There's a reason someone in this story isn't married yet... you decide who it is

Anyone who's had the experience of being an "over 25" single LDS person knows that the world of dating (and not dating) can be confusing, frustrating, and sometimes our own personal ninth circle of hell. Men and women alike struggle to navigate the complexities that surround what dating is (and is not) in this modern world and during these attempts they often run aground, take on water, face hurricanes, battle sea monsters, and basically consider casting themselves overboard and ending the madness, all in one weekend. Of course, some of this struggle unfortunately also includes pointing fingers at the other gender.

"All men are man-children who prefer video games every weekend to going out on dates with girl" or "All women expect men to be able to give them everything their daddy's gave them by the time they're 24.. it's too much pressure." or "Men are pigs... women are nags... men only want to make out... women only ever want to "talk about things"... and so on and so on. 

Of course, the blame game gets everyone nowhere very fast. Correction, it gets you a one way ticket to lifelong singlehood very fast. Having a little faith in the opposite sex, at least the faith that there is ONE member of the opposite sex, that will love you and you can love them back, I feel, has basically become a true blue, God given miracle. If anyone out there questions if miracles still happen - mutual love is it. It seems the odds of that happening are almost astronomical these days and likewise, for that love and companionship to beat the 50% divorce rate is comparable to summoning a plague of locusts or parting the Red Sea. In fact, I think Moses would prefer wandering in the wilderness another 40 years to the University 2nd Stake's Speed Dating Extravaganza complete with cow bell. Mooooooove to the next piece of meat lads! Sigh. I know I would. 

That said...

I'd like to present you with just such a scenario that takes that sliver of "faith" and crushes it into a fine powder that is sprinkled over the  billowing smoke of discouragement. How's that for bleak? It's almost all one can do to not utter that word saturated with bitter disdain, "Typical."

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The story commences...

I'm a member of ye old ldssingles.com. It's alright. I'd say the.... "quality" of single person on this website is the highest of most LDS specific dating websites I've encountered.

So, I get a correspondence from a nice guy upon said website, asking the basic questions (school.. work..movies) and we exchanged pleasantries over a couple of weeks... nay 5-6 weeks come to think of it. It started to seem fairly stretched out for me, I got a little busy, he actually said I few things that signaled a potential yellow flag or two; so though I responded in a mostly timely manner the whole thing pittered out say... four months ago.. ish. Yes, I think I was the one who didn't respond to his last correspondence. Truthfully, I got a little bored. After a month or so and he didn't seem close to wanting to meet organically in some respect (there's only so much you can say over email...), he stopped blipping on my "give it a try" radar completely. Judge me how you will; this story isn't over.

Four months pass...

Then last week I received an email from him. Fairly random but very nice. Observe the pleasantries below

"Andrea. Hey. Haha, remember me? I thought about you a little bit ago and thought I should write and see how you were! I enjoyed getting to know you a bit and think it's too bad we never got together for dinner or something. Hope you're doing good, it would be cool to hear from you. Ttyl!"

I was pleasantly surprised I'd say. I proceeded to scan through our previous correspondence and decided, hey... maybe I was in a weird phase when we were initially emailing because he sounds like a pretty decent guy and we could have fun. I didn't entirely remember why I'd stopped emailing him, though those few little yellow flags still waved, they could be chalked up to "well, some meanings are lost over email." Fair enough. So, dear friends... I responded probably a day or so later with the following:

"Hi,

Yes I remember :) I'm glad you touched base again. Yes, it is a shame we never got together. Perhaps that needs to be remedied? I hope you are doing well too. And perhaps enjoying the random warm day we get once in awhile. Spring is such a tease. - Andrea"

It's been... two and a half weeks... three weeks on Sunday... and nuthin. No response. Radio silence.

Now, without attempting to wrack your brain for the next hour as to a plausible explanation for this radio silence (maybe he's out of town... in Borneo.. where they don't have email access... and he won't be back for a month... and clearly it makes sense to randomly email someone and then leave the country for a month...), tell me how dating is not in every single way annoying, confusing, ridiculous, and possibly the man's fault. HA! Okay, possibly THIS man's fault because friends, I don't see why this person would email me out of the blue "slyly" hinting at his despondence at us never getting together (which I just have to say, was also somewhat his fault... see: six weeks of correspondence) and my attempt to additionally suggest I am also despondent by saying it "needed to be remedied" only to be met with silence.

