i am the dancing queen

today is my first dance performance ever! five of us are doing a hiphop song by her name is nicole choreographed by my hiphop/aerobics teacher. we've got little uniforms (cut-off white ts, black pants, black shoes, black hats, hoop ear rings) & are going to straighten our hair & have funky makeup. we're gonna dim the lights to just the spotlights & it's gonna be an awesome show.

all 4.5 minutes of it! :)

i think mr. big is coming. if not to the show, hopefully to the afterparty. but i have some friends coming too.

how fun. we're all excited here for our hiphop showcase tonite. i'll let you know how it goes...

iTalk

i am very shy. people don't realize this but i am. this leads me to be reticent to talk about myself and prefer other people - specifically guys - to lead the conversation. this can be a problem. if they don't know me, how can they fall in like with me?

in the book making sense of men, alison armstrong talks about how women need to talk about what they are passionate about in order to inspire men to get involved with them & their lives. this clearly is one area where i fall short. until last night, i didn't particularly believe this part either.

i mean talking about myself seems so self-centered!

so last night i'm out with mr. big for the second time. you may remember him as the love-lust of my life last year. the angst i went through with the breakup. him agreeing to be exclusive with me. me changing my mind because he just wasn't into it. him then deciding we didn't have enough in common to be exclusive when i decided i wanted that after all. back & forth, back & forth. me sobbing my eyes out. me writing crazy e-mails.

oh the horror.

so now i'm normalized. better than that, i'm a new sexy me. equipped with some new information, just enough to be dangerous, mwahahaha.

so last night. we're eating. and i'm madly scrambling for topics. he's not a big talker. he's a "hanger-outer." which is very relaxing. but not very connecting. i'm interviewing him.

so how's the family? fine.
how's your hunt for new apartment? fine.
how's this? fine.
how's that? fine.

i'm like uhoh, this will be the last of this.

so finally, in my casting about searching for topics, i start to talk about how dance has changed my life & how much it means to me. what fun i'm having. how hard it is. how i kinda suck but am having fun anyway.

he is riveted. looking me straight in the eye. responding. connected.

all of a sudden, we have a conversation.

wow.

and the conversation flowed easily for the rest of the night.

and that was the beginning of a new connection for us. we ended the night with him hugging me (first) & saying he'd come see me dance next week.

it's true. i can't explain why, but men respond and love it when we are passionate about something. it's not selfish, it is giving to them.

i don't know what.

maybe - energy????

rush hour

i just realized something about me.

i am either rushing to get into a relationship

or

rushing to get away.

hmmmmm.

as a new behavior pattern, i'm trying to just sit with where things are. kind of let people come to me. like my cat does when i'm just sitting on the couch.

i get better results that way...with my cat at least.

i dunno. time to stop rushing around in relationship-land. what would life be like if i just smelled the love(ly) roses?

sharin' the love

i love my blog. especially with you interactive readers.

it is like this cool diary that talks back...

mr busy (aka mr. big) is back

i don't remember particuarly what mr. big does on SATC, not watching it more than once, but i'm gonna rename mr. busy mr. big.

he's my ex from last year, of the much angst & craziness. on my part.

only met up once, but we continue to text & talk on the phone. no evidence of craziness from me, so i think he's venturing closer.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. would be nice.

regardless, my self-respect is now again firmly in tact & i resolve never to decay into state i was in with him at the end! nice to be able to write-over...

mean what i say, not say what i mean

friend: [choking. coughing]

me: are you ok? [deeply concerned]

friend: [choking. coughing]

me: [thinks]

friend: [choking. coughing]

me: yeah, clearly you're not. but what else is there to say?

friend: [choking. coughing. laughing.]

