Two years ago, right around this time, I came across a blog called The Dating Optimist, written by a woman named Amy Spencer. I distinctly remember sitting on my couch in a pink sweatshirt and huge comfy men’s basketball pants, reading every single post and feeling like a light bulb was going off. I pre-ordered  Meeting Your Half-Orange that night, and, after reading it, changed my approach to love and relationships. I also put a picture of an orange on my vision board, and, two months later, was introduced to my half-orange.

Since then, I’ve become friendly with Amy through the magic of the Internet and feel a little bit of happiness every time I see her name in a magazine, whether she is interviewing the cover celebrity or, rather frequently, simply the author of the one article in the magazine that I found thoughtful, smart, and worthwhile. I look up to her so much as a writer, and when I heard she had a new book coming out, I was really excited for her.

Bright Side Up is all about applying that optimism to all aspects of your life, not just your love life.

The book is divided into several sections and each one features mini-chapters on how to apply optimism in these areas. The sections include the big stuff — your whole self-image, your career, family and friends, relationships — and the small — life’s little annoyances, technology breakdowns, and traveling snafus.

When I saw the format, I thought it would be a fast and easy read, with each mini-chapter similar to a blog post. But what I was delighted to find was that each mini-chapter is more like an article. They are short but weighty. Many of them include commentary from experts on topics like neuroplasticity (actually changing your brain’s structure through things like positive thinking) and human psychology. Of course, Amy uses a lot of her own experiences, and the experiences of her family, friends, and the celebrities she’s interviewed, to make her points too. I felt like there was a really great balance between the expert advice and the personal experiences.

I wanted to share some of my favorite chapters here, but there are so many good ones, it’s hard to even choose! But here are a few tips I really liked.

Take the tourist’s point of view. The same way tourists see all the best things about a city — while the natives have never even visited the main attractions — we should try to see the exciting, special things right in front of us. Think about how you’d talk about your life as if you were a tour guide explaining it to a tourist. What would you say about your job, your house, your relationship if you were looking upon them with fresh eyes?

See it through a “look up to” lens. The next time you catch yourself grumbling or growling ready to roll out your worst self among strangers, imagine they’re people you look up to. Amy says that by seeing other people as people who we look up to (like someone’s mom or teacher), the more likely we are to make kinder, gentler choices and not experience road rage, “you f*cked up my order rage,” etc.

Lower your standards. Sort of. A lot of times we fall into the trap that to do something, we have to do The Best Job Ever at it. But we can lower our standards for starting. “An imperfect effort is better than no effort at all…look at your next big goal and decide to do less than you think you can achieve, ” Amy writes. “Once you get started, you may find you can’t help but produce something better. But either way, a started something is better than nothing at all.”

Be your own gift with purchase. When looking for a partner, we often seek out the qualities we want to have; for example, we want someone who is creative and successful so we feel creative and successful too. It’s the gift with purchase, the easy way to get these things. But rather than expecting romantic partners or even friends to give us these things, we can give them to ourselves.

I loved the book and I think it’s because she’s so damn good at being optimistic while still being realistic. I cried reading the chapter in which she described how she felt after having three miscarriages, and then I laughed until I cried over the story of what happened to her husband when he was a kid and wanted to participate in his school’s day-after-Halloween parade. (His mom spoke little English and was not familiar with American traditions, so did not know that it was actually an All Saints’ Day parade, where kids dressed up as their favorite saints. Not their favorite Star Wars characters. I’m laughing again just thinking about it.)

While I love Amy’s work and had high expectations, Bright Side Up actually exceeded them. Right before I started reading it, I got a little nervous that it would be super cheesy, like a lot of “ways to be happier right now” advice is. But it’s not at all. To me, it’s a shot of optimism for smart, modern women with real problems who need a bit more than a “hang in there” poster of a kitten to feel better when life is sucking. I definitely recommend it; it’s sort of like a feel-good encyclopedia that you can reference whenever you need it, or read all at once if you feel like you could use a dose of optimism in all aspects of your life. It will come in paperback and Kindle editions; you can pre-order now and it will be available on February 7.

Now, some exciting news! Amy offered to do a Q & A for my blog and I suggested that you all could submit questions for her to answer. So if you have questions about half-orange dating optimism, all-around optimism, or — if you’re me –Andy Samberg (the day I saw she interviewed him for Glamour magazine, my heart nearly exploded), let’s hear them! She’ll pick a handful to answer next week and I’ll be giving away a copy of the book then too.

Note: Amy e-mailed me last week to ask me if I’d be interested in getting a copy to review and doing a giveaway. I honestly felt bad accepting because I was already planning to buy the book and I wanted to support her; however, I knew that my writing about it sooner rather than later would ultimately be better for her, so I went ahead and got the book early. After I finished it, I ended up pre-ordering a copy anyway as a gift for a friend who I felt like could benefit from reading it. Anyway, all of this is to make the FTC happy and also say that my review is not influenced by the fact that it was free. 

Leave your questions for Amy in the comments!

In April of 2004, at the age of 18, I got on a bus in Flint, Michigan with one of my good friends, an outspoken, proudly-liberal ally at our somewhat-sheltered Catholic school. We stayed on said bus with a bunch of strangers for a day and a half  until we ended up in Washington, D.C., where we proceeded to take part in the March for Women’s Lives, a protest for reproductive rights. Though it was put on by NOW, I had heard about it through Planned Parenthood.

