Just want to let everyone know that I am slowly but surely re-locating my blog to www.littlemisswriter.blogspot.com, and I am changing my screen name from "just me" to "little miss".
So please head on over there with any comments or to keep reading, and be sure to change your links to the new address!
Thanks a lot!
Now, SkippyMom posted a nice little collage of her hubby and his celebrity lookalikes awhile back. All you do is submit your picture and the website processes it and computes your lookalikes, along with a percentage of how much they look like you. It tickled my fancy so much that I had to do one of my own!
Unfortunately, I can't let you all see my picture in the middle of it because I really can't reveal my identity, but I do promise I submitted my own real picture to make the collage. I'm a little afraid of the fact that Paris Hilton appears on here, as well as some boy celebrity I've never heard of, but I am consoling myself with the fact that 1) the boy is very girly looking, and 2) I do wear Paris' perfume, so I guess this serves me right. Anyway, this way you can have a small idea of what I look like without the big reveal!
Enjoy! And go make your own!
I have a degree from a well respected university. I just graduated in the spring, and I have been working dutifully at the Restaurant since. Many people ask me why I haven't gotten a "real" job, and it's quite simple, really. Before Feb was Feb (he was just Foreign Boyfriend back then), I was holding off on getting involved in a grown-up job because we were going to go back to Foreignland together. I didn't want to get full-time career work, just to up and leave after a few months for a far away land.
Now that Feb is gone, I have been listlessly and half-heartedly searching for a job, and have found lots that are appealing and spark my interest. There is one problem: I am not qualified for any of them. You see, readers, my degree is in English literature . . . and I don't want to be a teacher. This is a major problem. I don't regret my education; I love literature and thoroughly enjoyed school, and I believe that I have gained amazing skills that no other degree could have given me. However, having turned my back on my former job aspiration (journalism), I found myself at a loss when Feb left. I always assumed I would find something wonderful to work at in Foreignland where we would settle down happily for awhile before jetsetting around the world a few times until we wanted to make babies.
So, having rediscovered my independence and don't-need-to-worry-about-anyone-else-ness, I have gone back to school! That's right, readers, I now take part time classes on a full time schedule and work during the day. It all feels so grown up. It reminds me of the Full House episode where Uncle Jesse goes back to get his high school diploma and takes night classes and has to learn poetry. Except that I already know enough poetry to make the world go round, and am now sitting through hours and hours of lectures about economics and the market and the world of business.
Yes, I am enrolled in business classes. I have decided to become an event coordinator and marketer, and I really do find my classes fascinating and exciting. The only problem is, my shortest class is three hours long, while my longest (which I had today) is seven. SEVEN HOURS, readers. That really is incomprehensible to me. Don't these people know that I have the attention span of an eight year old child? Do they realize that I can't watch a movie without asking a million questions about what's going on because I am not patient enough to be quiet and find out? The longest class I ever took in four years at Respectable U was fifty minutes, and that was quite enough for me.
The good thing about the seven hour class is that because it's sooo long, I only have to go to it for six weeks. That means it is over with soon, but it also means that the midterm is in the third class! In addition, I have to leave my car in a sketchy parking lot near the closest transit pick up while I ride the bus for an hour to get to New School. Today, that parking lot overwhelmed my little car with a massive dose of sketchiness- I got a parking ticket! In a parking lot! Apparently the lot has a maximum stay of three hours, which is posted nowhere on any sign to be seen. Since my car was there for approximately nine hours while I went to the world's longest freakin' class, I can't deny that I deserved said ticket, though that does not stop me from being one angry girl. The ticket is $45, which really is not that much, but then I think that on a slow day at work, that could be all my tips right there! Gone! And it's not like I'm getting anything for that money! It just goes into some evil sketchy parking lot owner's wallet, while I, the poor student, struggles to keep my dry, red eyes from glazing over as a balding middle aged man drones into his sixth hour of speaking about pie charts and keeping the consumer happy!
What is this world coming to?
There is a new drama unfolding within my circle of friends, and I have been sworn to secrecy. Naturally, I need to get it all out somewhere, or all the sordid details will escape my lips at some unguarded (and most likely inopportune) moment.
Emma, one of my dearest friends in the world, has a younger brother, James, whom used to also be one of my dearest friends in the world. Unfortunately, we have drifted apart over the years, though we are very fond of each other still, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly when we occasionally find the chance to spend time together. James is the only male child of four in his family, and he is their golden boy. He is a musician, and is free-spirited and fun loving; really, he refuses to grow up. He is never not involved in a band, usually as the lead singer, and is actually making quite a name for himself with his latest group. The are heavily involved in the local music scene, and have even managed to tour Canada a few times in the last few years.
