You want to live where I live. Trust me. :)

This evening I did a shot in honor of Wisconsin's brilliant judgement tonight for equal rights (can I get a woo hoo?) but then I decided I needed a beer to follow up. Had none (bad planning Stacy), but there are $2 bullets at the convenience store just a 2-block walk down the street (don't judge: I'm a city girl) so threw on the flip flops and walked down for my chaser.

On the way, I stopped and chatted with two gentlemen about this most serious conundrum: capris and whether men should wear them or not? And if the answer is yes, does the shoe choice matter?  Discuss.  ;-)

Saw another man "vogue-ing" in front of me as we passed a club playing that Madonna song, yelled out loud I was vogue-ing behind him and he turned around and we had a 3-minute dance routine on the sidewalk as folks stopped and laughed and joined in as his companion clapped on in glee.  Got applause, but no money thrown.  Dangit. Gotta try harder next time. ;-)

On my way home, I was behind two beautiful women with their escort so remarked, "I'm a fast walker, so I'd usually ask ya'll to step aside or move faster, but the view here made me rethink that."

They all turned around, laughed out loud and then stopped and stood and chatted for about 15 minutes before we all left onward to our own destinations. 

Oh! Oh, folks, this is what's life about.

Have fun. Connect.  Talk to strangers, make each other smile.

We're all in it for the long run. Let's make it nice. :)

100 Happy Days?

I finally caught on today that there's a movement out there that's "#100happydays", encouraging folks to find something happy in every day for 100 straight and post a picture and talk about it.

Which, by the way? Is awesome.

But it's actually how I feel every day anyway.  The fact that there's a movement out there and people are making efforts in doing it makes me think:  damn. I just *might* be  that friggin' annoying sometimes to folks.  Huh. #EyeOpener

I had an amazing weekend despite myself.

I had an amazing weekend despite myself.

This weekend was, in a word (prefaced with an adverb) absolutely amazing.  I had the chance to visit and lunch with long-time Zoner friends Aron and Jacki and Scott and Anne.  I met up with even longer-time college and Greek friends Elizabeth and Matt and get to meet Elizabeth's dear friend Julie.  I brunched with a hasher-turned friend Sara and meet her lovely girlfriends and dear nieces.  And then had a chance to play trivia with Aron again and three of his friends who I've now met on a few occasions and are some of the nicest gentlemen I've ever met.  Somewhere in the time among all of that, I also had fun conversations with my high school girlfriends (Vani, Kelly, Laura, Marsha, Mare, Ginny; who did I miss?) electronically and even got my laundry and grocery shopping done.  Amazing, right?

But it all happened despite myself.

Because I almost backed out of each and every one of those things.

I'm so glad I didn't.  Even as I considered making my excuses, I knew if I just motivated that I would love the experience when I went.  It's just that sometimes the motivation gets....hard.

The easy part: groceries? Bah. I always have soup cans in the pantry so shopping can be put off for another day.  Same thing for laundry.  Easy as pie to hand wash a blouse at home to wear the next day instead of making it to the launders to do a few loads.  The personal thing is a little more difficult.

My work, though I love it, can sometimes drain me a little.  It's my job to always be upbeat and helpful and, well, in a way? Social.  And I do love that: where some folks hate cubical-land? I hate office-with-a-door land!  I love being in the middle of everyone, hearing everything, being able to eaves drop and pitch in to help out. And as much as I'd love to work from home some days, it would kill me a little bit every day inside if I had to do that every day and never got out to see others.  But, all that being said? I'm not as social as it may seem sometimes.

I love my downtime.  I love taking long walks (on the beach) through the neighborhood alone or curling up (with my cat) with my book. I actually more often than not feel awkward in social situations than comfortable.  And when I have a long, trying (but productive) week at work where I have to be spot-on, I sometimes just crave hiding away from the world for a few days.  Or at least not having to get dressed or showered and leave my cozy little home to venture out to be with other people instead of just posting a status or two online.

