middleage

Goodbye, My Almost Lover

Posted on by akiwifreund

In 2013, I was kind of limping through the year. I had surgeries on February 20th, May 20th and May 26th, and by the time I flew back to Minnesota to attend a high school reunion and help my parents with organizing their house, my shunt had already formed a huge bubble in my back when it cracked after only being implanted for a month. I had just seen my neurosurgeon the day before flying out and he had given me the okay to leave Arizona because besides the large collection of CSF under my skin, I seemed to still be functioning.

What is really different about the school that I graduated from is that the majority of us lived on campus in a dorm, much like college. Only juniors and seniors attended, so the people in my graduating class were together for two years, and the class before us and after us were around for half of our tenure there. The advent of Facebook was really a boon in our attempts to stay connected with our classmates; we came from all over the state of Minnesota to attend the “Fame school” and basically felt largely that we were the rejects of our old schools because we were more intense about our art areas than most – and let’s face it, just different in general. So when one classmate organized yearly picnics for the students who graduated between 1991 and 1995 (just so there would be some overlap), we all knew that if we made the effort, there was a pretty good chance that we’d see some good friends.

I took up the task of being the event photographer. If you ever feel guilty about sitting around on your duff at a gathering, it’s a great excuse to talk to every single person who attends.

This one guy, Hot Dog (and you’d laugh if you knew his real nickname!), was in attendance. He was always in my peripheral group of friends, since he was a year younger and dated one of my classmates. He was wild. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he had a wild mouth. He always looked a little wild, with flyaway frizzy hair, cherub cheeks and tree trunk arms, but his cutting wit was dangerous. I always thought of him as being an obnoxious younger brother while we were in school. If there was a way to make jokes about dead babies and grandmothers, he’d be the one to do it. And it was never at a quiet volume. Never.

True to form, while I was visiting with Hot Dog at a picnic table with a couple of other friends, he lifted a cheek and let out a fart. He did another one when I whipped out my camera, saying, “I was just blowing Brad a kiss.”

Only two days later, when I was back at my parents’ house, my shunt went into total failure and I lost most of my vision. I had to fly back to Phoenix to be operated on again by my neurosurgeon because the neurosurgeons at the Mayo in Rochester turned me down – they didn’t understand my symptoms, so they didn’t want to work on me. Any plans to socialize were impossible.

But after that reunion, Hot Dog stayed in touch with me. I’m not sure if I sent him a message first, or if he initiated contact, but we commiserated over our mutual disgust for my most recent ex-boyfriend (Angry and Stupid? Dumb and Angry? I will have to look back at what I nicknamed him initially.), because we were all classmates together. He actually married (and subsequently divorced) the classmate that he dated through his time at the arts high school; they were together about 13 years before she found Jesus, and I think they were as close to being soul mates as anyone could hope.

After a few months, our messages became more intense. He was always supportive of what I was going through with my brain stuff and tried to understand as much as anyone could who had never had a chronic condition himself. We had some discussions about my difficulty as a bald woman finding any men who were okay with my hair loss. It was immediately easier for me to open up to him because for him, my lack of hair never diminished my femininity in his eyes. Then I found out that some of my kinks were the same as his – not an easy feat, as anyone in the kink world knows. I’m not saying that I am anywhere as unusual as the guy who thought it was hot to have his jaw stomped on and teeth knocked out, but there are certainly more than 50 shades of dirty out there. We had many steamy sessions of sharing our wants and urges. He also talked about how good it felt to start working out again, getting back into the karate he had picked up as a boy, sweating and kicking and punching and trading fat for muscle. We discussed the possibility of coordinating a road trip for him to come down to Arizona.

And then he got sick.

At first he was joking that his intestines exploded. At least, that’s what it felt like to him. But as it turns out, after his doctor insisted multiple times that he suspected the atypical presentation was actually cancer, and his body flying apart was caused by stage III colorectal cancer. He had to go through multiple rounds of chemo to try to keep the cancer that had spread to other parts of his body under control before one big surgery was performed to cut it out. At the same time that he was going through that, I had already had four more surgeries and was waiting on another one, and was in excruciating pain for 10 months because of a leak that could not be fixed until we figured out what I was allergic to. Rather than talking about what we wanted to do to each other, our talks shifted to his fears about never having full functionality or a decent quality of life ever again.

