“I've got {blank} in my bedroom” Decoded

Now, I am not going to pretend to be an expert on the male psyche. In fact, I am probably the further thing you can be from an expert. I think that literally every guy who has ever liked me or come onto me has taken me by surprise. I’m always like “Whaaat? You’re kissing me? There were literally no signs leading up to this at all, especially not when you told me I looked fantastic the other night. Or when we went out to dinner. This is a shocking development!”

Yep. I’m clearly outrageously intuitive.

However, in my series of misadventures and missing hints, there is one thing I have learned.

If a guy invites you into his bedroom to see something, it’s because he wants to kiss you. It doesn’t matter what that thing is. It doesn’t matter if he actually kisses you… maybe he lost his nerve, he still wanted to. It doesn’t matter if it’s this…



… it’s because he wants to kiss you. (Ryan Gosling probably doesn’t need an excuse to get girls into his room, but he’s so classy that I’d like to think he’d come up with a semi-justifiable reason.)

Seriously though. It’s a good line. Check it. Here’s a list of things that have gotten me to check out someone’s room:

~ a projector
~ a photo collage
~ the fact that he had a sheet instead of a door
~ a plant
~ plaid shirts
~ and, yes, two full-length mirrors

In case anyone was wondering, my bedroom has two closets in it. I plan to use that as a selling point someday to see if this line works when the shoe’s on the other foot...

"Hey boy. I've got two closets in my bedroom. You wanna see them?"

Killer.

Barre and Bar

Friday was another jam-packed and awesome day. Actually, Friday was probably one of the best days I’ve had in a long time.

Again, it started pretty early – though not nearly as early as Wednesday – because my roommate, Tara, and I went to a Ballet Barre class at Barre Body Studio!!

If you haven’t heard of it before, Barre mixes together traditional barre exercises from ballet with pilates – it’s a lot of low-impact, light-weight, heavy-repetition exercises and oh my god is it hard! I was sweating by the end of class and shocked by the fact I was sweating. I mean, I danced all through school and so I thought it would be a piece of cake but let me tell you, I was mistaken. On some of the sequences, I could see my leg muscles just vibrating in the mirror!

I absolutely loved it. It was difficult (my thighs are still a little bit sore two days later) but I was utterly jazzed afterwards. I bought the introductory unlimited first two weeks and am planning on going almost every day. I’m pretty sure I liked it better than yoga.

So, what are two fabulous roommates to do after a great workout? Go to the bar that night and make all that work completely redundant, of course!

(Though first I risked life, limb and food poisoning by eating week-old chicken coconut soup for lunch. There was no gross smell and I didn’t want to waste food, so I ate it. I’m still standing so I think it was all fine.)

Anyway, that evening, Tara and I got all dolled up and headed off to Craft Beer Market. I have a love-hate relationship with that bar. I always try to go there on my birthday and it always lets me down… generally by being too busy. The last year, half my friends couldn’t get in because it was too packed and that made me angry-drunk. This year, my family planned to go there for dinner so my dad and I headed over right after work at about 4:00 pm… and we couldn’t get a table because there was a 200 person reservation and it was too packed. Clearly, when it comes to my birthday, Craft is cursed.


{Me and Tara, kind of dolled up, but mostly just in need of matte powder in the Mayan Riviera in 2012}

When it came to Friday night, though, Craft was awesome! We drank Wild Rose Wraspberry, discovered blueberry red bull, ate an amazing prosciutto and arugula pizza and stalked hit on guys.

Craft is always crazy busy, so we ended up sharing a table with two random guys (one of whom was very outgoing, the other of whom seemed to only listen to approximately a third of the words that came out of my mouth). They were friendly, but a little bit odd and we ran into an awkward moment where we were chatting with a girl we had known in junior high, one of the guys did something odd, she said “Sorry about the awkward boyfriends” and we blurted out “No no, we don’t know these guys, they just sat down!” So subtle. On the other hand, they flat out refused to let us pay for our dinner and allowed us to run away to hang out at the bar, so how can you complain, really? And I told them an amazing story about one of the most hilarious days of my life, so they were entertained for a good half hour by my antics.

I very very rarely actively pursue guys. I just send vibes out into the universe and the guys I am interested in come to me… or something like that. So, if ever I like a guy and he is ambivalent towards me, I am going to have a ridiculous series of misadventures trying to hit on him, I am sure. Because I will have no idea what I am doing, as witnessed by the following exchange:

Me: I’m sure you’re getting hit on a lot tonight.

Him: Oh? How come?

Me: Because you’re very tall and wearing a blazer.

Yes. Apparently that is my criteria. Tall and blazer wearing. Whatever. He was charmed by me.

Possibly because I am short and was also wearing a blazer. And a bustier. Maybe more so the bustier than the blazer…

My Greatest Fear Is Turning Into Taylor Swift

Last night, I was chilling out in my hotel room, waiting for my hair to be dry enough to blowdry, and watching Two Broke Girls. (I have an irrational and all-consuming love for this tv show for re-introducing me to the incredible hotness that is Ryan Hansen. He is so much prettier than he was on Veronica Mars.) Anyway, Caroline had this total one-off line that basically went “That's so exciting! My self-esteem could really use being mistaken for Taylor Swift right now! And what does that say about my self-esteem ?” And that reminded me that turning into Taylor Swift is one of my greatest fears.

After fire.

And zombies.

