Why Can't We Be Friends? (But Really, Why Can't We?)

During high school - like most teenagers, I hope - I struggled deeply with identifying and confronting romantic interest. I had no idea how to talk to boys, hiding my nose in books to avoid eye contact with other people. Once, in my high school library, a boy I liked was standing over me talking to someone at a nearby table. I was not prepared for this.

Reading The Crying of Lot 49, I felt my face warm up. I knew I sometimes blushed when nervous, but this was much worse than normal. Normally, my cheeks would turn slightly pink and I'd resemble a cute cartoon character, albeit an extremely nervous one. But this time, my face literally reddened. It was so bad that I expected McCarthy to burst into the library and drag me out of the country. The boy standing over me even took notice and asked me if I was okay.

"I--I'm fine!" I stuttered. "I HAVE ROSACEA." Then, I ran from the library quickly enough to convince my fellow students of my super-hero potential. I was quite suave.

Another time, a boy I liked  (a different boy, though he was talking to the boy I encountered in the library so he might as well have been the same person, and, yes, I am aware that I was kind of slutty with my crushes but fortunately I wore bright orange tights and spoke of nothing but Lost, guaranteeing me little to no tangible romantic prospects) was walking in front of me in a crowded hallway. He asked his friend what he should do with the permission slip his parents had signed for a field trip that day. 

"TAKE IT TO THE OFFICE!" I said much more loudly than I expected. He turned around and was clearly quite confused. "Thanks," he said, his brow furrowing deeper than anyone's brow ever should. As you can see, I really did not know how to talk to romantic interests. 

Now that I'm happily in love and living with a wonderful person, you  might think I don't have these problems. And in a world where I continually improve as a human being, you might be right. I do not live in this world. In my world, I can't make new friends for shit. 

Gideon and I recently moved to Eureka Springs, where most of the residents are twice my age. These are nice people. I like these people. But I cannot divulge all the personal details of my life to them or mutually complain about twenty-something problems with them or call them over to my house after a long day to drink wine and watch The Voice on Hulu. I recently met a 24-year-old in Berryville who has quite a bit in common with me - and I'd love to be this woman's friend - but I absolutely screwed it up. 

"Yeaaaaaaaah well I love Lost, the best show of all time don't you know and you have to love it too, right? By the way I have a cat. Do you want to see pictures of him?" I blabbered. I actually shoved my phone in her face so she could see what my cat looks like. She said he was cute but I already knew that and  I wasn't sure if she even meant it. (And how could I be friends with someone who can't tell that my cat is the cutest cat in the whole world?) 

Guys, I thought I was done with this awkwardness when Gideon and I got together in January. I thought I didn't have to worry about the way I cultivate my personality anymore because I was comfortable with Gideon and his group of friends. (Of course, I have my own friends. Shout out to Dora, Kasey, Madii, Kelby, Amber, Alex and Nell! If I forgot to list you here that means we are not as good of friends as you think we are. Or I just didn't sleep well and can't think properly at the moment. It is probably the latter.) But now neither of us have friends we see every day, save for the cat. I am trying desperately to get us more friends and I am killing our chances every time I speak. 

Finding new friends is so hard. There are no self-help books for our specific situation. I know because I searched Amazon for "Finding New Friends When You Live in a Town Where No One is Your Age and All Your Friends Live At Least an Hour Away." 

Oh well. At least we have each other. 

And at least I have Hulu. 

Self-Hate and Why We Should Stop Loving It So Much

This morning, I woke up at 7 a.m. as usual. I drank a glass of water and walked to the bathroom at the pace of your average zombie. Once there, I straightened my hair, brushed my teeth and applied makeup and deodorant, though not necessarily in that order. I was dressed for work - wearing my uniform of black skinny jeans, a t-shirt, a cardigan and closed-toe pumps - when Gideon told me, "You look great" as he does every morning.

