January 22, 2025

Apologies for the hobbit misgendering in my previous post! I thought Merry and Pippin were both girls. They are actually very supportive and helpful men, and I kind of want to party with them.

January 20, 2025

Harry Potter taught me how to read in the 90’s. I was home from school with an extended case of mono for what seemed like weeks, and my Mamaw bought me a copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”. Thus, began an epic journey I got to take with Harry, Ron, and the real heroine of the book series, Hermione (seriously, those other two jackasses would have been dead in the middle of Book 1 without her) all the way up until the final book was released the summer before my senior year. A spectacular, childhood defining movement that fucking millennials LOVE to talk about. I can’t make it through 10 Bumble profiles without seeing a man who either mentions Harry Potter in his bio or has a Harry Potter tattoo on display in one of his photos. We loved the books, we loved the movies, the video game that came out just last year was a huge success, we buy Harry Potter legos and listen to Harry Potter podcasts and go to Harry Potter Wizarding World or whatever it’s called. And then when the author, JK Rowling, came out as an unapologetic bigot, we all tried to rationalize our love for the story that turned us into the readers we are today and separate a beloved story from the hateful hag who wrote it and apparently can’t live and let live even though she falls asleep on top of piles of money every night like Scrooge McDuck. And if you’re like me and you believe there is truth to Kathleen Kelly’s boyfriend’s words in “You’ve Got Mail” when he wrote, “You are what you read,” maybe you returned to the story as a hesitant adult to re-evaluate whether the story was as powerful and triumphant over evil as we remembered. In my opinion, it left a lot to be desired and the placement of Professor Snape on a pedestal of heroism is one of the weirdest literary takes of all time. Being in love with your high school bestie and doing some amount of spy shit to keep her kid alive while simultaneously physically, magically, and emotionally abusing him and his friends is not the hero arc we deserved, but it’s the one we got.

Obviously I have feelings about Harry Potter that have been complicated by real-life muggles. Last year, a friend introduced me to the Potterless podcast, which was a young man’s journey into the world of Harry Potter as an adult who had never read any of the books or seen any of the movies. Mike Schubert had the unique experience that I will never have – the ability to read Harry Potter for the first time as a person with a fully formed frontal lobe, and just enough baggage from life to view the story with a bit of cynicism. The podcast was great. It was so fascinating to hear his take on Quidditch as a true muggle sports fan, and his understanding of Wizarding economics, and his view on JK Rowling herself as her hateful takes came into the spotlight while he was in the middle of recording his multi-year podcast. He has since moved on to the Percy Jackson Series, and also has a delightful podcast about basketball called HORSE.

You can learn more about Potterless and listen to it here: https://www.potterlesspodcast.com

Another popular man topic I encounter on Bumble quite a bit is Lord of the Rings. My “You Make the First Move” prompt for the guys to be able to talk to me first on the app is “Who is your favorite book character and why?” I haven’t been keeping my response data in a spreadsheet or anything…man, wouldn’t that be nerdy? Wink. Wink. But I can tell you some of the most popular responses I get on there:

1. Jack Reacher. I honestly had no idea that Jack Reacher was a book character.
2. Sherlock Holmes. A lot of cops give this answer and say they like him because he likes to solve mysteries. Which makes sense.
3. George Smiley from the John Le Carre novels. I think most of the men who give this answer are spies, but of course they can’t tell me they are spies. But George Smiley was a spy, so this seems like something a spy would say.
4. The Hardy Boys. I’ve gotten this one a few times, and I like the answer because I read a lot of Hardy Boys when I was a kid and raiding my mom’s old books.
5. Samwise from the Lord of the Rings. Now, this is the part where I’m going to sound like an asshole. Usually when people start talking about LoTR, I mentally check out, so I honestly can’t summarize why these men like Samwise so much. I’m sure they have wonderful reasons, but when I hear hobbit shit, I can’t pay attention.

Obviously number 5 says a lot more about my shitty character than it does about their favorite character, Samwise. But after I got that answer a few times and realized I was being LoTR-avoidant in my potential relationships (hahahahahahahahahahaha), I decided that it is really time for me to see what all the fuss is about. Who is this mysterious Samwise, and why does every man between the age of 28 and 45 feel such a connection to him? Why aren’t they naming the other kid in the story – Elijah Wood? Frodo? His name is Frodo, right? (I know now that it is, but three days ago, I did not). I can’t keep going through life having these guys tell me that I need to read this book to understand them, and “oooh sounds like we need to have a movie marathon at your house”. No, Jake, you’re not coming to my house to LoTR and chill before you take me to dinner. Life will just be easier for me if I man up and read the damn books.

So, I’m reading the damn books! I’m not charismatic enough to start a Sam-wiser Than Yesterday podcast or whatever cute title would be appropriate and have anyone actually listen, but I figure I can write about it a bit at least. Last night, I read the first chapter of LoTR: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Rebecca’s Synopsis of Chapter 1: A hobbit named Bilbo Baggins plans an absolute rager for his birthday party. Bilbo is rich as fuck, and everyone is perplexed by how young he still looks despite the fact that he is turning 111 years old. Frodo is an orphan hobbit whose parents died in a boating accident, and Bilbo adopted him and brought him to live in his Playboy Mansion (Bag End) in Hobbiton. All in all, most hobbits think Bilbo and Frodo are nice guys, especially Ham Gamgee (SAMWISE’s dad, squeal!!!) who seems to think they are just the bee’s knees. Other hobbits seem okay with them, but they also like to talk shit and steal stuff. Anyway, Bilbo is planning this big party and his pal Gandalf (AKA a wizard named Dumbledore) comes to town with an ass ton of fireworks. Bilbo hosts the big party with tons of food and drinks and baller fireworks from Daddy G, and then tells the hobbits that he likes them and they will never see him again. He takes a ring out of his pocket and disappears, and is never seen by another hobbit in Hobbiton again. On his way out of Bag End, Bilbo does run into Gandalf, and they get into a bit of a fight about this mysterious ring – Bilbo wants to keep it and Gandalf insists that he should give it to his heir, Frodo. Bilbo gets a little weird and keeps saying, “My Precious” when he’s talking about the ring, and Gandalf is like “my guy, look at yourself, let this shit go.” Finally Bilbo agrees, and leaves the ring behind for Frodo. Frodo spends the next day trying to get all of these asshole hobbits out of his new mansion he just inherited, and trying to keep them from stealing all the silver. Gandalf pops by at the end of the day to tell him to be careful with his new ring and to keep it safe and use it sparingly (like that credit card your parents gave you for emergencies in college), and then says he’s off to do some sort of thing in a place and that it will be a long time before Frodo sees him again. Here are a few of my initial thoughts:

1. When I began, I started off trying to read the prologue – which seems to be like a big history chapter about Hobbits. I’m sorry, but no thank you. I don’t know what version of the book I tried to read the few times I attempted to read this shit when I was a kid/teen and gave up in the first few pages, but I have a feeling that the prologue was the cause of all of my “Did Not Finish” attempts. Because damn, that prologue is boring and long. I skipped it.
2. Hobbits are already making me feel better about myself and my station in life. Frodo is turning 33 and he is about to be “coming of age”? That means, in hobbit years, I’ve only been “of age” for ~2 years. No wonder I fuck up all the time! It’s because I’m a baby! Do we know how a Hobbit year compares to a human year? Is Middle Earth a different planet? What’s going on with the astronomy over there? Do we know??? Was all this shit in the prologue?
3. My new goal in life is for people to whisper behind my back about how “well preserved” I am for my age. Although, I put on an anti-aging mask when I was Facetimeing my mom tonight and she said, “What’s your goal, to turn into a fetus?” which really meant a lot.
4. Hobbit birthdays seem pretty cool, especially that part where your friends have birthdays and they give you gifts. That means you could get gifts almost every day if you were super popular like Galinda. Oops, I’m mixing universes.
5. Bilbo’s form of passive aggression is *chef’s kiss*. Before he disappears, he makes a will and leaves all these gifts to his family and friends. But each gift comes with a snarky note and some kind of backhanded meaning. My favorite was when we left one lady a waste paper basket with a note thanking her for all the advice she had sent him in letters over the years.
6. I can appreciate Bilbo’s Irish Goodbye at the end of his party, especially when it came to parting with Frodo. I am the absolute worst at goodbyes – they make me act awkward and cold and the person being goodbye-d might even think I don’t like them at all. When in reality, I’m shutting down and I’m not emotionally intelligent enough to make the moment matter. I’m not sure what the gold ring does yet, but if it can get me out of awkward or sad goodbyes, I would like to have one. MY PRECIOUS.
7. Bilbo doesn’t really die in the chapter, but his departure is as permanent as death. As such, the Hobbits around him start to deal with his departure in the most human of ways – quarreling, accusing Frodo and Gandalf of foul play, arguing over spoons, searching for the hidden money, and questioning poor Frodo’s legitimacy as a Baggins.
8. I didn’t learn much about Frodo in this chapter other than he seems to miss Bilbo a lot, and he has a friend named Merry who is spunky. I like her. I was also surprised to learn that Frodo is an adult hobbit – I always thought he was a teen like Harry Potter.
9. Gandalf mentioned someone called Gandalf the Grey – who I assume is his menacing alter ego or something? I am interested to learn more about Gandalf and whether he is as useless and negligent as Dumbledore.
10. So far, so good. I ‘m ready for Chapter 2.

Welcome to the Shire, bitches!

January 19, 2025

I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but I’ve been going through a phase. A bear phase. It all started with this crazy documentary on HBO (Max, whatever) called “Chimp Crazy.” If you watched that 4-part masterpiece, you got a glimpse into the crazy lives of humans who own chimpanzees and the dangers that come when the chimps “stop being polite and start getting real.” In many cases, “real” means ripping human faces right off of their skulls and wreaking havoc on law enforcement officers and dorky PETA lawyers alike. The show featured the self-proclaimed “Dolly Parton of Chimps” and when I look at her, I can’t help but see myself in 20 years. Aslan willing and the creek don’t rise.

Anyway, the show had a podcast companion show called “Tooth and Claw” which is a podcast hosted by three best friends who discuss animal attacks every week and some of the things that humans do that might cause animals to lose their collective shit and try to kill us. The guy with the credibility on the pod is a bear biologist named Wes Larson, who has spent many years studying bears – Grizzly bears, Polar bears, and Black bears…oh my. His little brother Jeff is a lovable lug with the kind of self-deprecating humor that I so enjoy, and the third host is their BFF, Mike Smith, who always adds a bit of thoughtful retrospection to the show. I am obsessed with these guys, and they have been feeding my healthy obsession with bears since September. They actually cover all kinds of animals on the pod…bears, tigers, leopards, snakes, bees, sharks…any wild animal that can attack and do damage to a human is fair game for them. And they’ve been taking me down a survival rabbit hole.

I’m now convinced that bear spray is the answer to everything, and I’d carry it to deter pests at work if that wouldn’t be frowned upon by HR. They taught me that if a Black Bear is attacking you, it’s probably trying to eat you and the best thing you can do to try to survive is to fight back – throw rocks, kick, punch the bear’s nose. Alternatively, if a Grizzly bear attacks you, it may be trying to eat you, but it is probably doing something defensive like trying to get you away from cubs or some food source. But also, it may be trying to eat you. They’ve taught me about electric fences you can put up while camping to deter critters, Critter Getter alarms, the importance of sleeping next to your bear spray. Outside of the realm of bears, I’ve also learned that I shouldn’t swim in the ocean near dawn or dusk or in murky water (sharks), if a lion is trying to eat you, he might have a toothache, and a great way to get fucked up in Yellowstone is to turn your back on a Bison (which we have all been calling Buffalo which is apparently wrong). I’ve learned that a good way to protect yourself from enemies is to put Bullet ants down their pants, and that there are men on this earth who inject themselves with snake venom to build up immunity to snake bites…for basically no reason other than they think it makes them look tough. And honestly…they do look very very tough. No notes.

Staying on theme with some of my other obsessions I’ve mentioned here before – the Donner Party, the Flight 571 plane crash that stranded Uruguayan rugby players in the unforgiving terrain of the Andes Mountains – my bear obsession and the tangential obsession with wilderness survival has left me endlessly fascinated with the human spirit. People find themselves in situations that they have no business surviving. It makes no sense that someone could have their head inside of a Grizzly bear’s mouth and live to tell the tale, but they have and they will. It makes no sense that a man could be bitten by a Black Mamba and somehow drive himself to safety and survive the nearly 2 hour journey to the hospital. It makes no sense that Aron Ralston was able to sever his own arm using a multi-tool and somehow didn’t die from the pain or blood loss before he found help. We all love a good survival story. We love to celebrate survivors and they end up on our tv’s and in our newsfeeds, and we place them up on pedestals to represent the best of humanity – the things we are capable of overcoming, the way nature tries to conquer us and we refuse to die. Like Michael Myers in every single Halloween movie or the Huns in Mulan’s avalanche, we “pop up out of the snow like daisies” and carry on with our dastardly deeds. And in times when nature is raging against us, which is certainly the case in LA right now, we take the hope that these stories offer us and tuck it away to remind us that we can survive.

The thing that gets me about these stories sometimes is guilt over any inconvenience I perceive in my life. I might be really going through it, but I’m not “pinned under a boulder with no food or water looking at my Swiss army knife and wondering if I can saw through my own arm with it” going-through-it. I’m not “eating my friends on a glacier in the Andes” going-through-it. There’s no Grizzly bear in my tent. Hell, I’m not even in a tent. I’m in a 4-story house that I really overpaid for in the middle of a DC suburb where I can get Walmart groceries and any kind of pizza I want delivered right to my doorstep. Maybe things can’t be that bad. I get in that groove of dismissing my own feelings and problems like optimism is my full time job. I may have been dropped in a room full of pony shit, but that means there’s a pony in here somewhere, so hand me a fucking shovel! At least it’s not bear shit, after all!

And yeah, optimism is a good thing. But I guess this mentality sometimes makes me feel like I’m running away from my own problems, and not giving myself time to process and feel whatever grief or anger or frustration that comes with them, because SOMEONE ELSE IS BEING ATTACKED BY A LION AT THIS VERY MOMENT. But it’s like the proverbial bear is trying to eat my face off while I’m at home safe in my Snuggie with my puppy sleeping on my feet, and I just shut the door in it’s face. That’ll do it. I’ll just ignore it and it will go away. But then I realize, it’s nature and it’s life and “life finds a way” and that door isn’t going to keep the bear away from my face. I can open my work laptop and build slides and pretend like all is well, but that bear is out there tearing shit up trying to get in here. And she will. And if I don’t pay attention, she will eat my face off. She’ll freeze me to death. She’ll poison me. She’ll set me on fire. She’ll destroy me. I can run away, but she’s faster and stronger – and survival doesn’t happen until after she catches me. Survival is the part that comes after. Survival happens after the crash, after the attack, after the avalanche, after the fire…it comes after the world gets the chance to throw punches and you are still there to feel the pain that gets left behind.

