Dating Women

I am always the new girl.  Having moved five times in the past nine years, I’ve regrettably had to embrace the title and challenges that go along with being the new girl.  Even right now, guest blogging, I’m the new girl, in an unfamiliar place, trying to impress people I don’t know.  Am I being witty enough?  Are they just sticking around because they know I’m alone and would feel bad leaving?  At least here I can’t read your eyes and see that you’d really rather be hanging out with Lotus.

So right now I’m in the market for a lady friend.  I know the hows and wheres to finding new friends.  Most of it involves doing things I’m kind of sick of doing like putting myself out there or being a joiner or being friendly.   I could join a MOMS Club or MOPS, but that would mean lots of fretting about what to wear and what to say.  And there’s the whole “I hate leaving the house with my children” aspect.  Then once I’ve gotten the nerve up to actually get out of the car and walk into a place without knowing a soul and making polite, but awkward conversation, well, it really all sounds like too much effort.

It would be nice if I could just sit back and have new friends come to me for once.  I KNOW that won’t happen, though.  Hello!  I’ve lived in Tennessee for three months and the Friend Fairy hasn’t delivered even one friend to my doorstep.

It doesn’t seem like making friends should be so hard. I mean, I should be able to see a nice mom at the food court in the mall, go up, say “hello,” make small talk about our kids’ poop, exchange phone numbers, meet for lunch with the kids later in the week at that McDonald’s with the clean(er) play area, laugh and gossip, have our husbands meet each other at a bar-b-que on Saturday.  Voila!  Friends!

Or why can’t all of my friends who live in my laptop just magically appear when I need a friend to hang out with on the couch and watch trashy reality TV?

It’s just not that easy when it comes to making friends with women.

Wouldn’t it just be less effort to put an ad in the paper?

33 year old married women with two small children seeks female for friendship ONLY.  Must enjoy some shopping, chatting on the phone, long walks in the park.  Flexibility a must, as shopping will most likely get canceled because of a sick child, chatting on the phone will include many interruptions from said children, and walks in the park will actually be chasing toddlers around the park screaming at them not to eat the discarded goldfish crackers from someone elses picnic.    Picky eaters, close-minded jerks, people I can’t mention my blog to, Cubs fans, Twilight fans who insist I must read the remaining 3 books need not apply.

Hee, hee!  JUST KIDDING about the last two.  See?  Just proves my point that making friends with women is brutal.

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When Jennifer isn’t trolling for hot chicks to date looking for friendly women to pal around with, she’s entertaining all of us virtual friends over at her website, Playgroups Are No Place For Children. I’ve read her posts ever since I started checking out this blogosphere, and she never fails to entertain and inspire me. I’d feel lucky to have the Friend Fairy deliver her to me, any day.

Where I ramble on and lose your interest.

(If your eyes glaze halfway through, at least read the last bit, okay?  Pinky swear you will.)

So, I wanted to make a clarification after yesterday’s post.

No one emailed me or commented anything to move me to do so, btw.  I just tumble things around in my head a lot, and sometimes lots of things occur to me about what I’ve said that did not originally ocurr to me.  Okay, sometimes?  ALL the time.

Call me slow on the uptake, or something.  Just don’t call me, “Fluffly McNutterButter.”  Don’t ask.  Just don’t call me that.

I wanted to make sure that people understand that I really do love being a mother.  I am not committing myself to making my family suffer so that I can do this writing/blogging thing. 

[The only thing I would willingly make my family suffer for is a free Dyson.  I'd strap their asses to a medievel torture rack for one.  Or railroad ties.  Or dangle them from a balcony in front ot the media.  You know, anything incredibly dangerous and irresponsibly insane.  DYSON PEOPLE, are you paying ANY attention to me yet?!]

In no way am I saying, “I’m willing to deny Braden the time with me that he needs, because I just feel like hangin’ out over here being selfish and stuff with my keyboard and typish thingies and my digital camera whatsidoogie.”  And somehow, I feel the need to blow a valley-girlesque bubblegum bubble and pop it with my cherry red press-on nails afer the way I just typed the previous quote.  But I have neither bubble gum nor press-on nails, so I’m gonna have to miss out on that for now.

If I did think, for one minute, that writing for this website, or any other, was doing detriment to Braden as a person, or harming our family, I would drop off The Mighty Interwebs.  In a heartbeat.  But honestly, I just don’t think that’s the case.  Not here, anyway.  So that’s not what’s happening.

What I am going to be doing is enlisting John to help me carve out some specific time to work on things of the “me” variety.  I’ve been trying really hard to juggle everything on my own, and what has ended up happening is a lot of not sleeping very much and letting myself get run down.  Generally, I’ve been staying up very late to work on things around here, and frankly, that just makes me a crappy mother, because it shortens my fuse considerably.  I need to be gettin’ my ass in bed at an hour that would make any grandma proud.

All apologies to any Rock’nRoll Grandmas who might have been offended by that last statement.

Also, a couple of you made reference to the “job” I referred to in yesterday’s post.  I wanted to point out that I wasn’t talking about a “real” job so much as I was talking about this website.  It’s my “not really paid” job (unless you count the ad revenue, and really, that ain’t sendin’ Braden to college, ya dig?)… but it’s a job, because I put myself on a schedule and I expect a certain level of performance from myself.  Does that make sense?  Not that I make it unpleasant by doing that, because it’s still my website and I can do/write/say/post/etc anything I want.  That’s liberating.  But expecting a certain standard of things (stop laughing at me for saying I have standards) from myself here also makes this something to me that is important, and not just a plaything.

And that means something to me, inside.  Ya dig?  It’s like what a “real” job does for your psyche.

That being said?  I do have a couple of fun new gigs starting up, thank you so much for asking! :-P  Neither is a paying gig, either.  Either I’m a glutton for punishment, an Attention Whore, or I really do enjoy this whole “writing thing.”  You decide.

So…

I’m officially one of four contributing authors on a new ”Moms” column, “From the Mouths of Babes,” at Quirkee.com.  Please check the website, and the column, out.  There are great writers and cartoonists there, and quality content you are bound to enjoy!  I’ll be publishing a piece there every fourth Thursday (starting THIS Thursday!).  On other Thursdays, you’ll find great stuff on our column by the lovely and talented ”Babes,” Piper, Kadi, and dKaye, as well as many other articles and interesting content across the board on the website.

I’m also on the cusp of being a contributing author for Deep South Moms, a blog that is part of the Silicon Valley Moms Group.  The site abounds with amazing women writers, as do the other blogs in the group.  Lovelies you’ll find contributing at DSM include the ladies of Queen of Shake-Shake, BlondeMomBlog, Milkbreath & Margaritas, Mommy Needs Coffee and many more.  There is definitely a “tall glass of southern sass” being served up there daily.  So mosey on over yonder, ya’ll, take a load off and have a look’see.

 

So, there ya have it.  Much more than you wanted to read about me and my thoughts, dreams, and plans on a random Tuesday.

What’s up in your life this lovely Tuesday, eh?