Skripper Time

Tethered to the Promise of Spring

Ok, so that's not me in the photo, but I REALLY wish it was.  Long long long day at work - it seemed that something went wrong every hour.  One of those days where I instinctively looked for the carb-iest thing I could find at lunch (settled on a chicken shawarma, which could have been worse).

The magic of spring has brought me back from the brink today.  Driving home, I got my first real glimpse of true green - the trees are a fuzzy green delight, the crocuses are poking through and the grey of winter is being replaced by splashes of spring colour.  Nature is a decent healer, and I gazed at my front garden this evening, I was reminded that every day is a new one, and that tomorrow will probably be better.

Reflecting on the current state of Skripper, things are actually pretty great.  The job, while tiring and sometimes frustrating, continues to be fun overall, with a good team and a vision that we're aligned to - and working with TV and movies - who could complain, really?  My car still works, nothing major going on with my house, family and friends still healthy...excuse me while I go and knock on some wood. Tie in that my personal life has taken a strong turn for the better, and I'm feeling the love.  Good times people, good times.  Thanks Spring for reminding me to appreciate the smaller, quiet things.  Life goes on, and my life goes on good.

Things to do in December

1. Sleep.
2. Get my dog back.
3. Dinner party - my place.
4. Drinks with a boy.
5. Get dressed up and fancy and go out.
6. Sleep.
7. Massage.
8. Watch Love Actually.  Cry.
9. Hot tub in the snow.
10. Sleep.

Single and the Upcoming Holiday Season - Love Actually?

Recently I was in conversation with another fabulously single friend who was expressed her reluctance towards the upcoming holiday season.  Holidays, especially ones like Christmas, are sometimes tough for the single peeps.  It's yet another reminder of the fact that time has passed, and here you are, another Christmas season...single (and loving it...right?).  Holiday parties, office parties and family dinners filled with families, husbands and wives, partners and all kinds of rampant, seemingly self-populating offspring that remind you of what you still haven't managed to find in your own personal life.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE Christmas.  I love the decorations, the preparations, the food and drink, the family time and all the trimmings of the season.  If I wasn't so ludicrously busy at work I would most likely have my holiday decor out already.  I have a few holiday traditions - Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe Christmas, my extended family's annual cookie exchange, and many annual holiday dinners with good friends and family.

One of my most favourite traditions is watching "Love Actually" which is a delightful film - funny, sad, heartfelt with a little froth (and, most importantly of all, stars my boyfriend Colin Firth).  Every December I curl up on the couch with a hot chocolate and down blanket and watch the film on a lazy holiday afternoon. 

The movie, which celebrates the simplicity, the complexity and the basic joy of love, is delightful - and on more than one occasion (ok, EVERYTIME) I have ended up on the couch with big hot tears rolling down my face wondering when my Prince Charming will come and proclaim his ardent, true love while I'm working, or defy social boundaries to capture my heart, or stand in front of me with cue cards professing fervent, silent adoration (you know what I'm talking about if you have seen the film - if not, get on it!).  While I love the movie, the combination of holiday cheer and and the celebration of finding true love makes me feel a little blue.

Holidays like Christmas also bring together people you haven't seen in a while, along with the inevitable questions: "What's new? Are you seeing anyone?" followed by "Oh...don't worry, he's out there somewhere" (or some kind of inane response) that makes me want to hurl myself into oncoming traffic. 

So I can't blame my friend for her hesitation regarding the holidays.  Mostly, they are in fact a magical, family and love filled couple of weeks.  But for some and yes, sometimes for me, they are a calender reminder of what you could have had, should have had or might have had if life had taken different turns.  But hey - there's a month and a half to go before December 25th...maybe I'll have my own Christmas miracle this year.  Until then - I'll leave you with the Love Actually trailer (which, in my opinion, doesn't feature Colin Firth nearly enough).

My Self Esteem Isn't Low Enough to Date You

I love these women - Garfunkel & Oates - hysterical songs. Singer/songwriters  Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome are from LA and are super witty.  And just because I came across this one today and thought it fitting for the end of a crazy week...click below for a good smile.

