Positive thoughts. Positive thinking. Positive intentions. Positive crap?  I don’t know.  I’m feeling rather blah right about now.  I’ve done all the right things and yet, still struggling.  I wear the right clothes.  Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have.  I say the right things.  Correction does much but encouragement does more.  I think the right thoughts.  It will all work out in the end.  I try to think positive, speak positive, be positive, and yet, here I am.  I sit at work, well-dressed, and pounding away at my blog in frustration. 

Things get better, things get worse.  Moods get higher, moods get low. 

Wednesday Mr. W was stressing about life, I think.  Schedules and need-to-dos and stress itself was stressing him out.  I tried to calm him, make him see it really wasn’t all that bad, be positive, say the right words.  I think it worked, and Friday, we, as a family, had a great day.  We went to the fair.  Ate lots of junk.  Won prizes (including two more immortal fair-fish).  Saw baby pigs race. Watched (and smelled) stinky farm animals.  It was a good day.  We rounded it out with an evening at home with three of the four children.  Saturday he left for drill…and my children turned into assholes.  Yep, I said it: ASSHOLES!! 

Why is it that it takes exactly THREE times being told for my children to do something.  ALWAYS THREE TIMES!  Not one (which is the ideal), not two, not four, not fifteen.  THREE.  WHY?  Not listening.  Saying the same word or making the same noise over and over and over and over AND OVER again.  Fighting with each other.  Fighting with me.  Bossing everyone around.  Making demands.  Fussing when demands aren’t met.  Yeah, this went on for THE.  ENTIRE.  WEEKEND.  After the fair, and a movie (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…in 3D…absolutely awesome!) and nothing but fun and spoiling for two days!  So Sunday morning I made them get up and clean the house.  Yes, I made my 4 and 5 year old clean my house.  That’s just how I roll.  Unfortunately (as it was meant for punishment) and fortunately (as I would rather them have fun with laughter and smiles any day) they thoroughly enjoyed cleaning, so, yeah… AND, the girl, still in the final stages of potty training: overnights, wet her bed both Friday and Saturday night.  That, for those of you who don’t know, meant four loads of laundry right there (two times for the comforter, two times for the sheets and waterproof bed cover thingy).  Not regular laundry either.  Stinky, pee laundry.  Not to be combined with anything else laundry.  Extra long wash times in extra hot water laundry.  Big bulky blanket laundry that takes longer to dry.  So a total of 5 hours, per day, tied up in her bed clothes.  Yeah, the regular laundry did NOT get done…so shoot me. 

Mr. W was home again Sunday afternoon.  I was still a bit cranky from the weekend FROM HELL and probably took it out on him.  Although I can’t imagine I would EVER do something so hideous…  Apparently we were fighting when we went to bed last night.  Something about dirty socks being inside out and an annoyingly squeaky spot in the floor.  I guess I missed it.  But he’s still mad at me.  Weird.  Frustratingly weird.  So frustratingly weird that my intentions to get a jump start on my homework (yep, started another class today) are all dashed over the rocks of frustrating weirdness, being beat down further by blah and negativity.

Why is it everytime I think I’m in a good place, with good intentions, with a positive outlook on life, SOMETHING (fate, God, the Universe, whatever!)  HAS TO GO AND SMACK ME UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH A FREAKING SLEDGEHAMMER TO LET ME KNOW JUST WHERE MY PLACE IN LIFE ACTUALLY IS: AT THE FREAKING BOTTOM, APPARENTLY!?   

So in the middle of trying to be positive, to stay ahead, to plan painting and packing and purchasing a house, to be organized, to avoid the stress and struggle, to get done, be done, to just find happiness… I’m, no we’re struggling and stressing (and apparently fighting) and being so freaking negative we are probably walking around backwards.

