What would you do if one of your closest friends was going to marry someone they had known for a month?
I’ve known S. for over a year. We work together, we talk all the time, we’ve vacationed together. We’re both divorced, and the 15-year difference in our ages isn’t apparent at all. She’s very youthful and an attractive woman.
We both joined match.com in the spring, and while I was out dating a variety of men, she honed in on one jackass, Jim. Jim was unemployed (although he lied about it), lived with his mom (although he lied about it) in her mansion (literally, a mansion), and didn’t have a car (although, you guessed it, he lied about it). He told her loved her after two days, coincidentally while they were having sex for the first time. Here’s an example of how weird this guy was: During intercourse, she would have to umm, finish him off, because he refused to “defile” her (his word) by ummm making his deposit inside. Perhaps she was naive, perhaps it was her age (46), but she didn’t make him wear a condom — even though she had doubts about his sexuality! Surprisingly, Jim lasted several months.
There were a few guys here and there in S’s life, including a shockingly bad one-night stand with an underendowed radiologist lol. Then there was the pilot. They met on match.com, he e-mailed/called/texted constantly. She was “in love.” They finally met in January and in the middle of the date, he decided to drive home to Illinois. Ouch.
Ten days later, Greg came along. He had just moved back to Ohio after living in Florida for a while. She first told me about him on Feb. 1st. A few days later, S. drove to Ohio to meet him. The next day, she called me to say she met the man she was going to marry. He told her that weekend that he loved her. A few days later, he went out west on business with her, then they went to Florida so he could put his condo on the market. He stayed with her for a week or so, and I met him briefly. He was (a) not cute, (b) looked way older than he said he was (49) and (c) seemed to be devoid of personality. S., however, was smitten.
She told me yesterday that they are planning to get married next Wednesday, the 8th. She wants the news kept quiet, and certainly doesn’t want any parties/gifts/luncheons, etc. (We like to celebrate in my office lol). I was shocked. I pointed out that if I was getting remarried, she would want to buy me a gift. And marriages are something to be celebrated, even if she wants to keep it low-key. Her parents won’t even be there.
Today, she told me that she told her son they were getting married. He asked her why they didn’t just live together for a year to see how it went — and he’s 12 years old. S. was taken aback, but told him they loved each other and needed to be together. Yikes.
Yesterday, I remembered that Ryan’s dad is a private investigator. I e-mailed Ryan and asked him if his dad could do a background check on Greg. Today, Ryan followed up with me and I told him that I had changed my mind; what if something came up? Would S. hate me for the news? Ryan came back with a thoughtful e-mail, asking if I wanted to see her possibly hurt now with some news she didn’t want to hear or if I wanted to see her hurt down the road, when it could be much more serious. He added that he thought I would want my friends to do the same for me.
Ryan had a point. So I e-mailed him the considerable amount of information I had amassed — name, (alleged) age, cell #, e-mail address, cities he’d lived in. Ryan e-mailed me tonight, asking for a middle initial. He said it looked “sketchy.” The only guy coming up is 59 and works for a delivery company.
Somehow I have to find out this guy’s middle initial. I’m hoping Ryan’s dad has zeroed in on the wrong guy. If something does come up, I’ve decided I’m going to give the information to S., and tell if she wants to look at it, she can. And if she wants to hate me, she can, but I’m her friend and I want her to be happy — and safe.
So I’m sitting here watching the season finale of “The Bachelor” and wow. One of the two final girls is so totally tanking. Moana couldn’t what she liked about Travis, and now she’s sobbing — SOBBING! — while talking to his parents. This is just another reason why I would be the worst reality-show contestant ever — because I so would be the sobbing girl on national TV. Either that or I’d just say “fuck it” and leave lol.
Raise your hand if you remember me saying that I was going to give up on dating. Yeah, me too. Well, I have a date Wednesday. Okay, we’re just meeting for coffee, but still. His name is Scott, he’s 36, and seems like a really nice guy. I’ve been thinking that he seems too nice, but he seems to have a bit of an edge to him. Like I was surprised when he told me he lives downtown (I live in the suburbs). He likes to go to the local art galleries and comedy clubs.
Who know if this will go anywhere, but regardless, I’m taking it more slowly this time — i.e. no more two-hour make-out sessions in my car a la Mark in November.
