[01.09] - The Case of Single

In the last few years, I’ve seen countless peers paired off. I’ve gotten the e-engagement announcements and proposal stories, toasted glowing brides and dashing grooms, visited quaint new homes. What I haven’t gotten to is the stage where separations, divorces, infidelities, and outside children start rolling in.

It’s an awkward time to be single.

Let me defend my apparent bitchiness. I don’t wish failed love on anyone. But while I’ve watched the majority of those in my age bracket hunker down into love, I’ve given dating that old college try and gotten that old failing grade. I’ve attempted to embrace singleness, and, in response, I’ve gotten one resounding message: don’t.

Open-minded as we are, a satisfied single state remains socially unacceptable. Once you’re into adulthood proper and you’re not paired up, folks start to wish. They wish baselessly and blindly. “Oh, you’ll find a nice guy.” “There’s a good woman out there, waiting.” In religious circles, “God has someone special for you.”

These are nice sentiments. Much like Nice biscuits, they sound pleasant but are sadly lacking in substance. What about those wonderful people who don’t find someone special? I know several lovely people—educated, employed, well adjusted—who remain single. I can think of even more for whom God—or the devil, karma, fate, whoever you prefer to blame—has had a nice girl who happens to like sexing other people, or a great guy who can’t hold down a job.

But somehow we forget these failures and, experience to the contrary, continue to perpetuate the myth that each of us will find a match made in heaven or Disney.

Lest I be accused of cynicism, let me assert my belief in true love. I can think of couples (at least three) who are, at least from my external viewpoint, incredibly good to and for each other. I’m happy for their happiness, and I’m happy to know this romantic ideal is possible.

But rest assured, we won’t all end up happily married forever. We aren’t all going to spend blissful twilight years rocker by rocker beside our soul mate. If you don’t believe me, chat with a few old people. Get em drunk to ensure honesty, if you want. Some of them will tell tales of long, lasting love. Others will tell of cheating, hurt hearts, and simple boredom. For those who didn’t live the love dream, look closely—their lives went on. They still had joys, successes, fulfilment.

I’d like to make it clear; I’m not deriding love. But after attending one wedding too many where the preacher praises marriage as the most important decision one will make in life, after sitting at one dinner too many where betrothals (and babies) are the only valuable announcements and other major life accomplishments—education, career, personal commitment, personal growth—are clearly secondary, I’m convinced that we could stand to put less pressure on our rather fragile romances, and acknowledge the value of other accomplishments—and even the possibility of long-term singleness as content, productive human beings.

Do I want to be single forever? Not especially, no—despite the documented fact that as a woman, my life expectancy will decline with matrimony, even as my spouse’s goes up. But I’m trying to remind myself, as a single soul, that there’s more to life than lasting romantic love—and that most people don’t really find it anyway.


- ja**ly

[01.08] - How To Rant

I’m sure we all like to be upbeat, but there come days when life vexes and you need to get something off your chest. It happens. Is it okay?

Yes. Now, I recognize the need to rant responsibly. We all know those people who turn every flower into an allergy, every sunny day into sweltering heat, rainy day into a flood, and raise into a chance to spend more money on bills.

We also know the anti-sad squad. Its members use the word ‘positive’ with the same trite overzealousness and meaningless frequency that some congregations use ‘amen’. Did your rottweiler pup just trot under the garbage truck’s wheels? Think of the cash you’ll save on neutering. Turn that frown upside down—its carcass is feeding that hungry crow! Oh, the circle of life!

Most of us, I suspect, fall into a healthy middle-ground. Before venting, consider these things to increase the chances that you’ll actually get through your complaint and you won’t find yourself chatting to a concrete wall for want of actual human beings to tolerate those bad days.

1. What do you want?

Do you want advice or do you just want someone to shut up and listen?

I hate to say it, but as a woman, I find guys are not always effective listeners in times of rant. Guys you are dating are worse. I’ve had too many conversations that go something like this:

me: X really pissed me off.
guy: Really? What happened?
me: (whines for five minutes)
guy: Aren’t you being a little hard on X? Have you looked at things from their perspective?
me: Whose side are you on anyway?
guy: I’m just trying to help.

Really, it was my fault for not clarifying that what I wanted was to rant, not to get help. These days, I either hand my potential listener a prepared script to follow, or precede my complaint with a disclaimer: “I do not need or want a solution. Here is your Ipod. Please nod at 30-second intervals to simulate attention and interest.”

2. Know your audience

Complain to the right person about the right thing. There are people who will neither understand what you’re complaining about, nor care.

This is particularly important with gender-specific body matters. I’m not suggesting we return to the days when the word ‘uterus’ could clear a room of testosterone in under two seconds. I am suggesting that if you want someone to listen, and care, sometimes your chances are higher if you talk to someone with the same bits.

That’s right, women. Men (mostly) do not care if you have cramps. Correction: they’re sorry you’ve got ’em, but largely because they have to hear about it.

Also, practice basic tact. If you’ve got a really bad cold, your terminally ill friend may not be the best person to complain to. If you accidentally knocked your girlfriend up, your impotent buddy may not offer the sincere sympathy you seek.

