I have an extremely long week ahead.
And, several decisions to make.

But, there’s one in particular I am teetering on.
What is my threshold of vulnerability?
How much do I really tell?
Am I willing to be exposed?

http://www.last.fm/music/Jamiroquai/_/Everyday

Perhaps it will be worth it...
to not only watch his lips as he speaks, but feel them on my lower earlobe as he whispers about Paris.

J.
…………….

Since an early age, I have been continually told by my parents, teachers, childhood fairy tales, and the leading ladies of television and my toy box, I can do anything I want to do in life – the world is my oyster – an oyster filled with unlimited choices. I can be and do whatever I choose. I have endless choices. But, how do I choose the right one?  Barry Schwartz’s best seller, The Paradox of Choice, addresses the paradox of choice, comparing life’s choices to choosing toothpaste to  a generation’s paralysis in finding their life’s direction.

As a child of the 70s, a decade still feeling the 1960s’ second wave of feminism, I have been bombarded with images of princesses finding Prince Charmings with glass slippers, Amazon women fighting crime with golden lassos of truth and flying invisible jets, and a 5’11’’ blonde bombshell living the American Dream with her dream career du jour, in a dream house, with a dream guy, driving a dreamy pink Corvette. Cinderella, Wonder Woman, and Barbie made finding the man of my dreams, fighting crime, and choosing a career seem as easy as shopping out of the Sears catalogue.

I have been told I have unlimited options. But, do I really? What if I wanted to wear my glass slippers as I flew my invisible jet to my dream house? Can I have all the choices I choose? And, what if I get bored with my invisible jet, can I park it while I drive my pink Corvette? Do these unlimited options truly mean my options are limitless?

Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice addresses the dilemma many female thirty-somethings are facing, are our force-fed infinite choices, determining or detrimental?  Just as Schwartz’s describes his quest for a pair of jeans as most unbearable, Gen X girls are “forced to invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, anxiety, and dread” in their quest to make their biggest life choices.

Schwartz’s psychological and social study demonstrates how, as Schwartz’s book cover states, our culture’s abundance is robbing society of satisfaction, an anthem, if you will, for female Gen Xers like myself.  Schwartz proves chapter by chapter, from shopping for toothpaste in the supermarket, to picking a college, to the psychology behind picking toothpaste and a college, “…as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negative escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates”. 

As more and more female role models came on the scene – Samantha from Bewitched, Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie, and the girls from Facts of Life – the stress and anxiety level of my generation grew into obsession with our looks, our bodies, our fashion, having children, and obtaining the corner office with a view.  My generation was told we needed to choose all of the above – but, without genie or superhero powers.  We were told we needed “it all.”

Deciding the direction of my life is still alike shopping in the toothpaste aisle at Super Stop & Shop. The options lay before me on two-thirds length of an aisle taking up four shelves; I can choose Crest ProHealth, Crest with Scope, Crest Healthy Radiance, Crest with Cavity Protection, Crest Nature’s Expressions, Crest with Tartar Control, all in a variety of flavors and consistency, Lemon Ice, Clean Cinnamon, or classic Mint in gel or paste. What should I choose? What do I want? What do I need? Should I get more than one?

I find these choices, like Schwartz, debilitating – both in life and in the supermarket. Is life – and oral care – really this difficult? What is the significance of the abundance of these peripheral choices? Why can’t life be as simple as my grandmother’s – meet a boy, get married, have kids, buy plain Crest?  Christopher Caldwell of The New Yorker agrees, “Nor is the “paradox of choice” limited to the shopping aisle. It helps explain why so many people at age thirty are still flailing about, trying to choose a career—and why so many marriageable singles wind up alone. You await a spouse who combines the kindness of your mom, the wit of the smartest person you met in grad school, and the looks of someone you dated in 1983 (as she was in 1983) . . . and you wind up spending middle age by yourself, watching the Sports Channel at 2 a.m. in a studio apartment strewn with pizza boxes” (Caldwell, 2004).
 
I agree with Schwartz, “the ‘success’ of modernity turns out to be bittersweet, and everywhere we look it appears that a significant contributing factor is the overabundance of choice”.  I do not hold a grudge against Cinderella, Wonder Woman, or Barbie; they were just doing their jobs.

After surviving childhood and my teenage years, I still have faith the world is my oyster – still filled with unlimited choices.  In regards to my life’s direction – and oral care – I follow the instructions of my female role models:  I do my best in all that I do – and I stick with the basics – plain Crest toothpaste in classic Mint flavor.

Best,

JOSIE.

REFERENCES

Caldwell, C. (March 1, 2004). Select all: Can you have too many choices?” The New Yorker.
        Retrieved March 3, 2008 from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/03/01/040301crbo_books?currentPage=1

Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: why more is less.  New York:  HarperCollins Publishers.

I believe I am in a funk.
Strike that. I know I am in a funk.
I am in a funkadelic parliament of what I can only describe
as a cluster-fungoul of funk.

