Of Boobs and Boos

My school offers a "class" called Teacher's Assistant, open only to members of the Future Educators of America. In theory, each future educator is paired up with a current educator to experience what it's really like to be a teacher before he or she is stupid enough to actually join the profession (we kid because we love). In practice though, most of the future educators weren't ever all that interested in becoming teachers in the first place -- they just run a lot of photocopies and grade a lot of quizzes.

I know you're waiting for the part of the post where I talk about boobs, but I mention all this first because the boobs in questions are my TA's boobs, and if I just started off the post by saying, "My TA. . ." you'd probably think, "Wait. She has a TA?" and then you'd be focused on that instead of the boobs. Right? Totally.

So. . .

My TA is a ditzy but incredibly sweet girl who I taught last year. We have a good relationship -- friendly but not unprofessional. She showed up unexpectedly at the end of my 6th period class today because she'd just checked into school and she didn't feel like going to the last few minutes of her own 6th period, which is fine. As I chatted with her I noticed that she was sporting rather a lot of cleavage for a Tuesday afternoon and I said, "Hey, what's up with your boobs hanging out all over the place?" in a very you're-totally-violating-the-dresscode-but-far-be-it-from-me-to-enforce-the-man's-rules kind of way. She glanced down at her chest, smiled, and said, "My boo's in my next class."

Right. Of course. So what I perceived as a minor wardrobe mishap was actually a calculated and deliberate display of boob-age for the 8th period ogling pleasure of her boyfriend. And I bet if she hadn't had class with him she wouldn't have even bothered to check into school for the last class of the day. Brazen little hussy.

I wish I could say I was above such behavior in high school, but I wasn't. And while I never rocked the cleavage (mostly because I didn't -- okay, DON'T -- have any cleavage to rock), I definitely considered the presence of certain boys in class when selecting my outfits. Hell, I once even called my mom from school and faked sick when I discovered my crush wasn't at school for like the third day in a row.

I guess there's a brazen little hussy in each of us. And we don't quite grow out of it either.

I'd be stupid to deny that every girl's boo enjoys a little cleavage, but I also know that MY boo doesn't really give a rat's ass what I wear. If you think that prevented me from agonizing about what to pack for Chicago, you were obviously lucky enough not to have had to talk to me in the weeks preceding that trip.

On the other hand, I once wore the HELL out of a hoodie my then-boyfriend had made it clear he didn't "particularly care for," just to assert my independence, so I don't know. I mean, I want my boo to ogle me a little bit, but mostly because he likes ME and not my outfits. Is that so much to ask?

Outed

So. Remember the other day when I said I was falling for a guy who lives in a galaxy far, far away? I'm sure y'all assumed that the guy in question was Obi-Wan Kenobi or maybe an ewok or something, but the truth is that while this guy is just as wise as Obi-Wan, he is WAY cuter than even the cutest of ewoks.

And you might as well know -- hell, most of you already do -- that my guy is not just any guy but Some Guy. Who rocks.

When Chris/Some Guy and I first started falling for each other (which was way back in November, if you must know), we agreed to keep it to ourselves. Or, more accurately, we decided to share that news only in meatspace because, well, there are some things y'all just do not need to know. But we're smitten and giddy, and we couldn't help but allude to our giddy smitten-ness* in posts like this and this and this and, um, this. Then there was all that Chicago canoodling, which ultimately led to our being outed. And that's fine. Our readers are not retarded; we knew you'd figure it out eventually.

So there you go, now it's official. But if you're hoping for YouTube videos of intimate moments, it ain't gonna happen. You'll have to settle for that one of Chris doing something (I have no idea what -- I've got dial-up) with snow.

*not a real word

I Lack Direction

Shortly after I moved to Norfolk from the DC suburbs two years ago, I announced that I was never moving again. I've moved a lot and it sucks -- the packing, the U-Haul, the carrying hundreds of boxes of books up multiple flights of stairs, the unpacking, the settling in. . .ugh. Sure, I thought I might someday move out of my apartment into an actual house, but as a military brat, I really like the idea of roots -- of being FROM somewhere. And I love Norfolk, so I decided I would live here forever and ever and ever.

The trouble is that I hate my school and I don't plan to work there once this school year is over. I could go work in some other school district, but that would mean driving out to the suburbs every day, and a big part of why I moved to Norfolk in the first place was because I didn't want to teach (or live) in the suburbs.

And despite the fact that I have long thought of teaching as my true calling, every day I spend at my current school is a day I grow less sure I even want to be a teacher at all. I'm a powerful literacy, Socratic seminar, inquiry-based instruction girl in a standards-based, data-driven instruction, high stakes testing world, and I don't think this NCLB accountability bullshit is going away any time soon. So I keep debating whether I should continue working within a fucked up system to try to do what good I can, or whether I'd be doing more good by refusing to be a part of a system that's completely fucked.