And, as I do every morning, I thought to myself, "No, I look terrible." I have done this since I was in middle school and probably earlier than that, and I know I need to stop. I'm not sure where this cycle of self-hate began, but I know I have never had the same self-confidence in my appearance that I do in my intelligence. On an average day, I mentally insult myself 10 times or more. These insults include:

• I'm so fat.
• I wish my skin was clearer.
• My arms are huge.
• My fingers are so fat.
• Thunder thighs is an understatement.
• I could probably compose a symphony using the sound my arm fat makes when I jiggle it in a tank top.
• I really screwed up my makeup today. 
• My chins are so out-of-control that they might begin rebelling against the chin I was born with. It would be a chin mutiny. (Yes, I get creative with my self-insults. I am a strange person. Everyone knows this.)

I hate to be that predictable person who struggles with body issues and, in turn, suffers from an eating disorder, but I have to admit that I am - against my will, of course - like everyone else in some ways. While I've never had a specific eating disorder, I have struggled with food my entire life. It was particularly bad in high school. 

The week before prom my senior year of high school, I was folding clothes with my mother and came across a striped shirt that was baggy the last time I wore it. "I think I'm losing weight," I commented. My mother is a very matter-of-fact person, so she responded, "I think you've actually put on a few pounds." It wasn't even really a criticism, but it hit me hard. I skipped lunch all week and began vigorously working out daily, dropping five pounds or so in one week. 

I thought it would give me satisfaction to look thin in my prom dress, but I don't associate happiness with that night. When I see photos of myself in my prom dress, I think only of how much my body image consumed me. I don't even look happy in the pictures. See for yourself: 

I am in the middle.

I'm not wearing the expression you'd expect of a girl going to her high school prom. I look tired. I look sad. And looking at this photo just now, I couldn't help but think to myself how I wish I could be back at that weight, even if it meant all the exhaustion and stress. 

That's not okay. I don't want to rule my life based on the way I look anymore. It's not healthy for me, and it's certainly not pleasant for those I love to hear me insult myself all the time. Even if I'm not saying that I feel fat aloud, my mood communicates it clearly enough. I really want to stop this, because I'm getting older and becoming responsible for others. As of now, "others" consists of Gideon. In the next 10 years, it will consist of children. 

When I have children - especially if I have a daughter - I don't want them to hate themselves the way I hate myself. It's tiring and painful to put yourself down all the time. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy - Dawn Ostroff, former head of the CW network who cancelled Veronica Mars and likely gives out fruit or pencils on Halloween - so I'm especially afraid of those I love feeling this way. I can't say that I will ever stop mentally insulting myself completely, but I know I can stop verbalizing it and allowing it to affect my mood as much as it does. 

Most importantly, I know my children will never hear me call myself fat. I won't let them. So for the next five years or so, my major goal is to treat myself with as much care as I'd treat my future children. This includes eating well and exercising, but that's really the easy part. I can run for an hour and eat salad all day if I have to; I am pretty athletic and regimented once I decide to do something. I can easily take the physical steps to be kind to my body. Unfortunately, I'm not so capable of mentally treating my body well. 

I'm going to try anyway. 

Wayward Attempts at Satire

I love The Onion, a satirical online and print newspaper. I've even tried my hand at writing Onion-esque articles. Behold the article I wrote last night:

Local woman finds soul mate for fifth time

After years of searching for, finding and losing the one, Candy Harper believes she has really found her soul mate this time.

Harper, 24, met Ben Green, 25, at a mutual friend's Halloween party last week. She said she knew it was meant to be because she and Green unintentionally coordinated costumes; Harper dressed as a sexy trash bag and Green wore a trash collector's uniform.

"He walked up to me and said, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm going to have to pick you up," Harper recalled. "That's when I knew." That night, the two made love on 21-year-old Ricky Berg's twin bed, sandwiched between a Nickelback poster and a half dozen empty pizza boxes. Harper said she cannot remember much of it, but what she can remember was "a pure expression of love."