I think about the last few months, and I feel like there have been a lot of natural disasters on my personal path. My teammate and friend resigning at work right before Christmas felt like a bear trying to eat me. It felt like I’d never recover. Losing another close friend for reasons that I don’t understand felt like a fire I couldn’t contain and in the aftermath it felt as cold as being on that mountain with those Rugby players. Okay maybe not that cold. But, cold and lonely, nonetheless. Like no one could hear me or remembered that I was alive and feeling and suffering. Spending time with my family for the holidays felt like the rescue I’d been waiting for, only to be dropped back out into the wilderness again when the new year began and life moved on. I think I spent the last part of 2024 running and dodging and throwing punches, trying out run these disasters – and maybe that rush of adrenaline was good in the moment to keep me from shutting down and getting burned or mauled more than I needed to. But now, in the after, is when the pain comes and survival begins. Let’s see how it goes.

How are you surviving the beginning of 2025?

October 6, 2024

I was chatting with a girl at work about my dating shenanigans, and she told me I need to get myself a roster. Now, if you’re not hip and don’t know what a roster is in dating – same, girl. Or at least I didn’t until I looked it up on Google.

My understanding is that a roster is like a line-up for a baseball team where you have multiple people you are dating at one time. Her reasoning behind this advice was that if one guy ghosts you or hurts your feelings, you can sub in someone else from your roster and go on a date with them. That way, you can’t spend too much time mourning one person when you have another date lined up soon after. Which is really fair advice, because I’ve gotten into a real cycle of sadness with one man after another blowing me off for better options, and it takes me longer than I’d like to admit to recover from the rejection.

The roster is the opposite of the way I date. I have always been a one-man-at-a-time dater, even in the “talking” phase where you’re just texting and planning to meet up. Part of this is because it feels like the right thing to do…or at least, it seems like I would be treating the men I’m trying to build relationships with the way I want to be treated and giving them all of the energy and attention I have allocated for dating. Also, having multiple conversations going at once is incredibly confusing. Have I told this one I went to France yet? Is this the one who has a dog, or is this the one who has the pet snake? What was his sister’s name? It seems to be so challenging and exhausting. I got cheated on once, and I just remember being so in awe that this man had the time and energy to keep TWO whole relationships going. All that texting and going out and making up lies to stick to – how do you make time to watch Sister Wives in your pajamas?

But honestly, my dating life has felt even shittier than usual lately. I’m getting older and the dating pool feels like it is getting smaller and smaller. I had a couple dates with a friend’s co-worker a couple months ago, and I really like the guy and thought that I was at least safe from some of the normal bad behavior that comes with dating complete strangers – like, who would ghost their co-worker’s friend? But he did ghost me, and I took it hard, It feels like I’m at the point where I don’t even feel excited about good dates anymore because the other shoe will always drop. It’s been just about 3 years of Cathy-comic-style single-ness, and I haven’t had a third date with a man since…last October? Am I even on the clearance rack anymore? Or am I on the way back to the warehouse to be recycled to make an ugly neon purse or something? It feels pathetic.

Anyway, my friend told me to try out the roster, so I did it. You know, for science. I planned a whole weekend of dates – one for every chunk of a weekend that I wasn’t planning to be with my friends. I scheduled Friday night drinks at Jimmy’s with Jared, Saturday taco lunch with Maximilian, and Sunday lunch in Leesburg with Killian. Here’s how my experiment went.

Friday night with Jared: Jared had a very nice mustache. Not my usually type in terms of looks, but he seemed really funny. We sent voice memos back and forth for about a week about smoke detectors and pork chops and other random bullshit. I was on the phone on Thursday night, and took a little longer than usual to respond to one of his texts. He sent me an annoyed message saying “Are we still on for tomorrow or what?” and I told him yes and that I was looking forward to it. Friday night, I rushed home from work to take my shower and get ready. At 5:55 pm, approximately an hour and 5 minutes before we were supposed to meet, he texted me to tell me he had to work late and “unfortunately” couldn’t make it.

Saturday tacos with Maximilian: Max is a cutie patootie who seemed really nice over text. We had it all planned out to have tacos at Señor Ramon’s and then go get beer at the brewery next door – pretty much my perfect outing. On Friday, he texted me letting me know that he wasn’t feeling well at all, but he was planning to try to rally for Saturday. Saturday came and he still felt like shit, so he told me he would reschedule. That didn’t happen.

Sunday lunch with Killian: This guy is cute as hell. I got a message from him on Saturday asking “what’s your policy on rescheduling?” where he claimed that work was just insane. I told him it was okay and he said we would get together this weekend. That didn’t happen.

Woof. Three up, three down. Two days later, Evan cancelled our Tuesday night margarita night and I started to think that this is really the end for me. The days of men putting on pants and driving 15 minutes to meet me for a drink are over. I’m 34 now (imagine I said that in the voice of Jessica from Season 1 of Love is Blind), all washed up and basically a really awful job that men feel they need to call in sick to. I’ve had a few single girlfriends who have recently met men who seem to have long term potential, and instead of being happy for them like the nice human I want to be, I just use their example to reinforce this narrative I have in my head that I’m doing something wrong or not worth the effort to put on pants. It breeds resentment and self-loathing and depression. It’s fall and beautiful outside, and I’d give my left arm to have someone to go pick apples with or some other cliche fall shit. And I’m going to blink and it will be Christmas, and if I don’t get out of this funk, I’ll spend my holidays focusing on everything I don’t have instead of everything I do have.

I know the answer is to put myself at the top of the line up, followed by family and friends and all the people who want to spend time with me – even if it requires putting on pants and leaving the house. Today my friend told me that what her boyfriend wants for his birthday is to go apple picking with me and her. I literally burst into tears. The dichotomy is so striking – strangers who can’t be bothered to see me, vs best friends who WANT TIME WITH ME AS THEIR BIRTHDAY GIFT. We did an outing like this last year, and I spent most of that beautiful fall day staring at my phone wondering if the man I was dating was going to show up at a brewery to meet my friends like he said he would. He didn’t because he was hung over, and then he dumped me for another woman the following weekend. I spent that weekend in bed mourning the loss of…well, in hindsight, a jerk who didn’t show up for me. How many moments did I miss or half-way enjoy with my friends because I was worried to death over this man? I don’t know how to fix my mindset, but I’ll tell you one thing. I’m going apple picking with my friends who love me, and I’m turning off my phone that day. Because the important people are going to be at the top of my line-up from now on, and the rest of these scrubs can sit on the bench. Which is good, because that’s where they want to be anyway. On the bench without any pants on.

August 4, 2024

One of my favorite reality shows is called “My Big Fat Fabulous Life”. The show on TLC chronicles the life of Whitney Way Thore, a gal from Greensboro, North Carolina, who went viral in the early 2010’s for a YouTube video called “Fat Girl Dancing”. In the video, she danced a hip-hop routine with her best friend, Todd – and the only remarkable part of the video was that she confidently and unapologetically completed a very good dance routine in her own body, despite looking very different from dancers we were used to seeing at that time. She’s a self-proclaimed fat person, and throughout the 11.5 seasons of her reality show, her weight has bounced around between 300-350 lbs. On the show, she started her own dance class called “Big Girl Dance Class” or BGDC, where people of all shapes and sizes showed up to learn from Whitney – a formally trained dancer. The BDGC gals got to dance between innings at a Greensboro grasshoppers game, and had a dance off in Charlotte against a rival dance group called the “Trophy Wives”. I love the show mostly because Whitney is southern and funny and goes through a lot of things that women in all bodies can understand. On the show, I’ve seen her complete 5ks, hiking trips, fitness challenges in Alaska, boyfriend drama, friend drama, family drama, the loss of her mother, and the discovery of a family she didn’t know existed when she learned that her father had a daughter that was put up for adoption years before Whitney was born. Her friends are delightfully southern and funny, and to me, it feels like they are the best sort of people. I find the show to be compelling and Whitney’s friends feel like my own friends. I look forward to seeing them on my tv each week.

