nevermarried

Hey, Peter Pan, I’m Going Home Now

Posted on by akiwifreund

An article was posted in a local paper about a woman, an attorney for a meat packaging plant, who was trying to adopt a teenage girl out of the foster system and provide her with a stable home and a brighter future. She had never met the girl but rather read about her, and something in her was motivated to change her life completely to give this girl something she had never had before. The woman went through parenting classes for a year in order to learn how best to help this girl who had suffered neglect and abuse. The article bemoaned the fact that though this woman had jumped through all of these hoops, the state was dragging its feet on placing the teenager with her simply because of bureaucracy and red tape.

I shouldn’t read the comments section of ANYTHING published ANYWHERE, I know. But I did, and it was just as frustrating as I expected. Instead of the commenters being outraged about this teenaged girl’s case not being accelerated to be adopted by this woman who obviously wanted to give her stability, structure and love, the majority of the commenters left nasty statements about this woman’s hair and weight. This woman, an attorney, had a bright turquoise streak of hair at the front of her otherwise “normal” brown hair, and she was overweight. I did not receive any intelligent replies to questions that I asked that were to the tune of, “What does her appearance have to do with her being able to provide a loving home to this child?” Some people told me that I was stupid if I couldn’t see it, others said she obviously lacked self control. One young woman remarked that the turquoise in her hair shouldn’t be allowed in someone her age. I have to say that that really got to me.

The first and obvious problem I have with all of these trolls is that this woman is clearly intelligent – her company is obviously not bothered to be represented by legal counsel who happens to have an unusual color in her hair – and financially stable, and strongly committed to giving this girl the best possible start to her young adult life after being mistreated and neglected for so many years. Second, why is she “too old” for something fun like putting a turquoise streak in her hair?

Over and over I’ve seen advice columns about what not to wear over ages 30/40/50. (One of the funniest items was advice not to wear “suntan” pantyhose, because no one is going to believe you have a suntan after 40.) There are some things I agree with, like it’s weird to see an middle-aged woman trounce around in sweatpants with “PINK” written on the ass. Then there’s the whole class of women who think their only value in this life is to compete with their daughters (and even their granddaughters) for the attention of men, so they dress in tank tops and short shorts that would normally show up on a 14-year-old. But a turquoise streak? Maybe it’s because my father was a hair stylist, or maybe it’s because I have always been a little rebellious, but I think the day I swear off experimenting with color in my life is the day I die. I haven’t worked up the balls to get a blue wig, but I’m getting there. And I’m 41.

So this leads me to the next question:  At what age or event did you feel as if you were truly a grownup? I posed the same question on my Facebook page and received interesting answers. Of course there were a bunch of men who declared that they still hadn’t grown up, all over the age of 40. One man said it was the day his eldest daughter was born. One woman said that her wedding day made her feel like an adult; another said it was when she gleefully anticipated canning, making bread from scratch and putting out a big spread for the holidays. One woman said, “34, maybe?” Obviously this is a small sampling, and is by no means scientific, but I think it enforces the concept that you are only as old as you feel mentally. And this attorney with the brightly colored streak in her hair obviously was not giving in to old age and mediocrity just yet.

For me, I felt like an adult at 16, because it was my first year living away from home. From that point on, I threw myself head first into the world, paying bills (on time!) and finding new places to live around the country without seeing them in person first. Creating a circle of truly close friends is a totally different playing field when you aren’t in school anymore.

Lastly, I am pondering this because I think it demonstrates the challenges of dating. I, as a 41-year-old woman who hasn’t lived at home since I was 16, have felt like an adult for that amount of time. I might want blue hair, but I think that’s a shout-out to my artistic tendencies, not my level of maturity. None of the women claimed that they still hadn’t “grown up” and the majority of the men said they were never going to “grow up.” So whose job is it to change in order to make a relationship work and endure?

(Title by Patty Griffin, first line to her song “Peter Pan”)

Rubbernecking

Posted on by akiwifreund

Whenever I listen to the album “Happenstance” by Rachael Yamagata, I am reminded of a guy I dated who belonged to the big social group that I mentioned previously. We bonded over our love of all things music (with the exception of Christian, contemporary country and rap) and at the end of one date we sat in my car and listened to the album from front to back – he was impressed with the range of styles of songs included on that one disc. He was a recruiter for a small music and sound tech school. The only way I can describe his appearance is that he looked like the love child of Chris Farley and Guy Fieri; henceforth I will call him Chris Fieri. He was mostly bald and the remaining hair he had he dyed fluorescent blonde. He was outgoing and enthusiastic – sometimes without being aware of social cues. I thought it would be nice to date someone who was inherently social rather than introverted because I love to get together with various personalities and it would be great to not have to worry about him wandering off to a corner by himself.