As most lead singers are (and I know- I dated one for many years), James is a ladies man. He is tall, dark, and handsome, and his unique voice and considerable skill on the guitar draw the girls to him non stop. He is never without a girlfriend, and the last few months have been no exception.
I met Vickie for the first time about six months ago. She is a tiny waif of a girl who couldn't be older than 20, short with a slight build, pixie-cut hair, and an adorable face. She was friendly, but seemed a bit reluctant to speak; when she finally did open up and talk, I was surprised to hear her boast at length about her athletic accomplishments and her history as a professional wakeboarder.
Yes, you read right. A professional wakeboarder. I found it hard to believe, too, and wanted to ask some probing questions, but James was holding her hand and nodding and smiling energetically. Well, I thought, obviously James knows her and knows it's true, so I'll just leave it.
I forgot about Vickie within the week. I later heard from close friend Emma that James had broken up with her and that Vickie has gone, in his words, "psycho". She apparently was calling him and texting him at all hours, drunk as a skunk, and threatening to do bodily harm to herself if he did not take her back. She stopped showing up for her job as a barista at the local bux, and just generally went over the top in her post-breakup grief. I remember thinking it all seemed a little strange, hoping she would be okay, and then forgetting about it all again.
Then, a few months ago, I was out for coffee with Emma when who should walk through the door but James and Vickie! I looked wide-eyed at Emma, and she quickly explained that they were back together, and Vickie was, apparently, back to normal. I nodded and turned with a big smile to greet my friend and his, er, friend. They seemed happy and energetic and she was back to smiling sweetly and being tinily cute. Or cutely tiny. Maybe both.
Fast forward to a week before Christmas. I am hanging out with Emma and her husband and her in-laws (it's a whole other story), eating dinner and preparing to watch some boy-oriented action movie, when the phone rings. Dave (the husband) answers it in the other room, and after a few minutes of murmuring, he calls Emma in to talk. After more murmurs, Emma comes back out and gives me the look.
Now, all females know The Look. It signifies that there is something major going on, but we can't talk about it, so we will try our damndest to communicate the entire story with our eyes alone. Sometimes it works. This time, I got the gist of it, but when Em whispered, "There's a problem with James", I knew the rest. Since she didn't want to divulge all in front of the in-laws, we ran outside to talk.
Vickie had just told James that she was pregnant. Shell-shocked, and without a clue what to do, James called his older sister and asked her to be there when he told his parents. You see, Emma and James' parents come from a long line of reverends and church-goers, and they believe very firmly in the Bible and all that it teaches . . . including saving sex for the bonds of marriage. The tough part is, it is not as though James had always disagreed and decided to live differently than his parents wished. He, too, had proclaimed the virtues of abstinence and was a strong and unashamed example of his beliefs to everyone around him. Vicki, too, goes to a religious university where upon admission, each student signs a contract stating they will not be sexually active unless they are married. If this contract is broken, so is their clause of admission, and the student may be kicked out of the university. So when the news came out in the family, it was tough on all of them.
But of course, everyone makes mistakes and accidents happen. So James' family tried to be welcoming to Vickie and did their best to encourage and educate them as a couple. I can't tell you how many phone calls Emma got from James, asking her questions about how to prepare a nutritionally sound meal for his pregnant girlfriend, or begging advice on pre-natal supplements. The young couple were just that- young and clueless about even the simplest things. It turned out that Vickie couldn't keep the supplements down due to malnutrition; the poor girl didn't even know how to feed herself properly, never mind a child.
The situation started to deteriorate, and fast. Emma tried to set up multiple coffee dates with Vickie, but after each one, James would come to Emma with reports that she had tried to shame Vickie, or force unwanted advice on her. Emma didn't understand how the conversations could have become so manipulated in Vickie's mind, and tried to text message her or call her to sort things out. But it was no use. Vickie became more and more convinced that James' family hated her, and would cry and scream outside his home, refusing to come in and talk to them all. it got to the point where Vickie would refuse to see James unless they were alone, and then she would spend their entire time together yelling at him and threatening to run off.
James was beside himself. He simply did not know what to do. He tried to only meet her in public places so that she couldn't make a scene, but then she would refuse to see him at all. She told him that he had better find an engagement ring for her, and fast, because she would not be disgraced this way. He tried to borrow the money for a ring from his parents (remember what I told you, he is young and irresponsible- he has no savings whatsoever), but they refused outright when they found out what he needed the cash for. The whole situation was still a family secret, with me being the only one outside the clan who knew the sordid details.