It. Doesn't. Make. Sense.

Thus why I will likely remain single forever; as will this joker. 

Grocery Shopping When I'm Hungry

Alas...

On becoming an old bag...

 October is a great month. There are a lot of reasons why this is true and we could spend a great deal of time (not to mention the lists I could create!) going through all the reasons why October is probably the best month out of the year. However, today I'd like to focus on one reason: my Birthday.

Yes, I'm aware this reason tops a lot of "Why October is the Best Month Ever" lists out there, and to be certain that reason holding at least one of the top 3 spots of that list only makes sense. This year, however, my list was not like most of yours. This year, I was somewhat (or A LOT) dreading my Birthday.

I've always felt that people hating their Birthday was not only a super old person thing, but TERRIBLY cliche. In fact, I think the "hating of my birthday" was something Hollywood implanted into our minds as something everyone hates and everyone discusses hating and everyone can make jokes about hating or mock other people for or create some sort of standard accessible social cue. I think some of those cliches are just throwing the many "unfunny" or un-opinioned or generally socially awkward people out there a bone. "Here ya go generally socially awkward unfunny indifferent person... here is a standard joke or piece of cynicism or commonly shared experience you can always use because we've made it so EVERYONE can hate their birthdays. It will never fail!" It's like reverting to the weather to avoid discussing the elephant in the room "Oh Aunt Jane, let us discuss how beautiful this weekend was rather than how your two-bit hooker of a daughter went and got herself knocked up again!" Thank you Hollywood for providing such fodder for the inept. We've all had to resort to such outs in our lives and I for one, am not above the occasional "cliched" bit of cynicism.

Well come to find, this month I would find this socially inexperienced person commenting on the dreaded "birthday" as incredibly insightful and wise. "Why yes! I TOO hate my Birthday! For I am growing older." Ironically, that may be the measure of age is when you stop crossing off days until your Pretty Princess Birthday Party and instead think up ways to avoid said occurrence altogether; like straddling international date lines. Which as we know, only gets us a few days if we're lucky.  There's always cryogenic freezing I suppose - but I feel I missed my time to do that. 24 was my peak. If I were going to freeze my bodily time - that was the year. Hindsight is always 20/20 I suppose.

This year I turned 28. Here is where my crisis comes in. When I was a wee 19 year old first moving to SLC and attending my bran new Singles Ward, everyone I met was 28. I kid you not. Inevitably conversations would lead to those around me pronouncing their age and it would always be... 28. Once in awhile a 26... but mostly... 28. The stranger thing is - even as the years passed - every new person I met in my various Singles Wards or standing in line at grocery stores was always 28.

(That's actually not true -  not everyone being 28 part but the meeting people in a grocery line part. I mean - have you really actually ever MET someone in a grocery store line? Me neither... Hollywood cliche suckers us again!).

And usually, they were 28, single, somewhat resentful, and of course, haters of Birthdays. They also always seemed to have just a tinge of desperation... as if they were running out of time. Time to get married? Time for children? Well, maybe. I'm not sure as each case was likely different - but I always got the distinct feeling of anxiousness from these groups of 28's... and particularly the women. As if they felt they were walking the final mile and it was all downhill from here. 28 became a symbol to me. Anyone who was single was old at 28 (thanks a bunch Utah). Anyone who was on the cusp of inevitable spinsterhood... well... they were 28. Any 20 something Peter Pans were never going to grow up if they hadn't by now... at 28. The hopeless? 28. The angry? 28. The basement dwelling video game playing part-time jobbers? 28. The pickins were slim... the chances were minute. 28 is the end of happiness and the acceptance of a lack luster existence!

I never thought I'd be 28.

Even when I turned 27 - a fantastic year - I never thought I'd be 28.

So in about August - it finally started to sink in. Whether I liked it or not - I was becoming a 28. And I felt that anxiety that I had seen in all the eyes of the many many 28's in my life. I felt like I was running out of time... that I was at a crucial tipping point and if that thing that I wasn't sure of didn't happen soon, well you can forget it sister because it likely won't now that you're 28. I admit, I'd never taken the idea of "biological clock" seriously either. I guess at 28 the ticking is turned up exponentially.  I never thought I would have to start considering the idea of not being physically able to produce children. Yes, a little dramatic seeing as Hollywood has proven that women can bear children into their 40's, and Sariah in the Bible had a baby WELL into her 90's, but NEVER THE LESS! That's Hollywood and that's ONE person... in the HISTORY of the WORLD! I felt a squeeze on my soul... and perhaps a little proverbial nudge in my ovaries. Was I becoming one of those 28's? I'd heard of mid-life crisis - but quarter life and some change crisis? No one ever talks about those. But they're real my friends. Stop ignoring them.