Chris Fieri and I went on a series of dates over the course of a few months. I even made him a part of my birthday celebration, and the best gift he could have given me turned out to be absolutely fantastic camping chair that I have now used for years to go to outdoor concerts. We went to movies and dinner dates, and then joined back up with other people from the group for shows and bar outings.

One time he invited me to the Wrigley Mansion to watch his friend play a show. This friend was a guitarist and it was a great night for music; also included in the audience were a few others including the former drummer for the Gin Blossoms. At one point it was eight guys and myself in our little group. However, I could tell that this crowd ran at a different pace than I did – most of guys had well-groomed eyebrows and the same style of button-down shirts with embroidered designs over one shoulder as if they had an elaborate underlying tattoo that could not be contained by fabric alone. I am more the type that I am not constantly concerned with my appearance and can only truly relax if others around me are confident in themselves rather than overcompensating.

The Wrigley Mansion’s stage was tiny, only enough room for the guitarist and a percussionist. The Mansion’s version of packed is not your normal night club’s capacity; packed for them would be 75 bodies. As the set progressed, more of Chris Fieri’s friends showed up, including a shorter guy with a gorgeous girlfriend. The guy looked like he got into fistfights all of the time fending off his girlfriend’s admirers. The original eight guys of my group found excuses to be near her and compete to be the loudest/wittiest to get her attention. It was strange to watch because she did not give any one person attention, but instead found another guy in the bar and repeatedly turned and smiled at him while her boyfriend wasn’t looking. I kept thinking to myself, “How could Shorty be missing this??” Finally, more women made it into the bar area to check out the music. Well, Chris Fieri gave up on trying to get the one girl’s attention and went tripping after the other girls. And when I say “tripping,” I mean tripping. He launched himself at them without having a solid concept of inanimate objects like tables and bar stools that were nearby, and hooked his foot on the leg of a stool and almost did a full frontal body splat.

All of his buddies saw this too. A few of them turned to me, looking uncomfortable, and said, “I thought you two were together.” They could tell I wasn’t thrilled. After the end of the second set I was at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor of the bar area, and Chris Fieri came over to me and put his arms forcefully on my shoulders as if he was trying to drive my feet into the floor and sloppily kissed me. I couldn’t easily fend him off because he outweighed me by at least 150 lbs, but I did wipe my mouth with the back of my hand as soon as he was done and told him I was outta there. Immediately he went on the defensive and said, “Are you mad because I talked to other people??” I knew that trying to reason with a man who had had about five drinks too many would be a challenge, but I told him I wasn’t bothered by that, I was upset that he was trying to pick up other ladies right in front of me. Then his Chris Farley voice came out and he started bellering that everyone was talking to other girls and that he only did what everyone else was doing. So I said, “Fine, pretty sure you don’t need me here for that,” and I retrieved my car from the valet.

The next day he called me and told me the same thing – that everyone else was trying to pick up women, so he was just doing what they were doing. I told him even his friends were embarrassed by his behavior and it wasn’t my imagination. I didn’t go out with him again, even after being pushed by another group member who had taken pictures of us together and posted them on MySpace – and strangely enough, four years later again on Facebook – with the caption, “Where are these two?” I had to ask him numerous times to take down the pictures. It was obvious that Chris Fieri was trying to be “cool” like the rest of his buddies.

It’s human nature to notice attractive people around you. We are drawn to those who have perfectly symmetrical features, just as we subconsciously recognize symmetrical patterns in spider webs and leaves that grow on plants. However, the way that you handle that attraction is what sets you apart from the rest of the animals. Chris Fieri learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter if everyone else is rubbernecking; he’s not going to win points from me for tripping over furniture to chase down other women while I’m standing next to him. I can’t imagine the woman with the shorty boyfriend lasted long in their relationship either; she was obviously a trophy, and he was clearly someone to pass the time while she looked for a better option.

A fellow blogger posted thoughts this week on disconnecting from social media; she found that she was much more likely to multi-task or have online ADD, jumping from one project to another without completing one first. She also lamented the fact that she didn’t have the attention span required to read a whole book like she used to, but instead sought out short  and efficient text. How does this relate to dating rubbernecking? It’s everything. We like short paragraphs in personal ads, we cut off a date after 30 minutes if we feel zero attraction, we look at other people and mentally undress them while distractedly answering “Yes” or “No” to the dates sitting across from us.

