May 31, 2026

Yesterday was amazing from start to finish, but I have been a girl on the run for daysssss. I spent the week prepping for a fancy black tie event I got tapped to attend for work. And by tapped, I mean my boss couldn’t go, so who better to fill a spot at a table than Rebecca. I asked ChatGPT to help me craft a perfect makeup glam look based on a photo of my poofy pink dress and it made me a list of products to buy and even created a little diagram exhibiting the perfect eyeshadow technique based on the “That’s Taupe” eyeshadow palette that the AI chose for me. I haven’t been to an event like this since I went to the Marine Corps ball in 2019, and what I forgot about looking like a princess is that it requires running a lot of errands. I left work a little early on Friday to get my nails done and the sweet lady who did them talked me into a pedicure. I went to Ulta and the shoe store, and then came home to baby my face in hopes that it would be smooth and blemish free on Saturday morning. When I woke up on Saturday, I went to the DryBar and let a nice woman in yellow pants wash, blow dry, and curl my hair. I dropped my doggie off at her hotel. I ran home to make some tacos. Then I made my way to DC to check into the hotel room that Deloitte booked for me, and felt very fancy when I pulled up to the valet parking and told the guy “just charge it to my room.”

I followed the ChatGPT makeup routine in my hotel room (and I had to start over on the eye shadow twice and still didn’t quite get it right). But when I went through all the other steps that the grifty influencer “Mikayla” showed me on Facebook, things came together quite nicely. I took some selfies for the inevitable fucking dating profile I will have to make some day in the next few months, and chugged a sour beer in the room before I took a deep breath and rode the elevator down to the event on the ground floor.

Here’s what the event had in store for me:

1. Open Bar reception – there was a reception from 6-8 pm which included all-you-can-drink, mingling with people from various companies and government agencies, and ice sculptures for the sponsoring companies. I wandered around like an idiot in my big pink dress trying to think of some smooth way to insert myself into a conversation but eventually I found a small group of Deloitte people. They must have recognized me from my Teams photo at work because this was my first time meeting most of them in person. I was drinking vodka cranberry because I am hashtag not like other girls, and one guy I’ve worked with a ton over the last year told me to order a “Rose Kennedy”. This is apparently a vodka cranberry with a splash of club soda. I had 4 of them, and not a single bartender I asked knew what the fuck a Rose Kennedy was.
2. Terrible dinner – okay, so we are all drinking our asses off and eating tiny appetizers for two hours and by the time everyone is good and sloshed, it’s time for dinner. The lady who was hosting the event was so mad that no one would sit down and stfu long enough for her to give her opening remarks, but also, we were all very drunk. The salad was good and came with some sort of almond brittle that was divine, but I went for the rolls first (thanks, Rose Kennedy). The main course was one of the worst New York strip steaks I’ve ever had and I swear they put A1 steak sauce all over it. We also had lobster tail. Now, I’ve never had a lobster tail before and I told this to my new buddy who was wearing shiny Air Jordans with his tuxedo. He tasted his own lobster tail and advised me to sit it out and save my first time for one that was well-cooked. Dessert was mediocre cheesecake. The purpose of the dinner was an award ceremony for one man who had a really impressive career as a public servant – but once again, I must remind you that we were all so drunk, I don’t think anyone in that room could recap his acceptance speech today.
3. After party – more open bar. 2 more Rose Kennedys. Once the other Deloitte people started talking about door dashing tacos, I did an Irish exit and stumbled back up to my room.

It was so much fun to get dressed up and feel pretty and spend an evening living this magic, lavish life where the drinks pour all night and everyone looks like they just stepped out of the ballroom on the Titanic (pre-iceburg). I woke up in my beautiful hotel room at 5:30 with the sun beaming in and thanked 2 am Rebecca for puking up a good amount of the booze and chugging two bottles of water. And with that, my evening of painting my face and painting the town was over and I got to take my 4Runner back to my puppy and my house and my regular lonely life.

