We live in a sick world.

As a part of my Monday marathon of ABC programming, I tuned into The Bachelor tonight for the first time in years. YEARS. I noticed that it's the exact same set up as it was the first season, except for one thing. The previews.

There is footage of a girl in a white dress, weeping her soul out. Just one of those all-out, snotty nose, puffy eye, red-faced cries that you never want anyone to see. Yet, this poor girl has her meltdown being broadcast across the country. To add insult to injury, the announcer says at the end of the commercial, "Tune in for one of the most dramatic exits in Bachelor history...You don't want to miss this!!"

I'm hoping for the world's sake that there's going to end up being some twist, like that her cat died or something. Or maybe it turns out that she's a big whore who should be kicked off anyway to preserve the show's "integrity." I don't know...I guess that's too hopeful. I just think it's sick that their marketing strategy is to exploit this girl's heartbreak.

The even sicker thing: I'm actually watching it to see what happens. [Insert shameful head shake here.]

Confessions of a 40-year-old lame ass

What has become of my life? Here I sit, finishing up a night filled with ABC network programming, a boatload of graded papers, and a homemade panini. I know I just turned 24, but I feel like I just crossed over the hill...and I'm speeding recklessly towards the bottom.

Tonight, I tuned into the quality show of Dancing with the Stars. I didn't think I would ever get into that show. But whether it was watching it habitually with my favorite aunt and uncle or simply a lack of better options, I have been watching this show weekly to see whose Paso Doble will kick the pants off of whose Viennese Waltz. I'm not sure who I should cheer for on this show yet. Scary Spice (Mel B.) is a crowd favorite, but that Jane Seymour is so damn graceful. God, that's so pathetic I just cried a little while typing that.
Immediately following Dancing with the Stars came a brand new show called Samantha Who? It's about this woman who gets hit by a car, thrown into a coma, and wakes up with a serious case of retrograde amnesia. This sends her into a world she knows nothing about surrounded by people she can't recall. Slowly, her previous "life" is revealed to her through a series of encounters with random characters. I must admit, some parts were (surprisingly) funny. (i.e. Samantha pulls a very small mini dress out of her closet and says, "OH GOD! I have a daughter??" Boyfriends just shakes his head. )

This made me start thinking...what has become of my life? Just a year and a half ago, I was living it up with the best of friends almost every night. Screw school! Screw studying! Screw being financially responsible! It was all about having the best time, all the time. And now what? I am confined to living a bland life of monotony. Same routine every day. Though, I must admit, the students keep it interesting every now and then. Or is it only interesting because my life has become that mundane? Sigh...with that, I'm going to go to bed...at 9:55.

100% Match.com

I've logged onto Match.com (insert Gasp!). Admittedly, I've perused the site on occasion. Okay, so by on occasion I mean during the wee hours of Saturday night when the thought of competing with 25-year-old Dallasites, who claim to be a size 0 but really are a size 4, for Cash McMogulson's undivided attention literally brings the taste of vomit to my mouth.

Back to my Saturday night "perusing." Username created, password verified, popcorn popped, and there I am sitting on my couch listening to a nineties mix c-d "browsing" Match.com. All I need is a bottle of red, a box of chocolates, a pint of Ben & Jerry's and I've transformed into the requisite spinster. ( I wonder if the cops will find my body surrounded by candy wrappers and an empty tray of Oreo cookies mmm...that sounds good. No more chocolate day dreams, back to my Saturday night.) So I'm half-heartedly half-inquisitively browsing the site, when an hour goes by, and I realize my knuckles are white from gripping the keyboard with interest. Drats, I've reached the bottom of the pint again. I should probably change my physical build on the site to "curvy" rather than "athletic". I must have been delusional/drunk when I answered that question on my profile. Note to self, I'll have to starve myself again this week or just revert to my oatmeal diet again ( I swear it works). So there, that's my first encounter with online dating. Anyone else want to admit to curiously checking the site or am I the only loser :) (Someone say they have, someone say they have. Just lie to me!)

Don't even think about asking what my username is. Who is Match.com to decide what constitutes a 100% match for you anyway. Isn't that what our mothers are for.

Love,
Funny-Girl-23
(not my username)

Cut Your Losses.

You would think a "break-up" would be easy. A very simple "I'm no longer interested" or "I've fallen out of love with you" would suffice, but I suppose it's in our human nature to coat those words with some euphemistic sugar. Why, after establishing a clear disinterest and most likely bashing them to friends and family, do we feel it necessary to all of a sudden be nice or considerate of their feelings?

