Yeah, but from where?

I love online shopping but I’ve been stopped in my tracks lately when I see “Imported” in the description.

I want to know where it came from. I want to know who made it. I want to know that it wasn’t one of the 900 people who died in the factory collapse two weeks ago. I want to know that it was not one of the 9 people who died in the factory fire today.

It’s not even the collapse of the factory in Bangladesh that started it, though it broke my heart. It was an article I read almost two months ago on Jezebel about Beyonce’s H&M Line that took me off guard and made me much more conscious of the price of my clothing.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know that conditions in sweatshops were bad, but naively I never thought of what that actually meant. It was this what got to me.

Management hired young women from Asia, stripped them of their passports, forced them to work grueling hours for awful pay under a managerial regime that subjected them to routine rape. One woman hung [sic] herself in the factory’s bathroom with her own scarf after allegedly being raped at the hands of a manager. The Jordanian Department of Labor, when informed of the abuses, did nothing.

After Kernaghan’s exposé, Kohl’s, Macy’s and Lands’ End stopped doing business with Classic (they represented 8 percent of its export trade), but the factory’s chief customer, Wal-Mart, was unfazed. One serial rapist manager was fired, but many of the other managers accused of rape are still employed there, and women continue to disappear from the factory under highly suspicious circumstances. (Colleagues believe they are being murdered or sold into sexual slavery). According to documents recently smuggled out of the factory, 75 percent of Classic-made apparel is still going to Wal-Mart and Hanes.

As a rape victim, this punched me in the gut. As a woman, it disgusts me. As a human being, it’s just plain unjust.

For whatever the reason for my interest, it’s wrong. When going to work means risking being raped, murdered, or sold into slavery, there’s something VERY wrong. Yet, up until reading that article, I ignored it.

As the privileged, middle class, urban American I am, I never had to think about it. Whether this is a self guilt trip or a reality check doesn’t matter. I need to wake up.

And I don’t know what to do.

Right off my own back…

And it’s the “Made in Bangladesh” that I’m ashamed of, not the size… for once.

Obviously, I can be much more careful about where I buy my clothing. But what else? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what goes in my body but I haven’t ever really given much thought to what I put on my body, except for whether or not it shows off my fat rolls.

I don’t have a lot of answers because from a preliminary search, it’s pretty hard to find the source of the fabric beyond which country it came from, but I can at least start with making a few changes.

1. Buying clothing that was made in the US – This sounds so nationalistic and I hate that part of it, but our workers are protected much more than those in Bangladesh.

2. Owning less clothing – It’s a bit more expensive to buy clothing that I know isn’t from a sweatshop, so as a result, I have to be at peace with owning less of it.

3. Donating to organizations that fight for workers rights – Admittedly, I’m not much of a donor. I usually plea not having enough money but, honestly, I probably just spend too much on happy hour. I just found this organization and it sounds pretty legit. I mean, will a small donation help? I don’t know but it certainly can’t hurt.

Having just literally knocked almost all of my favorite stores off the list of places I can shop, I’m going to have to be much more creative about where I buy clothing but my frustration isn’t just about whether my hands are dirty or not. My frustration is that these things are happening.

So, I guess this post is me learning to ask the question, with humility and sincerity, what can I do? How can I help?

“Yeah, pretty much. But hey, you’ll always have good reception around me.”

“Or you’ll interfere with my cell phone internets.”

“Whatevs.”

My New TV Antenna Nestled Snugly In My Uterus

As I popped two Vicodin and tried to finish a tiny last bit of work, I got the text that the boyfriend was outside my office building to pick me up. After getting caught twice with questions from coworkers as I was running out the door, I jumped in the car and apologized for making him wait.

Right as the drugs kicked in aaand I became completely useless at giving driving directions… good thing he has GPS.

As the GPS lady voice in his car told us where to go, I felt victorious to be lucid enough to point out a parking spot.

I don’t do well on drugs.

I was so grateful that my doctor hadn’t wanted me to use the Misoprostol this time around. She had said that, in her experience, it just added to the inflammation caused by the procedure and that it wasn’t actually helpful in reducing the pain.

As I walked into the room, I saw the same tools as last time, including the thing I thought looked like a Nazi torture device. Only, I knew what to expect this time around and wasn’t nearly so scared. I was also a whole lot healthier and mature this time around as well.

