A Bad Booty Call

I love me some country music, and love me some Kenny Chesney.  What I do not love are blatant booty calls masquerading as romantic love songs.  Case in point:  Kenny Chesney's current single, "Come Over."  Before I even look this up, I'm going to make the bold assumption that I bet this song was written by men because no woman would ever feel this way.


... writer takes 2 seconds to verify male songwriters' identities...


Shane L McAnally, Josh Osborne,& Sam Hunt... yep, a group of men.  


Shame on you!  Only a group of male writers would see it as a romantic gesture to miss a woman enough to ask her to "come over" but not have to miss each other or "say forever."  News flash men- we want you to say all those things... and mean them!  Read these lyrics for yourself and see if you don't agree.

"Come Over"

I turn the TV off, to turn it on again

Staring at the blades of the fan as it spins around 

Counting every crack, the clock is wide awake 

Talking to myself, anything to make a sound 

I told you I wouldn’t call, I told you I wouldn’t care 

But baby climbing the walls gets me nowhere 

I don’t think that I can take this bed getting any colder 

Come over, come over, come over, come over, come over 

You can say we’re done the way you always do 

It’s easier to lie to me than to yourself 

Forget about your friends, you know they’re gonna say 

We’re bad for each other, but we ain’t good for anyone else 

I told you I wouldn’t call, I told you I wouldn’t care 

But baby climbing the walls gets me nowhere 

I don’t think that I can take this bed getting any colder 

Come over, come over, come over, come over, come over 

We don’t have to miss each other, come over 

We don’t have to fix each other, come over 

We don’t have to say forever, come over 

You don’t have to stay forever, come over 

I told you I wouldn’t call, I told you I wouldn’t care 

But baby climbing the walls gets me nowhere 

I don’t think that I can take this bed getting any colder 

Come over, come over, come over, come over, come over 

Come over, come over, come over, come over, come over. 

Come over, come over, come over, come over, come over. 

Why would a woman ever be persuaded to "come over" when you've already said up front that you're not going to make any promises or tell her what she wants to hear.  Who falls for this just because neither of you "can take this bed getting any colder?"

No woman would ever offer these things, lest she sound completely desperate! But apparently, it's sexy for the man to to ask these things.  And yet here we are, swooning over Kenny's latest offering, written into a power ballad format in the same vein as "Somewhere With You," another gut-wrenching emotional song about missing someone.  

At least with the most famous of the country ballad booty calls, Need You Now, it seems that both parties are well aware of their arrangement.  In "Come Over" it's left totally one-sided, and I for one, cannot condone the side that's been taken.

DZ mini reunion

They say your college friends are the ones you keep forever, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Three of my sorority sisters, Amanda, Colleen, and Stephanie, drove down from Kentucky on Saturday to spend the night, and we had a fun evening out together.  We reminisced and laughed about old stories.  We caught up on each others' lives, and the lives of our fellow Delta Zetas (reporting what we had seen and heard through Facebook, of course) and even started to moan and groan about our newfound aches and pains as a result of getting older!  While sitting around the kitchen table talking, we actually had to Google what was in a Jaeger Bomb was because there was a dispute about what constituted one!  You know you're getting old when... :)  Another "senior" moment occurred at Drakes where we went to eat, when two of us asked our server if they could split a Red Bull.  The server kind of cocked her head to the side and said, "you mean, just a Red Bull, with no alcohol added in?"  Yep, you got it! 

It was a late dinner out, but an early night in for us that started at Drakes, and ended with us falling asleep on the couch watching Saturday Night Live!  What we did and where we went didn't matter.  It was the company that made all the difference.  You could say the Delta Zeta lamps are still burning bright and true for us. 

367 days later

It's hard to imagine that an entire year has gone by since we've been back in Tennessee.

I have always tried to paint the best picture of my life without oversharing or airing my dirty laundry on the internet. Still, it's no secret that in not too long a time period I met my future husband, married, had Bradley and got divorced.
Last summer I struggled as I watched one week pass being home in Tennessee, then one month, then two, then six.  And then the date of June 6th loomed in the distance.  I began to count down to the one-year mark, and have thought back to the events of last spring with so much sadness.  It was nearing the end, but I didn't know it at the time.  But here it is, one year later. 