I made the mistake of keeping some of my ex’s family and friends on my social media, and when I got home today, I saw a story where my former-pseudo-step-daughter “L” had run a 5k this morning. It was the Girls On the Run (GOTR) 5k that I signed her up for in March. We were on our way home from an Arizona trip and I got a notification from the school that they doing GOTR and we signed L up right away. This ended up being a risky decision because L was not happy when we told her – she couldn’t understand why we would sign her up for something without asking her. She said only the weird kids would sign up. She softened a bit when she was able to convince her friend to sign up with her and started going to practice twice a week. This felt like such a win – to get her out of the house after school, hanging out with kids her age outside of school. And I used to coach GOTR, so I was really looking forward to being her buddy for the 5k that would happen at the end of the season. Lord knows I needed a good reason to start running again and she was it.

Anyway, now it’s May and the 5k in question was today. I had forgotten all about it with the stress and running around trying to make sure I didn’t look like a country rube at the black tie event. But boy did I have the mental real estate to think about it today. L’s aunt made a really nice Facebook story about being proud of L for running her first 5k, and had this beautiful picture of L running with the biggest smile. Then there was a picture of L’s tiny cousins holding up signs that said “Go sparkle farts!” or something like that. And then the last slide of the story was a family photo of everyone who came out to support L. Talk about a bitter-sweet moment for me. It was sweet because I felt so proud of her too – proud of her for doing something she wasn’t excited about and seeing it through, proud of her for leaning into this talent of running that she and I discovered on a cold day in January. I was proud of the family for showing up for her and encouraging her. But the moment was also bitter because the original plan was for me to be part of it. I was supposed to be beside her on that run and in those photos and now, that’s not my role. I’m just another “friend” on Facebook who gets to send a “like” and go on with my day. And by “go on with my day”, I mean have a total fucking meltdown.

There’s such a striking difference between the high I was riding yesterday where I felt like a beautiful, polished, boss-babe baddie and today where I’ve spent most of the day in bed crying over how much this hurts and how all the hurt is coming from a choice that I made myself. I’m the one who left. And now I’m the one who is left out, and I’m crying over it. I know that doesn’t make much sense. It’s not that I have regrets – I know I made the right choice and that this is just the way it has to be. But I’m the one who is alone. I’m not in the family picture because I’m not in the family. I won’t be getting a text later from L with an update, because I’m not her family anymore. That’s hard. And I can’t just hop in the car and go to my sister’s house to take my mind off of it and snuggle my niece and nephew- I have to sit here alone while the family I had for a second and the people I came to love go on without me. I am no dummy, I knew they were doing fine without me (obviously, I’m not *that* narcissistic), but it’s different to see it right there on my iPhone in full color.

I guess the part of yesterday that was so much fun is that I got to be the girl on the run for a day. I got to step into a new persona or identity and live in a different place that had no memories or baggage, and I spent an evening with brand new people. I was running around from one luxury to the next, drink one to drink two, and so on. The second I stopped running for a second, the reality that grief is not a linear process just caught up with me. I know there will be more days like this and that’s hard to fathom – but maybe there will be more days like yesterday too? I guess that’s the hope I have to hold onto – that I’m running toward something incredible, instead of away from something that was also incredible in so many ways.

May 25, 2026

I asked ChatGPT to read my blog the other day just to see what it would say and it did this .2 second scan of years of writing and started doing some pattern recognition. It was complimentary and hyped me up like it always does whenever you ask anything personal. I saw a video the other day of someone asking ChatGPT if it was okay that he cheated on his spouse, and the algorithm was wayyyy too empathetic and kind of “YAS QUEEN”-d him. Anyway, ChatGPT “read” the blog and immediately understood the tone and the overall theme of my writing just from looking for patterns in my style – the words I use, the punctuation I use (or tend to misuse), the frequent detours and interruptions I insert that give my writing this look and feel of being unscripted and spontaneous. GPT specifically used the word “absurdity”, and I was like “oh, so you did read it. Cool, thanks.”

