Happierish

I've been going through a phase of particularly intense dreaming lately. I had an especially personal and eye opening dream a few nights ago that I'd like to share, as much as it makes me feel vulnerable, because I thought it was particularly insightful to my emotional state lately. Here it goes:

While Slippers* was away sailing in the Caribbean, Old Crow and I decided to give our relationship another try. For some reason? (This was a totally consensual agreement with Slippers in the dream, by the way, it was not a cheating type of thing.) For the first few days things were great. I was so happy to be with him again, it was just like it once was. Then, for some reason? I was completely naked in the middle of a grocery store. Old Crow was groping and coming on to me, trying to get me to have sex with him. I kept denying him, saying I really just wanted to get to my clothes and put them back on, since all the people in the store were staring at us. He got upset and for some reason? a random dude came over and decided to be our couples counselor. We sat down and started hashing things out. At first I was relieved to finally be communicating with Old Crow on a real and personal level. I told him that he did not make me feel special. He didn't even bother wrapping my Christmas present, after all. (He really didn't.) He admitted to me that he did not think I was special. I burst into tears and realized there was no way we could ever be together. We both had a moment of mourning and then that part of the dream was over and suddenly Harry Potter was there and things got all weird...

I won't go into the nonsense bit of it. As entertaining as it is, it's basically meaningless. Plus I heard a story on NPR once that no one cares about your dreams, apparently. Some radio host's mom said so. (Not joking. That was really their programming once.)

But that particular part of that dream was huge for me. It felt very real, including the pain, but so did the feeling of being just a little bit more free than I was before once I woke up.

You see, the best part about this blog is that I am young and the complete opposite of wise. So you, the reader, get to watch me blossom into this world and act like a stupid idiot and make a bunch of bad life choices and then learn things the hard way.

...What? You don't think that is the best part about my blog? ...Why wouldn't you enjoy watching other people be stupid? What's wrong with you, anyway? Geez. That's what America is practically founded on. Get with it, yo.

Do people still say "yo?" Is that still a cool thing? 

Ahem. The point I was trying to make, before you so rudely interrupted, is that I am learning things about love and relationships lately. Big surprise there. Given my blog's name, I clearly have NOTHING to learn.

I recently started seeing someone new who is super duper nice to me. Like, REALLY nice. I don't fully know how to deal with it, actually. I might have rolled my eyes and been annoyed with the behavior previously, but after my last "relationship," I find I am deeply appreciative of his respectful treatment.

It's the difference between…

Actually bribing him to come out to dinner with me and my friends because he's too cool to go to somewhere as mainstream as the Cheesecake Factory 

...to hearing the sentence "I'll do anything and go anywhere with you and will have a good time, just because you are there too." 

I guess I could say the same thing to cheesecake. They love me at those pseudo-high class restaurants, that they do. 

Splitting every bill

...to fighting for the check.

Money makes me anxious. This picture makes no sense. It's all good. 

Feeling inadequate to his dog

...to being super duper important to him. (And the dog's new bestie! Well, the dog likes me anyway)

This is my life with every dog ever right now. 

Him asking me "Where are you going?" every. single. morning. when I get up to put money on my parking meter in front of his building (or a mile away from his building sometimes) that starts ticking at 9 AM

...to actually getting him to bring me things while working or in bed. Sometimes without even asking. What the whaaaa!?

I'm getting spoiled. 

Not wanting me to be his "girlfriend."

...to wanting nothing more than for me to be his girlfriend 

But…THEY'RE THE SAME. I'll never understand people's anxieties over labels. 

Massaging him for an hour with no return offer and then sleeping on the uncomfortable bar in the middle of the world's shittiest bed just to be near him, because he won't come to my side

...to laying there as he just picks up my feet and starts rubbing them without me even asking.
 I say, "What are you doing?" 
And he says, "Rubbing your feet. Do you not want me to?" 

"NO go for it! But you don't have to." 

"But I like doing it for you." 

He keeps insisting this is true. 

(Also he has the most comfortable bed in the universe. Extra plus.)

I guess you could say I have happy feet

Feeling constantly judged and that I need to be careful what I say or do in case it isn't cool or intelligent enough 

...to feeling completely free to be myself in every weird and awkward way. 

Oh I'm sorry, is that not cool?

I'm not saying what happened with Old Crow was horrible or really bad. He could be nice too. There were so many moments that made me feel like I was in a goddamn movie they were so magical. He was more than I ever expected out of OkCupid and many of the things I ever thought I could ask for, you know, except for the part where he didn't love me. As it turns out, that is a huge deal breaker. At least it is for me. 

It's still painful to think about my relationship with Old Crow, especially knowing that he probably feels absolutely none of this same pain at all, but I dunno. I'm still insanely sad in the same way I am sad about all the men who didn't work out in my life. But…you just get to a certain point out and look back on things and think "Oh yea. I guess it did kind of suck." Discretely crying while you are laying in bed next to someone because you are so stressed about how they feel about you is never a good thing. You think that would be obvious at that time but! but! but! Magical feelingssssss! 

I'm so young and dumb that it hurts.

I think I can safely say I've pretty much moved on. Which is the point of this blog, if you couldn't tell. Who knows what will happen next. Maybe I will get sick of being treated really super well, or maybe Slippers' infatuation with me will die down and he'll get sick of rubbing my feet all the time, but for now I am just going to be a little unsexless and uncynical for awhile. I feel all special and good inside. It's kind of nice to not feel like I have to work really hard to be the most low maintenance girlfriend ever. Maybe I'm starting to grow out of my own title??