Once in DC, we marched with men and women from all over the country. We saw Hillary Clinton speak and saw Ashley Judd rocking her “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt. The whole event was incredibly exciting and inspiring and I was so proud to be a part of it. It was just amazing to see what women could do when they believed in a cause.

Despite the recent news that the Susan G. Komen Foundation had announced it would no longer fund Planned Parenthood — a move the organization claims has nothing to do with politics or pressure from pro-life groups — I’m actually feeling incredibly inspired right now like I was back in 2004. And proud of women. Because the backlash? Has been fast and loud and ultimately effective — according to the Washington Post, ‎“Donors reacting to the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood contributed $650,000 in 24 hours, nearly enough to replace last year’s Komen funding, Planned Parenthood executives said Wednesday.”

I made a donation. (You can donate here.) It’s not just to show that I support Planned Parenthood; it’s because I just was thinking today how much I’ve benefited from Planned Parenthood and I want to make sure other people are able to do so going forward.

I don’t know when exactly I decided that everything my school wasn’t teaching me about sex was absurd, but I do remember torturing my poor history of Catholicism teacher with extremely loud tales of visiting Planned Parenthood my sophomore year at the beginning of class, and I wrote a couple passionate essays about it in health class senior year (which were, unsurprisingly, not well-received). I had my first pap smear at Planned Parenthood and went there for several years for annual exams, birth control, and STD tests. (Including the time I was 100 percent sure I had syphilis and nearly failed my summer math class because I was so worked up about it. I called all the Planned Parenthoods in the city frantically until they opened — I think this happened on their late-start day — and then demanded an appointment that afternoon, before my big exam. After a day too hysterical to study, the whole thing eventually culminated in them saying, “So…this is what an ingrown hair looks like…” Can I submit that to Planned Parenthood Saved Me? I mean, they saved me from another second of my own crazy.)

Every time I moved to a new city (which has been fairly frequent in the past seven-ish years) and needed to find a new doctor for my annual exam or for my birth control prescription, I Googled a Planned Parenthood. Finding a new doctor when you’re in a new city sucks, and I have always been able to count on Planned Parenthood. But really, I love Planned Parenthood because they make myself and other women feel just a little more secure in those moments when we have a problem far worse than not having a doctor in a new hometown: they are there for women when we are not only wondering what the hell is going on with our bodies, but when we know we cannot afford to find out or get treatment. (A position I’m basically in right now with my insurance transition and wayward egg chute, BTW.)

So I love Planned Parenthood and I’m thrilled to see that many other young women do too. But the most inspiring part of all of this was not, for me, the myrid angry Facebook status updates and tweets from young women, though that was pretty nice to see. It was actually reading about Mollie Williams, a top SGK official who resigned over this whole thing. I really want to know more about her. I mean, that must have been scary. I would have been scared; having a job is pretty nice. But damn, that sends a message. Damn, I’d love to know what was said in the meetings leading up to it. She’s released a statement on her resignation, but I’d really like for her to release a statement on how she got to be so badass.

And as for SGK…well, I’m a little disappointed, but I don’t feel all that surprised, which is actually quite sad. I mean, I’m surprised from a PR standpoint because OMG YOU MADE PINK RIBBONS UBIQUITOUS SO YOU CLEARLY HAVE A GOOD MARKETING TEAM AND I KNOW THEY MUST HAVE SEEN THIS SHIT STORM COMING but I’m not really surprised. I don’t know, there’s just something kind of disingenuous about all that pink. I wrote a couple Octobers ago about the issues I have with Breast Cancer Awareness month; it just gives me this sort of queasy feeling I can’t put my finger on. I don’t doubt that they have helped many women; I just wonder how many businesses they’ve helped in the process, and how many more women could have been helped if “going pink” had played out differently. I mean, this is the organization that partnered up with KFC for “Buckets for the Cure.” Come the fuck on.

I’ve always supported Planned Parenthood, but not as vocally as I could have in the past couple years. So my thanks to you, Susan G. Komen foundation, for reminding me to use my voice — and my wallet — for women’s health. I know that was your mission and despite your questionable way of getting there, well, here I am. So…nice work.

Hey, friends! I just wanted to announce the giveaway of the Trop50 giveaway.

The winners of the free bottles of Trop50 are:

#28 Corey L.

#25 Heather Garay

#27 Mel

#19 Katie

#23 Anastasia

And the winner of the $50 Visa gift card is:

#30 Zoey

Winners, I will e-mail you this weekend to collect your mailing info.

And I’ll have a giveaway for a new book that I’m very excited about next Thursday so get excited for that!

In the past few weeks, I’ve had to deal with a bit of grief over things that I had openly loved that then turned on me.

First to let me down was my IUD. I wrote about my experience having the Mirena placed in December of 2010 and, aside from that feeling of “Did a guman just shoot me in the uterus?” that I experienced during the procedure and the weekend following, I was really happy with it. Over the summer, I had some pain in my lower abdomen and had my doctor check the IUD, as that seemed like the obvious culprit. But no, the IUD was in the right spot and I just had a super unpleasant bladder/kidney infection.

Right before Thanksgiving, I started having the same pain and assumed my urinary tract was just all worked up again so I called my doctor and they called in the same prescription I had taken over the summer. I was happy to pick it up from Walgreens before leaving for Wichita, as ending up at the after-hours clinic for anything even remotely related to your vagina is not the sort of thing you want to have happen over a family holiday — especially when you’re around someone else’s family.