It’s a lot harder now to not rubberneck. Our constant state of distraction is the bane of our love lives.

Three Is A Crowd

Posted on by akiwifreund

For the past, oh, two decades or so, men have been trying to talk me into three-or-more-somes. I’ve been accused of turning down the requests without knowing what I like, which is completely not true. I like men. Specifically, I like one man at a time. It’s tough to believe, I know – with the easy access to free porn on the internet (Pornhub, Youporn, XHamster, etc.), it’s pretty much shoved in your face as a consumer of sex that if you are a woman, you should want to fuck both men and women, and it should be enough for the women in porn that the men and/or viewers get off on what they are doing, not the woman who is actually going through the experience. I also blame the phenomenon that seemed to start right around age 23-ish for me, which was that women began making out with each other on the dance floor and in bars if they knew that they could gain attention from men. I’ve heard the theory that women are a lot more fluid in their sexual preferences than men are, so maybe they enjoy making out with their female friends, but I know that getting attention is a huge payoff. The problem with that is that men are now conditioned to look for that in every woman they meet, so if a woman balks at that demand, then the man moves on to the next tasty morsel.

My first live-in boyfriend was nerd before nerd was cool. He was also hooked on porn and had had some bisexual girlfriends before dating me, and he hoped to convert me into inviting others into our sex life. We even went to a swingers’ club one night when we were still living in Albuquerque. It was a bust though – not many people were there, and the three men who hit on me were in their 50’s and slightly inebriated. The bigger problem, though, is that I wasn’t ready to bring someone else in, but I was trying to please him.

A man I fooled around with was, well, very good at what he did, so he probably could have talked me into anything. He told me that he had a buddy from the gym who would be willing to do a threesome. I was tempted because it wasn’t the usual request of going at it with another woman, but I had some hard limits that I wasn’t sure would be honored because I didn’t know jack about the other guy. I don’t ever like to feel outnumbered, whether it’s with trying to wrangle toddlers or penises or anything else that has the ability to turn an experience immediately to shit.

A Greek guy I dated in Ohio talked me and another couple into a post-hot tub rendezvous, but that quickly soured for me because all my boyfriend would talk about was how hot the other woman was, and if he was taking care of her, she would have orgasmed immediately. He got his chance and he was proven wrong. (Pro tip: If you’re going to tell your girlfriend over and over how other women are prettier than her, don’t expect hero worship.)

Through a social group that I belonged to in Phoenix, among the many people I met, I became friends with a husband and wife with a young child. The husband was a nurse at the hospital where I volunteered, and we met while I was in my first year back at school to earn my RN degree. The wife provided writing and grammar services on the side, so I had some things in common with both of them. About six months into the friendship the couple explained that they had an open marriage and they were both interested in me. After I told them that I was the straightest girl they knew, they seemed to accept it and we continued our friendship. One night after the husband and I were hanging out with a group of 10 or so at a bar, he propositioned me and told me that his wife understood, and that he had her permission to have sex with me. I thought to myself, “Okay, I haven’t tried this before where everything is out in the open, so I’ll give it a whirl.” The husband asked if he could have some privacy in my living room to call his wife so they could talk about it again before anything happened, so I was not privy to the conversation. When he joined me in my bedroom, he told me that he told her what was happening and made sure she was okay with it. Can you guess what happened? She wasn’t okay with it. She called me, and then she called him, and after questioning me and him thoroughly, she determined he lied to both of us. Oh, yeah, and he was also screwing another married woman on the side. And the married woman he was screwing had another guy on the side. Are you keeping up with the math? There were at least six of us that had to go in for STD testing. And even though she figured out that the husband was lying through his teeth and I hadn’t maliciously tried to insert myself into their (oh, surprise – not-so-open) marriage, she told everyone in our social group that I was a homewrecker. I ended up dropping out of the group only a week after all of this was discovered. I had made a lot of friends and was attending weekly events and suddenly I was out.

A little older and wiser, I’ve seen many polyamorous relationships thanks to FetLife. I haven’t seen one group of three or more people who have successfully navigated love and sex without someone having to leave, usually in tears. Whether or not a relationship works strongly depends on everyone’s level of comfort with various dynamics. For example, are you okay with your man being a “pony” for a mistress as long as he doesn’t have sex with her? Are you open to being one of three wives to one man? What if your man kisses every woman he meets on the lips while you stand there and it’s obvious to even the casual bystander that it takes a little piece out of your heart every time? And probably the worst scenario is being singled out while everyone else bands together in a group that is supposed to be all-inclusive – it can be very lonely and traumatizing to be ganged up on.