Just like most little girls, when I was young I believed whole-heartedly in fairytales and “Happily Ever Afters.”  Despite my parents’ efforts and a long (really long) string of bad relationships and broken hearts, my dreams of happily-ever-after continued through my teen years into my early twenties.  Then I met ex#1.  Sometime during our twisted courtship (probably having something to do with my dorm-dazed, alcohol-soaked, man (boy)-crazed, promiscuous tendencies) fairytales drifted off and left me in the “real world.”  When I finally got that (less-than) fairytale proposal, my thoughts weren’t of birds singing and how I’d be “Happily Ever After,” they were of “would I learn to love this man” and “will he ever hurt me.” Yeah, true love in it’s finest hour, right?  But all wasn’t lost, yet.  There was hope.  There was possibility.  Wasn’t there?

Maybe not.  We tried to get pregnant (yeah, I know…the horribly misguided thoughts of desperate couples looking for a way to make it work).  We didn’t get pregnant.  For months we didn’t get pregnant.  Then we separated.  First by our hearts, then our minds, then we made it official and we both moved out.  And then I got pregnant! Figures, right.  By that point, alone, pregnant, failed marriage, the last glimmer of “fairytales” faded into the night.  I had my beautiful son and realized no one wants a twenty-something single mom so I settled for who I thought was the first decent guy to show interest in me.  He had a daughter and a failed marriage too, so he understood and would love me…right?  We got pregnant, got married, and got unhappy very quickly and with the birth of my little girl, I realized I couldn’t teach her about fairytales because quite frankly I didn’t have a clue what they were anymore.  I even decorated her room with Tinkerbell, because Tink gets her heart broken, but is still sassy and happy and totally fabulous.  But, much like my parents before me, I failed and the girl is totally obsessed with Princesses and all that fairytale crap.

Yes, I’ve found my prince charming, finally, in Mr. W, but fairytales? Can I get behind them again?  Can any woman, no, mother in this day and age?  I specify mothers because as a woman, there is still hope.  There is still freedom to dream and fantasize about the possibility.  But with motherhood comes responsibility, the all powerful time suck.  When there are diapers and sleep deprivation and cooking and cleaning and laundry and school lunches and homework and activities and “mommy, mommy, mommy…” around the clock, there leaves little time, or energy for dreaming.  When you become a mother, there is just no room for being a princess.

Let’s look at Disney, the king of fairytale princesses, responsible for bringing them full-force into our hearts and minds today.  When “she” finally gets her “he,” that’s usually the end of the story.  If we are given a glimpse into their life together, it is just that.  A glimpse.  And then it’s with dogs.  You know, Perdita and Pongo meet, fall in true love, “marry,” and then they have kids (in the end 99 of them) but that’s it.  No follow up.  Lady and the Tramp have kids at the end of their “fairytale” romance.  End of movie.  What happens next?  Ah, but then Disney gives us the sequels, the not-quite-as-good-but-still-Disney-Magic follow-ups.  There is Scamp, Mr. and Mrs. Tramp’s little scoundrel who gets into an adventure all his own…but wait, where are the parents?  What happened to them?  Arial and her Mister get married and apparently have a little princess of their very own, who we meet in another wonderful sequel.  But wait.  Ariel is the princess (of the sea) and the queen (of the people-world), right?  Shouldn’t she be a little more than a side-note to this story?  Even in the great fairytale world of Disney, you become a mother and all that princess-ly wonder goes right out the window.  (Lady and Ariel are probably doing their very romantic laundry and making meatloaf filled with sweet songs of love.)

So even in the dawn of true love, there is no fairytale left for me.  It’s all rather disappointing isn’t it.  Well, at times, yes.  But not always.  While I may not have that fairytale whirlwind romance going on.  While I may not be able to let go and be totally wrapped up in the moment with my very own Mr. Wonderful.  While I may not live a care-free and glamorous life full of romance, there is still beauty.  I have two beautiful babies.  Just looking at them makes my heart leap and flutter.  I have a wonderful man.  He treats me like a princess whenever life allows, even when I’m not acting much like a princess.  And I have hope for our future, all of our futures.  In the still of the night, when the babies are sleeping and there is no laundry to do or lunches to make, I can sit back an dream about the possibility of a fairytale ending for us all…maybe.

