smartkat's Blog

Ten Things I'll Never Do Again

1 - Get married.

2 - Move in with a guy. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and we can't miss each other if we're never apart.

3 - Promise to be monogamous.

No, I take that back. If I'm enough in love, I won't want anybody else. If I'm enough in love, it will hurt if my man wants someone else.

So, I'll amend that. I'll never again promise to be monogamous without putting in a clause that says the agreement will be revisited in the future, and can be changed.

4 - Make my hair either straighter or more curly than it is naturally. Its natural state is sort of in-between - wavy, I guess. I'm going to stop fighting with my hair's texture. (But not with its color or style. I get so bored with my hair.)

5 - Move to a place, unless I'm sure I really like it and really want to live there.

When I was a kid, I didn't have any choice in the matter - I had to go wherever my parents wanted to live. As an adult, I've lived in places because of men.

When do *I* get to pick where I'm going to live?

An old drunk guy once gave me a very good piece of advice: "First, decide where you want to be. Then, decide what you want to do. Then, decide who you want to be with."

In vino veritas. (Or in his case, in beero veritas.) I've been doing it ass backwards all my life. Next time any possibility of moving comes up, I'm going to stand up for what I want.

6 - Carry a balance of more than $5000 US on my credit card.

I'm working on this one, OK? I'm not far from that goal.

7 - Let my exercise routine lapse for more than a week.

I don't really like exercising, but I usually do it. Two reasons: 1) I'm vain about my appearance and 2) arthritis and osteoporosis run in my family, and I'd like to preserve my joints and bones.

8 - Buy a brand new car.

They lose a lot of the value the minute you drive them off the lot. I bought my present car new because I had my heart set on a MINI Cooper, and at that time there weren't that many used ones around - and my old car was a POS that needed to be replaced ASAP. But next time, I'm going for a good used car and save money. I'll bring a guy with me so I'll be less likely to be ripped off.

9 - Accept a job offer without asking to see my future work space first. I've had some god-awful seating at my various places of employment.

10 - Let my passport expire, after the time period where you can do the whole renewal by mail. If you do, you have to make an appointment to be questioned by a representative of the U.S. government.

That wouldn't be so bad, except you have to take time off from work and pay an extra fee. And if you were born overseas, like I was, you need to bring all the paperwork pertaining to that with you. They send it to D.C. along with your passport application. I was nervous about letting those important documents out of my possession. (I did get them back. But still.)

I pruned my friends list.

If you got pruned, try not to feel bad. It doesn't mean I don't like you. I like most people (at least, at first.) Some of the reasons for the pruning:

1 - I answered a question today ("What's your agenda here?") and it made me realize that I no longer have the same agenda as when I first came to EP.

At that time, I was hurt, angry, and felt like I was going crazy. I wanted to know if I was still attractive. I wanted to know if I could say some of the things I really think - would people run screaming, or laugh at me, or shame me?

And I found out that some people still think I'm attractive, and that some people aren't put off by my dark, crazy side.

And as a result, I feel a lot better, and my behavior has changed. The dark, crazy side, having been comforted, is now more willing to let my civilized side take charge more often.

(Don't worry - Dark & Crazy is still there! I'm like an Edwardian aristocrat's mistress - discreet in public, and, um, interesting in private. I would have been good at being an Edwardian aristocrat's mistress. Or for that matter, a female Edwardian aristocrat. They got up to a lot of mischief themselves. It was more like discreet serial monogamy than outright sluttery. I think I could do that.)

Oh, and my agenda? I didn't know I had to have one. I'm just going to see how it goes.

2 - The question of who really is a friend. You might not be a close friend if...

....I haven't heard from you in a long time.

....We just don't really click.

....You only wanted pervy stuff from me. Yes, I do pervy, but (usually) with only one person at a time. And I have so much more to offer, in addition to pervy. If we can't connect and have a good conversation about something other than sex - I probably like you, but we're not really friends.