What works for me is to make a relationship work between me and one other person, because damn, even that isn’t easy. I want less strife and heartbreak in my life.

The Affair

Posted on by akiwifreund

I am stuck in bed except for times that I need to run out for doctor appointments, so I have become a heavy Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu patron. When Hulu offered a month free of their Showtime shows add-on, I jumped all over that – I haven’t had satellite/cable TV for at least seven years and there are certain shows I was hearing about over and over regarding their quality casting and writing. I powered through “Masters of Sex” and tried to watch “The Affair.”

“Masters of Sex” is fascinating on many levels. First, it’s set in the 1950s-1960’s, when discussion of the nature of sexual response did not occur in public. Second, Masters’ and Johnson’s breakthrough publication immediately preceded The Pill, which as we should know right now, freed a lot of women up to choose if and when to become pregnant, therefore leaving a lot more doors open to pursuing higher education, gainful employment and a variety of sexual partners. Third, it’s fun to see the period costumes and sets; oh, how nostalgic we become in looking back.

If you have not seen the series and you do not know the history of Masters and Johnson, caution: spoiler alert.

They convinced themselves that anything they did to contribute to research – anything – was NOT an affair. Masters was distant towards his wife and children and refused to explore anything sexual with his wife. Johnson was previously divorced with children (also a rarity for her generation) and she took on sexual partners without pretending that the interludes were for anything but sex. So in the name of research, they started an affair. At first, they would run stopwatches and talk about plateaus, but as the proverbial fly on the wall, the audience knows they are making some weak excuses to do the nasty. After a while it just became common knowledge, at least to Mrs. Masters, that Dr. Masters and Virginia Johnson were more than simply researchers to each other.

I could only get about four or five episodes into “The Affair” because it made me uncomfortable. It’s a modern examination of how men and women perceive opportunity. Again, spoiler alert – if you want to see it but haven’t yet, look away. Half of the show is dedicated to the telling from the perspective of the woman, and half is dedicated to the perspective of the man, but it’s not immediately apparent in the first episode until halfway through. When we watch through Noah’s eyes, Alison is a young, attractive woman who wears short shorts and practically throws herself at him. Her face is open, she is giving him bedroom eyes when they interact, there is always a half smile playing around her mouth, she speaks with confidence. Noah is stuttering and fumbling, unsure of himself, but going along with what she is offering because she has invited him. When it’s Alison’s turn to show her perspective, she is perpetually sad because she and her husband lost a child, and she is the one who is unsure of herself and feeling unattractive and lost. In her eyes, Noah is the instigator.

The reason why this particular series gets under my skin is that sometimes when I send another man away, I marvel at the information that comes back to me by mutual acquaintances. Like, were we even in the same relationship? Did he hear nothing that I said? Did he think I wouldn’t catch him lying?

But what if, like in the show “The Affair,” he really believes his version of the story? And what if I really believe my own version? The three men I lived with are no longer in contact, so I can’t ask them what they think now about what happened then. Do they even remember? The first one spent all of his rent money on porn and video games. The second one stole money from me and disappeared for days. The third one was controlling and abusive. What if their version of what went down is to say that I was controlling and demanding, or, I don’t know, wore unattractive socks? How can you even dispute something that the other person takes as fact? Does it ever work to try to change someone’s perception?

And then there’s Josh Duggar. I posted the quintessential meme on Facebook last night: “Marriage is between one man and one woman…and my sisters…and that chick from Ashley Madison.” He’s spending a lot of time now saying he’s sorry. I wonder how he justified all of his actions? When you strip away his church and his parents’ protection, there isn’t much left to hide behind. Duggar can’t claim he was seduced by his sisters. He can’t cry that he was duped into creating two accounts with Ashley Madison or that he didn’t make the profiles himself, since he very deliberately entered his grandmother’s address as his own. Also, is he (or his dad) going to waive the magic penis around and say that Jesus forgives him?

Poor Little Bird II: The Saga Continues

Posted on by akiwifreund

On my profile page on Fetlife, I specify that I am going through a health crisis and I can’t play in any way. I meant this to indicate that I can’t date, go to parties, go to dinners, Skype, sext, or email, because to me, all of those forms of communicating leave the door open to “playing,” even if it’s just writing a few paragraphs. It still requires effort and imagination. I still have to please the other person and try to fulfill their expectations.

