leofest 2007!

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alternate title of this post: ok nat, this is for you!

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as y’all know i went camping in keady last weekend, as y’all that have been around any length of time know i’m allergic to posting pics. however miss cherub quite loves taking them and well, some of these are either awesome or hilarious :)

a lot of people were there that are not in these pics but i don’t have permission to post pictures of them. :)

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does this count as an hnt post?

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cherub during photo shoot in the corn!

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cherub and pm and i goofing around during ‘photo shoot in the corn’

lol seriously only cherub could come up with photo shoot in the corn and have it be fun…

anyway here the three of us are…

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this is me vamping it up (please note gorgeous new present shirt from flower:

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only cherub could make this look hot:

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i wanted a piece of broccoli, i didn’t expect the whole stalk…

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it was delicious though…:

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pm being silly:

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if cherub and i ever put out an album:

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look at that moon!

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mmm cougar!

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this is othercat against a skyline… pretty huh? miss cherub was having a good night with her camera…

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fire!

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fire cherub:

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fire sass:

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othercat and cherub :)

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morning after othercat…

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morning after pm and i… with tongue…

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okay seriously how hilarious is that picture???

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me in the morning AFTER coffee… but before food

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same morning…

hee

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and my favouritest one of the whole weekend…

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in other news i kind of screwed up my long weekend. i was supposed to go to the farm with othercat to hang with the fandamily but you know, i was going early friday so i figured hey what the fuck and i said yes when a client asked for a monday afternoon private. why not right? then i can do something in town and pass out nice and easy.

then my mother called. my parents forgot they have show tickets for friday night and now we can’t get to the farm until saturday afternoon!

wait! wait! what happened to my long weekend?

s’all right though, can go climbing with cherub and help her paint her new place on friday night (seriously i volunteered for this?) and the drive up saturday afternoon will be a lot mellower.

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get this! i have 20 hours booked already the week after next. september is supposed to be dead and even with two clients away i’m still working enough two weeks from now. it’s so weird to have things booked this far in advance. you know i have a client now who has booked in through christmas? i mean wow. things are really starting to hop in this little business of mine and it sure feels nice.

it built itself at the speed i could handle and continues to do so, i wonder where it’s taking me… i have clients already asking for audio and video cds and i find i might just make them some…

i spent the rent last month on plane tickets and parking tickets and car renewals and more stuff for the studio and a few other things and you know what’s really amazing about that? even with all that unexpected spending i’m well into paying october’s rent now. how cool is that???

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yes i do feel like i lost a hundred pounds since that whole working more thing started, how did you know?

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FOUR leos showed up in total… nice but not our record…

muse-ic

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some of you know that i play a drum. an african drum to be specific, called a djembe. currently i’m playing with stick on side during all along the watchtower at band practise and i’m feeling inspired. (hitting the side of your drum with a wooden drumstick [never the head of the drum!] to make a staccato rhythm.)

i’m feeling inspired because i went to two festivals in three weeks and at the first one i was immersed, drowned, submerged, nay bathed in music and peace and good vibes and all the joy that hillside brings and at the second? at the second i was bathed in musicians instead.

that came out dirtier than i meant it…

anyway, summerfolk is a smaller festival and i’m not really an audience kind of girl when i work somewhere. i always hang out backstage or in the volunteer camping area or where my volunteer job is or whatever. backstage at hillside is chaos and madness and a thousand volunteers and a whole lot of performers.

backstage at summerfolk is quiet and mellow and always the same people. it’s just smaller. and because there are fewer people overall there you also run into the musicians in the beer tent or at a craft booth or whatever and i don’t know about you but i always prefer the behind the scenes to the onstage or out front part of anything and summerfolk is sort of like that all over the place.

it’s like if i played in a rock band, i would want to be the bass player. still there but in the back. when i worked in television i edited and didn’t enjoy being on camera really at all. okay so.

i spent the weekend partying with people who make their living making music and i came home inspired. i’m singing out more and articulating better and having more fun with my drum than i have for a while and getting the other drummer in our band cheering me on.

been a while since that was true.

i think it’s because i decided to take up a new musical discipline. more on that later.

i also came home challenged to get my agoraphobic band to leave the basement. never going to happen.

but i did get something else. i saw people who are struggling every day to make it in this music business, people who have been practising since they were babes in arms and honing their craft for well like ever. people who take genuine joy in the making of music and who would give up nearly anything to do it and who can’t stop making music unless they’re unconscious.

people, in short, who feel about music the way i feel about pilates.