I think something thing that naturally comes with the end of a romantic relationship in addition to all the crying and nose blowing and hiccuping and depression naps is an internal scan of all previous relationships. Kind of like GPT scanned all my writing to try to find the patterns and narrow in on the absurdity of this little corner of the internet, I keep finding myself scanning all of the failed relationships I have had so far to ask myself “what am I doing wrong?” Because I’m no fool. I know if anyone on the outside looking in (read: followers on social media) bothered to pay attention to me and my antics, they might observe correctly that I am the common denominator in all of these failures and may assume I am the problem. And look, I think that’s totally fair and if you’re “watching” at home and that’s what you’re thinking…I get it. You may be right. But also, maybe not?

I don’t think I’ve ever been the type of person who can’t admit when I’m wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m wired to assume I’m a piece of shit from the moment my feet hit the floor each morning, so I walk away from almost every social or professional interaction wondering “was I an asshole just then?” And so often, if I catch myself being the asshole, I’m quick to apologize. If I notice myself getting terse with a teammate at work, I will walk over to their desk and say “hey, I’m sorry about that, you caught me in a tense moment.” I can admit when I’m a jerk. I can admit when I got something wrong or remembered a detail incorrectly, and I can admit when I don’t know an answer at work. When I screw up, I tell my boss about it immediately so he can help me think through how to fix my mess. I like these things about me.

And I’m also not above pattern recognition and course correction. I’ve been able to look back on previous relationships and recognize my toxicity for what it was. I think one relationship in particular ended with me acting like a total crazy person. My groveling and falling apart like a little street taco was definitely manipulative and wasn’t fair to my ex who was really only trying to exit a relationship that wasn’t doing it for him. I wasn’t intentionally being cruel, but I was blinded by my own pain so much that I made his life hell at the end. But, to my credit, I spent time in therapy unpacking that and can hopefully recognize and understand this nastiness in myself again if it ever rears its ugly head again, and correct in real time. I don’t want to hurt people I love, and I want to learn from my mistakes. But the thing is – this moral compass and high standard I hold myself to really don’t mean anything if some of the toxic things I do in my relationships are things that I’m simply not noticing or don’t even recognize are wrong. It’s easy to correct things that are blatantly wrong – but what about the more toxic behaviors that fly below the radar? Am I doing things that are poisoning my relationships and I’m just not observant enough to see it? Or worse – is it just something about me? Am I just not cut out for this?

That’s the thing that really scares me. I think I have healthy and direct communication at my big age of 36. I give people feedback and I’ve practiced it over and over. I do not scream, I do not get jealous over silly things. I think I am self aware – my boss tells me I am all the time. I think I have healthy boundaries (finally) and have learned how to protect myself from being hurt over and over by recklessness. I have learned how to be honest and expressive. I’ve never cheated or even flirted with that line. I have supportive friends and family (see my last post). All of those grifter self help books would say that this is a really good cocktail of traits in a person that CAN have a healthy and happy and LASTING relationship. But what if there is something under the surface that I can’t see that makes me corrosive? Secretly corrosive. What if I don’t exhibit obvious toxic behavior, but I am still poisonous? Poisonous and meant to be left alone like one of those vibrant plants in the rainforest. Safe in small doses.

You can hardly scroll on Instagram for 10 seconds without seeing a post about toxicity in relationships. We love to diagnose a villain. One of my favorite YouTube channels is called “Cinema Therapy”, which is where these two therapists watch movies and help you break down behaviors in the movies that are troubling or inspirational. That kind of analysis is fascinating and it feels constructive to use movies that are fictional and safe to look for patterns you can notice in the people around you or in yourself. Those red flags of people being controlling or manipulative or cruel shine brighter if you can see some examples in high definition. But what if there are no visible red flags? What if you feel dangerous to love, but without real red flags to warn innocent passersby to stay away from the cliff?