A couple weeks later, my lower abdomen was still hurting, very distinctly on the left side, as I had become accustomed to, so I went in for another exam. My doctor said my UTI appeared to be in the right place and there was no sign of infection but he wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure it was in the right spot. If it was in the right spot, he said, deciding whether or not to leave the IUD in would be a quality of life issue. If it wasn’t, then it had to come out immediately.

I was upset by this for two reasons. First, it was The Best Birth Control I’d Ever Been On. I loved it. Second, I was terrified of the pain of having it removed. Even though I was in a considerable amount of pain on a daily basis with it in, my memories of Cervix Slam 2010 were not far from my mind.

Three days and one rather unpleasant vaginal ultrasound later, my doctor called me in to tell me that the IUD was in the right place. But it wasn’t alone in there. It was, apparently, hanging out with a bunch of fluid, which had made itself comfortable in my rather-swollen left fallopian tube. The technical term for this is a hydrosalpinx; it can be caused by any number of things (or you can be born with it) and my doctor is not sure what caused mine. (I wanted to find a way to blame myself for it but without any real evidence or good reason to — trust me, a past STD would have been a simple, welcome answer here — I eventually got bored with this and found some other aspects of my life to overanalyze/obsess over.) My doctor said he’d leave the IUD in if I really wanted him to, but he strongly recommended taking it out, both for my quality of life, and also because all this “may” cause future fertility issues some day. I wanted to be selfish here, but really, taking a pill every day isn’t that bad compared with how I’d feel if I never knew whether or not Eric and I would have ugly kids. So I told him to take it out.

The good news is, the IUD hurt a hell of a lot less coming out. Like, barely at all. The bad news is that the hydrosalpinx still hurts a lot, every day. The even worse news is that there is no nice slang term or abbreviation for your fallopian tubes, so every time a friend asks me what’s up, I have to say, “Eh…my fallopian tube hurts extra bad today.” Ladies, can we work on this?

What really sucks is that as I’m trying to manage the pain, or even find out if this pain is normal (admittedly a better question for my doctor than the Internet, and I’ll totally go that route once the red tape of switching insurance carriers, which I’ve been dealing with since the end of December, gets worked out in a couple weeks) all the info I can find about hydrosalpinges is on infertility forums. It’s not that I want to Web MD myself into the worst-case scenario; it’s just that most people don’t discover they have this condition until they are trying to get pregnant and so they are discussing it in the context of, “I’m on my third round of IVF because of a hydrosalpinx.” When I tell people this, they tell me to get off the Internet and remind me that I can “always do IVF” if it turns out my whole uterus is really a lost cause. Getting off the Internet sort of helps; the idea that IVF is the new penicillin does not.

Anyway, yesterday, after a particularly painful day of twinges in my left tube, I was trying to find out if something like acupuncture would help, but I ended up just staying up until 12:30 AM, trying not to freak the fuck out about my fertility, and feeling rather sad about the IUD I had loved and lost.

And then, in a much-less-serious case of “I really don’t want to return you,” I had to send my Lululemon yoga mat back to their factory today. You see, after I bought it in August, it sort of…started shredding? I dealt with this for a little while but it eventually got so bad that I thought I might need to buy a new one. Then I realized, Wait a minute. This was a $70 mat that was supposed to be a good investment…they need to buy me a new one! And after I sent customer service pictures of the shredded mat, told them that the girl at the store told me it was reversible so this was not my fault in any way, and then showed them on the website where it said it’s reversible, they agreed to do just that. I’m getting a refund via gift card and will probably just suck it up and buy the Manduka mat this time.

Over both the IUD and the mat, I have this feeling of, Damn you, thing I openly and unabashedly loved! I mean, the mat was just mildly abused and still usable…and then a few weeks ago, it just started to rapidly falling apart. And the Mirena and I were 1/5 of the way there! I thought I was out of the woods! Then I realized the feelings of disappointment and mild embarrassment over publicly supporting something that eventually turned on me were the exact same feelings I experienced when I found out about Heidi Klum and Seal’s announcement that they were getting divorced. Is nothing made to last these days, people?!

Last fall, I started taking on a lot more responsibilities and had to face the reality that fitting in everything I wanted to do was going to be a challenge. One way that I’ve made it a little bit easier is working out midday as often as possible. It took a bit of trial and error to make a lunch workout work for me, but now that I have a routine down, I’m loving it. Here are some tips if you’re considering it.

Choosing the Right Workout

When it comes to where you work out and what type of workout you can do, it’s important to be flexible. Before you write off the possibility of doing a midday workout, consider that there are a lot of ways you might be able to pull this off. First, consider multiple locations. I live close to work, so I can run home and work out there if I’m so inclined. Leah used to go to an empty office in her building and would simply shut the door and do a DVD on her laptop. You can also go to a park or nice area near your office to walk or strength train. And if you’re still trying to find a gym or a yoga studio, look at options around your office. I’ve learned that it’s way more convenient for a gym/workout studio to be close to work than close to home, no matter what time of day I go. Eric and I both have joined workout studios closer to our offices than home and are having a lot more succes this way.

You’ll also need to keep an open mind when it comes to working out at lunch. I used to think I couldn’t ever pull this off because my idea of working out involved running crazy intervals for 60 minutes or kicking my own ass in spin class. Yeah, those aren’t really good lunch workouts. So what is a good lunch workout? I like walking, strength training, Core Fusion, pilates, or yoga. These workouts leave you less sweaty than other workouts, can be done in 30-45 minutes, and the last three come with a bonus — you don’t have to worry about packing shoes, socks, or a sports bra!