I get tons of entertainment from my kids!  They really do say the darnedest things sometimes.  But it’s all probably a reflection of their upbringing in the end.

Mr. W found a beautiful dead butterfly laying in the parking lot on the way out of Starbucks last week.  Picking it up to show the girl, he explained that it was dead, so she could touch it.  Of course my mommy-senses perked up at all the possibilities of where this conversation was going to end up, you know, with a DEAD butterfly and all, but thankfully the girl was satisfied in the knowledge that we were going to take it home and love it so it can be all-better.  awwww.  Then she left it in the car.  In 95 degree weather.  For 3 days.  Yeah, if that butterfly ever did have a chance in being loved back to all-better-ness, that went out the window with the first temp above 80, my dear.  And then she stepped on it.  Crumpled butterfly wing-fragments all over my carpet.  She was sweet enough to tell me that she found this pretty butterfly (apparently forgetting I was there) and it was for me, but she stepped on it so it’s dead now.  awwww. 

The next day in the car with my friend Y, apparently she brought up the butterfly again and asked what dead meant.  The boy, being all old and wise and stuff, piped up and said, “Well, it’s when you go to sleep and don’t wake up again.”  Wha?  Y freaked at this, waiting patiently for the howling fear to commence, wondering how I would react to a clearly terrified daughter when I returned to my children (I think I was in the rest stop or something on our road trip), hoping the terror wouldn’t strike until bedtime that night so she could claim ignorance to the whole situation from the safety of her own home.  Thankfully, the girl is a sometimes little slow because she hasn’t yet realized that, yeah, she is forced to go to sleep every night…

On this same trip, iPod on shuffle, Fergie’s London Bridge begins.  You know, the one that starts “Oh shit.  oh shit.  oh shit…”  Doesn’t she realize that horrible moms like me allow our children to listen to this stuff?!  So the kids begin singing along because that’s what they do, and the lyrics are oh so clear and simple.  The boy, realizing the words he’s saying, pipes up that “shit” is indeed a bad word.  And the conversation commences.  “Shit is a bad word.”  “Shit is a bad word?” “Yes, shit is a bad word.  Right mommy?  Shit is a bad word, right?”  “Yes, hon.  Don’t say that word.” “See [sister], shit is a bad word.”  “Shit is a bad word.” “oh, shit.  oh shit…”  “Shit is a bad word.”  I don’t think I have ever heard “shit” said so many times in so many completely serious, yet totally comical ways in my life.  Y and I were doing our damnedest to not bust out laughing right there, thereby encouraging even more use of the word. 

Some may argue that I shouldn’t let my children listen to such obscene music anyway and it’s my own darn fault (yes, I’m assuming these are the same people that say things like darn and drat and oh, sugar).  So let me WOW you with some more mommy-of-the-year stuff.  My kids have seen both AVP movies (Alien vs. Predator) and thought they were completely hilarious, they enjoy music not only by Fergie, but also Eminem and Disturbed, they’ve been known to miss breakfast completely, then eat nothing but cereal and French toast all weekend, I read them both George’s Marvelous Medicine (the one where George, the precocious little 8 year old, replaces his grandmother’s medicine with a mixture of every chemical, cleaner, cosmetic, and animal pill he can find in his house, boiling it on the stove no less, which results in complete hilarity instead of the imminent death such antics would actually cause) over the summer, and last night we all played Quake (a first person shooter in which you and umpteen other people compete with random levels of weapons to kill each other as many times as possible in some sort of multi-level arena.  First with 25 kills wins) together, in full gore mode.  It was actually pretty cute as the girl wanted nothing more but to see all the blood when you blow someone’s body up after killing them, and the boy let out an evil little chuckle every time he managed to kill one of us.  They make mama proud!  Now where is my darn award!