So when this weekend was approaching and I saw how many things were socially on my calendar?  I actually kinda freaked out a little bit.  But, backing up a little:

Today at the grocery store, the attendant checking my groceries stopped, looked up at me and asked me what I did for a living. I told her the basics (media and events in the travel and tourism industry) and she just smiled and said, "I could tell. You're a people-person like me."  And I took that as a huge compliment and we chatted a bit more --probably to the chagrin of the person behind me-- but the more I've thought about it tonight, the more I realized just how much that comment really means to me.

Because, if I'm going to be honest here? (And where can you be if not in your own blog?) It tickles me that people think that of me when I know that sometimes I just don't feel it about myself.  It occurs to me that those who are not thought of as "people persons" get more Get Out of Jail Free cards, if you will, than those who are perceived as those who are. (And, yep, it makes me irrationally angry!)  When people know a friend or colleague is an introvert or the "quiet type", it is never taken as a personal slight if they don't join in or make plans or are moody or any of those things.  But if you're that "people person",  it's often taken wrong the one moment that you're not On Game.

So, back to the point of all of this.  I knew my lunch with Zoners would be amazing (as it always is), but still walked in wondering if I might have done something wrong because one of them I had always played an app game with suddenly stopped playing. And then I went to meet up with old college friends I hadn't seen for years and wondered if it would be OK and comfortable.  Next came brunch with only one woman I knew, with relatives of hers and friends I had never met.  Finalized with a dear friend inviting me to an exclusive invite-only trivia tournament with people who just really met me less than a month ago.

I wanted to run and hide.

But I didn't.  So, despite myself? I went and did all of these things and my weekend was (prefaced with an adverb) absolutely amazing.

And now I'm going to sleep tonight, ready to be spot-on again in my work week because I have all those folks mentioned above who help me come out of my comfort zone to helped me make my life amazing. :

Despite myself. :-)

Meeting Good Girlfriends is Hard. Ha!

Starting this out crude: I call bullshit on that mess.

I've heard it time and time again: that at a certain age, usually after she leaves college, that it's hard for a woman to meet new good girlfriends.  Countless articles are written about it; I've had my own acquaintances say the same thing. Google "adult women hard to find women friends" and you'll see countless opinions about why it is so hard.

I call bullshit. I don't get it.. As a woman of that age (after college -- how may years removed we don't need to get into), I've never discovered that to be a problem unless you want to use it a an excuse.

You want to sit at home with your cat(s) each night (because you know you have them)? Yeah, it's going to be hard to meet a new girl friend then unless that food delivery person you just ordered from is female and actually does want to come in and have the glass of wine you offered out of loneliness.  But if you have interests and are not afraid of doing those by yourself and are willing to talk to others? It's ridiculously easy.

I know the excuses.  I'm single; she's married.  I don't have kids; she does.  I work full time; she's a stay-at-home-Mom.  Nothing in common, right? It's silly, honestly. Because those are surface things when it comes to friendships.  Friendships transcend life experiences. In fact, I dare to say that's what would make you good friends in the first place. Who wants someone *exactly* like you are anyway?

In the 17 years I've been in Atlanta, I've moved around quite a bit.  Sometimes by choice (ooh! raise! let's rent this sweeter condo!) and sometimes by circumstance (thank you, friend, for letting me move in for half a year when my company downsized and I was looking for work).  I'm finally pleasantly settled in my own abode but in all those moves?  All I ever met were great women -- all who are friends to this day. And I met one or two on each adventure. :)

Unemployed? I went out once to throw off steam and watch a Packer game and met my friend Jennifer, who just happened to walk into the same bar that day with a Packer jersey on. Four years later, she hosted my 40th birthday party in her home.

Jobbed-up again? Found a little watering hole halfway on my trip from work to home and met Tammy there when I had to blow off some steam. Found a fellow hockey fanatic who I'm still in touch with all the time; we went to a Thrashers game as "blue haired ladies" a year after I moved from her.