If you aren’t doing any of those types of workouts, then this is a good time to start. (I mean, why aren’t you strength training? You should definitely be doing some kind of strength training.) I used to think these types of workouts didn’t “count,” so I didn’t want to bother. But doing a workout that is less intense than your favorite spin class twice a week is better than not making it to your favorite spin class because you got stuck working late or wanted to go to happy hour instead. And furthermore, getting yourself to commit to workouts like these because they are the only workouts that work with your schedule is a great way to see that, Oh, yeah — they totally count.

Planning Your Day Around Your Workout

A lunch workout isn’t a huge hassle, but it definitely takes some pre-planning.

First, I pack a lunch to eat at my desk and try to pick a lunch that doesn’t involve a ton of prep work. I realized that any lunch that requires me to go back to the microwave to stir it four times isn’t a good lunch for days I’m working out. If I waste too much time running between my desk, the fridge, and the microwave, I don’t feel like I’m really working through lunch.

Second, I wear as much of my workout gear as I can to work which has been super helpful. I have a short drive to my yoga studio, so the less time I spend changing, the better. My go-to outfit on workout days is ankle-length black workout leggings, a long black workout tank top, some sort of work-appropriate outer layer (like an oversized button-down or long cardigan or wrap), and riding boots. Depending on your office’s dress code, you may only be able to wear your workout leggings under your dress, but that’s a good start. Sometimes I throw a scarf on over everything too; I’ve found that the more layers I have going on, the less likely anyone is to notice that I’m wearing workout clothes at the core. (I actually do this even when I work out in the evening, just because it saves a step after work, and also because I can’t afford nice workout clothes and nice work clothes, so it’s easier to buy items that work for both. (I actually do this even when I work out in the evening, just because it saves a step after work. Also, I can’t afford nice workout clothes and nice work clothes, so it makes sense to me to buy items that work for both.)

Dealing with the Sweat Factor

I know it can seem gross to come back to your desk right after working out, and it is a little…but it’s not unbearable.

The biggest concern for a lot of women is their hair, and, well, I get that. The best thing I’ve found is to just keep my hair down as much as possible during my workout. I know you don’t think you can work out with your hair down, but at least give it a try. If you’re doing a more low-key workout, it shouldn’t be too bad. If I must put my hair up (like during inversions when it starts to fall in my face), I just twist it up loosely with a scrunchie and then take it out as soon as that part of class ends. That way it doesn’t get bends or bumps in it. (And yes, this means I keep a scrunchie on my wrist at all times and then feel super cool if I pretend that it’s 1994.) Your roots might get a little sweaty, but they will dry. Again, figuring out what will work for your hair takes a little trial and error; some people find sweat bands help a lot while others will want to quickly blow dry their bangs.

In terms of cleaning up after my workout, I keep baby wipes and deodorant in my desk. I always pack a second pair of underwear to change into after class, and often bring a second pair of leggings if there’s a chance I’m going to get really sweaty.

I used to spend more time cleaning up when I got back to the office, touching up my makeup and trying to fix my hair, but I’m kinda over it at this point. I’ve become OK with just being slightly damp and I’ve realized that if I spend the second half of my day with less-than-perfect hair, it’s fine. As long as I don’t have mascara running down my face, I’m not that concerned. And usually I find that working out midday gives me a healthy, natural glow and sweat can give me the same beachy hair as saltwater spray.

I usually do two lunch workouts a week and this has made it much easier for me to meet my four-workouts-a-week fitness goal. While going out and grabbing lunch or gossiping with co-workers in the break room can be a nice break in the day, I find that going and getting my blood flowing is so much better for my body and mind.

Any other lunchtime exercisers out there? Please share your tips! 

PS There is new giveaway for free bottles of Trop50 and a $50 Visa gift card on The Life page! 

Good morning! I was up way too early today and couldn’t really sleep so I thought I’d start the Friday social early. I’ll probably do that more often, just because I’m sure at least a few of you would rather be chatting here than doing any real work on a Friday. Also, I actually have plans for this evening! I rarely have plans on Friday nights beyond my iPad and but tonight Eric and I are going out for a nice steak dinner.

Here’s what I have to share this week!

Brain Food

Don’t Carpe Diem. This article is about not worrying about seizing every moment when you have kids, but I think it applies to, well, any time in your life. It’s easy to beat yourself up for not being happy all the time, but I really liked the author’s take on chronos vs. kairos.

Seven Rules for Intentional Love. Some of these you’ve heard before but I really like the idea of having two games. Like the author, I’m hoping Words With Friends counts.

Having Trouble Getting Yourself to Write? Nine Tips. I’m going to keep these in mind as I continue to  try to improve my writing.

3 Days, 288 Ounces of Juice… I love Nicole’s blog and this post had me cracking up. I’d read a lot of first-person accounts of doing cleanses before, but never one like this. She is hysterical.

Also, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned ‘zite here yet, but it’s a reading app that creates “magazines” for you based on the interests you select (like cooking, health and fitness, sports, wine, etc.) by curating content from all over the web. For those of you who use Flipboard, it’s similar, but I like it a lot better than Flipboard because I’ve found that the content it pulls is just a better fit for me. It’s helped me discover a lot of new articles and blogs over the past month or so since I started using it. I also love all the social tools, especially the function to clip articles directly to Evernote.

Food Food

I’ve been trying more new recipes lately…this week I had more misses than I would have liked.