and i know something else, that i’m not one of those people. i don’t have it in me to give up my cushy apartment and my awesome life and my cats to go on the road and try to make it as a musician. i don’t *want* it that way.

i want to make music for the rest of my life, i want to listen to music both real and memorex for as long as i can hear and i will dance until my body forgets how to move and then i’ll dance in my head. music will move me and inspire me and change my life again and again but i?

i am not one of those people.

i just don’t care enough. i was sitting in the back of the group during the finale at summerfolk (there may be a video of said finale there by now) and looking out at the audience while we sang good night irene with ken whiteley and stan rogers along with nathan rogers and i was grooving on the singing with all these great people i had been spending the weekend with.

i was NOT grooving on the several thousand people watching me. just didn’t care. didn’t mind, but didn’t care. felt weird walking out as a performer so i didn’t even lift my head and watch them as we walked off the stage. i just took up the rear and grooved on the moment.

and if you tell nathan rogers that you don’t care about having an audience? he’ll tell you he lives for it.

but that doesn’t make me any less inspired and it doesn’t make band practise any less awesome, it just makes me one of the people who doesn’t want it that much. a hobbyist if you will. it takes the people who have spent years on end honing their skills and crafting their writing and practising again and again and then some more to inspire the rest of us.

without them we wouldn’t make music in our backyards and sing along at campfires because there wouldn’t be songs to sing and dances to bliss out on. perhaps they need us too, perhaps they need to hear us singing their songs when we don’t know they’re there so that they keep wanting to make new ones.

i don’t know what it is but i thank them for the push nonetheless because my singing voice took off again and drumming was fun once more. if you can believe that drumming ever isn’t fun… because that’s impossible, but it was less… sublime for a while.

to all of you out there that practise into the wee hours over and over? and those of you that crave the audience? and those with gifts they choose to hone? and most especially to the songsmiths among you?

thanks.

drat and other wimpy words

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okay so last night i went out for a beer and then dinner with a friend of mine. i had a beer before i left my house, three pints and a pound of wings. oh and some of the best sweet potato fries i’ve ever had (jalopeno mayo!)

considering i got to the pub at 5:30 and home at ten you can see i had one of the rockingest friday nights ever. shut up i was happy to go to bed early, i’m not sleeping enough this summer. no it isn’t stress, it’s fun and festivals and camping on the ground.

but here’s the thing, that three pints of beer killed me!

i came home and tried to blog and didn’t like any of the three posts that i started and i felt kinda funny and strange and it took me a while to figure out. i’m hoping my new found cheap drunkenness is only a byproduct of lack of sleep and not enough food because i really don’t want to give up beer.

i mean i really don’t.

beer is.. beer is goooooood.

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pv it’s okay, suddenly i hear buffy from ‘beer bad’ too.

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i love beer, i love beer the way some people love wine (though i quite like wine as well) and i don’t want to have to give it up.  i’ve already had to give up okanagan extra apple cider (soooooooooooooooooo goooooooooooood!) because it gives me a hangover before i’ve finished the first bottle but i just blamed sugar.

please let it not be cause i’m all like old and stuff now!

don’t want to give up beer!

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i met a man the other day who said, with no trace of irony whatsoever “yeah so i started an investment bank”

you know, the way i say ‘yeah so i went to a festival’

so i started a bank??? how do you say that casually?

[yes i know, the same way i say 'yeah i help repair backs with disk herniations' but still! {always so much more impressive if it isn't your own field huh?}]

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dudes!

summer is nearly over! i’m not nearly brown enough and i haven’t been to enough festivals and and and!

ack how did this happen?

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okay okay, it’s been a truly spectacular summer… right down to the personally transformative experiences.

and now i’m off to a camping party in keady…

see you later!

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hey nat’s comment is too funny so here’s what i want in the comments…

something like nat’s comment “yeah so i….”

some examples “yeah so i walked on the moon” or “yeah so i designed and built a nuclear powered rocket ship in my garage” or whatever….