The surgery was extensive. He had a bowel resection and they removed his rectum completely, sentencing him to a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. The surgery was not as bad as it could have been – the doctors had no idea what to plan for, everything would only become apparent after opening him – but it was certainly bad enough.

We traded more messages, but there were a few times when it sounded like he might try to reconcile with his ex-wife. Around the same time, Ping Pong came in for his final round, so I let Hot Dog know that I would no longer be able to talk dirty as we had been, but I didn’t want to lose touch. Our talks were never the same and we went radio silent fairly quickly.

Around the end of March of 2015, I saw an article about a guy who was modeling with his colostomy bag, and I sent it to Hot Dog letting him know that I was thinking of him and hoping that he was getting stronger. I didn’t receive a response. At the end of April, when I figured out that I would have to move back to Minnesota, I sent him another note letting him know I was landing very close to him. Again, there was no response. At that point I figured that he really didn’t want much to do with me after I went back to the ex and he tried to move on.

But then he died.

It was actually just two days ago. I found out because like every other morning, I started by opening my laptop and catching up on the news. That was the first thing that came up on my Facebook. It was like being punched in the stomach. From what I’ve been able to gather, they succeeded in removing all of the cancer, but the surgery was so invasive that the aftereffects were eroding his life on a grand scale. For a short amount of time he allowed pictures to be posted of some events he attended and it seemed he had taken up residence at his favorite coffee shop to sketch, but he did not update Facebook himself.

I was not the only one who was shocked by the news, but towards the end, he kept only his most loyal people close to him. I understand. I came in late and left early. But I still wish we could have had a conversation, and maybe some laughs, all better face-to-face rather than 1600 miles away, before the option was forever off the table.

On Friday we will all have to say goodbye to Hot Dog. He was so many things to so many people, but to me, he was my biggest regret. I didn’t see the diamond that was camouflaged by all of the shit jokes.

Been There, Had That Done to Me

Posted on by akiwifreund

For the past three hours, I have been reading all of the submissions on the “Straight White Boys Texting” Tumblr site. It’s for real. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried – and by “we”, I mean women. We are barraged by unsolicited sexual taunts, messages, photos, groping and slander constantly. Is it lucky or unlucky to be an attractive woman? Of course, this is a hypothetical question, because I don’t put myself solely in either category. No matter what, if you are a female, you’re going to be on the receiving end of stupidity and hatred.

Facebook has been great about allowing me to connect with people I haven’t seen in about 23 years or more. I get little glimpses into their lives, such as who is cranking out the babies, who is getting married (some even for the fourth time!), who is getting divorced, and who has left this earth – and everything mundane in between, including which recipes friends are going to try this week.

One such friend whom I haven’t seen for a few decades had many posts over a short period of time regarding his polygamous arrangement disintegrating. (By the way, he’s a self-proclaimed Christian and even posts church events he attends or pictures of the bands performing for whom he has run the sound. Polygamy isn’t just for heathens!) Both his wife and their girlfriend left him – and I have no clue as to why, because no one is going to admit how and how much they fucked up. Besides becoming “friends” on Facebook, he and I hadn’t traded any messages. Then BAM! Out of the blue, I get a message saying something to the effect of “Hi”. I answered back with a “Hi,” and then the next thing from him says, “I’m horny and lonely lol.”

Let’s break this down: 1) There’s no pretext before the declaration of horniness; 2) We’ve never previously talked about feeling lonely or horny; 3) Does the “lol” at the end of the message instantly make it a “joke” so that if I’m offended, he can just say he was joking and that it doesn’t mean anything? 4) So what??? Does he want a medal? Oh, no, wait – I know what he wants. He wants to bang, to be told he’s the best/biggest and that no one else compares, and he wants it NOW. Talking to me like a human being isn’t going to get him what he wants, obviously.

