I just thought of this.

The last time I made a "list" I actually got to recite it to a potential suitor and it was thrilling for me to see his eyes close slowly and his head start to shake like "why can't she be one of the ignorant women that i pick up on usually?" 


This is MY list, I encourage every lady out there to have a list; even if you are in a relationship, it never hurts to reevaluate what you want and what you need. Situations change, people most fucking definitely change and it never hurts to have a hand drawn map of what you are after in a one night stand, 2 week romance, years-long love affair or lifelong partner. 

Pearls.Gold List of Suitor Requirements


(previous list)01/09

1. Must have a personality: a good one, that is humorous when called for, serious when needed, loving all the time and always ready for living.
2. Job or life skills that supply you with some sort of income: If you are an investment banker GREAT, if you carve little animals out of wood and sell them on the roadside AWESOME. I want you to have something that earns you a living that you enjoy, something that you feel good about and isn't illegal.
3. Good credit score: I would hope that most women out there look at something like this with a sliding scale of importance. If you do not plan on buying real estate, a car, renting an apartment and or doing anything that requires a stable credit history than forget this one. This girl knows better; I want real estate and I want a partner who can link up with me and bring something to the table. 
4. Some semblance of a relationship with their family: I broke my own rule so hard with the last bf. He absolutely hated his mother and that should have been a gigantic red flag in my face. In light of the events that occurred in the last few weeks, I can't say I hold him entirely responsible for his behavior. You grow up watching your father treat your mother a certain way and you watch your mother take it and surgically corrupt herself to keep the father around and you just assume all women should be idiotic doormats. I just want you to feel comfortable talking to them and calling them and if i tell you i want to send them a Christmas card I don't want my mate looking at me sideways and getting angry about it. I have a fabulous relationship with my family and I know I am very fortunate for this and I cannot expect everyone to have the same but damned if I ever date a guy that hates his as much as my ex does. 
5. Must own a car: Oh fudge, another broken rule! If I had a quarter for every mile I drove to either see my boyfriend, pick him up or take us somewhere, I would probably have about $40,000. I want to be picked up at my house for once, that would be nice. The last time I dated a guy that owned his own car was when i was 16. fuck. 

um, i think this is sort of hot. just sayin.

Pearls.Gold List of Suitor Requirements


(revised list)5/12

1. Live no more than 20 min away from me: I should have thought of this one sooner. I know it isn't always true but in my case distance=cheating, even if you are in the same state. 
2. Have hobbies: This goes back to my previous job statement. I am in the business of recreation and I adore ALL SORTS OF HOBBIES! My whole purpose in life is to help people experience leisure and recreation and so help me god I will find a straight man who will let me teach him how to knit and isn't in prison. I have to be careful when I say "hobbies" because the last one was deeply into porn and web cam girls= THOSE ARE NOT HOBBIES, THOSE ARE DIVERSIONS FROM THE REAL PROBLEMS IN YOUR LIFE. List of acceptable hobbies: cheese-making, music, wood working, fishing, hiking, knitting, reading, listening to music, writing, skiing, long distance running, restringing tennis rackets, taxidermy, writing love letter to me, brewing beer, cooking, collecting stamps, travelling etc. 
3. Have friends: I had no idea what a red flag indicator this one was until I dated the boy with no friends. Now, "everyone has a friend!" you might say. I would counter with this "Not if he is rude and standoffish to everyone he meets." Guy friends can go either way; if you are lucky they are honest and good and watch out for each other and if they are bad then they are dicks and come over and drink all your beer and eat all your organic whatever is in the fridge and are terribly annoying. But they are still friends, and that means that your boyfriend can handle normal social relationships with people. You also have to watch out for the "friendless" types because of the "alpha-beta male" bullshit my ex put me through. 
4. Love me: This is a big one...I need lots of love. I love all things romantic and surprising. I want to be surprised, I want to be adored, I want you to be corny and sweet to me. I will NOT stand for any man who thinks it is weak to "give in" and give a girl what she wants. It is weakness for you to not be able to open your mouth and tell someone who you do, in actuality, TRULY LOVE that you love them. If you cannot tell them that one capstone phrase of any long term relationship (i mean hello, if you are in an LTR with a man and he cannot express his feelings for you in song, prose or straight up "baby girl you rock")then get away from them. 