(other comments welcome too of course ;>)

washing off

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there is something about the shower at the end of a folk festival that is particularly fantastic. it’s almost like the festival enfolds you in different layers and you get to relive a weekend’s worth of experience in twenty minutes. thirty if you’re feeling decadent.

there is, of course, the moment you step into the shower and admire the rather gross black gunk that streams off your feet at the first touch of anything not covered in dust. okay this particular kind of dust is unique to owen sound… please consider this the summerfolk shower rather than the hillside one. *hee*

okay so the steam hits your hair and campfire smoke rises off it and you slowly step into the water and just feel the dust and the campfire coming off you in waves. the water is running black and you start to feel clean for the first time in three or four days and you hear music in your head. beautiful music that is always the medley of the best things you heard and this medley always accompanies a mental melange of the very nicest parts of the weekend in some surreal and perfectly edited video.

somehow this ritual shower is the time your brain puts the festival away into it’s various drawers. some drawers are opened often and some just once and some go into your regular memory and stay there as long as they can.

i had a particularly excellent festival last weekend that goes into that little space in my life where the truly priceless experiences go(i went onstage for the finale!) finally i know enough people that it’s actually fun to just bounce around to all my festival friends [defined as people you see annually for a weekend but are delighted to see EVERY time] and i met some really beautiful people to add to that already wonderful collection. (dudes have NO idea how many tries it took me to do the ful in wonderful. finally went climbing again after an injury break month off and the fingers no worky.)

but more than that i got… i got something i needed even more. something that will stay long after the campfire smell is really out of my hair (it isn’t) and the music is only on cds again. oh man if i could have a recording of that version of who do you love those crazy assholes did on sunday afternoon in the battle of the mixed up bands? i’d listen to it a LOT.

something that will save me a little bit.

i met a man this weekend. not the kind i can take home and introduce to my parents… er that’s not right because he’s totally that kind but not for me (sob!) since he’s already met his in-laws and i’m not related to them. so, i met this married guy who somehow gave me something i didn’t know i needed until i heard it. and i didn’t hear it until at least ten minutes after he said it.

i don’t know if i’ve told you guys about festival buddies. these are people that are rarely the same twice and are never who you expect to hang with on your way TO the festival. these are people that make your life better and share conversation and best friendship with you for the few days you know them.

some of them hit you harder than others.

nearly always they change you in a small but meaningful way and nearly always there are regretful hugs and repeated good byes and promises to hang out again. in this particular case i believe we would be festival buddies at any festival we were at AND that i will like his wife as much as he.

this one gave me a humdinger.

being thirty six and single i’ve had a lot of people presume to tell me what i’m doing wrong and right and what i should and shouldn’t do if i actually want to have a family. i’ve been told to change my personality and to lower my standards (which is ridiculous since NOBODY ASKS ME OUT!) and not to be so open and to basically make myself less. i’m intimidatingly self-sufficient says the FIREMAN! (i know it’s fire fighter but he’s a guy) i’m too challenging and difficult and and and and and!

and i keep saying ‘but wait… what the fuck?’ isn’t being yourself and loving yourself and being the best you you can be the most important thing you can do if you want to make a functional relationship? don’t you have to be happy and fulfilled within yourself so you can get out of your own way?

why am i supposed to make myself less while everyone else goes out there and finds their ‘best self?’

and this man? this beautiful, off the market, smart as anything, funny, considerate (i know, i don’t believe it either) man that i spent the weekend being best friends with? this guy i would cheerfully introduce to my parents and expect them to love? this person who gets me the way you need to get me if you want to make a go of it with me? this guy who laughs at the things i say that shock most other folks?

do you know what he says in the five seconds before he hugs me good bye?

he says “stay just the way you are especially the sarcasm, don’t change anything”

how did he even know i needed him to say that?

where did he come from that he knew i needed to hear that because it was starting to get really hard to have any faith? i can’t decide if the universe was being cruel or kind this time, i don’t meet many men that get me and lately all of them are previously claimed so it’s always a little sad to meet another one that’s just the same but at the same time?

it had to be a guy at that level saying that or i wouldn’t have HEARD it.

it had to be someone i wanted or i wouldn’t have listened. it had to be someone *i* get that way who finds me just as delicious or i wouldn’t have let it be said. it had to be just that combination of perfectly impossible.

how did he know how badly i needed to hear that to help myself wash off all the bullshit?