Sometimes I look at Reddit threads that show me the worst of humanity. I pop into r/niceguys where women post screenshots of self-proclaimed “nice guys” being anything but nice. I also look at r/nicegirls, which is the same idea except women are the offenders, and this helps me maintain perspective. I find my way to the r/notlikeothergirls page, where there are all these examples of women tearing other women down, which is my least favorite corner of the internet. I think this is why I don’t like to watch any Real Housewives shows on Bravo because girl on girl crime is the most demoralizing for me to consume. I follow people on instagram who critique and expose me to some of the worst takes on the planet. A lot of my social media consumption is downright toxic. I’m willing to admit that. But the one place on the internet that surprises me the most is the r/MyBigFatFabulousLife page. Holy shit. People watch Whitney on her silly, light hearted show, and they head directly to Reddit to talk about how they HATE her. They hate her. Universally – no one in that sub actually likes her or enjoys the show, they just show up to dunk on her.

The idea of watching a tv show or consuming any kind of media just to fuel some hate or rage or make you feel better about yourself is not something I’m immune to. All of the subreddits I mentioned previously are good examples of that. Sometimes I follow these red pill guys who hate women on instagram just so I can watch them and feel strongly about how much I hate them. Hate isn’t a good feeling, but it’s a strong one – and sometimes you need to feel it and let is course through your body. And feeling it toward a bad idea, or a person spewing hatred with every word they utter feels like a safe way to let it all out. It’s much better that hating Jessica from the billing department or your ex boyfriend, because the objects of theses strong emotions never cross paths with you. You don’t need to cooperate with them or try to understand them because you don’t need anything from them. It just feels like such a natural outlet for our feelings – strangers on the internet or strangers on our tv screen. So, yeah, I get it. But man. The Whitney Way Thore hate really upsets me when I read it, because the attacks on her feel like personal attacks on ME.

The themes of the Whitney hatred are mainly centered around how she “whines” a lot about being single. Her love life has been a prominent part of her show over the years. She was engaged to a man named Chase who got another woman pregnant during Covid, so that didn’t last. She was dating a man named Avi, and then discovered that he was dating multiple fat women at one time and had a fiancé in Egypt. She also dated a man named Lennie, who had trouble with alcoholism. After they split, they became good friends again and started working together on her No Body Shame campaign. She’s been through some shit when it comes to men. Some of that has no doubt been dramatized for television, but the sentiment of being close to 40 years old with no husband and no prospects and a strong desire to be a mom is familiar to me. On Reddit, they make fun of her desire to find someone. They say she focuses on it too much. They say she drowns in self pity. They say her standards for the men she dates are way too high. Way too high? Imagine that. Imagine ending relationships over men being alcoholics, cheaters, pathological liars, etc. and then people telling you that your standards are too high. They might as well be saying – hey, you’re fat, you’re not allowed to expect anything from the men you date. How dare you want someone you find attractive! How dare you want someone who is kind and faithful and makes you laugh! You don’t meet MY standards of beauty and value – so you shouldn’t have any standards at all.

Man it bums me out. I am not a fat person, but like every other woman I know, I have had insecurities about my body. I have big thighs and stretch marks. I don’t think my smile is that pretty. I’m getting older – I have laugh lines and wrinkles, and I have to square up with that every time I go on a first date and then when I go on that date, I have to look at the man in front of me and decide if he’s what I’m looking for. I went on a date with a guy who basically told me he was a gambling addict over dinner. In my head, I was like well, it’s not like I don’t have my own addictions and vices. Then he blew me off for our second date to go gambling. I could see it on the Bumble app – after I messaged him asking if we were still on for dinner and he didn’t respond, I looked at his location on Bumble, and it said he was in Delaware, where he liked to gamble. He ghosted me for several weeks and then reached out again wanting a second chance. I heard all of those voices in my head – telling Whitney that her standards are too high, telling me MY standards are too high – and I almost gave him another chance. “It’s not like I have any better options…” Ultimately, I told him no. But the fact that I considered it even for a second might tell you how the outside voices in this world have infiltrated this very personal experience that is deciding whether you want to tolerate someone’s behavior or not. Those outside voices turn into my own voice telling me “You’re too fat to expect better. You’re too ___________ to expect better.”

Shortly after this all happened, I went on a completely blind date for the first time in my life. My friend set me up with a guy she knows from work and we planned a date without exchanging pictures. I spent the whole day worried that I was not going to be attracted to him and that I would have to let him down. Then when he showed up – he was perfect. Tall, good looking, has his shit together, funny, kind, family-oriented. All the things I want. We had an amazing date and talked for hours. Then after he walked me to my car, I cried in the parking lot on the phone with my best friend telling her how this guy is “too good for me”. I blame the wine slushies for a good chunk of this, but I also blame all this shit that I have allowed to infiltrate my head. I scolded myself for having the audacity to worry about whether he’d be attractive to me. Somehow, a successful date turned into some kind of failure to me because I have convinced myself that I don’t deserve…anything. I don’t deserve to feel excited about a date with a cute boy. I don’t deserve to let myself off the hook and shrug and say “oh well, at least we had fun”, when the cute boy doesn’t text me. Heavens no, it’s time to reiterate what I cried about in the car and walk through all the things that may have turned him off about me during our date.

The thing I’m really working on is grabbing hold of these small moments where I draw some boundaries and expect more from men. Sending a text to my gambler to politely tell him that I am not interested felt like a big step for me. I don’t want to be in this space forever – feeling that men deserve second and third chances because I’m not perfect. I’m not perfect at all, and I never will be – but do you think they are giving me multiple chances when I mess up? No way. I’m allowed to expect more of these people. I’m allowed to say no. I’m allowed to have standards even though I’m an old maid and I’d give my left foot to be in love right now. Desire doesn’t have to equal desperation. Whitney and I are allowed to want what we want.

My Big Fat Fabulous Life airs on Tuesdays at 9 on TLC.

April 8, 2024

I received some anonymous feedback today that really threw me for a loop – which is strange because my general stance on feedback is that it should be like breathing – it should be a normal thing that you are giving and receiving every day so it’s not a traumatic event for anyone. But this one upset me more than any other “constructive” feedback I’ve ever received.

I won’t write the feedback verbatim here but essentially this person wrote that the events I plan for women at work are disingenuous and inauthentic because don’t talk to junior practitioners during the events.

First off, this is clearly a blanket statement that is not true – I do talk to junior practitioners at events. I’m assuming the author means “I am a junior practitioner and Rebecca did not talk to me at a particular event.”

The only event I organized in this quarter was a GALentine’s event that I hold for women at my company every year. It started small with about 5 ladies the first year, and grew to be 50+ invitees this year. I’m assuming this person was upset that I didn’t speak to her (much?) at that particular party. I think this is fair criticism – Miss Manners would dictate that you should greet every person at an event and spend time talking to each person. This is why you go to weddings and usually get to spend a grand total of 3 minutes celebrating with the bride and groom – they have to make sure they greet every person at the wedding. One could note that this was not a wedding. It was not a celebration of me- it was an event that I hosted for people to network with each other – which took place in a glorified break room. It was my bad for getting sucked into a few conversations and also not feeling super chatty that evening. I’ll own that I did not do a good job socially engaging. Here are a few things that the feedback giver may not know about that party though.

