Wherein the author checks in to reality central

So tonight I spoke on the phone for the first time with D-fav J. He is everything a girl could want in an internet boyfriend and then some. He's got the goods, ladies. Plus--added bonus--he finds both my accent and southernisms exceedingly cute. Few men find D all that cute these days so he wins BIG TIME for that. It's refreshing. So shut up already if I pine on about my IBF.

But anyway, our conversation got me thinking about some interesting things. For some reason, earlier today I was thinking about Jennifer Salyers. She was my locker partner in 7th grade. OK, in those days there was a thing called junior high school and it was a place they warehoused 7th, 8th and 9th graders before shipping them off to high school. And home rooms were organized by last names, so Salyers and Saunders were in the same homeroom. So Jennifer was a CHEERLEADER. And D was a swimmer. I think I asked her if she wanted to share a locker. I recall not really knowing anyone else in my classroom and she was a girl and she was close by. Things were great for a while. I was happy to have a popular locker partner. She kept her blue and white pompoms in the bottom of our locker and I thought they were pretty neat. However, I apparently didn't meet overall CHEERLEADER criteria for acceptable locker partners and soon I was made to feel awkward as Jennifer and her CHEERLEADER friends shot me disapproving looks every time I went to my locker at homeroom time. After a few weeks of that, I made sure I only went to my locker when Jennifer and her cronies weren't around. It seemed that for no apparent reason the shine had worn off D. I tried to make the best of it. But being made to feel like an untouchable for an entire year takes its toll on a young, developing psyche.

Now why would I think of that today? I think there are events in your life that shape you and believe it or not, I think that is one of mine. I was brought to the pinnacle of popularity and failed. I think that single moment labeled me (in my own eyes if not in the eyes of the "in crowd") as less than. I suffered from "less than" syndrome throughout high school. I didn't think boys would like me. I didn't think I was attractive. I didn't think I was smart, or talented or distinguished in any way. I was fairly good at athletics, but there were others who were better. I had a small group of peers who I entertained with my antics. But all in all, I didn't think I had whatever it was that was needed. I was second tier. The problem with this thinking is that it came to define me. When I started thinking about colleges, I didn't think I had the money or the brains to get in a top college so I didn't try. I went to the state college. I was interested in things that weren't supposed to interested women and early in my college career I had encountered several misogynists that led me to believe that the world wasn't ready for a female Quincy. I decided it wasn't for me to change the system. I tried business, but had no interest. I needed a major and had one supportive professor so I picked English. I tried to fit the mold of what I thought English majors were and came to fancy myself some sort of creative type (I'm not sure that any self-analysis resulted in a more skewed result). I even took a Briggs-Myers test and was smart enough to realize how to manipulate my answers to feed into the perception I had of myself. And WOW, when I got my results, it told me that I would be good at exactly what I thought I wanted to do.

My life has been hancuffed by this second-tier belief. It's funny. I applied to the University of Illinois and was accepted. I applied to the University of California-Irvine and was accepted. In fact those things mean more to me than I think my doctorate will. Because I applied to top tier schools and wasn't found lacking. I chose to go where I am, and sure, I am FED THE FUCK UP with grad school most of the time, but no one can take away the fact that I measured up.

As we entered high school, it became increasingly apparently that Jennifer Salyers was destined to pursue the "dumb blonde" stereotype. She grew up and married a guy who developed a drug problem and held up a store and landed in jail. I ended up divorced and pursuing a Ph.D. I'm not happy about the course of Jennifer's life, but I'm just pointing out that popularity in high school doesn't mean squat in real life. I wish that locker-partner thing had gone differently. Perhaps both of our lives would have turned out differently.

On Being 46

Today, I turn 46 years old. As far as I can tell, there is nothing groundbreaking about being 46, except that it is a nice even number and puts me one slippery slope to 50, which all in all, I consider to be a much cooler age than 46. I like the idea of being able to write a reflection on my "first 50 years". In any event, 46, as lackluster as it might seem, is okay with me. It'll do for now.

I pulled out my birth certificate today only to learn that I was born in the afternoon, not the evening as I always assumed. My mother tells me I was induced. Figures. I am notoriously late. My mother had a doctor's appointment that day. It was cold and the streets were slick. (One must remember, this was the early 60s when December was a cold month.) The doctor told her to go directly to the hospital and he would meet her there. (One must remember, this was the early 60s when the average OB/GYN was male and they told you what to do, not the other way around.) She wanted to go home and get her bag and was afraid the slick streets would mean she was not there to meet the doctor at the appointed time. (One must remember, this was the early 60s when no vehicle had anti-lock brakes.)