This is one of the biggest problems we face today as a society seeking social partners. Instant gratification is killing our skills. Now, males don’t want to “waste” time on such simple things like conversation – let’s get straight to the sex!! On top of that, anonymity makes it easy to throw out insults and degradation like handfuls of slimy shit. So if you’re a guy, or a man, or a boy, saying hello and then instantly wanting to know if someone is into anal sex is just like monkeys slinging around turds. Sure, if you do it 100 times, you might find someone one of those 100 times who replies back and says, “GOD YES, I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO ASK! NO ONE HAS EVER ASKED ME THAT BEFORE! I AM DTF RIGHT NOW!” But my guess is that she is also going to sneak into your place and cook your daughter’s pet bunny. You have no filter + she has no filter = scary crazy and shit is going to escalate quickly.

And when women turn down these handfuls of flying turds, it’s disturbing that we are instantly and consistently called bitches/sluts/whores/ugly. Is that some sort of reverse psychology, where guys think that being nasty is going to suddenly open our legs? They don’t even make the connection that if they treated us like human beings, the Holy Grail might, in fact, be attainable – they just have to not act like assholes. As soon as they do, though, that shit slams shut and the rivers of love and affection dry up instantly. It should be no great mystery. In fact, what I am saying here has been repeated thousands of times over.

Occasionally the moderator of the “Straight White Boys Texting” posts question and answer exchanges that she has received. There have been many times where she has been told that she just needs to get laid. Therein lies a specific problem, too: The perception that the penis obviously solves all ills. Running a temperature and colors are coming out of your nose? Just get laid. Your best friend died? Just get laid. Lost everything in a fire? Eat a dick, it will make you feel better.

I wish I could say to some of these guys, “Hey, I’m someone’s daughter/sister/aunt too – would you want the females in your life to be treated this way?” Sadly, I don’t feel like this is an effective way to reach them. Often their impatience and hatred of females is universal. If they had a daughter who was being treated this way, it’s more likely that he would say she deserved it or that he should teach her how to defend herself, but never would it enter into his mind that he ought to not attack women or that he should lead other males by example.

Overeager Beaver

Posted on by akiwifreund

I’ll just come clean right now and say that I’m a member of FetLife, an online site for fetishists, experimenters, every shade of sexuality, bondage, sadomasochism, discipline, and everything else that you can (or can’t) think of. Just as an example, there are discussion groups for “Ask a Male Questions” and “Ask a Female Questions” – both having somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 members each. Then there’s more specific groups, like “British Accents and Kinksters that Love Them” with about 2,000 members. One of my favorites is the “Return to Sender” group, which has over 14,000 members, and people will post their crazy conversations from FetLife or dating sites like Match, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish. Surprisingly, there are over 14,000 members in a CBT group – and if you don’t know what that is, look it up. Just now I found a group dedicated to sexual experiences with water balloons. (Not surprisingly, there are only 8 members of that group.) Some people – “vanilla,” we call them – may cringe and think that this site is not for them, but you don’t have to be into EVERY aspect of an alternative lifestyle to find something to relate to. I happen to like tall men, and there’s even a group for that; people just talk about how much they like tall men or guys will get on and brag about how tall they are, like “6’10” here, is that tall enough for ya?” (Hint: They aren’t really looking for a thoughtful answer, just worship.)

I joined FetLife four years ago because I was having a hard time in the online dating world dominated by Match, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish due to my baldness. Most men, no matter their cultural upbringing – and I’m not exaggerating in any way – are not okay with dating a completely bald woman. By my experience, I can go on 50 dates, but only 3 of the men will be okay with my baldness: 2 of the 3 will have major mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, and 1 of the 3 will be a fetishist. My choices are that I can go out with men who are batshit crazy (if they aren’t taking meds or aren’t on the right dosage) or I can date a guy who wants to do all kinds of dirty things to my bald head but doesn’t give a shit about me personally.