1. It was something that I volunteered my time toward – not a required event. It was something I wanted to do for the ladies in my network. No one asked me to do it and also, no one was required to attend.
2. I spent about $200 dollars of my own money on goodie bags for every person who attended the event. I didn’t use my corporate American Express – I paid for a hand curated collection of earrings, scrunchies, GALentine’s Day cards that I personally designed (I’ll say more about these in a few minutes), pencils, stress balls, notepads, and fun glasses for everyone to wear in a group picture. My money. Mine. Not to mention the time that I spent assembling all 50 bags by myself (in my own personal time the night before the event, not company time).
3. I spent two full weekends using my Cricut to make vinyl stickers for the event. Every person who attended got two vinyl stickers for their water bottle/notebook/whatever, and I also bought knock-off Stanley cups from Walmart and put an “Empowered Women Empower Women” sticker on three of them to raffle off at the event. This was labor intensive (again, my personal time, not company time) – and I paid for the materials (once again) with my own money. Because this was something I wanted to do for the women I work with.
4. I ordered 10 pizzas for the event. Now – I did let the company pay for the food, which is customary, but I placed the order in advance and made sure the food would arrive on time for the event. I booked the room myself – I did not delegate any of these activities to other people – because I wanted this to be my special treat for the women I work with.
5. I decorated the event space in hearts, hearts and more hearts. A couple ladies volunteered to help me- but I paid for those decorations, you guessed it, out of my own pocket.
6. The day of the event, I was feeling anxious about the fact that I hadn’t provided drinks for the event. So I drove to Target in between meetings to buy drinks and then hauled all of the goodie bags and beverages up to the meeting room.
7. By the time the event actually happened – I was tired. I’m an introvert by nature and I could feel my battery draining early on in the event, probably because of a day of anxiety over everything falling into place plus a full regular work day. I was happy that the ladies were all networking with each other. Many ladies brought desserts to exchange, and everyone seemed to have a really lovely time. I got to see people I don’t see often at all and it was lovely.

I don’t list all that out because I want some kind of reward for going over the top. I’m just trying to show you all the evidence of the true intent that I had behind that event and how much it meant to me on a personal level. Yet, there I was today, ugly crying in front of my boss over what this person wrote. Honestly, this whole afternoon was an emotional ride. My thought process looked like this:

• I ugly cried, and got a little pep talk from my boss. I don’t remember much that I said to him besides *sniff* “Disingenuous”; *sniff* “I work so hard.”; *sniff* “It’s never enough.”
• “It’s never enough.” That was the thing I couldn’t get out of my head. I pulled myself together and went home to work on some stuff. The whole time I was working, the only thing I could think about was “What’s the point? I give up my nights and weekends and nothing matters. People still say things like that about me when I bent over backwards to throw a nice event.” Why bother?
• Then I started thinking about all the things I give up for my job besides nights and weekends (a lot of nights and a lot of weekends). I just got back from a fantastic visit to Kentucky to see my family and I cried when I had to leave my niece Cali Jo to come back here. Then I came back to fire after fire at work, very little sleep all week and a never-ending line of men I’m trying to date in this area who don’t care about my feelings. Cali Jo cares about my feelings. My family cares about my feelings. Yet I’m here in the DC area, a region that is challenging socially, working hard for people who would write things like that about me. Anonymously. Without speaking to me directly. Posting those blanket claims about my character for the people who decide my future – my bonus, my salary, my career progression – to read. How many sunny days with Cali Jo have I sacrificed for this job? How many weekend FaceTime calls with my family or adventures with my friends did I miss out on for this one party alone? For a slap on the wrist from an anonymous stranger for not doing it perfectly. Why bother?
• If I’m not good at my job, am I good at anything? My whole life, every time my love life has been shit (always) or I’ve been in a fight with a friend or when the softball coach was yelling at me for my stupid-looking throw in high school…I’ve always been able to be like, well, at least I’m smart. At least I get A’s in school. At least I’m good at my job. At least I’m a person who tries to lead people with kindness. Is it all an act? Am I disingenuous? I’ve always tried to look at myself square on, warts and all, and I’ve found so few things about myself that I actually like – but two things I’ve always felt to be true are that I’m funny and I’m genuine. When I’m not being funny, I’m being real. Is all of that bullshit?

Of course not. One random person’s opinion doesn’t change who I am or the value of what I do or the value of my time. Of course my event came from a genuine place. Why would someone spend weeks quietly working in the background to make an event so special without a genuine desire to do something nice for women?

I absolutely accept the feedback that I didn’t spend enough time meeting new people that night – which may have translated into not taking interest in junior practitioners. To be fair…almost everyone there was a junior practitioner compared to me. Anyone who knows me knows that I think about junior staff everyday and expend boundless energy to help them grow and learn. I’ve devoted my life to this effort. Am I perfect? No. Do I get tired? Yes. Do I get busy with client work and have to decline calendar invites sometimes? Yep. Am I bad at managing my calendar? Emphatic yes. These are all things that some good constructive feedback could address. But to use words like “disingenuous” or “inauthentic” is assigning intent to my actions that just wasn’t there. And I know that to be true. That’s why I’ll sleep well tonight.

The irony of the GALentine’s Day card that I designed is that it was a “Feedback” themed card. I went to Office Depot and printed these adorable cards that I designed in Powerpoint and then with Canva (and printed them using my own money). They are very pink, but they also show a process for giving feedback called SBI. Basically the process goes:

S – Situation: Describe the exact situation, giving as many details as possible. “On Tuesday during our Galentine’s Day party on the 24th floor at 5:30…”

B – Behavior: Describe the behavior. A behavior is something that you can observe on a video camera. It is not a feeling or an intent or something someone always does. It is specific to the situation. “…you spent most of the party talking to people you already knew and didn’t spend much time talking to me at all...”

I – Impact: Describe the impact that the behavior had on you, other people or the project. “…and that made ME feel really left out.”

Then you pause and allow the person space to describe their intent before you work together to make a plan for going forward. If someone were giving me that SBI feedback above, I could say “Oh, ________ I’m so sorry. You’re right, I didn’t do a very good job networking that night. I was so tired from making sure the event was a success that I wasn’t very social, and I regretted that after the party was over. I did not mean to make you feel left out. Can we have lunch next week so we can connect properly?”

You see how that’s much more constructive than personality-based feedback where you make blanket statements about someone’s character or pre-assign intent to their actions (Rebecca is disingenuous, Rebecca is inauthentic)? The approaches are night and day different and one leads to thoughtful actions taken to ensure that the behavior is addressed, and the other created an afternoon of spiraling on my part and had me questioning my own character because of one person’s opinion. One approach made me think “why bother?” and almost had me certain that I won’t do anything like my event again in the future. The other approach would have put me in the mindset of “Oh, I’ll do it differently next time.” You see? For the sake of the feedback author, I hope they have a leader who takes care to use SBI feedback instead of tearing them down with strong words that make them want to quit trying. Maybe, in time, they might have more empathy for me.

Anyway. F**k that. I’m genuine and kind and I work very hard for the people around me. And I’m not going to stop being me.