Can You Stay For Dinner’s 300 Calorie Oatmeal. I had wanted to try this for a while; you basically add in fluffy egg whites to give your oatmeal more protein. I use vanilla protein powder when I eat oatmeal now, and I like that the vanilla flavor adds enough sweetness that I don’t have to load it up with a ton of fruit or other sugary toppings. Still, I figured I’d give this a try. It tasted just like regular oatmeal — which is to say, pretty bland. If you like your oatmeal sweet, you’ll still need to add all the toppings. Also, four egg whites seems like a lot to me for just one breakfast.

Slow cooker smoky beef and bean chili and green chili cheddar cheese cornbread. I had been looking for a new chili recipe and this one from the February issue of Real Simple’s is great. You make it in the slow cooker, which is always a win for me. Yum. This will be my new go-to recipe. And this was my second time making the cornbread and it was a win once again.

Creamy Cajun chicken pasta. Eric made this on one of his nights to cook this week; I thought it seemed simple enough but his take was “This is not a beginner’s recipe.” After all the work he apparently went through, it was decent but not amazing; I don’t know that I’d be that interested in having it again.

Dinner on Wednesday night was a bit of a disaster. I put this orange chicken in the slow cooker around noon; the recipe said to cook it for 5-6 hours. When I checked it at 6:00, it looked great. But by 7:00 when Eric got home, it had turned black and shriveled up. Eric tried his and said “it wasn’t so bad.” I took one bite and said, “Are you crazy? We can’t eat this.” I was really pissed at myself for not being more careful because I hate to waste food…and I had been looking forward to eating it all day! I’ll definitely give the recipe another try though; I’ll just probably only cook it for five hours next time to be on the safe side. Since eating that was out of the question, I grabbed the leftover Cajun pasta and warmed it up…and took one bite and actually spit it out. Something about that chicken just did not taste right the next day. So it was back to the fridge…and this time, to the freezer. For a DiGiorno.

Oh well.

If anyone’s curious why I don’t post more than a few recipes here, when there are obviously more meals to be eaten in a week, it’s just because the rest of my meals usually are either leftovers from the recipes I share here, recipes I’ve already shared before, or some form of eggs and bacon.

All right, it’s an open thread so you know what to do. Let’s hang out!

I’ve got goodies!

First, the winner of last week’s Chucklefish giveaway is entry #46 — Grace, who said she’d get an earwarmer. Grace, I will e-mail you later today to put you in touch with Lea.

For anyone else who is interested in buying something from Lea’s shop, you can use the code RWREADERS for free priority shipping on your items!

Today’s free thing is Trop50 and it might actually be the first drink that I’ve reviewed here that I didn’t also mix with alcohol. Typically, I only drink my calories if I’m, well, drinking, but I actually really like Trop50 on its own. Trop50 is a lower-calorie, lower-sugar juice that doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners (though it does have PureVia, which is a form of stevia). There are several varieties (orange, pomegranate blueberry, pineapple mango, apple, and lemonade) but I like the raspberry lemonade best. It’s sweet, tangy, pulpless (very important to me!), and I like it with savory breakfasts.

Trop50 has been running a new app on their Facebook page all month that I like, asking people “What’s the juicy truth behind your New Year’s resolution?” The idea is that people’s resolutions are often about something bigger — like “I want to lose weight” might really mean “I want to make my ex look twice.” It’s just a funny little app to play with and if you try it, you’ll get a coupon for $1 off of a bottle of Trop50 and you can enter to win $1,000.

I don’t have $1,000 to give away here, but I do have coupons for free bottles of Trop50 for five interested parties and I have a $50 Visa gift card for another winner!

To enter to win, just give the resolution translator a try on their FB page and leave a comment here letting me know you did. And feel free to share your resolution translation along with your comment (either the one they gave you, or write a funny one with your own). You have until next Tuesday, Jan. 31* at 11:59 PM CST to enter and I’ll choose the six winners at random next Thursday!

*An earlier version of this post had the wrong date (2/1). 

By many standards, I am That Girl Who Is Desperate to Get Married.

Personally, I think I’m just a young woman who is nearly ready to be engaged, but the world is telling me otherwise.

Right now, I feel like I’m getting a hit with an onslaught of wedding-related messages. On the one hand, there’s the barrage of “have a wedding be a bride have a wedding most important day of your life have a wedding get swept off your feet have a wedding!!!!!” advertising (fun fact: images of brides can help sell anything, even if the product isn’t related to weddings). On the other hand, there are the “let’s gossip about That Girl Waiting Around for Her Boyfriend to Propose” conversations I hear women having constantly.

And in the middle of this, there is me, a woman who feels a lot of guilt and stress about wanting to be married. Because I feel like even though I know in my gut that I want to be married for good reasons, as soon as I talk about engagement, people just assume I’m some anti-feminist nitwit who has bought into the hype. I hate that.

I’ve written about engagements and weddings a few times in the past year — how to deal if it feels like everyone in your life is getting engaged, questions to ask that aren’t “So when are you getting married?” and my feelings on that question, and what purpose proposals serve for modern couples. In the comments after each post, women who are in serious relationships but aren’t ready to be engaged lament the fact that strangers cannot seem to be OK with their statuses, even though they are. It’s always a great discussion and I find myself cheering for these women who are bucking tradition. But every time, I wonder if someone — anyone — is going to come out and say, “You know what? I’m not engaged and I’m not OK with it.” No one ever does though.