Still Looks Like a Nazi Torture Device to Me

Significantly Less Terrifying

I gave a urine sample to verify that I wasn’t already pregnant and went back into my room to wait. My doctor came in and talked me through what we were going to do and verified that I did, in fact, have someone to take me home. I told her that my boyfriend was waiting in the lobby. She asked if I wanted him in there with me to hold my hand but I declined. As much as I loved that he had come with me, and even fought with me about the fact that I thought I could get myself there just fine and only needed a ride home, I didn’t want him to see the actual insertion.

In our oh-so-very-mature discussion about it, he’d asked me if I wanted him there.

“Oh, god no,” I’d said.

“Why, it’s not like I’ve never seen it before.”

“Yeah, I’m aware, but you’ve never seen it impaled with small copper objects before.”

“And…”

“And you’ve never seen me in that much pain before. This shit hurts like crazy and I don’t want you to see it.”

“Good, I didn’t want to come in anyway. What do you want for dinner?”

After the nurse popped her head in the room to verify that my pregnancy test was negative, my doctor had me lay down and put my feet up. She talked me through it as we went.

The insertion of the speculum felt exactly like it does in a pap smear and, as before, putting the clamps on my cervix was somewhat painful. I breathed through it and we took a minute before moving on.

After getting my okay, she inserted the instrument to measure my uterus. She did it so quickly that I barely had time to register the pain before she was finished. It was so much better than last time but it still made me momentarily breathless.

After the measurement, she asked how I was doing and gave me a moment to start breathing again. Once I said okay, she told me that she was going to do the IUD insertion.

“You’re past the painful part. This shouldn’t hurt.”

“Really?” I asked, “Because last time that was the worst part.”

“Yeah, but apparently last time it wasn’t inserted correctly.”

“Good point.”

As she began to do the insertion, she suddenly stopped and said, “Um… sorry, I was wrong, this is going to hurt. You have a very tight cervix.” I nodded and breathed slowly and deeply.

Again, she was much quicker than Dr. Dashing, who did the last insertion, but the pain was sharp. I breathed deeply as it faded. She finished and quickly removed the clamps and speculum. As I lay for a minute, still breathing slowly and deeply she told me that he was impressed with my stoicism.

She talked with me for a while before she would even let me sit up. She asked me about my relationship, trying to get me to think about something other than what I’d just experienced, and we talked for a few more minutes until I looked more okay. She told me that I needed to wait at least 48 hours before engaging in sexual activity. I told her that I was going to set a timer. She told me that after those 48 hours, whatever I felt comfortable with was perfectly fine.

Once it seemed that I was okay enough to stand, she left the room so that I could get dressed. I was a little dizzy and was still feeling the cramp from the insertion but I managed to get dressed and stay standing. She came back in and gave me instructions for what I needed to look for, when I needed to call her, etc.

I made my way slowly out to the waiting room and sat down again for a minute to take a breather. The boyfriend grabbed my stuff and put his arm around me as we walked to his car. He took me home to his place, ordered me some soup, and curled up with me on the couch. We watched TV and talked a little for the rest of the night. Mostly I whimpered and tried not to move much.

Unfortunately the cramping didn’t stop after that first night and I stayed on Vicodin for a few weeks. I had about a week of breakthrough bleeding and recovery and then my period started. On the one day, a little over a week after the insertion, that I stopped bleeding for most of the day, we finally had sex again.

We were extremely cautious and careful but I didn’t feel any pain from it. The next day I started cramping pretty severely again. He worried that it was because of the sex. I realized that it was because I was starting my period.

My period lasted for about two weeks and was the worst I’ve ever had. My body did not take well to the initial adjustment. It scared me at first because I wondered if my body was rejecting the IUD but then realized that not only had I just put a foreign object in my uterus, but my body was still adjusting to the loss of hormones. That probably had a significant impact on my insertion experience.

As I said in my last Skanky Tuesday post, I learned a lot about my relationship and my struggle with letting myself be vulnerable through this experience. He took care of me and checked in with me. I tried not to let him know that I was in pain. Usually, I ended up admitting it anyway but I didn’t like letting him see me feeling weak.

The way he cared  for me told me that I was with a man worth loving.