Ok, all that is actually true, but seriously.  I don’t believe in sheltering my kids forever.  Or at all, it seems… When they started to eat solid food and began to cough a little on a piece of rice or something, to the horror of ex#2 I let them go for a minute.  Of course, if they stopped breathing or turned blue or something I would intervene, but a little cough?  Come on!  How the hell are they going to learn if I cut their rice (and grapes and hot-dog slices and baby carrots…ex#2′s mom…) in to quarters. (no really, she does. quarters.)  If I protect them from all that is make-believe now, they won’t know what’s real later.  And I’m truly convinced if I make them listen to nothing but Barney they will undoubtedly grow up to be serial killers (but then I’d be completely insane by then so it won’t matter to me, right?).  Besides, I grew up on Led Zeppelin and Beverly Hills Cop, all of them, and I turned out just fine.  (something about that last sentence just screams for me to close comments on this one…)

*(ok, yeah, totally not, obviously.  This actually is my thoughts on Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp, which Mr. W and I saw last night on our date…)

I read an early review in the New York Times last week, so I was partially prepared for the movie…partially.  The author of the article touched on the camera angles and the rawness that Michael Mann captured with his all digital shooting.  The story itself was fascinating and I really can’t think of anyone else who could have played Dillinger with the same off-handed confidence and swagger that my dear Johnny did.  Even Christian Bale didn’t totally annoy me.  (While I thoroughly enjoy watching Mr. Bale, and I did like the latest in the Terminator movies, his insistence at using his “Batman” voice for his role as John Connor left me a little turned off.)  The 2 1/2 hour long Public Enemies didn’t seem so as the story kept on at a steady pace, with just enough sprinkling of gun fights and intense scenes to keep me enthralled for most of the movie.  By the end, I was mostly pleased.

That said, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the digital part.  It took me about an hour of the movie to get used to the crystal clear world unfolding before me on the screen.  It kept getting caught up in the picture rather than the movie itself.  The quality was fantastic, even in our crappy local theater, but it left me a little ambivalent.  I kept shifting between the feeling of watching a well-shot home movie and some random reality TV thing.  The fact that so many recognizable actors made their way into the film made things even more conflicting for me.  All those celebrity types are a little unreal to me.  They belong to people who don’t exist in my world and I’m just fine with that (they are supposed to entertain me, not be my friend), but the rawness of the movie brought them closer than I’m accustomed. 

My fantasies and dreams, while very real for me, don’t exist in perfect digital clarity.  They are probably shot in low-light and kind of artsy, and while I don’t particularly pay attention to the score, I am confident that they are accompanied by only the most befitting music, with swelling symphonics and lyrical genius, as appropriate.  (There was very little background music in Public Enemies.)  My fantasy world is all about the feel of the scene, the lighting, the ambiance, the mood.  Soft and romantic, dark and scary, bright and joyful, harsh and intense.  I thrive in fantasy and tend to shy away from reality, especially in my entertainment.  I don’t care for mystery novels or non-fiction (for the most part), preferring to immerse myself into other worlds filled with mysterious and (probably) impossible characters and situations.  (Vampires anyone?)  While reality TV has a place in my heart (I love cooking shows) I much prefer to spend my time going all potato-fied over some made-up scene with made-up characters in a made-up world.  Even in music, while I can appreciate those “unplugged” moments of my favorite artists, I delight in the studio-made sounds that quite simply rock-out like no unassisted band can.  I live in reality.  I expect my escapes (books, movies, tv, music) to take me somewhere else entirely.