The day following the party, she and Green met up for coffee, where they discussed various topics, from the quality of Kim Kardashian's makeup line to the pros and cons of euthanasia. Green said he would be in touch after the date, telling Harper to feel free to call any time, preferably after midnight on weekends. "He even joked about giving me money for an abortion if the condom broke or something. I love that he's already so comfortable kidding around with me," Harper said.

Though Green has responded to only one of her messages following the date, Harper believes their love is stronger than ever. She has compared his posts on Facebook before he met her to the content he has shared after, finding that he uses the letter "l" much more in his writing now. "Clearly, that means he is in love," she gushed.

Harper previously found her soul mate in 20-year-old Brett Worthington, who she believed to be Adam Levine for the duration of their relationship. She cited his petite body and high-pitched voice for the confusion, even though Worthington was always upfront about his identity. "I thought he was using a fake name to fly under the radar," she said. She realized his true identity after he told her "for the last fucking time, I don't know and never have known Blake Shelton."

After ending that relationship, she moved on to 21-year-old Lennie Quinn. Having practiced archery since he was a child, Quinn introduced himself to Harper by telling her that she "definitely hit the mark." He took her horse-riding for their first date, allowing her to groom the horses before embarking on a five-mile horse-back ride. "It was really romantic, but it was also really smelly," Harper said.

She explained that, while Quinn was definitely her soul mate before their first date, he stopped being her soul mate the moment she smelled horse poop. Fortunately, she met her third soul mate when she arrived home from the date, running into 27-year-old Mike Drake outside her apartment. Drake had just moved into the complex and asked Harper which key opened his mailbox. "I know it sounds crazy, but I could feel him fall in love with me two seconds into the conversation," she said, adding that their connection was secured when she brushed her finger against his to show him the proper key.

She quickly learned that he was married and had two children but didn't want a "trivial thing like timing" to stop her from being with her soul mate. Harper began mailing love letters to Drake, cutting words out of magazines and gluing them to a piece of paper to make the letters even more romantic. She also routinely sat outside the door of his apartment when she knew he'd be leaving for work. Eventually, Drake filed a restraining order against Harper.

But she didn't give up on love just because her relationship with Drake didn't work out. Harper quickly  moved on to 45-year-old fitness trainer Gerard King, a divorced father of six. She met him at her gym, smiling and telling him, "You could be my father."

Harper and King began dating, becoming physically intimate almost immediately. While Harper enjoyed King's experience and ability to take her to expensive restaurants, she found his children annoying. "He took me to a family reunion. I didn't realize one person could spawn that many people," she said. "And they were all so loud."

She let King take her out and buy her gifts for six more months before dumping him, hoping to find a rebound at close friend Ashley Davy's Halloween party. There's she met Green. "The rest is history," she said.

She hopes to be married by Christmas, just in time to conceive her first child. Harper has always wanted a "fall baby." "Everything is falling into place like I always dreamed it would," she said, adding that she hasn't spoken to Green in the past few days because he is working over-time. "I think he's saving up for my $20,000 engagement ring."

At press time, Green could not be reached for comment.

Ed. Note: I don't know what it says about me that this is what I do in my free time. 