Actually, that dilemma -- now that I see it on virtual paper -- is pretty much a no-brainer for me: there are few things I am more passionate about than the importance of public education, so I just don't see myself getting out of teaching. That would be like moving to Canada and letting right-wing Republicans take over my country. But I'm tired and burned-out and I think I need a break. I just don't know what to do with my break, and I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't a teacher.

I also have no idea where I might like to live, and to complicate matters I seem to be falling -- and falling hard -- for a man who lives in a galaxy far, far away.

So, for perhaps the first time in my life -- certainly for the first time in my ADULT life -- I find myself completely without a plan. I am not a spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl. I ALWAYS have a plan, and the thought of winging it freaks me out a little. I have never ended a school year without knowing what I'm doing A) for the summer and B) for the following school year, and this is the sort of shit I tend to start thinking about in January or so.

In three months I'll have to renew my lease, and in five months I'll have to sign a contract for the 07-08 school year. But you know what? I don't think I want to do either of those things. I think come June I might just put all my worldy possessions in storage, travel to the galaxy far far away, find some indie bookstore job, and see what happens.

No doubt the universe will unfold as it should. Right?

MySpace, Revisited

My students, as you may recall, like to make fun of me for A) having a cat, B) not having a MySpace, and C) thinking reading's cool. One class in particular makes daily jokes about my presumed status as a crazy cat lady, and has even gone so far as to decorate the class tissue box with cat-related grafitti.

This morning we had the following conversation while cramming for an impending quiz:

Kid 1: What'd you do this weekend? Read?

(collective laughter)

Me: Um, I read the newspaper. And some websites.

Kid 2: Like what?

Me: Oh, I was all UP in some MySpace this weekend!

Kid 1: You on MySpace now?

Me: No. I was kidding.

Kid 2: You need to get a MySpace!

Me: (for like the eighty-twelfth time) Why?

Kids 1, 3, 4, 5, & 6: So you can meet a man!

Kid 2: (quietly) Instead of a cat.

(collective laughter)

Me: Maybe I already met a man. Did you ever think of that?

Class: Whoa! DID you already meet a man?!

Me: I'm just sayin' it's a possibility.

Kid 1: See, if you were on MySpace everybody would KNOW you met a man.

Me: How would they know?

Kid 2: 'Cause you'd have pictures up there of you, like, kissin' him and stuff.

Actually, I wouldn't. Here, however, is a picture of me kissing my cat.

Admittedly, a man would probably be a bit more receptive to my kisses. But I'd have to feed him more often.

The Crush Chronicles

Shortly before Thanksgiving, WonderTurtle tagged me to write about my childhood crushes, which I'm just now getting around to doing, having been fairly preoccupied with a certain adulthood crush.

Although WonderTurtle and Coaster Punchman both remember having crushes as early as the age of four, my first memorable crush was on Jon Black in the fifth grade. Jon Black was a short blonde boy who lived next door to me. We attended some sort of after-school recreation program together which, as I recall, mostly involved eating mentos, playing on the playground, and -- if you had a boyfriend -- kissing him behind the portables. As it turned out, Jon Black had a crush on me too, and he asked me if I wanted to go out with him. Of course I wanted to go out with him, but I was also the world's biggest goodie goodie so I told him I'd have to ask my mom first. "Where are you gonna go?" inquired my mom. "No, Mom, we're not gonna GO anywhere. He's just gonna, like, be my boyfriend" I tried to explain. "Your boyfriend?!" said my mom, "You're ten. You're not allowed to date until you're 16." Which is pretty much what I told Jon Black while my younger sister, to whom it never would have occurred to ask permission, looked on shaking her head and rolling her eyes at my stupidity. I've often wondered whether my mom's answer would have been different had the favorite pastime of Jon Black's four older brothers not been shooting our dog, but I have never repeated the mistake of sharing the details of my love life with her.

In the sixth grade there was David Kerr, who my friends called "chipmunk cheeks." I have no idea what I liked about David Kerr except, perhaps, that his name was David. (It became apparent later in life that I had a thing for Davids.) But in the sixth grade I liked David Kerr so much that I went to school on days I would have ordinarily faked sick. I often pretended to be sick so that I wouldn't have to go to school, not because I didn't like school but because I didn't like waking up. My mom's rule was that if you didn't go to school, you didn't get to do anything AFTER school -- a reasonably good way to determine whether you were faking or not. On one particular Friday that I'd decided to fake sick my mom reminded me of A) the rule and B) the 5th and 6th grade roller skating party that night. After considerable internal debate I decided to go to school so that I could go to the roller skating party where, for sure, David Kerr would ask me to skate with him. He didn't.