One guy that I had met through OKCupid in 2011 seemed to be a good match. We had gone on somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-6 dates, and he was a non-aggressive individual, very smart, seemingly relaxed. One night we went to see a show and had a very enjoyable night; when he drove me home, we sat in my driveway and kissed, and he started playing with my hair, which he had never done before. I leaned back and said, “Hey, I want to tell you about something I have going on, because you may feel something on my head that you aren’t used to. I am actually wearing a wig right now.” He asked me if it was just for fun, and I explained that it’s because I don’t have any hair, and I won’t be able to grow hair in the future. He backed himself into the corner of his driver’s seat as if I was his aunt trying to French kiss him. Then he said he “had to think about it” and would let me know in a few days, then he took off. Well, he thought about it, and it freaked him the fuck out, so that was that. This was just ONE experience out of many attempts to date.

I realize that I’m not exactly a prize to date since I look more like Mr. Clean than Gizelle with my bald head. It can be quite startling to see me without my wig on for the first time. I even joke that my dead father, the hair stylist, is rolling over in his grave because he has a bald daughter. Being rejected so many times over the last nearly-20 years of dating during my major hair loss has made it difficult for me to make sound choices in partners, sometimes ignoring my need to have a healthy relationship with a loving partner and settling for ass clowns instead. However, I am getting much better at spotting bad behavior and cutting it off than I used to be.

Here is a recent series of messages from a guy on FetLife who has never talked to me before:

Title:  be my friend

hell you say you want a roommate l will be that for you ,in fact l have not meet you yet but l am pretty sure if you want me you have found a husband l am very serious about this ,let me prove it to you please

Title:  I only want one

an l think you are her my god l have waited a long time for you ,lets get to know one another -you can be in charge l don’t care l love you already

And on some pictures I have posted:

l want you to marry me-an l will tell you why

And:

l am not bsing you l know that l love you,l would treat you as a queen should be

And:

i am open single an love bald lady’s please let me in your life

Okay, 1) One of the “kink” groups I belong to is “Grammar is Sexy!” – definitely not something this guy subscribes to; and 2) On everything else, just…no. I believe in a real relationship evolving over time and conversations and living experiences together, not anonymous, baseless declarations of love and devotion. This is creepy! Knock it off! It’s just one example, but there have been many others. The majority of the guys messaging me with a bald fetish offer to shave my head for me. It does not matter to them that I don’t have active hair follicles – they are in it for the illusion and the sense of power it gives them. Afterwards they want to whack off onto my head. However, the idea of my head being covered in warm snot does not get me hot.

As noted in my previous post, I changed my city to reflect my recent relocation, and immediately got a few messages. The first guy is a foot fetishist. I explained that I’m not currently able to go out either on dates or to social events, and so he started asking me questions about my current health challenges – it seems his mother died of an extremely rare blood disorder. But once we got that out of the way, he asked me to send him pictures of my feet. As I stated in the previous post, I’m not being modest when I say that my feet would kill any hard-on. I received a friend request from him a few days later; it appears that he has forgiven me for not feeding into that fantasy. Of course, he could be just keeping me in his back pocket to pull out later and try again.

The kid that contacted me Sunday reminded me of why I don’t want to raise more men. I’m tired! No – really, truly, I’m exhausted. He called and texted me a couple of times yesterday, so I sent him a quick note telling him I’d catch up with him later in the week. I guess he took today to be “later in the week” because he started calling and texting again. I told him I couldn’t talk but that I hoped he was having a good day, and he replied back, “No I’m not having a good day! Why won’t you talk to me?” Ugh – needy, demanding, self-absorbed – I can spot that shit a mile away. Still trying my hand at Minnesota nice (because I’m a little out of practice), I told him that I needed to not be dumped on emotionally or have demands made of me, because it just stresses me out and makes me sicker. I suggested that he seek out other people. His response was, “No! I only want to be friends with you!” I wrote back and said, “I don’t have the same needs you do. My preference is for you to seek out other people.” Again, his response was, “No, I don’t want anyone else, I just want you.” This is where I ditch the nice. I texted to him, “You are not respecting my boundaries. I am telling you goodbye now.” So his last message was something to the tune of, “Boo-hoo, if you change your mind and you want to be with me, let me know.” I feel pretty secure in the idea that he’s only going to hear crickets. That sheds some light on why he doesn’t have any friends too – he’s unable to interact in even a remotely healthy way.