This morning I woke up to an email from a guy who had cancer for decades, acknowledging that he is aware that I’m experiencing major health issues right now and explaining his personal experience being sick. Then he says that while I’m sick, we could still sext and get to know each other, and when I’m well we could meet and play.

I’m not quite sure how to process this one. On one hand, it’s still the idea of, “Oh, look, you have a broken wing. I’ll just fuck the other wing, k?” But since this is coming from someone who has been sick for all of his life minus one year, I know that he will understand what I’m dealing with. I also understand that he’s eager to jump into the dating pool because this is the first time he’ll be able to screw around cancer-free. He probably has a lot of catching up to do – as opposed to me, as I seem to have experimented more than your average bird in the decades leading up to this illness, so I don’t feel like I have been missing out.

Another factor that needs to be considered when sexting or emailing someone without meeting them first is that when you finally do meet, sometimes it kills your boner for the other person. I’m thinking about one date in particular where we became very sexually intimate over messenger, but when we met for a date, I immediately wished that I could take it all back, there was so little attraction to him. I feel like such an old lady now when I tell someone that I’m not interested in sexting. It’s simply not true – I love it – but now I think it would be best to limit it to men I actually know and want to jump, and only then if they can hold a conversation with me above and beyond “Show me your boobs.”

Two Dolla, Make You Holla

Posted on by akiwifreund

in 2006, I was working on a campus with about 4,000 employees full time, and I worked across the street part time at a women’s clothing store to earn extra money for a trip to Europe. The full time job put me in contact with a lot of people – and when I say people, I mean men, especially because it wasn’t as common as it is now for women to be in the IT field.

I met a woman through work who ended up being my traveling companion to Europe that year, and she had a little brother who was up to all kinds of shenanigans. We played designated driver for him when he partied too much to drive, and every time he would see me, he would stick my head in his sweaty armpit and tell me that he loved me. At one point, Little Brother told me that one of his co-workers had the hots for me and wanted to be set up. He wouldn’t tell me who it was and wouldn’t point him out, which made me pretty nervous and self-conscious, but I was flattered that the guy was interested, and Little Brother assured me that he was a good guy. So I agreed to meet the mystery man at a bar/restaurant in front of my second job on a Sunday night after my shift was done.

I arrived, and since I wasn’t sure who I should look for, I waited outside the front door. I was pretty hungry so I thought it would be nice to chow down and get to know this person. After about ten minutes, a guy came out of the front door and introduced himself; I’ll call him Sailor. He was handsome with blue eyes and dark hair, muscles and tattoos. I was pleasantly surprised. He invited me inside, but instead of heading to the restaurant side, he led me to the noisier bar and told me he had already started drinking. I ordered a drink and some fries.

Sailor was immediately ready to share. First he told me that he had singled me out because I “looked like a party girl.” (I wondered what gave him this impression, since I dressed in always-appropriate attire and never did the walk of shame into work.) Turns out Sailor really liked my long-ish red hair (wig! It’s a wig, buddy!). He told me that he had been in the Navy, and that every time they docked, he would pay for a prostitute because they were so cheap, usually $2, and they would do anything he asked. Sailor then told me that he was currently married but wasn’t sure if he should get a divorce or not, because his wife had gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars from a boyfriend who died, and he liked that they were able to buy cars and houses with cash. He asked me about my dating/marriage history, and I explained that when I first moved to Phoenix, I went on many, many dates because I didn’t know anyone and it was a great way to socialize as well as get to know the city. Sailor told me I must be a big whore for going on all of those dates.

This all happened in the first half hour. At this point, my mind switched from “He’s hot” to “Okay, now I have to stick around to see what happens.”

I don’t know how many beers he had. I stopped at half a drink. He started getting sloppy and singing the praises of being black Irish and said over and over how much he liked Irish pubs. I told him there was one about four miles away, so Sailor got a wild hair about going to that one. I insisted on driving. En route, he rolled down the passenger window, flapped my sun visor at passing cars and quacked at them. Sailor also said over and over, “I’m in Kiwi’s car! I can’t believe it!”

We pulled up to the pub, and he became very quiet, then mumbled, “I think I got thrown out of here and banned.” We went in anyway and sat at the bar, making the total patron count 5. The bartender took our drink orders and said, “First date, huh?” Sailor got up to go to the bathroom and the bartender told me he was sorry for me, and that he would pay for my soda. Sailor stumbled back from the bathroom; his mood had changed, and he was pouting and belligerent. I dropped any pretense of being nice – I was anxious to get home and have some real food and relax before working 14 hours the next day. After he finished his drink, Sailor decided he was ready to leave. On the way out, he high kicked the white erase board with the day’s specials – maybe to show the world how mad he was about being kicked out the last time he was there? I stopped to pick it up and reposition it, and Sailor stumbled toward my car, yelling “Just leave it! Leave it!” Of course I didn’t. Rude.