About three weeks after the insertion, both the pain and the bleeding ended very suddenly. The next day, as I felt for the strings, I thought I felt too much of the IUD and worried that my body had rejected it. I also realized that I had a very nasty yeast infection.

I returned to my doctor who told me that the IUD was in place just fine and that, yes, I did have one hell of a yeast infection. She gave me a prescription and offered me more pain medicine. I declined the pain medicine but took the medication for the yeast infection, obviously. After about a week of using the medication and putting yogurt up my girl parts, it cleared up and it’s been pretty smooth sailing since then.

I was terrified of how brutal my next period might be but it was even less painful than any period I’ve ever had off of birth control. My bleeding started out really light for three days, then was really heavy for two days, and then abruptly ended.

Despite the rough three weeks, I’m extremely happy with my decision to go non-hormonal for my birth control. My skin is back to being clear, my mood swings are gone, and all of my other side effects have faded. I still try to play with the spot in my arm where the implant was, but I’m glad it’s gone.

I did start taking a probiotic for a few weeks to get myself through the hormonal transition and it seemed to be a good idea because I haven’t had any more problems. I feel much more comfortable knowing that my body gets to have its natural cycle and that I don’t have hormones in my system anymore. I just couldn’t handle it.

Thankfully, it looks like I finally found something that works for me.

I had taken two hours of vacation time that morning so that we could have breakfast together since he wasn’t taking the day off of work but had a flexible schedule. I’d planned to get up a little early and make breakfast so that it would be ready when he woke up.

After work I’d planned to get to his place and cook so that dinner would be ready when he got home. He works later than me so it seemed like a perfect plan.

Of course, my plans never quite seem to work out the way I think they will (umm… like us being together in the first place…) and things got a little more hectic.

Breakfast

The Menu: French Toast made from The Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Bread with eggs and mimosas.

The Plan: Bake the bread the night before at my mom’s place (my kitchen is pitiful and I didn’t want to ruin the surprise by baking it at the boyfriend’s place) and then make the French toast and eggs the next morning.

What Actually Happened: I got out of work later than I expected the night before but headed straight to the grocery store to get the few ingredients I didn’t already have. After getting to my mom’s place, I re-read the recipe and realized that I had missed the second two hour period for letting the bread rise. After cleaning the kitchen, we got started and let the bread start rising around 8:00pm. Realizing that I was going to be up very late to finish this endeavor, I packed up the bread in a neat bundle to bring over to the boyfriend’s to finish.

On my way out the door, I received a text to meet the boyfriend and our friend for a drink before heading home. Since the bread seemed to be doing just fine in its little package, I went and asked for it to be put in a warm place. After hanging out for a little bit we headed home. I sent him to bed, unwrapped my perfectly rising bread, added the cinnamon layer, and then left it to rise again.

I set my alarm for two hours later and went to sleep for a bit. I was incredibly confused when my alarm went off later that night. I hit my cell phone to make it stop and went back to sleep. Five minutes late it went off again. Swearing at it, I tried to figure out why it kept going off. It took a minute for me to realize why I had set an alarm for so late at night.

When it finally dawned on me, I went to see to the bread.

The rising dough had not only overflowed the pan, globs of it had dropped down from the rack I had it sitting on in the oven. Panicked, I pulled it out and mashed it back into a load shape. It didn’t seem any worse for the wear but it had lost the perfect swirl of cinnamon. It was a bit lopsided now.

Too tired to think about the fact that it needed to bake now, I set it aside and went back to sleep.

A few hours later, I woke up and realized that I had needed to actually bake the bread so I put it in the oven, set an alarm, and went back to sleep again.

This time I remembered why my alarm was going off and got up immediately. The bread came out beautifully. I freed it from the pan so it could cool, threatened the dog so that he wouldn’t eat it off the counter, and went back to sleep.

By the time my actual alarm went off, I was too sleepy to get up. I set it for another hour ahead, seeing that the boyfriend didn’t look like he was going to stir anytime soon, and dozed off again.

I finally got up when it went off again and went out to cut the bread, he woke up too. He said that he wasn’t that hungry so I shouldn’t make the extra effort but we still had some of the bread and mimosas. The bread turned out really well and we lazed on the couch together for the morning.

I’m going to call that one a success.

Dinner

The Menu: Filet mignon and shrimp with mushrooms, spinach salad, and some classy ass wine.