I'm just going to end on this note: people settle for so much bullshit these days and I am deciding that I am not going to anymore. I want what I want and if I can't have it in a mate right now then I will continue living my life the way I want to and do the things that I want to do and I will try my absolute hardest to avoid all those damn ditches that I keep falling into as a result of not following my list! 

xo 

"Your voice sounds like a bag of dying babies"

I love Girls. The mirror that it holds up to the lives of everyday "getting-out-there-and-doing-it" ladies such as myself is mesmerizing. This is one of those shows I would have killed for as a teenager; the material is tawdry and would have pissed my mother off (Hello? Shoshanna explaining to Hannah that Jessa has a couple of different strains of HPV and that "all adventurous women do" HA). I look at Jessa as how i was when i was 19-22. Lush, ballsy and guns a-blazing. Shoshanna is a Bronies wet dream, sweetly naive but trying to break out and be free like cousin Jessa. Marnie makes me want to shoot myself but only because i feel i am most similar to her at this point in my life. She is nagging, overly responsible and projects her expectations on others. Hannah is how every girl usually is in a going-nowhere relationship: clingy at first and then like "i don't need you but I'll keep you even though i know you don't need me" mentality.

Also, I watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind today and it reminded me of another stanza from Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard.

No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole;

Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!

Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,

Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.

 so there. 
 

It's been years

Literally, years. 


I have been in Maryland for four years now. In that four years I:


* Quit my job at Starbucks that i thought would last FOREVER
* Started seeing my Ex D for a year or so and then found out through his mother that on a trip to Florida a few months before he had cheated on me with a girl and now they have a baby together, but they are not together. 
* Began working in what I think is my true professional calling: Recreation Therapy
* Re-connected with the man I thought was to be my husband, my true love B. And then two years later (now) I come to find out that he had been having online web cam girl relationships "with 100's of girls" on the internet and was/is financially supporting one of them. If you see Barebonebacon on your screen, run the fuck away. 
* Lived in a huge, expensive two bedroom, two bath, two living room, laundry room, kitchen, back porch, blah blah blah apartment and am now in the process of moving in to a one bedroom one bathroom third floor walkup; and i couldnt be happier.




I am ready to leave this place. I want to just throw it all down and say "Ok, Maryland. You WIN!" My heart feels like it cannot get any more dramatic and pathetic for me. You walk around trying to be a good person and do the "right" things. I listen to Neil Young "Heart of Gold" and i think "exactly." 

You put all your eggs in one basket and the basket keeps getting knocked out of your hand. With B, I didn't even WANT a relationship. He treated me so well in the beginning and I just felt so connected to him because we had met when we were younger (15,16) and had never had the chance to be together because dun dun DUN I had to leave Texas and move back to Maryland. I thought "Ok he is nothing like D, I am allowed to be happy and feel love and I'm worth it." and now fast forward all the way to today and what i would GIVE to whisper in my own ear "Don't go see him, just because fate brought him to Maryland it does not mean shit." The world is such a funny place now, with the internet. I feel empty inside. Not bad, like barren, but empty, like someone just took the trash out of my trash can. 


I am going to give her another year. Maryland can have one more year of my life. If the world doesn't end and I wake up on May 28th 2013, I will be packing a uhaul and heading back west to my life I left in Utah. A life in the mountains, with no car, with fresh air, with creeks and rattlesnakes. With old, good friends and Burts and Blue Plate and State Street. I feel healed and safe next to the Great Salt Lake. I feel alive with my toes warm in the springs in Meadow. I want to buy a home there and be a Rec Therapist and have my cat and dog and not work on the weekends and spend time with Oma. 


I get so angry when I think about how duped I feel. He is the one with the problem, I am the one driving over an hour every Saturday morning to Clarksburg to attend COSA meetings. It makes me furious that he let me believe his lie for so long. I should be grateful that it didn't last that long in the grand scheme of things; and i should know better that just because something looks good on paper and to everyone else around me, DOES NOT mean that it it bullshit proof. Nothing in this life is bullshit proof. 

So I guess I get to be angry for awhile. Angry but getting therapy. I just hope that when Chris Hansen asks B why he felt the need to visit an underage girls house for sex, that B remembers me saying "You are going to be on TV one day and then you are going to go to jail and I will be somewhere warm and comfortable with my children watching you throw your life away."