In the eighth grade I fell for Jeff, whose wardrobe consisted entirely of Polo and who NEVER did his Latin homework. I was enamored of Jeff for all of eighth and ninth grade and into the beginning of tenth, until I learned that my best friend had gone to the mall with him -- even though she knew I liked him (!), at which point I (temporarily) stopped speaking to both of them. To be fair to her, my best friend only went to the mall with Jeff to make HIS best friend jealous and they (my best friend and Jeff's best friend) are now happily married.

Somewhere in here, although I'm not sure where, was a summer crush on Dave Kelley (see? another David). Dave was an out-of-town friend of my sister's boyfriend Ryan, and his family spent a couple weeks visiting Ryan's family at the beach. Dave was tall and goofy and nice. We sat around at bonfires and went for walks on the beach (ha!) and I think he might have even held my hand. His mom told my mom that he'd gotten some Garfield stationery so that he could write me letters when he went home. I don't think he ever did.

In the tenth grade there was Mike Elkins. *sigh* Mike had long black hair (not black like mine, which is actually dark brown, but black like "quoth the raven 'nevermore'"), painted black fingernails, and approximately three outfits: jeans and a Jane's Addiction t-shirt, jeans and a Danzig t-shirt, and jeans and a Screaming Trees t-shirt. He thought school was pointless and refused to dress out for PE, choosing instead to sit quietly on the gym floor reading Steinbeck or Hemingway or Sylvia Plath and talking to me about politics and religion. As much as it's possible to love someone when you're 15, I loved Mike Elkins.

My junior year in high school I moved from Virginia Beach to the suburbs of DC and developed a crush on Bryce (collective groan), who was also new to school. Bryce was bad. I say that now with a great deal of hindsight, but even then Bryce was bad. My eleventh grade crush on Bryce faded when he got arrested for grand larceny (because, really, a girl's gotta draw the line somewhere), but returned in the twelfth grade after we played Trivial Pursuit together and he asked me to marry him when I correctly answered a question about acetylsalicylic acid (ah, dork love). Bryce and I spent most of our senior year hanging out but not actually dating, due in no small part to a probably-true rumor that he'd bet his best friend he could sleep with me before graduation. A bet he lost, by the way -- I was 17 and saving myself for true love.

I have, like, three more Daves to go, but we're beyond a crushes now so I'm stopping. Anybody else wanna play? Meaghan? Lulu? Chris? Flannery? Big Orange? It's fun. You know, until you're 15 or so.

Single And Lookin'?

Forget Match.com and eHarmony! Sean Hannity -- everyone's second-favorite Fox "News" personality -- offers an online dating service, Hannidate, the place where people of like conservative minds can come together to meet. Now certain bloggers who are always bitching about how hard it is to meet cool women really have no excuse.

I, however, doubt I'll meet anyone on Hannidate, as there are exactly zero men between the ages of 18 and 80 seeking women within a 100 mile radius of my zipcode.

And they say Virginia's a red state.

The Secret Word Of The Day

You know what word doesn't get used nearly often enough? Smitten.

Things I Am Not Allowed To Discuss On A First Date

About a year ago I was preparing to go on a first date -- not just any first date but my FIRST first date since leaving my fiancé a year earlier. Sure, rebound boy DH and I had gone out drinking together a number of times after the big break-up, but we never had anything to eat so I don't think any of those encounters actually counts as a real date. Anyway, it was a first date, so naturally I was nervous, particularly because I suck at making small talk.

My friend Eileen is no stranger to first dates -- she rather enjoys them, in fact -- and the task of calming me down fell to her. It went a little something like this:

Eileen: What are you gonna wear?

Me: Um, jeans?

Eileen: That works. Do you have dressy jeans?

Me: Doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose of jeans?

Eileen: Okay, so just your regular jeans. With a cute top, like a going out top.

Me: Have you ever seen me in anything that even remotely resembles a going out top?

Eileen: You know what, just wear something red. You look good in red. Or pink.

Me: Oooh, I have cute brown mocassins with a pink bow on them.

Eileen: Perfect.

Me: Okay, but what are we gonna TALK about?

Eileen: Well, I can tell you what you're NOT gonna talk about.

And then she made me a list of things I am not allowed to discuss on a first date, presumably for my own good.