Out of all of the online sites I have used to meet people either to attend social events or to date, it has been the most diverse in good and bad experiences. I met some great, open-minded people who are friendly and welcoming to newcomers at events. Some events have had very specific themes with people willing to teach and share their knowledge. I love that shit – we should all continuously try to learn, not just assume that we know everything and become lazy and complacent. On the other hand, I’ve met some people who are very single-minded and focused on only getting themselves off (like these individuals or a guy who wanted his jaw and mouth to be stomped on, no joke). I haven’t only had Overeager Beavers, so for now, that profile stays active.

Wait for It

Posted on by akiwifreund

This week has been full of challenges and changes. Just last night the moving men emptied my pod in record time into my new studio apartment – 375 sq. ft. as opposed to the house I used to own at 2200 sq. ft. with an additional 675 sq. ft. in the garage outside. I thought I did a really good job in downsizing until I started trying to cram everything into this little space. I smell a donation in my future.

I have to get used to the noises associated with living on a popular street and in an apartment as opposed to a house. This weekend there is a jazz festival happening city-wide including all along my street, so I hear people outside my windows TALKING (they’re drunk, so they don’t know quiet) and the clinking of beer bottles. I jump a little every time I hear someone passing by my door in the hallway – like it’s my roommate coming home and I am running around in my pajamas and no wig. Then I remember that no one is going to open my door and catch me looking garishly frumpy.

I’m not sure that it has really sunk in that I’m not in Phoenix anymore. It has only been a week since I have left, and even with the sad messages I have traded with the friends I left there, it feels more like I am on vacation (but a working one since I am filling the new place up to the ceiling with my stuff). We are also on the third thunderstorm since my arrival. The humidity makes me feel like I’m swimming through the air and I have to walk funny so that my thighs don’t stick together.

One friend wrote a quick note saying something to the effect of, “Ooooooh, I saw that you just changed your city on this site – have any men hit on you yet?” The second that he sent that, I received a message saying, “Hello tantalizing delectable dripping wet treat.” That was the title. BAM! First hit. Well, I’m not sure about it being a hit – I mean, it’s quite a leap to assume that I am “dripping wet.” Does this work on other women? Or is it like that thing where you throw a bunch of shit out there and hope that something sticks? I have a disclaimer that specifies that I’m not currently well and so cannot be involved in any activity in any way. I received another message from a different guy a few minutes later that seemed a bit more tame. He wanted to know all about my condition, so I gave him the very abridged version, and he seemed to be genuinely interested and concerned. Then, BAM, I got a request to email him a pic of my feet. Now, I would not wish my feet on anyone. I am well aware that feet fetishists are very particular in what they enjoy seeing, and it is worlds apart from my Flinstone-wide feet. I also have not been able to get rid of rough skin and calluses at all in the past two weeks. They’re just a hot mess. So while I think it’s pretty harmless to send someone pics of my piggies to give them fodder for the spank bank, I think it would put him off permanently if he saw them in this condition. I mean, what if I want a foot rub (or seven) in the future? Later I received a message from a guy (kid??) almost 20 years younger than me asking to be friends and to “connect with me and get to know me better.” He also specifically states in his information that he has always wanted to be dominated by an older woman. Yay for both of us, except for the fact that I have no experience in that realm.

Wait a second – I bet I could run that little boy into the ground ordering him to finish unpacking my new place. He would be aroused by it too. I should take a crash course in being a Domme and get him over here. I bet he would even scrub my floors.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Posted on by akiwifreund

I always tell people who are struggling with dilemmas to make sure they are the ones making decisions for their lives, and not just waiting for things to happen to them. Hate your job? Look for a new one. Hate your climate? Move to another one. Hate your current relationship? Choose to leave or make your best effort at finding a more suitable mate.