Maybe grief creates this superstition in your mind that your love is poisonous. Poison without dramatic dysfunction, with no clear warning signs. No screaming matches, no shattered plates, no jealous rages – just this quiet warning in the back of my head that says “people are better off not loving me” or “I will ruin this eventually.” I once had a therapist tell me that “shame often survives self improvement.” She meant that you can grow and change and take ownership of your own life and happiness and still feel “wrong” at the molecular level. I know logically that the reasons that my most recent relationship ended were valid and outside of my own control – they were things I couldn’t avoid or fix and did not cause. They weren’t my fault. There was no villain in the story but I had to choose myself and my own happiness. But the surviving shame says “Look what you’ve done again. Another failure. Another example of how you couldn’t make it work.” Someone took a bite of my poisonous flower and now the re-growth begins.

May 23, 2026

I had the best fajita and spicy marg combination of my life in Charleston, WV on Thursday night. I worked half a day and then hit the road to spend the long weekend (and then some) with my family in Kentucky. I stopped overnight in Charleston and shared the little Fairfield by Marriott with about 400 track and field stars from WV high schools who were in town for a state meet. When asked if her students had been well-behaved by one of the coaches, one older gentleman in the hotel elevator said “well, define behaved.” Anyway, before I got to the hotel, I stopped at the first Mexican restaurant Google showed me and ended up sitting alone reading my book while enjoying this delicious margarita. The bartender was so generous with the jalapeño flavor that the seeds were swimming all over the glass and kept getting stuck in my straw. It was perfection.

This feels so foreign but so familiar. Sitting alone over dinner, staying alone in hotels. I’ve done it a million times as a 30-something unmarried woman who loves road trips. I used to do this all the time. I took a beach trip by myself to run a half marathon once, and once spent my very cold February birthday in Roanoke hiking by myself. Hell, I even spent a week in Paris by myself. It’s fun. I love being completely in charge of the itinerary and the food choices. But this little stop in West Virginia was my first time stretching this lonely traveler muscle in a while. It felt awkward, a little sad, and also, very freeing. I slowly felt the cool confidence creep over me once more-calmed by that voice whispering in the back of my mind that tells me there is nothing on this earth I cannot enjoy by myself and that my happiness is never dependent on having a partner to enjoy with me. Boosted by my emotional support jalapeños.

There are a number of things about my recent life changes that have been challenging, but the thing that keeps making me spiral is the understanding that I’m about to be spending a lot more time alone. I don’t have my default fajita partner or my roller coaster buddy. I don’t have someone to carry the cooler to the pool while I carry the noodles and sunscreen. I don’t have someone to spend the day floating down the Shenandoah River in a tube beside me. No one is going to tie their tube to mine and keep me from crashing into rocks. No one is going to text me tomorrow am to tell me I’m beautiful. No one is going to take me to a movie on a rainy Sunday. I can’t buy 2 baseball tickets and automatically know who I’m calling first.

None of this is news to you. We all know that relationships end and routines get nuked. We are really good at adapting. I also know that some of my readers have been divorced or dealt with the death of a partner/spouse – both of which are very different situations. I wasn’t living with my partner, so I didn’t have to move out. We didn’t have to deal with custody of any children or pets or plants. There were no financial ties or legal fees involved. He’s not going to text me in 9 months with a question about taxes or asking if I know our child’s iPad passcode. I fully recognize that it could have been much worse. But, please, let me be sad and worry about roller coasters. Because who the fuck is going to ride them with me?! And will they be willing to spend the extra money on a fast pass? This is the thing my brain keeps settling on.

I teared up in the office a couple weeks ago and told my teammates I wouldn’t make it to our team pickleball outing because I was going through this heartbreaking thing. One of them gave me a hug and told me we were going to happy hour at Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern (my favorite dive that I talk to them about all the time) and then I dried my eyes and disappeared for hours in a wall of meetings. When I returned to my desk, my teammates and other work friends had all independently left the building and returned with treats for me. On my desk I found flowers, a cake that had my catchphrase on it (“I don’t care what anyone says, you’re doing great!”), chic fil a lunch, a coke, chocolate covered strawberries, and a jar of hot jalapeños. Emotional support jalapeños. I burst into tears when I saw the display, partly because I think my brain completely forgot that there were so many other ways you can find love in this world outside of romance. It can be as simple as the co-worker you thought didn’t really even like you that much showing up with a Wegman’s cake. It overwhelmed me with hope and understanding that these people and my other friends/family were going to help me get through this. Friends, family, and emotional support jalapeños.