Anatomy of My Cat's Day

7 a.m. - I should wake up the humans. If Gideon doesn't move promptly, I can stick my butt in his face until he realizes the proximity of his nose to my anus. Then he'll begrudgingly rise.
7:30 a.m. - If I rub my face against Gideon's leg enough, he'll pick me up and put me on his shoulders. He'll carry me around as he makes coffee and tries to wake Sam, which even I can't do on most days.
8:30 a.m. - Sam has left for work. I watched her through the window as she got in the car and cursed at the morning sun. She is such a character.
10 a.m. - Gideon and Sam are both gone now. This means I can attack those innocent mice Sam brought into the house undisturbed. (Ed. note: These are catnip toys. I have not been giving my cat actual mice to eat/chase.)
10:04 a.m. - I have destroyed the mouse. Now I sleep.
12 p.m. - Time for lunch. Wait, is there a vacant space in my food bowl? That must mean there is no food in the bowl. I will fast in defiance.
1 p.m. - Now I sleep again with my face to the sun. It really complements my yellow mane.
3 p.m. - I rise from my nap. Is Sam home yet? No.
3:30 p.m. - That damn mouse is staring at me again. I better attack it.
4 p.m. - That was tiring. I think I'll sleep now.
5 p.m. - Sam is home! Now I'm going to sit on her back as she plays a game on her phone. She'll love it.
5:30 p.m. - She's trying to take selfies with me again even though she knows I'm having a bad hair day. I'll look angry them. I hope she doesn't think it's cute
7 p.m. - Gideon is home! This means I get wet food now.
8 p.m. - I have given the humans enough attention now. I should sleep more to show them how little I care.

Cooking with Sam and Gideon! (Again, and with more burned things this time!)

 Last night, I suggested to Gideon that we make the can of cinnamon rolls I impulse-purchased a couple days prior. To spare you all the annoying exposition, I'll cut to chase:

It was a disaster. 

"Oh, Sam, how can you screw up cinnamon rolls?" you say. "It can't be that hard; the instructions are on the can." You have made a fair point but have also grossly overestimated my attention span and my knowledge of how cooking works. Before I put the cinnamon rolls in the oven, Gideon took a photo of me holding the uncooked dough to document our endeavor. (At this point, he still had faith in my ability to bake and generally function properly.) 

 

"Woah, are those cinnamon rolls still attached? Aren't you supposed to separate them before baking them?" you ask. Why, yes you are. Why didn't I take the time to separate the cinnamon rolls and place them into a round baking pan, allowing them to all bake through at the same time? I have two reasons for this decision:

1. We don't have a round baking pan.
2. I didn't want to.

So I plopped my cinnamon loaf in the oven, believing it would be ready for consumption in the 8 to 10 minutes specified on the package. Five minutes passed. I checked the cinnamon loaf, removed it from the oven and deemed it too-doughy. Back in the oven it went. 

Five minutes after that, the top of the cinnamon rolls were slightly brown but the loaf seemed to have baked perfectly. Basking in my glory, I asked Gideon to put the icing on them so that I could continue to scream obscenities every time Adam Levine spoke on The Voice. He did. We dug in. 

It was a disaster. The dough clung to the loaf like melted provolone, and even though we had already put the icing on the rolls, I decided we had to put them back in again. Before we did, Gideon cut off the cooked pieces to avoid burning them. (I would not have thought of this. I know because I tried to separate the half-cooked cinnamon rolls instead, causing a minor burn on my left index finger.) Then, we went on the balcony to talk.

By the time we had the sense to return to the kitchen, the icing had crystallized onto the chewy, sticky cinnamon rolls. I waywardly chose to taste the crystallized icing, and I learned that it does not taste good in any sense of the word. I rationalized my decision by choosing to blog about it and warn all of you. So now, instead of being the dumb woman who overcooked a cinnamon loaf with icing on it and then tasted the burned, crystallized icing, I am a martyr who has prevented others from suffering a similar fate. Praise be unto me. 

Here is the photo Gideon took after the cinnamon rolls came out of the oven for the last time: 

I know I look happy, but I was keeping a strong front for the cat. It was a disaster. Please zoom to see how disastrous this truly was.

I learned nothing from this except for how disappointing it is to expect delicious cinnamon rolls and then to eat burned, crystallized icing instead.

Cohabitation Probs: No Probs?

I created the segment "Cohabitation Probs" a month or so ago. When I did this, I intended to update it quite regularly. But Gideon and I rarely have problems living together; even if we have a messy break-up during which I slash my own car's tires to make a point, I could see us still living together. Why? We cohabitate so well. We are both clean people and our work schedules allow us to see each other enough that we actually miss each other and value our time together. Honestly, though, the "clean" part of the equation is the most important to me.