August and September were hit and miss. I reflected on my existence - the possibilities that lay before me - and the sheer frustration that I was becoming one of those people that dreaded their Birthday! I didn't want to be one of those people and surely turning 28 wasn't the horror I had always witnessed, right?

Well, 28 came and here's the secret - I've never felt better!

 Mostly because I received this pop-up Birthday card bearing a chef-cat. How great is that?

But also, instead of dreading what I always thought a 28 year old single LDS female was, I decided to make sure I wasn't that person by simply choosing not to be. Why should I let a silly number effect my outlook and hopes about life? Why should I let a number ruin one of the greatest reasons I love October? Why should 28 suddenly make me into some baby-hungry psycho maniac?? Cause really, those will come in good time anyway.... and I have a Zooey to boot!

I decided instead of dreading my birthday, which would inevitably lead to more dread, to love my Birthday just like I did before I turned 28. I planned myself a little intimate soup party with close friends. I wanted to celebrate another year of health and happiness and living in America and freedom and the fact I had made it to 28 smiling and intact. In fact, I had made it to 28 still looking like a 20 year old and THAT my friends is indeed something to celebrate! Celebrate good genes! Celebrate being a wee person! I always knew this 5 foot 1 business would come in handy.

I've had to vocalize my age a few times since my Birthday and actually, I feel really great about it. I'm a 28. I've had some significant experiences, learned a lot of valuable lessons, and have had discussions with 23 year olds with 3 years of their freaking undergrad left and still subsisting on Mac&Cheese and am incredibly grateful I never EVER have to do that again. If you really think you want to be 23 or 21 again - go ahead and interact with a gaggle of them. I guarantee you will find a greater appreciation for where you are now and shudder at how far they have yet to go.

My goal as a 28 year old is to always be happy on my Happy Birthdays and never lie about my age. You heard me! Ask this woman her age! And she will tell you happily! "Why yes sir, no offense taken. For I am 28! And I am very happy to be right where I am doing what I'm doing and pressing forward for another year! So let them eat cake!" (Especially if its Grandma's recipe for chocolate rum cake.... nothing like a drop of rum to take the edge off).

 And in the spirit of my delusions - lets go ahead and not mention 30 okay? Baby steps.

Conspiracy Theory in Green Velvet

Because my writing inspiration tank is chugging on fumes... I can't promise any mind-altering posts in the near future. I mean because my posts usually are, you know, mind-altering. Why not? You might ask.  Is it because I've started watching the X-Files start to finish (currently on Season 4 episode 4!) and now my mind is more consumed with debunking government conspiracies rather than reflecting on life's this and that's? Is it because I've started reading novels again and my creative juices seem lack-luster compared with talent of legitimate novelists? Is it because I feel overwhelmed at the amount of time and creativity folks devote to their blogs that makes mine look amateurish and dull? IS IT??!??!?

Maybe...

It's mostly the X-Files though. I see conspiracy everywhere these days. Example: I was contemplating last night upon the movie Contagion. Have you seen it? Well, you should cause it will freak your socks off. It freaked me out a little bit - just because disease spreading seems much more diabolical than nuclear war in my mind. I'd rather risk being vaporized than pustuleized. Apparently all my disease fears center on pustules. This post is self-reflective after all. Things transported easily by air or touch strikes fear in my soul simply because it's an invisible enemy. You can't see it riding on someone's shoulder posed to leap... it just smoothly jumps from them to you in a swift natural movement and before you know it... a handshake becomes the kiss of death. At least the nuclear bomb has the decency to whistle and explode into a mushroom cloud before melting your face off. It's just plain common decency. I'd like to know when death is knocking.

Anyway...

I was contemplating Contagion last night and got to thinking... this sure is interesting timing to release such a movie, isn't it? I mean THINK about it. Flu season is upon us... the movie specifically mentions such recent epidemics as H1N1 (pig flu), bird flu, and other such sicknesses they've had to boil up a vaccine for. They liken those epidemics with this pig/bat/brain melting sickness that sweeps over the entire earth in a matter of months - wiping out millions. It's the black death of 2011! So I found the timing very interesting... almost TOO interesting. Releasing such a film when people are starting to prepare their immune system for "flu season" and on the hunt for vaccinations of all sorts.