Here’s a list of additional ways people and jalapeños have given me strength in the last two weeks:

1. My friend did a 4-minute breathing exercise with me to help me get ready for a phone interview when I couldn’t stop sobbing.
2. Every single friend I called answered the phone just so I could tell my story out loud.
3. One friend invited me to spend a Sunday with her and her two babies. We had tacos and spicy margs and I gave her two year old her first spicy marg (ice water with a lime). The margarita and the oxytocin from holding a little baby were a great combo.
4. Two friends took me out on a Saturday night for spicy margs and steak frites and some martinis I didn’t need.
5. My coworkers went to Jimmys with me for cheap cocktails and chicken wings and didn’t complain even though they definitely didn’t like Jimmy’s as much as I do.
6. I went to a going-away party for a friend at work and one of my work friends who is a mom let me talk about losing my role as cosplay mom. She also made me a s’more while we talked.
7. My coworker taught me how to play pickleball after work.
8. FIVE women from work showed up for my “emergency happy hour” that I planned at Bunnyman Brewery with less than 20 hours notice.
9. I drove two coworkers to DC for a boat cruise event our account was hosting and I had to pee before we got on the boat. We ran into BarTaco so I could use the facilities and when I came out, my coworker had ordered me a spicy marg with tajin on the rim (“just because I had a feeling you like tajin.”) All without me even asking.

The list goes on. All of these people and jalapeños showed up for me in my hour of need and helped me feel so grounded even when my world was turning upside down. I know the voice in my head that’s telling me I can still do all the things I want to do this summer even without a partner to lean on is right. And I may very well do some of those things on my own- which will be fine and fun. But I am not alone. I am not alone. Where there are good people and good books to read and good spicy margs with lots of jalapeños, I will not be alone.

May 21, 2026

I am not on TikTok, but I watch a lot of YouTube videos about TikTok. In fact, my YouTube homepage (which I recently upgraded to Premium so I can do ad-free viewing because I have a problem) is nothing but TikTok reactions, liberal propaganda, and video game reviews. In particular, I really like to fall asleep listening to Kiki Chanel. She is a blonde lady who bitches non-stop about TikTok influencers. Some notable episodes of her rants have been around TikTok moms feeding their children absurd amounts of food for clout, makeup influencers lying about products to make money from sponsorships, and rich influencers being generally out of touch and over-consuming while also begging for more money and free stuff/trips online. Clearly I am healing from a breakup and cannot be in a room alone with my thoughts for more than 10 minutes because I have watched/listened to about 50 of Kiki’s videos over the last couple weeks. Today I listened to one that really struck me – she called it “Why are 10 year olds taking over Sephora?”- which is honestly a good question and you probably understand it well if you’ve been inside a Sephora in the last year.

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/MfGtaS8Ku1I?si=WDG2ajNzyr3EXD78

The whole premise of this Sephora video was that young girls between the ages of 8 and 12 are OBSESSED with skincare. They go to these high end (errr, at least I think Sephora is high end…I am more of an Ulta girl myself) makeup stores and wreak havoc. They destroy the tester products, are rude to the retail staff, and somehow convince their parents to buy them 100’s of dollars of products that their beautiful, elastic skin won’t be ready to receive safely for another 10-15 years. Now, hashtag not all 10-year-olds, but Kiki’s video features stories told by Sephora employees and customers who bring all the tea about the pre-teen drama in the store and the way the parents indulge some of these behaviors. She also showed some video commentary from a dermatologist who went through a pretty enlightening list of ingredients that can be found in some of the most “viral” (and expensive!) skincare products that the kids are purchasing with mommy’s Amex. Retinol was at the top of the list, along with collagen, peptides and a number of other ingredients that are, at worst, damaging to young skin and, at best, a colossal waste of money when used by children who don’t have the problems they are meant to target (wrinkles, dark spots, circles under eyes, redness, etc.).