Trust me, I never agreed with divorce.  I truly saw things in black and white and believed that marriage was forever, whether you were happy or not.  Fortunately, I am seeing things in shades of gray nowadays, and I, like all of us, am a work in progress with Jesus.  I still believe that God hates divorce.  God hates all sin.  But staying together in a toxic relationship didn't cover the multitude of sins that our relationship created, nor were we doing ourselves or Bradley any favors.  Not surprisingly, Brian and I are both happier with this result.  I trust God with the overall big picture, but it's the little things I'm struggling to turn over to Him.    I guess I am still in the grieving period, even though I am overall a much happier and healthier person these days.
So this day comes, and I mourn the loss of a dream, and I celebrate the hope for the future. 

Spring cleaning

So I decided I would do a little spring cleaning to start out the long weekend and get that behind me so I can enjoy my days off.  I got the bathroom spic and span, and even hauled the Clorox mop up the stairs.  Give me a regular sponge mop any day.  The roommates don't know it yet, but I apparently pressed down too hard on the mop and cracked the handle.  How the heck are you supposed to get floors clean if you can't put some weight into it?

While I was on my cleaning streak (yes, it's considered a streak for me to get the bathroom wiped down, floors swept and mopped, and cleaned the mirrors all in one fell swoop), I decided to do a little more cleaning- this time on Facebook.

We are all guilty of having way too many "friends" on there.  I don't know my exact number, but it was around 400.  Just like phone numbers stored in my cell phone, it was hard to let some of you go, because, what if, just what if, I need to talk to you?  And then how embarrassing would it be to have to re-friend request you?  That darn Facebook, I don't why it keeps "deleting" my friends... we've all heard it before.  Usually I'm on the receiving end of that comment because I'm too much of a pack rat to purge the people I will never ever talk to.  But tonight I scrolled through the alphabet once, and unfriended the people I truly don't have a need to stay in touch with.  I may have only eliminated 20 or so, but it felt good to get that number down a little bit.

Now if only the number on the scale would move down that much too!

A Repurposed Frame of Mind

This week Brian and I had mediation where we signed all the papers, and settled our divorce.  In a few weeks, it will be final.  As a new year has come I am filled with questions of how this new year will go, and how different it will be.  Right now I'm picking up the pieces of my old life and trying to start a new one.

I have this silver frame that we got as a wedding present.  I really love this frame.  In it used to showcase one of my favorite wedding photos of me and Brian.  Tonight I have symbolically taken out the wedding picture, and in its place I plan to frame one of my 30th birthday cards- one that has a cartoon picture of a beauty queen on it that proclaims "Viva La Diva!"  But as poetic justice would have it, when I took the old wedding photo out of the frame, a large piece of the photo paper has been residually left behind.  So tonight I got out the Goo Gone, and set out to clean the glass so that I could re-use the frame.

How appropriate, I thought ironically as I scrubbed the paper shards off the glass, that I am replacing the old wedding picture with a proclamation of my singledom.  As I scraped the glass with the Goo Gone and a paint scraper I was also reminded of a conversation Brian and I had with our pastor Brother Dennis in what seems like ages ago.  He was talking to us about the importance of the vows of marriage, and how when two people marry, their lives are glued together.  He analogized that when they get divorced, the two pieces of wood are torn apart, but the wood doesn't split neatly.  It splinters.  And some of your life is irrevocably connected to theirs, and little pieces of their life are irrevocably connected to yours.  And the splintering of the wood is painful.

Just like my picture frame; I can take the wedding photo out, and put in a new picture, but pieces of the old photo are stuck on the glass of the frame.  So with a little elbow grease, I will clean the glass, and perhaps in the right light you still might be able to see the outline of the old picture, but that's okay with me.  Or maybe there will be faint scratches on the glass from the paint scraper- evidence of the scars left behind, but it won't take away from the cheerfulness of the Diva birthday card encased in that silver frame now.