Apparently, my father had a reputation for passing out in the waiting room, the bathroom, or just about anywhere with a flat surface, but he made it through my birth. Those were the days when the fathers paced in the waiting rooms until word came and then they handed out cigars, or, in the case of my dad, lay prostrate on the floor until someone came in and threw cold water on him and told him it was all over. Presumably, several days later I came home via a car with no seatbelts, lacking a padded dashboard, and in the arms of my mother and not some pansy safety-tested car seat. It is amazing I survived the ordeal.

I was born into a time of Perry Como and Bing Crosby Christmas specials. Television went from black and white to color, from What's My Line to the Midnight Special in a decade. My childhood was Mr. Rogers, Mr. Cartoon, Walter Cronkite, Howard K. Smith, Johnny Carson, Wolfman Jack, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, Goldie Hawn, McHale's Navy (Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway), Flip Wilson, Carol Burnett, and M*A*S*H. I watched Watts burn, helicopters landing in Vietnam, cops with fire hoses attacking peaceful protesters. I was in junior high school when Pong came out. I saw Bambi and Jaws in the same summer. I saw Star Wars and learned all the words to American Pie and Rapper's Delight. I spent an extraordinary amount of time in a swimming pool, ran cross country, watched the inaugural episode of Saturday Night Live, lost my virginity, and played Pac Man and Space Invaders. I saw Ronald Reagan shot and a space shuttle blow up on live TV. I remember the mornings we mourned John Lennon and John Belushi. I still have the issue of Time introducing America to AIDS. In 1983, I went to see Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones because I was sure it was the last tour for both of them. I graduated, moved to a town with a building larger than 30 stories, and buckled down to make my way in the world. Married. Divorced. Back in school. My life has been interesting.

But now I'm dull, ordinary 46. I live in a house that I could live in the rest of my days without wanting for much. I've got it pretty good. I own my own washer and dryer. I have a garage with a garage door opener. I have no desire for a fantasy car or a McMansion. None of my furniture matches and I really don't care. I enjoy botany and reading and keeping upon politics and I try to keep my writing chops by updating this vanity blog. I do wish that I lived in a larger town with greater dating options. I'm not dead yet, despite what my sister seems to think.

Sometimes I wonder what different directions my life could have taken if, for example, I'd married my first love, or if I'd never married at all. If I'd gotten a degree in accounting instead of English. If I'd gone to law school instead of graduate school. If I'd become a veterinarian instead of a botanist.

And then there's the stuff I wouldn't have changed for anything. The dogs. The places I've lived. The traveling I've done. The people I've let in and the one's I let go. My years post-40 have surpassed the dreams I had for my life as a kid. I climbed a mountain in Yellowstone. I took Jake to the Pacific Ocean. I've toured Graceland. I've grabbed a cowboy's ass in Nashville. I've fallen in love with a man I couldn't have… and Utah. I've stargazed on the Continental Divide. I've depended on the kindness of strangers. I've lent a hand to those in need. I've learned to control my temper and my ambition. I've learned to live with my flaws, accept who I am, improve when I could, and really like myself. I have allowed myself to be the adventurer I always knew in my heart, I was.

I have learned some important lessons in my life.

• Embrace failure. It's ultimately more useful than success.
• If someone says, "You can't do that", it's probably because they didn't and wished they had.
• Laugh loud.
• Love large.
• Don't be stingy with compliments. Some people die without understanding how awesome they really are.
• Never pass up church food, spaghetti dinners, pancake breakfasts, fish fries, dinner at Grandma's house, dinner at your friend's mom's, or bake sales.
• The least among us is our equal.
• In general, people are doing the best they can.
• Unless there is a really good reason to say no, say yes.
• If there is a good reason to say no, don't be afraid to say no.
• Sometimes an entire crowd is waiting for one person to speak up. Be that one voice.
• Few things in life worth doing come without risk. Whether you succeed or fail, the important thing was that you tried.
• Forget other people. The only thing that matters is what you think of you.
  
• If a week passes and you haven't told someone you love them, you have a serious problem.
• If money, power, or position causes you to change your behavior, you don't know yourself and that is a much greater worry.
• Fear no one unless they threaten your life. Then, let the ass kicking begin.
• Everyone should have a signature dish.
• Most mistakes are forgivable. Some mistakes are unforgivable. Don't confuse the two.
• If you ask your friends to describe you and they can't or aren't willing to say three positive things about you to your face, you need to seriously reconsider your friends and your priorities.
• Sometimes, words are meaningless. In such cases, shut up.
• Complacency kills.
• When shopping, keep in mind that in almost all cases, you don't need that.
• When someone takes advantage of you, it's almost always because you've let them. You don't have to let them.
• Just for fun, every once in a while, do something you thought was impossible.
• Feed your curiosity.

I am Daktari. 46. Adventurer. Risk taker. And not half done yet.