So, back to the movie.  The realism of the world before me didn’t take me anywhere.  I was still in the crappy little theater, in my crappy little town, living my life in the real-world.  Like looking out a window at events unfolding in your front yard.  On the other hand, the picture was so freakin’ clear!  Amazing? Yes.  My style of entertainment?  I don’t know yet.  It may be limited of me, but I like when the film-makers use lighting and music and camera angles to invoke thoughts and feelings in my mind that I’m not totally aware of.  I don’t want to think, I want to be entertained!  I want to feel what they want me to feel.  That’s the point, right?  To share a message, story, whatever.  Straight from the director/producer/writer’s mind to ours.  But I’m sure this digital thing is the direction that film-makers are going, you know, with all the technological advances in everything and stuff, so I won’t have much choice in the end.  But I won’t be giving up my old fuzzy movies just yet.

I’ve found a new fav author.  Christopher Moore.  Well, I’ve only actually read one of his books, so far, Fool.  I saw the book in an airport bookstore during our recent va-ca, and something about the cover drew me in.  This is often the case, I find books by their covers and usually end up loving the content.  Maybe it’s the hidden artist in me.  But, really, I like the way he writes. 

It’s kind of an intelligent but informal style that had me literally laughing out loud as I sped through the easy to read text.  My favorite excerpt from the book:

Pocket is a court Jester for King Lear (yes, that King Lear) and is discussing finding comfort in God with one of Lear’s daughters…

“What comfort? I’m a duchess, Pocket, a princess, perhaps a queen. You can’t rule in Christ. Are you daft? You have to ask Christ to leave the room. Your very first war or execution and you’re right fucked for forgiveness, aren’t you? There’s Jesusy disapproval and scowling at least and you have to act like you don’t see it.”

“Jesusy disapproval and scowling…” Freaking fantastic!!

It was the first book I read on my new Kindle 2 (thank you Mr. W!), which I absolutely love btw!  I’ve downloaded samples of two more of Moore’s books (a fantastic free feature on the Kindle) and will probably end up buying them as well.  It’s not often I find an author that I enjoy enough to read multiple books, but Moore has promise.  My next stop:

It’s a vampire book who’s first line reads: “You bitch, you killed me!  You suck!”  Seriously shows promise!  I have a morbid fetish obsession fascination with vampires.  Anne Rice?  Read them all.  Twilight books?  Yep those too.  Loved them!  The movies and shows?  Yep, watch every one I can get my hands (eyes) on.  I’m always on the lookout for new vampire series, in book or movie/show form.  I’m picky though.  I don’t dig mystery/crime books, a la Laura K. Hamilton.  And I don’t dig anything that makes vampires look like crazed, bloodthirsty animals with no emotion or substance, a la a lot of those vampire-horror flicks.  If Moore writes all his books in the same tone, I think I will enjoy this one though.  I’ll keep y’all posted.  (Yes, I just said typed y’all, what of it?)

Back to the Kindle.  Seriously, folks, its fabulous!  I’ve already filled two pages of books, and it will hold something like 1500, or you can hold MP3′s, pictures, documents of all sorts…it’s endless.  It’s easy to transport.  And if you are like me and tend to read 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) books at the same time, it’s a hell of a lot easier to 1) transport, and 2) swap between books.  Yeah, it’s a little pricey, but totally worth it.  And to the nay-sayers who say, nay because it’s not actually a book, and I like the feeling of holding a book and smelling (ok…weird) it’s pages…I too thought this (the holding, not the smelling part…yeah, that’s just weird), but seriously, the Kindles many pros wayoutweigh the con of not actually holding a book.  Plus, the screen looks a hell of a lot like a paperback screen (without the grainy feel) so you aren’t missing much (except for the smelling thing…still, ew, weird).

*warning* This post contains spoilers of Burn After Reading and South Park: The Movie.

And now I’m sick!  I have gotten my immunity up for those pesky kid germs, but teenager germs are apparently a whole other thing.  Mr. W’s kids are staying with me for the week while their mom and step-dad are in Hawaii and Thursday W’s girl came home with a cold.  Saturday W’s boy was sniffly, and Sunday I woke up with a serious cough, which I still have now.  I am just hoping and praying that my kids don’t come down with something.  That’s all I need, a full house of sick kids with me to top it off! 