I once dated a man whose apartment was so messy that there was only one way to get anywhere in his apartment. He also collected way too many things, from old newspapers to McDonald's toys. This stuff - I usually hate using the word "stuff," but it is so true in this case - permeated his entire space, spiking my anxiety more than that time in 2007 when Veronica Mars was cancelled and I spent two months mourning it and writing hate letters to Dawn Ostroff, head of the CW network. At one point, I began slowly removing trash and other stuff I deemed trash, hoping to clean up his place slowly without him realizing it.

I am aware that this is kind of terrible behavior, but if you saw all those sad, abandoned pizza boxes slowly realize they would never make it to the trash with all their friends, you would have done something about it, too. Of course, you could argue that the pizza boxes eventually created a pizza box community, forming their own trash heap in what should have been a living space. Really, I admire their courage and determination. 

After this experience, I vowed to never date a messy person again. "If some guy brings me back to his place after a date and it's really, really messy," I told myself after breaking up with my ex-boyfriend, "I will definitely not sleep with him. Unless he's Idris Elba." (Idris Elba is the exception to every rule I live by, including the one that prohibits me from driving with my feet. Don't judge me. He is very, very attractive.) 

So I definitely lucked out with Gideon, who cleans up after himself habitually. Our current rule - though he follows it less strictly than I do - is that the first person home each day does minimal cleaning, keeping the house consistently tidy. I let him get away with not doing the dishes occasionally because, like my dear Idris Elba, he is very, very attractive. 

Though I would not break my no-driving-with-your-feet rule for him. That's for Idris and Idris only.

Belated Everything

Last week was super busy. I think I literally lost my head at one point; fortunately, a nice man found it and turned it in to the local police department. Police officers said they identified me by my red wine stained lips, though I suspect it helped that I spoke only in puns. Dental records might have been useful, too, but that's just boring.

It's a shame that I was too busy to blog, because I turned 23 last week and really could have used another medium for people to tell me how awesome I am and how happy they are that I'm still breathing in 2014. I have had a history of terrible birthdays, often finding myself in the emergency room or just crying in my bedroom on my birthday. True story: When I was turning seven, I hosted a slumber party for seven of my friends prior to my birthday party the next day. A brown recluse spider bit me in three places on my arm, forcing me to spend my birthday crying hysterically as the nurse searched for a viable vein to put the IV in. It was one of my better birthdays.

These are the flowers.

That said, this birthday was very nice. I went to work and one of my coworkers took me to lunch, where I ate really fattening, delicious pizza. Then, my other coworkers gave me a card and a cake and sang to me. When I returned home, I drank wine and drunkenly ate part of the birthday cake Gideon bought me the night before. (I was glad he didn't bring home candles or anything because I ate all the pretty parts of the cake. It would have been a terrible photo had he wanted one. I imagine I would have been staring into the camera with my candle-lit wine eyes, chocolate icing slathered about my face with a fairly demolished cake in one hand and a chocolate-soiled fork in the other.)

 Gideon made spaghetti, broccoli, garlic bread and salad when he got home. We spent the rest of the night watching Gilmore Girls and playing Farkle, which sounds super boring but was really fun and relaxing for me. Also, my mom sent me some really pretty flowers at work.

I had Friday off, so Gideon and I went to this amazing Italian eatery in Eureka Springs called Ermilio's. It is all I ever dreamed of and then some. The pasta. The gorgonzola sauce. The gorgonzola-apple bread. The regular bread. I just drooled all over my computer writing that, if that tells you anything. He also bought me chocolate cake there, which was about as delicious as the most delicious chocolate cake in the whole world. I have absolutely nothing snarky or sarcastic to say about this place; the food was too good for me to speak of it with any sass, implied or otherwise.

Honestly, the birthday was so great that I can't really talk about without gushing. I am pretty lucky to have all I do.

That said, I'm sure I'll be back to form (read: cynical and sarcastic) tomorrow.

This is a cute photo of my cat. 