Another job took me miles away again, but I went out to trivia one night and met Penny.  We threw back a beer or two, played some Keno and became friends.  I dog sat for her; she helped me move to where I am now.  Again, we still keep in touch.

And now, where I am, I met Paula, who just happened to be the girlfriend of the guy who lived across the street and was fortunate enough (for me) on a random evening to wander onto the front lawn where I was having a glass of wine in the summer twilight with another girl friend (who I met four years before based on a mutual interest of running).

Did I have everything in common with each of these ladies? Nope. Jennifer was practically engaged when I met her; Tammy is a home owner. Penny has been married for years now and Paula is my wild-child loving heart who's actually a grandmother.  I have nothing of those things in common with them, but somehow it works.  And it was EASY to make friends with these ladies.  And they're all my true friends that I met LONG after those college days of "it'd be hard to meet girl friends after this."  Even if we can't see each other as often as we want, they're my friends. I daresay they think it too.

So that whole diatribe about it being hard to meet good, lovely, quality women after a certain age? Bah. I call BS on that based on experience. I have no problem meeting good girl friends. Ignore those articles, my girl friends, my little sisters in my sorority, my younger colleagues. It's not a problem. For real.

Meeting men, however? Someone needs to teach me a trick or two on that. ;-)

Irrational Pet Peeves

And note by the title that you should already be reading this in the irrational mindset I set up. Ready? Let's go.

Peeving on my pets about this:

1.) People who don't understand that "U R so funny!" is okay in a text or in a tweet when you're trying to save characters, but not in an email or a Facebook response. Seriously? Are you just that lazy that you can't spell it out?  Ugh! And they wonder why society is going to pot.  They do it because of things like #2. Which is totally re-donkulous in my opinion.

2.) Using umbrellas when it's snowing. Seriously, what is up with that?!  I get rain. I get keeping sun off you (especially for you albinos. Yep, I'm probably not PC there. Pigment-challenged? Okay, pretend I said that instead.). But SNOW? Not an umbrella-using precipitation moment. Wear a hat. Enjoy whitey flakes.

(Damn!. That's probably not PC either, is it? Whitey flakes?) Which leads to....

3.) Having to be PC *all the friggin time!* It's exhausting. Folks, consider the source. If you think the person saying or writing what they say or write is actually a true racist? Just don't even have them in your social circles to begin with. Just go away. Send them off into the universe....which may or may not have started with a Big Bang, I'm thinking.

Damn, did it again. And now it's venturing into religious beliefs.

So onward.

4.) What I've been seeing more and more of lately annoys the living daylights outta me: using "Nicca" in replace of the already bastardized "N" word. I get not saying the N-word. Totally. Never would use that word and totally understand why not. But now it's gone another step and you can't even use it in the first bastardization of it with the G's instead? *That's* now wrong too?!  Omg, this is exhausting. I need a nap.

Which means I'm going to wake up and want chicken.

5.) So when Publix runs out of their crack-laced chicken fingers? I'm pissed.  Seriously, shouldn't there be a little nicca albino there making them 24/7?  Stacy needs her chicken afterall.

Huh. This took a turn I didn't expect myself.

*grin*

[and if it wasn't clear? this was also a mind-dump meant all in jest. you know, just clarifying. lest I piss anyone off. which I'm sure I probably did.]

;-)

Generational Etiquette

Question: At what point does it become okay to call the parents of your friends by their given names instead of  "Mr." or "Mrs." [enter last name here]?

Is it when you reach a certain age?  Is it when they tell you, "please; call me [enter first name here] instead of mister or missus"?  Somewhere in between?

Naturally, all circumstances are different. Some kids these days grew up calling their parents' friends by their first names. Shoot, some kids grew up calling their *own* parents by their first names instead of Mom or Dad.  But in my generation, neither of those things were done. You called your own friends your own age by their given names, but not adults.