I’m thinking about buying a domain name and moving my blog to it. Have you done this? Has it worked out? Blogger has had some outtages and it’s starting to annoy me.
Last night was the 2nd annual February birthday night out among my group of friends — there are three birthdays this month plus we had my one-year “divorceiversary” to “celebrate. Eleven of us went to PF Chang’s for dinner — YUM! — and we scored two free orders of lettuce wraps because we had to wait like five minutes for our reservation. It was during dinner that I became the de facto designated driver because I had one drink compared to, among others, my beloved friend Chris’s THREE. After dinner we drove to a club, which was absolutely tragic. We were there for a few hours, but even at midnight on a Saturday night, it was empty. So I hauled our asses to another bar, which was much more crowded but still tragic. Then Chris saw his ex, so we left.
We finally ended up at this seedy male strip club. In theory, it sounds like fun. Hey, let’s go see some naked boys. Oh my God. In all fairness, this was my second visit to the club, the last being the 1st annual Feb. birthday outing. It was seedier this time and there were way more straight women. The dancers looked so young — barely 18 or 21 or however old they have to be — except for one, who actually looked like a man. He danced once, though, then disappeared. Sigh.
Anyway, there was a bachelorette party at the bar. It was the saddest bachelorette party I have ever seen. As I have mentioned before, I am not a skinny little thing. The other two women in my group also are not skinny little things. But neither of us have much of a problem getting dates because we dress nice, we look nice, we act … well, we don’t act nice lol. Anyway, all three of us work with what we have.
But back to the story. The dancers are one a little stage, maybe 2 feet off of the floor, and it’s shaped like a rectangle and accessible on all ends. There was one woman in the bachelorette party who, if I had to guess, was between 400-500 lbs.This woman walked over with a dollar in her hand but instead of tipping the dancer, she decided to FLOP DOWN, ON HER BACK, ON TOP OF THE STAGE, waving the dollar bill in her outstretched hand.
I was horrified.
Her friends hooted. They were the only ones. The dancer, bless his heart, first mock-buried his face in her crotch then proceeded to hump her. Chris commented he was working hard for his money.
It would have been skanky for any woman to do that. But a larger woman — well, fact of life is, we’re judged more harshly. I am less than half that woman’s size and there have been times when I have felt like I’ve been treated like less than a person because my clothing size is in the double digits. (On the bright side, I’ve actually had to develop my personality AND I have big boobs lol.)
But it got worse.
A few minutes later, the aforementioned dancer who looked like a man took the stage. Sigh. We determined he was straight, as he very uncomfortable whenever a guy wanted to stick his tip in the dancer’s “bad touch” area. So a second woman from the bridal party decided to haul her ass onto the stage. This time, she put the dollar bill IN HER MOUTH. Once again, the dancer put on a show for her.
Like I said, I was sober, but I wanted nothing to do with the whole experience. The dancers come around and will do lap dances — no charge, like at the hetero male clubs! — and touching is encouraged. Strongly encouraged. In fact, one of the dancers told us he couldn’t “whip it out but you can touch.” I declined lol.
A lot of women don’t want to touch the label “feminist.” But I’ve never shied away from it. If being a feminist means that I’m uncomfortable with anyone being objectified, then what’s wrong with that? I have never been to a strip club with female dancers, but I can’t imagine I’d find that enjoyable either. Last night, all I could focus on was the youth of the dancers, their bored expressions and the sadness of the older men — like 50, 60 years old — who thought they had a shot with these boys. And maybe they did — as long as their money held out.
Stumbling Through Life With Grace is the blog of a wife and mom in Mesa, AZ. I’ve come across her blog before through Blog Explosion and from seeing the link on other sites. Her writing is honest and heartfelt and I think you’ll really enjoy it. Her “about me” says that she’s 41 but I don’t believe it! Must be that southwestern sunshine or something. : ) Pay her a visit this weekend!