The Plan: Go shopping the previous night for food, cook it that night. Simple enough, right?

What Actually Happened: May Day happened.

So, the shopping trip was easy enough. I already had all the things except for the filet mignon. Getting home last night was… less easy. I stood at the bus stop for over an hour waiting for one to get there. I started to think that busses had been rerouted due to the May Day shenanigans. It turned out I was right. When I bus did FINALLY come to our stop, we ended up following along directly behind another bus of the same number and OH MY GOD WHY DID IT NOT COME TO OUR STOP AND WHY WAS THERE NO RIDER ALERT YOU METRO DOUCHE BAGS?!?!?!?!?

I was a little frustrated…

By the time I got home, the boyfriend was already installed comfortably on his couch. He knew about my bus troubles so there were no hard feelings. I got to cooking right away. I seared and cooked the filet mignon and put them in the oven to keep warm. I turned up the heat slightly to start the shrimp and within a minute, they were black on one side. Panicking, I flipped them and turned down the heat. I added the mushrooms but there wasn’t enough juice left. I removed the shrimp and added some coconut oil to the pan.

Coconut oil saves everything, I swear.

The flavors mixed beautifully and when I had compiled the salads and sat down to eat, we said a collective ERMAGHERD. Yeah, it was that good. And yes, I am patting myself on the back.

Desert

The Menu: Angel Food Cake with strawberries and vanilla ice cream and some more classy ass wine

The Plan: Not what I made. Originally I was going to make a small ice cream cake and then I was going to make cupcake sized treats of some sort and then he told me that he like Superman Ice Cream and I had no idea what the fuck to do. Then I decided on the Angel Food Cake because it would be easy. I was already putting so much effort into everything else so I needed one thing to be easy.

What Actually Happened: I wandered around grocery stores searching for Superman Ice Cream. I Googled it and found out that it’s a Michigan thing but that there might be some places I can get it here in Seattle. I thought I might be able to find it in a specific grocery store so that was the one I went to after work the previous night.

There wasn’t any Superman Ice Cream.

My silicone cupcake cups hadn’t arrived on time either and I didn’t want to buy more. So I wandered around the ice cream aisle angsting over what in the world to do.

I walked over to the baked goods aisle to contemplating coping out of making something myself when I decided on the angel food cake and strawberries idea. Oh yeah, that’s why I started baking the bread so late…

When I got home to the boyfriend’s that night, we talked about the lack of Superman Ice Cream in Seattle and I suddenly realized that I had left the ice cream in my mother’s freezer. I made arrangements with her to meet her the next day so I could get it.

We made the exchange the next day as I got off the bus and I went home to cook.

I prepared dessert after we ate dinner and gave it a little time before we ate it too.

So, nothing really goes off without a hitch when I’m in the mix but I really enjoyed putting this all together. His appreciation of my efforts and cooking abilities warmed my heart so much. We had a really wonderful evening. When we realized how late it had gotten, he sent me to bed and finished cleaning up.

And now he’s old.

I have 45 days in which to obnoxiously milk that joke before we’re the same age again.

Though, I’d really like a cat.

Anyway, here’s a quick rundown of where things stand right now in my life.

Weight

I’ve definitely gained weigh but I’m not sure how much. I haven’t weighed myself on my own scale in the morning for a while. I can feel that my midsection is a little thicker but not by too much. I need to try and make exercise a priority again.

Sleep

I’ve been sleeping really well. Despite the fact that I’ve been dealing with a lot of mental fatigue from not having much time away from work and from rushing like crazy at work, I’ve been much more well rested lately than I’ve probably ever been.

Job

Let’s face it; I need a new job before I overdose on Diet Coke and Xanax. I’ve been filling multiple positions since I began working here and the last few months have been frantically crazy. We have half of the admin staff we need and the other person on team admin is still new. It’s not her fault but she can’t accomplish things nearly as quickly as I can. Unfortunately, so much of the responsibility has fallen to me and I’m having to learn other jobs in the process.

It’s very much a trial by fire and I’m starting to feel extremely burned out.

Voice Lessons

My vocal growth over the last few months has been amazing. Unfortunately, my prospects for using that growth are very slimmed down right now because I missed the window for applying at other schools. So, for the moment I’m just working with my private teacher and will revisit schools and auditions next fall.