I pondered this little conundrum after having to let my latest big, dumb animal go after meeting a much more suitable boy. Things were not going well anyway. We went to a Cardinals game and hardly spoke five sentences to one another, so he really should have seen this coming. It always gets awkward, though. I mean, God forbid that I actually just straight up tell the poor galoot that I met someone else. Instead, I felt much more comfortable just ignoring the text messages that kept invading my inbox. Then, in lieu of the cold shoulder, I thought I might try the "I'm so busy; school is so rough" excuse. Alas, his efforts were not thwarted. He continued to bombard me with texts reading "you're doing a great job of ignoring me," "has school gotten any better?" and "what have I done to piss you off?" I guess I should have felt bad, but being the heartless wench I become when I'm finished with a relationship, the texts just pissed me off more. Honestly, was he just not getting it?? So then, five ignored calls and three angry texts later, I decided to be blunt.

The last text I had received said, "why are you pissed off at me?" I responded that I wasn't pissed, I just didn't get the impression that the relationship going anywhere. He sent back another text asking what gave me that impression. So I let loose on him. The text went something like this, "I never met any of your friends, you were never up for going out, and despite me telling you my opinion on booty calls, you really only called when you wanted me to come over after 10 p.m. " Done.
As soon as I thought I was free, I get back a very business-like "Please know that all of your concerns could have been addressed had you talked to me about them."

That was the last straw. I went shitangy.

And then I erased that text and wrote this, "I had addressed all of those concerns on multiple occassions, and then I waited to see if you would change anything. You didn't."

Here's the kicker. After all this impersonal, back-and-forth bologna, he wrote back the cheesiest thing ever. "I must have missed those conversations. It was a pleasure getting to know you. Godspeed, Ms. Slater."

Blech!! Give me a break! Godspeed?? Who is this tool? Good riddance!

And then the realization set in that I had left a few things over at his place...a serving dish, roasting pan, and a DVD. Hmm...so that's what it means to cut your losses and move on.

Meh...I didn't like that movie anyway.

Mean Girls--not only in the box office

There's something that separates the boys from the girls. Anatomically; yes, of course, but there's something else that happens to girls that just does not happen to boys. It's that first time you get stabbed in the back, or hear a nasty rumor spread about you, or find out that your best friend is actually your worst enemy. It's almost like a rite of passage into Girl World.

Being back in a classroom environment, I witness girls getting their first bitter taste of just how nasty girls can be to one another. Their bloodshot, weeping eyes above their tear-stained cheeks rips my heart out every time because I know exactly how they're feeling. I've been there too many times before. For example...

Location: Kuehnle Elementary - Best Friend Ann and I met New Friend Pam who lived up the street from us. New Friend Pam and I became fast and furious friends, leaving Best Friend Ann glaring from her living room window. A week later, New Friend Pam received a note from me in her mailbox letting her know that she was not a welcome addition to our group and that she needed to move away again. It was written on Best Friend Ann's stationery.

Location: Klein High School - The summer before my freshman year in high school ushered in the realization that my best friends in middle school (the equivalent of "The Plastics") would cease being my friends and instead opt to hang out with older boys. No problem. I had just joined a 90-girl dance team...I could find friends...right? Wrong. The friends I had made at first stopped calling about two months in, leading to several Friday nights with my parents. This, on top of braces and a not-grown-into nose, made for lots of "character building." Luckily, Molly, Meagan, and Nicole came to the rescue about a month later.

Location: Southern Methodist University - Where do I even begin? If people think high school girls are nasty, then they have obviously never gone through "recruitment" at a private college. We are trained to politely (and sometimes hypocritically) tear girls' reputations apart. I can remember being out and meeting some unsuspecting first year that had come up during "pic show," and thinking, 'Ohhh...that's the girl that did (insert whore-ific act) ; she does not display the ideals of a Tri Delt lady...' Meanwhile, the girl who had given that 'con' is busy hooking up with an entire frat house.
I could go on for days about evil girls in college, but I digress.

Location: Ethel Hedgeman Lyle Academy - my classroom - I had reprimanded one of my students who was not doing her given assignment, even after I nicely told her to do it. This is the same girl who I had given 3 after-school detentions for being a bitch to other people. She rolled her eyes and started passing a notebook back and forth with this other girl. I had seen this before...it was a Burn Book...I could smell it a mile away. The stench of venomous words and vitriolic emotions is unmistakable. I confiscated it, out of pure curiousity. What I read took me back 10 years. It read:

How Ms. Slater gonna look at me like I'm crazy cuz I was talkin.
I know...Big fish woman ass anerexic bitch
I know she's just testing me, but I'm not gonna get in trouble this week. Otherwise, I
woulda beat her ass before I step in her class
I'm wit u on dat
She get on my nerves. I wanna strangle her, cut her up, feed her guts to my aunt's
cats, then throw the rest in the Pacific Ocean and feed it to a humpback whale with
her dog-lookin ass...I hate her.