and what you are is beautiful.” — Goo Goo Dolls
I have my iTunes on shuffle and “Slide” just popped on. This song makes me happy. It’s Friday night, I’m home and there’s no place else I want to be. This past week wiped me out, and to top it off, today I found out that I have to pay twice as much as I thought I did at closing of the sale of the house the ex and I shared. I honestly thought I would faint when the ex called me today to break the news. But the house is nearly sold, and maybe my parents will send me a couple hundred bucks. Doubtful, but still …
I signed up to walk in a 5k on St. Patrick’s Day. No big deal, except I barely moved more than I had to over the last month, between my week of post-break-up depression and the ensuing 2 1/2 week sinus infection. But I hung in there for 2.25 miles today. I listened to part of “Shopgirl,” read by Steve Martin, on my iPod. I like his voice. I should sign up for another race or two. I need goals. Completing a 5k was the first goal I set out to achieve after that “Unstuck” workshop I went to in January, but I didn’t plan to do it until the summer. I have never competed in an athletic event before, outside of forced participation in gym class. I have never been sporty and the thought that people may look at me and say, oh, look at the fat girl trying, well, ugh. But I’m sick of being the fat girl and getting my ass of the couch is the only way to do anything about it. My friend, who is a runner, told me that there’s a local half-marathon in October and they accept walkers too. I’m going to sign up for that. Eight months is enough time to go from 2 miles to 13. Besides, I’ve just told all of you guys so there’s my peer pressure. ; )
Hey, if you haven’t clicked on my personality grid, please do so. I’m interested to see what y’all think of me, knowing me only from this blog.
Damn, I am grumpy. Work has been a bitch lately — I’m up against a deadline — I’m just now starting to feel better after having a sinus infection for weeks — and today marks one year since my divorce was final. My normal m.o. would be to call Ryan for a quick lay, so I could at least have some stress relief. But I’ve barely talked to him since his roommate moved in last weekend and oh yeah, I’m not sleeping with him anymore anyway. I can’t even drink because I am still on antibiotics (believe me, I’ve felt like shit for so long I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize feeting better!). I don’t even have any cute boys to distract me. Shit, I don’t have ANY boys to distract me!
Oh well. I’ll buck up eventually, hopefully tomorrow. If nothing else, I’ll go see a movie after work then go to DSW for a new pair of beige heels — hey, it’s double-points time. A girl needs shoes, right????
At work, whenever my co-worker Debby or I do something stupid, we say, “Toss the blonde wig!” (We’re both natural brunettes who highlight our hair.)
Well, I deserve the blonde wig of all blonde wigs.
I went to the grocery store tonight and when I went to pay, my ATM card wasn’t in my wallet. Hmmm. Fortunately I had enough cash, but I was slightly panicked. Then I remembered I got cash from the bank last night then went to Starbucks for a vanilla creme and paid cash there.
I called the bank and …
I left my debit card IN the ATM last night!!!
Oh my God. Thank God someone turned the card in and some bored suburban kid hadn’t hightailed it over to Super Target and gone on a shopping spree, courtesy of Miss Monique.
I’ve seen this idea on a few different blogs, so I thought I’d give it a try myself.
Click here to view my Johari Window. Choose five words from the list that illustrate how you view me. I’m interested to see if the perceptions of those who “know” me through my blog differ from the perceptions of people who know me in real life …
What’s a Johari Window? According to Wikipedia, it’s a metaphorical tool intended to help people better understand their interpersonal relationships and communication. Basically, it sounds like an online version of a Cosmo test, but there’s nothing wrong with that!
It’s safe to say that “change” has been the overarching theme of my life for the past year or two. So I can’t say that I was surprised when I had a tarot reading done by Stephanie at Mystickal Incense and More and said she drew just about every “change” card in the deck. She also said some of the cards were conflicting and, overall, the reading was “strange.” Her summary of the reading was spot-on, though, at least in terms of relating to my life –
“The cards show that you seem to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again in your life. You are very intelligent and good with words, but you don’t seem to learn well from previous mistakes and that keeps bringing failure into your life. You also are very subject to change yourself. You have a hard time making up your mind and your emotions are very much like a rollercoaster. You want things to happen, and are trying to make them happen, but as soon as they get started you second-guess yourself.”
And no, I didn’t give her my blog URL lol.
She also said that I’ll receive a communication in the next 48 hours that will have a great impact on me. I’ll want to respond full-force but that will just cause me more pain. (No, that doesn’t sound like me lol.)
I have been to psychics before — but not since college — and have been tossing around the idea of going again. Yeah, a lot of what they say seems general, but each time, I was told specific details about situations that couldn’t have been guesses — relatives’ bizarre health conditions, when and where I’d meet my husband — enough for me to believe …
Well, I’m not going to sit by the phone or mail box tomorrow and Thursday, but it will be interesting to see how that pans out.