As Emma relayed all this information to me, I started to wonder. We compared some of the information that Vickie had been passing along about the pregnancy with some of the dates she had also provided, and then we started wondering about this baby. Many of the dates just didn't seem to add up properly- she claimed to be six weeks along by the time she told James, and then told him that the doctor said you could hear the heartbeat at two months. Four weeks later, she told everyone that she was going to the doctor, but no, they wouldn't be able to hear the heartbeat for another two or three weeks. These kinds of little details kept getting turned around until nothing seemed to make sense, and Emma and I speculated privately whether there really was a baby at all.
After he refused to propose, the situation went from bad to worse. It was now impossible for James to see her without a huge scene, and more often than not, when he tried to contact her, she would answer her phone and say she was driving around and didn't want to live anymore. Then she'd hang up and no one could contact her. I spent many nights sitting with Emma and Dave by their phone, periodically calling Vickie and getting no answer, waiting for news from the rest of the family, praying that the baby and its stressed out mother would be okay.
Finally, on Christmas Eve, James asked Vickie if he could see her. He tried to invite her to spend Christmas with the family (she only has her mother, who, according to Vickie, takes frequent drugs and has no use for her child), but when he arrived with his siblings waiting for him in the car, Vickie flipped out and refused to talk. He finally told her that he wanted to be a part of their baby's life, and would support and help her while she was pregnant and in all ways related to their child, but he did not want to be a part of Vickie's life romantically or in any other way. She stormed off and he did not see her over Christmas.
The latest news arrived yesterday. Vickie had a miscarriage. Over a week later, she got a D & C to help her heal and recover. This is where more sketchiness kicks in. James' other sister tells me that generally, a woman gets a D & C right away after a miscarriage, otherwise the after effects can be dangerous or even fatal. The fact that Vickie waited so long implies that there is something wrong with her story. James is questioning whether there ever was a pregnancy, as Vickie refused to let him come to the doctor until he could hear the heartbeat of the child. Everyone else is wondering the same thing, or if Vickie possibly got an abortion. Along with, I suspect, nearly everyone else involved, I personally subscribe to the theory that Vickie was never pregnant at all, but rather a confused girl attempting to get what she wanted in life (James for a husband) in a rather misguided way.
As far as I know, the family is attempting again to encourage and help Vickie, but she wants none of it. James doesn't know what to do, and there is really no way to ever tell what, if anything, went on in his girlfriend's body. I don't know what is going to happen next, but I truly hope for everyone's sake that this saga is over. None of the people involved deserve the pain and stress that they have experienced this holiday season.
Readers, you may recall that I am engaged in an epic struggle right now. You see, I am battling it out for the title of Best Body 2007, and unfortunately, the most exercise that 2007 has held for me so far has been at the mall where the only way to get to my favorite store is to go up an escalator. Now, in my defense, I always choose to walk up the escalator, rather than let it do all the work for me, but I am the first to admit that climbing up one set of moving stairs in a weekend is not exactly preparing me for the Ironwoman competition.
One reason that I have not yet formed incredibly healthy exercise habits is that I have been waiting for my student card to come through from my new post-secondary institution. You see, my card from my alma mater university expired in August, and my last gym pass lasted until December, but I cannot renew my membership at the reduced student rate without a valid student card. Now I finally have the new card and can buy a new gym pass at the rate reserved specially for poverty-stricken (but educated!) young people like myself. I intend to do this tomorrow, first thing after work.
Since I have had to wait to commence my exercise regimen, I have been taking other measures to jumpstart my body-reforming program for the new year. I have begun consuming a lot of homemade cabbage soup, which has little to no calories, and with the addition of hot sauce for some flavor, is great before a meal to help fill me up a bit before I ravage my main meal like a wild animal.
I am trying to eat mostly salads with a healthy protein, like grilled chicken. You have no idea how hard this is when you work at a restaurant. Not only are you surrounded by food all day long, but it is delicious gourmet food, prepared with delectable things like heavy cream, real butter, lots of garlic, and perfectly aged cheeses. Plus, this bevy of delights is available at a deliciously reduced price, courtesy of our staff discount. As if that weren't enough, whenever the kitchen makes a mistake, or an extra order of food is made that can't be used and hasn't gone out to the table, the food is placed in the back where it is almost instantly devoured by whatever serving staff is lucky enough to be hanging around at that moment. This can be anything from a small salad to a premium sirloin to a chocolate torte, and when you are on your feet for hours on end, any morsel is likely to tempt you; it is extremely hard to resist. So readers, cut me some slack if I take some time to succeed in my quest for bodily beauty while at my humble workplace. No wait, forget that- cut me no slack! Challenge and motivate me instead!
