A Table for Puff

Welcome to the world of singledom. Table for one…uno…two minus one…one plus zero…so…lo! Sure being single has its perks, but the “let’s get back into the dating pool” world totally, 100%...blows! Yesterday I was told that I’m naïve for believing that real love actually exists and that one can be in a relationship without cheating. I’m sorry, did I miss the memo that people have turned into complete dbags in the past 5 years!? Puff. So with those thoughts in my back pocket, I reluctantly accepted an offer to go “grab a drink.” Now, stop me if I’m wrong, but typically on a first date, if you’re asked by the dude, should maybe, partially be planned? Oh no, not this charmer…Not only did I have to pick the place, but I had to pick the time, what HE drank, and had to tell him what was acceptable to wear! I didn’t even have my hair dyer on before I was ready to bail. Puff.
So Prince Charming shows up in his lame Mustang…clearly an extension of what he may be ehhh hemm…lacking annnd not to mention my least favorite car of all time…. and as I’m watching this tall piece of hotness get out of his car, it happened…he grabs his red solo cup from the console and there, right in front of me…a huge, black, nasty wad of chew came spewing from his mouth into the cup! Retreattttt, Rettttreeeat!!! Oh God, it’s too late, he’s already seen me…if this dude even remotely thinks I’m kissing him goodnight he is sorely mistaken. I’ll more likely be checking to see if his lower gums are even intact! Barf! Puff.
45 minutes,17 yawns (on his part), one bud light, one glass of wine and a $13.00 tab later… I sat there wanting to morph to anywhere else but there, and finally it was over. I sat in my car for a minute and thought to myself, “Is this as good as it effing gets!?” Has dating become so casual that it’s OKAY to not expect chivalry and even some decency!?Puff. I gave said dbag a one armed hug and promptly drove home.In my quest of not settling I suddenly felt empowered and realized that no, indeed I am NOT naïve. I have every right to believe that there’s a “good one” out there for me and that the guy won’t cheat…or dip. I I curled up on my couch in my snowflake pajamas and thought to myself, that wine bar was really great, but next time, I’ll take a table for one. Depuff.

FacePuff!

Dear Facebook-
The past two years I have had a severe love/hate relationship with you. Sure, you’ve connected me with high school compadres and my third grade boyfriend who kissed me in his pool, but you have also morphed me into a jealous click happy raging lunatic. Puff. Because of you I have checked the status of the ex girlfriend of the ex boyfriend, then clicked on a picture to read the comments, only to click on the name of the ex boyfriends sister to find out her profile is private (Damn it!). Because of you I have wasted precious work time perusing pictures of my seventh grade friend’s ugly baby, all because it’s better than an Excel spreadsheet. Puff. You have made the phrase, "I face book stalked you" an everyday thing...I mean all you need is an e-mail address or a location and BAM!Puff.
And Facebook, here’s a little piece of advice…how about you don’t suggest my ex-husband and ex-boyfriends as people I “May Know.” Yeah, facebook, I know em…I’ve effing seeing them NAKED! I’ve been their facebook official girlfriend, been deleted and been blocked…SO NO FACEBOOK, I DO NOT WANT TO ADD THEM AS MY FRIEND SO EFF OFF!!!Puff. You have invaded my otherwise peaceful existence with a tagged picture of one friend who is friends with an ex and then there… on my home page is my ex…happy, half naked and smoking with some fat chick on his arm. No thanks. DELETED. Puff.
You have made me make life decisions about who should realllly be on my friends list…I mean, does my “friends” list mean I’m friends with these people, cause if it does, I’ve been a horrible friend because frankly facebook I barely talk to any of them!Puff. You have made me question my own life by showing me everyone I graduated with and their sweet little babies…and then there’s me…divorced and babyless. If only I could live in my own little single world without babies and houses and perfect little lives invading my bitter existence.Puff.
Yes facebook, you are my, and the rest of the worlds guilty pleasure and I love you for showing me how fat my middle school bully is now (haha suck it meany!). I adore you for keeping me busy at the doctor’s office and for making my blackberry’s little red crackberry light go off when no one is a textin, but facebook…you bitch…get your effing act together!!!! Depuff.
Love, me and my awesome click happy girlfriends

The art of Puff.