March 24, 2024

I just finished reading an excellent book written by one of my favorite authors about horrible breakups throughout history. Jennifer Wright’s “It Ended Badly” takes you on a tour of history by examining some of the world’s most well-known toxic couples. The overall theme she has woven into each chapter seems to be about making the heartbroken and downtrodden masses of today feel just a little bit better about the messy responses we sometimes have to breakups and having our hearts broken. You know how you might watch some trashy reality tv so you feel a little better about how your own life is going? If you read about historical relationship drama that was sometimes met with slander, murder, weird sex dolls, pedophilia, castration, and other atrocities, then you might feel a bit better about the number of times you texted your ex after he left you for a blonde named Chrissy. Ten voicemails on his phone is excessive and embarrassing in retrospect, but also legal, ya know? The book takes on one couple’s tragic downfall in each chapter. I don’t want to spoil too much of it for you because you should read this and some of Jennifer’s other great work, but here are a few things that stuck out to me:

1. Oscar Wilde, a literary genius had an ex-partner who called him “feeble-minded” in an autobiography called “Oscar Wilde and Myself”. First, can you imagine being such a boring person that the only way to sell your autobiography was to put the name of someone else who was actually famous in the title? I obviously didn’t know Wilde’s partner, Lord Alfred Douglas, but all accounts suggest that he was a cocky little shit who slandered Wilde’s name after Wilde served a prison sentence for participating in homosexual acts in their relationship. Let that be a lesson to you – your ex may say some awful stuff about you after the breakup, but your work/actions speak for themselves and your friends/family know your true character. We all know Oscar Wilde was anything but feeble-minded. Oscar put it best when he said, “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
2. I complain about ghosting all the time, this is not news to you. Nothing hurts more than when someone just disappears after you’ve had some form of relationship with them. I recently got ghosted by that guy with cancer that I told you about in a previous post. He blocked me on instagram and blocked my number. I honestly couldn’t tell you why. I drove over 3 hours to meet him for dinner one night and brought him some flowers for his table. We had a really nice date and he kissed me goodnight. When I tell my friends about the ghost of New Kent County, their response is to say, “Well, you have to cut that guy some slack because of the cancer, right?” I don’t know. He runs this non-profit where he collects cash and other things for cancer patients, and it’s really lovely. I guess I would have to have cancer to receive a little kindness from him myself? Gah, thinking about it makes me feel yucky and the whole thing really hurt me. BUT I will say, one story in Wright’s book had a new form of ghosting I had never considered. Timothy Dexter, a businessman who lived in Massachusetts in the late 1700’s had a wife named Elizabeth. At one point, he told all of his friends that Elizabeth had died. When they inevitably came to call on him at his house and saw Elizabeth (very much alive) in the house, he told them not to worry, it was just her ghost. Here I am upset that an internet stranger is treating me like he’s dead, but imagine having your own husband treating you like a ghost in your own house. I feel better.
3. The story that stuck with me the most (there are like ten others in the book that contain all of the atrocities I mentioned above) was the story of Lord Byron and Caroline Lamb. I had of course heard of Lord Byron before, but mostly knew of him through an episode of Drunk History where they implied that a weekend orgy with Lord Byron and other well-known writers of his time including Mary and Percy Shelley resulted in the bet that spawned Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”. When Caroline, one of Byron’s biggest fans, met the poet for the first time, she described him as “Mad, bad and dangerous to know.” This would turn out to be true, but she was also more than a bit mad, bad and dangerous also. The story Wright describes in her book is a long one but the gist of it is that Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron had a short affair (Caroline was married to some guy who enjoyed rough sex or something like that) and ultimately Lord Byron broke it off and broke Caroline’s heart in doing so. She proceeded to lose her ever-loving mind. She sent him scathing letters (along with a lock of her pubic hair), broke into his house and wrote in one of his books, made scenes in public when she saw him, spread rumors that he was sleeping with his sister and had a very publicized and self-indulgent bonfire with all of her friends where she burned all of the gifts he ever gave her. Byron wrote her some nasty letters in return, and the two began publishing novels and poetry with not-so-subtle digs at their former lovers in a tit-for-tat rap battle of sorts. Their feud didn’t really end until Byron died in war and Caroline said she wished she’d never spoken ill of him.

The Lord Byron and Caroline Lamb breakup really struck me because I think it’s one of the more relatable stories in the book. Most of us have never murdered our wives and then grieved by castrating and marrying a teenage boy who looked like her (horrendous abuse committed by one of the Emperor’s of Rome, Nero). Most of us have never married a beautiful young woman and then refused to consummate the marriage by publicly (and falsely) implying that there was something malformed about her genitalia (although Matt Riffe seems to think this kind of slander is funny to talk about on podcasts), like John Ruskin. But many of us have done things we aren’t proud of while in the tight grasp of heartache and grief – including stepping across boundaries, not being empathetic to the pain of the other party, and saying awful things to and about the person we used to love.

I feel so much for Caroline here. Her post-breakup feud with Byron isn’t all that distinct from the things you see on Facebook or Instagram posts when couples go their separate ways. Vague comments or inspirational quotes, generalized statements about someone’s character or even mental health (how often do we diagnose former partners as codependent or narcissistic?), motivational videos about moving on and deserving better, etc. We’ve all seen this stuff and maybe even posted it ourselves. Caroline’s behavior was a master class in how to overstep boundaries and not let go and move on. But I’d be lying if I didn’t behave the same way after my last break up. I couldn’t let go of it. I texted that man awful things (by my standards, anyway) and repeatedly begged him to stay. Months after the fact, I still wouldn’t stop reaching out. He had said he wanted to be friends and that he would never abandon me, but I pushed him to the edge where he had to cut me off completely. Sure, I wasn’t mailing him pubic hair or showing up at his house uninvited, but I was still overstepping the boundaries he set. And it wasn’t like I was waking up in the morning thinking, “Hey, I’ll go torture my ex today and make him feel absolutely horrible and crushed with guilt and stress”, but I couldn’t clearly see what I was doing through my own grief. I look back on those moments and cringe, and feel so guilty. I wish I had been able to understand the difficult position he was in and the pain he felt too – but my own pain was so intense, I couldn’t see anything else at all. I’m not making excuses for Caroline or myself, but I understand what she was going through.

Honestly, I even reached out to my ex as recently as October of last year. Six months ago. I had been dumped by guy I’d dated for a few weeks, and took it hard. It was the first time I had even dared to hope for a future with someone new, and when it all came tumbling down, I typed in that number that I know by heart no matter how hard I try to forget it and fired off a “Hey, how have you been?” text. He mercifully did not respond. I ran into him a few weeks later at a bar and I saw him whispering to a girl next to him while she stared at me with her mouth agape, and I got up and walked out of the bar. Shame is the only thing I felt – as if I knew he was whispering to her about what a crazy person I am. I even worried he would think I was stalking him and showed up there on purpose. It was one of the worst nights of my life. I realized that I would give anything to go back and handle myself differently in the wake of our split. I’m not crazy, but the pain made me act crazy and it’s hard to look back without feeling that shame. I don’t know much about Caroline’s character, but I would imagine she lost some sleep looking back on her behavior after Byron’s death. For Byron’s part – I think he was just a standard “fuck boy”, and it seems like he didn’t take much care to be sympathetic toward Caroline’s hurt – something I certainly can’t say is true of my ex.

