Dont Mince Words

I’m not much of a team sports player.  My junior high basketball career was cut short when my father accidently shaved my eyebrow off when he was “clipping” my bangs.  The pre-teen WTF torture from the girls was more than I needed.  I quit college lacrosse when I got popped in the mouth with a ball and hit on by lesbians in the locker room.  My exercise since those days has been limited to classes and gym-related torture.

Stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) has been on my list of things to do for a long time.  To me it combines the best part of surfing – being on a board – without waiting for a wave to have fun.  I rarely took advantage of the beach/water when I lived in Los Angeles because the Santa Monica Bay is a toilet.  Now I’m less than a mile from a cleaner beach, so I really have no excuse.

My morning was perfect.  My instructor taught me to launch with no trouble, but when you are used to east coast rip tides and drop offs anything seems easier.  I had not even attempted to stand up when the sun rose and a dolphin crossed in front of my board.  My core, quads, and wide-ass hips helped me stabilize, not to mention yoga. But I still fell off.  A lot.  The wet suit was nice and being in the water before work was great.

Unlike rollerblading, this is something I see myself doing again.

I woke and treated SB Man’s body like a jungle gym to the point where I knew I didn’t have to go to 24 Hour Fitness.  And, honestly, sex is a much better way to get the heart rate up, right?

Little did I know, a couple hours later my 50-inch Munch “The Scream” blow-up doll would arrive at the office. Without a bike pump or other tool, I proceeded to administer mouth-to-ass plug resusitation in order to reanimate my flat fellow.  About 10 minutes later, Scream was nice and tall and sitting on my desk, greeting everyone that came to marketing.

I was outside contemplating tobacco.  It’s been a long time since I’ve blown that much on a Monday.

I was recently told that I was living my own romantic comedy.  Dot com-crash-to-Wall Street girl leaves New York for Los Angeles for personal growth.  Discovers the emotionally unevolved, focuses on health, gets laid off more, and then moves to a small town where she has a job and a sensible romantic life.

This is finally my fucking movie.  Finally.

Living in New York was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I connected with a lot of smart and wonderful people.  But I also saw the evils.  I lived in fear for nearly nine months after I turned a dirty cop in to internal affairs.  After 9/11, I figured if I was going to get whacked by the mob, it would be a better death than burning in a building.  Needless to say, it all worked out and I happily left corporate slavery and chose LA as my backup plan when San Francisco was still in flames from the dot com bomb.

As I continue to look forward, it’s easy to reflect with the benefit of hindsight.  And I am one of those people who wouldn’t change anything in my life because even the bad stuff shapes the future path.  All those awful Los Angeles dates served some purpose (I know what I don’t want).  My odd projects, contracts and jobs all taught me that no workplace is perfect (I know what I don’t want).  Working is a fool’s errand.  You just have to try to pick your fools wisely.

The same holds true with dating.  When I was in the beginning interview stages in Santa Barbara, I went to the online personals to get a sense of the mid-40s dating scene in Santa Barbara.  Call it socio-romantic ethnography.  My random how-much-does-it-suck inquiry revealed dating there wasn’t much different than anywhere else:  crazy ex’s, drama, kids, liars, and the chemically altered.  And from that honest baseline, I developed a friendship with SB Man through a very, very long interview process.

But that’s not all.

My girlfriends in Los Angeles squealed when I told them that I saw SB Man four times in one week after I moved.  “It takes about six weeks to rack up that kind of time with one man in LA.  No one wants to make that kind of time commitment for fear of looking….available,” one admitted.

In New York, you knew your life was good when the trifecta of job-apartment-love was in balance.  Here, I know that my patience and perseverance prevailed.  I just don’t know how the movie is going to end.