Here I am on the eve of my departure of Arizona, with my car and pod of belongings already on their way to my new apartment in St. Paul. The decision to move back to my home state after being away for 20 years was one of the most difficult I’ve ever had to make, because since the age of 16, I have taken charge of my own life. Really, though, either path ahead of me this time around would have been a bad choice. I could stay in AZ but be at the mercy of the lack of social safety net programs and dependent upon my own friends with their own families and challenges, or I could move to MN and have better programs and healthcare options and help from family and friends but be taken down by seasonal depression because of the 8 months of snow every year. Let me tell you, I am going to buy one (or seven) of those sun therapy lamps and sit and bake in front of it so I don’t go bat-shit crazy.

My family is going to be very helpful with getting me to and from doctor appointments and surgeries. However, since I’ll be living near my family, that means that they are going to know more about my dating life than they have ever known before. I am literally going to have to sneak my date(s) through the back door of my apartment because my sister works across the street, and it’s possible that her minions are going to report goings-on to her, whether she wants to hear them or not. No longer can I get away with vague statements about my romantic adventures. Of course, I’m assuming that I will date again – maybe not immediately, but I can’t be held down for long.

I moved to Arizona in November of 2003 after vowing to never go through another Midwest winter again. When I rolled into town, I didn’t know a single person, I didn’t have a place to live, and I didn’t have a job. I quickly found a place to live in a convenient location with only one huge downfall – my apartment was frequented by many, many cockroaches and crickets. The complex was treating my apartment every month but those little jerks would still come out in droves. I think the worst part was that when I slept I didn’t wear my wigs, so the bugs would crawl up into the corner of the bedroom ceiling and then make death-defying leaps onto my bare head in the middle of the night. There was even one time that I woke up because I was bitten on the back of my knee. I awakened almost immediately and figured out it was a cockroach that got me because it was scurrying away from that area of my body. Then I Googled whether cockroaches do that sort of thing, and they do! It wasn’t my imagination.

Internet dating was picking up speed in 2003/2004, so to solve my problem of not knowing anyone, I decided to go on dates. (I’ll cover that year in a future post.) The internet let me go shopping for men with my grocery list of requirements, which included such necessary items as “pays his own bills” and “does his own laundry.” The list from my 20s was more like “can’t have a hairy back” – oh, how priorities change.

I managed to land my long-term gig after being in Phoenix for a month. I was incredibly lucky to have a workplace only 15 minutes from the apartment I chose, because the job offer came after the apartment, and Phoenix is a city of sprawl – traveling from the SE corner of the suburbs to the NW corner takes an hour and a half or more, depending on how far one has to drive to get to a freeway. As luck would have it, I was one of only three women and the rest of the 33 employees in my work group were men. That gave me an additional pool of potential dates, of which I dipped my big toe into often.

Finding and keeping good friends is always a challenge for any adult who doesn’t still reside in the place where he/she grew up, or who doesn’t attend college in person. After many stops and starts in the realm of friendship, I feel like this is the best part of the world I created here and I have the hardest time saying goodbye to these great people. I have a meaningful connection with more people than the total sum of my fingers and toes and recognize that I am indeed luckier than I sometimes know or deserve. After taking the time to say goodbye to each of these people, hug them, look them in the eye and thank them for their support, I know without a doubt that these friendships are the greatest love story of all of the time that I have been here.

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Things You Don’t Think About Until You Lose All of Your Hair

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The guy who has been my tenant for the last ten months just moved out last night. I waited until this morning to tackle his bathroom.

I’ll just preface this by saying that he is an extremely hairy guy. He’s got full back, front and arm hair (and leg and pit and let’s just get real here, probably pubes too, because who would let all of that hair grow wild but then trim around the frank and beans), plus he belongs to that club of men who are growing out their beards to ZZ Top lengths. He even has an emblem for that club on his vehicle. (Walks with Wood would tell me that every time he saw my roommate, he had to resist the urge to run his fingers through his beard and then mess it up.) I know about all of his hair because there have been numerous sightings of him in just shorts or a towel.