I have tried many things over the course of the summer
to pull me out of doldrum depths: 
1. Went out on the town with my closest and best girlfriends
2. Shopped for a new car
3. Colored my hair
4. I even jumped on a plane to a tropical beach for the week

I ended up with:
1. Admirations from the mentally ill
2. An arm wrestling smackdown with a car salesman
3. Blotched-up hair
4. A smackdown with Hurricane Fay
5. A full bottle of perfume just waiting to be sprayed on the back of my
    neck for my secret crush to inhale while…
    oops, sorry, had to get my gratuitous plug in for the secret crush

I am left with two choices: 
 1. Pull a Forrest Gump - run in one direction as far and as hard as I can 
     with Korn cranked up to 11
 Or
 2. Go back to my original idea of becoming a 
      beer-and-cheese-making monk.

Perhaps, one and two together?

Nothing makes you feel more like a toaster, than being dumped.
Or, being given a laundry list of faults. Or, both at the same time.

As kinetic as our meeting six years ago, I was in denial of the looming end.
As I have always blogged, destiny is not always fate, but fate is often destiny.

Yes, the impossible, the unbelievable, the never-happens-to-me happened to me 
with a man I was intoxicated with by mere hair and wit for years previous,
however, I denied the fact intoxication evitably leads to a long, slow death by poisoning the soul.

His once insatiable presence is now mere memory.
Our brief and intermittent meetings turned long, romantic weekends reading in bed, are now gone.

And once again, I am alone.

After three years of going steady, I am calling it off.

The long-term relationship I longed for, search for, and finally found,
is now getting ugly, usually one-sided with un-enjoyable visits.

I have decided, I am breaking up with my hairdresser.

The up-do that broke the coiffured camel's back was a panicked
call from Kaz two days ago.
____

"I have a freakin' point in the back of my head."

"How did you lodge a blunt object into your skull?"

Kaz had starting frequenting a new hairdresser three months ago
after commenting on her customer's hair color picking up a large party-size combo
with three meatball grinders to go. The rest is history.

"This is not a laughing matter." Apparently, the situation had turned dire.
"I think she believes it's 1989, I would love her back-in-the-day creation,
and walk out blowing kisses back to her while getting into my IROC to drive home.
I look like an old-school ass."

"Three strikes and she's out. Move on."

"I am. Right after my next appointment."
____

Why is breaking up with a hairdresser worse than breaking off a relationship with a guy?

Some of us get rid of the would-be Mr. Rights faster than
we get rid of stylists who turn our hair a color not found in nature - or worse, give us bangs.

Hi readers,

Sorry for being a slacker in not posting anything new.
I have been busy behind the scenes working on techinical issues and roaming around the online world promoting this blog.

Here are a few quotes I have heard lately....

Apples and Wine

Women are like apples on trees.  The best ones are always at the top.
Most men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of
falling and getting hurt. 

Instead, they sometimes take the apples from the ground, not because they are good, but easy.

The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they are most delicious. 
They just have to wait for the right man to come along –
the one who is brave enough to climb all the way to the top.

Men are like fine wine.  They begin as grapes and it is up to women
to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

***

The fact is, sometimes it's really hard to walk in a single woman's shoes. That's why we need really special ones now and then to make the walk a little more fun.

***

Why is it, that a 30-something, single guy barely making a paycheck, living at home is considered a catch, while a 30-something, single girl with a great job and her own home is considered tragic?

***

I promise to write tomorrow...
As always, thank you for reading.

I give up.

Plain and simple.

What is a girl to do when:

• She finds out her high school sweetheart (and half college sweetheart) got married, has a baby and the whole white picket fence deal – and moved in DIRECTLY across the street from her brother. I mean, what are the odds?!
• Her secret crush is oblivious to her existence.
• Her mother just called to say her and her friends are going out to see the Sex in the City movie.
  Did I mention they all will be able to use their senior discounts? ew.

I just give up.

I am becoming a monk and resigning myself to making life’s essentials –
beer, wine, cheese, jam, and bread.

Would anyone like to join me?
                           

When will this incessant downpour ever end?

It’s pouring buckets of man-boys:

• Boy unemployed lawyers who were only employed seven months in their lifetime, taking handouts from Mom and Dad, sleeping in the same 32-year-old twin bed, you know, cause he is still waiting to hear back on his resume from the U.N.

• Boy employed babagounash neighbor lawyers telling me they are looking for a serious relationship one day and the next, walk some girl he brought home to her car in front of my window, whileI am checking email and having coffee.
            Let’s digress with babagounash…this is also the boy lawyer who took me to grab a Starbucks coffee only to have the barista ask, “Two of the usual?” Him responding, “Um, no, just one.” And the barista looking at me only to say, “Oh yeah, wrong girl.” Classic.

• Narcissitic man-boy real estate tycoons more concerned with finding a good plastic surgeon for his love handles, whether or not  to get highlights, and picking up his three $2000 suits, all while I’m stuck in bed with a 103-degree fever.

Will the sun ever shine again?


Please feel free to share your man-boy story!
Don't worry....I have more...but, I'll save those for another rainy day.