“This is MY party…MY house and MY birthday!!!!! I just want to screammmmmmm!!!!!”
Last weekend I was hired to be the nanny for an 8 year old girls slumber party…and the above statement..is what I witnessed. This tiny girl threw a temper tantrum so gargantuan that I thought she was about to morph into the Incredible Hulk and take down everything in her path.
At first, I watched in disgust as this little girl screamed and sobbed at her own surprise birthday party. Puff. Some of her friends, who of course were cheerleaders (side note-if I were 8, these girls would have been my worst enemies!) continued to do Russians and splits on one side of the room, while her other friends watched in horror as the birthday princess had a complete effing meltdown….and I…found myself being jealous. Puff.
When we’re eight we are completely entitled to a meltdown…a temper tantrum if you will. It’s like she got a “get out of life” free card just because she was eight. Granted, her issues were slightly less trivial than mine…if she got the flower frosting on her cake, and who was going to be lucky enough to sleep next to the birthday girl. But it made me think…wouldn’t it be nice if we, as twenty or thirty somethings, were entitled to a temper tantrum!!?? Puff.
The whole concept of being a puffer is that we hold things in until we can no longer stand it, and we puff. But how great would it be if we could scream “BUT this is MY life! And I want HIM!!!!” about the boy who we liked and didn’t like us back. Or, if we aren’t being paid enough…we could walk into our bosses office, tears running down our face, cheeks red, and yell, “BUT I’M NOT GETTING PAID ENOUGH! GIVE ME MORE MONEY! NOWWWWWWWW!” Even writing that is therapeutic. Puff.
As adults, we are supposed to be poised and graceful. We handle rejection in the solitude of a bathroom stall or in the car listening to Sarah Bareilles. We are certainly not entitiled to have a meltdown the instant we hear something disappointing to us. Puff.
Birthday girl’s meltdown lasted a good ten minutes…and by the end of it all, she was left with tear stained cheeks, a piece of cookie cake…and in time out.
Would it be worth having a time out if we could just have a little temper tantrum once in a while? I left the next morning and practiced in my car…and it felt damn good. Depuff.

Here's to Hope.

Hope. There’s a little part of us that yearns for the type of love that shakes us to the core…the type of love that is dangerous, witty, affectionate, sexy, compassionate, funny , honest and warm. If love is what we hope for, is the grass always greener on the other side once we’ve found it?…Or does it mean that we haven’t even found our great love in the first place? Puff.
Sure, being single has its perks. You’re free to leave the kitchen cabinet open as long as you please and if you want to use the softest toilet paper on the market because it feels good on your toosh…you can do that too. But at night, we are are all alone with our thoughts, regardless of who is next to us (or not next to us) in our bed. We are left with the thought that this…is…my….life. Puff. And then you wonder, “Am I settling? Is there something better out there?” In my case, I’ve dubbed myself the “runaway.”Does this mean that I’m scared of commitment? No. Does it mean that the next poor fella that decides to date me is destined for a dramatic departure from yours truly…No. It mean that I refuse to settle. Puff.
I want to smile and laugh. I want to look across the room at a Christmas party and say, “God I love that man.” And so far, that has not happened for me. I’ve loved, and I’ve been loved, but have not been so in love that I can’t picture my life without the other person. Puff. Perhaps I’m destined to be a cat lady and devote my time to charities and feeding local strays. Puff.
And how, how do we keep ourselves from being attracted to the same type of person? My nail lady said in her Vietnamese accent, “Go fo geeky. Geeky good. Hot no good. Hot man hurt you. Geeky man tweat you like preencess.” Her name is Jenny and I adore her. Is that the truth? Do we have to completely change what we “look” for!? Some of us are addicted to musicians... A LOT of us are attracted to the guy we can fix (those are fun! Ugh!)…so how do we STOP ourselves from being drawn to them like sad little magnets? Puff.
For now, though, in the midst of my recent singledom, the only thing I will settle for is chocolate chip over peanut butter or Mexican over Thai. And maybe, just maybe, hope will follow through. Depuff.

Puffer Fish Unite!

Once upon a time in a little place called friendship, girlfriends were created, and they are quickly taking over the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s of the world. “I knew you would come back here after talking to your girlfriends and feel all high and mighty. They probably told you ‘you can do it! Don’t settle!,’ and you listened.” This…was actually said to me. Puff. Often, our boyfriends, husbands, whatever…think that we don’t have a mind of our own and that we are all Sex in the City clones who are attached at the hip and can’t even wipe without our girlfriends present. Talk about misunderstood! Puff.
Sweet little ignorant boys (they’re all boys until proven otherwise)… not only do we have minds of our own, but often times, we are lucky enough to find a gal, or a handful of gals who are just as sassy…just as smart and just as outspoken as us and that…intimidates…the shit…out of you. Puff.We can drink a bottle of wine and dance around to Britney Spears in our undies and laugh. And then, we can encourage the amazing women that are our friends to look in the mirror and see what we see, and to never settle for anyone who doesn’t see that. Puff.
“I don’t even like your friends and I don’t care if they like me.” A tell tale sign that said boy in question is not right for you. You see, women may seek their opposites in a mate, but when it comes to girlfriends, we seek a kindred spirit. We look for ourselves in a friend. We look for someone who will bring us up when we are down, someone who will make us laugh when our cheeks are mascara stained and someone who will find a bathroom for you when you reallllly have to go. We look…for our soulmates. Boys will come and go, but a friend is a soulmate who comes into your life, sometimes just for a season, and always makes us appreciate who we are and why we do what we do.
So in the end, my response to the beginning statement of this puff…my response to the boy who “ACCUSED” me of listening to my friends…my response was “You bet your ass I listened to them!” Depuff.
…For my soulmates