Then I realized that maybe no one is saying that she isn’t OK with her status because nice women/loved women/smart women/modern women aren’t supposed to talk about that.

So…that’s why I’m going to talk about it today.

After spending the past few months watching friends get engaged, watching friends wait to get engaged, talking to married people, talking to divorced people, reading everything I could get my hands on about marriage/gender roles/societal expectations, and looking at my own relationship status, I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m both clear-headed and pissed off at the world enough to write about what I want to be the new rules of our society’s conversations about women and engagement, weddings, and marriage.

Rule #40: You have a right to have a say in your future. I get so frustrated by the way everyone treats engagement and marriage like it’s only one person’s decision (usually the man’s). Um, it’s not just that I have a right to know where my relationship is heading; it’s that I get a to have a fucking say in where my relationship is heading. By accepting the “pop the question” or “put a ring on it” mentality, we give men all the power and send a clear message that what the woman wants doesn’t matter. But it does matter. And taking part in those conversations doesn’t make you desperate.

Rule #41: You have a right to have a say in your future even if you watch “Say Yes to the Dress.” If you’ve ever watched a wedding show, been a bridesmaid, or looked at a wedding album posted on Facebook, it’s basically assumed that you’re “obsessed with weddings” and therefore don’t get to have an adult, mature conversation about your future. I’m so over watching women’s feelings get dismissed just because we live in a culture that glorifies weddings everywhere you look. Look, I eat yogurt. I like flowers, and I say pretty much everything the girls say in “Sh*t Girls Say.” And these things? Don’t make me more of a woman or less of a person. They don’t mean I’m incapable of knowing what I want in life. And neither does an interest in weddings.

Rule #42: Women’s and men’s reasons for feeling ready or not ready need to be treated as equally important. Sometimes I feel like it’s automatically assumed that women’s timelines are completely ridiculous, that we wake up one day, see a couple friends get engaged, and decide, OMG WANT without giving it any serious thought. But men’s reasons are often treated as really logical and smart (making women dumb and illogical by default). But how is your worrying about your fertility any less of a reason than his worrying about his finances?

Rule #43: Women’s and men’s reasons for feeling ready or not ready need to be treated as equally arbitrary. I’ve seen so many discussions about how women are affected by fairy tales or other cultural influences. (People are usually saying women aren’t to blame, but in this backhanded way, they are still saying that all women are, in fact, under the control of these influences.) “Oh, she only wants to get married because [insert some sexist assumption here; be sure to reference Disney].” On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve heard say that they aren’t ready to get married because they are worried about money/job security or because they want to be able to afford a bigger ring — things that all scream “male provider stereotype” to me. We need to at least consider that men might be as influenced by fairy tales and gender expectations as women are. We need to stop blaming Cinderella and take a look at Prince Charming.

Rule #44: When you’re in a serious relationship, you need to make a new timeline — one that reflects both of your needs. It’s fine to have your own timeline for big life events, but we should all expect those timelines to change when we get into a serious relationship. And when I say “we” should all expect that, I mean women and men should expect that. It’s just unrealistic to expect that you and your partner will be on the exact same page about everything you want for the future. I don’t think you’re doomed if you’re not on the same page. You simply have to compromise. Something they recommend you learn to do before you get married.

Rule #45: Our ideas of how things “should” be get in the way of really healthy, necessary conversations. Apparently, there is a very small window of time in which both partners must feel ready. If she’s ready too soon, she’s desperate. If he’s not ready soon enough, it’s “never going to happen.” If he’s ready before she is, there is something wrong with her. Yeah, I’d been fed that bullshit for a while too and honestly, it really got to me. The truth is, Eric and I had a lot of long, emotional conversations as we negotiated and created a new timeline that both of us were comfortable with. While the conversations were incredibly productive, I felt so guilty every time we had them because this wasn’t how things were “supposed” to work. I was supposed to “let things happen” or “be patient.” He was supposed to be ready at the same time I was. But once we stopped fighting the very idea of having these conversations and arguments, I felt like we took our relationship to a whole new level. And I’m pretty sure that learning to shut out others’ opinions and communicate about what we really want will help us immensely when we are married. (Oh and for the record, talking — and even fighting — about your future isn’t as unromantic as you might think. It’s not exactly fun, but there’s something deeply emotional about saying, “I’m willing to rearrange the plans I had about my life for you” and having someone say the same thing back to you. That’s a hell of a lot more romantic to me than hiding my needs for a year so I can be surprised with some sort of hot air balloon spectacle.)

Rule #46: We need to stop shaming women who want to get married. So. Back to That Girl Who Is So Desperate To Be Married. I’m not sure this girl exists. But if she does, I think we created her. We constantly reinforce unrealistic romantic ideals and then judge any woman and relationship that fails to meet them. We praise women whose men “got it right.” We shame women for “sitting around waiting” and “nagging him to marry her” but we never empower them to challenge the mores that strip them of their right to have a say. We force women to deny how they feel, avoid “pressuring” their significant others, and say they “don’t care when they get married.” (Oh and all of you women who are wonder why no one believes you when you say you’re fine not being married? This is why — because there are so many women who have decided to say that to save face, it ruins things for those of you who actually do mean it. It’s like we’re making other women cry wolf.)

Remember that whether you’re cool with your relationship status or want it to change, you’re allowed to own your feelings and feel them without guilt and judgment from others.

It’s Wet Wednesday! It’s really pretty wet here in Houston today too; we got some pretty crazy storms today and there have been tornado and flood warnings all day.

