I want a tattoo.
It’s incredibly windy today and I woke up at three in the morning to howling. I hate the wind. There is no need for it, especially in the winter. It only makes me hate going outside more. At least the sun is out today. I think I’ve been feeling Vitamin D deficient ever since the clouds set in last week and lingered around until today. Stupid clouds. Stupid rain. Stupid wind. Stupid cold. Stupid weather.
My days are so monotonous that I don’t even notice time passing anymore. As soon as I look at the clock one day, I feel like it’s already the next day and I start everything all over again. I wake up, I get dressed, I eat breakfast, I go to work, I play on the internet for nine hours and eat lunch, I go home, I walk Bailey, I have dinner, I go to the gym, I pine, I go back home, I shower, I go to bed. Rinse. Repeat. I’m only twenty two and I live the life of a fully employed adult, boring and repetitive. If this is all that there is, I think I’d rather not. I feel like Belle from Beauty and the Beast and I know that when it gets warmer out, I’ll be very tempted to sing in the fields. “There must be more than this provincial life!” I mean, there has to be something planned to look forward to or why even bother to get out of bed every day? Especially in this wind! I’d really like to know if I end up happy. Not that I’m especially unhappy at the moment. Just bored. 
I know it could be worse and I understand that as far as lives go, I’ve been lucky. But can I please just have something exciting happen to me? Anything? Maybe I don’t put myself out there enough for anything to happen and maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should just go over and talk to him and maybe everything will just fall into place. Maybe it’ll be magical and wonderful and maybe I’ll live happily ever after.
I was right. I just want to be in love in a movie. 

While watching Sleepless in Seattle for maybe the billionth time, I realized my problem. Rosie O’Donnell tells Meg Ryan the words that I so needed to hear. “A movie! That’s your problem! You don’t want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie.” And yes, that is exactly it. I don’t want to be in love. I want to be in love in a movie. Like a movie. But sadly, I am a real person and so, I cannot ever be in love in a movie. 
Why can’t love like that exist? You know, with the big gestures and the fate and the soul mates? Why can’t a man and a woman overcome all obstacles and let love win? Reality is too harsh. It strips things down and makes them bare, which is no where near as attractive as movies make life seem. Even the negative, sad montages are glamorized and glorified so that whenever you’re in the backseat of a car, listening to your iPod, and that sad song comes on, you immediately shift into “sad, movie mode” where you stare dejectedly out the window, pretending that some great tragedy has befallen. You know what I’m talking about. What is that? Why do we pretend? Maybe it’s because that right after the sad montage, the problem always gets resolved and the boy runs in the rain and the girl forgives the boy and after everyone dries off, they live happily ever after. Preferably after some momentous kiss or promise. It’s funny though how characters only get together at the end of movies. How do we know if they stay together? What if something comes up down the road and splits them apart? What if she gets cancer and dies young? Does the story start again, but with a different leading lady? I need to stop asking so many questions. 
Meg Ryan also says something about having fantasies about a man she’s never met. She knows it’s crazy and she should let it go, but what if she could have done something? Does she want to go her entire life just dreaming? The difference between fate and destiny is the power we have to change it and whether or not we have that courage to do so. I hope I have that courage. So far, it doesn’t look very good.
It’s warm, but it’s raining. Cue sad montage. 

I really need to cool it with the candy. At this rate, I’m going to gain all the weight back by the end of February. No more candy. No. 
So, the other guy that I was sort of seeing has pretty much stopped talking to me. He came over to me very briefly last night at the gym because he was late for his class, but he hasn’t texted me for a while. I don’t know if he’s busy or seeing someone else. Either way though, he’s not making time for me so I shouldn’t make time for him. It’s sad. I don’t miss him, but I miss the attention. Every girl likes feeling wanted even if the attention is from someone she’s not particularly attracted to. However, it’s all the for the best, considering I’m pretty sure while I was on the treadmill I may have whispered “I love you, marry me,” across the gym. Seriously. How old am I? Thirteen? No wonder a twenty six year old decided I wasn’t worth the time. No twenty two year old should be acting like that.
Part of me hopes that maybe I’ll be the exception and he’s secretly crushing on me. But, I’m the rule and most likely if he’s not talking to you, he’s not that into you. If he’s not calling, not texting, not seeing you, maybe sleeping with someone else, then he’s just not that into you. New mantra. I’m the rule, not the exception. I’m the rule. Not the exception. But we all know how well mantras work for me.

Buzz, buzz, buzz three times,
The text that I hoped was him,
Was from my mother.

Haikus are like candy – I should probably cool it with both things.

If someone told me last year that by January 2013 I would be where I am right now, I’m pretty sure I would not have believed that. Maybe the part about living at home and being miserable with my parents, but nothing else. It’s strange how time passes.
I need to continue to write on the weekends. Part of the deal is writing two paragraphs a day, including Saturday and Sunday. I can’t stop just because I don’t have any idea what to write. Maybe I’ll make the weekend the time where I free-write. On here. That’ll be interesting. My free-writing is a lot like the blog already is: disjointed, random thoughts that pretty much revolve around my inability to become a functioning member of society and my lack of love life. It’s really the only things I think about. It’s pathetic really, how my life just stays close to me and anything else that exists around me I don’t particular give much thought to. Unless you’re a boy that I find attractive enough to include in the fantasy world I choose to live in. “Sometimes fantasy is better than reality…” Sometimes? When is reality better than anything I’ve concocted in my own mind?
Well, since I still have leftover punishment from last weekend from not writing, I’ll try my hand at a flash fiction piece. Under five hundred words and only an hour to write and edit. Here I go.

