I think the universe and I are in an abusive relationship.

I'm pretty sure, somewhere out there, in the vast expanse of space and time, there is a video-feed of my life, that several alien children are watching, and no doubt, hysterically laughing at. Sometimes, when I'm experiencing a particularly spastic moment of FAIL, I actually look around to see if I can spot the camera recording the immediate disaster at hand.

Yes, I'm aware of how self-involved the above theory is, but I don't care, it's true. I really do feel like this the majority of the time. And I would even venture to say, that a lot of people who happen to experience an unnerving amount of spastic awkwardness throughout each day, feel similarly.

Let me give you an example:

A few days ago, while I was at the gym, I happened to notice a particularly attractive male specimen. Now, to be fair, the gym in North Beach is full of "carbon-copy-cut-out-Ken dolls," so seeing someone "attractive," isn't exactly news. However, anyone who knows me at all, can relate the fact that I'm not a huge fan of generic looking "hot guys." Sure, the "Ken-doll cut-outs" are nice to look at, but in my overall experience, they're dumb as shit, and the ones that aren't borderline retarded, are usually, HUGE DOUCHEBAGS, who have somehow managed to delude themselves into thinking they're actually intelligent, or even worse, "funny" and "charismatic."

I'm sorry, but just because you obtained a degree by coasting through college on a baseball scholarship, doesn't make you "smart." Some of the stupidest people I know have college degrees. It should also be noted that, having a high batting average doesn't necessarily mean someone can read. It means they can hit a ball with a wooden stick relatively well, and with a certain amount of consistency.

You know who else was good at hitting things with big wooden sticks? 

HOMO ERECTUS

Ok, I'm getting off topic here. Truthfully, I have no problem with hot guys who are "reading comprehension challenged." They're fun to play with... kind of like POGS were in the 5th grade.

Anyway, this guy I saw just had such a beautiful face. I don't know how else to describe it, other than, he was simply,"so salty". Now, I realize that with my track record, he was probably an idiot, but as we all know, beauty is intoxicating, and blind to most rational judgments.

So here I am at the gym, staring at the pretty man like a fucking voyeur, when all of a sudden, he turns around, and notices me gawking at him like a creepy-stalker-girl. I, of course, get super flustered, and overcompensate for my awkwardness by being even more awkward. I decided that I was being silly, and that it's okay to look at people. Besides, I have a strict "no dating anyone from the gym policy." I've learned that lesson WAY too many times, hence the policy; formulated from many many bad dates, and uncomfortable post-rejection run-ins. So, I turned up the Kanye in my earbuds (no I'm not "mad" at him, and I don't give a fuck about his d-bag VMA drama either), and proceeded to run on the treadmill.

I was under the assumption that my earlier moment of awkwardness was all the awkward I would be experiencing at the gym that day, so after my run, I went to lift some weights.

I have never been so wrong. 

During the hour or so I was at the gym, every time the pretty man walked within a 20-foot radius of me, I would:


a) drop a weight
b) trip over my feet
c) walk into a machine
             or 
d) all of the above. 


This happened about 10 or so times, until I finally decided to leave the gym, before I actually injured myself. I'm pretty sure someone rigged my sports bra with a shock collar while I wasn't looking, because that's the only explanation for my uncontrollable spastic reflexes.

(Yes, I still stand by the above theory as the most logical explanation for my extreme lack of coordination).

Safeway is in the same shopping structure as the gym, so I headed over there in an attempt to still make the evening productive despite my gym FAIL. After racing my cart up and down the isles for 20 minutes or so, I had obtained all the food items I wanted to purchase. I got in line, but realized I forgot milk. So, in a hasty 360 degree turn, I whipped my cart around, and like the starting line at the INDY 500, I raced it down the cereal isle, balancing my lower torso on the handle bar, while my feet were airborne behind me. Under estimating the speed of my cart, and the odds that someone would walk past the end of the isle I was flying down at the very same time, I came crashing into another Safeway patron, right in front of the butter and pudding display.

In all my years of shopping cart racing, I've never actually hit another person. Sure, I've knocked plenty of things over, and definitely had a few close calls, but I hadn't made "cart-body" contact before. While profusely apologizing, and picking up all the items I had knocked out of their basket, I realized this wasn't just a random Safeway shopper, nope, that would have been too easy, and much less entertaining for the alien children watching my video feed; therefore, in an obvious cosmic conspiracy to continue to make Bridgette FAIL, the Safeway patron was, of course, the pretty man from the gym.

Mortified beyond comprehension, I began giggling like a drunk sorority girl who had just finished inhaling a crate of whip-its. I then started mumbling incoherently, and officially secured the title of the "gravity challenged insane girl from the gym," Northern California chapter.

My short-bus will be picking me up any minute now.