I kind of figured that having the teenagers around would be nice and easy, but this weekend has me second guessing myself.  It’s not that they are difficult kids  The opposite is true actually.  I can only hope my kids are as great as W’s kids ten years from now!  The problem lies in that I don’t know them as well as, say, my own kids, so I don’t really know where guidance is needed and not, or even what to do with them, for them, around them, etc. 

Some examples: 

• In the morning, I know how much nagging my kids need to get out of bed…the teens, not so much.  We haven’t been late, yet, although there have been two instances of rushing to make it to the bus.
• Burn After Reading…it’s a funnyish movie which the girl (13) said she had already seen, so I rented it one night to watch with her and one of her girlfriends who stayed over.  They looked confused about my giggling in the scene where George Clooney takes the Liberator Wedge from the back seat of the car before going into Malkovich’s house with his wife, which is good.  But Francis McDormand’s sex scene, and Clooney’s unveiling of his chair with dildo attachment definitely had me shifting uncomfortably.  I had to keep repeating to myself, “The South Park* movie, the South Park movie.”
• We sat around the house all weekend.  Schedules were off, so that was part of it.  W’s boy stayed at home alone after a late evening with his friends, but W’s girl had her above mentioned girlfriend stay the night with us.  The girls rolled out of bed at about noon, so I didn’t get the boy until 1-ish.  My kids went down for their naps at 2-ish til 4.  Prep for dinner, play-time, bath-time, bed-time…not much time left.  Sunday was much the same, combined with the pounding numbness in my head and hacking cough, and lack of sleep.  Not very entertaining I’m sure.  I don’t want to keep asking because I figure if the teens want to do something they will tell me…or will they?  Dunno!
• Dinners, luckily, have gone smoothly so far.  They roll out of bed so late that I don’t even bother with breakfast, (usually hit the cereal stash for my two) and lunch becomes a free-for-all of the cupboards and fridge.  No one has complained about the food given so far, or refused (passively or otherwise) to eat it…but again, that’s so far. 

So while things are going pretty smoothly, I am encountering periods of stress/tension (completely in my head, of course) about what could go wrong at any given moment, all the while having snippets of conversations with Mr. W and the kids’ mom in my head of their various attempts to push at their boundaries.

*For those of you who have never watched South Park, or the movie, adult themes are sprinkled liberally throughout.  In the move, the Saddam Hussein tries to tempt the devil into bed by waving around a dildo, and Kyle (by misunderstood guidance from Chef) searches for, finds, and has a conversation with the clitoris (a very large, glowing version of a regular clitoris).  The teens have seen both the movie and the shows on Comedy Central, so I figure Clooney’s chair is passable.

My mom isn’t exactly what I would define as a “movie buff,” but she has seen tons of movies in her life.  She doesn’t watch TV much, and instead relies on movies, old and especially new, to pass the hours she doesn’t sleep.  The reason I say she doesn’t classify as a “buff” in my book is that she has a very short memory, which is great for a movie watcher.  She can watch a movie a dozen or so time, each time being like their very first.  It’s actually quite amusing to watch her watching a movie, marveling at the events unfolding, surprised even that the plot untwists the way it has the first ten or so times she watched it.  She also doesn’t get most of the subtle undertones or messages in movies, so she relies solely on the surface entertainment value of the film.  So no, I wouldn’t call her a “movie buff,” but since she’s been visiting, we have been watching a bunch of movies, including Ground Control, an older  movie from the late nineties starring Keifer Sutherland as an air traffic controller…cool movie for controller types, but others, probably not so much; Speed Racer, the movie version of the cartoon… I think…pretty cool racing scenes, although the story was straight out of a cartoon plot; Becoming Jane, a charming movie starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austin (one of my favorite, yet not yet read authors…I know…strange, but Pride and Prejudice and The Jane Austin Book Club make me want to read everything she ever wrote in one sitting, something I will need a good number of hours of solitude for.); and The Women, starring Meg Ryan, Annette Benning, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, and Jada Pinkett-Smith.