I mention all this because I just discovered that list still hanging on my fridge. It reads:

Things Megan is not Allowed to Discuss on a First Date

• President Bush
• J.Crew
• logging
• the Bill of Rights
• the Supreme Court
• the Bill of Rights as interpreted by the Supreme Court (and definitely do not mention the 5th grade Sandra Day O'Connor Halloween costume!)
• sports (because you suck at that)
• religion
• the war in Iraq
• TV
• land use (see logging)
• Wal-Mart

You know, all the things I like to talk about. Well, except for sports -- I definitely do suck at that.

Your Internet Or Mine?

This afternoon I came home early from school -- well, earlier than normal for me. I walked into my building and found my downstairs neighbor sitting on his couch watching TV with his door wide open. “Uh, hey,” I said, passing by as if this sort of thing were perfectly normal. And maybe it is. I mean, I’m rarely there in the middle of the day, maybe this is just how shit goes down. I already know the dude has issues with doors.

Anyway, I managed to unlock my apartment while juggling bags of groceries and had just greeted the kitty when I heard my neighbor’s voice behind me. “Would you mind if I used your internet?” he asked frantically. And despite the fact that I’d just walked in the fucking door, despite the fact that I have dial-up and using “my internet” is a chore even for me, despite the fact that I often see him hanging out at the coffee shop around the corner where there’s complimentary high-speed internet access, despite the fact that this guy occasionally knocks on my door to frantically ask if he can use my phone and then proceeds to sit around my apartment for 20 minutes at a time casually chatting with his friends and making plans to meet up with them later, I figured this must be some sort of internet emergency, so in he came.

“I signed up for match.com,” he explained with his characteristic sense of urgency, pulling up the website on my internet. “I’ve been emailing with this guy. Look, he’s really cute,” he said, calling me over. The guy didn’t strike me as particularly cute or un-cute, but I did note that he’s 47 whereas my neighbor is a twenties-ish college student.

Plus match.com?! THIS is the fucking internet emergency? I mean, I guess I can sort of get that. There’s a strong possibility that I’d go out of my mind if I couldn’t check my email every few hours, but I don’t know that I’d go so far as to stalk my neighbors in the hopes of sustaining a budding internet romance.

As almost anyone will tell you, the internet is a sketchy place to meet men. You're supposed to meet them at places like the grocery or the laundromat, which is why I was home from work early in the first place. (To do laundry, not to meet men.) Although my parents have a friend who met his wife at the very laundromat I patronize, there is about a 0% chance that I will meet the love of my life while doing laundry. My laundromat is frequented almost exclusively by men who are either A) gay or B) in the Navy, neither of which are really my type.

Today’s crowd was no exception. In fact, today’s laundry outing was fairly uneventful save the brief but terrifying moment of panic I experienced when I removed my long-time favorite pants -- pants I wore last week and wondered what the hell I was thinking when I decided not to buy them in every color they came in -- from the dryer and noticed that the care instructions directed me not to tumble dry them.

Don’t worry. They’re fine. And it's a good thing, too. I guaran-damn-tee you it'd be a lot easier to find a man than it would be to replace those pants.

So I Didn't Call An Ax Murderer

Remember last month when my hairdresser called me and wanted me to go out with some random guy whose hair she'd cut? Remember how I decided not to what with the possibility of his being an ax murderer or whatever?

So today I went in to get my hair done and the first thing my hairdresser said to me was not her usual, "Are we doing the same thing?" (PS, I think my hairdresser would about DIE if I answered no at this point. Change is SO not my thing.) but, "Did you call that guy?" I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about. "What guy?" I asked innocently, as if I couldn't possibly be expected to keep track of all the guys I'm supposed to be calling.

"Un-fucking-believable!" she responded. And then she proceeded to lecture me about how cute and nice and smart and just generally wonderful the guy was until the OTHER hairdresser appeared and said, "You suck. I'd have gone out with him if I was single. He was cute!" "What the hell do you two know?" I asked, "the guy could have been an ax murderer." "He was NOT an ax murderer!" they shouted in unison. And then they started in again on how awesome he was.

Now, ordinarily you would not want a woman who is angry with you to be cutting your hair. My hairdresser, however, is quite adept at giving you a kick-ass haircut while berating you for not calling a guy who may or may not have been an ax murderer.

And the more she went on the more I felt bad for not calling him. Not so much because I really felt like I'd missed out on a great guy, but because, let's face it, refusing to go out with random strangers on the off chance that they may be ax murderers -- or, worse, Republicans -- is no way to find true love.

"That could have been your future husband," my hairdresser admonished as I rolled my eyes and made for the door, "and he seemed like the kind of guy who'd be good in bed, too."

But not, apparently, like the kind of guy who would hack you up into little bits afterwards.

23 Out Of 187 Ain't Bad

We got a new little gift/humor book into the bookstore the other day: 187 Men To Avoid, which tells you about, um, 187 kinds of men you should avoid. Below are 23 of them I have, sadly, not managed to avoid.