I mean, obviously I’m not afraid of growing six inches and turning blonde. I actually loved being blonde but my hair decided to start having none of it after two years. It was fun while it lasted, though!



See? Blonde. Bam! Trying to show off my purple drink which looks decidedly not purple and kind of like Coke in the picture. What can you do though, yanno? I also have song lyrics written on my arm in Sharpie because that’s what I was doing that summer. New lyrics every day!

That was Taylor Swift inspired too. My fear is beginning to make more sense.

Here’s my problem. Taylor Swift is just so… acted upon. You know? Boys just do things to her and “other girls” just do things to her and she is so sweet and so peppy and so cute, how can she help it if all these so sad and so mean things keep happening to her? I mean, to listen to her music, that poor sweet girl just cannot find a nice guy. She has dated, like, 13 guys in two years! Gasp! (I also don’t really care about the dating of thirteen guys… I love dating guys. I just want to be in control of some of it – only date those I like, end things on my terms too, be treated with respect, blah blah blah.)

I don’t know, there’s a very real subtext in her music (which is based on her life, a-duh) that terrible things just happen to her and she can’t control these things and she just doesn’t do anything wrong! A victim of life rather than choices. And, really, who wants that?? Whether or not it’s true, who wants to believe that?

But here’s the thing! Taylor Swift writes weirdly specific songs, because that’s how she processes things. (Which is fine, I have a blog where I talk about how turning into Taylor Swift is my greatest fear, so… don’t even have a leg to stand on when it comes to that.) And I listen to her weirdly specific songs… and they weirdly fit very specific instances in my life – and not in the crazy “OMG! I’m 16 and I once liked a boy who didn’t like me too!” but in the “Yes, that is exactly how that happened to me with absolutely no important details changed. In fact, I said those precise words. Damnit.” Clearly, I am going down the Taylor Swift route.

Also, I really love sparkly dresses.

So, here’s the million dollar question. How can I not turn into Taylor Swift? Or, alternatively, how can I avoid fire and zombies?

Holy Geez!

Holy Geez! (Yes, I had to re-state it.)

I was all pumped to start this blog thing back up and not be distracted by life or life drama and all that good stuff. I was going to be amazing. (Well... I mean, I am amazing but this was going to be documented amazing.)

And then?

This is going to be shocking, I know. BUT...

The life drama hit. And believe you me, this was some good life drama. The CW ain't got nothing on me.

So, I got distracted. Dealing, processing, living - all that stuff. And I was convinced it had been months, months!, maybe even half a year!, since I last updated this new blog I was so pumped about.

But, nope, it's only been since December. Not so bad, my friends. I think I can re-claim this.

Besides, I'm on a journey right now to find meaning and embrace all of the wonderfulness I'm certain that I possess and can extend to the world at large so how can I not keep a record of that? If nothing else, I need something to come back and read and giggle at when I'm disappointed at life.

So, I'm back, babes. I know you didn't miss me - but I did.

The Uniform of Creepers at the Bar

I can hear you now. “Erin, creepers at the bar don’t have a uniform. What a generalizing statement!” “Erin, don’t judge a book by its cover.” “Erin, how dare you make such a sweeping generalization!”

First of all, I’m surprised that I’ve raised such vitriol in my readers when for all intents and purposes this is actually my first post. Also, you absolutely can judge a book by its cover… its creepy, creepy try-hard cover. And also by its actions that accompany said cover. So, I’m just going to say… you can look beyond the uniform I am going to detail below. Go right ahead. But don’t be surprised when you end up getting followed all over the bar all night by the Creeper at the Bar.

The creeper at the bar will be wearing: a ball cap (always facing forward), a short sleeved button down (usually plaid, very occasionally striped) and Timberlakes (or possibly a Timberlake knock-off). He will be wearing all three of these pieces. If only one piece is missing, he is probably not a creeper… just someone with unfortunate fashion sense. Or someone whose friends dragged him out to the bar on laundry day. However, for that caveat to work, the missing piece should probably be the Timberlakes. Because no one should ever wear workboots out to the bar and I’m really not sure how to justify that piece away… every guy I know who has to wear workboots to work (and I work for a railway and go out into the field so “every guy” is a lot of guys!) changes into his boots when he gets there. There is no “straight from work” excuse, friends!

And why is this the uniform of the socially awkward creeper? Because it is so so close to what the normal, hot non-socially awkward guys (NHGs) who they see getting all the girls wear to the club. Except that the NHGs generally keep their hair safe for human viewing and do not need a baseball cap so if they choose to wear one it is for a purpose. (Creepers may also have hair safe for human viewing but do not realize that there is purpose behind wearing a hat and they are not for all times!) NHGs will also wear a lot of plaid, because it is insane trendy and sexy, but generally they just roll up the sleeves of a standard plaid shirt. (The proportions of the creeper plaid will also always be a little bit off, usually too big, so they look like they came from Underground.) And I’ve always addressed the workboot thing but… seriously! NGHs just wear nice casual shoes! I know, dress codes for bars are scary things but Sketchers makes a ton of nice non-“runner” casual shoes. There continues to never be an excuse for workboots.

Recognize the creeper. Be aware he will dance near you as if you are friends. Do not accept his offer of free drinks unless you see something beneath the creepiness that you want to pursue. And, seriously, take a look around the next time you are out for some drinks with some friends. It’s a uniform.