Relationship

Work has left me really moody lately (sensing a theme!?!?) and it’s been making me feel so off. I’ve been really upset about small things and frustrated with myself for it. Yet, I’m lucky enough to be with someone who, rather than being annoyed and defensive when I’m being bitchy, asks what I need and what he can do.

From the very beginning, even if I didn’t think it would turn romantic, I thought that we were so lucky to find each other. Through the failed audition trip, I realized that I couldn’t possibly have had anyone better by my side.

This business of building a healthy and fulfilling relationship is definitely challenging when the man you love is your opposite in so many ways, but I’m so glad to be doing it with him. Even more challenging is when work is making you grumpy about everything.

Friendships

I’ve had to break off a couple of friendships lately because, upon getting to know those people better, I realized that they would not be people that it would be healthy for me to be friends with. It’s really sad when that happens but it’s best for both of us to walk away.

So, there’s my momentary mind dump. I hope that all of you are less stressed than me. Tell me about what’s going on in your life? Any advice for not bringing the grump home?

I tried really hard to wait it out, to let the side effects subside into some type of new normal, but I just couldn’t do it. Doctors kept telling me that it would get better with time; the Google kept telling me that it wouldn’t.

Things had seemed to mostly get better. I was managing the skin situation and my bleeding had stopped long enough that I had even worried about the possibility that my implant had failed. I bought a pregnancy test just to ease my mind. All was working and I was lucky enough to go almost two months without bleeding.

Just after I bought the test, though, I got my period. I feel like pregnancy tests are magic like that. Every time my period’s been late enough to make me feel a twinge of paranoia, which happened twice on a previous progesterone-only pill, I would take a pregnancy test and promptly get my period.

So, I wasn’t surprised when it was longer than usual, but it just didn’t stop. Every time I thought it was going to end it would suddenly get heavy again, sometimes very suddenly.

My boyfriend is really cool about talking about birth control and its effects on my body. He doesn’t get very squeamish about it. It’s something I really appreciate about him. Still, it’s really embarrassing when that sudden flow happens during sex, leaving a huge pool of blood. I was mortified when I discovered it after getting up to clean up and use the bathroom.

When he walked back in the bedroom after me, all he saw was me standing there with my hand over my mouth and a horrified look on my face. At first he thought I was in pain, I’d had really bad cramps over the last two weeks, and then he followed my eyes and saw it too.

I looked at him expecting him to be grossed out or angry. Instead, he just asked me if it would wash out. As unaffected as if we were just doing chores, he asked me to help him strip the sheets, and put on a new set while he put them in the washer.

Thank goodness for mattress covers!

We remade his bed, he asked me if I was okay, and then we went to sleep.

That was that.

Physically, I was fine. Emotionally, I was still embarrassed but floored at how kindly he had handled the situation.

The next day I seemed to have stopped bleeding again. When we went to bed, I didn’t take any precautions. I woke up in the middle of the night, though, and felt like something was wrong. I didn’t know what but something felt… off.

I laid there for a minute trying to decide why I had the feeling before I finally decided to get up and go to the bathroom to see if I had bled a little or something like that. Half way to the bathroom, though, blood started pouring down my legs and onto the floor. This wasn’t even menstrual like blood it was like I-think-I’ve-just-been-shot-in-the-vagina blood. I scrambled into the bathroom, starting to cry and leaving a trail of blood behind me, and sat down on the toilet to stop making a mess. It kept going for a few seconds or so and then stopped as quickly as it had started.

I had no idea what had just happened or how it had happened. I was just scared and embarrassed. After it stopped I got up to clean up the blood trail I had just felt behind me. Luckily, it had started just after I left the carpeted area so it was pretty easy to wipe up.

I cleaned myself up and put in a tampon, hoping that it would be enough to stop another gush of blood like that, and went back to bed. I promptly decided two things; I’d had enough of this implant and its side effects and that I was going to get it removed as soon as I’d completed my audition. Changes in hormones can have an effect on your voice and I didn’t want to risk it.

In hindsight, I should have been more worried about what had just happened than my audition.

I’d also planned to not tell my boyfriend because I didn’t want to worry him or gross him out, but it eventually came out during a fight fueled by my hormone induced instability, further solidifying both my decision to remove it promptly after my audition and my gratitude for this person that I’m with. Implanon had made me emotionally all over the place and he had been willing to ride out those waves with me.

