My New Big Girl Shoes: A Tale of Self-Improvement

This tall tale requires that I tell you two things about myself.

One is that I am now, and always have been, a girly girl. Take that how you will. I like ladystuff. I won't be ashamed of it. You shouldn't either.

Two is that I was born an intensely serious child. No mother should have to tell her 7 year old to lighten up on a multi weekly basis.

My constant quest to be the best at everything has been an exhausting journey in pushing the limits of the capabilities of the human creature. That said, these days I feel that in the past year or more, I've wandered off the path of my quest, fallen victim to the siren song of self indulgence, self pity, and cable TV. Well, no more...

So, like, there's this boy. And he's pretty dreamy. And also, he's intensely goal oriented, and loves beautiful things, and things of quality and class and functional design. He has life philosophies (some of them a bit half-baked mayhaps, but considering some of my own daily motto zingers, I will not be the one to cast that stone) and goals and is an excellent listener, and always knows what to bring to a party. All these things got me thinking. I too want to be an excellent listener who always knows what to bring to the party. I want to have beautiful things that serve a purpose. I want to have goals and accomplish more than not spilling spaghetti on my formerly white sofa.

Suddenly I found myself standing in the Jewel at 7AM wearing heels and pearls, picking out 7 perfect pork chops for a dinner party and damning myself for only having two matching wine glasses emblazoned with the logo of a bar called the Dancing Crab. Suddenly I find myself saying things like "should I be wearing hose with this?" and "I need to iron my casualwear." Considering I barely have any casualwear, that second one isn't totally nuts, I promise. I've been finding myself getting up at 6AM to work out, and buying clothing without a big mouse appliquéd onto it (I know, I know).

Here's the deal, before any of you start thinking "What is this crackpot up to? Why is she changing for a boy?" It's not what it sounds like (Isn't that what they all say?). The lovely people who have had both the pleasure, and possibly the headache of knowing me since I was running in fear from my childhood nemesis, styrofoam, ( another neurosis for another day) know that I've always been this way.

A dear friend of mine, and a fellow shamefaced embarrassment to the women's movement like myself, pointed out that I should take his intimidating qualities as a personal challenge and call to self-improvement. Not to impress him, not to get him, but because those were the things I'd always held dear and wanted in the first place, and somehow lost hold of when everything started falling apart.

I'm up for that challenge. Hell, I just did a triathlon, dammit. I can handle this. I'm hoping that my newfound motivation towards improvement will help me lose that pesky 30 pounds, land me that awesome job, make my house cleaner and more beautiful, and yes, get me that boy.

I shall be showing up at tomorrow's job interview with pearls, heels, and hose and a whole new life philosophy.

Blabbermouth Betty

Perhaps, just perhaps, it's a bit contradictory to broach this topic on an internet blog whilst one is in her underoos, drinking cherry wine and listening to ladytunes, and can barely contain her crush gush, but that's just how life is, isn't it miladies?

Mayhaps because I'm prone to a life of Chatty Cathies and a life of small town style gossip despite living in proper metropolitan locales, I've never been that mortified when people spread the secrets I finally spill... and yet... I'm feeling a bit cuckoo bananas over a boy and I'm not sure what to do. Should I remain hush hush or proclaim it from the steeples of my local churches? Methinks I may have just spilled just a bit too much this evening and let the proverbial pussy out of the bag, as it were. I can tell that my own right hand gal pal is stunned by this and can hardly believe my betrayal of my own shyness. Especially in light of the fact that we are living in the kind of world that resembles a game of telephone, minus the misunderstandings.. strike that... replete with as many misunderstandings as any other telephone game.

I can't help but push that envelope and bring up the name of mon amour du jour. Shit, I'm practically standing on the post office counter jamming it into people's faces. What can I say? I am highly dysfunctional in love. I live in secret, hiding my true feelings, even from myself, until my emotions burst forth, like the waters held back by a mighty dam, and I'm practically tattooing it on my face like a walking advertisement.

Christ, I'm completely loony tunes. What can a gal do but dream of a boy who dreams of a ladyfriend who sits around musing on the net in her vintage underpinnings and betrays all the feminist teachings she's meant to embody by wishing of days spent in the kitchen in a pretty dress serving up martinis and winking over French cookery?

When did "boy meets girl" become a tragi-comedy?