We got back to the first location and I parked my car but left the engine running. At this point, Sailor tried to sweet talk me into allowing him to come home with me to bang. He also tried to attach himself to me like a sucker fish. I told him no, and he said, “For sure, that’s a ‘No’?” I said, “Yes,” and he said, “Awww, you said yes!” Then he was on me. He tried to mash his lips to mine while simultaneously going under my shirt with his hand and ripping the right cup of my bra. The kicker is that he was doing this in front of an outdoor porch filled with about 30 people. I said “No!” even louder and shoved my forearm against his windpipe. Sailor got pissed, said “Fine!” and got out of my car and slammed the door. I didn’t hesitate, just took off. There was no way I wanted him to try to follow me or be on the road at the same time as him.

Two days later he sent me a message through the work messaging system telling me he thought the date went well. I told him that it was pretty bad – he called me a whore, he got drunk, he kicked over a sign and succeeded in ripping my bra. Sailor told me that he got a DUI on the way home that night. (YES!!!) Then he said it wasn’t so bad for someone who hadn’t been on a date for four years. I said, “Yeah, you haven’t dated for that long because you’re married.” Sailor then said that he would be happy to buy me a new bra as long as he could come into the dressing room with me. I told him it was time to figure out his life.

The next time i saw Little Brother, I punched him in the arm repeatedly and told him that he was permanently off of matchmaking duty.

Yes, I Have a Type

Posted on by akiwifreund

I like men. Tall ones, short ones, fit ones, cute ones, nerd ones, “dad body” ones, I can find something to appreciate in many. However, there are certain things that make me stupid – panty-droppers, if you will. They are:

  1. Firemen. I mean, c’mon, this should be a no-brainer. Granted, some are cuter than others, but family and friends alike encourage this particular addiction by sending me photos and buying me calendars. Even my realtor sent me a picture from a property she was renting to five firemen in Tempe, AZ – one of the guys was posed naked on top of a bicycle out back at the pool, helmet on his head, cigarette in his mouth, and holding a rifle. He was quite fit. His leg very coyly covered up his frank and beans. It was my dream photo minus the rifle and the cigarette. He had it blown up to poster size, which made it easy for the realtor to capture and forward to me. Nearly every day someone posts a half-naked fireman (or if it’s my lucky day, fireMEN) on my Facebook wall. My best day was just a few days after I got Dumb and Angry to move out of the house, I had to call 911 to get help because I thought I had popped my shunt out of the little hole in my cranium, and I was in heaven because I had a house full of firemen. They were all running through my house telling me how much they loved it while a couple stayed with me to work me up, so as I was being wheeled out of the house, I told all of them that I was looking for a roommate. Pass that up? Not me! Of course, I was in crazy pain and had just taken a big dose of painkillers so I was high as a kite, so who knows what else I said to them. I’m pretty sure I didn’t try to stuff dollars down their pants.
  2. Tall men. My first two live-in boyfriends were 6’2″ and 6’3″, and a former boyfriend was 6’4″. I tried twice to make a date happen with a guy who was 6’6″ (he wussed out, had just gotten divorced and was too damaged to follow through), and I think the guy who told me I looked like his dead wife was at least 6’3″. What is it about the tall guys? I’m not sure. I mean, yeah, they can see the top of the fridge, but big deal. I think because I’ve never been considered small, I don’t feel like Godzilla around the tall guys, as in, “Me smash little puny men and snap their thighs like twigs!”
  3. Musicians. I’m talking real musicians, like the ones that can play seven instruments or don’t rely on electronic alterations like auto-tune. I’ve lived with two drummers who could also play other instruments. I think I would give my left pinkie finger to go out with Glen Hansard (at least until I figured out the hard way that he’s a nutter or something). I think this stems from playing a few instruments while in high school and teaching myself a little piano, because I understand what is needed in order to be really good. Kid Rock can kiss my fat ass, he’s as talent-less as they get.

What I miss the most is being able to flirt, especially when I encounter a guy who would normally be somewhere on this list. If I attempted to flirt, any reciprocation would be along the lines of, “Oh, look, the sick lady with the cane and the droopy face is trying to get some action!” I can’t walk down the street with confidence while simultaneously looking for strong biceps or shapely buns because I can’t see further than a few feet in front of myself. You could parade a tall, naked fireman playing a guitar in front of me and all I would be able to see are his toes. All of my good years are being wasted in this bed while a whole new dating pool churns in the world outside my door. It seems criminal.

