Happy Feminist

This week, I'm obsessed with documentaries. In all honesty, I don't watch a lot of TV because.....Toddlers and Tiaras. There is more shit than valuable entertainment on television, so I find other ways to entertain myself. A couple of days ago, my computer wasn't picking up an internet signal so I resigned myself to not working or cleaning or running errands or doing anything else productive. Secretly, I needed a break so I clicked on Netflix and looked up a documentary that someone had raved about on Instagram. Notice how I just used two modern day media forms in one sentence, who would ever guess I'm so old? The movie was called Miss Representation and it was a 90 minute class about women's rights, women in the media and how we are creating an unrealistic female ideal . It set me on fire. There were numerous books I put on my to-read list and when my husband called to see if the internet was back up, I angrily spewed a fifteen minute dissertation on how fucked up our society is, how dysfunctional our idea of beauty is and the fact that I may not make dinner for him ever again. If you haven't guessed, I have a tendency to take things to the most dramatic level possible. For a moment, I even contemplated shaving my head just to prove how serious I was about feminism. I really can't be trusted to consume too much information in such a short period of time.

Today after some Christmas shopping, I came home planning to work on my book, but wanting instead to watch another documentary. In order to justify sitting on my ass and accomplishing zilch, I pretended that my computer was frozen, surfed my options on Netflix and stumbled upon one called Happy. It talks about the genetics of happy, the happiest people on the planet, the most unhappy country and people who are happy despite what many would view as an impoverished lifestyle. Now instead of shaving my head, I wanted to volunteer, learn to surf, move to Hawaii, stop buying crap and start talking to my neighbors. See? I'm telling you, be careful what you show me, I'm a chameleon.

So are you happy? Am I happy? Most of the time, I am. There have been times in my life where I have dealt with depression and almost weekly I need a good cry in order to keep waking up in the morning, but I would say that I am a happy person. Here is where I think some people get backed up with the whole happy thing. "Well, you are happy because nothing bad ever happens to you." Wrong. A lot of shitty things have happened to me, some that I am still working through.
"Well, you are just oblivious to all the horrible crap in the world." Nope, not that either. While I don't choose to follow breaking news or tragic events, I'm smart enough to know that they happen and compassionate enough to know that it's not okay when they do. I can't control these things, but what I can control is how I feel about my life.
"Well you have the perfect life, so of course you are happy." Perfect for whom? It works for me, but it may not work for you. Perfect isn't real anyway, it's a perception that we allow ourselves to believe as fact. Being happy doesn't come from "perfection" or big houses or fancy cars. Happy is a combination of many factors, most of which revolve around community, relationships and doing for others. It inspired me to do more to create happiness in my life and reaffirmed the fact that I really want to live on a beach. Hint, hint, husband. :)

The moral of the story is that this week I am a Happy Feminist. Next week, who knows, I could be a Happy Feminist Vegan or a Happy Feminist Vegan Republican (is that a thing?). It all depends on my documentary options and my computer being broken.

Loving Dirty Underwear

Our wedding day, August 23, 2000.

I did my fair share of dating. By fair share, I mean what I feel was fair and enough that I didn't need to share myself with anyone else. High school wasn't the highlight of my life, social or otherwise, so very little dating went on and when I got out of high school I was convinced that there was no one romantically interested in a weirdo like me. I had gay friends who fulfilled the part of me that wanted to hear "You look hot" or "Let me pick you up for dinner, sweetie". I knew how to masturbate, so looking to get laid wasn't making my to-do list at the time.

My longest relationship, before meeting my husband, lasted a couple of months and ended when this particular guy visited me in Vegas and informed me that he wanted to give up his whole life and move in with me. The desperately needy thing was a turn off and I dumped him before he headed back home. I had one relationship (if you can call it that) which ended after I drove 40 minutes to bring Mr. Faker homemade chicken noodle soup and found him in bed with a girl whom he introduced to me as his girlfriend. There was the guy with a mullet who took me on a ride down State Street on his bullet bike and forced me to question the type of men I attracted. If they weren't in a band (equals jobless) than they lived with their mom (equals will love her more than you). My batting average wasn't very good. One of the band guys took me to his sister's house, where he lived on the couch, and proceeded to treat me in a manner that I imagine most prostitutes would find disturbing. A couple of weeks later, he introduced me to his girlfriend after I surprised him by showing up to one of his shows. Yeah, I've been that girl a few times.

I wasn't made to withstand the "bliss" of having a random guy buy me a drink in a bar, ask for my number and then fuck my best friend the next weekend. I've never enjoyed having strangers buy me drinks, I'm clear that there is an expectation. My parents taught me that nothing in life is free, so that shit never worked on me. I don't like wondering if you want to hold my hand or kiss me at the end of our date. I find no joy in hearing you call your mom a horrendous bitch or informing me that you have two kids you never see because their mom is cunt. It tells me a lot about a man who speak about women in derogatory terms and I don't like it.

Then one day it all changed. I met someone who worked, went to school, and respected me. He wasn't in a band (which makes sense if you have ever heard him sing) and after 13 years, I have never walked in to find him fucking anyone else. Or introducing me to his girlfriend. We had new love that eventually grew into saggy boobed, spare tire love. While some may tout the heart palpitating joy of new love, I will take old love every day of the week. The longer I wake up next to the same farting rear end, the more I realize that I wasn't cut out for single.

I like consistent. I like waking up to the same bad breath, the same inability to take a quiet shower, the same pair of holey underwear and the same drink cups left in every corner of the house. I love washing aforementioned holey underwear and turning the one leg of your jeans inside out before I throw them in the washer. It is a little piece of heaven when you gently caress my back and ask me if I am up for one more show. I am totally up for one more show. I was built for long, smelly, old, fat, nasty love. That new stuff is highly overrated and I get the same butterflies I did the first time you kissed me, except now I don't ever wonder if it will be the last time. We will kiss again tomorrow and the next day and then we will fight about money or who is getting up with the kids. I will apologize and so will you and I'll curse your dirty underwear after you leave for work. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

  Our first 5k together, May 2013.

Don't forget to head over to mythirtyspot.com where I have a new article about raising boys and why I was scared shitless to do it.