Kiki was pretty judgmental of the parents. Which, like, yeah. If your kid is throwing a fit over being allowed to buy $900 of product at the counter or is being rude to the retail workers in the store – that’s pretty bad parenting. But as someone who spent the last year and some change being a pseudo step-mom to a 13 year old girl (see my previous post) and is also a rich auntie to a 12-year-old girl, I think I’ve fed into some of the social norms that grow these behaviors in some kids. I thought it was so cute to see how excited Cali Jo was over her 6-7 perfume from Sol de Janerio. There’s no telling how much money I dished out at Christmas time for my ex’s daughter’s makeup and skincare list. She wanted lip gloss, highlighter, fancy SPF, setting spray, leave-in conditioner, Summer Fridays, Sol De Janerio bum butter or something like that. Now, as a diamond Ulta member, I thought this was really fun and I enjoyed running down her list and trying to find surprises to add to it. But it’s hard not to contrast this 12-13 year old experience of today with the 2-in-1 Shampoo/Conditioner and Sea Breeze astringent (you know that shit that burned your face and that’s how you knew it was working?) my sister and I had in our bathroom.

When you really stop to think about it, children today are under immense pressure to consume. I think kids in my generation had some of this consumer pressure – but it was specifically around clothes and shoes and purses and other things you would wear or carry (Holister, American Eagle, Abercrombie, Nike, Uggs, Vera Bradley). That’s because your clothes and accessories were really the only outlet we had for expression and reception. You knew what was cool because you saw it literally on the bodies of the other kids around you. In other words, we were influenced physically by the people around us. Kids today still have that close influence from their friends at school, but they are much more influenced by social media. They leave school, go home and tune in to TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, and people they have never met tell them all the things that are “viral”. Then they gather at school and influence each other with the bias they got from social media before they even walked through the school doors. They still care about all the shit you can see with your own eyes in a classroom that we cared about as kids (only now its sweatshirts, Uggs again, Nike AirMax 270s? Birkenstocks, Nike tube socks, Stanley cups, etc.) but you also have to possess all kinds of things at home that no one else will ever even see in order to fit in (fancy shampoo, high end skincare, fancy makeup, perfume, heatless curlers, hair bonnets, etc.) The game of fitting in is the same, but the rules have gotten more complex and expensive. You aren’t just judged based on how you look – you’re judged based on what you HAVE.

Of course, this isn’t just about teens and tweens. Even as I write this, Kiki is in the background of my iPad complaining about over-consumption in adults due to fast fashion and the way we are constantly influenced to buy products online. We are constantly inundated by material goods we can choose, and often, the weight of choice is so heavy it can feel good to outsource it to an influencer. I watch a makeup influencer named Denita Barr who lives in West Virginia. I really like her because she always tells us “you need to be ugly as fuck, otherwise this won’t work” and then walks us through her makeup routine. She’s just being self-deprecating and funny when she says this, and her WV accent makes her seem really relatable to me. Plus she’s gorgeous. And you bet your ass that I went out and bought the exact same skincare line up she uses. Not because she’s a scientist who really knows if these things work or not (or are even safe) but just because she was handling the mental load of telling me what products to choose AND showing me how to use them. If you’re clueless, this is helpful. But tomorrow, if a different makeup influencer appeared in my feed and showed me a different lineup and had an even catchier opening line, what’s stopping me from switching and buying a whole new set of bullshit? Especially if I’m feeling insecure or not pretty that day. That’s the trap of overconsumption. “If you’re ugly as fuck, this product will help you.” To fall for that scam, you really have to believe you’re ugly as fuck.