It's going to take some hard work and scrubbing, even now the Goo Gone is soaking on the glass, but I believe I can repurpose that frame, and make it house something beautiful once again. So that's what I plan on doing, both with that frame, and with my own life.

Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious

Recently Bradley has become enamoured of Mary Poppins.  He's watched the movie several times now (stopping and starting again when he gets antsy, of course), and he often sings one-liners from the movie's many songs.  No, in reference to the title of this blog, my genius son is Not singing Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious, but upon watching the movie with him one day, I stopped and thought about the practically-perfect-in-every-way person's description of this nonsense word. 
"It's something to say when you don't know what to say."

And that's how I've been feeling about blogging lately.  So much has overwhelmed me in my personal life these days, and most people who read this blog I assume already know what's going on, but besides chronicling Bradley's every cute move, I use this blog to vent my feelings, and write as a creative outlet.  But with everything going on... Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious... I haven't quite known what to say.  There is a fine line between transparency and airing one's dirty laundry.  It's also freeing however to just say something out loud and stop hiding behind evasiveness.  So here it goes: 

Brian and I are getting a divorce.

Other than that, I'm dealing with things the way Mary Poppins has taught me to- with a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down- and consuming mass quantities of sweets!

And two became one, two years ago

2 years ago today, Brian and I joined our lives together in marriage. For those of you that know our story, the fact that we are able to celebrate our year anniversary today is quite an accomplishment. It has been a lot of love, a lot of prayer, determinaton, forgivenss, and prayer!

In honor of Mardi Gras today, and because we honeymooned in New Orleans, I made us a romantic candlelit breakfast of beignets. Even more romantic was that I burned the oil and filled our house with smoke. Oh well, at least the pure fried yumminess still turned out okay. We have a picture from our honeymoon eating the bengnets at Cafe Du Monde, so here's the same shot 2 years later! You'll notice in the bottom of the picture is Chandler begging for beignets, which he eventually got!

Now tonight we get to cap off the day with a nice dinner out at my favorite local Mexican restaurant, Cactus Flower Cafe. I have been sufficiently starving myself today for the occasion! Thanks for sharing in this milestone with us!

2 years baby, 2 years!

(The title of this blog is a FRIENDS reference, so let's see if anyone besides Brian gets it!)

Last night Brian and I got to go on a real, honest-to-goodness, dress-up-and-go-out-to-eat, DATE! We were celebrating our 2 year anniversary of meeting and being together. (Thanks mom and dad for the Olive Garden gift cards- they came in handy!)

It's hard to believe that it was just 2 years ago that 8 (or was it 9?) of us girls packed our bags and headed south to Navarre for Spring Break 07, and it was there that I met my hot cabana boy at the quaint little beach bar near our condo. Who knew that'd he'd actually follow through on his word and come to visit me in Tennessee 2 weeks later, and that 2 years later, here we are married with an almost-one-year-old, living in Florida!

Life has crazy twists and turns, and it's been two of the most challenging but most rewarding years of my life. A lot of people haven't supported our relationship, and many still don't, but that's okay. To those naysayers out there, I want you to know publicly and unabashedly that I am happy. Brian is happy. We've made many wrong decisions in our relationship but we're committed to each other, and committed to working everything out. Marriage is a challenge for sure, but its payoff is equally ginormous. And don't even get me started on parenting! My heart just melts when Bradley smiles at me. It about killed me to leave him with our friend so we could go to dinner last night! He claps his hands now, and looks at me immediately for approval, so I laugh accordingly and tell him what a good boy he is! Anyways, I'll get off topic if I start raving about my precious boy!

Point is, it's the relationships that take the most work that give the most back, and Brian and I were thrilled to celebrate 2 years of being together yesterday. We had a fun day together being lazy around the house- he took the day off and surprised me by being home after Bradley & I got back from Kindermusik, and I had a bag of goodies waiting on me too. Plus, here's the kicker- he cleaned up the house while I was gone- so he definitely earned his gold star from me that day!

Like I put in Brian's card, here's to the next 2 years... 10 years... 20 years!

