Priorities: flossing, exfoliating and pantslessness (a catalog of lovelessness, my week, and neurotic reading material)

Every time I get in the car, I start blogging in my head, especially on shitty routes around beltway traffic but when I get home, I only care about flossing, ripping off my pants, and exfoliating, not necessarily in that order. So I started typing this on my phone in bed.

Coupla highlights:

1. Last time I saw family, one asked me how my love life was. "Nothing worth talking about," I told them. That's my nice way of dodging questions yet not lying. Otherwise I could have just said, "no one special" or "not dating."

"Okay, well, I worry about you, that's all." My stepmom looked at me and I felt myself transform under her pitious gaze into an aging hag.

I bristled and got defensive. "I'm FINE," I insisted, very un-finely.

 My dad rubbed my shoulders quietly.

"Why does everyone say they worry about me?" I said, suddenly annoyed. It's true. Everyone (well, every boy-crazy family member at least) has expressed overt worry at my "state" lately. Because I'm, you know... (cough)... still single.

"Well, it's just since your divorce, you've been jumping from relationship to relationship."

Fuck! THAT'S what they're talking about?? The THREE dudes and one crush in THREE YEARS that I even mentioned to them?

Good thing they don't read this blog or they'd be out of their MINDS with anxiety. I don't tell them HALF the shit that actually goes on. Geez.

I suck at being cool though. Fuck anyone who can "roll with it," that's not me. So I did the adult thing: I got even more defensive.

She noticed and said, gently, "you seem defensive" and suddenly I just crumpled. My anger's like a house of cards. It collapses under the slightest test.

My dad folded his arms around me and I sniffled into his sleeve, "I mean, yes, I want someone special, someone to build a life with. That hasn't happened. I don't know why. He left some tall shoes to fill I guess. And I don't totally feel worthy of love. No one's been quite right. Timing is off or they're autistic or something. But considering all that, I'm not that BAD. I'm okay."

Everything is FINE. What??

Holden Caulfield would have said it much better.

My dad looked at me in that proud way he does even when I'm a mess and as unloveable as I obviously am, based on the evidence painstakingly catalogued in this blog. I felt enveloped.

2. So this brings me to something I need to face that I haven't wanted to. But the truth is, I haven't felt worthy of love. Because, reasons.

I failed my ex and I failed my marriage and I failed me.

What else is there to do for the rest of my life but eat worms?

I mean, that was basically the plan.

Fucking Maslow and his fucking hierarchy of needs. Clearly the key to ridding oneself of the thirst for love is to run out of ACTUAL water. Who needs a penis then? I've been doing it all wrong.

3. Groucho Marx pinned it when he said, "I refuse to belong to any club who will have me as a member" and because of #2, I refuse(d) to believe I'm worthy of any dude who is into me.

That video on hacking online dating that I put up a few posts ago, however, revived some hope. Dating is fucking exhausting. But maybe not a bad idea if you do it right. Every shitty date has taken some wind out of my sails. But maybe I can do better at screening, like that lady said.

 4. So now we are at my last point, which has nothing to do with anything except that it also happened in the last week:

I brought the Cyclist to a Halloween party and he was ready to call it a night before I was, although I traditionally do not stop celebrating Halloween until dawn nears and the zombies get ready to return to their graves. Any earlier just doesn't feel right.

As we drove away, he sweetly offered that I could return if I wanted. "Just drop me off at your place and go back," he encouraged.

Great idea!

Until I realized he would be alone in my room with ALL MY SHIT in it. Now he will know how much I moisturize my face, how many pairs of extra large granny panties I have (fuck, they are comfortable), how little food is in my house and...

AND...

Fuck!!

My READING material!

If books are the true windows to the soul, my soul needs an intervention.

On my bedside table, you will note the following gems:

• Codependent No More
• Are You The One For Me
• If I'm So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single
• He's Scared, She's Scared
• You're Not That Into Him Either
• Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies
• She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman*

(*STRICTLY for review purposes. What?!? Not even totally sure I agree. So darn clinical. The dude who wrote "Four Hour Body" got it better.)

Wouldn't YOU be mortified at that reading selection? Good god. Is there a dating site for the hopeless?

Oh, right. All of them.

ps. I have taught my iPhone how to spell "pantslessness." This pleases me.