I JUST WANT HIM TO TALK TO ME. And not just a passing greeting. 
The other guy came up to me while I was on the elliptical, sweat and all, and started up a conversation. It was nice and sweet and it made it impossible for me to avoid him. He should do that. Come up to me. Ask me my name. Do something. Please. Don’t just stare at me or say hi as I walk by. 
I know I could do the same, but I am the girl. I want to be pursued. I don’t want to run around chasing a boy who may not be interested. It’s not my job. Boys can be scared by assertive women. So I’ll remain passive and wait.
But I don’t want to wait forever.

“…but if we wait until we’re ready we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.”
More Lemony Snicket.

Snow day. And I spent it in my bed.
It was his birthday. I may have creepily whispered “Happy birthday,” across the gym from my treadmill. I don’t think he heard. I hope. My crazy is getting worse. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m the rule, not the exception.

“Okay, okay. Exhibit A. Chad the drummer who lived in a storage space. He only used me for rides and yet I continued to stalk him for most of 1998. Then oh, um, there was Don, that broke up with me every Friday so that he could have his weekends free. I was delusional about that relationship. I used to refer to him as my husband to random people, like my dental hygienist. Anyway, all my friends used to tell me about how things might work out with these dipsticks because they knew someone, who knew someone, who dated a dipstick just like mine. That girl ended up getting married and living happily ever after. That’s the exception and we’re not the exception. We’re the rule.”

It’s pathetic that even though I know this, I still hope that just maybe I’ll become the exception. That’s really all I have to cover today. It was a sad day.

“Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.”
That’s Lemony Snicket.

Humans are weird. Two people can be as intimate and be as physically close as two people could ever possibly be, but remain as aloof as two strangers who haven’t even caught each other’s glance even in a mirror. They literally can have negative space between them and still be alone. I guess that’s the paradox of casual sex. Not that this really applies to me at this moment considering we do have conversations with our clothes on. I was just thinking about it as I sit here procrastinating and slowly succumbing to frostbite. Literally, my hands will not warm up.
It’s going to continue to be just as cold as February creeps up. Now, I have nothing against February exactly. It’s just a single month out of twelve that I have to get through year in and year out. But I do resent how it comes with a reminder that there’s at least six more weeks of winter and no promise that the weather will ever change. Every year I get to this point and wonder if it will ever be warm again. Of course, April and May always come and the temperatures are suddenly in the upper fifties and sixties, but at this moment, I forget what it feels like to be comfortable. 

I did not keep it in my pants.

I will keep it in my pants. That’s my mantra today.
He finally made plans with me after two weeks. Maybe he is just using me, but he still talks to me. And listens to my stories of nothing and my obsessing over television shows. That still doesn’t mean anything. I’m not stupid. Men will put up with a lot if they think they’ll be able to stick their penis inside of you later. So I will keep it in my pants tonight. I hope.
Honestly though, I’m not looking for a relationship right now. Well, that’s not true. If the other boy asked me to go to the courthouse tomorrow and marry him, I’d show up at sunrise, wedding attired and ready to spend the rest of my life in this small town. That’s how pathetic my crush has gotten. When I walked by him yesterday, he turned to me and said hello. I smiled and said hi, but then immediately bolted for the treadmills. I’m sure I was about five shades darker than an apple and I needed to get away or I feared I’d attack him with my misplaced crazy. “Hi, I’m Liz. I love you and in my head we’ve been married for about five years. We have three kids, but we’re trying for one more. Our dog is named Boo and we live in the suburbs. There is a swing in the front yard and a wrap around porch that looks great with Christmas lights on it…” Yeah. That was what my mere “Hi” implied. I wonder if he realizes that.
I can’t even begin to convey how much I hope that no one knows about my hook ups with other guy. It’s not that I’m particularly ashamed of my behavior, but I don’t think that my inability to wait until at least the fifth date to take my clothes off is something that earns respect and admiration from the opposite sex. And I’d like to have that. So, I will keep it in my pants. I will keep it in my pants. I will keep it in my pants. And when I end up naked again in his bed later, I will seriously have to find a better way to control myself than a mantra that I recite in my head.
And by the way, it is so cold that I can’t breathe.

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you for having the courage that is now so limited, most have forgotten it completely. I admire you. Happy belated birthday.

I know I haven’t written all weekend and I know I made a promise. I need to enforce some kind of negative consequence for days that I do not write. Maybe for each day I do not write, I have to write a flash fiction piece. Or free-write for an hour. That might keep me more on track. I need to keep writing for practice at the very least, not to mention how well blogging helps to clear my mind. It’s not nearly as effective as running, though. I can’t wait to run later.
Yesterday, I saw him at the gym. He came over and spoke to me. As per usual. I really don’t understand this. If all he wanted was to sleep with me, fine. Check. I’m okay with being used for sex. Just be upfront about it. Don’t pretend to be the nice guy. Own it. Be the butthead. I can respect that. Please stop trying to be my friend if there’s a hidden agenda.
My latest piece of advice that I’ve received is that perhaps he’s still hanging on because whenever he wants company again, he won’t have to work very hard to reel me back in. Am I being strung along? I don’t feel like a puppy dog who only has eyes for him. And I’m pretty sure I still have that incredibly awkward crush on his coworker that just gets worse every time I go to the gym. So, this is where I am, stuck between my own thoughts and reality. Whatever reality even is.

A cold, sudden wind
Like a cruel slap in the face,
Winter reminds us.

That haiku was terrible. I need more practice.