Presently pontificating

Most of the blogs these days are about Bradley... but this one's for me.

I am a present. I don't know if you know that about me, but I am. This was a keen observation made by my friend Stephanie about me yesterday while she and I were hanging out, and our rugrats were playing on the floor.

I loved her insight, and heartily agreed. Stephanie is one of those people who have their hand in everything it seems, and she knows everyone, and makes friends easily. She is my idea of a supermom. It also seems that Stephanie is a good judge of character, and she's having a tough time figuring me out... because I am a present.

Here's what I took that to mean: all wrapped up in a pretty package on the outside, but the best part is what's inside the box. And I readily admit I'm not one to open myself up completely to new people. It takes me a long time to warm up to people and let them know the real me. But once the bow is loosened, and the paper torn off, that's when a person gets to know the real Amanda. Where the present part comes in is that once you are in, you are in for life. I will be loyal and trustworthy, and a great listener. I, am a present. Guarded? Definitely. Too cautious? Perhaps. But I'm happy with who I am, and patiently seeking the next friends I will open myself up to.

We did... one year later

Today Brian and I celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary. It's so hard to believe an entire year has gone by since we said "I do." A lot has happened. We've had our share of ups and downs, moreso than most couples I'd venture, but we're learning daily what it means to stay committed and work through our issues to become better spouses and better parents.

Fortunately, we were able to celebrate Valentine's Day together and our anniversary up in Tennessee. For Valentine's, we shared a pizza and ate on festive heart shaped plates and used heart-print napkins to sop up the grease! Then last night we had our anniversary date night. Grandma and Grandpa B watched Bradley for us so we could take in a movie and dinner.

We opted for the lighthearted RomCom He's Just Not That Into You. (Emily- in typical romantic comedy fashion, it was just like heroine!) The film was nothing like the book, and I'd venture a guess that if the HJNTIY authors didn't need or want the money so bad for the movie rights, that they would have hated the script of this movie and the message it sends because it completely goes against the advice that the book preaches. I won't give anything away in case you decide to splurge and see this one (honestly though, it's more of a rental), but it was still a cute movie- just nothing like the book, which I loved.

After the movie, Brian and I headed over to Shogun for a little hibachi grill action for dinner. We celebrated our Valentine's Day dinner last year at this restaurant, so it had sentimental value. Our real place is Olive Garden, but for some reason that escapes me, we don't have one of those in Cool Springs. Nevertheless, dinner was yummy, but I sure missed Bradley, and was glad to see him afterwards. Both me and Brian were too excited to wait any longer to give each other our anniversary gifts so we did that at 3am since Bradley had gotten us up anyways, so that was fun exchanging gifts by nightlight! All in all, it was a great and reaffirming weekend, and I am thankful we were able to spend it together.

Finally Friday

It's Friday... where the heck did the week go???  It's funny how even though I'm not "working" anymore, I still look forward to the weekends.  That's when Brian and I usually run all our errands and hang out with friends and each other.  Tonight Wes & Jess are watching Bradley for a little while and Brian and I are actually going out on an official date!  Woo hoo!  I used to think it was so cheesy and unnecessary for married couples to go out on dates.  You see the person all the time, I thought, why are "dates" necessary?  Well buddy, don't knock it till you've tried it- especially once you've got little ones in the mix!  A night to dress up in my nice clothes and be a wife, and not a mom, for a few hours is something to get excited about.  (Of course I'll worry about Bradley the whole time I'm gone and will be elated when I get to pick him up later on, but still!)  The plan for tonight is to go out to the Boardwalk on Pensacola Beach.

Speaking of the little chubster, here are a few of the latest photos of Bradley.

Bradley examines his Pooh Bear

The "Nakey Baby" and all his chub rolls, sitting in his Bumbo seat

Happy after his bath, and enjoying some Tummy Time

The little rascal has started to suck the same two fingers I did as a kid, except here it's his left hand.  I have yet to pay attention if it's the same hand every time.