Work work work?

Some days I am absolutely amazed at my luck in life. This amazement usually depends on how my work day goes; while I almost always enjoy work because of my coworkers, the articles I write that day can make or break my mood when I get home.

Yesterday, I wrote an article about a local lieutenant retiring from law enforcement after 35 years in the business. He told me several crushing stories from his tenure, one involving the suicide of a 12-year-old boy. The boy shot himself in the head and left behind a note simply reading, "Tell Mom she's a bitch." The lieutenant told me that when he pulled back the sheet to collect evidence from the boy's corpse, he initially saw his own son - who was 12 years old at the time, too - under the sheet. "I had to tell myself that it wasn't my son," he told me, his eyes hardening to fight back his emotion. "When I got home that night, I hugged my son and told him that if he's ever having problems, he can talk to me. That if something goes wrong, he can talk to me about it."

I found his story bittersweet. It made me think about how everything we do and everything we experience in life brings us to an epiphany about ourselves. These experiences help us figure out how to manage ourselves in often impossible situations. I haven't always been happy, spending most of my college years in a depression so deep I didn't even realize I was in it. But that's not a bad thing. It's a character building thing.

Today, I am writing an article about a special needs girl who was voted Homecoming Queen locally. Everyone I have spoken to has praised the girl, calling her "sweet" and "kind" and "hard-working." They described her attitude and personality, not the way she looked in her formal dress. The only physical feature they have discussed is her smile, which is always present even in the most unfortunate situations.

I found this story heartwarming, because I am not Satan or Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy (basically the same person, if you ask me). No one I spoke to about this girl seemed to speak well of her out of pity. She seems like a legitimately positive person, which is often difficult for people who do not have mental disabilities. I know it is for me, at least.

My job is wonderful. I learn something new about myself and the world every day. Days like today make me feel so incredibly lucky to have a gift (writing, though I am also quite talented at writing dirty haikus and dancing like no one is watching) that I can utilize to share other people's gifts and experiences. It's why I wanted to be a journalist. It's why I keep doing what I'm doing.

He Said, She Said: The Day We Met

A couple days ago, I hinted at a future blog post that I would need Gideon's help with. He finally came through, allowing me to be much less vague than I'd like to be. (I am a mysterious creature, I'm sure.)

I had the idea a week ago to start a segment called "He Said, She Said," in which Gideon and I both write an individual account of one of our milestones. I wanted to start the segment where we started: the day we met. Before I transcribe Gideon's narrative, I feel it necessary to add a photo taken that day. This photo, you will see, negates Gideon's assertion that I had short hair when we met and proves that I am always right about everything. (Just let me have this one, guys.)

This is me and my friend Ryan. He will be important to my story but is not mentioned in Gideon's.  He is less blurry in real life.

HE SAID

My memory is a badly rusted bear trap -- cruelly trapping historical factoids in its unyielding grip but allowing names and faces to wriggle through with ease. This leads to amusing paradoxes like being able to recite the chronology of American Presidents or various English succession crises mid-coitus, yet unable to remember the names of professors I saw daily last year. My extended warranty on my brain is defunct, so I'll just have to make do with this mish-mash of clarity and shadows.

Meeting Samantha has long since passed from fresh, in-the-moment memory to old, hyper-analyzed and re-remembered memory. In reliving memory, I think you actually erase the experience and replace it with a facsimile memory. The first or second generation of relived memories are essentially the same. But just like a re-copied page gets fainter and fainter, so too (Ed. Note: Gideon wrote "to" instead of "too," but I am smarter than he is so I edited it.) does the re-visited memory. Eventually, the events are just a palimpsest for your current self to copy over. That being said, that day is now a vague setpiece that I have forgotten, re-written and re-arranged to contextualize meeting Sam.