This last movie intrigued me the most.  It’s about friends, specifically women friends.  In fact, there are no men at all in the entire movie…well, except for the baby boy born in the last scenes, but he doesn’t really count.  There are no men’s voices, despite the oft conversations with them on the phone.  There aren’t even any men on the streets of New York, where a lot of the movie is set.  Is that even possible??

Basically the plot goes like this…Benning gets gossip from a nail girl about Ryan’s husband cheating on her with a perfume girl at Saks, played by very sexy Mendes.  The friends get together to decide whether to tell Ryan, meanwhile, Ryan gets the same bit of gossip while getting her nails done, and by advice from mom, played by a very well maintained, although probably not without pharmaceutical help, Candice Bergen.  Of course, girlfriends convince otherwise, including some amusing confrontations and conversations.  I won’t spoil the movie for you, so you’ll have to see it unfold for yourself. 

The thing that intrigued me the most about this movie was the friendships between these women.  They were all very different, with very different priorities and lives, all busy, but still, the strong bonds remained among them.  It made me think about my own life and lost friendships along its path.  I don’t have any real “lifelong” friends.  I don’t have girlfriends that I can always turn to.  I don’t get together with the girls.  I do have friends scattered all over the world, but our correspondence is monthly at best, and we haven’t seen each other for months, if not years.  Counting out my blood family, and even then, only my parents and children count, I haven’t had any relationship of any kind that has lasted the test of time.  None longer than a couple years, and only if in close proximity with almost daily interaction.  I don’t know if it’s my lack of social grace, or my being an only child, or my moving every couple years with my father’s military transfers, or what.  I’ve never been good at making, or keeping friends.  As a matter of fact, my best friend almost always falls within the same body of whoever the man in my life happens to be at the time.  That makes it extremely difficult to 1) break up with someone, and 2) find a sympathetic shoulder to cry on (since that is traditionally a job for a best friend who you are not actually breaking up with).

I am exceedingly jealous of women who have these types of relationships with other women.  I’m jealous of those who visit each other regularly and enjoy endless conversations about nothing.  I’m jealous of those who know each other so well that they not only know when the other is upset, but know the perfect combination of wine, flowers, and chocolate to cheer the other up with.  I’m jealous of those who laugh and cry and hope and despair side by side, holding each others’ hands (or heads) along the way.

I have found women with whom I relate well with, sort of…but never really well.  The comfort level isn’t there, or if it is, it doesn’t last.  Our lives change, and we grow apart and I’m left back at square one.  So what is my problem?  Well, I’ve traced it to a number of things:

• When I’m in a romantic relationship, I delve so deeply and wholly into it, that I tend to neglect my others.
• I am reasonably young, and most of the women my age are in a totally different place than me.  I am balancing young children, with working full time in a traditionally male world, with going to school full time for an engineering degree, with almost-constant drama with the ex-men, with life in general.  Most women my age may be going through one or two of the above, but not all.  It’s hard to bond with someone who can’t possibly understand my life.
• My interests are strange.  I like photography, movies, video games, books, and writing.  I color with my kids, or doodle at work.  I love shoes, but also like to get dirty.
• I get along much better with men.  I spent more leisure time with my dad and his friends as a child, so naturally I learned leisure from them.
• I’m terrible at keeping in touch. Email, phone, letters…they all allude me.

So here I am, without the comfort of a girlfriend, observing those around me from afar via movies, blogs, or stories from my friends who have their own girlfriends, at a time when, quite honestly, I could really use one.

*sigh*  Poor me, right?  *sigh*