I plan on being an informed citizen and taping the Presidential Debates tonight, and watching it later, unlike Nerd-Alert Heather whose Friday Night plans include watching the debate with some friends!  (Just kidding- I think it's awesome that they care enough to make their plans revolve around this political event.  More of us should be so sheik.)

the pics heard round the world

Just what you've all been waiting for! Click here for the link to our wedding pics!

last minute shout out from Miss Bradley

Guess the fact that I woke up at 4:30 am and haven't been able to go back to sleep lets me know the big day is approaching soon. Tomorrow at noon I will trade in my old last name (or passing it onto my son in a few months) and become Mrs. Amanda Lynn Vilendrer (it's like "blender" but with a "vuh" in front of it!). I never thought this day would come, but planning the event in a frenzied 38 days, it couldn't get here soon enough. Today's the day of girlie stuff as everyone gets into town and we have our nails done and put all the flower bouquets together- hot pink roses- what else??

So why am I blogging this morning when I have a million other things to do? I'm hyped up from the lack of sleep and caffeine (yep, I cheated and had coffee)... but the nail salon is calling my name, and I have to go get ready. The next time I blog on here, I will be a WIFE! :o)

and ps, yes, I did totally jinx Kentucky by blogging about our 5 wins in a row and then suffering the 2nd worst loss ever to Vanderbilt. It wasn't even embarassing so much as it made me speechless. But I take full responsibility for our loss. Sorry, Cats. Better luck tomorrow.

Goin' to the Clovercroft Chapel and we're...

Gonna get maaaaa-rried!

Yep, that's right- you heard it here first- ( or last, depending on the person!)- Brian and I are gettin' hitched! Brian proposed on a weekend when I was down visiting him in Florida, and we immediately began making plans. Given his deployment schedule, and our baby on the way, we decided to have the wedding before the baby was born, and before he is scheduled to deploy overseas for a few months.

That time frame left us with very few options for dates, so February the 16th it is! The ceremony and reception are taking place at a little wedding chapel in Franklin, TN, and details are falling into place quickly! Needless to say, I'm lucky if I can blog once a week now with all the wedding planning that takes place during my work day, in between all my official responsibilities here, but I did want to share with the cyber-world my exciting news!

PS- Only a few more days till I go back to the doc and we find out some more exciting news!

T & A Day

Today was the day for me and Tadd and hang out (what did you think T&A stood for, you dirty mind!)

We old high school friends enjoyed lunch at "our place" aka Blue Coast Burrito. My week just isn't complete without a trip to BCB. And I love being able to enjoy my favorite salsa at a picnic table outside in the sunshine!

After work Tadd & I met up with Ari, Ang, & Robin for some dinner at Calypso Cafe. Tadd asked what kind of soup they had, and when the server explained that soup is a seasonal item, Tadd ordered something else that came with 2 sides. To be funny he asked for a cup of soup as one them. The waitress was not amused! Finally we all went to the 6:30 showing of the new Harry Potter movie.

I won't spoil the movie for any of you casual fans out there who might not have seen the movie yet (because you're obviously not a fanatic like we are, otherwise you would have already seen the film!), but let's just say Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix is my 2nd favorite of the HP movies, next to the original one of course. I also won't go into the antics of the people in the movie theater surrounding us (ie, the obese children panting after they climbed the theater steps after making multiple candy runs during the film, the kid who farted loudly during a quiet part of the movie, or the older women behind Ariana who carried on a conversation disregarding the fact that everyone and their mother could hear them, plus the child who was with them that kicked Ari's seat repeatedly.). But no, we won't mention them at all. Oh, or we won't mention the pretty boy taking our tickets at the movie theater who, while wearing makeup, told Tadd he was good in the Pajama Game.

We still all had a blast, and it was fun for Tadd and I to be able to spend some time together after our crazy schedules made it impossible to hang out. I look forward to many more Harry Potter movies (or okay, just 2 more) and T & A days to come!

Goin' to the chapel

We here at the DIVA domain have been pre-occupied the past week, working hard on getting our fellow Diva Ariana hitched, so I apologize for my delinquency in blogging! However, I am proud to say that although her initials haven't changed, I am now friends with one Celia Ariana Bartolomea ("I'd like to buy a vowel, please")!