That was a shitty, shitty day. I was being honored at the state capital for doing satisfactory school work. I hated everything. April of my senior year was the high-point for my cynicism and bitterness. I had become disillusioned with my school (more self-congratulatory masturbation than academic preparation). I had become extremely dissatisfied with religion and was flirting with radical/angry atheism. My excuse for a father (peace be unto him) was trying to use this to cut out my mother...somehow. I cheated him out of this by forcing him to be in the same picture with her. Anyway, I was an angry, bitter person. I had a nice suit on, too. Suddenly, a woman accosted me.

"Hey!" she shouted. "I'm looking to add friends to my roster."

"That's nice." I looked away.

"Yes!" she rejoined, not knowing my subtle clues for disengaging. 

"Would you like to be considered?"

She was tall, almost reaching my throat with her face. She was blonde -- short hair kind of bobbed. (WRONG.) She had prominent cheekbones, hinting at some non-European ancestry. I remember her smile best. It was three-quarters genuine charisma and one-quarter acting. I liked it.

What followed is a dreamlike haze of probables and possibles. I think I, being half-disarmed and half-charmed, engaged in a conversation about film and music. Her love of bad cinema and my love of mocking bad cinema intertwined. At some point, I escaped to get lemonade from the catering table. I handed her my iPod classic as a conversation bookmark (also as a guarantee that I wasn't simply running away). She didn't steal it, which was nice. I think I inadvertently met her paternal grandparents at the food station, but I wouldn't be formally introduced for a few more years.

That's about all I remember. We gave each other our real names so that we could find each other on Facebook. "I'm addicted to stalking people," she bragged. But that was it. We started communicating online not long afterwards. I went off to shake Mike Beebe's hand and tolerate my awful father and his awful family and my awful schoolmates and everything. She disappeared, becoming an aspect of my mind and memory -- reinforced by Facebook pictures and emails.

SHE SAID

My mother and I got into a huge fight the day before I was supposed to meet Governor Mike Beebe at the Governor's Mansion. I remember what it was about, but it's not really important to this story and I don't feel like re-hashing something that doesn't matter anymore. (I love you, Mom!) Still, we both agreed that it would be best if just me and my nana attended the event.

I was valedictorian of my small high school, which was actually an accomplishment considering how intelligent and talented the salutatorian, my friend Ryan, was. Ryan and I were the only two students in AP Calculus, giving us an interesting bond. When I arrived at Mike's house (yes, we're on a first-name basis) I immediately searched for Ryan. We both stood in line, shook the governor's hand, took a photo with him and his wife and dispersed to get lemonade and finger sandwiches.

Sitting at a table with our free food, I was telling Ryan how I am "so suave" and that I will talk to anybody with no problem. In fact, I said, I could pick up pretty much any guy in the room. "Fine," he said. "Hit on the next person to walk through that door." Not one to turn down a challenge, I immediately stood up and waited for someone to walk past. An elderly man in high-waisted pants walked past the door-frame; Ryan and I winked at each other but silently agreed that I should hit on someone with working parts. Two women passed, but I am not a lesbian so I continued to wait. 

Then I saw a way-too-tall man dressed in all black walk through. He had dark features, which I immediately liked. He wore a nice suit and looked like he was having a bad day. Of course I approached him.

"Hey man, what's up!" I exclaimed far too loudly. He said something along the lines of how he was just meeting the governor. I could tell he was trying to brush me off, but I'm not one to be pushed away if I really want something. 

I told him that I loved Howard the Duck and asked him what films he liked; I can't remember his response too well, but I'm sure he responded with some pretentious Kubrick film. His eyes still darted from me to the floor, trying to subtly tell me to go away. I did not go away. 

"What kind of music do you like?" I asked, slowly moving closer to him to prevent him from backing away. He listed off several bands - some that I liked very much - and deemed his musical taste "eclectic." Then, he told me that he wanted to go get some lemonade but would give me his iPod to look through while he was gone. 