…Nah.



*Also known as Minion elsewhere on the internet. Also also known as my latest boy-toy boyfriend. 

Twerk Philosophy

Something has been weighing on my chest for quite some time now. I am having a very difficult internal struggle, and I am a little afraid of the judgement I might face from my community in talking about my true feelings. But this needs to be said. So here it goes.




I don't get twerking.

Dun dun DUNNN

I know. As someone who participates regularly in the field of super-sexy-time-dancing (which I DO, by the way, just usually not on stage. That is reserved for fake mustaches and anger), I should understand and appreciate at the very least the theory of twerking.

But I don't.

I just don't.

Let's go back.

I've known twerking has been around for some time. And no, Miley Cyrus did not invent it, in case you haven't been in on the world of super-sexy-time-dancing before that little incident. It's ok though. I never really took notice of it when I was still a part of the "real" world either. It was not until a couple months into taking pole classes did the world of twerking begin to become unveiled to me. It was one of those things people would just get really excited about every class or three, and we'd all get down on to the floor and give it a go as an instructor attempted to break down the mechanics of the twerk and how to progress into a "proper" twerk.

That's another thing I don't get, by the way. People who can see a clear, discernible difference between what is a correct or true "twerk" and what is just shaking your booty. I'm sorry. Are those not the same thing? This is how Google defines it, which seems pretty general if you ask me.

And yes. Google defined it. This is a real phenomenon, people. 

I think there are some people who define a twerk based on the flapping intensity occurs in the gluteus maximus and minimus muscles, AKA da' booty and it's respective POP. However, like I said, I wouldn't really know. I'm not in on this twerk elitism. Perhaps we should propose for there need to be a wider array of definitions, with specific classes of twerking, twerk styles, and so on. *

...This could be a whole industry really. I don't even know why I am in the blogging game right now. Clearly I need to start capitalizing on people's fascination with butt shaking. 

Myself though?

I never could quite get myself to twerk correctly. I'd try and try again and whenever I felt close, I'd try it in front of someone but would never get the "AAAAWWW YEAAAA GUUURRRRLLL" response that let's someone know they have achieved true twerker status.

How to know if you are twerking correctly 

Continue if you hear the following in response to your booty poppin': 

AW YEA GURL SHAKE IT!!!

 WOOO AAAHH EEEEH YEAAAA UUUHH AAAHDJKFFJNG (and other incoherent wooing).

The sound of someone smacking your ass.

Please for the love of god, stop if you hear any of this: 

Mmmm…yeaaaaaa….errr… yeeeeaaaa….

 Really really awkward silence.

The sound of souls being emptied and crushed for all their worth while people avert their gaze in the desperate attempt to unsee what they have just witnessed.  

Please note: Alcohol invariably affects people's ability to properly assess a twerk. For a truly accurate response, twerk in front of a crowd of 60+ sober women.

It never really bothered me though. I figured my twerk would come in time.  For awhile I would go to the sexy time dancing pole class where a song was always reserved specifically for twerking time. Everyone would get really excited about this part of the class and let their twerk run free all over the poles and the studio for an entire song. I would kind of just roll around in the corner and pretend to be into it, but secretly I always wondered when we could finally be done and I could stop feeling like an epileptic whale. Eventually I stopped going to that class. Specifically for that reason.

This is both offensive to people with epilepsy and whales. I win. 

It's been two years and I'm still where I was when I started out: splay legged on the floor wondering why people aren't as excited about my thighs jiggling? They're close enough, right?

So I decided to just let it go.

But yet!

It persists to haunt me. On at least a weekly basis I see someone flip out over someone else twerking. It's like the free space in bingo for getting a positive crowd reaction on stage. And I honestly don't know why. I don't think it's because I'm jealous of others who can twerk. I understand that it takes skill to do it well, and I respect that. But there are plenty of other difficult things, much more difficult things, that don't get as big a reaction. Is it because twerking is just that sexy? I of all people can appreciate a sexy butt! I like butts! I like sexy things!

It's true! I swear!

But think of all the sexy, badass things you can do with your body. Why can't we make those more widespread? Why does the twerk have to dominate so? Take a look at this music video for Hips Don't Lie by Shakira. I know it's a little early 2000s retro, which is scary to think is a retro era now, but seriously. Just skip ahead to 1:50. She does this crazy chest isolation with her boobs that blows my mind. IS SHE A ROBOT? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. But I can appreciate it. 'Nuff said.

Why is there not more freaky chest movement to go along with freaky butt movement?? 

In the end, it comes down to the fact that the jiggling just doesn't appeal to me that much. Maybe I am not as secretly lesbian as I previously thought. Maybe I am too close minded about what is sexy in a woman's body. For now this is just going to remain a mystery to me and I don't know if it will ever be solved. I might stand alone in the pole community forever because of it, ostracized, misunderstood, and with a heart of cold stone because I have not had a twerking revelation. Secretly I want twerking to turn out to be a passing fad so that I may no longer have to suffer the shame of ignorance, but I honestly think it might be around to stay if Google is defining it. And offering translation options (hint: they all translate to "twerk").

...Although it took my computer about twenty separate typings of the word before it stopped trying to correct it to "tweak." Perhaps I am not the only one behind on the times.

 So far away from the butts. All alone. Except for autocorrect. I still have you.

*Did you see that syntax there? I'm taking too many programming classes.