After hearing about Bart's family and friends for so long, it was great to finally put faces with names. All of Bart's groomsmen, save one brother, were in the military, so they were all decked out in their uniforms which made for a beautiful ceremony. At the rehearsal when we practiced walking down the aisle, my groomsman introduced himself to me as "Mike." I gave him a puzzled look. "But that's not what Ari calls you is it?" "No, it's Porkchop," he clarified. All of the guys have these crazy call signs. So I walked down the aisle with Mr. Porkchop. I just think that's hysterical. Conley got Scottie Too Hottie aka Beef. But I wasn't jealous or anything.

Barring a few names being mispronounced, and me skipping the second verse of You Raise Me Up (aka Jews Raise Me Up) the actual wedding was wonderful. When Bart's brother Bill handed him the ring and whispered "My precious" it was all we could do to stifle our laughter and try and remain solemn. The rain held off for the evening, and a good time was had by all at the reception. And after the party (the reception) was the After Party (in the Bridal Suite) and after the party it was the hotel lobby (the Sheraton bar) ... so the rap songs don't lie!

Congrats Bart & Ari! And now a run down of the events in pictorial form:


Wednesday evening, the Bachelorette party

We started off at Ari's apartment and opened the "wicked" themed gifts, then proceeded to enjoy some apps and wine at the Grape in Bellvue. Following the Grape we headed down the road to a fantastic dinner at Maggiano's and ended the evening at Nashville's favorite piano bar (or mine) Big Bang.

All I'm gonna say is notice the wine charms.

Thursday evening, the rehearsal dinner at Sole Mio's (yes, of course I sang the aria!). Bridesmaids with their gifts- bottles of wine called "Little Black Dress"- Ari is so clever! On the left are Beth & Katie (please don't ask me which is which!) and on the right are Angela and Conley

A slightly stressed Bride gets laced up into her wedding dress! Isn't she beautiful though?

The gorgeous wedding cake garnished with gold filigree to match Ari's dress and fresh berries

And yes, the obligatory shot of me & Brian at the wedding reception. A very cute couple, don't you think?

Jesus take the wheel

I echo MA's sentiments that my blog has lacked some depth and transparency lately. Perhaps it's because I've been lacking depth myself and merely surviving the hectic schedule of performances that have consumed my life this year. The play is halfway over, and I breathed a big sigh of relief last week when I had that break. We all go through those phases in life when we get so busy that we stop planning and calculating every move and just attempt to keep up, but when things finally settle down, we can look around and say, what am I doing?!

That's how I feel now; spiritually more than anything (although other things like careers and working out have taken a back seat too). I haven't been in/leading a Life group since August and I'm really missing that accountability and scheduled time of Bible study. It's also no coincidence that my friendships have suffered since most of my very good friends were in my small group, so I took for granted that I would always see them all at least once a week. Now weeks go by before I see some of them. I feel like we are growing up and going in different directions, and no matter how hard I am hitting the break peddle, the cars keep zooming down the interstate of life! I'm not such an idealist to think that the pace of life will ever slow down, but I'd be more okay with it if I were in the HOV lane with several friends in the same car, rather than driving by myself and catching them on their cell phones during commutes.

I don't have any answers for this problem of time and scheduling- at least not until the play ends in another week (wow, is it really that soon?!), but God has really been pursuing me to dig deeper in spiritual life. To be perfectly honest (there's that transparency we were lacking on here!) I have been convicted lately about gossiping, so I started looking up verses about gossip & speech. I noticed that most of the verses that deal with this topic are in Proverbs. So I've committed to reading through the whole book this month, one chapter a day, and that's going well so far. God is drawing me near with all kinds of questions for Him, and I've had some great conversations with believers and non-believers about my faith, so I know He's working all things for good. So for now, I am tapping the breaks, and reminding myself that in this journey we call life ("wow. what a journey") that I am not the one in the driver's seat.

Curse you, Cupid!

All of my best Valentine's Days have been spent with my fabulous single girl friends. The flip side of that of course is that I have very few experiences of being in an actual relationship on Valentine's Day.