Visit their YouTube page for some more classics - my faves, "Your Friend Steve" and "Pregnant Women are Smug".

Texting and Dating - Too Much or Too Little of a Good Thing?

Cue the Sex and the City Music - I'm feeling a little Carrie Bradshaw.

Rewind 4 weeks ago: I met a really great guy.  We totally hit it off and had an amazing first week of dating.  Tons of fun emailing back and forth, texts throughout the day and overall, things looked really promising.  I'm talking full-on effort from him, and absolute delight on my side to be the recipient.  The second week, he fell ill.  The texts then turned into a torrent of his symptoms, side effects and general impending death (to be fair, he had strep throat, ear infections and then a root canal.   Crappy two weeks for him).  In general, however, it was a lot for someone who had known him for one week. After 2 weeks of "I think I'm dying" texts, he emerged, relatively unscathed, from his spiral of illness.

Something changed in those two weeks, and I won't go into detail, but suffice to say that the fun, flirty texts were replaced with once daily, more perfunctory texts saying hello, or telling me how he had a nap, or that he was tired.  No more witty and quick emails, no cute "i can't wait to see you'  texts - just conversations limited to a couple of lines of text on my phone.  I tried a phone call but was told that talking on the phone 'wasn't his thing'.

Don't get me wrong. I like texting.  I think it serves a purpose. "Hey, I'm running late, see you soon", or, "Waiting outside - where are you?" are two great examples of solid text usage.  I have a friend who gets "naughty" texts from her partner during the day.  Excellent usage.  Fun, flirty texting...go for it.  There's nothing like sending off a flirty text and waiting with anticipation to hear the 'bing' of the phone when you get one back in return.  Texting definitely has a time a place, can be useful and also very entertaining. 

I think live conversations are important, not every day, but a check in here and there works for me.  The irony is, I don't actually like or want to talk on the phone for hours, and that's not what I was looking for.  I do think there is something human, something that connects and nurtures a relationship when you hear the person's voice.  And frankly, it's just more efficient when you're planning, or just checking on how the day went.  While Gen Y and their siblings have grown up with texting as the main form of communication, this Gen X girl wants to communicate beyond the frame of my iPhone screen.

At the end of it all, texting may have been what killed my budding romance which started with a bang and ended with a whimper.  Last weekend we reached an impasse - things weren't going well, I called and left 2 voice mails asking that he call me back, and he continued to text me, generically, once a day.  I knew if I replied to the texts, my impatience and frustration would shine through, so I dug my heels in and waited. He thought I was ignoring him by only replying intermittently, and I thought he didn't care enough to call.  And so the potential for great romance ended.

Fast forward to yesterday. After 5 days of waiting, I got an email from him basically closing the relationship, which ironically, was the longest form of communication I had received from him since our first wonderful week of dating. I called him and offered up the opportunity to chat - but you guessed it, no phone call. 

And now that I've written this blog post, he'll probably never speak to me again.  Shame - because we really might have had potential.  I've learned a couple of lessons, but the main reason I wrote this (other than just getting the thoughts out of my head - therapy, anyone?) is to get message out to all the prospective Don Juans out there who are chronic texters:  Close the SMS screen, give your thumbs a rest and give her a call.   You can thank me later.

July, I thank you.

As July came to a close, and I walked down the street in the sunshine this afternoon, I realized it's been a good month.  Despite the abysmal excuse for summer weather, good things seem to have been surrounding me and I think it's appropriate to express my thanks to the karmic universe for the following:

1. My bike:  Trek 4.5 WSD Madone, bought from United Cycle in Edmonton. Props to my brother Jeff for the connection, United Cycle for the great service and my parents for trucking it home in the Escape.
2. My job:  I like it.  The people, the project, the proximity.  All good. 
3. The dating scene:  The last week and a half has been extraordinarily good.  I'm not naming names, but you know who you are.
4. My fight with the law:  I contested a traffic ticket (The PoPo and I disagreed on my approach to a red light 4 months ago).  The officer showed up in court but forgot his glasses, couldn't read the evidence, and they dismissed it.  Yeeeeehaw!
5. My hair:  I switched hairdressers and got the best haircut of my life.  Change is good.
6. My body:  All the bike riding is working - and I'm still eating ice cream.
7. My family:  Saw my brother and my cute nephew.  Wished they lived closer.
8. My friends and their cottages:  2 cottages in July, 2 more to come in August

I'm also thankful for my favourite number, which is 8, so I'll stop there.  There are more things to be thankful for (Strongbow, The Hangover, my car still running smoothly...) but the list above is the one I'm carrying in my heart. 

