Thrown with Great Force

To dinner.

Via email.

On what would essentially be a blind date (friend of a friend whom I’ve only communicated with via Facebook/email) with a perfectly nice guy.

Of course my first instinct is to answer “Sorry, I don’t eat.”

Which is NOT true (see bagel post from earlier today, as well as the un-reheated leftovers I’m chowing down on right now b/c I was too hungry to warm them up).

But that’s just my knee-jerk reaction to getting asked out.

Which might, just maybe, have something to do with why I’m still single.

Although, full disclosure, mama’s gonna be spending every waking moment filling out job apps for the next lil bit here, so dating and even eating will probably need to sit down & shut up in the backseat until things are straight.

It’s jeans weather, yall.

I have a drawer so full of jeans it doesn’t shut all the way (includes FOUR of the same pair of skinny jeans, in different colors, that I lived in last year)

I also have a butt & leg issue, where the majority of said jeans don’t go on anymore.

Not making excuses, but I think it’s more of an athletic/muscle issue, considering that I teach Zumba four times a week, swim at least twice, and hit the gym for a weights/circuit class at least 3x a week.

That being said, it’s been a long summer of ice cream, ice cold beer (actually that’s a lie, I really didn’t drink much at all), and….bagels.

There’s a little block of shops in the little town where I spend a big part of the summer, and it has a Dairy Queen (mmmmm mmmm) and The Best Bagel Shop EVER. I was actually pretty proud of myself for forgoing the bagels for the most part - big hunks of dough in your belly + bikini does not always make a good pair - but man, you know I ordered a baker’s dozen of those bad boys at the end of the season to take home with me and put in the freezer. (That’s about 24 servings of bagels, because they’re genuinely ENORMOUS and the only time I can ever eat one in one sitting is when I’m ridiculously hungover)

I’m trying really, really, really hard to clean up the food I’m putting in my body, since there literally aren’t any additional hours in the day when I could possibly exercise (football watching feasts + feast leftovers, courtesy of my mama, do not help) but today, at work, there was a plate of bagels. Not big enormous bagels, but cut in half (calorie-control!) smushy chewy bagels. And no one around.

Did I shmeer some cream cheese on a half and throw another half (ok, two halves) in my purse while no one was looking?

I don’t think I need to answer that, do I?

Remember how I was sooooooo happy yesterday about my friends trying to set me up with guys? (In case you do not remember and are too lazy to click the link I just put there for you, you should know that the above statement was sarcasm.)

It happened again, so that means different friends have attempted to set me up with 3 different guys within the last week and a half. I mean, really.

I don’t need to be set up. If I can’t manage to find time to unpack a suitcase within three weeks of returning from a trip, do yall really think I have time to get to know some dude I don’t even know if I’m remotely interested in?

I appreciate my friends looking out for me (although let’s face it, sometimes it’s really just because they don’t know what to do about their boyfriend’s random annoying friend always hanging around) but I don’t need/want to date anyone right now.

I don’t know who put the “Pathetic Single Girl” sign on my back, but consider it officially replaced with a “I Don’t Have Time To Date and Do Not Want Your Scrubs Anyway” sign.

**Note: This does not apply to gorgeous surfer boys, movie stars, hot athletes in tight pants, etc. Feel free to send any and all of those my way.

• It’s a bad idea for my friends to set me up on dates. I don’t mind using friends as a way to meet guys, but since I’m not really looking to date, being set up on dates is weird. And when I get weirded it out, it’s game over. For example: A couple of my friends know this guy who’s apparently adorable and they wanted to introduce us. Totally cool with me. But saying “Hey, we’re going to create a situation in which you two will meet and can chat and see if sparks fly” is completely different than telling the other person - whom I’ve never met - that I’m interested so that said person decides to send me Facebook messages asking a bunch of get-to-know-you questions. It’s weird, and it’s happened more than once, and it just makes me stabby. Stabby does not lead to dates. The end. 

• Also, if it wasn’t originally my idea, it’s not going to work out. Fact.

• I think it will be more enjoyable to date younger guys when I reach cougar status than it is now, when I’m just slightly older. I have a number of older (cougar) friends (Slogan: Twenty-two year old men love forty year old women!) who routinely hang out with and/or hook up with dudes my age (mid-20s) and younger. I feel weird hanging out with guys and then learning they just finished college - my baby sister’s in college! Too young - even though they’re way, way closer to my age than some of my friends’ ages. Perhaps someday I’ll do the whole getting married and growing old with someone thing, in which case I’d like it to last and will therefore skip the cougar phase, but for right now, I’m feeling like boys 23 and younger are off-limits, at least for the next 20 or so years of my life.

caseyculture:

I said goodbye to dealing with daily sadness and self doubt. 

I said au revoir to the idea that the current job was something I had to do, rather than what I wanted to do.

Waved buh bye to letting others control my future happiness and destiny.

Said toodaloo to frustration and a road to nowhere.

Bid adieu to a passionless career.

Said no more for an endless drowning feeling.

Peaced out from wasting ten months of my life.

Stopped waiting for things to change and finally took life by my own two hands.

I resigned from a horrible job that negatively affected every aspect of my life.

One year later, I’m the happiest girl in the world.

Note to self: Figure out how to do all of the above and get on it, like, yesterday.