I suited up for this cleaning by wearing elbow-length gloves and a mask. Even with my gear, I had to hold back a few gags because there were all kinds of curly hairs floating around the tub and the floor. Since I haven’t had hair for about 12.5 years now, it’s not something I have to deal with when I’m cleaning my bathroom. It makes me recall certain events I can’t un-live, like the time a boyfriend and I took another friend to get food at Denny’s at 3 am because it was the only place open, and my first bite into pancakes resulted in a curly, coarse hair wrapping around my tongue. (I did not lose it all over the table but I also did not continue chowing, no matter how not sober I was.) It also reminds me of a few times when I’ve had my face in guys’ junk and one of the short and curlies got stuck at the gag spot at the back of my throat, instantly making me dry heave and my eyes water profusely. As a side note, I am torn about the whole shaving phenomenon, because nothing will kill the mood faster than dry heaving during sexy time, but then again, if guy has some stubble and it comes into contact with my bits, it feels like my most tender parts are being sanded with an 80 grit.

I still have a good number of men in my circles who are single, and the best, unsolicited advice I can give them when they wonder why they are single is that they should start with their bathrooms. Their toilets should be white, not white-and-brown-and-yellow-and-moldy. Same thing for the counter tops and tubs – clean, not hairy, fuzzy and moldy. And for god’s sake, clean out the piles of hair balls that collect in the corners of the room so that when a breeze blows through it doesn’t look like a rabbit has escaped. If a guy does manage to land and keep a woman, I can only say that she must have forgiven him.

I scrubbed the toilet and the tub twice. Twice.

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How to Kill a Relationship, Pt. 1

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Not long after Eva Mendes gave birth to the baby she and Ryan Gosling created, she was quoted as saying something like, “Wearing your sweatpants around your husband is a surefire marriage killer.”

Okay, let’s review:
1. She isn’t peeing standing up or even trying to whip out her penis in front of him, which, if you’re in a hetero relationship, would be pretty startling if you think your wife/girlfriend is a woman with all of the associated lady bits and trappings thereof. 2. If wearing sweatpants is the worst you’ve got, you’ve got it pretty good.

I think we all have grandparents or even parents where we know the woman in the partnership does not let her partner see her without makeup, even when it’s bedtime. It was a concept that gained popularity around the 1950s, but nowadays most people understand that it’s not healthy to sleep in your makeup every night.

I am an extremely light sleeper and so it’s easy for me to wake up long before my bed mate does when I have sleepovers to brush my teeth and either furiously rub away the sooty eyeliner that has been smeared as low as my nostrils, or to apply just the right amount of eyeliner so that I don’t look like a cancer patient since I am missing my eyelashes. (It also gives me a chance to twist my wig into the right position. It’s very, very uncomfortable to sleep in my wig, but most guys freak out if they wake up to Mr. Clean in their beds when they went to bed with Christina Hendricks the night before.)

I think there is a much more realistic killer to a relationship and it has nothing to do with being beauty-pageant ready, and that is snoring. Inevitably with every couple there is a light sleeper and there is a snorer. In my house, my roommate is the snorer and I am the light sleeper. Sometimes the surefire way to be able to tell he is home without leaving my bedroom is to hear his unabashed open-mouthed, window rattling snores. When talking to other friends about the phenomenon, the one who is the light sleeper is constantly complaining of lack of sleep, and the snorer shrugs his or her shoulders and says, “It’s not a problem for me, I never notice.”

This turned into a debate with a friend on Facebook because he is a window-rattler. He insisted that I hadn’t thought of all of my options, which boiled down to him deciding that if he just purchased ear plugs for his partner, the problem would be solved. Of course, none of his options involved weight reduction of his 300+ pounds or different sleeping positions for the snorer.

So, 1) He is incorrectly assuming that he has the perfect solution (because he has a penis) and I’ve never thought this through. 2) As the person who would have to wear the ear plugs, I wouldn’t be able to hear the much quieter alarm go off in the morning to get up for work. 3) I hate to have shit stuffed in my ears. Doesn’t matter if it’s foam or cotton or ear buds, I just don’t like anything inserted in my ears. (And no, guy, you can’t fuck my ear either, even though I know you are tempted to because you have a penis.) 4) Losing sleep because you can’t even get 30 minutes of uninterrupted sleep isn’t just an annoyance, it’s damaging to the health, especially if it happens every night, not to mention the sleep-deprived person is going to be constantly crabby.