I liked the tradition up north where I grew up: adults who weren't family but were much closer than, say, acquaintances, got the title of Aunt and Uncle before their name. I grew up referring to my parents' friends across the street as Uncle Les and Aunt Angie; my sister's Godparents were Uncle Dick and Aunt Joycee.I think it was a beautiful way to handle the circumstance: the adults deserved the respect of children not using solely their familiar given name, but also taught us that these folks deserved the respect that came with a title, so to speak, before it.

I think it's why I also adore the traditional way of doing it here in the South too.  I would feel very uncomfortable if my friends had their minor children call me solely by my given name (I'm not a classmate, afterall), but I would feel just as uncomfortable if they called me "Miss Fox."  And that's where I adore the "Miss Stacy" term. Even if I were married, I like the "Miss Stacy" -- to me, it's like showing respect for me as an adult, but also feeling I'm someone closer to their family and their parents than, say, their carpool party.

There are always exceptions to the rules. For example, my friend Sue has two grown daughters who have always only known me just as Stacy and that feels perfectly okay when I hear it from them -- probably because Sue has always felt like a sister and when I visited them when they were young and they ran up to me with a hug calling, "Stacy!" it made me grin.  But if I came to visit and their friends were there of the same age? Even if they hugged me, saying "welcome, Stacy!", I'd think it was too familiar for their friends to call me by that without having ever met me before.

Another. My friend Sarah's kids call me Foxy.  Yes, mostly because that's what their mama calls me. :-)  But even that's okay with me because it's not my given name like they use with their friends, and that's the distinction. I'd be surprised if they even knew my given name.

So, when, exceptions aside, is it really okay to start using familiar names with your friends' parents after you're an adult? If you're already an adult when you meet them and they say, in the case of my friend Hilary's mother on first meeting, "Hi! Pleasure to meet you. Please call me Maryanne," it's cut and dry. But in the case of a family you've known since you were 6 years old and that wasn't the case, when does that change? Or does it?  Do you wait for the invitation from them to call them by their name or, now into your 30s or 40s and an adult in your own right, ask if it's okay to do it?

I have to admit, I giggle about it. Because I can't make the leap myself but try to do it in different ways.  I can't call my friend Lisa's parents "Mr. and Mrs. Latimer" anymore without feeling awkward -- but I can't call them "John and Peggy" either. I kinda went halfway and now just call them "Mr. and Mrs. L."  And I saw when that same friend became friends with my Mom on Facebook the other day, she left a message saying: "Nice to see you, Mrs. Fox!" and that kind of warmed my heart; she didn't use "Dorothy" but chose that instead. It kinda made me think that her parents obviously raised her right;  that anyone of the generation before you should give you their permission to use their given name before you just do it.

Is this just a my generation thing? Or perhaps something I need to change my mindset about?

I'm Judgemental. There. I said it.

I'm just going to put it out there: I'm judgemental. Personally? As a society? I think we're afraid to admit that because it automatically somehow makes us bad people to judge others. I disagree though. I think it just makes us human, really.

We all do it.  And in some cases, we can all agree:  we can pass judgement on a murderer we read about and conclude that he who does that is not a good person. Or that those financiers who stole from innocent people in investments to pad their own pockets were wrong. In those cases, it's kinda cut and dry, right?  It's somehow fine to judge people like that and it not be a smudge on your own character for doing it.  In fact, most of your friends or family will nod and agree with you that they're not the kind of quality of people you'd want in your life.  Right?

I think it comes from that word: judge.  It has such a negative connotation to it.  Like, somehow, unless you have that law degree and sit behind a nice wooden bench, you have no right to judge people you come across. I'm a Christian and I even believe that ultimately there's only one judge at the end of time...and it ain't me, for sure. 