After regaining the bare-minimum of composure one needs in order to NOT have a seizure, I rationalized that, it's okay to be a little retarded sometimes. I know I'm retarded more than just "sometimes," but I have the amazing ability to rationalize all situations into whatever my deluded perception of reality happens to be that day.

I took a deep breath, and calmed down, assuming again of course, that this moment of awkwardness was definitely all the awkward I would be experiencing at Safeway that day.

I was wrong... again.

Much too smug about my newfound ability to maintain my motor skills in a non-spastic fashion, I leaned down to retrive an apple that rolled under the "Thomas' English Muffin" display. In one misguided foot placement, my entire leg slid sideways, and about 40 bags of english muffins came crashing down on top of me. The pretty man laughed for a second, and attempted to help me, but his efforts were thwarted as entire army of Safeway employees went DEFCON 5 on my ass in the bread isle.

There was a moment while I was laying there, covered in english muffins (I had managed to fall backwards, instead of on my face), where I was almost convinced that I could actually hear the laughter of the alien children through in the buzzing of the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

Having turned a lovely shade of crimson, no doubt due to EXTREME mortification, I rationalized, again, that everyone has days when their coordination is fighting gravity and stuff falls on them... I bet... : /

As I stood up, profusely apologizing, again, this time to the Safeway army, I noticed that the pretty man had disappeared. And by disappeared, I mean, ran as fast as he could away from the maladroit girl (me), before the awkward became contagious. I lingered by the pudding for about 10 minutes, in an effort to make sure I didn't run into him, again, sans cart.

I finally made it to the checkstand, and bought my groceries without tripping, falling, or dropping a thing. I left safeway, and walked up the stairs to the parking lot to retrieve my car. Once again, I started to feel smug, and was sure this time, gravity had waved its white flag, and we were friends again.

I laughed to myself as I replayed the Safeway FAIL in my head. I mean, despite the extraordinary embarrassment, the whole thing was pretty hilarious. Plus, I was absolutely positive that the previous moment of EXTREME awkwardness, was most definitely all the awkward I would be experiencing at the North Point shopping center that night.

But... I was wrong... yet again.

I know what you're thinking: "Bridgette, you can't be more than 100 feet away from your car, what could have possibly happened in that short distance you had to travel?"

Well, I apparently misread gravities "white flag" as a surrender, when in fact, it was actually meant to be a "challenge flag." The challenge being, whether or not I could maintain enough focus to walk the 100 feet to my car. Easy right? I mean, I know how to walk, and I could see my car straight ahead, so naturally I assumed, I got this. 

About half-way through the first row of parked cars, a silver toyota 4-runner slowed down to let me cross in front. The headlights beamed into my pupils, and I realized that the driver was, *drum roll please* ... The pretty man! Big surprise right? ... I bit my lip and kept my focus straight ahead, thinking, "Okay, you can do this, here is your chance for redemption Bridgette! Just walk to your car like a normal person. You. got. this." 

I must have been focusing too hard on the end point, because about 2 seconds after I told myself, "You got this," I literally "fell over" my own feet in a dramatic "Matrix" style slow fall. Thankfully, I was able to catch myself, before I did a face-plant into the cement, and by "caught myself," I of course mean, "fell onto a parked car."

Yes, that's right, I tripped, and fell onto a parked car. 

Moral of the Story = I'm not really sure, but I think some would suggest that I start wearing protective padding before I leave the house.

I hope the alien children appreciate the great lengths I go to, to entertain them.

Also, I think it's safe to conclude that, the universe and I are definitely in an abusive relationship.

I have to go now.

My short-bus is here, and I can't find my helmet.

Limerence.

In a half-cocked effort to better understand the unexplainable nature of inter-personal chemistry, I've attempted to research the subject a bit. This past week, I read a few clinical studies, dabbled with some statistical generalizations, and hastily absorbed myself in the angsty-lovesick-blogs of complete strangers. After pontificating on these abstract pieces of an unfathomably large puzzle, i've come to the conclusion that, PHD or not, nobody knows shit. 

Backed into a wall of theoretical happenstance, the definition of 'limerence' momentarily appeased my fervent desire to explain the indescribable feelings associated with chemistry, and the great lengths one's mind will venture to achieve kinetic solidarity. The peculiar effects of limerence sent me spinning a bit, but it was a good spin. The kind spin that flips your stomach, and makes you laugh uncontrollably, stumbling around in a dizzy haze. 

Limerence refers to, “an involuntary cognitive and emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person... physiologically, limerence can cause: heart palpitations, pupil dilation, and general muscle weakness. Awkwardness, stuttering, and dizziness are also common effects... In the early 1960's, before limerence was better understood, it was common that patients were diagnosed with a, 'slight, temporary mental illness.'”

When I read this, my first thought was, 'so this means you find someone you have no explanation as to why you're infatuated with, and the chemistry between you two is so strong, it actually causes “slight insanity?" 

