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Sunday, March 24, 2013

Adventures in Singledom: The Epihany

I am at the age where I'm "supposed" to be an adult.  Right.  Tell that to my Cat in the Hat footie pajamas, of which I am wearing right now.  They even have pockets.  I know, you're jealous.  Anyway, I digress.  I'm also at the age where a very large majority of my friends are in long term relationships, married, are pregnant/having kids, or some combination of the three.  I am just about the only single person left among my group of friends, which gets really old after a while.  
Me: "Want to come hang out?" 
"Oh no thanks, we can't get a sitter." 
"Oh it's date night." 
"Oh sorry, we're having couples trivia night." 
Fine.  I wanted to sit here and watch the new season of My Little Pony on Netflix while I drink beer and crochet anyway.  Because I'm a bizarre combination of tiny child, old lady, and 20-something.  Truthfully, I'm really ok with this most days, but every so often it nags at me.  I'm running out of single friends to do things with, and the energy to even leave the house to want to do something.

I got a random text from one of my married-with-children friends last week that said, "Hey, hubs has a thing tonight, would you want to hang out?"  I of course accepted with great enthusiasm, because my social life is about as exciting as a snail race through molasses.  At some point during the evening, my friend said, "You know I'm really glad you could come over, I assumed you'd be busy."  I laughed.  Me?  Busy?  Right.  I told her, "Nah, I rarely doing anything besides work and go home."  (Sad but true)  She said, "I just always assume that single people are out doing exciting, fun things all the time."  And then the epiphany came.  Why wasn't I out doing fun, exciting, single-y things?  Besides the fact that I'm totally introverted, painfully awkward at making conversation with people I don't know, and broke as hell?  No idea.  Regardless, I mentally made the decision that I should probably start acting like the young single person I am instead of the old lady I keep (only half) jokingly telling people (and myself) that I am.  Or at the very least try to not become a crazy cat lady before I'm 30.

If nothing else, it should make for some good stories.

In true stereotypical fashion, the first thing I decided to do was sign up for a cooking class.  I'm actually super excited about it, I've been wanting to do a cooking class for forever and just never have.  The class is in three weeks, but they fill up so fast you almost have to book your spot a month in advance if you want to make it in.  This one is going to be taught by the owner of one of our local pizzerias  so I'll learn how to make dough, toss it, make sauce, etc.  I mean come on, who doesn't like pizza?  This could very well be the undoing of my 30 pound weight loss...or the start of an epic pizza diet.  Only time will tell.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Anti-Social Media

In recent years for Lent I've tried to become more creative with what I abstain from.  One year I gave up ice cream (which is huge for me...I practically live on ice cream).  One year I gave up swearing.  Last year I paid a quarter for every negative comment.  This year...I gave up Facebook and Twitter.  I had made this decision toward the beginning of the year and had actually kind of thought that it was cheating a little.  JUST giving up social media?  Is that really going to matter?  I mean, I rarely posted to either in recent months, and there were days that I'd go without checking them anyway, so it shouldn't be that hard.  Right?

Wrong.

Oh, so wrong.

The VERY FIRST thing I did on Ash Wednesday was poke the Facebook app on my phone out of habit.  To which I went, "Ah crap!  No no no!"  And as the day progressed I had to keep stifling urges to check my phone.  As it turns out, while I didn't post excessively, I DID check both compulsively.  It was like when you check the time but you don't actually see what time it is.  I was just doing it out of habit.  I also realized that had no idea where else to go on the internet.  I was finding links to other things from my social media sources.  Even with just those two site restrictions on myself, I've found that my internet use, and also my phone use, has sigificantly decreased.

Overall, it hasn't been too bad, but you don't (or I didn't) realize how much people rely on Facebook to get information out until you're not using it.  I can't even tell you how many times I've heard, "Well didn't you see it on Facebook?  I posed it today."  Or "So and so is pregnant/married/engaged/graduating!  They posted it this morning!"  Or "This super fun thing is happening today, didn't you get the invite?"  NO.  I.  DIDN'T.  Can't you just text me or call me like a normal person?  Is this really how far we've come?

Lent is 6 weeks long, and I've now got a week and a half left.  I'm not going to lie, I really miss it and am very much looking forward to catching up after Easter.  I have a handful of friends who are posting things in excess because they know I still get notifications...and they're trying to drive me slowly insane.  I just keep thinking though that I'll have SO MUCH to look forward to when I'm back.  I will say too, that although it's been a bit of a rough detox, it's made me appreciate things a little more.  I've certainly become more mindful of my time, and that is never a bad thing.  It also made me realize that I miss actually communicating with my friends.  Not just over some user interface, but on the phone, sending a card, having coffee.  My hope is that I'll become better at making "real life time" for my friends now, as well as seeing what they're up to in my news feed.

But some days, you just need a funny cat picture, you know?

Monday, March 18, 2013

And this is why I'm not allowed to watch House

As usual, I'm getting over being sick.  I've been sick with alarming frequency and with the weirdest things ever since I got this job.  My track record so far includes:

A cold roughly every three months
Chillblaines
Chicken pox
Numbness of feet
Overall poor circulation
Carpel tunnel

That's all in a year and a half.  Stupid, isn't it?

The dumbest part is that when I worked retail I was rarely, if ever, sick.  Maybe once a year.  And I was in constant contact with different people, children, dust, money...I mean it was a germ playground.  What gives?

I have gotten especially fed up today because I felt pretty good this morning when I left the house.  I could breathe out my nose, my cough was dry and faint, I seemed to be on the mend nicely.  I got to work and within 10 minutes of being here it was like someone had turned on a faucet in my face.

@)#$(#*$()#@*$!!!

Clearly, I'm allergic to work.  I have to be.  I'm not allergic to anything else.  Nothing.  Not a plant, food, or animal causes me any sort of reaction.  Pollen season?  No sweat.  House full of 7 long haired cats?  Bring it on.  Shrimp pad thai with peanut sauce?  Yum.  You get my point.

So, being me, I have come up with outrageous explaination for this ridiculousness.  *puts on House lab coat and grabs stethoscope*

You see, there are these giant water spots above my cubicle that have gone without attention:

The way I figure, those water spots have started growing mold on the side between the tiles and the roof where the ductwork is.  And not your garden-variety green mold, oh no.  Black mold.

Then, when the fans come on periodically throughout the day to circulate air* (*read: move around disease-ridden stale office air), the mold spores get blown out through this vent above my desk, roughly 10 feet from all those water spots:

So perodically throughout the day, I breathe in tiny little mold spores.  This goes on over the course of months.  The mold starts attacking my resperatory system, making me more susepable to the cold virus.  Then it spreads and starts working on my nervous system.  This causes my circulation to slow and my nerves to spasm, causing random, unrelated numbness in my legs and periodic tingling in my fingers.

Basically, I'M BEING SLOWLY POISONED BY MOLD GROWING IN THE CEILING.

This is why I stopped watching House.  And also why I was originally in theatre.  Over-dramatazation was my job, and as you can see, I'm pretty good at it.