I have also begun to take vitamins. These are not just any vitamins, though- they are high quality, mail-order, you-must-know-a-dealer-to-get-them vitamins. My parents both take them and swear by them, and insist that I take no other kind, so I have given in and let them order stacks of them for me through their shady vitamin-dealer friends. They come in the mail with fancy packaging and free samples of their nutrition bars and spa-quality skin care products, which I happily use up while swallowing the massive pills that are chock full of essential nutrients.
I don't mind taking the vitamins and minerals, when I can remember to, but there is one pill that I am having a lot of trouble stomaching. You see, I don't eat any red meat, pork, or seafood, and thus try to be careful to consume important nutrients from other sources. One of these nutrients is Omega-3 fatty acids, which are necessary for proper cardiac function and are great for the brain, not to metion the skin and hair. Since Omega-3s are found most densely in fish, I have a problem getting them. Therefore, I have let my parents order me some fish oil capsules that apparently contain all those great fatty acids without the trauma of actually having to eat some sea-born creature.
Sounds like the perfect solution, right? Not quite. The problem is, those hefty little capsules really do contain pure fish oil, and it is potent stuff. So even though I take them with meals and plenty of water, every hiccup and exhalation and even the tiniest burp for an hour or so after I've taken the dosage tastes like briny, fresher-than-fresh fish. It is positively disgusting. It probably smells like fish, too, though no one's ever really been close enough to be affected . . . yet.
I don't know what to do! I am plagued by the necessary fishiness of my desired healthiness! I do want to have a glowing complexion and shiny hair, and I certainly value my cerebral and cardiac functions, but I just don't know if the fishy trade-off is worth it!
If you have any suggestions, readers, do let me know. In the meantime, I will do some research on other significant sources of Omega-3s, and try to keep my exhalations to myself.
Part II
So, Feb agreed to treat me with the distance and respect that an ex-girlfriend usually receives from the man who broke up with her. He managed to actually back off for a while and we spoke less often and emailed only every three days or so; his words were friendly and interested, but no longer laced with innuendos and sexual comments. I definitely noticed the difference in my daily life: I thought about him only occasionally, and my heart ached less often. It was, as Martha would say, a good thing.
But then New Year's Day came. I woke up disgustingly early to go to work and practiced my double-tasking by brushing my teeth as I checked my morning emails, trying to ignore the persistent day-after-New-Year's-Eve headache. I received the normal spam and quick notes from friends, but also a very large email from Feb. As my tired eyes skimmed the message, my headache worsened.
The email was long and fraught with tones of helplessness and desperation. Feb's life is not proceeding the way that he wants it too. He is having issues in nearly every area that one could have issues in their life- social, spiritual, vocational, and of course personal. He outlined the main areas of his plight, then filled in the details and asked for my advice and honest opinion of what he should do.
Readers, this is not the email I was expecting. You see, this email was one that a person would only send to a very trusted friend. This email was brutally honest and heartfelt and painful and asked for an honest and potentially painful answer. This email assumed an intimacy that most broken-up couples, especially the male half, like to pretend never was shared with their ex-partner.
I didn't know what to say. I went to work that day with a burdened mind, and I thought about how to respond all throughout my shift. I prayed for wisdom and sensitivity and I wished that I could go to him and hold him and soothe him and kiss his worry lines away as I had so many times. I wished that I didn't have to be just an advice-giving friend. Then I went home and poured everything I could into a long message back- I tried to be encouraging, but I knew I was also brutally, frighteningly honest, and as I hit "send", I wished I could take it back- I was worried about how he would receive the things I had to say.
The next night we caught up with each other, briefly, on MSN. Incidentally, this is my least favorite way ever to communicate with someone, but more on that later. We only had a few moments to speak, but in that time he managed to say a lot.
Feb told me that he had never really comprehended just how well I understand him. He told me that my words were invaluable, that they were comforting and challenging; he even told me that he was going to seriously consider some of my suggestions, and asked my opinion on his interpretation of one. It was a wonderful moment- Feb and I were communicating on a level plane. He wasn't trying to come on to me or manipulate the conversation into some sort of sexual cat-and-mouse-game, and I wasn't trying to figure out how to get him back to Canada. We were simply listening to each other and respecting each other and trying together to find a way to deal with life.
Now, readers, you are asking why such a nice exchange has left me in a nasty, sales clerk-hating mood, aren't you? It's because I have not heard a word from Feb since. Actually, that's not true. We spoke briefly on the phone yesterday, and our conversation went roughly like this:
JM: Hey! It's good to hear your voice!