Fuck that shit.  

I have a hard enough time NOT completely failing at life, without the confines of a mental illness. 

But I digress... 

The thing about limerence that's so frustrating, isn't necessarily the feeling itself, but the uncontrollable nature of it. There is no logic to back up the utter helplessness 'limerent pangs,' ultimately lead to. Even after you rationalize the 'cold-hard-facts' of the situation, the ache in your belly doesn't go away. Your brain tries to reason with the rest of you, but your heart; your stupid, irrationally stubborn heart won't hear any of it.

But, there is something to be said about that aching pang you feel inside your chest when you love somebody, or miss somebody that's moved away. The fluttering palpitations under your sternum as you remember the feeling of their lips. Chemical reactions working overtime, while the fading memory of their skin, moving against yours, reminds you of the insane power your nervous system holds.

And like most things that churn around inside us, and turn our vital organs into nothing more than a bundle of knots, time tends to lessen the impact, lessen the ache. The knots eventually loosen, and the fluttering heart strings once again ground themselves behind the protective curtain of our thoracic cavity, and intercostal wall. The limerence you once felt, feels more like a dream than anything that was ever real. The overdrive of synapses firing off in the frontal lobe subsides, and it all seems so completely silly in this rational place of general normalcy. Everything goes back to the way it was, back to the logical junctions in which each day tries to hold its footing.

But unbeknownst to you, there will be moments when, all of a sudden, on some idle Monday night, you'll get a phone call...

And the vibration of their voice in your ear, the syncopated breath sounds, fill your head with a choreographed dance of distant memories you didn't think were going to mean this much. And the limerence, which you've spent weeks building over and burying deeper, will shoot up from the center of your belly, and destroy everything in its path, “Final Destination” style. But you won't be mad. You'll let the syllables falling past their lips, wash over you; like a wave you turned your back on, like a misstep at the edge of a pool. 

Because at the end of the day, after you've abandoned all failed expectations, and started building up promises for tomorrow, a little lovesickness feels kind of good. Not because it's particularly comforting, but because it reminds us all, that someone out there has affected the bloody mess of valves and chambers known as our heart. This heavily guarded fortress has been compromised, and albeit frustrating, there is something irrationally euphoric about the intrusion. Not knowing whether this uninvited guest is going to rip apart the sinew, or walk lightly through the thorax until they finally lean back and rest comfortably against the lining of the left ventricle. 

But truth be told, when it comes down to it... you didn't have to answer the phone.

But you did.

Because you wanted to.

Because you just had to.

Because the limerence told you to.

love you mean it.

I can't seem to get this song out of my head...

Clarence Greenwood has pretty much encapsulated everything about how I feel right now, in the song below...




"Sideways" - Citizen Cope

"You know it ain't easy
For these thoughts here to leave me
There's no words to describe it
In French or in English
Well, diamonds they fade
And flowers they bloom
And I'm telling you
These feelings won't go away
They've been knockin' me sideways
They've been knockin' me out lately
Whenever you come around me
These feelings won't go away
They've been knockin' me sideways
I keep thinking in a moment that
Time will take them away
But these feelings won't go away..."

Girls girls girls...

Girls girls girls... there are so many different kinds. So many interesting variations, but lately, I feel like there is a common theme running through almost all the females I have encountered recently. About 99% of them desperately want a boyfriend/husband/babies/suburban-cookie-cutter-lifestyle, straight out of a JCREW catalog.

Why didn't anybody inform me the 1950's were back?

I realize that “women wanting to get married” isn't exactly a SHOCKING revelation, but the recent onslaught of biological clocks, ticking in such close proxy to myself, has inadvertently got me thinking about why the perception of “happily-ever-after,” always seems to include a mortgage, babies, and 'until death do us part?'

Now, I'm by no means opposed to marriage, spawn, or property ownership. But I am opposed to the belief that those intangible variables, are the barometer by which anyone's self-worth, or happiness in life, should be measured. Yet, I keep meeting people, the female demographic mostly, who base so much of who they are, and what they're worth, on the men folk, and their potential distance from the alter.

I went to a BBQ in San Jose this weekend with one of my best girl friends, to visit her family for her birthday. It was nice to meet all the people she had grown-up with, but at the same time, it was a complete culture shock. Granted, San Jose isn't exactly a “far” drive from SF, but it's just far enough to teleport the junction of “ moral-values” back about 50 years.

Sitting in the backyard with a bunch of girls in their late 20's, the talk centered around men. Who had a man, who didn't, and who wanted one. My friend's mother, who had met my ex-boyfriend at a Christmas party last year, asked how he was. I told her that we broke up in the spring, but that I'm sure he's doing well. She frowned at me, and looked surprisingly sad about the whole thing, especially considering the fact, that she didn't even remember his name.