Men who live with their mothers.

Men who insist on ordering for you.

Men who say, "Have a good one."

Men who play Nintendo.

Men who don't wear underwear.

Men who stir-fry.

Men with "issues."

Men who drink generic beer.

Men who "just want to be friends."

Men who say the last thing they want to do is hurt you.

Men who pretend they know what they're doing when they smell the cork.

Men who eat breakfast cereal for dinner.

Men who know more than 10 slang words for breasts.

Men who believe the McDonald's McLean is health food.

Men with vanity plates like BMW4DAN or OKGUY.

Men who bring their telephones to dinner.

Men who keep a condom in their wallet. . .just in case.

Men who watch the pre-game show.

Men with car stereos worth more than their cars.

Men who are too cool to dance.

Men who own dogs that are smaller than cats.

Men who won't eat quiche.

Men who wash their cars more than once a week.

Some of the above are men I don't necessarily think need to be avoided. Take the stir-fry guy, for example. I enjoy a good stir-fry, all the more if someone else has made it for me. Eating breakfast for dinner? What's so wrong with that? And some men do know what they're doing when they smell the cork. Of course, those men are to be avoided as well.

Some men are not included in the 187 Men to Avoid book but should be:

Men who are rude to wait staff, especially if this rudeness involves snapping.

Men who take longer to get ready than you do.

Men with a confederate flag anything.

Men who take themselves too seriously to laugh.

Men who drive a Hummer.

Feel free to add your own men to avoid to the list.

Update 08.17.06: Oh, and by the way, this book is by Dan Brown. Yes, that Dan Brown. The guy who wrote the god-awful Da Vinci Code. Apparently before he made it big, he wrote tongue-in-cheek self-help books for women under the psuedonym Danielle Brown. In which case, let's add:

Men who pretend to be women.

Men who write crappy books.

Rethinking The List

Two years ago, when I was in the process of calling off my wedding, I briefly saw a therapist. I was raised Catholic and have some, shall we say, guilt issues. Add my standard-issue guilt to the fact that my fiancé's only job was a part-time internship, that his cancer was kept in remission by a drug that retailed at $1500 a month, and that his health coverage was scheduled to expire shortly before we were scheduled to get married, and you come up with a girl in serious need of therapy.

To help me sort things out, my therapist encouraged me to make a list of qualities I required in a significant other along with a list of qualities I wouldn't accept. Friends later reported that this is basically the first step in eHarmony dating but I, despite my penchant for list making, had never really thought of it before. I loved the idea, and it totally saved my mental health. I was able to look at my list, determine that my fiancé was lacking several of my must-haves but totally cleaning up in the dealbreakers department, and get on with my life. Magic.

I thought this list thing was like the greatest thing ever. Love, quantified. I talked it up to my single friends, insisting I never would have gotten myself into this mess if I'd had the list before, raving about how everyone should do this and jotting down my girlfriends' lists on cocktail napkins at bars as I quizzed them about their dealbreakers.

Although I haven't had much luck in love over the last two years, I hadn’t considered reevaluating my position on the list itself until this weekend.

Take, for instance, this must-have from my list: similar religious and political beliefs. Seems reasonable, but what good is it really doing me? Not much, as last night’s conversation with my sister and her (relatively) new boyfriend revealed.

Mark: So let's say you were dating a guy who was absolutely perfect in every way and then you found out he drove an SUV?

Me: Um, what kind of SUV?

Laura: A Hummer.

Me: No way. He's done.

Mark: What about a Tahoe?

Me: Hmmmmm. Is it an old Tahoe he's had since before he started to care about the planet or did he just buy it?

Mark: It's brand new.

Me: Yeah, I don't think so. That's pretty environmentally irresponsible.

Mark: What about a Trail Blazer?

Me: I could maybe see my way clear to a Trail Blazer.

Laura: What if he drove a new Tahoe but he worked for a dog rescue organization and he needed the SUV to haul the sick doggies around?

Me: Shit.

So I'm starting to think this list thing is kind of silly.

Plus, the list can't account for all sorts of case-by-case issues. Take my sister, for example. Three months ago she called to tell me about a guy (Mark) she’d gone out with a few times. She listed a bunch of cool things about him and then said, “The only thing is he’s divorced and has two kids. Do I really want to get mixed up in all that?” “Um, no. Absolutely not,” I replied without even really thinking.

But she -- to her credit -- did get mixed up in all that, and now she’s dating the most awesome guy she’s ever dated and is happier than I’ve seen her in at least ten years. And his kids are awesome too -- they even like Shark Week!