Magical Medical Mystery Tour

Posted on by akiwifreund

Today was the beginning of a string of appointments to become established with a new team of doctors in the city where I have relocated. Immediately upon arriving via cab, I knew that I was wasting my time.

The building was old, maybe built in the ’60s or ’70’s, and did not have automatic doors (first clue). I took the elevator up to the third floor, and arrived in a dingy hallway with sad puke green carpet. A sign in the elevator banks told me that this floor included plastic surgery, physical therapy, neurology, gynecology, hand surgery, general surgery and pain management. Picture this: All of those specialties crammed behind two closed doors, with only two receptionists to check patients in (second clue). I’m used to going to offices where neurology takes up an entire floor and I’ve never seen a list of thirteen-plus specialties squeezed into one space. By contrast, all of the good doctors a) have cleaner floors, and b) charge more, and c) are more up-to-date on research.

I arrived with all of the copies from various doctors and notes from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, because I (correctly) guessed that the huge stack of paperwork still hadn’t been scanned into the system so all of the other doctors can see it. I spent about ten minutes total with the doctor. Out of all of the information I provided to her, she asked me repeatedly why I had a shunt, since I didn’t have a diagnosis. I told her that it was obvious after the repeated lumbar punctures that I needed to have something continuously take the fluid off of my brain. I mean, at some point, you have to go with what you see, even if you can’t put a name to it. A name is just a name. A diagnosis is just a diagnosis. I’m a complete person, which also means that I am complex. It’s been five years, so I’m not surprised that a diagnosis is still evading all of the medical staff.

In the end, she threw up her hands and said she had absolutely no idea what was happening with me, but she would be happy to send a referral to any other physicians of my choice. To me, those were the magic words, because I had discussed one doctor in particular with one of my sister’s employees, and it turned out that he would only take patients on if other doctors made the referral (no matter which insurance company foots the bill).

As I suspected, it was not yet time to exit the Magical Medical Mystery Tour – certainly not under that roof, anyway.

Let me explain one more concept to you, and that is of the Carousel of Crap. We first started referring to the Carousel in my former work group as we faced some very specific challenges regarding office politics. The Carousel of Crap is the ride we can all relate to. You go around in circles, the music is a little too loud and whiny, you are nauseated because you ate a little too much cotton candy, you can’t get off because the ride is still moving, and there is shit flying everywhere.

I feel as if I have made a stop at the Carousel while on this tour. I can’t get off, I’m a little sick to my stomach and there is shit flying everywhere. I have to explain everything from scratch. I have to deal with doctors who aren’t interested in reading about my case. I must do my own research and try to find better specialists who are further away from my home base (read: more expensive cab fare). I’d like to tag out and have someone else be me for a while so they could find out what it’s like to be a rock star in the rare and difficult world.

There’s No One Waiting

Posted on by akiwifreund

I belong to an online support community where patients, family members and care providers can ask questions of each other or find others who are facing the same challenges. One man was trying to be proactive as the spouse of a woman newly diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune condition, and asked basic questions, such as would it be worth it to see a specialist vs. a regular internist, and what should he expect from the insurance companies? Here is my reply:

I love hearing about supportive spouses! My mom has a very supportive husband, and my sisters do as well – we ladies have terrible genes, unfortunately.

Just keep in mind that “supportive” might mean different things at different times. Fatigue and pain are the most common symptoms of any autoimmune diseases, and what she may have been able to do one day might change the next day, and then change back that day after that. Confusing, right? It will be. In fact, there are going to be other odd things about her condition that will confound her, and you. One thing that I like to tell people in my circle is that they should not start any conversations with, “Why don’t you just _______?” If there was an easy answer, we’d have it already.

My personal experience has been that it is tougher to deal with the doctors and staff than it is my insurance company. Don’t be afraid to fire doctors and look for new ones if they refuse to treat your wife (and you) as people who are involved in your wife’s care. It doesn’t do anyone any good to just blindly follow without understanding or questioning why certain things are being ordered, like meds or tests. I don’t get along with doctors who don’t allow for an open dialogue. Sometimes I will even write down a list, and when the doc enters the room, I first ask, “How much time do we have?” and then I tell that person I have a list. The good ones appreciate efficiency. And boy, read as much as you can. Get info from reputable websites, but also look for posts on your wife’s condition from people like us. There may be times when she thinks she is completely alone – but someone inevitably will confirm that she’s not crazy, and whatever is happening is affecting someone else as well.