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oh and john? you want to check out nathan rogers and dala and chucky danger from this weekend and that 1 guy and mother mother from hillside…

3×3x4

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hello, my name is sassinak and i’m older now.  one year closer to that whole biological clock time bomb of bullshitness and one year further away from that whole crippling self esteem time bomb of bullshitness that was school.

funnily enough i’m in a fantastic mood considering how the first paragraph of this post turned out.

my shindig was awesome, surreal of course but totally awesome.  i got a few lovely presents and several bottles of wine and the food was great and many chips arrived and it all just went really well.

the last man standing was tommer and the last woman standing was princess valium and othercat and af didn’t make it quite that long and boy was i ever glad to pass out at six in the morning!  it was incredibly different from my last party because fewer people showed up (like thirty instead of fifty) and people were more willing to hang out in the bedroom so we ended up with much more fluid groups and longer conversations.

some clients showed up and one boss and a bunch of friends and some people i’ve never met and some people i used to live with and all in all it was so lovely to see everyone and man did i get trashed.  it was a much easier party to throw than the last one because i did a LOT less work and you know what?  next time i’m doing less again!

i still have a ton of leftover (awesome! and kind of planned for) food [macaroni and potato and veggie salads and a lot of fruit and a little cheese.. just enough cheese... mmm cheeeeeeese and chips] and beer and so i think that next time i’ll get less beer and make a touch less food.  not much because the leftovers will feed me all week and it’s all stuff i love.

i mean it was my birthday after all, that food was for me!

well okay and the thirty some people who showed up to party with me *grin*

i think my favourite thing i did for this one was the bowl of chocolate candies i got.  anything that was 3-8 for a buck at the chocolate store i bought some of and filled a bowl with wonderful things.  earl gray and cardamom and ginger and mint and regular flavoured dark chocolate, reeses  cups and hersheys bits and pistachio nougat (no worries e, i’ll get more nougat next time!) and multiple flavours of bonbon and and… it was a twenty dollar chocolate bowl and worth EVERY CENT!!!

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my life is getting more surreal…

more later

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my sister got married y’all!

it was awesome!

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why is it that for my birthday the government hands me a bill and makes me deal with bureaucracy?

that’s just so unfair!

but at least i no longer owe on a single parking ticket.

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the combination of pms and my annual pre birthday malaise (always forgotten about the time i start to celebrate…) was really deadly this year.  deadly enough that i’m making more of an effort to take my cod liver oil and my calcium.  two things everyone should know about cod liver oil, it will help fix your dry skin issues and if it smells bad it is bad and you need to go get some fresh.  oh three, the capsules are easy to take.

i started taking cod liver oil because shane was talking about how it helped with the rashes she got in the winter from lack of vitamin D,  she’s from bermuda you see and is used to a lot more sun than we get here.  anyway MY skin always gets killingly itchy in the winter so this year i started taking cod liver oil and bam!  all better.

nice since i’m allergic to moisturizer.

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my fresh ankle sprain was only a class one and i can climb on it, untaped, in a week.  so i’m happy about that.

my old class seven hundred ankle sprain is still cranky but it is improving and i can climb on it, taped, in about a week.  it turns out to still be cranky from hillside.  not to mention that one of the muscles in my foot has gotten a little atrophied from all this not walking right and non-functional ankle and my big toe is starting to do that terrifying sideways move of death toward my second toe and i do NOT want bunions.  so now i have to fix my foot again.

this is better than the alternative like you guys have no idea.  that foot and the way i landed the other day?  my little class one sprain?  should have been a crunch that left my ankle in a cast.  wasn’t.  wasn’t because i’m too flexible and my bones are strong as hell.  wasn’t and instead i got a nasty little bruise and a limp for a week.

so yeah, feed your kids milk when they’re kids.

right, more calcium, note to self… eat more yoghurt.

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life is good y’all.  i love most of my clients and my rent is paid as soon as i pick up a couple of paycheques and i think i can even buy my ticket to the pma conference this month and it’s a SLOW MONTH!

*does quick check at orbitz.com and notes prices are stable*  *tries to remember to email nat about sunday night…*

i know!  my life rocks!

:)

pms

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well, my monthly bout of pms is over.

thank the universe

good god that’s freaking awful that is. i was pretty sure i had pms because my boobs were killing me but man it was awful this time. i practically went into a killing depression about my total lack of any kind of familial future, dateable men, money in the bank and willpower regarding french fries.

oh yeah, it was the kind of pms that attacks your self esteem in all the nasty places. the kind that sends you out for chocolate except that you’re too miserable to actually occupy a public space where you might purchase such things. the kind that leaves you staring into your own haunted eyes in the mirror for hours afterward.

the kind that ends in nasty nasty cramps.

because you know, that’s how it is.

comforting that my decade older client today complained about how much worse it gets from here.

oh god… all i can think of is MORE vitamin d and calcium… must not be getting enough calcium because i’m nice and brown…

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in lighter news, my shindig is tomorrow and i’m stoked.

i’ve made lovely food and am now sleeping before (get this!) someone delivers me flowers! i don’t know who they’re from but apparently i get a lovely bouquet.

go me :)

that’ll be i think the fourth time i get flowers…. counting when sappho died. i mean the full on delivery deal. bruins did it once and tomorrow and the vet and that client hrm… i think that’s it.

so yeah, kinda stoked.

tomorrow i make crudites and cut up fruit and get beer and a little wine and put my feet up and clean up a bit around the place and nibble on party food and generally laze around after (did i mention??) the flower part. yeah that’s cool.

funnily enough i don’t want them often because i prefer them live to dead… but somehow it’s still massively nice to get them.