Lucky for my sister she didn’t listen to me and my stupid list philosophy. Because, let’s face it, the list is stupid. It’s a good starting point, frame of reference, rough sketch, roadmap. . .whatever you want to call it. But the idea of accurately describing your elusive soulmate on paper, of quantifying love and somehow getting it right, of a Chevy Tahoe as a dealbreaker is HOLY FUCKING STUPID BATMAN.

So the list, in all its rationality, takes the backseat to intuition from here on out. Who knows, maybe that Republican with the hunting license and the slight cocaine habit and the taking really good care of me was the one after all.

Just to be clear, though, a Hummer’s still a dealbreaker.

Message From My Hairdresser

When I got home from work today I had a message on my machine from my hairdresser:

Hey Megan, this is Terri from Complements. Listen, give me a call when you get in, or, om, call me at home at [her phone number]. I got this gun lighter [?!] here for a week and I think you should hook up wit him, have a drink. Just give me a call back. Bye.

So the next time anyone wants to give me shit about driving an hour and a half in the off-season to get my hair done, I can remind them that my hairdresser is a hell of a lot cooler than the average hairdresser who merely cuts your hair.

And if anyone knows what a gun lighter is, please enlighten me.

Update 07.20.06: I listened the message again (sober) and it turns out my hairdresser didn't say anything about a "gun lighter." What she said was "I got this guuuuuuuuy that's here for a week. . ." My hairdresser's from The North -- sometimes I can't understand her. More importantly, the guuuuuuuuy is not a house-guest or even someone she knows. He's just a guy who came in to get his hair cut who she thought was cute. When he asked what there was to do around here, she suggested she had the perfect girl to show him the town and called me. However, in trying to sell him to me, she mentioned that he was "very corporate America," so obviously I won't be calling him. Plus he might be a serial killer who just happens to enjoy a good haircut.

No Boys Allowed

Technically, boys ARE allowed, I just don't think they'll find much of interest here today. Also, boy or girl, if you're looking for something funny or political or both, check back next week. This one's serious. And long.

Yesterday I worked with Kate, a recent high school graduate who will be attending NYU in the Fall. She was telling me about how she got a Facebook and has already started meeting other people who'll be attending NYU. "Wait, what's a Facebook?," I interrupted. She tried to explain it to me. "Oh, so it's like a MySpace?" "Sort of, but for colleges," she said and kept explaining. "OH, so it's like a Friendster?" "What's a Friendster?," Kate asked.

Kids these days.

So Kate got online and went to Friendster, which didn't help much since we couldn't see any Friendsters. I never got into Friendster, nor did anyone else I've ever known except my ex-fiancé and his group of friends(ters).

I typed in the ex's name for Kate. His Friendster profile came up. Kate looked at it and said, "Yeah, that's pretty much like Facebook." (why she couldn't have just shown me her Facebook and saved us all that trouble is beyond me) Then Kate asked, "Your ex-fiancé has a friend named Osama bin Megan?" and the next thing I knew we were looking at this.

For those who don't feel like clicking on it, in a nutshell, it's a fake profile of me that my ex-fiancé created. And it's not nice.

I showed it to my friend Meaghan this morning. She read it, saying "oh my god" every few seconds and glancing at me to see if I was okay (I was). "He called you a shrew," she said, amazed. "And a bitch," she continued, shaking her head. "Don't forget harpy," I added. "Wow," said Meaghan finally, "I'm surprised."

The funny thing is, as I explained to Meaghan, I'm not surprised by it. Hurt, yes (even two years after the fact). Surprised, no. Meaghan was surprised that I wasn't surprised. "It's typical," I sighed, "I would never have said it then, but on some level I knew my fiancé was emotionally abusive." Meaghan sighed too. "God, I hear ya, girl," she replied.

Meaghan and I worked together almost every day the summer before I was supposed to get married. Simply by virtue of spending so much time with me, Meaghan was probably the only person as clued-in to my emotional state that summer as my guardian angel Dave (although I never sat in her living room and contemplated taking my engagement ring off and throwing it across the room, as I once did in Dave's). Shortly after I called off my wedding, Meaghan initiated a separation from her husband, who she described today as "a drunken bastard." We talked about our similar experiences, and what I think is a fairly common experience among women, maybe men too.

"It scares me sometimes what we put up with in relationships and never even mention to our friends."

"We don't mention it because we know deep down we shouldn't be putting up with it."

"And maybe we're afraid our friends will tell us something we're not ready to hear yet. "

"Emotional abuse isn't physical abuse, but GOD it sucks."

"I remember feeling frantic when he'd get like that. Not frantic for my safety, but frantic about placating him so that he would stop screaming and saying horrible things."