Just as a side note: I live in a very large city, but have a hard time finding a decent rheumatologist – no one wants to go into that field because there aren’t any cures and the patients all complain. Anyway, the last time I went to see the nurse practitioner, who I was handed off to unwillingly, he told me that if I would just lose weight, the lumps in the tendon sheaths in my hands would go away. I told him I didn’t walk on my hands, so I didn’t see how losing weight would affect the lumps. I fired him.

And my final piece of advice is that I beg you, both, to keep your sense of humor. Try to find something to laugh about every day, even if it’s at the absurdity of what is happening at that moment.

What I would like to add, though, is that I hope his spouse realizes how lucky she is. Dating at my age is no picnic, and heaping complex diseases on top of that guarantees singlehood. I’ve been left by men I have been seriously dating when they realized that the surgeries would be a constant in my life as surely as I have green eyes. That’s why it kills me that every time we get to question of who is in the waiting room for when I get out of surgery, the nurses ask me multiple times, “Don’t you have someone in the waiting room?” It’s always the women who are disbelieving – surely not all men are put off by my bald head and scars all over my head from surgeries? Believe it, sisters. There is no one waiting for me to come out the other side okay.

What’s In a Name?

Posted on by akiwifreund

Some time ago, I had an exchange of short messages with a guy on a dating site. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with my most recent shunt surgery and how long it would be functional, but I was feeling, well, like I wanted to check out the pool. So of course my shunt went into failure immediately after I sent the first few messages, right around the same time he asked me what kind of relationship I was looking for. I sent him a message saying that I had to go into crisis mode without giving him any details and that it wouldn’t be a good idea after all to try to date, and that I wouldn’t be on the site anymore. His response was, “Well then why are you here, sweet pea?”

My first instinct was to get all poundy-poundy on the keyboard and slug him verbally. Then I took a breath because I needed to evaluate why that response got me all worked up.

This bothered me because 1) I was telling him that I was getting off of the site, so asking me why I was there after I said I wouldn’t be on anymore was at best redundant and at worst insensitive; 2) He doesn’t know me well enough to call me “sweet pea,” so that came off as being really condescending; 3) I’m still a human being trying to make a connection.

On a grander scale, how much does terminology affect how others see us, and how we see ourselves? If a man who doesn’t know me well calls me “sweet pea,” it tells me he doesn’t respect me (or women in general). It’s kind of like petting a strange dog without knowing if it bites people it doesn’t know. Maybe some women are charmed by pet names like that from strangers, but I’m not, and I do bite.

Back when I was in school all the way to my mid-20’s, I was still trying to figure out how I wanted other people to refer to me. One friend and I attached the word “babe” after our names, so she would call me the equivalent of “Kiwi-babe” and I would call her something like “Kristi-babe.” Another friend and I decided, after much debate, that we were not girls and not women, but rather “chicks” – the kind that could hang with the guys and play darts and drink whiskey and be super laid back. Later in my 20’s the “babe” moniker fell by the wayside, but “chick” stuck around. I also managed to pick up the nickname Chester the Molester while working at a restaurant, but I wasn’t alone – there was also Pea Pod Todd and Nicki Pickle. After living in a few more states and tucking more adventures under my belt, a co-worker nicknamed me Chuck. The guy I was messing around with at the time refused to call me that because it was too masculine, as in “Oh, Chuck, that feels so good.” Nope, it didn’t work for him, the straightest man on the planet.

In my 30s, I got further away from the usage of “girl” to describe myself, but was okay with the word “chick” still. But now I’m 41, and I realized that I immediately lose my lady boner when a man refers to “cute girls” or implies that I am a girl. I also don’t get hot for any man who is open to dating a 21-year-old when he is in his mid-40’s – I mean, really, how is it possible to have anything in common, especially if the man claims to be looking for a long-term relationship?

Now that I have decided I am a woman, it means I can no longer crush on Hozier or Ed Sheeran, because that would just be creepy. Pretty soon I am going to wear a variety of fabrics and patterns all mashed together, yarn tied into bows in my hair and garish blush and lipstick. I will forgo the awful perfume that smells like cat pee and cigarette smoke because I’m allergic to perfumes, but just know that I would make it part of the final package if I could. The biggest thing is that I will stop caring. I won’t give a rip if someone calls me a bitch because I’ll say it right back. That’s what I look forward to the most about aging – kiss the filter goodbye!