A Revelation AND On Relationships or The Bear Whisperer, not in any particular order

I've been asked to be a special stunt blogger because your regularly scheduled author is officially on a break. That she has asked me to fill the temporary void of her hiatus is both honoring for me and head-scratching for you. Who is this guy? That's right. I'm just a guy. A guy like any other. A guy like no other. For I am the Bear Whisperer.

Now, our hostess has asked me to write about relationships. And because I got lucky once, she thinks I can do it again. This is why you never press your bets. But I'll try it and see where this strange journey takes us. Enlightenment? I think not. Ten minutes closer to quitting time? Oui.

The first thing you need to understand is that men are essentially just bears in pants. We're straight-forward. We're easy to understand. We're basic. We would live in a cave if that cave had cable and a couch. We don't examine our bodies for flaws. We don't have pillows, soap or towels that are only for guests. We take pleasure in the success (and failure) of all men everywhere. We identify with our teams more than our own emotions. And if you try to make sense of why we cried when Bobby Bowden finally won a national championship or Cal Ripken retired but not at our Mother's funeral, you're just going to make yourself nuts.

I'm no savant. I'm no shaman. I'm not offering any more insight into the traditional male psyche than you could get if you just bought them a beer and started asking the right questions. But if you'll trying to ask those questions in the last 5 minutes of a sporting event or with the phrase "we need to talk." No good can come from that.

Second, we understand that your goal in life is to make us love you. But even more important than that, we understand that you want us to tell you we love you. We do love you, we really do. But we don't want to have to be like two generals launching missiles who turn the keys simultaneously. You know we love you. We just told you two hours ago. What did you do in the interim--cheat on me or hit your head? Did you forget already? Write it down for the sake of sweet baby jebus.

But in making us love you, you want us to change. Marriage is an institution not a reformatory. And relationships are like a sweet little bird that you hold gently in your cupped hands. Sometimes it flies free and high and beautifully. And sometimes you want to bite its head off. And when you run around trying to catch a little bird in your hands, you wind up with poop on your hands and no bird.

A successful relationship is when you finally meet that person you want to drive crazy for the rest of your life. You know how it is. That look she gives when you're shopping that says "Set the electronic device down and move slowly toward the door or I'm going to kill you." That look when you see two people who obviously shouldn't procreate. That look when you meow in public. That look when he dances in front of her friends. That look when she does karaoke and doesn't need the lyrics for anything in the Manilow catalog. That look that says she gets you and you get her and man aren't all these other people morons for not getting it.

You'll eventually get that look. And you can get that look even if you have ankles that aren't perfect or fuzzy eyebrows or low cheekbones or breasts that are too big. Bears don't care about that stuff.

Just don't ask us bears to think about giving you that look. You'll get it when you come over with pizza and beer. It'll be because we're looking at you and not because we're secretly checking the box to see if you ordered from the right place. Now get over here and cuddle on the couch because you're blocking the game and it's practically kick off for crying out loud. And you know we enjoy the game more when you're watching it with us too. So quit asking who that guy is already.

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Can you not see why I e-love this guy already? That's right; I e-adore you, TO.

In other news, a girl can't feel this good about herself and writing and her crazy ass peers at a place like BlogHer and not come back to blogging. Like soon.

See you in a few, wonderful readers.

We are so not on a break (Version 3.51)

It's more and more common in the blogosphere these days; people from our "real" lives make these sites more about them than what we know them to be - cathartic, sometimes completely narcissistic, outlets for our creativity, our joy, our loves and our frustration. On a regular basis I see bloggers closing up shop and releasing new urls only to a chosen few, flipping their shingles to the "Nothing to See Here" message, or going on hiatus to figure out whether or not it is really worth it.

And so it is with me.

The pleasure I get from writing these posts is being tempered by the fact that they can also be used, however innocently, to check in on my life from a distance. I recognize the semantics; I know that technically anyone with Internet access has just as much of a right to be here as everyone else. But this site isn't about everyone else. Just as the email of friends past is theirs alone, as are their phone conversations with family, and their letters and journals, this site is mine. And although I understand that this is a public forum, my intention in spilling details of my life is not to have them peeped from afar by those no longer privy to details via my voice, nor is it to hurt anyone I care about through my accounts.

Don't get me wrong - I dearly love these folks I'm talking about. But this is the bottom line for me, and it may sound harsh but that is not my intention: just as reading someone's personal correspondence is an intrusion, something about people I have known but now am not in contact with witnessing my life unfold just doesn't feel right to me, and truthfully, it seems shouldn't feel right to them.

I refuse to let this site become a collection of nothing more than crappy recycled memes and censored notes on my everyday - which is essentially the direction in which I'm headed (yeah, I can acknowledge it). What has been a haven for me has grown to be a burden as I consider - despite what I hope has been demonstrated for many moons to be good judgment and consideration for those I care about - the impact of each and every word. What about the impact of their presence on me?

I don't want to do this, but I feel like I have to.

So here's my "Nothing to See Here" post. I hope to come back sometime in the next month, but I can't say that for sure. When I do, I can assure you it will be with less frustration and hopefully more of the good that brought most of you to this site in the first place.

Five Reasons I Know I'm Drunk; or, I Mighta Had Too Much Communion

I care not that I'm lying on the couch in a perfectly good skirt that really should be taken off before it wrinkles. Well, I'm aware of it, as you can see, but I kinda care not. At least a little. Robert Downey wrinkle release isn't just for drunkards anymore. Stellar.

Cricket has attempted to sit on my face not twice, but THRICE, and I haven't flinched. I giggled until she moved her hairy little bum, but I didn't swat at her. I would have missed.

I might very well take my contacts out and put them on the hardwoods until morning. Yeah, I said it.

I forgot what four was for.

Pizza would be fabu, but the phone might as well be on one of the Russian limbs of the MIR Space Station. Or on my kitchen table.



I luuuurve you guys.

Oh you thought yesterday's post revealed the true extent of my idiocy

Last night, I sat for an hour in rainy traffic I cannot attribute to a Nationals game so must instead blame on George W. Bush. While waiting I 1) cleaned out my purse, 2) seriously sang to Madonna while watching myself in the rearview, and 3) felt the glorious touch of a cool moist towelette as I cleaned my shiny face.

Too bad it was a Lysol bathroom wipe.

You sharing your stupidity with me today would be most appreciated.

As an update - and I'm not playing on you up in here - I think this may have helped my skin. It looks tighter, more youthful . . . Next stop, wiping whole body down with Lysol wipes.

Happy Friday, folks.

Take her down a notch

I think someone knew my Sassmeter was registering a little too high this weekend. Soaring off my first-ever waxing appointment (with a woman named Agnes, who in my plans was crinkly and 70, but instead was an amazingly hot 25 year old), a very fun weekend spent imbibing good wine and eating vindaloo and one of the more delicious hamburgers of my life, not to mention unexpected run-ins in the city with folks of my present and past, I swirled around town feeling like an A+, swimming, softballing, social superstar.

Until I closed my upper arm fat in my clutch as I tucked and latched it under my elbow.

Yes gods, make me humble.