"I remember cringing, mentally curling up into a little ball, and thinking 'if I don't say anything or do anything or even look at him, he'll stop. He'll have to.'"

"Why didn't we talk about that? We were going through basically the same thing at basically the same time and we never said a word."

"What could we have said to each other that would have made us get out?"

"How does this happen? I mean, we're two fairly intelligent, independent women who don't need a man around to make us happy. What the hell?"

Meaghan and I couldn't come up with an answer to that question (plus we were supposed to be working), but we did agree it wasn't a question unique to us. In fact, I know exactly zero women who are stupid, and I know very few women to whom that question does not apply.

So what gives, girls?

Oh, and PS to the ex: If you're gonna base half the mean stuff you say about me on a made-up love for Little House on the Prairie, at least have my picture be of Laura Ingalls Wilder. You'll still look pathetic, but not as pathetic as a guy who bitched endlessly about Laura Ingalls Wilder and then posted a picture of Holly Hobbie. Laura Ingalls Wilder certainly never carried a parasol. She was a pioneer, for the love of god. On, you know, the prairie.

Attention Sketchy 50-Year-Old Men Of Norfolk

I'm flattered by the attention, I really am, but it's getting weird. I mean, I'm thirty. And I look like I'm twenty. I routinely get carded not just for alcohol but also for cigarettes (in a state where the smoking age is 18). Last month a clueless colleague even asked me for my hall pass.

I'm sure you're all very nice people, but what in the world makes you think that a 20-year-old girl -- or even a 30-year-old girl -- would want to go out with you? You're old.

If you drove a fancy car and seemed to have all sorts of money, you could probably find some younger women who would date you for that alone, but I'm not really the sugar daddy type, and most of you seem to be more sketchy than wealthy. Some of you, judging by the diamond-encrusted bits of gaudiness on your left hands, are even married, and I'm so not a home-wrecking kind a girl.

I know you think it's sweet and chivalrous to approach complete stangers and offer to demonstrate your culinary prowess by cooking them dinner or to bestow upon them the handful of seashells you've collected while casually strolling back and forth in front of them, but it's not. It's creepy.

Please stop. Just admire me from afar.* Or better yet, find a nearby non-sketchy man in his 30s and enourage him to hit on me. That would be a refreshing change of pace.

*For those who don't know me personally, rest assured that the "just admire me from afar" bit was a joke. Those who do know me personally know that I would never actually say anything like that. And I'm not exactly beating off the paparazzi.

Misadventures In Grocery Shopping

The grocery situation at my house can only be described as dire. I can't remember the last time I bought groceries in anticipation of actually eating a meal in my own home. Over the last week I can recall at least five trips to various wine shops and only one trip to a grocery store -- to purchase a frozen pizza.

I actually really love to cook. If you click on my profile thingy (or "jank," in Norfolkian teenage parlance) you will find "cooking" listed as one of my interests. But I've been busy lately and haven't done much cooking. Or grocery shopping.

A quick inventory this morning made it clear that I could no longer avoid the grocery store. My fridge contained the following: 1 can of Whole Foods Brand All Natural Ginger Ale (for mixing with bourbon), 12 bottles of Hoegaarden, half an orange's worth of orange wedges (for dropping into the Hoegaarden), 1 free range organic egg, and an almost empty jar of pasta sauce. The pantry is just as bare. This morning I actually stirred brown sugar into my tea, as I've been out of regular sugar for weeks.

It's not that I can't afford to buy groceries. I just don't feel like it.

So I lay around all day knowing that I had to go to the grocery store but never quite getting the urge to do so. Around 8 pm I finally set down my book and dragged myself off the couch to do the dreaded grocery shopping. There are two grocery stores within walking distance of my house, and I debated which one to go to. Gene Walters is slightly closer, it's generally cheaper, and it has a great wine selection (not that I needed wine). However, its produce and seafood departments suck, and some of its employees are a bit dodgy. Harris Teeter is a few blocks farther and a few cents more expensive, but they offer free cookies to kids of all ages. Also, their organic milk is significantly cheaper than the organic milk at Gene Walters -- economies of scale or some shit. Since milk was on my list, I opted for Harris Teeter.

What I didn't count on was finding my ex's car (SUV, actually) parked outside Harris Teeter and having to back-track to Gene Walters to avoid him. Seriously, I spend the whole day (while he's presumably at work) not grocery shopping, and when I finally decide to go to the store, that store, he's also grocery shopping there? Does god hate me or something?

Yes, I think perhaps god does hate me. Because a half gallon of organic milk at Gene Walters was a whopping $4.39, and I know at Harris Teeter it's only $3.19.