3 - If you can't spell, punctuate, capitalize, use grammar correctly, and at least write somewhat well - call me picky, call me a snob, but I *hate* that.

Especially from people in my own age group, who would have learned that stuff before the internet came along. If you're 20 years old, you have an excuse for writing "OMG!!! u r SO hott!!" (Although it still makes me cringe.) If you're in your 40s or older...no. Just no.

In my own defense, I work in an occupation where writing well and using conventional correct English matters. It's about the only thing I'm really good at (that I'm willing to take payment for), so cut my some slack for being picky about people's writing.

OK? Is everything copacetic?

Life is harder than I thought it would be when I was a kid.

Against my better judgment, I went shopping today.  I haven't bought anything yet, and I might not.  I'm pretty picky, which is good, considering I really don't need another handbag or top or book.  It's allergy season and I've got a headache; and my stomach is a little queasy.  I probably should have stayed home, but I had to get out.  That's a weakness of mine; I go absolutely crazy if I don't get out of my home at least once a day.  

(Interesting side note:  I need foot surgery, and the main reason I'm postponing it as long as I can, is the recovery period.  I think about being, not only locked up at home for about 4 to 6 weeks, but actually confined to bed for 2 weeks - and I shudder.  No exaggeration.)

Oh, I wish I had someone to confide in.  Why am I always the one that has to keep a cool head while other  people need comforting?  when is it going to be my turn to have a real meltdown, let it all out, cry until I'm ugly and say all the things that can't be unsaid?

I went all the way across town to do this.  I'm sitting in the cafe of a bookstore not that far from where I lived the last time I was single (12 years now.)  Did I feel like I had to get out of the neighborhood I live in now, where I'm coupled?  There's a branch of the same bookstore there, but in my own present neighborhood, everybody who works in the local stores knows me as part of a couple.  Here, in my old stomping grounds, I think I feel the ghost of who I used to be.  I think that's a good thing.  I'm glad she's still there.  I think I need the woman I used to be.  Those were pretty good days.

Am I going crazy, or is my heart breaking, or both?  I wonder if I would do things differently if I could rewind back in time about 12 years.  When my man asked me to move in with him, I had doubts about actually doing it.  I was afraid living together and getting domesticated would ruin things.  For about 2 years, we even had a long-distance relationship, due to me taking a job out of town; we lived about 100 miles apart and saw each other on weekends. I think now those were the best 2 years of my life.  Our weekends were magical.  Now, he spends evenings either on his computer or playing guitar, and I spend evenings reading, watching TV, and sometimes on the computer.  And on weekends, we both go out somewhere - but separately.  That isn't how it used to be.  And I can't quieten the little voice inside of me that says, "I was afraid this would happen."

Why does domesticity have such a lure?  Especially for women, and especially when we're younger.  I think a lot of it is the way we're all brought up, the way families in our culture live.  I had the classic two-parent family with (probably) one of the last stay-at-home moms; we lived in the suburbs where nothing interesting ever happened, except minor disputes with the neighbors and the school system.  And yet, we worshipped that way of life, we idealized it.  I think I believed I was supposed to do all the things my mother did (marry early, have children, live in the suburbs, etc.) - and so did a lot of other young girls, although by the 70s things were changing, and some of my friends' mothers worked and got divorced and lived very differently.  

My own aunt, my mother's sister, lived differently. She was married, but she didn't have children until her late 30s, and she and her husband traveled and had an active social life and all sorts of adventures.  And maybe she would have been a better role model for me than my own mother was.  (Not to put down my mother - she was and is an excellent mother.  But she probably wasn't the best role model for the sort of life I've had.)  And in my family, we don't talk much, but we can have whole discussions silently, without anyone saying a word.  It was understood that I found my aunt interesting, but I also understood very well that I was supposed to turn out like my mother, not my aunt.  And that was that.