I then thought it interesting they paint the CDC and other governmental bureaucrats as the do-gooders trying their best to save the good people of planet earth; meanwhile contending with the loony conspiracy theorist (Jude Law) utilizing social media to elicit a following that ultimately turns out to be self-serving and downright ludicrous. Isn't THAT interesting? ISN'T IT?!?! AND! It's ALSO interesting that the government ends up finding said anti-dote because they contract their services to a private firm in San Francisco. What the political underpinnings! What the economic allusion to contracting government services for the most quality product!

And FURTHERMORE! You've guaranteed that most people in the USofA will see this movie given it's plethora of legitimate A-list stars gracing the credits: Matt Damon, Gwenyth Paltrow, Kate Winslet (adore), Marian Cotillard (also adore), Laurence Fishburn, Jude Law, and a dozen other recognizables commonly supported by the general populous. I mean, right?!??!

It all adds UP!?!??!

The government is about to release a wide-spread brain melting epidemic that is transmitted by mere touch alone and then will swoop in with the anti-dote after the world's population has been reduced by MILLIONS there-by solidifying our blinding faith in their administrative oversight so we will never question their authority AGAIN!

OR!

They are making sure that every citizen in the world gets a flu vaccination which is actually not a vaccination at all but in fact, the next bubonic plague and once all of America has been subconsciously influenced by the movie Contagion to get their vaccinations and start dying en masse the government will "miraculously" come up with the anti-dote and ONLY make it available to those who support and are a part of the GOVERNMENTS HEALTH CARE POLICY! Thus, socialism takes over the WORLD!

OR!

They (i.e. the GOVERNMENT) are preparing the world for an alien invasion and therefore, to avoid mass hysteria will utilize this movie to subconsciously plant "go get a flu vaccination" into our minds which really turns out to be a genetic marker that will make every human who is injected either an alien-human hybrid making those who receive the injection immune to the poisons the invading aliens will strategically infect the entire human race in preparation for colonization OR, causing the OPPOSITE effect and slowly killing off humans in preparation for the alien invasion. Thus leaders must strike a deal with the alien invaders that allows them to live and rule alongside this new world colony all the while secretly concocting an anti-dote to the poisonous injection that was ROUTINELY administered through seasonal FLU VACCINATIONS thus allowing government leaders to save themselves and hand select others to receive this immunity OR selling it to the highest bidder! Power! Money! Intrigue! Colonization!

It's a conspiracy I tell you!!!! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

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Seriously though, I am interested to see the upswing of flu shot vaccinations this year compared with last year in correlation with the release of the movie. Right? I mean what a great study on the influence of media... adding irony to the thick of things by integrating the Jude Law story line and alluding to how easily the masses are swayed by Facebook, twitter, Hollywood... and the nightly ritual of watching an X-Files episode that may lead to gross paranoia and exuberant exaggeration.... erp.... wait...

So you can see why my mind has been occupied elsewhere.

I'd also like you to know, I started this post with the intent of bagging on velvet. Yeah, it makes no sense what-so-ever... velvet and that my original inspiration for this post was to mock it. I think the post started out with the intent of my lacking so much creative writing juice that I'd reduced myself to analyzing synthetic materials. It turned into a conspiracy rant instead. But really, velvet? What a strange material! I think velvet should be used to line coffins and draped across sorceresses (sorceressi?) or fortune tellers and not worn by the average person to any event at all... no... not even Christmas events. Clearly Halloween is acceptable as velvet is rather costumey. But that's it! I also find it a very creepy sort of texture that makes me think of black lights and musky scents... like a thick amber vanilla incense. Though, I guess my dislike of velvet lies more within the "all over" velvet rather than just a hint of it here or there - on a bow, or the top half of a fancy dress vs. an entire dress constructed out of the stuff.

It's still a very weird texture to me and I always question the wearing of it in any sense outside of a theatrical production or... Transylvania... or... over the age of 8. Ya know how little girls Christmas dresses always have some velvet involved. We can let that slide...

So here's the moral of this post: Really think about that flu vaccine and notice if those administering it are dressed all in black and using a lot of acronyms... and save the velvet for Halloween.  I've also learned that I'm my most eccentric at my least-creative.

I think we've done some good work here. Keep Calm... Carry On.