3. Rant unto others...

We all have that one person who always shows up with loud lamentations when their drama kicks in, but when you’ve got stuff going on, they don’t answer on msn, their cell’s low on minutes, and they’ve got to reorganize that wayward sock drawer. Don’t be that friend. It’s bad karma, and it sucks.

And just as ranting should go both ways, so should the information you share. Those long-suffering souls who hear the details of your bad days? When things are going well, don’t forget to share the good news. They deserve to hear it.


- ja**ly

[01.07] - The Anti-truth

In the secret, we resemble
on the outside, we dissemble

fake—i.e. the Sambo slave
So Cheery
So Joy
So Full of Faith
(the Quaint Native the Happy Housewife Power Suit Strong Man Ever Ready to Save)
So Strong
So Brave

Dissemble—i.e. gangsta rap
Fuk you niggaz
I hard
I tuff
I neva die
Tupac lay down to sleep in dirt
long time Biggie gone dust.

Dissembling, making of a fake,
what makes it?
Anti-bitch motif? (Nobody like a whiner, now
keep that dirty laundry inside, no matter make the kitchen stink,
breed roach an boomboom fly.)
The How Are You? (The 13 times a day
answer you always Good Great Fine.)
These questions these answers they do not come to know
but to solicit and parade
false confidence
false cheer
chipper veneer.

For divorce up ( but everybody marriage fine)
Antidepressants sell like hell sticks in Gehenna (never mind
dem lyin pharmacist statistics
we good an natural happy here).
Men shouldn’t cry no matter what they tell you
shouldn’t cry.

Why I ain seen you for a while?
I was goin through a tuff time (couldn’t see you seeing me that way
broken tru an true)

Bad mood, shouldn’t be around people just for now
bad time, I call you when I better.
Physician now heal thyself
Get better (but on thy own time).

Work face
Church face
Friend face
Fake face
True face you
hard to find
no lie
(but plenty lie).

Shame? Pride?
Why at the funeral even we shadin our wet face, red eye?

Facade. Dissembling. Dis assemble dis resemble
the sorrow nobody need to
see true see through you
to the mirror you

you hide inside.

Chipper veneer haffe chip off some time.
But true we fine
we assemble we Goin Out features just
right just for the show an jus in time,
night done sun stir,
curtain soon up.

- ja**ly

[01.06] - Why Stress is Bad

I’m first in line to turn at the light. The arrow turns green and, before I can move my foot off the brakes, the driver behind me is beeping like The Rapture is upon us and I’m the only thing standing between them and Gloryland.

I don’t like people stressing me. Neither, I’m sure, do you. It’s not nice to be at work, doing your best, when your supervisor comes along and presses you to do even more.
It’s not nice when your coworkers aren’t pulling their weight, thus slowing you down nor when people behind you in line push, or any of a thousand vexations great and small that get your spirits down and your heart rate up.

If Nassau’s high number of stoplight horn-blowers and impatient line-waiters isn’t enough to convince you that we’ve got a stress problem, take a look at some of our leading health ailments. Cancer. Heart disease. Hypertension. Diabetes. Obesity. What do they all have in common? They’re motivated, at least in part, by stress. So is the soaring murder rate and high incidence of domestic abuse.

I’ll warrant there are plenty of things to get stressed out over. I can understand why someone on the road might have a case of the impatients - it really shouldn’t take almost an hour to get from Sea Breeze to Village Road. Given Nassau’s size, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to get from any one point to another, unless you’re driving at, say, 21 miles an hour the whole way or endlessly circling roundabouts just for fun. But guess what? It does.
It also takes all day to get straight with your passport or visa and far more hours than necessary to accomplish anything at a government office, besides signing in and cussing someone out. You’ll wait at the bank, at the store. You’ll encounter stupid, or incompetent, or lazy people. This will happen. Getting vexed won’t help.

I’m not advocating inertia. I’m all for positive social change. But no one ever improved the world by snapping at the person in front of them, hyperventilating, sucking their teeth at a slow-moving public servant, or blowing the horn before the red glow fades from the traffic light.

Lest I sound self-righteous, let me admit it; I’m guilty of getting stressed, too. With the case of Mr. Can’t-Wait-At-The-Light, I didn’t let it go and calmly drive on. I kept my foot on the brake and blew my horn back, stopping to select and display a choice finger before proceeding slow enough for nearby cerasee vines to start twirling around my tires. It gave me a sort of vengeful tingle. But you know that? It didn’t make me feel calm.

Here’s what I suggest. Take note of things that are worth getting aggravated by, figure out how to change them and then, let potential stress pass. I like taking a deep breath. It provides my brain with fresh oxygen, and alternatives to my initial—sometimes ill-advised—reaction. I keep calming lavender oil on hand and make aromatherapy blends with names like ‘Sanity Saver’ and ‘Anti-Cuss Salve’. I go to my happy place. I take a book, pen, and paper wherever I go to make waiting time more productive and less annoying. I don’t always employ these tension-lowering tactics. But I’m doing what I can to help stress pass, rather than passing it on.

Oh, and one final thought. Those health conditions aggravated and initiated by stress? They’re also improved when tension is lowered. That alone is cause enough for me to keep trying to let vexation go.

- ja**ly