I wasn't much like my mother.  I may be a throwback, to my grandmother, my great-grandmother, both of whom were sensual, sexy women who got into trouble with men.  I've been in and out of trouble with men ever since I hit puberty (at an early age, which compounded the problems.)  I was a smart kid, teachers always said so; but I never felt like I was particularly good at anything.  Nothing really gave me that "this is it" feeling - until I started getting to know guys.  And I found out that what I really, really love more than anything else on this planet (and what I'm really, really good at) - is making out and fooling around.

And neither my mother nor my aunt was any help at all.  Since I can't read minds, and since in my family, we don't talk openly about things, all I knew about them was what they told me and things I overheard.  And they both seemed to me like they didn't like the sexual side of life much at all. They made it sound like this ridiculous thing men like for some reason, and you have to do it to keep your husband happy.  So I've never, at any time in my life,  felt like I could ask either of them for advice about my love life.

My grandmother was slightly more help, but by the time I discovered that, I was in my early 20s and embroiled in a mess of a relationship.  And you know how some things are just going to happen?  They seem to be  programmed, like a train that's going on a particular route and stopping at specific stations.  That's how that relationship was.  So I'm not sure her advice would have helped me with that situation.  (Although some of her advice has been useful at other times.  She's been deceased for 21 years, and I still wish I could talk to her and ask her for advice sometimes.)

And I did *try* to turn out the way I thought I was supposed to turn out - I really did.  I said no to guys when I  wanted to say yes.  (Although not every single time, as my parents would have wished.)  I tried to do things women are supposed to do to achieve the goal of the steady husband, the house in the suburbs, and all the rest of it.  But I look back on my life and I can't help thinking maybe that was never meant to be for me - even if I could
have gone through with it, I think I would have been miserable.

I was actually married for six years.  And if I'd been more determined to stick to the script, I'd probably be living in a house in the suburbs and have a couple of kids.  But dealing with my husband could be like swimming  through lard sometimes.  I had to nag him for three years to get the ugly wallpaper off the walls of our condo and get it painted off-white.  My next goal was going to be the ugly carpeting, but you know, by that time, I just didn't have the energy.  Because I had to keep at him about it, something that I thought would be sort of fun - decorating our place, and then finding a house - turned into a tedious, horrible, time-consuming chore.  I correct what I said earlier - if I hadn't given up on him, I wouldn't have had the house in the suburbs for "years" by now.  At the pace he did things, we would just be moving into it right about now.  I know I'm not the most patient person in the  world, but how patient do you have to be?

That was far from being the only problem with that marriage.  Long story short, I shouldn't have married him in the first place; I did a disservice to both of us.  And I'm the one that should have known better, because he was less sophisticated than me about these things.

Whatever it is inside me that isn't good at domestic things, prefers the city to the suburbs, likes other people's kids until they start to whine, loves kissing and making out and making love better than anything else on earth - that side of me ALWAYS comes back sooner or later.  Always.  I'm just not a good bet for the house-in-the-suburbs scenario.  

And I feel like that makes me a bad woman, because I didn't turn out like my mother; because maybe I'm better to have as a girlfriend than as a wife; because I seem to have trouble mating in captivity.

My mood: somewhat lonely

This is by no means a complete or definitive list - just some of my favorite fiction books that really explore what it is to be female. Also, I left out some of the obvious ones that everybody picks, like "Waiting to Exhale" by Terry McMillan, or "Circle of Friends" by Maeve Binchy  - because everybody already knows about them.

And When She Was Good - Laura Lippman
The Bonesetter's Daughter - Amy Tan
The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
The Water's Lovely - Ruth Rendell (and so many more of hers as well)
The Saturday Wife - Naomi Ragen
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsson
Little Children - Tom Perrotta
Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende

Oddly enough, I don't read a lot of chick lit.  I read mostly mysteries and thrillers.  But if I can identify strongly with a character in a book (and since I'm female, I would tend to identify with female characters), I never forget the book.

I'll add more as I think of them.