serious and tragifying phenomenon in my life and the lives of my girl friends..."THE PLATONIC BOY FRIEND EXPLOSION" and it's subsequent effect known commonly as "BACK DOOR DATING". Let me first recognize that several of my consistent readers are of the male persuasion and I in no way intend to incriminate them. If you see yourself in the disturbing descriptions that follow (and you may...you've all done it at one point or another), please know that I will not condemn you, but am available to help you re-direct your efforts.

"THE PLATONIC BOY FRIEND EXPLOSION" happens to girls like me in fits and waves. Here's how it evolves in my world. I meet a boy. He's cute. He flirts and is flirty. We banter. There's some touching that would indicate mutual attraction. I smile. He smiles. We find out we both drool over swedish fish and David Sedaris books. SOmething is exchanged...email, phone number, bodily fluids (haha, not REALLY!!!! that would change the title of this phenomenon, now WOULDN"T it?) Then there is some other form of goofing off over IM or email or in person and just as I'm picking out wedding invitations....BAM. I get the email or the phone call that IS the "PLATONIC BOY FRIEND EXPLOSION" and leads to an attempt at "BACK DOOR DATING"....sample:

UNDEFINED RELATIONSHIP BOY: blah blah blah...inside joke 1...inside joke 2...you're so cool...um, so that girl you were talking to the other day, what's her story? A "friend" of mine wants to know. She's pretty hot.

BAM. that's the explosion. now UNDEFINED RELATIONSHIP BOY becomes PLATONIC BOY FRIEND. which in and of its self is not the real problem. The problem is that the explosion almost always leads to attempted "BACK DOOR DATING" which is the act of getting the girl that you've just become platonic friends with to cruise direct your social life as though you are a character on the Love Boat. The boy always wants me to host a party, organize an event, recommend them to the hot girl or set them up with said girl...just call me Love Boat Julie and hand me an F-ing clip board for hell's sake. And UNDEFINED RELATIONSHIP BOY goes from PLATONIC BOY FRIEND to ASS in 3 seconds flat.

Do I sound bitter? I'm not...I'm just 28 and I have what one man recently told me was a plethura of platonic boy friends. I know I am a good friend. I'm easy to be around as are most of my highly educated, witty and talented girlfriends that experience this same thing. I'm just advocating for one thing. If you decide that after flirting and getting to know me that you don't want to date me, kiss me or molest me in some way...please have the decency to extract yourself from the "BACK DOOR DATERS"...you will win my respect and save yourself an unsavory name calling session at the next Girls' Night.

Just an idea.

In Response to a Challenge.  

OK, computer and Camera and ipod

I used to be a literati, now I am a digirati. I bought a digital camera this weekend and now I am obsessed. I have pictures of my hand, pictures of my feet, pictures of the prom, documentation of the mess that is my room, pictures of homeless people outside my apartment, pictures of the dead plants in my office...you name it, I'm capturing it in digital.

Since I bought the camera, my desire for an ipod has increased exponentially. I realize that for the amount I spent on the camera, memory stick and such (such being the second season of arrested development which I will have to give it's own blog since it is such a beautiful thing) , that I could have been 2/3 of the way to the true happiness of digital music. I also acquired 2 new cd's this weekend that I feel would be better served via ipod. The bands are called, Magnet and Spoon, (I'm not sure when bands started naming themselves after Dora the Explorer characters, but at least it makes it easy to scream them when you are at the concert! Try screaming SPPPPPOOOOOON as opposed to Orchestral Manuevers in the Daaaaaaaarrrrrkkkk!!!)

Anyway, I'm getting an ipod with my tax return assuming I haven't LEPT into a new tax bracket with my non-profit job raise...haha. UM. And life will be digital all over the place. Dreamy. Enjoy the prom pictures!

me and my little sister. 

When you Wish Upon A Star...Again. 

I think we were dancing to air supply 

carl's feathered hair 

we are FRIENDS!!!! 

Ryan, Vanessa, Crystal and Aliah 

I date, you date, we all date

So why do I make such a big deal out of going on a date? EVERYONE DOES IT. I was sitting on a first date recently wondering if everyone else in the place knew that I was on a first date. I think that this is because when I go to a restaurant, I like to look at the couples and assess what level of intimacy they are at. It's a game that I play with myself or whomever else I am with...I like to ask the question, "What do you think their relationship is?" and then we speculate for a few minutes about whether they are roommates, lesbian lovers, old married couple who've been estranged for 10 years and are meeting up to discuss the children, business partners who have just filed bankruptcy, members of a poetry group or sigh, first daters. If you are in a group, this game can take hours...complete with eavesdropping and pointed bathroom walk-bys as you try to ascertain the truth.

But this last time, I realized that I am the person that I was hiding from. I was waiting for the obnoxious blond girl trying to entertain her friends to stand up in the corner of the Cocoa Caffe and point and scream, "FIRST DATE, everybody!!!! LOOK over there, it's a first date! Don't they look awkward and completely unsure of how they feel about each other? That's what I'm talking about!!!!!"

And I wanted to crawl under the table and call an ex-boyfriend. I wanted familiarity and a sure sense of what the relationship was, even if it made me feel sad. That is the problem with dating...other people are trying to figure out what the relationship is, while you are trying to figure out what the relationship is IN PUBLIC. I'm going to start taking all of my dates to a bombshelter so we can play the game in relative obscurity. Maybe then I could get some action too!

Comedy of Terrors or Bittersweet Symphony?

