Friday, July 13, 2012

Home is Where Your Mama is


Boogaroo is my niece, Alexandria. We have been BFFs since she entered this world and I suspect for many moons before. It was her birth that inspired my first serious desires about writing and it is in watching her grow that I am constantly reignited with adventurous ideas and expectations for the future of the women of the world.

There’s something magical in the eyes of children when they look at you, it makes you feel like you matter.

It’s true that I like to tell stories, but my intent for the records I am creating with a few laughs and occasional tears has, and ever will be, to say (in as many words and ways as possible) that you, Alexandria, you and every beautiful, lovely, intelligent, kind, sympathetic, poetic heart, drenched in emotion and enrobed in the form of women, you matter. You are brilliant like the sunrise. You have the potential to make the world more beautiful with every breath that you breathe. You were always meant to.

My mommy’s birthday is at the very end of July when the sun is hot and the tomatoes are warm in the garden. Since we’ve grown it has gotten difficult for all of us to be in the same place at the same time, but for her birthday, Grammy insists, so in the summer time we come home.

At Mom’s last night before last I was chillin’ with Boogs because her “froat hurts really bad”. She was about to fall asleep when I made an attempt to sneak upstairs and go home for some sleep myself. I was turning the knob on the front door when I heard Alex behind me.

“Where are you going?” She asked.

“Home, Honey. I need to get some sleep.”

“Aunt Buff, why do you live somewhere else?”

Poignant question Boogaroo. With so many answers flashing across the jumbo-tron of my mind I wasn’t sure were to go.

“It’s just where I live, baby girl. Home is always where Grammy is.”

“Oh.” She said. Then she scrunched jungle blankie into a more portable glob in her arms and headed back down stairs to finish “RED” with Grammy, Papa, and Daddy. Satisfied, because to a four-year-old, and to anyone who has ever met my Mommy, my answer made perfect sense.

My mom and dad have done some pretty amazing things in their lives. They have climbed mountains that would give me a nose bleed just thinking of them. Somehow they have managed to weave music and love through the whole of it. My childhood was a happy one. My young adult life has been memorable and sweet. I think of the songs linked to the memories that are dearest to my heart of my family and the time we have been blessed to spend together and I hear my mama’s voice in my head while my daddy strums his scratched and faded sunburst applause; “country road, take me home to the place I belong. West Virginia, mountain mama. Take me home, country road.”
I think this summer we should teach that song to Alex.

Friday, July 6, 2012

All the Single Ladies


o   There are currently 54 million singles in the United States. 40 million of them have tried online dating at least once.

o   The average annual revenue of the online dating industry is $1.049 billion. Per online user that is a rough average of $239.00 a year.

o   17% of couples married in the United States last year met online. Thats 280,000 marriages.

o   31% of Americans use online dating services of know someone who does.



*Just a few statistics as a preamble to clarify the facts, I am not a woman in desperation, Im an American, so heres my story, please reserve judgment.  (but not laughter, for heaven sakes, I cant ask for the impossible!)*



A couple of months ago I accepted in a pouty surrender the advice of a colleague and friend in regards to what he termed my ultimate happiness and wellbeing as a material member of society and the girl who daily interacts with the clients that allow him to maintain employment.His motives were not absolutely pure, but hes an accountant, nothing is absolute unless it is preceded by a double line indicating the total, and even then auditors can make exceptions. By the standards of the auditing staff of Wood Richards & Associates, P.C. my dating expectations and results were unacceptable. I appeared to be in need of redirection.

My parents always emphasized in little league and Monopoly that sportsmanship was key. Nobody wants to play with a poor sport, so I take bad news pretty well, generally.

When I was in Jr. High a few of my girlfriends and I made up a dance to Brittney Spears song Oops, I Did it Again. As the only girl in the group above an A cup I was sort of nominated to dress like a Brittney look-a-like. I artfully acquired a pair of gold pleather pants and some glittery eye shadow. On the day of the talent show performance, dressing in the girls room, I poured my curvy-for-a-twelve-year-old body into the skin tight metallic marvel and stepped out into the most hostile environment known to man, the common room in a Jr. High School full of pre-adolescent latent aggression and overpowering hormones.