I write in this blog and tell you about my wild dating stories, and yes, sometimes men act atrociously toward me. Sometimes I’m the atrocious one though. In my last post, I told you about the guy who said he was sick when cancelling a date and then showed up at the bar. I mentioned that I gave him an earful too. I don’t feel proud of that. I told him he hurt my feelings and acted very inconsiderately (true) but I was also a couple drinks deep and started to tell him “It’s always like this! All men treat me this way and I’m so tired of it! It’s always going to be like this!” He looked at me with his big, brown dairy cow eyes and looked horrified and so upset. He just kept saying “I’m sorry, it’s not always going to be like this. I’m sorry. Not all men are like me.” Y’all, it was like I took two years of trauma and disappointment and dumped it on this poor man with a vodka tonic in one hand and a shovel to bury him with in the other. He looked like he wanted to crawl under the bar. It was atrocious and not fair. I’m sure if he has a blog about his dating stories in DC, I’m in there now, depicted as the crazy woman who read him the riot act for calling in sick for our date. Seriously though, I do feel like dating me is some kind of stressful job where people call in sick to get out of it. What’s up with that?

I guess what I’m saying is that the theme of this book really resonated with me. We all do things that we aren’t proud of because we are human and life is just messy – and this is never more true than when you’re going through something terrible and hard. Being in love is the best feeling I’ve ever had and I’ve only experienced it once. The day that feeling was taken away from me was one of the most painful things I’ve been through so far. I acted like a little shit and I fell apart, and I wish I had been stronger and kinder (to him and to myself). It can sometimes be comforting to look back on ourselves at our absolute worst and realize “well, I didn’t do anything illegal and I didn’t physically harm anyone, and I apologized for it later.” Maybe that’s enough. Sometimes we are all mad, bad and dangerous to know but we can learn and grow and change if we are bold enough to look at ourselves square on. And hopefully the moments we are less than proud of don’t end up in a snarky history book and instead die in a snarky blog that no one reads.

March 21, 2024

I got a request at work to write a blog for a newsletter. The requester asked me for a “few” paragraphs, but as I suffer from “Main Character Energy”, I provided about 8 instead. I thought I’d share what I submitted here.

Hello, friends! 

Wow. I’m so excited for this opportunity to write about myself in this forum. I am writing this with two goals in mind. 1) I hope folks who haven’t met me yet will read this and feel inclined to reach out to make my acquaintance; and 2) I hope folks who have met me will learn some things they didn’t know before. 

I’ll start with my elevator pitch. I’m Rebecca Crouch, a Specialist Leader out of the Arlington, VA office. In 2016, I completed a PhD in Statistics at the University of Kentucky (born and raised Kentucky gal) and ten days after walking across the stage in the most expensive gown I’ll probably ever own (unless I get married someday) I packed up my life and moved to the DC area to start my career with Deloitte. I work in the National Intelligence space in DS&J and lead some of the most tremendous, high-performing teams at Deloitte (actually, the best teams IN THE WORLD) who work tirelessly to apply advanced AI to White House level mission problems and do R&D that could change the future of National Security. I LOVE my job. 

I wake up every day with a​ simple goal – I want to be the AI leader that a more junior version of myself (“Consultant Rebecca”) would have wanted to follow. To be that leader, I focus on three components of AI leadership:​

1) Methods expertise and mastery – both technical and interacting with technical clients​.

2) Translating those methods into business/growth/opportunities to solve client problems and make mission impacts. 

3) Developing analytics practitioners and leaders to create a great technical talent experience and to make it possible to deliver excellent work to clients.

I’m writing to you from sunny Charleston, SC where I am enjoying a “spring break” trip with friends.  In typical Rebecca fashion, I procrastinated writing this blog before my PTO hit (as a result of the daily triage of activities we all have to do), and now I’m enjoying putting pen to paper with a beautiful morning view from our Airbnb on Folly Beach. I snapped this picture “for the ‘gram” and to send to my mom to rub her nose in my relaxing vacation (daughter of the year). When I looked at it, I realized there’s a lot you can learn about me from this photo alone. 

First, I have my water cup that says, “Empowered Women Empower Women”. I made the white sticker with my Cricut machine. I am an amateur Cricut user but have had great success making vinyl stickers for cups (as shown above), sweatshirts with custom logos (see the pic below of my niece, Cali Jo and I before our annual Turkey Trot up and down my sister’s driveway in rural Kentucky) and most recently, magnets for my client’s internal impact expo. 

I made the cup pictured as part of my annual GALentine’s Day event I host at Deloitte. This event is just an excuse to wear pink (my favorite color!) and spend an evening hanging out with the fantastic, inspiring, talented women in my network. This year, we ate pizza and had a cookie exchange in the Rosslyn office. I have expanded this community to include an active Teams chat with ~100 participants called “GALentine’s Day is Every Day” where we have curated a GALentine’s Playlist, a list of book/podcast recommendations, and create learning and networking opportunities that are focused on empowering women at Deloitte – a passion of mine. If you are interested in being added to the “GALentine’s Day is Every Day” community, please reach out!

You may also notice one of my books on “Winning with Accountability”. I’m reading this book to hopefully create some course/workshop content on building an environment that fosters accountability on teams. One of my other passions is Learning & Development, and I have been on a journey over the past few years to help practitioners in GPS learn how to thrive in all stages of the sales and delivery lifecycle. This year, Steve Hardy and I worked with a team to implement ClubMED (Manager Excellence Delivery), a comprehensive training for newly promoted managers in AI&D. We had a day of hybrid training in August of last year, where Steve and I had a blast working with managers on managing individuals, leading teams, solving problems, ensuring quality on AI projects, shaping deals and more. We leaned in hard to the ClubMED theme and wore leis all day, while I subjected participants to more Ryan Gosling memes than they bargained for. We’ve provided virtual training to supplement that long day of learning with content on proposal writing (how to make it less painful), engagement economics, and most recently a session on building your Deloitte brand in honor of International Women’s Day. We are planning to continue and expand ClubMED this year, so please reach out in you would like to learn more or get involved as part of my team!

The last thing you may notice from my Folly Beach picture is the other book “The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the name of Science”. When I’m not working on AI with my top-notch team, or doing all of the other Deloitte things, I have a myriad of hobbies and interests. I love to read, and most recently, I’ve been fixated on books about historical science (mainly medical science and diseases). If you want to get me talking, ask me about Ebola. Did you know there is a strain of Ebola named after Reston, VA? I would love to tell you that story over some coffee or a beer. When I’m not devouring books about the plague and science experiments gone wrong, I love to write. I keep a fun blog about the hilarity that ensues while trying to date in your 30’s in the DC area. You can read it at beecrouch.blog. 

I also love to run when my knees aren’t bothering me, and coach Girls on the Run in Northern VA where I get to do little lessons with Middle School girls about topics such as friendship and setting goals while we train for a 5K together. I’ve run three half marathons and enjoy taking little run-cations where I can combine a fun race with a road trip. I like to visit new cities and small towns, and almost always go on a ghost tour when a town offers one. A ghost tour in Williamsburg, VA caused my great pirate obsession of 2021, where I spent an entire summer reading about Blackbeard. The main takeaway from that rabbit hole was that Blackbeard had only been a pirate for about three years when he died – meaning years of experience aren’t always the most important part of a resume. Something worth remembering. 

Hopefully this gives you a snapshot of my work at Deloitte and all the things that make me excited to get out of bed in the morning. Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself. I know every person reading this has an interesting story and could fill a similar blog template with all of the things that make you tick. Please reach out and tell me all about it. I can’t wait to hear your story. Thank you for everything you do – I appreciate you. 