So, exactly two days after we came back from Bellingham for my audition, I had it removed. Both my feelings or relief and the hormone withdrawals were immediate. The side effects of the removal were almost as brutal as the side effects of having it in. Granted, this time I could have cheese without breaking out so that made it a lot better.

Cheese is really good for morale.

My doctor and I decided that the best option for me, after all we had tried, was the non-hormonal IUD. He also suggested another doctor who was an expert at inserting them. I made an appointment for a consultation with her and, despite my plan to let my body get through the transition of removing hormones from my system; she suggested that I get it right away.

Knowing that I would need a ride home from the insertion, I’d already talked with my boyfriend about when would work best for him so I scheduled the appointment for the following Monday. My doctor, knowing about the last time I’d had an IUD and my fears of repeating that experience, gave me a prescription for Vicodin to help make the insertion and post-insertion cramping easier to manage.

It’s been kind of brutal on my body and even two weeks after insertion I’m not totally better yet but I’m getting through it and I’m finding out a lot about myself, my relationship, and my struggles with vulnerability through this. Mostly, I’m so glad that I’m not doing it alone.

I’m going to go with yes on this one.

I’ve had a lot of trouble being intentional about my health and weight over the last few months. I had two all consuming things on my mind; an important audition (spoiler: I botched it) and an I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck-this-is turned healthy-and-emotionally-invested relationship.

Hopefully you’ve been following along with that story since I finally get to obnoxiously brag about MY BEST BOYFRIEND EVER (also my first… but that’s beside the point).

I’ll talk more about the audition later, but I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what comes next for me. I’d had a plan that I thought was so concrete until it ran smack into a runaway train of an accompanist. Now I feel like I’m starting back at square one with no idea of how to move forward.

So, it’s time to get intentional about getting my shit together.

I need to set some tangible goals again and layout the steps to achieve them. I need to get organized.

So, a few days late but for the sake of accountability; here’s where I stand.

I’m not sure if that’s authentic weight gain or the fact that I took measurements right after three days out of town meant I was just bloated and retaining weight from lack of sleep, abundance of wine, stress from the audition, and too many restaurant meals.

Either way, it’s my current starting point and I’m making it a goal to see better numbers next month… which means that I need to hurry up and set some concrete goals to make that happen.

Skanky Tuesday – The Best Bad Decision I Ever Made

Skanky Tuesday – The First Night

**********************************************

“Hey, I haven’t seen you in forever. I was just thinking about you the other day and wondered why you disappeared.”

“Yeah, sorry, I was in Texas and then I got really busy with catching up at work.”

“All work and no play Kendra…”

“Because that’s ever been my problem?”

He was not the one I’d gone looking for that night. I’d shown up hoping to run into that favorite mistake of mine. We’d spent the week “running into each other” every chance we got and I was trying for that one more time before we had to grow a pair and actually call each other. Instead of running into him, though, my previous fling came walking through the door.

After about five minutes of awkward conversation about why I never called him back, we switched to less awkward topics like our shared lament over the closure of the Funhouse. It was the first bar I’d ever been to.

It only took a few minutes for me to remember all of the things I had liked so much about him. When he asked me to be his date to the Halloween party at the Funhouse, celebrating both Halloween and its last night open, I immediately said yes.

As he walked me to my bus stop and sat with me until it arrived, I forgot all of the reasons I’d stopped seeing him in the first place and that there was anyone else who might have any feelings invested in me. With a kiss goodnight, I tore myself away and promised that we’d do something later that week. It wasn’t until I got home that I remembered the boy with the dog and that he could potentially be hurt by what I’d just done.

I mean, I didn’t owe him anything but I also didn’t want to hurt him.

The next day I rehashed the story of the two boys with my therapist. She’d already known about my previous fling and had supported my decision to end it. But, as always, she let me make my own decisions.

I wanted to go to that party so badly, especially since I got to go with the fling. He’d been so exciting. Yet, I was worried about hurting the boy with the dog. I didn’t feel that same excitement with him but I still liked him. He was so sweet, so tender, and so goddamn good looking but he was also so not my type. I liked spending time with him but we were so different.

He was as introverted as I am extroverted. I like being out and about, talking to people and socializing. He liked to be alone together, cuddling up while watching TV or sipping wine. I felt like I was going to get bored with it; I mean I don’t even own a TV; it’s so not my thing.