Anyway, I have lots of things getting me all worked up today!

Hot

Yoga videos. Let’s go back to how Wet Wednesday all began and take a moment to admire the human body with this video.

Pretty amazing, right? While I generally think that Equinox ads are extremely sexist, I find this one to be kind of amazing. I know it’s gotten quite a bit of criticism, but I actually love it.

And just to be fair, let’s check out the male form with this video…

Ah, the lovely human body!

Reading more. I’ve realized that in order to hit my goal of writing better content, I have to start by reading better content. I’ve been spending about 30 minutes each night reading blogs and articles, trying to go outside of what I’d been reading for the past year so I can discover new content and people that will inspire me. The more thought-provoking articles I read, the more thought-provoking articles I’m inspired to write.

Blogging less. While I’ve certainly been posting on my blog less, I feel like I’ve been writing lot more. I see writing and blogging as two different things. As I’ve been writing more, though, I’m remembering that writing takes a lot more out of me than blogging does. It takes creative energy and focus that is hard to come by after I’ve used a lot of it up at my job already. I’ve also been using it up writing for other outlets; although it means less content here, it’s ultimately been good because I always step up my game when I’m handing my work over to someone else to publish. It’s not that I don’t want to write more here or even blog more; I’d love to. But I simply don’t have the time or brainpower to do it well. Anyway, the reason this is on my list today is because coming to this realization has made me feel so good on so many levels. I’m sure I’ll keep refining what I write and how often I write over the coming months, but I feel like I’ve finally gotten over using I’ve been doing or what I think I should be doing as my guide. And it feels lovely.

And…I have nothing to be bothered about! I’m 99 percent sure this is because I just got home from yoga and I feel all sorts of peaceful right now. I should really write my bothered list around 3 PM when I’m cranky.

What’s on your hot and bothered list this Wet Wednesday? 

Apparently, the number of one-night stands you’ve had is actually not directly correlated to how comfortable you are taking your clothes off in the presence of a stranger. You’d think they’d be related, but they aren’t.

When I think about doing a boudoir-style photo shoot for the two years leading up to it, I don’t think, “Will I feel comfortable doing this?” I mean, of course I’ll feel comfortable doing this. Feeling comfortable is exactly why I want to do it. My body and I have a relationship like the man and woman who are enemies at the beginning of a romantic comedy. For whatever reason, we just didn’t get along for much of my life. And then I started to resent it; I blamed it for everything I didn’t like about my life and punished it accordingly. But eventually, I started to see it in a different light, and before I knew it, I was deeply in love, treating it well and then downright romanicing it. Cue the end credits! And the photo shoot!

I don’t have much time to think about my impending nudity during the week leading up to the photo shoot. I’m so busy with work, writing assignments, yoga, household chores, and puppies, getting naked is the last thing on my mind. Finally on Thursday I realize I need to get it together, that I need to clean up my apartment if I’m going to have a guest, and, oh…I should probably do something about these cuticles too, huh? So I put a little brainpower into my looks, scheduling an eyebrow appointment and a hair appointment, but really, I’m more concerned with the state of my apartment. I’m sure a lot of people would spend the week leading up to this type of photo shoot getting their hair colored or getting a bikini wax or something, but rather than worry about that, I worry about my literal carpet and drapes — and bathrooms, sheets, dishes, and laundry. Not only am I playing hostess to my friend and photographer Caitlin, but she’s shooting me at my apartment, in my guest bedroom. My apartment actually needs to look camera-ready. So I’m more worried about that than myself. I avoid pizza and beer and go to yoga as usual, but other than that, I pay very little attention to my body. When I do think about it, I just decide it’s probably too late to make any changes. My biceps are as good as they are going to get, but I can’t say the same about my bathroom. So I put my efforts there.

When I wake up on Saturday morning, it is very dark. I exfoliate, slather on body oil, and put on some lacy underwear and a robe before doing my hair and make-up more carefully than I normally would. By the time I’m ready to make breakfast at 7:30, I look a bit overdressed. Well, underdressed, I suppose. But you know — more glamorous than I think I’ve ever looked for breakfast in my entire life. As Eric and I move around the kitchen warming up a loaf of chocolate cranberry bread and making bacon, I wonder what it would be like if I always looked like this when I was making breakfast. Then I consider that if I always looked like this at 7:30 AM, I probably wouldn’t be making my own breakfast. I’d be way too high-maintenance for that.

As Eric, Caitlin, and I eat breakfast, it is hard to ignore how dark it still is outside. The sky is lightening, but it is not exactly brightening. The ground is wet and there were a lot of clouds. I don’t really think much of it — it’s not like we are all up this early because we were going on a picnic — but Caitlin is looking at the clouds like a photographer. And she is saying that we can’t shoot while it is that dark.

It hasn’t occurred to me that bad weather might throw off this whole thing, but suddenly, it’s looking like I’m all dressed up with no place to go. So…we wait. Eric heads to spin class. We wait. Eric returns home from spin, showers, and heads to a golf lesson. I wish he were staying, if only because I know he’d make me laugh during the shoot, and laughing is always good.