But we're not at the end of times yet.  And most of us don't have that degree or that nice wooden bench to sit behind.  But we are human and it's human nature. So why is it wrong to be able to voice your opinion if you think someone's doing something wrong? Is it really wrong to judge others? I don't think it's wrong to look at another human being and what they do or say and decide: no, that's not what I want in my life. Or, on the flip side, say: wow, in our conversations and my experiences with you, I'm so lucky to know you.  It works both ways after all.

So I'm judgemental.

I bring all of this up because I recently found out a dear friend of mine is stepping out with someone who is already "taken" and it's hard for me not to let that affect how I feel about her.  In kudos to her, she actually talked about it with me.  She brought it up and said she knew I would not approve (ugh! another bad connotation) but she wanted to let me know what was going on anyway.  In many ways, I wish she really, really hadn't.

Because I get it, people.  On paper? It's none of my business. She's not hurting me directly. I should have just sat there, listened like a friend should and then changed the subject if it made me uncomfortable.  Right?

No.  See, that's exactly where I think no.  First of all, if she already knew how I would feel about it and told me anyway, she put me in a position to respond.  And my response was exactly what she knew it would be, being as close as we are.  I couldn't pretend to think or feel differently; she couldn't have expected me to. And she didn't. She took my response very openly even if she disagreed with me. (I still wonder why she even told me, knowing all that.)

As in all cases of infidelity, the excuses came out:  He's unhappy with his current partner; they're more roommates than boyfriend-girlfriend anyway.  She's been lonely and hadn't felt a connection like this before! HE was the one to initiate every contact; not her!  You name it. All the things you tell yourself when you know a situation is wrong deep down but you try to bury it with those excuses so you don't have to think about it.

Now, Lord knows I haven't done everything right in my life either. I've made mistakes and look back with regret.  Is it my responsibility now to either tell my friends what I did wrong by those experiences in hope they don't do the same?  Or should I just shut my trap and let them do what they want to do?  If I choose the former, does it mean I'm judging them?  If I do the latter, does it mean I'm not being honest and a true friend?

The thing that clicked with her (and I saw it in her eyes when it did) was when she said, and I paraphrase, "but I don't see how this would affect OUR friendship. It's not like I'm doing anything to you."

Yeah.

Technically, she's right. I don't know either of the other people in her little messed up triangle. She doesn't even know his partner and their true relationship other than what he's said; she's never met her.  None of these folks are friends, family, colleagues or even acquaintances.  Nothing directly to me. She had me there.

But I had had a glass of wine or two at the time, so I told her the most obnoxious but valid analogy that came to mind at the time to challenge her comment. It shouldn't affect *our* friendship, right?   I asked her if she was truly serious with that comment and wanted my opinion.  When she nodded and was receptive of a response, I responded like this:

"Put it this way then. You and I are walking down the street together and we saw a random homeless man lying in the street.  If you decided to up and kick him in the gut right then and there for no reason at all? No, you wouldn't be doing something *to me.* But hell if that wouldn't affect our friendship and how I felt about you after seeing you do that."

Her eyes told me she understood. Even though it was the most ridiculous analogy, she got it.

Because in a case like that, we could all judge, right? If we saw a friend do something as horrible as that for no reason at all, we could easily judge them for it. Of course it would change your feelings about that friend who would.  How could it not?

Kicking a homeless man is an extreme example here, but I meant it as a point: if you know you're doing something wrong, decide to admit it to a friend, admit also that you even know you're doing wrong but still are going to do it because it's "what you need right now" and that's more important than anyone else -- innocent people who are the recipients of what you're feeling you want to do as opposed to what's right to do?  How can you expect that not to change your relationships with folks who know you're making that choice?

I know this makes me judgemental. Look, I started this saying I was, whether right or wrong. I'm certainly not saying I'm without sin; I've fucked up royally in my own past too in many different ways. I'm definitely not a better person than anyone else is out there.  But I still don't think I can see something wrong and encourage and support it if I don't feel it's right.

And if that makes me judgemental? I guess I'll just have to be okay with that and hope that some people reading this might understand it.





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