Feb: You too. Can't talk long.
JM: (confused because he called her) Okay. Listen what happened on New Year's Eve . . . (wittily tells falling down story)
Feb: (laughs for awhile) Well, I have to go to a barbeque and swimming party. Then I have another barbeque at night. Two in one day! So I'd better go, I have a lot of friends to see.
That was seriously it. It was really strange. No mention of the emails, or how his life was changing and I'd had input in the direction of its course. It was like he only called to tell me how full his social calendar is.
Since that brief conversation I haven't heard a peep from him. I emailed one or two sentences, just checking in to make sure all is well because I usually receive a message a day, but I haven't heard back. I feel as though he turned to me to solve his problems, and upon receiving an answer, he can't be bothered to communicate anymore. And so I feel isolated and hurt- I want to scream to him that I have needs, too- this friendship or relationship or whatever it's supposed to be is not just about him!
But I haven't said any of that because that is what clingy ex-girlfriends say, isn't it. And so I pass another day, trying to ignore the dull, insistent pain in my chest whenever he crosses my mind, trying not to check the computer more than once, trying to forget about him altogether. And of course, trying to restrain my pent up emotions from exploding at poor Harley-In-Training, whom I will most certainly be seeing when I return that damn stereo tomorrow morning.
I'm in a foul mood tonight. I bought my mother a birthday present last month, a nice, much-needed new stereo, only to find out days before her big day that she had bought herself the exact same thing! I suppose that means that I know my mother and her tastes well, which is a good thing, but it also means that my clever birthday present idea was ruined.
I got over it, but now this means that I have a stereo on my hands that I, ever the procrastinator, must return to the store. After nearly a month, I finally got up the resolve tonight and drove to the massive electronics store from which I bought the unwanted present. The overeager sales clerk who greeted me the nano-second I walked in the door (his name tag identified him as "Harley, In Training") informed me that I was "not allowed" to return the item right now because the returns line had been too long all day and they had decided to cut it off for the night.
Readers, this did nothing to soothe my already prickly attitude. Because Harley was just a kid, and in training at that, I bit back most of my harsh response, but I'm afraid it was glaringly obvious that I was not a happy customer tonight. I don't like being told that I'm "not allowed" to return something that I paid good money for. But, since I'm in the service industry too, I reminded myself that he doesn't make the rules and removed my aggravated self from the store, driving home a little too fast.
Now, I can hear you all asking just how such a small incident could provoke in your faithful writer such a foul mood. And I will tell you- this incident was simply the proverbial straw that broke my back. I feel like so much has been building up this week, adding more and more weight on my mind. Since this blog exists solely for my personal catharsis, you all get to read about what exactly is going on that led to tonight's bout of rage at an innocent store clerk.
To tell you the truth, readers, you probably already know. I think that it's pretty obvious that Feb still has quite an influence on my life. I mean, I thought I could handle it when he went home to Foreignland- I thought that with him being on the other side of the world, it would be really easy to get over him. Afterall, one of the hardest parts of getting on with your life after a breakup is having to see the other person and letting all those old memories and feelings come to the surface, right?
So, in theory, this breakup should be no problem. But the opposite is true. Feb insists on emailing me nearly every day, and calling about once a week. We are still very much in contact, which means I am still very much in love! To make matters worse, up until a few days ago Feb was still flirting with me, complimenting me, and speaking to me the way a lover would . . . the way he did when we were together.
A few weeks after his departure, this was still going on, and I was getting more confused by the day, not to mention angry. I talked with some friends and we all agreed he was out of line and I had to talk to him about it. The problem, readers, is that I didn't want to! Some small part of me was enjoying the attention he was lavishing upon me, and an even smaller part believed, just a teeny tiny bit, that this attention meant that he still wanted me. Somewhere deep down I thought, "Wow, if he still talks and writes to me this way, maybe that means he'll ask me to come back to Foreignland . . . he must still love me!"
As nice as it would have been to continue on in this dream world, I knew it was the least helpful thing I could do for myself. The way he was treating really wasn't fair, and I knew it. So I called him on it- I told him that he was confusing me, and I asked him just what he wanted with me. He response: "I just know I want to be single right now."
Okay. Fine. Good, even. I think we both need some time to be single. We rushed into things very quickly together, and we are both pretty young. I understand how he's feeling, and I think it's the best for now. But I told him that the way he was communicating was inappropriate in light of how he viewed our relationship, and he agreed to treat me differently.
I think this must be continued- this is getting to be a ridiculously long post. Stay tuned for part two!