“Well,” my therapist told me, “if you really want to go to the party, you should, but it sounds like you care how the boy with the dog feels. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to ask him how he feels about it and what he’s looking for in this?”

She was right, but I really didn’t want to ask him.

“I mean, I’d rather see the old fling again but I don’t know if he’s good for me. He’s just so… I don’t know. He just does it for me.” I said.

“Again, go to the party and see if you still feel the same way. Just keep this in mind, sometimes the people who are more reserved have much deeper levels at which they become exciting as time goes on. You might want to give the boy with the dog more of a chance to open up.”

So, when he called me to see if I wanted to watch The Walking Dead with him the next day, I did.

I was still getting kind of bored, but I decided that my therapist was right about trying not to hurt his feelings so I finally asked, “So, what is this that we’re doing?”

“Um, I don’t really know. I mean, I’m not looking for a long term relationship but I like spending time with you,” he said.

“Okay, what does that mean?”

“I can’t invest in a real and deep relationship right now.”

“So, we fuck as long as it’s fun?” I asked.

“Okay.”

“Cool.”

“Wait, is there anything else you want to know?”

“Um… not really. That answers my question.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I guess… are we doing this exclusively?”

“I mean, I’m not going to see anyone else. I’m kind of a super nerd, so… but I can’t ask you not to. Just tell me if you sleep with anyone else. Is that okay?”

I agreed. Yet, the last part of that conversation bothered me a little bit. He actually could take home almost anyone he pleased and yet he didn’t want to see anyone else. It made me wonder.

When I went home the next morning to get ready for work, I felt something I didn’t expect. After all, I’d received the answer I was looking for. I could go to the party and not feel guilty. Yet I felt a sense of loss. Something about us felt valuable, maybe not terribly exciting, but still valuable. I had wanted to go to the party with the fling and yet, even more, I’d wanted the boy with the dog to ask me not to.

I knew that I was wrong to feel this way because I’d have gone to the party anyway, but I wanted to know that I’d meant as much to the boy with the dog as he apparently mean to me.

Was I wrong?

Was the value of this… thing… only in my head?

A few days later it wouldn’t matter. A few days later I’d fuck it up so badly that I couldn’t imagine him wanting to continue seeing me.

“Yeah. Um, you actually have four people who hate you.”

“I beat out four different dudes?”

“Well, two really. The other two never actually had a chance, but they were all trying. One even swooped in again to console me for those three days that we had split up a few months ago.”

“I respect that move.”

“It didn’t work…”

“I’m glad”

I’m not exactly a ten. I have no delusions about that. Yet, there was a few months when I did, in fact, have several men chasing me. I was on a boy ban, though, and was determined that not one of them would be successful. None of them were.

I’d actually been seeing one of them for a little while and he was the cause of the boy ban.

He was thrilling.

With a reckless abandon that rivaled mine and a complete apathy toward commitment of any sort, I knew that he was bad for me. So, after a few weeks, I cut it off and declared myself on a boy ban. My only time out and about was to watch football with a group of girls at a bar we frequented, which oddly kept getting extended into an evening of hanging out.

One of those evenings, some old friends came in and as my group decided to go home, I stayed to catch up. My team had just won and we were discussing my impending audition and move to Bellingham to go back to school. I was in the kind of mood where the whole world is beautiful.

So, as a dog started rifling through my purse, I was nicer about it than I usually would be. As the owner of the dog apologized and offered me a drink, I decided that I was definitely up for hanging out with someone who seemed cool.

Several hours and several drinks later, I suspected that I might have just met my new best friend. When he suggested that we might want to leave before we both went broke on crappy whiskey and extended an invitation to hang out at his place, I accepted. There was nothing about him that was my type, so I thought nothing of it.

After a few more hours of sitting and talking over a bottle of champagne, I was bordering on being sure that I’d just met my new best friend. Then, I’m not sure who initiated it or how it started, but the clothing was off and the good judgment was gone as the frenzied reckless abandon of new passion took over.

In telling our story, which we both love to do, there’s no getting around the fact that we started out as a sketchy drunk hookup. Yet, there was something more in it that was and is hard to explain. When I woke up later that night still curled up in his limbs, I didn’t squirm away. Despite the surprise I felt at the fact that I’d let someone cuddle me for more than thirty seconds, I felt perfectly and happily content.