August - you have a lot to live up to!

Single and in Your Thirties Sometimes Sucks.

I'm calling it - it's official. I'm going off the grid.

Let me take a step back to explain.  Tonight I was chatting with a single friend, in her thirties, who has a birthday coming up around the corner.  She was bemoaning the fact that yet another year had passed, and here she was, still single, still dating like a fiend and no closer to a long term relationship than she had been a year prior.  

I totally get that perspective.  As a year's worth of milestones roll by, the single woman constantly ticks off one missed goal after another.  Another summer of cottage weekends as a third wheel with your friends and their husbands, another round of holidays at Thanksgiving and Christmas where you attend family and work functions alone.  Valentine's Day where you either ignore it all together, or go out for drinks with your single friends and scowl at the lovebirds. 

On and on it goes, and at each marker, somewhere, whether it is rooted in her sub-conscious or actually spoken out loud, the single girl vows that this time next year, I'LL HAVE A BOYFRIEND, a partner, a husband.  Sometimes it is said through gritted teeth with fierce determination, and sometimes it is whispered in the back of her mind accompanied by a few tears after all her friends go upstairs to bathe their kids and she's left in the kitchen cleaning up alone.

So after some strong commiserating (which only other single girls can do properly), I verbalized what I've been very slowly working towards in my mind:  I'm sick of online dating.  I'm sick of instant messages that say "Hi Sexy, I can make u happy", I'm tired of mundane emails (yes, I like my neighbourhood, and no, my dog doesn't shed) and I'm really really tired of going on dates that I'm pretty sure are going to be a dud.

Now, you might say, that if I go on a date expecting it to be a dud, it probably will be.  Karma, The Secret and mighty all-knowing Oprah would probably all agree with you.  However, what I've learned is that I have pretty good date-dar.  Every single time I've hesitated about going on a date with someone I've met online, I've been right.  Every. Single. Time.  And at the end of the day, there are only so many times that I can sit, looking at a date across the table, and wonder what the earliest I can end the date is.  It's fatiguing, it's depressing and honestly, flat out annoying.  I'd be much happier just dating my PVR.

My friend wondered if we should try a professional match-making service, like It's Just Lunch or something similar.  My issue with that is the cost - some can run you $3000-$8000 - and honestly, if you don't have a guarantee on that kind of investment, I'd rather the money go towards new windows, which would probably bring me more joy and satisfaction in the end. 

My single friend and I also discussed whether our single status had more to do with being picky and expecting perfection, than luck of the draw.  A good friend once told me that I should go to therapy to figure out why I couldn't land a man (which was vaguely insulting and mildly upsetting at the time, but I got over it).  Maybe there's a vibe or energy that single women in their thirties exude, but I also think it has a lot to do with this:  I've got a great life.  Good friends, strong career, own a house and car, and am fairly independent.  Maybe that's a bit off-putting to the standard male (I vaguely recall an Oprah where some guest talked about that - and her response was that women should basically dumb it down a little and put away the expensive purses in order to not threaten a man - seriously Oprah?) but I can't change who I am.

I've struggled a bit with previous boyfriends in order to fit them in my life, but mostly I think it was because I knew they weren't the right guy, and that made everything a little harder.  And I have worked hard to get where I am - so I'm not going to settle for "just ok".  I get that no one is perfect, that compromise is essential - and I really believe that when (if?) I meet the right guy, the over-arching rightness will make the compromise worth it.