I awkwardly laughed and said, “It's okay, he's a good guy, but he just wasn't the guy for me.”

At this point, several of the girls looked at me, and my friend's mom responded with, “Well, I wouldn't worry about it, I know you'll find somebody to be with.”

With the audience of female spectators growing, I looked at her, puzzlement gleaning from my dimples, and wondered if she was serious. I chuckled under my breathe, and re-butted with every once of honesty I could drum into my larynx, “I don't plan on worrying about it all. Boys are a dime a dozen anyway. Finding a boyfriend isn't difficult. Finding someone you really connect with, and can grow with; that's the hard part.”

My female spectators gawked at me like I had just announced Satan as my personal savior, while simultaneously wetting my pants. I figured it was time to make an exit, so, in normal Bridgette fashion, I awkwardly mumbled something about needing a carrot stick, and shuffled over to the snack table.

Did that really just happen?

Maybe I've finally entered the age bracket where the obsession to 'settle down' and 'have a family,' has finally set in, and bulldozed its way onto the playing field.

There isn't anything wrong with that either. My contradiction with the “happily-ever-after” bullshit, isn't that it's a negative desire, or goal, but that it's set up as a plot-point in all our lives, as a meter in which the level of our success and/or happiness is somehow measured . And if we never reach that “goal,” or rather, choose not to travel in that particular direction, something is “wrong” with us, and we're somehow “less,” somehow “not as good” as those who get their “happily-ever-after.”

Why aren't we enough?

Don't get me wrong. I love being in love. I love being with someone who makes me want to lay in bed all day just to be with them. I love all the things that come in and out of relationships, good and bad, painful and wonderful; the whole nine yards.

BUT... when I don't have that, I am not worth any less.

I have a hard time understanding how so many girls stay with men that treat them like utter shit. I don't understand how being with someone like that, is better than being alone? I would rather be alone for the rest of my life, than put up with a man who treated me like something he bought at a used diaper auction.

I don't know how to relay the message that no one deserves to be treated less than human. I suppose the relay of that message has been transmitted in many different facets, and it's contents is still falling on deaf ears. I just wish everybody knew how amazing they all really are. I wish that we would all stop settling for less than we deserve... and when push comes to shove, we deserve to get what we want when our hearts are on the line.

Because I don't know about you, but I want to be with someone who is above and beyond everything, my friend. I want to be with someone who makes me laugh, at myself, at the world, and everything in between. I don't want a ring, or a contract that legally binds someone to my heart. I simply want to be with someone who makes me better just for knowing them, and if that happens not to include “happily-ever-after,” it doesn't make it any less worthy, any less amazing, or anything less, than love.

Welcome to my Life...

First blog entry… feels like too much pressure. Too much pressure to ask too many questions. What is this blog going to be about? Why am I writing it? Who is going to read it? Is that razor burn, or herpes?

I’ve spent the last decade or so, bullshitting my way through life. Excuses here, justifications over there, and half-truths stretched into cellophane. There was a time I would have told you I was proud of my seemingly natural ability to talk my way through a tunnel of lies paved with fragments of truth I chewed up and discarded along the way. There was a time when the veins of cynicism fueled my sarcastic rhetoric to near applause. A time when everything meant nothing and apathy ruled as king in the barren land where my heart should have been.
Did I mention that I was also doing a lot of coke?
Needless to say, these states of being that once made me proud, no longer hold such power. I look back on their moments of glory, and find shame where I once saw victory. That’s not to say my sarcastic rhetoric has been completely abandoned in this new light. Veins of sarcasm run deep within my very soul and will never be purged, not even the most grandiose epiphany could extradite the tiny cynic within.
If everything means nothing, that would mean I have nothing to say. And since I have a lot to say, you can see how that particular ‘life mantra’ wasn’t exactly applicable.
In a world so heavily laden with bullshit, that you basically need a snow shovel to dig your way to something real, I’ve decided that the best thing I can offer my generation of gotta-have-it-now-gimmie-gimmie-gimmie pupils, is honesty. I realize you’ll need to wipe the maple syrup off of that last statement, but once you do, I hope you’ll find the truth.

And isn’t that all we really want anyway? Something real, something true; something to make us of laugh, cry, and curse in the privacy of our own rooms? Something that gets under our skin not because it’s particularly profound, but because it’s real. Because if the names were changed, and the location were different, it could be your life dribbling down the screen in blurbs of Friday night catch-phrases, and “OMG you won’t believe what happened” antidotes.

We all deserve the truth. Whether it be from our family, our friends, ourselves, or some stranger a few thousand miles north of nowhere. I can’t promise I’ll always be rational, or funny, or intelligent, but I can promise to be honest… for the first time in the last 10 years I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me blog.

Ouch, all this Saccharin stained bullshit is starting to hurt my teeth.
Welcome to my life… Please remove your shoes.