Puffy Gut

In life we’re told to “listen to your gut.” I listen to my gut when I want Mexican food or when a brownie sundae is calling my name, but I have severe issues with listening to my gut gut…the gut, the whisper inside of you that says, “Wooohoo, helllllew, this is wrong!Abandon ship!” That gut…Puff. I’m finding it hard to believe that there is someone for everyone and if there is, I just get skipped right on by by Cupid, and get crapped on by the dysfunctional relationship gods. Call this a pity puff, but damn you gut, why!!??? Puff.
There are times in a relationship where you say to yourself, RED LIGHT, RED EFFING LIGHT, but you pass it off as a “flaw” in their personality and justify it because you love them. Is someone supposed to change for the other person, is that what makes relationships work? Should you have to alter your thoughts and chameleonize yourself just so you can say, “So and So and I believe that…?” So you can be a couple…a union, who believes and feels the same things. No thanks. Puff. And herein lies the problem, you can’t just go around dumping people just because they do something you don’t like. It’s about learning from them and appreciating them for who they are, and you take the good and that bad. But once again, you have GOT to listen to your gut. Puff.
Someone once said to me, “You’ll know as soon as you make your decision if it’s the right one.” The relief that comes with reclaiming your independence and your singlehood is bittersweet. In general, it’s a miserable experience, but if you’ve listened to your gut, and the bastard said, “Time to say sianara sistah!,” then you know you’ve made the right choice. And then, if you’re anything like me, you feel like thee most douchetastic bitch on earth for actually being honest with yourself and the person you love. Puff.
In the end, it is YOU that matters. It is the girl who still listens to New Kids on the Block, the girl who shares ice cream with her dog and the girl who can’t help but go with her gut…it’s that girl that matters. Ship Abandoned.Depuff.

A Puff for the Dumped.

A waste of time? “Seven years, four months and three days down the effing tubes.” The common response to the perfect, or so you thought, relationship that just blew up like grenade right..in front…of your face. Puff. Does it happen in a day, a month, a year maybe? When does the dumper decide.. “I’m done.” And the more disturbing question, how long do they wait until they actually get the balls to tell you how they feel? I think we’ve all been in both scenarios and it sucks either way, but man does it craptastically suck when you are the one being dumped. Puff.
When do you become strangers…roommates even, and when do you go from being IN love to just loving the other person? Did our grandparents, who were married for sixty years to each other…were they REALLY in love for the ENTIRE time, and if so, where the hell do I sign up for that!? Puff. Whether you’re the dumper or the dumpee, ending a relationship is never easy. It takes two to effing tango and If you’re the only one dancing…and you’re dancing in circles around the other person…it WILL NOT work. There’s a fine line between wanting to make a relationship work and letting yourself be walked all over like a freshly mowed lawn. Puff.
Granted, every day in a relationship is not filled with puppies and buttercups, but for the love of all things LOVE, can it at least be at least be a little fabulous.!? Puff. Sometimes, you don’t think about happiness in relationships until you’re sitting at a restaurant…looking at all of the couples around and you think to yourself, “Hmmm, they’re actually talking…having a full out conversation about something.!” There’s laughing and flirting, and touching and loving, and all you’ve got is a half eaten bowl of salsa and simultaneous facebooking at your table. Puff.
Often we mistake our reaction to their reaction as our own emotion. You dump them, they cry, you take them back because you think it’s the right move, but really, you just…feel bad…for them. And don’t forget, you love them…but you’re not in love with them. And by the way, hearing that statement come out of anyone’s mouth is like taking a bullet. A big fat “YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH” bullet. Puff. You break up, you cry until you can’t cry anymore and eventually you stop crying.
The point is, we HAVE to make ourselves happy. And whether you’re the dumper or the dumpee, it just means that that relationship just wasn’t the one for you…and you’ll be ok.Depuff.
For BT