ETA: THEY’RE A PLANT!  and it’s freaking gorgeous too!

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i hurt my other ankle.

i know, i’m a twit… get this, i full on banana peel fell off this puddle in the changeroom at the gym. it’s actually too bad for all of you didn’t see it because i’m the one that fell and i’m pretty sure it was hilarious. af couldn’t stop laughing for like twenty minutes and again several times thereafter…

seriously though i felll and landed on my OTHER ankle… *sigh*

anyway it’s not too bad so i’m icing it (in a minute) and going to physio on tuesday.

cause yeah, fun :)

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there is a meteor shower sunday night, in fact it’s the annual birthday meteor shower and this year af and othercat are sharing that with me.

clear skies please!

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whee i have presents to open and i haven’t looked inside them yet!

:)

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mother mother rocks.

seriously.

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:)

beef

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i have a beef.

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okay first the old business… final post fast week later weight: 175-178 depending on morning ablutions. [i ate a bit much at hillside, that should be more 173-175 but whatev]

hillside was awesome but other than telling you that mother mother, that 1 guy, and martin sexton are fucking amazing? i don’t have much to say. i’ve been and written enough times now that i don’t feel there’s a lot to discuss. i went, it was awesome, there was bliss, i can’t wait for next year!

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there’s this thing that men my age seem to love to do. well maybe not my age but that’s the only age group i have any real access to in this sort of situation.

i have, of course, no proof but i am starting to recognize a behaviour that i’ve seen more than once so i’m starting to believe it’s real.

so you meet them and you hang out and you chat and everything seems to be going swimmingly. there’s laughing and some nerves and sometimes shoulder or arm touching and generally all signs point to YES!! and nothing happens.

wait what? right, nothing happens.

so i start to wonder and think that maybe it’s me. that maybe i’m actually a terrible person or a person that no one would actually want to date or that getting to know me cures you of any desire whatsoever to know me better. i start looking at my hips and thinking ‘geeze maybe they’re too fat’ and i start looking at my personality like this “hmmm maybe i’m actually hard to talk to or not really funny or my nervous laughter is off-putting or or or”

and then you know what i keep finding out?

the fuckers are MARRIED! every one of them where i’ve managed to actually get any information? yup, woman at home.

and i ask you seriously what the fuck are these men doing flirting with single women? no wait, that’s not it… i wouldn’t want anyone to think that i don’t think flirting is fun because i *really* do but well, as an example, my sister… within TEN minutes of meeting ANY man she thinks might be into her? mentions her fiance (husband soon!)

it takes her ten minutes and that’s it.

she doesn’t flirt with me for an hour or two and act all interested and touchy feely and then disappear.

she doesn’t act like i’m fascinating and demand hugs from me and then look embarassed when someone asks about her man at home that she’s been failing to mention.

she doesn’t, in short, use courting behaviour at ALL because she’s not actually available to do that and you know? i REALLY want to know where these assholes get off doing this. don’t they know how hard it is to be a single woman ‘of a certain age?’

you get your hopes up a little. you think ‘hey maybe i’ll get asked on an actual date for a change’ and you well… take a different kind of breath because it’s nice when you meet someone who gets your sizzle sparkin’… and you know it would still be wicked fun to flirt with them but really now, just how hard is it to let me know you can’t do anything about it?

not hard at all in my experience. when i’m coupled up the words ‘my boyfriend/lover/husband’ just trip off my tongue. they flow. they have heft and weight and some secret satisfaction that goes with saying them. and, at least in front of me, it’s also dead easy for the MEN that i know who are in relationships that please them… course there may be an element of ‘in front of the wife’s friends’ to it but who can say right?

just…

guys?

i can’t take it anymore… please don’t ACT like you mean it when you’re just out for some casual fun… and if all you want is a shag? ask for THAT don’t act like i’m the woman of your dreams because… to quote the guy who wrote the game? [neil strauss]

“women like sex as much as, if not more than, men; they just don’t want to be pressured, lied to, or made to feel like a slut.”

sing it neil!