After he had left, I started to think about what I was actually doing. This guy is crazy. He just gave me his iPod. I could grab my nana and scram and he would never have his iPod again. Should I do that? No, I have my own iPod. BUT IT'S NOT THIS BIG AND SHINY. Calm down, Sam, you don't need his iPod. Wow, he's actually attractive. Do I have to fart? Oh, I can't fart if he's going to come back here. Then he'll tell all his friends about the girl he met at the Governor's Mansion who farted. 

I saw him ascend the staircase and, as he was walking toward me, noticed that he seemed to be in a slightly better mood than when I had begun speaking with him. We exchanged information and that was that. 

Now we are crazy in love and we live together, all because my friend Ryan dared me to hit on the first person to walk through the door. 

I'm the luckiest person I know.

The Evolution of Sam

I called my mom last night to tell her about an issue I've been having with one of my neighbors.

"Hey, I'm kind of worried about something and I don't want you to freak out because I'm freaking out and I don't know if this is something worth being upset over yet," I told her. I heard her breathing a little bit heavier on the other end of the line, as if she was concerned about the issue even though I hadn't told her what it was.

"Oh," I said. "I'm not pregnant."

"Okay!" she exclaimed.

I think I could feel her breathe a sigh of relief, likely because everyone who knew me pre-college (and during college, too, if I'm being honest) has always assumed that I would make a terrible mother. It's probably because I make a lot of jokes about dropping babies and have often sarcastically exclaimed, "I'm a woman! All I want in life is to be a wife and a mother!" (I'm sure there's something about my abrasive personality in there, too, but I don't want you to see how terrible I can be. No, I am perfectly kind and gracious and anyone who says otherwise can go jump off a cliff.)

In all honesty, their reservations are not unfounded. I spent much of my childhood and adolescence asserting that I would never have children or marry; in my mind, a woman who resigned herself to stay at home with children would never be a successful person. And I was abrasive about this opinion, much more than I should have been. For a woman who didn't want to be judged for having career aspirations over family goals, I certainly judged others who disagreed with me harshly. I would regret this, but I don't believe in living a life of regret. That was simply an opinion I once held that I no longer do.

When I went to college, I became close friends with another woman, immediately assuming her to be a feminist, too. We talked about horror films and music but never serious issues. The day we did, I realized how judgmental I had been and how much I wanted to change that. We were going to see a horror film and she was driving. Somehow, we got on the topic of stay-at-home moms. "Everyone expects me to marry someone and pop out babies," she said. I laughed and said that was ridiculous. Then, she simultaneously changed my perception of her and myself with one sentence. "Eh, if it's all you've ever known and it's what you want to do, I don't see a problem with it," she said.

Various thoughts clustered in my mind. Should I rebut what she is saying? Do I want to fight that fight?Do I want to end a friendship over a fundamental disagreement? Why do I even care so much about this? If she wants to marry and have children, isn't that her right? If any woman wants to marry and have children and it makes her happy, isn't that her right? 

Everything changed for me in that moment. The person I was in high school was slowly dying away; I was near the end of my three-year relationship at this point and beginning to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. Still, this conversation made me realize that I didn't mind if other women wanted to take a different path in life than I did. It made me way less judgmental. It made me a better person.

And then I broke up with my boyfriend and then I started dating Gideon, which is where things get a bit messy. Assume what you will from what I will soon say, because I'm not in the business of scaring off my live-in boyfriend with assumptions about our future.

I am okay with getting married and having children now. I think that everyone is married by the need to find themselves and to be happy, and I've been struggling with this the same way everyone else in the world has. The snap judgments I made as a child and teenager existed to help me develop a sense of self. I wasn't fully formed then; I'm not sure if I ever will be. I do know that I have evolved and will continue to do this as long as I live.

Now, I don't mean to support those people who say, "Oh, you'll change your mind once you're older" to young women who disagree with traditional marriage and child-bearing. I support women who want to have children and I support women who prefer to remain childless.

Mostly, I support being happy, however you might find this happiness. Unless you find it via yellow tabby cat genocide; then, I'll have to be all judgmental again.