The next morning I woke up and realized what a bad idea it had been to go home with someone on a Sunday night, not to mention what a bad idea mixing whiskey and champagne had been. Not only could I not find my phone, I couldn’t even remember his name, and I was hung over as shit.

I decided that I must have dropped my phone at the bar and made a hasty exit.

Realizing what a REALLY bad decision I had just made, I decided that I should just call my phone, hope that he answers it, get my phone back, and start watching football somewhere else.

The bad news? My phone was dead and it was not left at the bar.

I went round and round in my head, trying to figure out the least awkward way to retrieve my phone. I mean, I could just go knock on his door but that would feel SO awkward. So, I hoped that he would bring it back to the bar and that I could retrieve it without running into him. A few days later when I did go look, my phone was, in fact, there… and so was he.

It turned out that my phone looked like an awfully good chew toy and that his dog had gotten a hold of it. Thanks to his dog, yet again, being our ice breaker we sat down to talk, again. While I had originally had no intention of repeating the other night, by the time he asked me if I wanted to get out of there, I said yes. I wanted to experience the parts that I had missed.

This time, when he leaned in to kiss me, I took note of every detail and the next morning when I got up for work, I made sure to take my phone and leave my number instead.

From then on, we spent almost every night together.

And that is how he earned the resentment of four men. Well, at least, that’s the beginning of the story.

_______________________

This post is a continuation of the story The Best Bad Decision I Ever Made, click the link to check out the first post.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, a friend asked me how we met and I couldn’t remember how I got you to start talking to me.”

“You told them that you took me home as a hookup, didn’t you…”

“Yup.”

“Oh good, then I don’t have to pretend otherwise. Pretty much, your dog picked me up, not you.”

“Unsurprising…”

“Yeah, he tried to eat something in my purse and you pulled him away and apologized. I called him special and you told me not to be tactful, that he was just straight up retarded. I liked your sarcasm so I sat down next to you.”

“That was it?”

“Well, you also used ‘fuck off’ as a command, which I found hilarious. Once your dog stopped trying to eat my things, we sat and talked for like four hours before you invited me to go hang out at your place. Then we sat at your table and talked for another two hours or so. What I don’t remember is how we went from talking to banging.”

“Yeah, I have no clue either.”

“Whatever, you’re the best bad decision I’ve ever made.”

And it’s true. He is.

I’ve spent almost a month trying to figure out how to write about him and about our relationship. It wasn’t until I said that phrase to him that I finally figured out how to describe it well. I made every possible mistake with him and made all the moves that the dating books say not to make. Yet, when I kiss him goodbye in the morning so that he has to feel my pain of waking up early too, I can’t manage any regret about how he became my boyfriend.

Happy Early Valentine’s Day to all!!!

The rest of the story shall follow…

When Blogher chose The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal Ph.D., as their first book club book of the year, I jumped at the chance to participate. I usually avoid books that have anything like “motivation,” “willpower,” or “self control” in the title. Mostly, I find them trite and obnoxious, containing overly simplified “how to make all the things better” type of advice. I just don’t like it. Yet, the description of the book and the fact that it was written by someone teaches at Stanford made me want to give this book a shot.

I loved this book. It appealed to my nerdy little heart in so many ways.

The author dissects willpower as a physiological process rather than just a mental process. She talks both about how it works and how to improve it.

The book is meant to be read over a period of ten weeks with a specific willpower challenge in mind. She gives assignments in each section to help explore and improve your own willpower. Having read the book for the sake of reviewing it, I had to move through it much more quickly, but I fully intend to go back and read it as the ten week course it should be.

Some of my favorite things:

1) Willpower is not unlimited. Like a muscle, there comes a point where you exhaust your ability to exercise it. Also like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes.

2) We pretty much have two people in our brains with conflicting ideas about self preservation.

3) We tend to mirror the people around us and their habits. Pretty much this means I get to blame my mother for all my bad habits… just kidding.

If you’re interested in an explanation of willpower that looks at evolution and neuroscience for answers without feeling like you’re reading a textbook, you should read this book. Even if you just want to know why you can’t put down the cookie, resist the boy, or get yourself to work out, I’d totally recommend this book. Grab a copy here!

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.