On being an unsuitable mate

Perhaps with another milestone approaching, I am given to bouts of self-reflection. And today's question is age-old. Why is it that I am so unlucky in love? And not so much unlucky in love as unlucky in finding love? This one has been ongoing for some time. Decades, in fact. This sort of self-analysis is difficult, for it is sometimes hard 1) to see one's self clearly and objectively, and 2) to face the hard realities of what is seen. Loads of things have changed from when I first became interested in men, but one stark reality has characterized the continuum: I have never felt more incompetent in any facet of my life than I have in attracting members of the opposite sex, nor have I so consistently failed at anything in my life. And I often wonder if there is anything I have sought more urgently or ardently.

From the moment I noticed boys, I noticed they noticed girls unlike me. As a teenager, I was: athletic, tomboyish, and, in one of life's truly memorable ironies, flat-chested. I was, in fact, voted the flattest girl in the 7th grade. In any event, boys liked girls who weren't like me. And this was back in the day when I wasn't at all outspoken. In fact, I don't think I spoke until I was in the 10th grade. If I was smart then, I didn't know it.

And yet, I have heard people say that so-and-so was interested in me but I was just so smart. There must have been something they saw that I didn't that made even attempting a relationship seem futile. But I have heard some variation of that intelligence theme enough to have it nag at me as a problem I can't really fix. It's not like I walk around trying to lord my intelligence over people. I just like to talk about stuff. I thought almost everyone did. I thought other people liked to think about things and knock around ideas.

Take Guv for instance. Just today I was talking to him. I was no doubt droning on about something in the news or something I'd been thinking about or how my day was going and he stopped me and said, "what is your IQ?" I mean, who asks that? I don't think I've ever asked anyone that. Ever. Because really folks, let's be honest. I'm not that smart. Guv is a college graduate. He has a masters degree. I used to think I was kinda smart. You know, I could clear a Jeopardy board as long as they didn't have some lame-ass categories like Mythology or Parts of a Diesel Engine or something. Yes, I thought I was smart enough. Right up until the day I got a job at the Field Museum and I found out what smart really is.

When I was a kid, being independent was a sign of maturity, and I wanted more than anything to be seen as mature. Couple that with the fact that my father liked to think he was teaching us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and I'd have to say, he raised some pretty independent girls. But apparently, independence ain't sexy. The big complaint my husband had about me was that I didn't need him. I mean, I was single a long time before he came along and I had to learn to do a lot of guy things myself. Like fix things around the house and deal with car repairs. You get the picture. I have realized that I did need my husband. I needed him emotionally. Unfortunately, he couldn't provide. It was a lonely time. I'll leave it at that.

Despite never having dates, I never felt I wasn't worthy of dates. I don't think I suffered, ever, from a lack of self-confidence. In fact, I think I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I'm really straddling the fence whether sliced bread is all that and change back from a buck, comparatively speaking.

I don't think I have been all that accomplished in my life. I've never risen above lower middle-management and I have changed jobs and professions a lot. I'm in graduate school in middle-age for Pete's sake. I haven't exactly made my mark on any one industry. So I doubt that my accomplishments are intimidating anyone.

That leaves me with looks. Now, this is where things get cloudy. I always thought I was pretty enough, but it seems virtually impossible to be objective about one's own looks. I was able, in my youth, to attract one or two that I also found attractive, so I felt lucky that my attractiveness equaled my attraction. But with my youth slipping away (ok, humor me already), I am left to ponder the realities. If I was unable to attract a suitable mate when I had youth on my side, what chance do I have now of meeting Mr. Wonderful? In the face of such logic, it becomes increasingly difficult to concern myself with my looks. I do try. I haven't given up. But it is hard to stay motivated.

I will give you that I am outspoken. Whatever shell I lived under as a child, I crawled out of with one fist in the air as an adult. Maybe it was always having to scrape for my place in this world. Maybe it was the realization that no one was going to stick up for me. Maybe it was a refusal to be marginalized. In any event, I am perfectly capable of taking up for myself. Granted, not everyone thinks it is ladylike to hold your own in a political, scientific, or religious debate. I exhibit sound logic. Perhaps this is what is so wrong. I don't just allow the men to win.

It would seem that being self-confident, independent, self-reliant, smart, and average to slightly-better-than-average looking aren't enough to get you by in this world, romantically speaking. And if that's so, then what?

Do I resign myself to spending all my time alone? Do I go invest in some cats?

Guv says I'm just upset because I think that men should find brains and education sexy and they don't. No, Guv. It's not that. It's that brains and education are about all I've got these days and no one is buying.

I couldn't walk in a pair of 4" heels if my life depended on it. I'm not ever going to enjoy going dancing. Without medical intervention, I'm never going to have a thin waist. I never had one when I was 20. As things stretch and gravity works, you simply have to accept what you are.

I am alone as I have always been. And this is the great failure of my life.