Let's start from the beginning: Daniel Weathervane made me a homemade Valentine in Kindergarten and gave me a chandelier crystal as a gift. Very sweet and flattering, but I have no idea where Daniel is today. Jumping way ahead, Thomas DeMarcus and I spent V-day together my sophomore year in high school and attended the BHS-Franklin High School basketball game together, but at that point Thomas actually hadn't gotten up the guts to ask me out yet, so that doesn't count. Junior year Owen gave me a huge stuffed Teddy Bear that came to be known in my family for many years to come as the "Owen Bear" and it actually resembeled the giver of the gift. I eventually sold the Owen Bear in a yard sale a few years later and haven't regretted the decision since. Senior year I was with Grant. Grant and I went to see a movie (Message in a Bottle) and it was seriously one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen- I think I cried- not very romantic or sweet at all. And well, college, there were zero relationships of which to speak, so we're 0 for 4 there. There was also He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named a few years later, and that was long distance and certainly not filled with happy memories because he didn't even call me on Valentine's Day till 11 o'clock that night.

And here we are in 2007. I won't claim to have low self-esteem because a Hallmark Holiday reminds me that I'm not in a relationship, but it is just that- a reminder. Pink hearts and cards are everywhere, and is it so wrong to wistfully wish that the flowers sitting on a coworker's desk were for you for a change? I'm tired of hearing about how empowering it is to be single and for a change want to be honest about this dumb holiday- it sucks to be single on Valentine's Day! It doesn't matter how many cards you get from friends, how much chocolate you consume on the day, or what fun plans you have for the evening. It's just not the same as being in a relationship and spending the day with that special person! So there's my transparent moment for the day. Sorry to be Debbie Downer, and I sincerely hope each of you have a wonderful day, but I'll just be glad when it's over for another year.

Lunching with Loved Ones

Tis been the week of lunch dates- that glorious hour in the middle of my work day, where I am able to escape for exactly 60 minutes, lest a few precious minutes of my vacation time be snatched up in order to compensate for my tardiness, and catch up on life with a dear friend. Monday was January 1st, and we were still off on holiday, so back to work on the 2nd it was. That evening was spent where I won a date with Tadd Himelrick. We dined at Chili's and then watched the first 5 episodes of season one of Arrested Development. This is a show that several good friends of mine have sworn up and down that I would love, so I finally succumbed to the pressure and watched it. It did take a few episodes to get me interested, but I am hereby publicly admitting that my smart friends were right, I love the show, and will be booking some time with the Taddster as soon as our schedules permit to finish the first season on DVD.

Wednesday, January 3rd was lunch with Momma B and Laura Lee at Logan's. Thursday was TGI Friday's with Thomas (no more Oreo maddness- what's that all about?!). Friday was McCallister's with Beth, and finally, today yielded a trip up and back to Louisville to have a long lunch with Colleen and Holt. It was worth the drive since I hadn't seen either of them since July.

I love dining with friends, but for the sake of my pocketbook, I must insist upon several Lean Cuisines, and lunches in the 2nd floor cafe this week. And let me just tell you how excited I am about that!

Looks & Lulls

Disclaimer: names have been left out to protect the innocent

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine recently. She was asked out on a date by a guy she was not particuarly "into," Or okay- not at ALL into. But the asking out came so out of the blue that this girl did not have time to think things through before she blurted out a "sure, that would be fun," or something along those lines, and regret immediately set in. This friend knew that she was not attracted to the asker-outer, and had about as much in common with the guy as I would with a fishmonger.

The friend is expressing grief to our mutual friend Lana over the situation, as she knows for sure that this guy is not at all her type. "There were all these lulls in the conversation too," she says, "where he just kept standing there, so I kept rambling because I didn't know what else to do!"
"There you go," says Lana matter-of-factly. "Looks and Lulls- those are 2 good reasons to not go out with him."

I thought this was too funny- and too true. One of these hindrances by itself is something one can overcome when initially deciding whether or not to date someone, but the two together are too much. Guess our fishmonger has 2 strikes against him!