It really is depressing. I don’t remember the exact moment when I was 10 or 11 and started to think about whether or not I was pretty or cool or fat…I just know that I’ve basically never stopped thinking about it in the 25 years since. Has a day gone by where I didn’t think about the way I look or the way I am perceived by everyone else? How many hours of my life have I lost trying to be better looking or skinnier or cooler? All of the influencer culture and over-consumption is driven by that phenomenon. If people feel insecure, they will do anything to fix the things they are insecure about. And the best part for the industry bottom line is that we are programmed to keep trying to fix these insecurities even if pattern recognition tells us that nothing money can buy will actually fix those problems. You tried the Drunk Elephant anti-aging cream and you still don’t feel pretty? Better buy that new Sober Elephant cream you saw in your feed today. You have hundreds of dollars of tools to curl your hair in a drawer at home and your mop just won’t hold a beachy wave? Better buy that 1000th new tool you saw on your timeline. Can’t lose weight even though you’ve tried 500 diets since your first one in 1998? Better buy that supplement you saw on TikTok because you heard Serena Williams uses it.

When you put it all like that, why are we shocked that Gen Alpha is buying all of these products to make themselves prettier/younger/better-smelling/cleaner? They learned this shit from us. They didn’t learn about the products from us – but they learned how to worry about whether or not they are pretty, young, good-smelling, clean, thin from US. We held onto our insecurities so tight for decades just so we could pass them down to the next generation. Tie that up with ever-present corporate greed and predatory sales practices, and voila! You’ve got 10 year olds in Sephora. I think the 10 year old girls need some justice. They didn’t destroy those Sephoras. We did.

I don’t have the answer. I guess we need to talk to our kids and tell them all the things we wish we could go back and tell the 10 year old version of ourselves. And maybe we should have these conversations outside and far away from a screen….and far away from the Amex.

Monday May 18, 2026

Well, dear reader, it’s been a while. I think I wrote in a previous post that I only feel like writing when I’m hurting. And that’s certainly true today. Now, I’ve had some hurt in my life in the year and a half since my last post about Merry the boy hobbit, as we all have – but maybe this is different. Maybe this is the kind of hurt that can only be soothed by the clickety clack of my Apple Magic Keyboard (hashtag not an ad) and a new ear piercing or a dramatic haircut. You get it. This is the real world, not an episode of Gilmore Girls – sometimes things are just sucky and there’s no promise that they will suck less tomorrow. So for now, that’s the only thing I am really asking the universe for – for a tomorrow that doesn’t suck more. And I guess I should also thank the universe for this soul-soothing keyboard and iPad and this dumb site where some of you come to check in on me. Thank you for being here.

I really like the show Love on the Spectrum on Netflix (hashtag not an ad), and a few of the stars of that show really enjoy doing cosplay. They dress up as their favorite comic book characters or stormtroopers or whatever and then spend the day with other people who also enjoy their hobby. It’s quite lovely – people being authentically themselves while pretending to be someone else. Here’s a photo of my favorite LOTS star, Dani dressed up as Rainbow Dash. She spent two seasons of LOTS trying to find her soulmate and ended up with a firefighter. So, honey, there’s hope for us.

I’ve never done cosplay before minus some baller Halloween costumes. But I understand the appeal. It’s a chance to be a little silly and spend some time curating the perfect costume. Sometimes you get to do elaborate hair and makeup, which is often the BEST part of leaving the house. You get to spend the day surrounded by people who won’t judge you because you’re all pretending and being silly together. No gawkers or judgement. It’s nice. I think the Renaissance Faire is probably a similar vibe. You can probably also use it as an excuse to get some food and beer, which is hard to beat (as I look outside at the 90 degree day we have in the DMV today).

For the last year, I’ve joked with people around me that I’ve been cosplaying as a mom. A 13 year old came into my life through my relationship with her dad. I won’t mention her name here because this is my story, not hers. But I fell in love with her. I am trying to think about the last year of knowing her, and so many of the moments when I have smiled from the inside out – you know, that goofy feeling that comes over you when you are feeling joy from your head to your feet – have been because of her. I felt it when I would come out of my work to a text from her telling me that she got all of her homework done. I felt it when she texted me to “peep that math grade” in her school’s dumb, annoying, terrible Schoology app. I felt it when her best friend thought I was cool and wanted to spend a day with me painting pottery and having “fancy girl dinner”. I felt it when she would text me at night to tell me that she had dinner already but “I didn’t have a sweet treat yet, sooooo.”