So, line in the sand.  Closed the eHarmony account (Sorry Dr. Warren, I won't be dancing in any of your commercials with my perfect match anytime soon), and am removing the Lavalife profile.  It's with a little sadness (why didn't it work for me?) and a lot of relief (thank god I don't have to deal with never-ending email exchanges anymore - I don't need any pen pals, thanks). 

So as to not throw my mother into a wailing fit of "my daughter will be single FOREVER...", I'm not going to cut off all possibilities.  I'm going all Zen and am just going to let what happens happen.  If I happen to run into a nice guy - I'll go on a date.  If anyone out there has a suggestion of someone I should meet, bring it on. However I do ask that you follow a more rigourous criteria than just "alive, breathing + male = perfect blind date for Lara".  Bring it on people, just use a little bit of judgment in your selection.

Otherwise, I'm leaving it up to fate and chance.  Over and out.

Single and Sick in the City

I'd much rather write a post about Single and Sex in the City, but sadly I've got nothing to say on that topic at the moment.  What I can tell you is that I spent today getting through interviews with a throat on fire that caused agony every time I swallowed.  Just what you want when you're spending hours talking about yourself and your many stellar accomplishments.

Another downside of becoming recently single is that when I'm lying on the couch, with razor blades lining the sides of my throat, I'm on my own.  No one to bring me hot cups of honey-laced lemon tea, or to get me my pillow from upstairs so I'm more comfortable on the couch.  No one to whine to about how crappy I feel, or to make me soup and toast and cajole me into eating something.  Gatsby is a great companion, but his lack of opposable thumbs makes his assistance in these scenarios limited.

The last cold I had started like this and I can distinctly remember standing in line at the checkout at Loblaws, bottle of cough medicine clutched in my hand, cold sweat streaming down my back as I suffered through another session of chills.  I vowed then and there that I would marry the next man who promised to make me chicken noodle soup and bring me a blanket. 

I'm sure tomorrow that I'll feel better.  But for now I'm going to wallow and have a very well attended pity party for 1.

Buddha and I disagree on a few things.

Today, my cousin sent me the following quote - in a lovely attempt to help me reconcile with my single status:

But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest. - Buddha

Sorry Buddha, but I don't want to be an elephant.  I want to be a social monkey, with a partner that I can sit with, pick the ticks out of their fur and share a banana or two.  Take that and sit on it.

Lavalife and Baby Daddies

Recently single, I've been dreading the return to the world of online dating.  I've done the gamut before - Plenty of Fish, Lavalife and eHarmony.  I've had varied success on all of them, but Lavalife seems to be the lead site.  I've dated a couple of guys from there - and my most recent, super nice, lovely now ex-boyfriend came from Lavalife.

Online dating is annoying - it is time consuming, you have to filter through a million different profiles and meet some really weird guys.  I popped onto Lavalife this past week, just to test the waters and was amazed (and a little depressed) to see a whole bunch of familiar faces.  All the same Romeos still looking for love.  So I reminisced a little bit with a few familiar profiles...then weirdos started coming out of the closet.

Most notably - and his profile name has been changed slightly - was SPERMGUY.  First I got a smile, and then he started sending me IMs. Out of sheer morbid curiosity I checked out his profile: Older gentleman, 51, seeks woman in late 30s who is looking to have a child.  Yes, you read that right.  A baby daddy advertising on Lava.  He promised to cover all medical bills, including IVF and would produce medical records upon request.  Apparently he already had kids, but was looking to add to his brood. Very few strings attached. I'm actually a little torn between absolutely creeped out and slightly in awe of his approach.

Then the other usual suspects popped up.  The old guys (65+) who tell me I am the most beautiful woman in the world, and that they would love to SPOIL me.  The younger crowd  who love to "have a good time, and hang out" (aka booty call).    Plus all the guys that I didn't want to go out with the last time, but won't take no for an answer.  Thank god for the block feature.

Don't get me wrong - I know that finding love isn't easy - especially at this age.  And online dating sites are probably my best bet, given that I can't bear the thought of hanging out in bars, all dolled up hoping to meet Mr. Right.  So not my style.  So I'll suck up my pride, roll up my sleeves and dive into the mess of Lavalife - it's all for a good cause, right?