Everyone I’ve told about this shoot immediately asks me if I’m doing it as a surprise for Eric, and the answer is no. My boyfriend loves and appreciates my body and will appreciate the pictures, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just…different for him. He doesn’t know my body like I do. He doesn’t have a long relationship with it like I do. When I think about doing this for him, it makes me think that I would have to deny him all other times so he’d be really excited because he never gets to see me like this. And I’m not the denying type. The truth is, how Caitlin is shooting me is exactly how Eric seems me on a regular basis — happy, sexy, half-naked in the early morning light. He doesn’t need pictures. And also, I’ve always been confused about the expectations when you give a man a photo album of sexy shots of you. What is he to do with it? I feel like there’s some sort of implied, “Sooooo….I better not ever catch you looking at porn agin. Happy birthday, honey!”

We’ve been waiting for a few hours now; I do laundry and start to consider the fact that this might not happen. Much to my surprise, I’m not that upset. Hm. Well that’s weird. I thought I’d be a bit more excited than this.

When there is a subtle shift in the light, I don’t notice it, but Caitlin does, and she tells me we’re good to go. And then suddenly, I start stalling like I’ve never stalled for anything before.

I tell her I’m just going to touch up my hair and make-up, but then I realize I need to collect all the outfit changes that I might need. And oh, this shirt needs to be ironed. And I need water. And I think the dogs need to go out. And my hair just will not do what I want it to do. And I think I need some powder on my face. And where is my lip gloss? And let me just put on some music. And on and on and on. As I look in the mirror for the thousandth time, I realize…I’m stalling. That’s not really my style; usually I decide to do something and then just do it.

“You’re afraid to drop your robe, now?” my glamorous, made-up self asks me. All the lip gloss accentuates the scowl on her face. “Really? Because I’m fairly certain that you have never, ever given it this much thought when someone you had met only once before was telling you to take off your clothes and come lie down.”

“Fine,” I say, and start heading toward the bedroom. Then I stop.

“My hair doesn’t look right,” I tell her, and I plug the curling iron back in.

“STOP TOUCHING IT!” she screams at me. She narrows her eyes at me so I can see her lovely, smoky eye shadow. “It looks fine but you keep playing with it like you’re a teenage girl. Who the hell does that? When have you ever done that? Are you trying to be like…flirty? Are you practicing for the shoot? Because you look like an idiot.”

We go back and forth like this for another 10 minutes before she finally drags me out of the bathroom.

I take off my robe. For the first photos, I am wearing a thin pink ribbed tank top and black lace bottoms. You can see my nipples and my ass cheeks. It’s one of my favorite things to wear when I’m relaxing. I typically have no problems feeling sexy and comfortable when I’m dressed like this. But now? Now I walk over to the bed and assume a position that seems more appropriate for senior pictures than for this type of photo shoot, especially since I have the pasted-on fake smile to match it. Shouldn’t there be a “CLASS OF ’12″ pillow on this bed or something? I imagine getting the finished photos printed as wallets; I’ll write my name on the back in big cursive letters and hand them out to all my friends.

Caitlin starts shooting and I’m still unrelaxed. I tell her that some people had recommended I have a drink first, and I figured I didn’t need one. Now I’m wishing I had one, though I know I’d turn making a drink into a 30 minute ordeal, so I decide to skip it.

Caitlin tells me to do whatever I want, that her best shots are the candid ones, but we all know “act natural” is an oxymoron. I have no idea what to do. I try smiling, but I can only imagine how my toothy, oh-this-makes-sense-in-a-snapshot-when-I’m-wearing-clothes grin will look when I’m sticking my ass out like I am at the moment. It just feels so cheesy. Should I try to act sexy? I honestly have no idea how to even do that. When models make their sexy faces, they aren’t smiling. But when I don’t smile in pictures, I don’t look sexy. I actually look my worst.

So to take the focus off my face, which doesn’t know what the hell it wants to do, I ask Caitlin to take more close-ups of my body. That was really the point of the shoot anyway. I wanted shots of my thighs, arms, tummy, back, butt…pretty much all the areas women are always complaining about. Yes, please take high-res photos of all my so-called “problem areas.” I want to be able to remind myself forever that they really aren’t problematic at all.

As I take off my shirt and move onto my stomach so Caitlin can get pictures of my tattoo, the last big thing I did to celebrate feeling happy and confident and secure with my body, I wonder if I need to acknowledge my semi-nudity. Like “Hey…nipples are incoming!” I mean, she has to know this is part of the gig, but I am her first boudoir shoot, and we are friends. I don’t really care if my friends see my nipples, but I’ve noticed other women seem to care a lot. Many times, other women turn their backs when changing so as not to expose their chests. Why is this? I always think, “Why are you so willing to go off and hook up with random frat guys but you turn your back on a girl friend when changing?” So I do the same thing, figuring if they don’t want me to see their naked body parts, they probably don’t want to see mine. I figure it’s time to break that habit so I don’t make much effort to cover my naked chest as I shift around.

Once my face is out of the picture, I’m free to talk as much as I want. I start asking Caitlin about her life and very quickly, we are chatting. And that actually has a better effect on me than a drink ever could. I don’t feel sexy when I’m posing or smiling or making “sexy” faces…I feel sexy when I’m talking and laughing and engaging with other people. When I’m not thinking about feeling sexy. With every minute that passes that we talk, I feel more like myself. By the time she’s ready to shoot my face again, my face is ready too. I’m sure she’ll have to toss many of the pictures because I’m mid-sentence in them, but that’s why I’m not a model. Looking back on one-night stands or other times when I’ve been fine with people seeing my naked parts, I realize that I probably was talking the entire time leading up to it.

Today’s lesson: once I’m being heard, I feel sexy, and so then I feel comfortable being seen.