-----------------------

news headline: Woman Dies Laughing When Asked If Ok

men r gr8 - #2

ok, another sample of good stuff from the conference that really hit home with me. (see this conference wasn't about rah rah men, it was about making sense of them. so all the stuff was very logically explained. nice.)

so we bang on men for being so logical & not emotional. but really, they are emotional. they just have this filter first.

women: feel --> act
men: feel --> think --> act

they also make decisions based on facts. not feelings.

i can't tell you how many sucky relationships this fact has saved me from. i just reviewed them lately in my mind & it goes something like this. it never went like this verbally - just in what happened. now i get it!

me (feelings): i'm emotionally attached to you. so i'd like a relationship with you. because even though some things don't work, i don't want to leave!
him (thinking): we're not getting along very well. why would we get further into a relationship?

this fact was driven home by my ex who came to visit wanting me to marry him. this is after we're already getting into arguments after only being together 2 days. and how would this marraige work out exactly?

now that i understand that men do feel, but they don't act on those feelings - but on facts & logic - it makes perfect sense.

understanding men conference overview - #1

ok, i am starting on trying to download how much this event meant to me. (it is the conference titled "celebrating men, satisfying women" put on by pax international. you can find more at understandmen.com. i am not affiliated with this event or firm in any way, any comments i have are strictly my own interpretation.)

let me start really simply with the main premise of the entire conference:

MEN ARE AWESOME!

this was a conference designed to translate how men think & act. and let me tell you girls - MEN MAKE SENSE!

at the end of a 2-day conference there was a panel of (unprepped) men. and through the new filter of "men are awesome" - they were. all of a sudden, they made sense! they answered questions asked by all of us, and let me tell you, there was hardly a dry eye in the room. the relief, the understanding, the ability to see that men really want to understand us as much as we want to understand them, was just amazing. in fact, one of the men said, "i never knew you didn't understand us!" more than that - they want to make us happy! they just don't always understand how. and we don't see their efforts.

i can't tell you what a relief it was just to realize that men are good.

everywhere you read (and sometimes experience), you hear or see things happen that tell you MEN SUCK. take a look. most authors, including myself, filter all observations and commentary through this process. (which makes for good reading and bonding between women.) what it does NOT do, is facilitate communication in relationships and foster sharing of understanding.

the main takeaway i got from this event was that MEN ARE AWESOME and MEN MAKE SENSE. you will hear me incorporating this new view into my blog...i don't wish to hate or be angry at men any longer. and thank goodness, i finally attended an event that was designed to lead me in this direction, instead of staying in MEN SUCK quicksand that most of us (feminist-raised) females have been mired in.

more to come...

free your mind...

the value of freeing my mind is already showing up!

i see now why it is best to let guys go & move on if they're not that into me. benefit = i now have emotional energy for other guys!

mr. busy is back in my life again, to some extent. just as a refresher, he was my BF from last year that i was gaga over. mr. possibility is also back.

the good thing about these guys is that no matter what happens, i have a chance to show off the new me, free of static cling. that was the main thing that killed my r-ship with them...so to be cling-free is a big benefit!

that also means, that if nothing really happens with them, everything will be ok. after all, i'd hate for them to distract me & take emotional energy that could be spent on NEW guys.

i've come a long way baby & i hope that i can show that off now...

enigma variations

my friend jack (mr. jack is back, or not just jack as i like to call him) told me recently that i talk about relationships a lot. that pissed me off so i didn't talk to him for a while.

he's right though. i do! and today i finally realized why.

men are an enigma to me. relationships. it's like this big mystery i'm working on, like theory of relativity. in fact, it's my own TOR! it's all relative - to something, lol.

i also realized, walking down the street today in the sun, yea!!!! that i spend a LOT of thought, time & emotional energy thinking about what people 1) have done, 2) are doing, and 3) will do in the future. what if i spent all that time thinking about --- something else!

what a thought. wow. revolutioninzing. or whatever that word is.

what would i think about if i didn't do that?

it's so pointless though really. now that i am no longer (generally) afraid (though i might still get that way specifically...) there is no need to try to prepare for every eventuality. in fact - people themselves don't know what they are going to do in the future! so why spend time trying to figure it out?

ah. freedom. deep cleansing breaths. relief.

the battle of the sexes is over. we can both win. and in the meantime - i can just sip coffee & put my feet up & enjoy life.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

off to see the wizard

i'm off to this conference in NY on understanding men. actually, celebrating men, satisfying women, alison armstrong's conference.

scared. sad.

kitty biting me, lost potential boyfriend, feel very alone & sad.

just so damn lonely being single. or rather - living in the NEast & being single.

when your man doesn't want you (or rather, anything more than your body) and your kitty bites you, it's hard to feel the love.

oh well, at least i'll be with my fav cousins at the conference that i NEVER see...

happy weekend singletons

blah.

humbug.

:(