Two thoughts brought on by this weekend's mis-adventures:

Got free tickets to the symphony Friday night...Dvorak's 6th, complete with unhairy German violin prodigy. I realized as I tried to make myself as small as humanly possible so as not to invade the arm rest space of the wine-drunk man next to me, that THIS IS LIFE.. The symphony is life...or at least the way that I want to live life. In movements but with a common theme. Sometimes, it's like cellos carry the theme and they soar and I soar and I can't breathe with the beauty of it all. Other times, I feel like I'm living a staccato nightmare in an eastern bloc nationalist anthem. But somewhere underneath is the common theme of peace and love and belief and hope and choice. I love Dvorak. And I need a life that involves symphonies and wine-drunk neighbors.

Also went to Rocky Point Haunted House on Saturday. If my ideal life is symphonic in nature, The haunted house represents what it could be if I let set designers and the kids from my arts magnet highschool run my life. Dark hobbit holes and winding rooms with uneven floors and people grabbing at my ankles. This is what "The Dark Side" wants me to think life is like. A never-ending near escape from actors wearing masks and brandishing fake chainsaws. They would have us believe that our fear is what keeps us running through the rat infested insane asylum and that the only thing we have to look forward to, is one more room full of zombies and blood sucking beautiful undeads.

But the key to this is that it is FAKE. It's not real. The next room is not always a funeral parlor or a bloody camp bathroom. Fear is NOT real. It is a terrible substitute for allowing the hand of God to let your life unfold in it's movements. I'm going to the symphony again.

Ninny's Got A Brand New Bag

I don't know when it happened, but I became that lady with the bag the size of montana. It's a black canvas give-away from the PBS fund drives and represents a never-ending pit of scary items. Usually one or more of the following can be found at the bottom of my bag: 1. Hair brush (WHY??? I don't brush my hair) 2. lip gloss that I can never find when I need it 3. loose change 4. all my gum that has fallen out of the packet mixed with 5. some random dirt that seems to have no source...I'm not chucking handfuls of the front lawn in my bag...so where is the dirt coming from? 6. a piece of fruit or a sweet potato that I keep thinking I should eat instead of the doritos on top of the work refrigerator 7. sticky notes stuck to everything else (see 3., 4., and 5) and finally 8. another bag, usually a purse.

I don't really understand why I have a bag inside a bag, but I do. Cute purses become swallowed up in the vacuum that is the PBS bag. I seriously carry the cute purse in the PBS bag with the hope that I will have to get something out of my wallet or write a check so people will SEE the cute purse. THIS MAKES NO SENSE!!!! Why not dispense with the slimy fruit and erstwhile lipgloss and just carry the cute purse? Then I can be a cute purse girl instead of a large canvas bag lady. I baffle myself.

BUT, I have something that may help me change. I just traded in my gross leather laptop bag for an adorable black and lime green one...much cuter and much more user friendly. I can carry papers, my cell phone...other necessities in this cute bag AND a purse will NOT fit inside...so I will look both professional and trendy. Granted, now I have to take my laptop EVERYWHERE I go, but whatever. I'm already a slave to the thing...and now I will at least be free of the PBS bag.

hot flashes and weather toes

Today one of my coworkers told me that I am turning into an old lady. At approximately 4pm today, I had my first hot flash. Yesterday it was raining and my newly minted arthritis was in full bloom. I'm waiting for the gray hair and sour breath to finish me off.

Actually, I think the hot flash was caused by several things, none of which is "The Change of Life". My best friend's mom, who is a beautiful nut, always makes fun of skinny girls who are always cold, belting out this little mantra whenever someone skinny requires a sweater: "I'm so skinny and I'm so cold (while hugging herself and wrinkling her nose in cute skinny girl fashion), so cold because I'm soooooooooo skinny." Al and I laugh laugh laugh and join in the fun. Maybe it's the weight watchers, but this morning I woke up and I was sooooooo cold. It's only october and it's only moderately cold outside...but I wore a skinny girl cold sweater...turtle neck wool jcrew number....and I was cold all morning, but by afternoon I was flush and feverish...ready to peel off the sweater and go to web-ex meetings in my skivvies with a devil may care attitude. I had to change my mantra from, "I'm so skinny and So cold" to "Get this damn sweater off me, I'm not made for such blasting heat and if I don't get a fan going, I'm going to roast like a goat on a spit."...All illusions shattered. I don't get to be that girl quite yet.

I also think that I was having heat flashes because of my new medication...which my doctor assures me, WILL turn off my ability to recognize when I am full. His advice for being successful on WW while still quelling my "disease that will be named later" with buckets of prednisone? Resist the urge to GRAZE. Are you kidding me???? RESIST THE URGE TO GRAZE!!! yeah, that's really easy. I've only been struggling with that one since BIRTH. Did I mention roasting like a GOAT on a spit? Goats GRAZE. SO I've decided to blame everything on the medication. Heat Flashes, etc.

The only good news is that in the future with my new weather toes and storm hands, also a product of the "auto-immune process" that is my new legacy...I'll be able to tell when cold weather is a-coming and will hopefully dress appropriately for hot flashes on those days.

PS. TO all would be psychologists who do not think it appropriate for me to mock my new medical excitement...if I don't talk about it and laugh about it, you will have to be the one who holds my head over the toilet while I vomit from excessive crying. I mean, the kind with hick-ups and shallow crying breath. NOT pretty. Be glad I'm laughing...and still typing.