We performed our dance and felt like rock stars. Letting the feeling of fame linger I remained in costume for the rest of the day. When my dad came home from work that night and saw me setting the table for dinner he leapt for couth and failed, on the way down he grasped for something else to utter and this is what he came up with; “Nobody saw you wearing those, right?”

Point being, Ive had practice, I can take criticism. I dont like it, but Im a big girl, I can take it. So I gritted my teeth and sat down in Ryans office.

What do you think I should do? I squinted my eyes closed and let my chin fall to my chest.

Try online dating. Thats how I met Kendra. (Ryans amazing wife, now expecting their first little girl.)

Gross! NO! That is so weird! Im not old!

But to paraphrase Charlotte Bronte, Reader, I took his advice.



My first attempt at semipublic humiliation, willful disregard for self-respect, and naive hope in my ability to seek out perfect strangers in a simulated environment of security and find lasting and sincere bonds came in the form of Match.com. Their commercial airs often during reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TBS, and yes, I do recognize exactly what kind of target audience I have become. But I have spent a few too many Friday night date nights as the Rajesh Koothrappali of my social circle. Low point. So I decided to expand my lone ranger status to the cyber world.

Imagine that the hot guy from your high school football team got into some sweet construction job the summer after graduation and never left. Now hes 54, wears wide cut man tank tops on his boat where he drinks beer, pumps out country music, and hits on fifteen year olds in Taylor Swift tankinis all summer at the lake. Those were the guys hitting me up on Match. When you log on and see that 42 men have viewed your profile its flattering, right? When they all turn out to look like your friends embarrassing bio Dad who yells profanities at the television during sports games with chili dripping off of his chin your hope bubble bursts. This isnt Alabama. Employed is not a game winner in the race for my heart. What is this world coming to!?!

Anyway, Match didnt work out for me.



I returned to live action dating, no, I dont mean it like that, and things went ok for a while. By ok I mean disaster *with a hulking Arnold accent to get the devastating point across*.



A month ago I repented of my prideful ways and returned to my computer. I signed up on LDSsingles.com. You know what? There are far fewer married men on this dating site than I had been told, but there have still been some real keepers.

My first flirt came from a man dating under the sudo-name Crazy Wheels”. His reason for choosing this name? He was bound to a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. Youll be angry with me for not giving him a chance, youll blame it on my vanity. But it was not vanity that curbed my willingness to encourage his perusal. It was much simpler than that, natural even. See, Im 25. That means 25 years of vigorously protected and preserved virtue. Twenty-five-years! A girl doesnt get all dressed up for the ball to stay home and watchA Cinderella Story”. Girl goes to the Ball! As it was impossible to determine whether my ball was inevitably crashed if I had jumped in his pumpkin coach without being grossly inappropriate, I passed.



After that was an interesting string of what appeared to be the same 33 year old guy with two kids posting under several different names and profiles. I wasnt inspired.



While I was on vacation to the land of corn and pigs (Iowa) I was chilling on the couch with Becky and perusing the options on my Iphone when I received an invitation to chat with Soccerfreak. Knowing as you do my deep and connected love of soccer and all sporting events involving running until you die you can imagine my excitement. But the idea is to keep an open mind, so I accepted. Becky snuggled over to have a peak and as she did I received a second invitation.

MrLarsen was a technical writer from San Diego with hopes of becoming a patent attorney. 62, dark hair, employed, RM, college graduate. Defiantly lying, right?

But I totally took the bait. We started talking on the phone and texting and messaging every night for a week. We were making plans to meet. My faith in the gravitational pull of romance and magnetism that maintains the structure of the universe was restored! Well, thats a little dramatic, but he was pretty cool. Then, without warning or cause, he vanished from existence. Gone. Poof!

It was so weird! And a bit of a hit to my pride if Im being totally honest. But mostly so weird!

In all of these adventures I must intimate to you, dear reader, that I do not feel that I am exhausting my options or even approaching expiration. I feel like an explorer. I feel elastic. I feel kinda like a female Indiana Jones. Stuffs getting real. I am seriously considering carrying a sack of sand in my leather shoulder bag, just in case I need to collect a golden idol from a pressurized trigger of death. (I already carry crayons and paper, so Im good if I need to make a rubbing of an ancient tablet in a flaming underground sewer.)



Sometimes when people read my blog they ask me, Was that true?

Come on guys, you cant make this stuff up.



Ps, only 10% of sex offenders use dating sites to meet their intended victims.