March 11, 2024

I’ve been listening to this book called “The Hot Zone”, which is about how Reston, Virginia nearly became the site of an ebola outbreak in the late 80’s. Basically, a lab received some monkeys from Africa, and they all started dropping dead. Then researchers examined the agent that caused their sudden illness, and discovered that it was something that looked like ebola. Turns out that it was ebola, but it was a strain that doesn’t affect humans. The whole country breathed a sigh of relief that an ebola outbreak was not about to cause havoc is a highly populated area right outside of Washington DC. My Kentucky friends probably don’t know Reston, but it is the town where my favorite meat market bar is located (a bar that has been featured in some of my greatest dating/mingling stories). I got kissed there once without my consent after buying a shot of Jameson for a gay man and being rejected so publicly that the bartender bought me a drink and comped the shot for me. Yet I keep coming back for more. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I’m very familiar with Reston and this story of the ebola monkeys is living rent free in my head. I am now reading the sequel to “The Hot Zone” called the “Crisis in the Red Zone” which is about the very devastating ebola outbreaks in Africa in 2014. It reads like a horror novel about doctors and nurses who were frantically trying to help people who were dying horrific and painful deaths, knowing all the while that they were very likely to contract the disease themselves. Think COVID19 front line workers (heroes for sure!) but battling a disease with a much higher death rate than coronavirus.

Naturally, I’ve been really worried about ebola ever since I started going down this rabbit hole. You know how men have that “Roman Empire” thing where they allegedly think about the Roman Empire at least once a day? I think my “Roman Empire” shifts regularly based on what it is I’ve decided to worry about at any point in time. Two weeks ago, I went on a date with a man who has stage 4 colon cancer. For that whole week, I was googling what can cause colon cancer, what the treatments are like, stories of healing and loss. My date told me he can’t eat ice cream because the chemo makes him so sensitive to the cold that even drinking ice water is “like swallowing knives”. As someone who always has Drumstick Ice Cream cones in the freezer, I cannot imagine this lukewarm-water-no-ice-cream-allowed life. And meeting this man obviously gave me some perspective – perspective on how frustrated I am with dating, how much time I waste not doing things I like, the amount of time I spend at work instead of soaking up the time I have with people I love. I felt a lot of admiration for him and am really glad I met him. But I also spent a lot of time worrying about it – worrying about whether I’m eating the wrong things that could cause me to get sick like that, worrying about how years of an eating disorder might have destroyed my organs already and I don’t even know it, worrying that someone I love will get sick and I’ll have to see them suffer (and live a life without ice cream!). Pretty selfish way of thinking, I know. But this, my friends, is what we call anxiety.

About once a week, I seem to find something else to be very worried about. For about a week this summer, I was absolutely certain that my boss hated me and I was going to be fired. This week it’s ebola. Last month, I found a bump on Maudie’s arm and I was already planning her little doggy funeral. A marine cheated on me in 2019 and I spent three days absolutely convinced that I had HIV from his infidelity. Anxiety.

I’ve written quite a bit about my depression here but maybe never in clinical terms. For the latter half of 2023, I was crying myself to sleep just about every night. I was taking Benadryl and other sleep aids to fall asleep right after work. I was struggling with friendships – friendships that meant the world to me, but I couldn’t figure out how to function in them. I wasn’t drinking “a lot” by society’s standards, but I noticed that I was starting to drink to numb pain – which wasn’t like me. It was a similar pattern to what I experienced during the dark times of COVID lockdown. The difference back then was that life was slow. I had time to focus on hobbies like working out twice a day and playing video games. I had less pressure on me at work because work was slow and we were all working remotely. I was a mess, but no one had to witness it, and I had outlets that I could use to work through feelings. But 2023 wasn’t like that. I had to be at work every day – in a role where people depend on me. I didn’t have time to workout for three hours a day and count every calorie – which meant I had no abs to snap pics of and post on social media to get some kind of external validation. I was really struggling with depression and felt like I didn’t even know where to begin to tackle it. I was seeing a therapist, but felt like I couldn’t do “the work” required in therapy because I couldn’t function or focus on anything but how unhappy I was.

My experience with depression and anxiety is that anxiety kind of feeds my depression. Anxiety is to depression as Cheetos are to Maudie. Nothing can make a bad mood or a downward spiral worse than some anxiety about things that may or may not happen. Sure, you’re already in the fetal position thinking about how Kyle, the dad from Texas who said he wanted to be exclusive with someone else, but have you thought about the fact that he might have given you an STI? Have you considered the fact that you may actually die alone? Don’t you think your friends will laugh about how pathetic you are behind your back? Maybe he dumped you because you’re fat. You might have a reason, maybe (but rarely) a really good reason for feeling depressed, but the anxiety bumps it up to level 10.

So at the end of 2023, I decided that I’d had enough of this depression and anxiety making me act like a shitty friend, shitty sister, shitty employee, shitty dog mom – all of these things that I know I am NOT, but sometimes play the part. I reached out to my doctor and said “plz help”. She put me on Lexapro. Here are some things I have noticed about the medicated version of me:

1. I don’t cry (much). I’ve cried maybe twice this year, and I think I was crying over things that were genuinely upsetting (like when I fell down that staircase in Maryland).
2. I am crushing it at work. It’s insane – when you’re not constantly thinking about how sad you are or how worried you are, you can actually think about your job. You can also think about other people around you and be a better boss. You listen better. You respond without being as reactive.
3. My skin is *chef’s kiss*. I actually don’t know if that has anything to do with the meds.
4. Weight gain? Like, who cares? One of the reasons my doctor was hesitant to put me on any type of depression meds back in 2020 when I first asked about them was my eating issues. But what I’ve learned is that I don’t know if I’m gaining weight on these meds – but I do know that I do not care (much).
5. I’m a better friend. I’m less likely to cancel plans to have more wallowing time. I’m less likely to show up stressed or frustrated from traffic. I’m less likely to be an asshole.
6. I’m a better family member. See number 5. I’m more patient with the kids and can focus on them when I’m with them.
7. I’ve been tired. I’ve been going to bed early and waking up later than I would like. I do feel tired a lot. I’m hoping this side effect will eventually wear off.
8. I’m starting to find the distinction between fascination and fixation. Ebola aside, I have been better about avoiding macabre and depressing rabbit holes. I’ve lightened my true crime podcast and documentary load. I’ve been trying to spend my time absorbing content that makes me happy – not stuff that makes me scared or angry.
9. I’m still an open-book and emotional human, but I can have conversations without falling apart. Most notably, I’ve been really good about receiving candid feedback at work and taking action on it.
10. I say yes to more things. I’ve made this deal with myself about food. If someone offers me food that I’ve never tried before, I’m going to take a big bite of it. This sounds trivial to all of the foodies reading this, but not for me. I’ve been the world’s pickiest eater for as long as I can remember, and I think a lot of that came from anxiety! Fear of eating something in front of someone and not liking it or not knowing how to eat it the right way (think like, using chopsticks) has stopped me, and also fear of trying something that cultured and refined people like and not liking it. So far this year, I’ve eaten kumquats, pho, and hummus for the first time. Snaps for me. Food aside, I said yes to a trip to Charleston with friends, and I said yes to a trip to Paris (where I assume I’ll really get to flex my say-yes-to-food muscles). Unrelated: Remind me to tell you about the guy I met on Bumble who was morally opposed to all vegetables. All of them. That was the moment I realized I couldn’t live a life without cooking with onions.

I don’t know if this information is useful to anyone. I would never prescribe my approach to life to anyone else because Lord knows I’m not doing a lot of things right. But if you are feeling like things are hard and unmanageable, I would encourage you think about talking to a medical professional about it. I spent a lot of years trying to avoid taking meds because of my job security level and other factors. I’ve had partners who disparaged people who “need” medication to function, and that has deterred me. All I can tell you is that I’ve gotten some relief for the first time in…well, ever.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to read some more about ebola before bed.