Thanks, Dave.

My Guardian Angel Is Hotter Than Yours

About two years ago, I left my fiancé six weeks before our wedding and five days after we'd moved in together. This was one of the more difficult things I've done in my life, and it probably goes without saying that I agonized over the decision. However, I'm confident that it was the right decision, and it's not one I've regretted for so much as a split second since I made it. On occasion, though, I do think about how close I came to a marriage that would have made me miserable, and I breathe a little sigh of relief while thanking my lucky stars for my friend DH.

It was DH who -- exactly eight weeks before my wedding, on the very day I'd mailed the invitations -- was the first to give voice to the doubts I'd been harboring for at least a month when he studied me carefully and finally said, "I don't think you should get married."

This turns out to have been a view shared by a surprising number of my friends, not because they didn't like my fiancé (because everybody likes him) but because they could tell I wasn't happy. There's a lot of gray area between support and enabling, and I'm grateful that my friends chose collectively to lean toward the supportive side despite their concerns. I am equally grateful for the insight of DH, who admittedly had little to lose and probably enjoyed playing my knight in shining armor simply for the ego boost, but who forced me to examine my relationship and evaluate my future.

Although my friends give me more credit, I maintain there's a 99% chance I'd be married to the wrong guy right now if not for DH. Molly tends to agree with me: she once described DH in all seriousness as "a gift from God." And while she still carries his business card around in her wallet because she thinks DH is hot (and his picture is on his card), she was not referring to his appearance.

I'm not much on God, but I have been known to refer half-jokingly to DH as my guardian angel. And really, if you compare DH to Clarence, George Bailey's guardian angel in It's a Wonderful Life, you have to admit DH is a little easier on the eyes.

Despite Its Occasional Difficulty, Honesty Really Is The Best Policy

Do you remember that night right after Thanksgiving when you met me and my brother and sister at Colley Cantina? It was shortly after we began dating and I voiced some concerns that we might not be looking for the same thing. Remember how I told you that I was "the queen of monogamy" and that "I don't do casual"? Remember how you responded to my fears by saying, "Let's try something different: let's be completely open and honest with each other"?

I do. I remember it because I consider openness and honesty to be the foundation of any relationship, and because it was that conversation that made me believe I could trust you.

When did you decide you were no longer bound by that agreement? When did you decide you had so little respect for me that you didn't need to be open and honest with me? When did your desire for casual female companionship become more important than my desire for a meaningful relationship? When did you relinquish responsibility for everything but your own feelings?

A lie of omission is still a lie.

I don't know when you realized you didn't have feelings for me, but I do know it was long before you said so, and I suspect that you wouldn't have even said so if I hadn't asked. Because, really, why would you? Sure, there's that bit about openness and honesty above, but you knew if you told me you weren't into me there'd be no one across from you at the dinner table or underneath you in bed. So you allowed me to believe that the time we spent together meant something, and I bought it because, well, I like to think that people aren't shitty.

All of that was pretty callous, and your approach to the conversation wherein you contemplated aloud why you just weren't "feelin' it" and uttered platitudes like, "I think you're a nice person" was painfully insensitive. However, none of that was quite as damaging as your insulting and unreasonable expectation of continued friendship.

You used me. Why would I want to be your friend?

I Refuse To Allow April To Suck As Much As March Did

Ordinarily, due to my SAD, February is the month that makes me want to kill myself, but this year it was March that really kicked my ass. Mostly I just had a rough month at school, but my job is pretty important to me so I take things like that to heart. If you find yourself near tears at the end of the workday and you start thinking to yourself "well, I suppose I could come in tomorrow and sit at my desk and cry all day or I could take the day off and try to regain my sanity," it's probably time to take a day off. Especially if you are not, by nature, a crier. I know we all have days like that, but most of my March felt that way.

So when April dawned clear and warm and beautiful yesterday (actually, I'm told April dawned kind of drizzly and warm yesterday and only got beautiful later, but, you know, poetic license) I took it as a sign of good things to come. And I'm sure there are good things to come, but first there's this: I had begun to suspect that Dave, who I had pretty much fallen for, was merely killing time with me. When I asked him about this last night he confirmed that while he thinks I'm "a nice person," he's "just not feelin' it." Not kidding. I'm paraphrasing the overall message, but these are words that actually came out of his mouth.

So if it's all right with everyone, I'm just going to ignore the calendar and count last night as part of the suckiness that was March. I may need to count today too, because I plan to do a bit of wallowing (even though Steve has my Eva Cassidy break-up CD, which it's hard to properly wallow without -- I'll have to make do with Jeff Buckley).

And PS, I'm a hell of a lot more than a nice person. Just ask my brother.