I have no idea how to be a mom now, and I certainly didn’t a year ago. I’ve learned a lot though. I learned that 13 year olds are stubborn and wild and joyful and silly in all these wonderful ways. I learned that she would dig her heels in on anything she didn’t WANT to do and would spend more time arguing over doing a task than it would take to actually do a task. I re-learned that teenagers have bad days too and sometimes don’t feel like leaving the house. I learned what 6-7 means. I learned how to “clock it.” I found a flavor of Alani that I can’t live without. I learned that the best highlighter at Ulta is Benetint Cookie. I learned that she can run like a gazelle but has zero hustle when it comes to getting dressed to go somewhere. I learned that I wear “too much make up” and “mew” in my selfies. I learned that she’s so smart and can make the honor roll when someone helps her keep track of her assignments. I learned that she will manipulate you and play dumb while doing math so you will give her the answer. I learned that a parent can easily go broke from Crumbl cookie. I learned that just because she never cried didn’t mean she was never hurt. I learned that the trick to get boys to like you is to give them free gum.

I spent a lot of nights awake thinking about my role in her life. Not her mom, but acting like her mom. Constant overthinking about whether I was too involved or not involved enough. Constant worry that I wasn’t doing enough. Worrying that Christmas wouldn’t be special. Worrying that my relationship with her would deteriorate when I constantly badgered her over her homework. Worrying that I couldn’t be the glue that would hold her and her dad together and then calling myself a narcissist for thinking that was my role.

It felt like cosplay so much of the time. When I took her and her friend on a weekend outing, I felt so nervous when I texted her friend’s mom to see if she was available. I questioned how some stranger could trust me to take her kid out. I met the mom in her garage when we went to pick up our friend and the first thing I said to her was “I am new at this Mom stuff” and then felt silly for even using that word. I would email teachers about assignments, thinking “I hope they don’t ask questions and find out I’m not her mom.” Sometimes she was angry, sometimes she didn’t want her cosplay mom. “She’s not my mom, dad…stop calling her that.” And other times she texted me first thing on Friday afternoon “what time are you coming over?” I spent so much mental energy trying to figure out how to get her on top of her schoolwork. I asked my friends for advice and bought her a Skylight calendar (hashtag not an ad but if you have kids in school you need one) to add her work to every day – never really knowing if I was being helpful or annoying and nagging too much. She would get angry with me while we were struggling through her school list and I would wonder if I was taking it too far and not giving her enough slack. Then the report card came and I saw how proud she was of herself. Even cosplaying as a mom is a constant rollercoaster, never knowing if you’re doing the right thing. Never knowing if you’re too much or not enough.

Now that it’s all over and my time in her life is decidedly over -I keep thinking about all the things she taught me and the parts of my heart that she opened. I keep thinking about what I would do differently. She didn’t ask for me to come into her life and she didn’t ask for me to leave it. She has no control of it, and that’s a constant struggle in childhood- feeling like major things are happening in your life that you have no control over or say in. I hope she will look back on our year together and feel glad that it happened but that’s something I can’t control either. I hope she will know how much I love her and how much I loved cosplaying as her mom. Maybe I’ll be a real mom some day and that child will have a better mom because of all the things she taught me while I was doing cosplay. I honestly don’t regret anything and have never experienced more joy and purpose in my life before becoming her cosplay mom.

I hope my heart will heal soon, this is one of the toughest things I have ever grieved. I didn’t outline this one like I usually do with these posts because everything felt too raw to do anything but start typing. A dear friend told me that heartbreak has a purpose. I think this sentiment really only rings true if you’re religious, and I am not. But maybe in this moment I will allow myself to believe it just this one time.

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.