Sweet, right? I was appalled and shocked and I felt like I was back in middle school. My heart sank into my stomach; but instead of crying to my mother, I decided to conference with them and get to the bottom of it. One of them cried and apologized profusely. The other, showing no remorse, had her parents called for making threats against a teacher. I suspended her, her mom looked at her with deathrays shooting from her eyes, and then she cried and apologized profusely.

I obviously have learned how to handle these situations. But what do you tell a girl who has just gotten her emotions stomped upon by another girl who's just as fragile? It's not like how it was when you were growing up. As much as you want to take out your weeper for TCBY and bad mouth that other girl over a large cup of 96% fat free frozen yogurt, the perpetrator at the helm of the issue is also a child...and you're the adult now.

I just don't know what to tell them, except that it will never change. Girls will probably always be horrible to one another; what changes is how we handle it. I suppose we've reached that time in our lives where we should unselfishly forgive that heartless bitch, but we do not, should not, forget. Be nice, ladies.

Elevator Small Talk

You have seven floors to say "hi." After that, the doors close and the probability of ever seeing your stranger again, is next to nothing. Listen carefully, because next time you find yourself in this square box breathing in the same air as your neighbor, you’ll think twice before staring down at his shoes searching desperately for something interesting on his shoelaces to concentrate on. Instead, you’ll step into the air-tight deathtrap (pardon my pessimism, but if you really think about it, you’re riding in a flying box suspended in the air held only by a 2-guage cable) stare that person directly in the face, and say "hi."

Isn’t it funny how fascinating your nail-beds become when you’re riding in the elevator. In an effort not to make contact with your neighboring passengers, your hangnails suddenly become the most interesting thing about you, and you force yourself to fix a serious gaze onto them, well aware that the Suit next to you is probably wondering what’s so great about your nails.

Then there's the nonchalant glance at your phone, as if you could care less whether or not you have a missed called. (Although you've been compulsively checking it like clockwork waiting for the bell to go off alerting you that yes, someone else in this world does know you exist other than your Mother. By the way, parents and siblings should count against your call log. It's their job to call you, doesn't count in my book.)

Then there’s scenario B. You step over the ledge separating the stationary world from the moveable world when Mr. Litheeeyum holds your stare, wishes you a good afternoon, and picks up a conversation with you as if you’re an old friend. After you realize there isn’t anyone else in this small room and yes, he’s talking to you, it’s too late, he’s already staring at you wondering if you’re a mute because you won’t answer his question. You hastily spit out “yes” and nod your head politely, secretly praying he didn’t ask if you worked Sunset Boulevard at 4am and that’s why you looked familiar. Next stop, reality. The doors open.

Who knows, maybe your deathtrap is really the window to the start of something. Note to self: the stairwell should always be your second option. Moveable rooms are much more interesting.

Since writing this post, "Huh" has become much more confident about riding in elevators with boys.

Speech! Speech!---If you speak it, they will fake it.

A few weeks ago I was asked, as the President of the Rotaract Club of St. Augustine, if I would give the keynote address at the Youth Leadership St. Johns graduation. While you may be thinking, "what an honor", really the circumstances are not that flatering. I do work at the Chamber which is the organization that houses the YLSJ program, and the Director of the program is also the VP of Rotaract...so it was really more of a convenience thing, I guess. Regardless, I thought my days of speaking to an audience of slightly-annoyed, cooler-than-thou teenagers were over--but I guess not.

Oh, and like the really mature 23 year-old I've grown to become, I stayed out until 3 a.m. the night before and decided to get the most drunk I've been since homecoming 2006. I really thought my days of waking up at 7 a.m. with the signature dry mouth and headache from hell that only too many glasses of wine can leave behind were over--but I guess not.

Yeah, I lead by example.

I was so nervous when I began that I stumbled through the first two lines of my speech, but eventually I caught my breath and made it through sentence after sentence of anecdotal crap. About four minutes into it I realized I was gripping the podium. I eased up on my death-hold and was relieved when I got through the (insert light laughter here) parts, and the audience did as they were supposed to. And I was even more relieved when they clapped at the (please god, insert appluase here) part at the end. Its not like they shook the room, but it lasted long enough for me to skip back to my seat. All in all, the speech went well, but I look forward to the day that I can truly be a great public speaker--the kind that doesn't get super-nervous or rely heavily on a script.

Funny enough my boss turns to me after the whole deal was over and asks me why I didn't do public speaking as a profession...I think it is her way of telling me I suck at my job and she wishes I would just quit and travel the world speaking at youth leadership graduations. ha. I'll take whatever compliment I can get from her---she's french, they are hard to come by.

I did get some pretty flowers out of the deal...and then they asked me to take photos at the event. So when I wasn't speaking I was crawling around on the floor trying to get a good angle, power suit and all.

Another day I can walk away saying I love my job/organization (er, whatever I represent these days) even more.